Fat n fabulous

Yesterday (or the day before?) whilst I was parusing my bloglines (how cool am I now? Huh?) I ran across the Sarcastic Journalist talking about a thing on Entertainment Tonight where they shoved a half-pound ‘jounalist’ into a fat suit and such and sent her out to discover how fat people are treated. As Suzanne further mentions on blogher, it’s not a new trick, but it’s still an annoying one.

(How’s that for blog name-dropping, people? Think I could work Dooce in here too? hahahah!)

Thing is – segments like that are based in being just as derogatory as the people who delight in the last great -ism on the streets. Sexism isn’t ok anymore. Racism isn’t cool, but calling a fat person names is a-ok! Or telling them if they’d just *move* they’d be thin, and for godsake quit eating already – that’s totally cool too! And now, donning a fat-suit so that you can walk in our shoes for 2.5 minutes, then shed all that excess weight in 2 seconds and be thin again, it’s the same thing people.

If you want to know what it’s like to be fat, I’ll tell you. How about talking to someone like a human being instead of a pound (or 300) of flesh? How about seeing what’s under the double chins, and find the soul that may be hurting, found by looking someone in the eye, instead of using your eye to measure the width of their ass? What, you think we don’t KNOW we’re fat? Puhlease. We ain’t stupid. (…despite the fact I like to use the word ain’t. It sets Nana ‘s teeth on edge. She likes proper English, she does. *g*)

I’ve been fat, I’ve been thinner. I was skinny in high school, but because I wasn’t stick thin, and possessed boobs and a butt to match, with a slender waist and a perfect hourglass figure that was a size 16 because of boobs and butt – I was called many a name, and my self esteem wasn’t so great. It never has been. And I’ve gotten bigger, and smaller, and bigger still over the years, and then had kids, and I’m still working on getting rid of that baby fat – so what if the baby is 14.

I know why I’m fat – I’m one of those people who totally admit to *my* why. (As apposed to society’s snarky whys, and other peoples whys – every one of us has a different why!) I’m lazy. I hate to work out. And oh my god I love good-tasting food. Fat-filled flavor, delicious deserts, cheese… I firmly believe that heaven may be made of cheeeeeeeese, quite possibly with Table tops of Greek Pizza with crumbled Feta Cheese on top….

If they could make vegetables taste as good as cheese without the calories of adding cheese on top? And maybe make working out not be voided by enjoying a Greek Pizza afterwards? I might be thin. Heh. But that’s *my* why. Or one of them, because food is also comfort to me. Feeling like crap? Chocolate is needed. So is the embrace of my two favorite men – ben and jerry. Heh.

Every one of us is different, just like every one of them skinny bitches is different too. ( Nana just cringed again – did ya see that? haha!) So why not talk to US to see what it’s like to be fat? We deal with it on a daily basis, after all, not just for a few moments for the sake of exploitation. You want to know why I think it is? Because they don’t want to look at us that long. We make them uncomfortable. We make them want to turn away, in disgust, and wonder how we could let ourselves go like that.

One of the meanest things someone’s said to me ever, was relatively recent (within the last couple years) and it’s what I immediately remember whenever debates like this raise their ugly little heads. He’d asked to see a picture of my new hair color (purple, at the time). After viewing it – he started his comment out with those stupid idiotic words that mean ‘i don’t really care, but I must make myself feel better because I’m going to say this anyway’ – “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

(WHY do people do that? Might was well say “I don’t give a shit about how this is going to make you feel, I’m going to offend/hurt you because I can.” because THAT is what it really means.)

And he followed it with these words exactly. “..I think you could be really pretty, if you lost the weight.”

It took everything in me not to bite his head off, chew it up and spit it out. It angered me, and it hurt me for a little while too, and it’s stuck with me.

Everytime I look in the mirror, I remember that girl in high school, who thought she was fat, and figured she’d never find love. I remember that same girl, who grew up, got bigger, and had 15 years with the love of her life – a skinny-assed fucker who loved to eat as much as she did, but burned it off by breathing, who worried for her health more then her size, and loved her anyway, either way. I remember the year she took to drop 80 pounds, and how differently everyone treated her for it. A girl who even then, spent hundreds of dollars to go to a glamour photo shoot just to feel pretty – and still hated the pictures, because her cheeks were too round, her smile uneven, her eyes not quite right. And I see the woman she became, and sometimes think that getting into better shape (again) is a good idea, and go about it for a while, and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.

And I say to that woman in the mirror, with that timid little girl hiding deep in pretty blue eyes… “Fuck’em. Figures like this are MADE, not born. We’re built for comfort – and LOTS of it – not speed. If they can’t see past that to who we really are, they ain’t worth it. Besides, we are in shape. Round IS a shape.”

And then I watch The Biggest Loser, and eat my potato chips.

So – does this post really have a point? Probably not, except that I see where SJ is coming from. And I appreciate her [skinny little self *grin*] seeing where folks my size come from too. We are more then our weight. Everyone is. So how about talking to someone, and getting to know them, before passing judgment? How about really SEEING us, instead of trying to be us?

We’ll all be richer for it.