I went to the eye doctor the other day, and they took pics of my retinas. So, I asked the doctor if I could get copies of my eyeball pics and she said yes! Woot! Here is what my eyes look like with the special device they use to take pics of the retinas. She said my eyes are good, so that’s good to know.
Hi! I just made an interactive MEDIAL view of the brain. You can check it out at this link: http://web.pdx.edu/~kristinb/Brains/brainmedialEX2.html
Dear Interwebs,
I’m tired of constantly debating women’s peoples’ bodies. I’m tired of it being the sole focus of so much conversation. I’m tired of “healthy” this and “unhealthy” that. I’m tired of “men want meat not bones” and “eww, gross, you are so fat!” I’m tired of all the health-nut trollers. And I’m even tired of trying to get the health-nut trollers to understand how they are not helpful. I’m tired of ranting about how fat is not the devil. I’m tired of all of the tired “debate” (*cough* yelling *cough*) about how obesity is the single biggest plague on society. I’m tired of having photo competitions to show who is sexiest—fat, skinny, fit, unfit, tall, short, round, normal bodied, differently bodied, tattooed, maimed, jaundiced, oompa-loompa-tanned, blonde, brown, lumpy, frumpy, dimpled, ab-rocking, make-overed, pierced, Barbie, grungy, blah blah blah, etc.—why can we NOT stop talking about bodies?!? Do we all have some form of body? Why yes, yes, we do. I think we can all pretty much agree on that. There are no brains in jars being pushed around on carts that I know of. Yes, our bodies are wonderful and amazing, but can’t we PLEASE PLEASE quit talking about them for five seconds?!? Every day it is a firestorm of shit about people are too fat, people are too thin, people are healthy, people look this way, people look that way, OMG Becky, LOOK AT HER BUTT!!!
Why are we all incessantly patrolling each and every body part of each other? Dude, it is sooooo out of control! Stop the madness! Calgon take me away! So, in an effort to alleviate some of this nonsense, here are a few examples of topics to discuss with your neighbor. You don’t have to discuss heavy world politics or anything (like anyone understands THAT anyway)! JUST SOMETHING ELSE, PLEASE! I’m going to try to make these topics as banal and non-controversial as possible.
Topic #1: Cheese.
Topic #2: Lightbulbs.
Topic #3: Sharks.
Topic #4: Scissors.
Topic #5: Legos.
Topic #6: Rain.
Topic #7: Motor Oil.
Topic #8: Sumi Ink.
Topic #9: Trees.
Topic #10: Stuffed Teddy Bears.
Now, there’s a list of ten things that are rarely discussed on Facebook and the rest of the interwebs. I’m sure if you try hard enough, you can think of many more things to add to the list, and so can I. The next time you are tempted to post about weight loss/gain, your new healthy cleanse/diet/lifestyle, someone else’s (or your own) boobs, thighs, butt, flabby/not flabby arms, how someone is too skinny/fat/unhealthy/healthy/lazy/beautiful/ugly, how the world needs to be changed because people are too fat/skinny/unhealthy/healthy/blah de de blah, etc., well, just consult this list of banal topics. Now, I am not talking about eliminating critiques of culture/body culture all together, but if all you (or I) am going to add is blah blah blah GARBAGE, ill-conceived nonsense and old tired tropes to the conversation, PLEASE put down the keyboard and WALK, CRAWL, SCOOT, LEAVE, GO AWAY FROM the computer! Interwebs, you are just making me too tired to even stare at the screen for hours on end! How dare you!
Okay, so if you haven’t heard, Abercrombie & Fitch clothing is made of human assholes and excrement. Yes, you heard me right! Abercrombie & Fitch, who defended their NO PLUS SIZES policy by saying that they didn’t want uncool and fat people sporting their brand, is now going to carry some plus size clothing and accessories, because their stock has tanked. Let me just say to Abercrombie & Fitch, YOU CAN SUCK IT! I hope your company dies in the stinking ball of hate from which it was formed. Sure, there are other companies that also discriminate against fat people, but Abercrummy & Filth was very vocal about their hatred of us fatties and how we are not good enough to don their crappy wares. I would, of course, love to see all of the clothing companies that don’t include fatties in their agenda wiped off the planet, but I will settle first for the much belated death of Abercrummy & Filth.
Kaweria (mom) and Nayeli (daughter) reading “Shadow on a Tightrope”
This year is the 30th anniversary of the publishing of Shadow on a Tightrope by Aunt Lute Books, and there is a blog carnival this week for the book! I am so happy to be participating. I can’t think of a lot of books that have changed my life, but I would say that this one has. I was about 19 years old when I first picked up SOAT. I was bulimic and fat, and had always been told that being fat was the worst thing in the world to be. In high school I had starved myself down to a “normal” weight, but I gained back some of the weight by the time I was 19 when I was trying to starve myself again. I remember being in Seattle at Bailey Coy Books (now out of business) where I found the book, and later reading the book during my lunch break at the University Bookstore where I worked for a short time. I could not believe what I was reading! For one thing, there were these other fat people out there! Who knew?!? And some of them had endured horrendous surgeries that I didn’t know existed back then (which are all too common now). AND then they were saying that fatness wasn’t the horrid devil wrapped in bacon strips that I had always been told it was! WHAT?!? Did I read that correctly? I didn’t know it at the time, but the book forever changed my outlook on fat and fat activism. Maybe not all at once, but it all stayed with me. It found a little space in my brain, and when everyone else and all of society screamed at me to be thin I remembered the words in SOAT. I remembered (for once) that this experience of being fat was not something I had to do alone, and even though I didn’t stop the bulimia for years, and hated myself for being fat a lot, the messages from SOAT were there working their magic. And, I really think it was like magic that these words in a book could so profoundly alter my view of the world. Years later I stopped the bulimia, and I now consider myself to be a fat activist of sorts, and SOAT is still helping me to figure out how to live with my body and how to live with a world that hates my body. I am forever indebted to Aunt Lute and all of the people who put the book together. I hope that this book can get in the hands of more fat people just so they know that it doesn’t have to be like this, they don’t have to hate themselves, and they aren’t alone.
I love my new “Love Your Peaches” dress! I love the store. I can’t always afford it, but I got this on sale. Yippee! She carries sizes 1x to 6x and can make slight alterations to the clothing to fit your needs! :) Here’s the link: http://www.loveyourpeaches.com/ . If you get the chance, feel free to support her small business. She does a wonderful job and I hope she keeps making clothes for us chubb-chubbs! :) UPDATED: Thought I should add a photo with a close-up of the fabric. It is pretty cute fabric I think! :)
Imagine my surprise when I got something in the mail that I didn’t even order! The pictured bracelet came from Ulla Popken for no reason at all! How nice! And I love what it says! The scarf is from Simply Be, simply because I entered a photo of me wearing my favorite Joe Brown’s item! A big thank you to both companies for not only the items they gave me, but for catering to the plus size chubb-chubb girls like me! Without them I’d be naked!!!
Hey Everybody! I wanted to share with you this cool genetics testing that is available to people. I just got it done, because my nurse practitioner ordered it and Medicare pays for it. (Medicare pays for this testing, because it saves a LOT of money and can save lives!) It is really cool, because it tells you how medications will interact with your specific genetic makeup! It is extremely important if you are taking really any kind of medication. For example, had I known about my results before I took Wellbutrin years ago, it would have saved me from basically having a manic reaction to the medication. It turns out that I metabolize differently than normal on some of the metabolic pathways. This means that I will metabolize the meds on those pathways different than people without this issue. If you have Medicare, I strongly urge you to get this testing done. It could save your life from a bad genetic-medication mistake. I think many other insurance carriers might also pay for it. It also explains why I can take a lower dose of many medications and still get the desired effect from the medication. I would say that anyone who is trying to figure out their psych meds should really get this testing done too. It doesn’t just tell about psych meds though, it tells about stuff involving all other sorts of meds. Seriously, this is pretty awesome! Again, here is the link: http://www.genemedrx.com/
I just wanted to tell you guys about this awesome t-shirt place that has t-shirts in sizes small to 5XL. They have all sorts of cute/funny t-shirts. I just got this one and I love it! Go to: http://dpcted.com/ and support a business that is nice to fat people, pierced people, tattooed people, and bearded people (among others).
Loud In the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl is a new book by Stacy Pershall. Of course, I was immediately drawn to this memoir, because it is a) a memoir b) about a “strange girl” and c) deals with mental illness. Yay! Since I’m undoubtably a strange mentally ill girl, I knew I had to read this. Pershall writes about her life growing up in Arkansas and her morphing from an über-sensitive child into a teenager and young adult with Borderline and Bipolar issues. Anyone familiar with the mental illness memoir genre will certainly have heard of Elizabeth Wurtzel, and I just bring her up, because UNLIKE Wurtzel, Pershall is not whiny in her writing! Pershall is matter-of-fact about her trials and symptoms, even though the reader can imagine the actual playing out of illness to be much more harsh and unbearable.
Pershall describes her unrelenting eating disorder, mood swings and suicide attempts with a steady and precise hand. This book seems really accessible to me, because Pershall speaks not only to those of us who have been through the mental health care system, but also to people who might not really understand this special weirdness. The only thing I would like to see more of in this book is more OF this book! haha. Seriously though, I enjoyed reading this memoir and would love to read more from Pershall. I would especially recommend this book to people struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder. There is a special misery only known by Borderlines that is never really represented in the books that ostensibly deal with Borderline Personality Disorder. I really wish there were more accounts like this that show the uncrazy through the crazy of Borderline Personality Disorder.
kristinbell.org 