I'll be reading Growing Up with Tamales for story time at Blue Willow Bookshop, in Houston, on Thursday morning, May 15. Tell everyone you know with kids in the Houston area. How do you find and support local indie book stores like Blue Willow? By going to Booksense.
On Saturday, May 17, I'll be in Dallas, reading and signing at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, for the 13th Dallas Children’s Book Fair & Literary Festival.
On June 22, here in Houston, I'm going to do a poetry workshop. It's free and open to the public, y'all, and they're having one every Sunday in June, taught by local poets I love and respect. So come on down.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Ghost IssuesI.
Every year of my life, I try to work on my issues and improve myself as much as possible. This year, I'm working on two main things: Eradicating all passive-aggresiveness from my life (not practicing it, not tolerating it from others), and the ghost-issue of control.
I say ghost issue because it's not something that ever really happens, just something I irrationally fear. Like, for instance, here's a fictional example, okay? Let's say I'm fat, and I want to lose weight, because I want to wear nicer clothes for cheap, all right? And let's say that I'm reasonably intelligent and experienced in these matters, so I know how to lose weight. I've done it before.
But, at the same time, I'm afraid. Maybe every time I try to indulge in a fantasy about weight loss, my mind derails and takes me back to a time when I was thin, and someone hated me for it. Very vividly, instead of being able to think of a dress on clearance at Target, my mind calls up a woman who went to my church twenty years ago, who said to me, in front of the priest and everyone, "But I guess with that cute little figure of yours, you don't have to be smart."
Or it calls up the sensation of a man on the bus, twenty-two years ago, who purposely rubbed against me on the way to his seat. Or it calls up something disgustingly inappropriate that I heard someone say to a thin woman just the other day. Or the completely fictional idea of being raped.
And... this is not a real issue. Because, hello--people say rude things around me all the time, whether I'm fat, thin, purple, or green. There are haters and perverts everywhere, and they victimize whoever they can, no matter what. So why should their opinions matter more if I'm thin?
I have an irrational feeling that my control over my own body extends inversely to the minds of the people around me. As if losing ten pounds will make ten more people try to break my boundaries, and therefore force me to be ten percent more vigilant, or ten percent more afraid. I know it's irrational, especially to people who know me in real life and know that I'm way too much of a bitch-face to get sexually harassed very often. But I still feel this irrational feeling, hypothetically, and therefore I have to work through it.
I try to explain it to my friends, and I'm not sure that they understand. One friend does, actually. She says it's probably PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as we all know, can be worked through. All you have to do is identify irrational thoughts, and then rethink them. Like this:
"A lot of people are assholes, but that's no reason to let assholes affect your decisions on what to do with your life."
There.
(Even the hypothetical not-rude, not-offensive behavior starts to upset me. Just thinking about the fact that when I'm thinner, more people talk to me, smile at me, and like me... bothers the living shit out of me. It makes me want to stay fat, sometimes, seriously. I feel like, the people who like me at this weight are the only ones I want as friends. People who only like women of a certain weight, I don't want anything to do with. But that's a different issue, I think. Not a control issue, but rabid, hypersensitive feminism and anti-lookism, and a deep, futile desire to be respected for my mind. :) One of my friends says that this observation is untrue--that people aren't treating me better because I'm thinner, they're treating me better because I'm radiating more happiness and confidence. But I don't believe her. She's only ever been young and thin, and I've been both fat and thin, both young and not-young, so I think I have more bitter, real-life experience with lookism. Unfortunately. Stay gold, Ashley! Stay gold!)
II.
My boyfriend says I had a lot of nightmares last night.
"You had a lot of nightmares last night."
"I did? No, I didn't."
"Yeah. You were all yelling and trying to run in your sleep. Oh, and you had that one where something's wrong with your hand."
Remembering.
"Oh! Did I wake up and tell you my fingers were broken? I dreamed my fingers were all bent the wrong way, and then I woke up and pulled my hand from under the pillow to make sure, and my hand was asleep, so I thought it really was broken, and then I yelled for you to take me to the hospital. But then my hand woke up, so I went back to sleep."
"You always have that dream when I spend the night here."
"I know. It's because, when you're next to me, I don't have any place to put my hand. We need a bigger bed."
Labels: dreams, lookism, psychobabble, venting
6:04 AM #Comments:
A friend of mine who's overweight says that a lot of people like her because fat people are cuddly and unthreatening, and she resents that. So I suppose you can see your issue from the other side...# posted by
: 11:05 AM
I think you just articulated (beautifully) all of my neuroses/thoughts/concerns about my weight and age. Sweet Fancy Moses was that refreshing to read. Thank you.
# posted by
Jane : 12:09 PM
Elle: I've heard that point of view before, but never witnessed it first-hand. The closest I've seen to that is when pretty, insecure girls who only value themselves as sex objects are friends with fat girls, presumably because the fat girls aren't competition. Would your friend say that people treat her less respectfully because she's non-threatening, do you think?
Jane: That's what I'm here for. :)
# posted by
Gwen : 7:12 PM
I sometimes think about doing WW again, because it really worked for me a couple of years ago. I lost just over 50lbs and only backslid about 15 since then. But I'm a huge clotheshorse and love, love, love the wardrobe I've built up. Moving put me into debt and I know I couldn't afford to buy new clothes. It's a dumb reason to stay fat, but there you go.
# posted by
Kaijsa : 1:29 PM
That is exactly how I feel about losing weight! Although the harassment is partly since I take public transit and come into contact with lots of people, there is enough of it that I don't want to lose weight if that is going to make things worse.
And I don't think I could ever date someone who knew me when I was fat, but didn't act interested until I was thin.
It's nice to know that other people think the same way.
# posted by
: 7:15 PM
Hey! I haven't been around in a while and I swear every time I come back and read you and play catch up you crack me up so much. Good to hear things are going well and that you can write about things you couldn't before.
# posted by
ShoeGirl : 11:27 AM
Oh and the part that cracks me up is the dream about the broken hand.
Regarding your thoughts on weight loss, I can completely relate to what you are saying. Sometimes I feel like Ana Garcia in "Real Women Have Curves." I fee like my fatness says, " 'Forget' you!" It's the rebel in me, but now at 37 unfortunately that rebel can die of diabetes or hear disease and I'm forced to look at my weight in a whole different way. That's the issue I work with at least.
# posted by
ShoeGirl : 11:39 AM
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