Gwen's blog

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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.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007
No One Knows What It's Like to Be the Fat Pants

Okay, so only some of y'all will recognize this feeling that I'm about to describe. But I'll go ahead and describe it. You know how, when you cross the peril-fraught borderline between PlusSizeLand and MissesWorld, suddenly PlusSizeLand, the land in which you've lived for so long, looks like total hell?

I've yo-yo'ed back down to the weight at which I can shop at the roomier not-plus-size stores, and in the Misses' sections of department stores. Granted, I'm only talking about tops and skirts, here -- not pants -- and I still have to root for XLs and the biggest of the misses' number sizes on those tops and skirts.

So I went shopping last week, for myself as well as for my kids, because most of my clothes have gotten cartoonishly big and I needed a few new things. First, I rooted through all the misses' stuff and picked out the few XL items I liked. Then, if I didn't get very much there, I'd shift up to the Women's World sections, or on to Lane Bryant.

And you know what? I didn't want to shop in those places anymore. Just looking at their mannequins made me feel ill. You know why? No, not because I hate my former fat self, or because I didn't want to be reminded of it. It was because women's plus size clothing is UGLY. It's so effing ugly.

You don't realize, if you've been shopping in plus size for a while, how categorically ugly it is. Or maybe you do, and therefore you hate to shop. That's how I'd been for the past couple of years. I hated to shop, and when I did shop, I only bought the simplest things. Black pants and solid color shirts or twinsets. For the weekends, dark jeans and black tops. Not because I wanted to dress like that every day, but because I didn't want the plus size alternatives -- pink pants with blue stripes, beige suits with sequined appliques, purple flowered dresses with purple polyester panties...

So, now that I can fit into misses' sizes (sometimes), I can't even bear to go back to the "women's" sections. It's too sad. It's like a former prisoner going back to see his jail. Why would he?

Plus-size retailers: Please make better clothes. Look at Old Navy -- they make the same clothes in all sizes. Granted, they're cheesy clothes that fall apart at the drop of a price tag, but they're equally cheesy for all sizes. Come on, y'all. Fat chicks want normal clothes, too.

(Everything I say about fatness has been said before, I know. I think Wendy at Pound already said this a long time ago, about how all the plus size clothes have weird sequined appliques and stuff. Hey, look, even better -- she said something a long time ago about how the media hates Torrid because if Torrid tells white teenaged girls it's okay to be fat, then fewer white teenaged girls will be available for mainstream porn. Hell yes, Wendy! I just remembered reason 37 why I love you, all the way back since before 2005.)

So, um... yeah. As my weight wanes, my bad clotheshorse habit threatens to return. See you at Ross Dress for Less, where I'm tunneling like a mole through the aisles.

(What is a clotheshorse, by the way? Does anyone know what that actually means?)

I hope no one was put off by that last topic.

I mean, I hope no one Googles my name and then reads stuff about my diet or my feelings about plus-sized clothing, and then decides not to give me a job, or not to give me a writing award, or not to look for me on Match.com, or not to be my cyber-friend anymore, or not to say hi to me on the elevator, or to mention me in an article about someone else's blog and call me a "whiny weight loss blogger."

Tomorrow or the next day, I'll tell y'all a story about real life, okay? I have this story that I've been reading around town, about a real person, and people who have heard it keep asking me why I don't publish the story or put it on my blog or print it out on fliers and circulate it via telephone poles. So... tomorrow. Or the next day, at the latest. I will tell y'all the story, and hopefully you'll like it. Prepare to qualify.

A Dangerous Obsession

A while back, I was talking to a professional-type person about stress and ways of coping with stress.

"I've been kind of stressed-out lately," I told her, "and I get irrationally worried about things... and so I've been coping with it by thinking about Christmas."

"Christmas?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. "Sometimes, when I get super stressed out by the whole single-mom-trying-to-support-three-kids thing, I let myself get obsessed with Christmas -- you know, what gifts I'm gonna give, what food I'm gonna cook -- instead of, you know, drinking or doing drugs or driving my car off a cliff. It's kind of weird, I know, but it really helps me to calm down."

She said, "Obsessing about Christmas is a waste of time. Have you considered Wellbutrin?"

It kind of hurt my feelings when she said that, so I left her office and didn't go back. Instead, I went to the library and checked out 101 Things to Make for Christmas and A Southern Living Christmas and Christmas with Better Homes and Gardens. I even tried something new and checked out a Thanksgiving cookbook.

And now I feel great. Now I feel just awesome, and it didn't cost me a copayment or prescription.

You know the part of Charlie Brown's Christmas special where the kids wave their hands all over the sad little tree and it turns awesome? Well, the tree is me. You know the part where Charlie Brown pays Lucy five cents to give him psychological advice, and then he leaves her booth feeling worse than before? That is not me. I am not Charlie Brown. See, Charlie Brown is a cynic. I, on the other hand, am a consumer. Get it? Charlie Brown is just reading the wrong craft books, and shopping at the wrong stores.

Okay. Just a little pin prick.

That's all. I just wanted to warm up my frozen fingers with some fast stream-of-conscious typing. Because, you know, Houston is the most air-conditioned city in the world, and therefore it's August and I'm freezing my face off. I'm wearing hose and a sweater and a wool skirt, because the AC is killing me in this town.

I told my boyfriend, "Oh, no, I accidentally dressed like an anime person today." And he goes, "You mean the sexy school girl?" And I go, "No, the frumpy maid who gets tentacle raped by her boss or whatever." And he nodded sympathetically. "I still love you," he said. "Shut up," I told him. "Stop your lying."

For lunch, we went to our favorite pho place, where I watched two Asian girls in grey pantsuits force a skirted Caucasian girl to eat a heaping spoonful of grass jelly, red beans, and packed snow. (Not really snow, but it looked like it.) And my Asian boyfriend was like, "I don't even eat that stuff," and I was like, "I know." And the Caucasian chick looked nervous as hell, taping her stiletto heel crazily under the table. I thought maybe her boyfriend was Asian, and she was having lunch with his sisters to be nice, and they were being subtly, psychologically cruel to her. Or maybe they were her bosses, even though they were all the same age. Because this Caucasian chick obviously knew her way around the chopsticks and the noodles -- she was slurping her food with the best of them -- but she was still nervous as hell. Maybe it was a gang initiation.

The sub-titles will no longer relate to the content under them. I have decided.

Really, I'm just bored. I want to be back home again, at night, signing more school papers for my kids and hearing that their second day of school went well, even better than the first. I want them to be happy and prosperous. I want us to make Christmas crafts, like a family that's happier than the ones on TV. They want me to read them a book at night. They said the last Harry Potter would be fine, even though they barely remember what happened in any of the previous. "What happened in the last one?" I quizzed. "Uh-h-h-h..." said my youngest. "Dumbledore died," said my oldest, now fifteen and six foot two. (Oops, spoiler, sorry.)

"Okay," I said. "Tonight, we read."

We got a new cat during the summer, and her name is Starbuck, (and please don't email me nagging stuff about pet ownership), and she's kind of tripping out right now. "You never told me you had three kids," she said, when they got home from the summer at their dad's. "I had them for you," I told her. "Now you can get them to pet you, instead of always bugging me." In response, she shed a hundred cat hairs on my pillow case, then slowly walked away, under the bed, to wait for me to sleep, and then to wake me up at 4 AM with noisy cat toys.

We got her from the county shelter. Don't go there unless you want to go home with 3 or 5 new pets. It'll make you sad, seeing all the pets that are waiting there for no one. I put some pictures on my Flickr page, but you can hardly understand them because my camera phone was in a bad mood that day. It made my cat all blurry. But that's okay, really, because I want to respect her privacy. She's not really recognizable in the photo, and Starbuck is her psuedonym. (Her real name is "the cat.") We bought her a water fountain for cats. She only likes it sometimes.

The Carousel of Other People and Their Hormones

My cube-mate has quit her job, and she'll be replaced by the most beautiful woman in our company. Which is fine with me, because the most beautiful woman in our company is also very nice. But it's funny... some of our men are pre-swarming. They're coming by, all like, "So, Gwen, how've you been? Heard you're getting a new neighbor, huh? Yeah, so, um... do you have any sprocket reports or widgets I can lend a hand with, today and every day from now on? Here at your desk?"

And I feel like telling them, "You know, it's okay if you want to use me as your excuse to be near Beautiful Chick. But don't start doing it until she gets here, okay? Just leave me in peace til then -- it won't hurt my feelings."

Other, other people are having the other kind of feelings - not the attracted, but the repulsing. Over at his job, my boyfriend has fallen prey to a Bitter Old Woman. You know -- the kind who is miserable and self-denying, and therefore has nothing better to do than to hate on happy people. The kind who stays at her desk on her lunch hour and monitors how many minutes everyone else spends at lunch with their friends. The kind who has no one to talk to, and so makes careful note of others' personal conversations. The kind who, instead of trying to elevate herself from her own misery, spends every minute of her work day working to drag others down, down, down to her miserable level.

So I sympathize with him. I know that type very well.

I don't care if you've got ten babies.

See how I quoted that song above? "I don't care if you've got ten babies, you can work the stick in my Mercedes"?

I don't have anything to say about babies or cars. That's just a lyric that runs through my mind at random moments.

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12:16 PM #

Comments:

 Possibly the best blog post ever written, by anyone, period.


# posted by Anonymous Dwight Silverman : 4:53 PM  

 A clotheshorse is a frame you hang clothes on to dry. Because Britain is not yet a first world country, I had to use one of those almost every day of the last ten years. Now that I am back in America, I am never going without a tumble dryer again. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS.

As for ugly clothes...I am a 14/16/18 (depending on the designer) right now. I get cute dresses at Macy's all the time, but they also have a lot of ugly clothes for old women mixed in with their larger stuff. You can find a lot of nice XL stuff in their misses department.

Nordstrom also has a ton of hot clothes in larger sizes - check out their website, where you can even look through their sale stuff for only stuff in your size. I've got a bunch of great outfits from there, both online and offline. If you need to return anything you order online, it's just $5, which is worth it for me to avoid leaving the house.

Zaftique.com has a lot of nice dresses, too. I got a beautiful one from them back in December that I have yet to have occasion to wear, but I can't wait until I do. The prices are pretty good.

FINALLY, I hope you can get to an H&M someday soon. Their BiB section, which used to be fronted by Mia Tyler, has a bunch of cheap, trendy stuff.


# posted by Blogger jax : 5:13 PM  

 plus size clothing stores DO suck. Every time I've managed to get down to misses' sizes, I've felt a great relief in giving Lane Giant the finger every time I go by. Alas, I will probably require their plus size maternity clothes, but postpartum, I am getting out of the plus size business, I swear. It just gets you down.


# posted by Blogger pinky pinkerson : 5:43 PM  

 Jax - what is a BiB section? I don't think it can possibly be what I'm picturing.


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 7:07 PM  

 BiB is H&M's plus size section - it stands for "Big is Beautiful".


# posted by Blogger jax : 8:36 PM  

 Why, thank you, Dwight.

Jax: You are the awesome. (You are also the same size as me.) Man, I wish to gosh we had H&M in Houston. Seriously, next book tour I do is going to coincidentally take me to multiple towns with H&Ms.

Pinky: Does Lame Giant have maternity stuff? Or you mean you'll just use their clothes as maternity clothes? You know, I think I ended up wearing men's clothes for all my pregnancies. Or just really big stuff from Target's plus size section. Because, like you, I didn't have time for the pain.

Anon: Please tell us what you were picturing. I'm trying to think up dirty words whose acronyms for BiB, and I can't. Help me.


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 8:44 PM  

 whose acronyms FORM Bib.

me type fast not make sense


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 8:44 PM  

 I love you too, ever since before we had real blogs and stuff!


# posted by Blogger Wendy : 9:14 PM  

 I hate that Lane Bryant sends me 5000 catalogs a week. At least. Especially now that I don't need them.
I actually picked one of them up today and flipped through it and wondered what it must be like for the not-really-plus models to have to wear the muumuus and such. They look a little ashamed sometimes. I bet they didn't think that's what they'd be modelling when they became models.


# posted by Anonymous Keri : 9:29 PM  

 The only nice plus sized clothing costs me an arm and a leg. Lane Giant used to have nicer stuff but it now gives me hives. I could get some stuff at Old Navy, but I'm pissed that they made plus sizes "online only." When stores do that it says to me they don't want my fat ass in their store, so I say fuck that.

Nordstrom and H&M are my salvation, but there's no H&M near me (but Seattle's getting one!). While I hate spending $150 on dresses, I try to offset that by snapping up stuff on sale and mixing pricey stuff with cheap basics from discount stores. My pants are also starting to fall off, and I am so distressed at the thought of replacing my carefully curated wardrobe that I'm tempted to try *not* to lose any more.

Sorry to run on. I think you touched a nerve.


# posted by Blogger Kaijsa : 11:27 PM  

 I forgot to add that I also seem to fit into an XL at Banana Republic, if you can ever catch a sale there. (I was lucky enough to find a woman with a warehouse full of brand new BR clothes, tags still on, selling everything for $1. She even sold me two $88 skirts for 50 cents each. I think she buys last season's leftovers from them for a song, and charges people a song + 10 cents or something.)


# posted by Blogger jax : 12:13 AM  

 I second Macy's and Nordstrom's. My 14 yo is a tall girl and the only place I can find trendy clothes for her is at Macy's.

I've got a bachelorette party Friday and I'll be with cute, hip, trendy, younger, thin and beautiful women. So I went to Nordstrom's and asked a personal shopper to find me a cute, hip and trendy top and by gosh she did it. The cost was really outrageous and it isn't something I'll be doing again for another year, but god is it a great top.

I hate Lame Giant. Their clothes make you look fat and frumpy. I bought a shirt there with horizontal strips, what the H**l !!??? I am dying to be a 14 again because that seems to be top of where you can start to get regular clothes.

I like Chico's. It is nice and dressy larger women's stuff and a regular size 16 equals a size 2 there.

Vicki


# posted by Anonymous Vicki : 2:28 AM  

 Yah you for choosing Christmas over drugs! I'm all about the power of positive thinking, and planning things out for the future to distract the anxiety of the present. And I find since I have a plan for the future, that aspect of life rarely gives me new anxiety.
I also use my imagination as a distraction by planning what I'd do with lottery winnings. I don't play the lottery, and know I won't win, but if I play the "what if I did win" game, it seems to put the rest of life in perspective...for what it's worth!


# posted by Anonymous afriend : 10:43 AM  

 Lame Giant has actual plus size maternity, although much of it is too hoochie or ugly for me to wear. And naturally it is online only, but in case I am in desperate need of pants or something, it is nice to know it is there.

And I thought H&M discontinued their BiB line, but I know plenty of in-between women who shop their more generous larges and extra larges.


# posted by Blogger pinky pinkerson : 11:21 AM  

 Funny thing is, I'm a big girl and I get most of my clothes at Ross. I have to search for them, to be sure, but I've found sound great cute, hip pieces that I wear all the time.

I've found that Lane Bryant is good for undergarments and lingerie. As Kaijsa said, their clothing used to be nicer, but now they're looking ugly again. At least some of the stores in my area (Los Angeles) have mannequins that look like they could be at least a size 12 or 14.


# posted by Blogger Carol Elaine : 11:49 AM  

 Just piping up to say that I almost got into a fight with a store assistant @ Lane Bryant this summer cause I was flipping out about them not carrying normal jeans or trousers or other work place attire -- it was all halter tops and shorts, cause it was summertime. But even though it's summertime, I still have a job, in the air conditioning, where I don't wear halter tops. It's like they think we're 10 years old and going off to day camp at the Y.

Whew! And this was a great entry, beyond the plus size shopping rant. Congratulations on your new kitty.


# posted by Blogger Lisa : 11:58 AM  

 Wouldn't normally post, except for the Asian girls thing. I don't know about the jelly, but my mom and I (Korean) love to snack on shaved ice, which looks a bit like snow, with sweet red bean topping.

Delicious. We even got an ice shaver at home for the sole purpose of making that treat.


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 3:38 PM  

 In Lane Bryant's defense, they are the only place I've found that carries my bra size in designs that don't resemble industrial scaffolding. I can almost forgive the billions of tunic tops they foisted on me as a teenager for not making me feel like the 38DD freak, even if I can't wear another damn thing in the store since I re-entered the no woman's land between plus and misses' sizes.

I've been trapped in the jeans/basic pants and $9 (long-sleeved stretch) t-shirts from Fashion Bug for a while now just due to exhaustion. I can't believe that the fashion industry can't get it together enough to work out a bridge between the sizes with flattering clothes for one and all.


# posted by Anonymous MaggieCat : 11:11 PM  

 pinky, I've only shopped H&M in England, France, Belgium, and Holland, and BiB is definitely still going over there. I can't speak for the US.

One thing I'd add about the pricey dresses: I've purchased almost all of mine on sale, deeply discounted (I'm talking $150 marked down to $40 or less). I'm a total miser about, well, everything, but I am okay with splashing out on a dress especially if it requires no ironing. I am so sluttish about that kind of thing; if I can ball it up, throw it in a backpack, and wear it to a wedding the next day, the extra money is worth it.


# posted by Blogger jax : 12:24 AM  

 Jax - I had to google! The larger sizes will still be in stores around the world - just not in the US. Joy.

(I wish H&M sold clothes online - I'm always looking for more reasonably-priced, decent looking clothes)


# posted by Blogger pinky pinkerson : 10:46 AM  

 Why do clothes from Ross only shrink in one direction? I have so many boxy too short dresses.


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 12:48 PM  

 You can sometimes find good stuff at Ross in larger women's sizes... but you sure have to dig! Still, there is a reason that drag queens call it cRoss Dress For Less!


# posted by Blogger timbrat : 2:37 PM  

 Here's another one for dresses and such, ladies:
Talbots Outlet, (don't know where they're located outside of my suburban Atlanta location); I don't think you'll find much in the way of casual stuff, although some of my family has found cute linen capri and top sets, and I wouldn't ever label Talbots as "hip", but I have found many a dress/suit there for a song. The silk shantung suit that became my wedding suit (and I've worn it many times since) was originally $300 and I got it for $15. Also a silk top/skirt outfit for the office for $17. I love the fact that I always know my size will be what fits, too. I love the Ross, but I can't walk in there confident that my 2X is really a 2X and not an XL. Fight the good fight ladies! :-)


# posted by Blogger Tami : 4:05 PM  

 Yeah for the cat....I can relate on the clothes thingy. I am 50 + , a size 16 and hate the clothes that are out there. I love Coldwater Creek, but I buy on their outlet page on their site. The sizes are true and they last...I still toil in 2 A for dreaded lawyers but manage with nice twill slax and a jacket...just don't take my high heel sandals away from me..people will be prosecuted..you have been warned. On the weekends I live on blue jeans and a black top and sandals..black...it suit's my mood...mwahahahahah


# posted by Blogger Aunty Pol : 5:00 PM  

 Wendy: :)

Keri: I agree with you -- they look ashamed. Oh, and btw, here's your Lame Giant trivia for the day: the catalog and the story are not even the same company. Weird, huh?

Kaijsa: Please run on as much as you want. I like it when y'all do. Does Old Navy in your town carry up to size 20? Ours does, but only on some items, I think. Well, most items. And I totally know what you're saying about not wanting to replace the curated wardrobe. Just buying new basics makes me kind of want to cry.

Jax: "a song plus 10 cents" cracked me up. I don't think I'm quite svelte enough for BR yet, though. Ten more pounds will get me into BR and Ann Taylor, I'm hoping. That or a boob reduction.

Vicki: Word. Nordstrom customer service is good. (As it should be, for those prices.) Weirdly, the hottest clubbing top I own is from the Macy's Woman clearance rack.

Afriend: Thanks.

Carol: It's totally as if Lane Bryant switched out merchandisers/buyers to someone with worse taste, isn't it? I remember about 5 or 7 years ago I had some super-cute stuff from them, and now they have nothing.

Lisa: Thanks. And, what you said. Right now LB is pissing me off because their work clothing, in Houston, consists of cropped trousers and super, SUPER wide-legged trousers. Like - the hell? Where are the normal pants?
Also... WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LEXINGTON PANTS? Those were the only ones that fit me right, and now I have to pick through the few colors and sizes they have left, online.

Sweet bean anon: I'm gonna have to try it, then. But you do realize that you just told me that you "snack on shaved ice." Come on. Ice isn't a snack unless it's drenched in snowcone syrup.
:)

Maggiecat: You and I wear the same size. But I can't wear the Cacique stuff. It's like the shoulder straps are set too far apart or something.
You should go back to Target and try the XXL tops in the misses' section. Those have been saving my life for a couple of years now.

Jax: You said it. Ironless dresses are the awesome.

Pinky: Right?!? Why in the world doesn't H&M sell online?

Anon: Funny. Maybe they cut them the wrong way to save fabric?

Timbrat: Thank you. I'm calling it that forever now.

Tami: Oh, yes. Talbot's outlet is very good.

Aunty Pol: Thanks. The cat thanks you for being excited about her.
Coldwater Creek is cool. I regularly steal ideas from their jewelry catalog. :)


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 10:07 AM  

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