The Fat Girl’s Guide to the Galaxy

(OK, so it's long.. Suck it up!)

I received a compliment of sorts this morning before leaving work. The guy who came in to relieve me mentioned that he had heard I have a gift for writing. It didn’t go any further than that, but I was still impressed. It’s flattering when you first realize that someone anyone is reading your online blog. It’s even more flattering when you realize that you work with those people and they are constantly commenting to you how much they love your writing style, or your most recent post. It’s mind-blowing when someone you know has never looked at your blog makes a comment like this guy did! So during my hour long trip home from work this morning, I decided I should take it to the next level, but where? Well, best to write about what you know. And I have never been a skinny chick!

School

I grew up in the South, that is, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, yet north of the (less known) sweet tea line. “The fat kid in the suburbs” would be a great title if I were actually going to title this section. Not sure why, but guy with a little bulk on them don’t seem to have as much trouble as girls do. I could be wrong, I’ve never been a guy a day in my life. But school was hell! Chalk it up to post traumatic stress or lack of coffee this morning, but I remember going from a 6x girl size to a 16 women’s almost overnight. Ok, not huge, bet some of you are wondering what the hell I had to complain about. Though add size with self esteem issues and mix in a good dose of shy and you’ll know why I wasn’t ever the popular kid in school. Since you’re not my shrink, I’ll spare you from the majority of details about the crappy life I had while enduring childhood education. Though I will mention that when you add acne to the shy, fat kid, I think it’d have been nicer to let me drop out. The only thing I had going for me at the time (which no one my own age ever appreciated until way after school or if they lost their homework) is my mind.

So the set-up for you if you’ve fallen asleep – short, fat, shy, brainy, with acne. Yep, I had two or three friends as a kid. I realize I could have been less picky and perhaps had a few more, but paste is not and was never in my diet, and flicking boogers for distance is not my idea of a competitive sport! I didn’t date until my sophomore year in high school. And since I have coffee in hand now I should mention that he may have been one of those booger flingers when he was in middle school. Since I am a parent now, I’ll add that while parents will probably not find anything wrong with a girl who didn’t date until she was in 10^th grade, I can say from experience that it does some very damaging things to the fragile teenage ego.

Luckily, although my butt was (and remains) a 2-seater, I’ve got a set of pipes on me. When I was a junior, I was selected to join a very competitive choral group in my school. There were 5 spots open for girls, 2 for altos. Over 150 girls auditioned. I got one of those spots! The confidence boost was amazing! I felt different overnight. People started talking to me. Seniors started talking to me! I may still be the shy fat kid with the big cranium, but I was in with the elite!

Then I moved. BOOM!!! My bubble came busting down around me in a big sloppy mess. But I had been there, I had been on top, I’d tasted what I was like to not be picked on simply because I existed, because I didn’t fit in. And I liked it. So I developed the current bane of my existence, my big mouth. And for a while, I worked. I came slowly out of my shell, met new people in school, dated some. Although I didn’t get invited out to parties much, I still had more going for me by that time. Skip ahead some, and… Graduation.

Real Life

I was never one of those wildly blessed people who had a calling and always knew what they wanted to do after high school. So I didn’t bother wasting time and money on college. Maybe I should have, but school was a trauma that I was legally able to give up, and why mess up a good thing when it’s so new? Nope, I went to work. My first year of freedom, I worked the summer at a local amusement park. That was cool!! For the first time in my fat life, I went from about 180lbs to 145lbs! The Army was considering me, I had 3 more pounds to drop. Easy!! Since I had a very active job, it shouldn’t be a problem. Guys were taking notice on a regular basis. I had a regular boyfriend, and several other new friends who just saw me as… well, me. The big mouth I had mastered (somewhat) helped banish the shyness, and I was finally coming together as a young adult who wasn’t scared by her overly large shadow. Good times that summer!

After the summer, I took a job delivering auto parts. Wasn’t great, but it was enough money to survive on. The weight started slipping back on. Since my Dad refused to sign the papers for the Army, that option was gone. And now, since my daily exercise was reduced to drive a stick, and lifting parts out of the back of a truck, I turned a blind eye. Men were still taking notice, I could still pull my fat ass out of bed, and could even manage to touch my toes. I was fine.

Many years have gone by since I last saw 145lbs. I’m just over 200lbs now. My career path has lead me to emergency medicine and I have found a comfortable home as a paramedic in a fairly quiet rural county that is either really busy or really not. My days in boots are quiet, couch potato types of days for the most part. I know I need to get my butt in gear and drop some weight, but this is a fat girl’s guide to the galaxy, not a fat girl’s guide to a size 2.

Dating

Dating and confidence go hand in hand. As I said before, having a sharp mind is actually attractive to some of the smarter variety of opposite sex types I’ve met. I have had the pleasure of online dating. Let me tell you, you have GOT to be confident with yourself if you ever decide to go that route! There is nothing more interesting to see than a man on a first date with a woman who’s mind he’s attracted to, but is put off by her appearance. Call it cruel, but I will do my best to extend those types of dates as long as I can. Human nature is that you can tell if you are attracted to someone physically within the first 10 seconds or something after meeting them. It’s the next 2 or 3 hours I find the sick pleasure in.

Let’s set this up for you. I am slightly over 200lbs. However, I know where my waist is without a map. I have a very nice hour-glass shape, though more like a 6 hour-glass – as a friend of mine once pointed out. I have big boobs and a ghetto booty that looks like it’s left over from Soul Train. So I list myself as average. No problem cause Honey, if you saw most of the people we have to lift up on a stretcher, you’d know that just over 200lbs is more average than the little stick figure types who seriously need a biscuit! Men do not realize this. Too much time watching the Vic’s Secret models, not enough time with real world recognizance! Now, we meet online, swap pictures, talk some. Most are attracted to my ability to use my head for something other than a hat rack. Maybe it’s the pink painted toenails inside of steel toed boots, who knows. But we meet. Then it’s game on for me a lot of time once I see the look of “this is NOT average!” on the poor, now panic stricken, guy’s face. So it’s going to be one of those…. Personally I think they miss out on so much when they (or anyone for that matter) goes after a person’s looks. Hell, guess what happens in 20 years or so. Here, I’ll help you out with this one. The belly comes out of hiding, wild hairs start springing up in strange places, boobs sag, and we get evil. So what’s the problem? I’m not giving false advertising, I’m actually more truthful, I’m giving a preview!

Call me evil if you wish. You will not hurt my feelings. Thanks to skinny brats when I was a kid, I don’t have feelings about my size any more. I am my typical happy self on dates, dinner, a movie, whatever else. If I can tell the guy wants to get away but it too chicken to say anything to me, then who am I to say that I should cut my evening short? Sorry Babe, I’m out for the evening. You don’t like the way the company looks – you leave!

Clothes

Personal pet peeve on this one, and sorry, but it’ll probably turn into a rant. I am not a skinny chick. I am white, am over 20, and not a prostitute. Why do clothes for fat chicks either look like something my grandmother would have owned in the 80’s or something made by Omar the Tent Maker? One thing that’s an extremely generalized statement about today’s fashion – short fat chicks in bell bottoms or “flare” jean is a sick joke! What were you thinking? Why not give us a 5x too big pair of pants with the hula-hoop in the top and suspenders! I’ve given thought to designing my own clothing line. Designs I can do, heck I can even sew fairly well. But I don’t have a room full of underpaid kids to produce anything like what the current market needs.

I do like a lot of stuff in stores these days. Problems vary though:

Lane Bryant – good jeans, fit the curves in all the right places. See the comment about me not being a “pro” on the shirts, also I’m not a throw-back from the Renaissance. I don’t need sleeves that flutter 3 feet behind me as a walk they’d only make my butt look bigger by flapping in the breeze beside it.

Old Navy – decent selection. Jeans are good but damn, I have ghetto booty, can I get a couple more belt loops in the back, please? Tops – I own several, thanks! The kicker – if you really can only wear women’s sizes, you have to order online. Wow, you saying I can’t fit my fat ass into a dressing room? Or maybe only anorexic chicks like new clothes?

Gap – LOVE your stuff. Can you expand some perhaps? Not your line, just your sizes. Average chick here, remember? Welcome to the US, it’s almost 2009!

American Eagle – If I get something that fits my left thigh, can I get the same thing for the right one at half off?

The major department stores – Please pick up a fashion magazine. Got it? Good. Now, you can’t see any of my ribs, or abs for that matter. But I prefer to wear something that says Nike up the side, not Glad. Not everything needs to match. And NEVER use garbendine! It should be banned!

Target – Nice selection except I’m not pregnant, not into wearing scrubs daily, and not size 16 or below. You have everything else for people in my age group, would a few racks of cute, non-grandma looking clothes kill you?

Walmart – Maybe you can host Bingo in your fat girl section if things get much worse. And I see you also have the line of clothes that the Glad bag people put out.

Families

Just cause I don’t starve myself on a regular daily basis and I spend more quality time with my remote than my treadmill doesn’t mean that I have never been married. I was. The dress was an interesting hunt, but surprisingly only lasted one day. Cool!! The wedding was ok. Wish they had some camera lens for making the people seem smaller. Hell they have that room at the fair. Isn’t it just a matter of a few mirrors?

Ok, I’m not going into much here, except for to say that fat chicks have sex. You want to see demonstrations, go check out a porn site, pervert. Since we have sex, stands to reason that some of us may wind up pregnant. Trust me, it happens. The part I didn’t understand was that no one else realized that someone over a size 14 could reproduce. Yeah, I’m getting back on clothes again. I managed to find a pair of jeans and a few nice shirts that I didn’t mind wearing and I could try on before buying. I’m not in to the whole mail order thing. Especially not buying clothes through the mail, what a pain in the ass! There isn’t really anything else I can say about this without hiring an attorney. It just wasn’t right!

The Serious Stuff

All jokes aside, people have become too happy to be too large. The health crisis affecting not only our country but everywhere is reaching a critical breaking point. It is difficult for people like me to do our jobs at times because, no matter how much we would love to help you, we cannot lift you off the floor. Or even sadder still, no matter how hard we push on you, we will never be able to do adequate CPR do to your size. Health is a big concern for the powers that be these days, as it should be.

My father died when he was 51 from a massive heart attack. I am 33. Although he wasn’t overweight by more than 15 pounds or so, that cardiac history does run in my family. I need to be scared. Not tomorrow after I finish the last of the brownies in the fridge. Not next week after the holidays are done, not next month after my boyfriend’s birthday dinner I’m planning. I need to be scared right now. I have begun to change things in my life, started attempting to make healthier choices, spending some “quality time” away from my remote. Diet is only one letter away from Die. And ending your addiction to food by starting one with some “pill my doctor said would work” is not the way to go. McDonald’s didn’t make me fat, didn’t make you fat either. Genetics did and I allowed it to progress. My DNA assured me that I am predisposed. My choice of drive threw versus cooking something healthy locked down my fat fate. For my health, for my son, and for the patients I take care of, I am attempting to create new healthier habits. Like any other addict I am aware that it takes time. But unlike other drugs, healthy habits are much easier to see when that scale doesn’t tip as far as it did the previous week.

It’s a big world out there, go visit it. Get out and do something! If you died tomorrow, would you be happy with the life you lived? Do you have regrets? We each only get one shot at this, best make it a good one.

Little Christian girl's trip to the book store

My ex-husband's now ex girlfriend and I have started talking fairly recently. All I can say is we have more in common than just some guy we were both stupid enough to fuck. She seems pretty cool! Unfortunately now she's stuck with a lot of the dramatic bull shit I went through when the ass first left me. (You can tell how much I think of him...) Anyway, I'm a typical southern girl, and should probably never dare to dream of a life outside of my little corner of dixie. Well she's a yankee girl (by now anyway, I understand she didn't start that way..) But it seems like I have a very good friend of mine that lives in the middle. So who knows what the future may hold, maybe we could use Laurie's place as a meeting ground for the sperm donor's babies!!! LOL!! Laurie's idea too!

God I miss her!! Finally got a chance to go to her house this past weekend. Pretty nice even if it was a crack house in a former life. No biggie, she'll have that place shined up and good as ever long before the market picks back up. Since she got it is a foreclosure, she stands to make a metric butt-load of money in the process!!!

Not much else is new. I picked up a book from a wiccan store about,.... ummm, how to put this without freaking out all the locals...? Well, let's just say that I notice things that other people don't from time to time. And no, I'm not talking about noticing the light turning green a half second before the asshole in front of you does so you can blast your horn at him. I'm a bit more sensitive to energy than a lot of people. Yea, I'm talking about ghosts and the like. Let's see if you can keep up for a minute..... Remember anything from physics class in high school? Some old (now dead) guy came up with a great idea that energy and be neither created nor destroyed, it can only change forms. Ok, so people are little power houses, our bodies are created to "make" and use energy from the food we eat and the work we do. So what happens to that energy when the meat suit wears out? The body goes in the ground and rots or whatever - worm food. Where does the energy go? Does it stay around? Is there a heaven? My good little Christian girl side says YES, there is. Does everyone go there? My overly practical side says NO. Part scientist, part sensitive, I feel this left over energy. I hear names, I don't see people often, mostly just catch snips of what they are (were) thinking in a particular area, or how they feel (felt) about a certain thing.

So I recently walked into a friend's house and "read" it for her since she thought she may not be alone. Now I didn't know that much about her personal history at the time I first went to the house. Betty. Betty was the name I was given within 3 feet inside the front door. Betty also gave me the name Elizabeth, not her, but some other person she showed me. Betty was 50 or 60 ish when she died, some type of long term disease. She's very protective of my friend. She loved to cook (the kitchen was very busy feeling), and she watched her kids play in the yard while she did the dishes, constantly thinking that she wished they wouldn't play in the road - that one would get hit by a car.

Found out when my friend came in to check on me that Betty was her mother's name. She died at 50 something from cancer, her aunt is Elizabeth and she has a brain tumor (still living). My friend said her mom loved to cook, was always in the kitchen, DID watch them play in the street and my friend DID get hit by a car one day. She has her mother's ashes in the house. That is the only physical presence Ms. Betty has ever been in that house. She never went there before she died.

There is a young man there as well. James, tall, 20's, killed in a accident, his mother is the former owner of the house. He's confused, nice, knows he's dead, but doesn't want to accept it yet. Curious about my friend and her roommate. Seems like he was a good kid.

I am also able to pick up vibrations from objects that people put energy into. Alive, dead, doesn't seem to matter. If you really love something, and use it or whatever a lot, then I'd probably notice just by laying my hand on it. And no, that doesn't mean I'd ever touch your vibrator collection to figure out which is your favorite!!! EWWW! I'm gotten mental images shown to me, conversations that I've been allowed to hear.

It's all pretty cool. So I've decided that it's time to quit denying that I have this gift, and time that I start trying to see what can be done with it. So that's how the poor little lost Jesus girl found her way to a wiccian book store several states away looking at books on mediumship. Got one too! Who knows, let me get through this book (and 1/2 a dozen others knowing me) and then I'll get myself an old ambulance and some funky backpacks and become a ghost buster!!! In all seriousness, I was told that I was one of the best mediums a local ghost hunter had ever met (my friend's room mate,) so who am I to deny a gift that I have simply because i chose a Christian belief? The compliment was cool! And I have a scientific enough mind to ask questions without following something blindly. And as a bonus, I liked physics!

But, it's late. Go to bed, addict!!
C

In the Beginning

You always hear on movies containing a therapist to "start at the beginning." But since it's only 6pm, it's not story time and I'm sure most of you really couldn't care less, I'll skip to the beginning of my day today, after a bit of who-am-I type stuff.

I'm a single mom of a young son. Divorced, dating someone for only a few weeks now. I work way more than I should and bring home less and less thanks to taxes. My job is tough, EMT, but I love it! More than that, I seem to be a crap-magnet. For some dumb reason I seem to attract more BS to me than any single person should ever have. But that's why I'm here, this is my idea of a cheap therapy session. If this is actually being read by anyone, and you'd like to make a comment, please do. I have no secrets if I post something here. I have no desire to offend anyone who may read, but keep in mind that you are being afforded a view into my world. You need to realize that you are a guest here and my leave at any point. If you're offended, leave. I cuss, I swear, I don't mean to hurt feelings but if you want PC then go to CNN. But I do like getting comments. They help me realize that I'm not alone in the fishbowl.

So what's with my day? Well it started at midnight like everyone else's, only I was still awake. Took a very important test yesterday and the score shows up online "at some point within the next 48 hours." Ugh.... Could that line suck any more? I mean, honestly, let's go ahead and condemn me to 2 days with no sleep at all... And yes, I was still up at 1. The test is computer based and will increase in difficulty as you answer more questions correctly. Now, let's take a look at what that actually means. A test that will figure out how smart you are then increase intensity until you feel dumb again. This is like some IT nerd had a chip on his shoulder and a weird fetish with medieval torture devices, and has figured out how to blend torture and computers. As if getting a computer to actually do what you want it to isn't torture enough!!! This "smart test" will also cut off at some random point when it realizes that no matter how many more questions you get right you will: 1. pass or 2. fail. A 75 is passing. Mine cut off at 148 questions. So this smart-ass computer, excuse me, smart computer gave me a test that made my brain feel like jello, got harder with each question, and cut off randomly at 148. I knew I'd gotten at least 5 right. Wow, 5. So what about the other 143? And that's why I was up at 1 am, then again at 5.

Ok, ok, I'm good, I can handle this. I'm confident in my skills, my knowledge base, and the fact that I'm never bombed a written test. It was at 9:15 this morning that I learned I'd passed. AHHHHH, stress level knocks down a notch... Finally! Although part 2 of the test is the hands-on portion this weekend, I'm pretty confident in my skills there this time. So I send news around to all my friends about my good news of passing the first time taking it!

The elation is short lived however. See, I have a problem with my mouth. It's like word vomit that I just can't stop. Doesn't matter if it's spoken or written, there are times I say (or type) something totally innocently and it gets taken WAY wrong. Well, let's just say that happened today. I realized that I'd typed something while venting on a page that no longer exists and someone brought it to another person's attention. That last person was someone I'd NEVER think of hurting on any level, for any reason. My boss called me about it. (ouch!) I may lose my job for it. (Ouch again!) Though if that is what happens, I will still send the apology letter that I am, even now, formulating in my head. I'm the type of person that will fess-up if I screw up something, and feel horrible if I offend anyone without the intent to do just that. I'm not saying I'm a nice sweet person who'd NEVER offend anyone, I offend lots of people. But I do it on purpose, and to their face. So this SUCKS!! Stress level went right back up, and I'm stuck at work.

As for the person who brought up only the potentially hurtful part of my blog, I think I know who you are. Though that really doesn't bother me to ACTUALLY know who you are. YOU know, and YOU will have the Karmic payback for it. Why would you do something like that anyway? If you don't like me, tell me, tell your friends, start some shit about me; hell - work it out in therapy yourself if that's what you need to do. But why would you twist something around like that? Why would you send only the potentially hurtful parts of a private and password protected blog to someone else to hurt their feelings? Why would you not send the whole story at least? Though we know the answer to that last question, don't we? You want me to get in trouble.... Ok, how's this? I have survived more than this unnecessary drama. I will do it again. And I have one thing that you obviously know nothing about: Grace! How to get through an awkward moment with my honor, and usually my original friendship with the offended party, in tact! If it is my desire to offend someone I am capable of doing that without help, thanks. I am sorry that your petty attempts to derail my character are going to fail, good luck with your life.

I smell whiskey in my future!!
C