This Round Life

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:37:06 GMT

I really hate getting into discussions of the effects of dieting on the body and metabolism - at least at work.

Trust me, if you ever want to know about dieting, ask a fat girl.

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:00:52 GMT

Spent few days offline because there was a problem getting an internet connection hooked up at the new place.

I really hadn't realized how much of a difference having a decent sized kitchen with more than one counter top could make. Suddenly I find myself wanting to cook again and I have a fridge stocked full of fresh vegetables and fruit.

Fish out of Water

Fri, 29 May 2009 01:43:20 GMT

A few days ago, I saw an advertisement for a Women in Trades and Technology event. It was positioned as an opportunity to meet other women, network, and discuss whether or not there would be interest in a permanent group with regular meetings.

"Do you want to go?" I asked my friend(and fellow IT desk jockey).

"Find out more about it and I might be interested," she replied.

I dutifully called the number listed in the ad. It turned out to be the number of a fairly prominent business initiative group - one that had done a lot of work in the city. This is good, I thought. It's organized. I explained that a friend and I were interested in attending but that we worked in Information Technology and I wanted to make sure that we were in the fields they were looking for. "Absolutely!" was the response.

We dutifully arrived at 7:05. Within a few minutes, it became apparent that we might be out of our league. "Are you sure this includes IT?" hissed my friend, nodding and smiling as women in blue jeans and leather jackets joined us around the table.

Remember North Country with Charlize Theron? These women had North Country problems. They were electricians and carpenters and welders who bore tales of sexual harassment and the lack of proper washroom facilities. Sexual sensitivity training and wage gaps were high on the agenda.

Occasionally someone would talk of being the only woman on a crew of fifty men or an incident where a coworker had sexually harassed them. They would look at me and I'd nod and smile but I wouldn't chime in.

The time one of my bosses got drunk and slobbered on my cheek just didn't measure up.

Not that I wanted to be a headless fatty...

Sat, 23 May 2009 12:14:22 GMT

Am I too sensitive? Do I perceive bias against my weight when there is none? That was the question darting in and out of my mind last night.

I had gone with a friend to a local arts centre where a number of exhibits were opening. As we made our way around one of the less crowded galleries, a photographer approached my friend and asked if he could take her picture for the local paper. He was covering the event and trying to get pictures of art enthusiasts as well as the artists themselves. My friend politely declined and I quietly waited. The photographer shrugged and headed off, eventually cornering a pair of little old ladies in the south gallery. He spared me not a second's glance or consideration.

Curious.

Still Kickin'

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:22:29 GMT

I've been horrible about posting lately and for that, I apologize. It's just been a long (and exhausting month). Hopefully, once the move is out of the way, I'll be better about staying on the posting wagon.

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:08:36 GMT

I passed a construction site today.Sitting on a pile of wood, his back against a detour sign, was an elderly construction worker. With his relaxed pose and bowed head, I thought he was napping. As I got closer, I realized he was reading.

In the middle of a construction zone, with bulldozers passing within feet of his out-stretched legs, he was calmly turning the pages of a P.D. James book.

It was sort of lovely.

(cross posted to bookish - sorry to those who saw twice)

Sun, 10 May 2009 00:54:12 GMT

I have a bit of a like/meh relationship with Star Trek. I like the original series. I like the first four movies with the original cast. I own William Shatner albums. Still, everything past that point, for me, has been "meh" at best (and I can't be the only one who thinks the holodeck in incredibly lame).

I'm a Star Wars girl at heart and a hard sell but this afternoon still say me lining up to see the new Trek movie.

And I freaking loved it. The things I liked about the old series - tongue in cheek humor, adventure, swagger, fun - were present in abundance. The cast did an amazing job of portraying the characters with just enough of the familiar to remain comfortable. The plot was pretty good and the effects were shiny. The score was good and the use of Beastie Boys inspired.

I was a happy ticket holder.

Trading up/Trading down

Wed, 06 May 2009 02:06:51 GMT

I was slow to catch on. Nerdy, plump, and socially awkward, it didn’t occur to me that I should be seeking out prospective mates with those same qualities. I was drawn to charismatic, outgoing boys—boys who were my opposite. Time after time, I’d fall for boys who were miles above my league. High school dating was a game with clearly defined teams and rules but, like football, it was a game I didn’t understand.

In the early days of the eleventh grade, I screwed up enough courage to ask a crush out (via a friend, of course). His reply: I don’t really think so. It was the really that got to me. That one small word was like a portcullis crashing down. I began culturing crushes and fantasies based on who I should like rather than who I did like. It was judgmental as hell. I was fostering attraction and attachment for the same reasons other people use to reject me; I was staying with my kind and not dating above my station. My affection was not a compliment.

It wasn’t until I got to college that I threw out my playbook. In college I dated jocks, nerds, sweet boys who remembered anniversaries, and charismatic men with mean streaks. In college I crushed on, slept with, and dated the guys I liked without wondering what league they were in or which rules I might be breaking.

Fri, 01 May 2009 22:17:49 GMT

“I really am sorry for the people I let down. I really want to inspire again. The biggest, most painful thing for me is to have all these people I inspired and then I let them down.” ~ Kirstie Alley on a recent Oprah appearance.

Errrrrr, Kristie? Maybe you should just apologize for selling people a quick fix diet plan.

I'm Susan Boyle'ing the heck out of things

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:08:02 GMT

Found an apartment for June 1st and have an appointment to have my hair cut after work. I'm so Susan Boyle'ing.

Why yes, this is my attempt to turn "Susan Boyle" into a catch phrase.

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:12:19 GMT

According to CBC Newsworld there have been 26 cases of swine flu reported in North America and 1400 in Mexico.

...

...

So who gets to tell CBC that Mexico is still part of North America?

Imaginary friends (with benefits)

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:11:07 GMT

Just as surely as Brain made up a girlfriend from Niagara Falls*, there was a girl north of the border making up a boyfriend named Brian.

In the fall of 1994, I started high school full of talk about the boy I had met over the summer. He was shy, slight, sixteen, and (conveniently) from Ontario. He was also sweet and smelled like Tic Tacs. We couldn’t stay together – the distance was too great – but we still wrote each other the occasional letter. His name wasn’t Brian, though; his name was Peter. He was my first (and sadly not my last) fake boyfriend.

Like all good lies, Peter had a basis in truth. There actually was a Peter. I had met him while vacationing at an aunt’s house. At one point, while we were swimming in the pool, I thought he might lean in and kiss me. He didn’t.

I couldn’t go back to school and admit that the summer was a waste – that I had made no progress towards becoming “experienced”. My friends had experience in spades (enough experience to fuel sermons about sacred gardens) and I was dangerously close to being written off as a lost cause. In my shoes, who wouldn’t have lied?

It was, I told myself, a victimless and perfect crime. Peter would never know I had used him. My friends would never know that Peter—at least the version of Peter that made out with me in the pool shed—did not exist.

I’m sure they saw through it. Jut like Brian, I must have been as transparent as a plate of glass. Still, at the time, I assumed it worked. For weeks I would drop careful tidbits about Peter: how much I missed him, how he loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula, how I wondered if I should have gone further with him while we had the chance.

They were good friends. They listened patiently and then changed the subject. They didn’t ask many questions and they never called me out.

This gas guzzling fatty has something to say...

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:26:09 GMT

Alright. I wasn't going to post about today's CNN headline Thinner is better to curb global warming, study says. Quite frankly, it's the sort of day when reading about how thin people contribute less to global warming just makes me want to trade in my compact car for an SUV stocked full of red meat.

But the article was posted in kissmyassvogue and I felt I had to post a response. The response was so long, I figured that I might as well post it here.

Bring on the Devi rant:

Does it take more energy to move a fat person? Of course it does. It's simple logic.

Here's the thing: Why highlight a study which draws a logical conclusion that anyone with a basic grasp pf math can arrive at?

I could also say that, on average, it likely takes less energy to move a short person than a tall person or a teenager than a middle-aged housewife. Both statements have a high probability of being true. If you look at the data, we're not just getting larger. We're also getting taller and living longer.

Once you get past the fact that they're even treating this study as newsworthy, you then have the following gems:

Thinner people contribute less to global warming, according to a new study.

Sorry. That's a dangerously generalized tidbit to lead off with. All you have proven is that it takes more energy to move a fat person from location A to location B. A person's contribution to global warming far exceeds this one factor. The OP mentioned that she bikes for her commute. I drive a small car and combine trips to use fewer gas. I also rarely eat red meat (beef production and shipment is also a significant global warming factor).

The study offers this novel approach to the global warming problem as U.S. lawmakers discuss the future of climate change legislation.

Novel approach? Why have they just mentioned U.S. lawmakers? Is there an implication that lawmakers should be doing more to help stem the obesity epidemic? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, kids.

Using statistical models, the authors compared the distribution of BMI in the United Kingdom in the 1970s -- when 3.5 percent of the population was obese -- with a prediction for the country's BMI distribution in 2010, reflecting 40 percent obesity.

I don't know what the BMI charts are like in the UK BUT in the United States and Canada, the definitions of "obesity" and "overweight" changed in the 1990's. Overnight, millions of people found themselves in a new category.

And why are they using predictions for 2010 instead of data from a few years ago. Obesity rates have actually started to stabilize in some countries so using a prediction seems somewhat risky.

In terms of energy expenditure, the average food product travels 1,500 miles to get to your table, he said.

Interesting. Do you know what I eat when dieting? Lots of fruit and vegetables that are not grown in Canada. Food which has to travel a greater distance to get to my kitchen table. Does anyone remember the Aitkins craze? Lots of people losing weight while eating a whole lot of red meat (see earlier point about beef production).

There are a few other points I take issue with as well but I'm tired.

Friday Fun

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:04:10 GMT

Great singer. Great song. Great message.

Wow - usually I hate CNN... But even they covered it nicely.

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:20:42 GMT

UK singer 'gobsmacked' by overnight stardom

This will lift your heart

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:06:16 GMT

tree_spirits posted a clip (in kissmyassvogue) of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent. I cried when watching it. Click here, watch it, and you'll see why.

Thursday fun...

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:00:22 GMT

http://slaughterhouse90210.tumblr.com/

Round Up

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:39:32 GMT

On February 2nd, Dear Abby replied to a woman who had written that her husband had called their daughter's friend "fat". Today, Dear Abby published some of the responses she received after the column was initially released.

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Tonight was the last episode of this season's Project Runway (feel free to discuss and post spoilers in the comments).

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At work today, I revealed that I idolized the heroin-chic look when I was in high school and had CK and Kate Moss ads taped up in my bedroom. A coworker said she had a hard time picturing this. I can't blame her. Looking back, I have a hard time picturing this.

Lost again...

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:04:49 GMT

Finally typed the words "THE END". That's right: the first (and very rough) draft of Hemlock is done.

It's a strange, anticlimactic feeling. Still, it will be nice to have a few weeks off before I start in on revisions.

From my fifth grade diary...

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:32:25 GMT

Rachel called me a dyke in the hallway between classes.

I'm not a dyke.

If anyone's a dyke, Rachel's a dyke.

...

What's a dyke?

Children understand on the inflections adults give words, even though they may not understand the words themselves. In fifth grade, I'm sure that Rachel had no more idea than I did about what the word meant but she had probably heard it in a negative context.

She was angry with me and she knew the word meant something "bad". Based on how she hissed it at me in the hall, I knew it must be something horrible so I resorted to "I know you are but what am I?".

The incident was, apparently, quickly forgotten. Two weeks later, there is an entry about a sleepover where we watched My Science Project and ate pizza.

Is the fangirl moving on?

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:26:30 GMT

I watched Planet of the Dead earlier (why yes, I do have a private jet and use it to hop over to the UK) and it was... alright. It was adequate, but no squee fell from my lips. In fact, midway through, I stopped it to peak in on my writers' message board to see if there were any new threads.

It's also been at least two months since I've watched a full episode of Who.

I miss the squee and excitement, the feeling that my heart would burst out of my chest if I didn't see the latest episode as. soon. as. possible.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:44:30 GMT

I jolt at the slight touch on my arm. My grandmother smiles. "What are you listening to?" she asks.

I press stop on my walkmen. I had been listening to "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls, swinging my legs back and forth as I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. But I couldn't tell my grandmother that: This was the woman who had superglued a pair of blue swim trunks onto my mother's foot-tall replica of Micheangelo's David.

"I don't remember the name of the song," I lied. By twelve, I was getting used to figuring out what people wanted to hear. My Nana did not want to hear that her preteen granddaughter was listening to a song about masturbation.

"Can I listen?"

What were the odds that a woman her age would be able to pick out the words? After a moment's deliberation, I handed her the headphones, thumbed down the volume to half of what it had been set at, and hit play.

She listened for fifty seconds - I counted. Finally she took off the headphones and smiled. "That sounded nice," she said. At the time, I thought I had gotten away with it. Eighteen years later, it occurs to me that she never again asked to hear what I was listening to.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:57:46 GMT

I just had a shower and did not dry off the shower walls. Sadly, that's about as adventurous and rebellious as I get.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:14:28 GMT

The barista at Starbucks slipped an extra piece of banana bread into my bag. Proof positive that people love a jolly fat girl.

Epic Fail

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:52:33 GMT

Why, in the name of all that is decent and good, is there a version of Jai Ho sung by the f* Pussycat Dolls!?!?!?

I feel sad. And dirty.