The Truth: Sometimes I Need Help

I’ve spent a long time away from this blog. Nearly a year. The thing is, I still open it daily. I look at my header, think about writing a new post. I visit when I get the occasional new comment to approve it. But I haven’t posted here in months.

And what really gets to me is that there’s no reason. I stopped for absolutely no reason. I still keep up with the FA community. I still write about body acceptance, feminism, and other issues that would be fitting to discuss here. But I stopped posting.

I think there comes a time in everyone’s life when they go through an off year. For me, this year has held some of my worst moments, and some of my best. I’ve experienced unemployment and having to live with my parents. I’ve taken temp jobs and finished temp jobs. I’ve moved in with friends. I’ve gotten into grad school. I’ve done a lot, and missed a lot of opportunities.

But, throughout all the good and bad, I think I’ve somehow lost my self-esteem, my confidence.

I find that’s my biggest issue nowadays. Having graduated from undergrad, I stopped having a method of measurement for my happiness. Grades have no relevance now. My friends have scattered. There are no more awards to win. I don’t have a job to be successful at. I’ve had nothing to help me feel accomplished.

And thus, I started to feel bad. Bad about myself, my body, my laziness. I started to believe that I’ve been deluding myself all these years into thinking I was something, someone. I’ve given up, in many ways. Completely given up.

Lately, it hasn’t been as bad. Moving in with friends boosted me up. I started laughing a lot more, crying a lot less. I started recovering myself. I started writing again, researching my obsessions, cooking. I’ve gotten a lot better. There’s something about surrounding yourself with positive people that makes you feel positive. It makes you believe that if they can see the good in you, there must actually be some. I’m getting better.

And so, here’s the truth: sometimes I need help. Sometimes I need you all to remind me why I should keep posting, why I should keep believing in this. Why I should have confidence in myself as a fat woman. I hope to come back here. It’s about time I post here again. I need to get my head back in the game, and take back my body, my mind, my spirit. This is a call for help as much as it’s a thank you for your support. This is my return, my second chance.

Long time, no Blog

If there are any of you still out there, I’m terribly sorry. Terribly terribly sorry. I’ve been a horrible blogger, despite having more free time on my hands than normal. It is my sincerest hope that I’ll get things back up and running around here ASAP. I have a lot of exciting things to share!

This summer I’ve been interning with a PBS channel, working on a TV show about women’s health. It has been glorious and exactly the sort of work I want to continue doing. I even found a way to get a bit of Fat Acceptance into the mix! I had the brilliant opportunity to interview the fabulous Kate Harding, founder of Shapely Prose and coauthor of Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body. It was a really great experience, and I should be posting some of the interview audio here once I finish editing it.

Unfortunately, my internship will be ending this coming week, and I’ll be moving back home for the meantime while I continue to look for a job. It’s a hard time to be looking for jobs! And I find myself experiencing a bit of a quarter-life crisis, missing school, not knowing what I’m going to do with myself from now on, but I’m trying to trust in the universe that things will come together.

So, though this is a pitifully content-less post, I hope that I’ll have some good stuff up later this week. In the meantime, thank you for reading and sticking around.

Fat Girl with a Degree

Receiving my Diploma!

Ay ay ay! Obviously, I’ve fallen off the blog-wagon because I just today stumbled my way back over here after a long last quarter in school and saw Jamie’s lovely post in tribute to me. That was too sweet, Jamie. Thank you so much!

So, I guess it’s not going to come as too much of a shock when I say that I’m now a fat girl with an undergrad degree! I hope this will justify many of my long absences from the blog. I can sincerely hope that I will update more, but I won’t make any promises, since I tend to get deepy engrossed in things going on in real life. I’m about to move to Chicago for the summer, and we’ll see how that goes! I have an internship with PBS! Woo!

Anyway, I’m a fat grad, and also a 22-year-old fattie. My birthday was the same day as my graduation. It was quite exciting. And, in case you’re wondering, it was just a beautiful and wonderful weekend. I had the honor of giving the Baccalaureate address the night before, and to top everything off, won two awards in creative writing at the Senior Awards Ceremony. (Pretty good for a non-English major, eh?) My family came to stay for the weekend, and that just made it so much better.

Of course, like everything in life, the build up to the end has resulted in me feeling somewhat bereft now that it’s over. But hopefully I’ll get my life in order. I have faith in myself and my abilities.

So, to end, I want to thank all of you for supporting me and reading this blog. I know we’ve gone through some times of radio silence, and I appreciate you all sticking around. Here’s to better blogging and a bright and shiny future!

Blogiversary!

Holy Cow! I missed my own Blogiversary! Well, dear readers, March 26 was my one year blogiversary! I started this blog a little over a year ago, and here I am, 370 days later, writing my 97th post, with 703 comments, and a whole new community of support here on the intrawebs!

It has been a good year, despite my many absences as I finish up college. I’ve been very busy, as per usual, but it has helped knowing I have this community to fall back on. As I wrote in response to my post about My Biggest Fear, this community has been a wonder for me, and has made me feel comfortable in my own skin. Thank you all so much for all your support!

Post your favorite story on how this community has supported you in the comments!

Non-Fat Friday: Twitterpatteritus.

In response to last week’s WTF Thursday, I’m posting a Non-Fat Friday: Twitterpatteritus.

I just (and I mean in the last half hour) joined Twitter.

And I think I hate it…or wait, do I love it? I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain it just boggled my mind a little.

I can see its uses. And I can see how it’s glaringly creepy. But, if any of you out there are on Twitter, I’d love to follow you.

It’s addictive. Like crazy. And I feel like you all probably have more to say than me.

Each of these paragraphs could be a Twitter.
Tweeeet!

Discuss your Twitterpatteritus here, in posts of under 160 characters… : )

You can find me here.

Update

I’ve been pitiful at updating, and I’m sorry about that! The last time I really posted was, I think, Election Night? Realllly pitiful. So Sorry, dear readers.

I guess I wanted to just post a quick update on my life. Things have been extremely busy. I think I mentioned before that I was working on a documentary on the Ann Arbor, MI-based folk band, The Chenille Sisters, for my senior thesis? Well, it’s done for the time being. I stayed over Winter Break and worked for three weeks straight (8 hours a day, 5 days a week) to get some work done. I had a brief week off with my family, and then I was back for another quarter at school. I still had a lot to do on the documentary, and it was due three weeks into the term. It’s done, now. And I passed with Honors! WOO!

Now, of course, I have ten thousand other things to do. I’m taking two writing classes by my own choice (Creative Nonfiction and Screenwriting), and the last of my Political Science classes. I don’t even believe anymore that I’m a Political Science major! Well, to top it all off, we also have to take Comprehensive Exams for Political Science. Those are this Tuesday and Thursday. So, after this week, I’ll be done with all significant academics for a while!

Hopefully that means I’ll have some time to devote to blogging again. But, alas, right now I’m just too busy! If it puts anything in perspective, my sister has been calling me all week, and I haven’t yet had the chance to call her back because I’ve been spending so much time studying. So please forgive me, everyone!

Now, back to studying.

Are there really Fat Beliefs?

In my post yesterday where I was talking about the election, I asked a rhetorical question that now is really bugging me. The post was about an absurd article I found talking about the ten fattest states being for McCain and the ten slimmest being for Obama. I said the article was absurd as asked the question: “Are there really fat Beliefs?”

I got a rather incindiary response from a commentor, Kay, about my post, and she specifically addressed the subject of Fat Beliefs. I tried to explain in a comment how I felt, but I’m not sure I was clear. I’m going to try again here.

Since Fat Acceptance has just recently become a part of my life, I’ve never thought about my fat as dictating my belief system. My beliefs are centered more on women’s rights, feminism, and human rights in general. For me, the fact that I’m fat does not dictate how I think, vote, etc. It has been an emotional hurdle for me to overcome, and has inspired me to act on behalf of this injustice, but I have not been able to translate that directly to action, political or otherwise.

Herein lies my problem: my beliefs are not Fat Beliefs. I can’t become an activist for fat acceptance if I can’t even figure out what that means. I can’t even put my beliefs in the realm of fat. Other things always come first: women’s rights, equality, promoting tolerance, etc. Are these Fat Beliefs? Are these just other beliefs that just happen to blanket my fat? What are Fat Beliefs?

This is something I’m really having trouble wrapping my mind around, and I’m curious about what all you think. Kay said in her comment:

I sure as hell absolutely am “voting with my waistline.” Staying alive is one of my top priorities.

I honestly don’t think I understand that comment at all. I’ve been pondering about it since I recieved it yesterday, and I don’t understand it.

So, someone, please help me put this into perspective. Are there really Fat Beliefs?

Holy Twizzle Sticks, Batman! That’s a lotta troll spittle!

I’ve put all the troll comments in moderation, because it seems they’re taking my blog as an open post for them to write absolutely inane things on. I’ll probably mark them all as spam soon. Mostly because they’re taking up space in my inbox, and being rude to people who respect the blog! I might be putting all comments on moderation for a little while. Sorry if this is inconvenient to yall!

Oh, and to our dear troll friends: Jamie and I find it soooo funny when you all make fun of us as a unit, considering that she is thin thin thin, and I am teh fat. It puts into perspective (as if we needed it) exactly how little you know about us!

Oh you trolls. You make me laugh so hard! At least Tara (who, btw, made an appearance on the last post!! Haha!) was semi-intelligent, even though she was anti-fat.

Any more suggestions on how to control the spittle from these trolls is still welcome! But for now, I’m thinking of just sending them some twelve inch subs so they find it hard to click buttons and type.

Burying the Trolls

Yesterday and today, Jiggly Bits was up on WordPress’ “Growing Blogs” page (in the second spot!! Thanks everyone who’s visited!!), and I’ve gotten a stream of trolls, mostly on our “About the Authors” page, and my Poetry Collection. When I got my first troll, the infamous Tara, I took this stance:

Your insults don’t hurt, and I won’t give you the satisfaction of a post all about you in the future, because you aren’t that special. Just know my stand: your pettiness is noted and rejected. Please continue living your life as a minion of society, but I won’t let you drag me down with you.

Well, I still stand by that, and I don’t want to make this post about these haters and their comments, but I have a question for all you readers out there who actually respect what I do: what should I do with the comments I get that are from the trolls? I just discovered last night that I can actually edit their comments(!!). Should I leave them up, as they are? Or should I edit the comment to say something like, “Oh, yes. I’m a troll. Hummdy hum hum…doo doo dee doo!” Or should I delete them so they don’t have to sit there looking at us all funny?

I thought it’d be funny to change what they say to completely fat-positive comments. What do you all think?

Oh, and feel free to go troll hunting. I support it, as long as it’s witty and respectful (in the sense that you don’t insult any other groups while doing it…I’m not looking for hate, I’m looking for some confident expulsion of hate…do you know what I mean? Wittiness and sass are appreciated!).

“Why wasn’t I wearing a Tank-Top?!”

See Joy Nash’s amazing new video below. I’ve noticed everyone else is posting it, and I just HAVE to. Because it makes me squee with joy! (ha ha…no pun intended.)

I know I haven’t posted all week, and I’m sorry. I’ve been unpacking from school, cleaning, organizing, and preparing for one of my best friend’s weddings (in which I’m the Maid of Honor, woah).

Anyway, better posts next week. Wedding’s tomorrow. Friends here all weekend. Monday I start working at the Avenue (wooo! It’ll be different this summer, I think. Since I’ve accepted myself…etc.). More good stuff later.

Anyway, here’s the Joy Nash joyousness to tide you over! She is my goddess!