Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Love Song to Spooky Oats

Relax. This isn't another Love Letter of Dooooooom. I've stayed true to my word and while I couldn't resist a poem a week or so ago, there are no odes to any crushes or lucky bastards I'm smitten with that I will regret in the morning and ultimately in perpetuity. I've learned my lesson which is not so much to guard my heart (still working on that one) but not to, as one wit said, announce it in surround sound. Now that I think about it, I'm failing that one miserably too but I'm TRYING!

It's true that when I care about someone I gush. I'm effusive and tell them how I feel, partially because it's a natural inclination, and partially because I've lost roughly half of the most important people in my world in the past few years, and nearly lost my own life as well. In fact, twice I considered taking my own. Not something to be proud of, but nevertheless, a fact. What I've learned through it all is that life is too short. Take a chance. Take a risk. Wing it. Say it. Say how you feel. Say what you mean. Communicate while you still can. And communication to me, especially from people I care about are little pearls. However you feel about me, tell me, because I'm telling you. That's a gift, my love.

A lot of people know who Spooky Oats is because he makes no secret of how he feels about me too. He is one of my best friends and while there may be 2000 miles of ocean between us, I trust him implicitly and instinctively and he has always, even at my most unreasonable demand, dropped everything when I needed him. I was there when he needed me and always will be and the day that one of us lands at the others' airport it will be a happy day but until now we get by via the internet's various means. He's seen me on Skype without makeup and still loves me. What more could a girl ask for?

I'll tell you. When he comes home from an exhausting day or night he IMs me and his adrenaline is so sky high that I get thrilled just listening to him talk about how awesome this or that was. I know who his heroes are. I know what makes him cry and I know his best friends' names. When he had a break-up and was confused, I hurt with him and cried and when I cried over two different men, he bent over backwards to make me feel lovable because I felt so lost and rejected. He asked for nothing in return but that he hopes he never makes me cry.  He pores over my blogs and dissects my poetry. I know the words to most of his songs and watch the YouTube videos of his band religiously, proud and excited for him. He's my superstar. I'm his princess.

People think we have a 'thing' but I don't really care what people think.  We make asses of ourselves posting here and there to each other for all the world to see. He says, 'You're my favorite,'. I say, 'I better be!' and he says, 'There's no competition.'   There's a lot of chatter about me because when I talk, chat or write, whether it's about myself or others, my heart is open wide and what you see is what you get with me. I don't have a separate internet persona. I am as true as the words I write. And I can count on Spooky to be truthful to me even if it hurts, because I know in my heart, as flawed as he might think he is, he too is true and honest. I know where I stand with him.

Tonight I shared something very painful with him that only one other person knows and that person who I also care for deeply is choosing to remain incommunicado which had been killing me and we discussed that too. That person to the best of my knowledge doesn't ask me about myself or read my blogs and probably doesn't even know that a poem was written for him, poems that are becoming, I see, the newest incarnations of the Love Letters of Doom, jinxes all, yet still I write them, and as Spooky calls it, I am indeed a fickle woman and I asked Spooky if that person could redeem himself and he said,  'In reality no, but in your eyes, if he tries his very fucking best just because you hold less of a grudge than Karma does,' and it dawned on me that he knew me better than I gave him credit for. I didn't know that he knew how I could and have forgiven so much and let so much slide but he'd been listening and observing the whole time, patiently, ready to pick up the pieces, ready to hold me as best as he could from across an ocean.

Two out of three we have, and one day we may have the third, but you forgot one more; Gratitude. My cup runneth over.

Now write me a song.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Light-Years to Mars

I'm sorry that I'm not a puzzle
Or a cryptic and strange secret code
I guess that I made it too easy
When I offered warmth when you liked cold

It's true I'm not so formulaic
And don't know a lot about clues
I'm too busy feeling what's inside
To recall any absolute truths

You probably could say I'm a fool
For Believing and Wishing on stars
I guess there's a lot more to distance
Than packing for light-years to Mars

I never thought I had the answers
But I figured I'd wing it and try
I honestly didn't expect that I
Wasn't worth five minutes of your precious time

Well here I go burning more bridges
But it's my talent or so I've been told
Don't apologize, there's nothing to forgive, mea culpa
It's just my heart is a wide open road.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Uppity Fatty

I laugh when I hear 'conventionally attractive' and 'normal' because it's like trying to nail jello to a wall when you ask someone to define what those terms mean. Recently I heard a woman who weighs over 350 lbs. proclaim she has 'some thin privilege' because of her height (she's amazonian) and her activity level the description of which left me exhausted. How do we come up with these terms and why do we continue to use them since they seem to change direction with the wind?

When I was a kid and used to read Mad Magazine, one of my favorite recurring sections was the inside back page where one had to fold twice to get point 'A' to meet point 'B' and it would give a visual representation of whatever the joke was. In one most relative to my point, was how the standards of beauty change over time, so the original image was of a woman who was pleasant looking with regular features, bright smile, eyes and shiny hair and once folded, the visage now showed a person with a gaunt face covered in tattoos, piercings, impressively garish scars and the like with the heading, The Future Face of Beauty. The sad and scary thing is that face does in many eyes represent the face of beauty to many people and the pleasant original face is now often considered boring, bland and passe'.It's not so dismaying that the former is embraced but that the latter has been discarded and found lacking.

I suppose I could come up with a pie chart and some statistical trends that occur (and interestingly ebb and flow) to support my thoughts but that's what your fingers and Google search is for so go knock yourself out. If you want facts or factoids or things that are baloney but are stated with such emphasis and authority that they must be true, then Wikipedia is the one for you because as you already may have guessed:

Everything you read on the internet is true ~ Thomas Jefferson

At this point I probably have to also add my own disclaimers. I have 'beauty privilege' 'mouthy broad privilege' and  'are you gonna eat that cake or what privilege' because I get away with a lot that being a fat person, by conventional standards, I shouldn't be. Some say it's my charm. Some say it's my chutzpah. I'd like to think that nobody puts this baby into a corner because there isn't a corner big enough for this baby.

One thing I don't lack is self-esteem. Due to a recent cover of Village Voice profiling a couple (among others--SHOUT OUT TO MY MY GIRL 'CHARLOTTE'), one of whom was an FA (Fat Admirer or Guy Who Likes Fat Chicks) and the other, a stunning fat webmodel, both of whom I sorta kinda know in an interwebzy way, we (fatties and the ones who love us) are getting a lot of attention both from fellow fatties joining in (MY PEOPLE!) to haters admonishing that we're all gonna die of teh dethfatz. We tend to laugh at the doomsayers who also like to throw out the 'fat girls are easy' line---Every guy who never got me only wishes this, the 'fat girls will go out with anyone because there's less of a pool to choose from'--which is why Spouse has to beat them off with a baseball bat when they approach me IN FRONT OF HIM, and 'Fat people are lazy slobs who've given up on life' which um....there isn't enough bandwidth to address this one.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to like my fat. But I'm a human being same as you and you're no better than me. Oh and you over there, you little chubster who says, 'Well, at least I'm not THAT fat or I can always pull back'--you're no better either. You're one of us. One of us. One of us. You're making it worse for everyone and everyone includes you, I promise you it will come back and bite you in the ass.

And while you can cowardly hide behind the anonymity of the internet, and try to shame me because not only am I not ashamed but also have the audacity to be arrogant and say, 'No, you don't get it. I wouldn't fuck YOU.' you might want to do two things. First, look in the mirror. Then think about what you say when you're out in public spouting your shit and pseudo facts because there are a lot more of me than there are of you. We're not only getting fatter. We're multiplying and we're not going away.