Author: Kiki Writes

Rumored to be a writer. Never hip. Land of Lincoln Cleavage Queen three years running.

What I Mean When I Say I’m Not Pretty

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I know that there are many who would not find me saying I’m not pretty to be a controversial statement. They will be more than happy to tell me that not only am I not pretty, but I’m also unattractive, ugly, and downright disgusting. And to them I say…takes one to know one.

However, this is a controversial statement for some folks, typically those who know me, like me, love me, are in some way fond of me, or have some kind of fetish.

I posted this picture of me on Instagram in honor of the 25th anniversary of me graduating high school. It’s the only diploma I have and we’re all going to be happy with that. Also this is one of my favorite pictures of myself ever because I believe it truly captures my essence. The caption I posted with the photo said, “I’ve never been pretty, but I’ve always been vaguely annoyed.” This of course caused people to reassure me that I was and am, in fact, pretty.

Except I’m really not and never really have been.

Yes, I know that I’ve written about a couple of moments in my life when I was actually pretty and the unlikely event was caught on camera. But overall, in general, I’ve never been pretty.

Pretty means something else to me.

Pretty is something sweet and delicate. I’ve occasionally been sweet, but I’ve never been delicate. There is nothing delicate about me. Since I’ve been able to grow, I’ve been growing into a person who was not built to be picked up and thrown into a pool. I don’t just mean fat. Even if I never gained all of the rolls and cottage cheese, I’d still be too big to be delicate. My shoulders and hips are too broad for that.

And my facial features aren’t delicate, either. They aren’t cute. There’s nothing soft and sweet about them. They’re sharp. I’ve got a pointy witch nose and cheekbones (one blessing) and an interesting chin going on. Also the freckles I’ve got on my nose and cheeks are too plentiful and insistent to be called cute. Overall, it’s not a pretty facial configuration happening.

Pretty is also something that’s more inline with societal standards. To be pretty means that you meet those standards -at least in part- and I’ve never come close to hitting those marks for a sustainable period of time. Brief moments, sure. A significant stretch? Nope. Maybe my commitment issues also pertain to my looks.

That’s not to say that’s I’m not attractive. I don’t consider myself ugly (pipe down, peanut gallery). I think I’m quite fetching in the right light and at the right angles. Beauty is subjective no matter how much society wants to dictate the requirements. And while I never call myself beautiful (and there are people who’d trip over themselves to make sure I didn’t), I do possess (like most people) a certain kind of beauty.

But pretty? No. Pretty is for someone else who is not me.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Summer Slow Down

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

You may have noticed in May that my post-a-week didn’t happen. Or you may not have. You may have just been thanking whatever deity you believe in for the reprieve.

The lack of posting was due to a combination of deadlines and health issues. Though the deadlines have been met, new ones have arisen and the health issues linger. As a result, priorities have shifted and blogging weekly can no longer be high on the list.

This does not mean I’m giving up blogging entirely. You couldn’t get so lucky. However, the weekly schedule is on hold. The new goal is at least one or two posts a month.

This new schedule will continue for the summer.

Hopefully by fall I’ll be back to blogging weekly again.

Until then…enjoy the slow down.

Objects in the Selfie Are Fatter Than They Appear

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure that I’ve written about this before in various forms, but it’s always worth repeating. Like the meme that I repost on Instagram periodically. It’s always good to remind folks about my reality because it’s not adequately reflected in my selfies.

There’s a reason for that and it extends somewhat beyond just trying to present my best self, though I am absolutely trying to do that with the angles and the lighting.

So, in case you’re new or you need to be reminded, I’m fat. Not low self-esteem fat, not Hollywood fat, actually fat. Midwestern fat. I ballpark my weight at about 250. 100%, Grade A Fat.

However, I don’t carry weight in my face. Even at my heaviest (which was nearly 270), my face looked a little rounder than usual, but that was it. My face has never reflected how heavy the rest of me is. I do not have a fat face. I’m also gifted with some nice shoulders and a relatively slender neck.

And what parts of me are showing when I’m taking selfies? That’s right. Pretty much the cleavage up.

Now I do have fat arms. We’re talking bat wings for days and nights. But with the right twist and the right angle, you don’t really notice the arms. Especially if there’s cleavage in play and the stretchmarks/scars are hidden. Then you don’t even notice my face.

Likewise, when I’ve been taking pictures of my tights and/or fishnets, I do so with my legs propped up on my dresser. I do this because it’s a better lighting angle and you get a better view of my tights and/or fishnets. However, in doing this, it makes my legs look thinner than they actually are. It’s just the result of gravity pulling on my leg fat in a pleasing way rather than yanking on the bulk the way it does when I’m standing, or my thighs just squishing out to the county lines when I sit down.

It’s not a deliberate trick to make myself look thinner. It’s a consequence of the deliberate choice I make of how I show off my tights/fishnets.

What I need is a full-length mirror (and a place to put said mirror). Then I could show off all of my cute tights and fishnets and outfits and my fat as well. Because I don’t like the feeling I sometimes get that I’m hiding how fat I really am. No one has ever said anything to insinuate that I was trying to work any deception, but when I get comments (especially from het dudes) about how good I look, I feel like they’re not taking into account that -as I’ve repeatedly stated and sometimes provided photographic evidence of- there’s a whole lot more of me to look at that isn’t in the picture they’re looking at. See how many compliments they give me when the can see the totality of me.

And I’m not saying that I wouldn’t present my fat in its best light and angles. Of course I would. I’m vain.

But then I’d at least be able to show not tell when reminding folks I’m fat.

In Defense of Poetry

~ Kiki Writes ~ 6 Comments

Yes, I know. National Poetry Month is over and you’ve had all of my terrible poetry you can handle. That’s fair. But this isn’t about my poetry, nor will I subject you to any more of it (at least not until next April). This is about poetry in general and how I think that for the general public, it doesn’t get a fair evaluation.

Obviously, there’s no harm if you don’t like poetry. It’s just that I don’t think people get a chance to like poetry.

Think about it. When are most people introduced to poetry? In school. Grade school, junior high, high school. And in that context, the agenda behind the introduction is to teach us the different kinds of poems and the various kinds of poetic devices, and the poetry we consume in the classroom is all for the purpose of learning these things. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with learning the parts of the body that you’re looking at. Even if you never use that knowledge beyond the classroom, you’re still developing critical thinking skills and developing those important neural pathways that you will (hopefully) use later.

But at no point are you taught to experience and enjoy poetry (I could make this same argument about literature and reading for enjoyment). Instead, you’re trying to parse the implied meanings of a poet whose been dead for a hundred years for a grade. You’re not asked to understand what that poem means to you or explain how it makes you feel or how you experience. Yes, I’m coming from a very “I don’t know art, but I know what I like” kind of place.

Here’s kind of what I mean.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my honors English class was studying poetry and one of our assignments was to submit a poem to a poetry/art contest. So this was for a grade as well as for glory. The contest had a theme, I can’t remember exactly what it was. Something about robots taking people’s jobs or some such shit. Anyway, when I submitted the first draft of my poem, my teacher returned it with the critique that it didn’t have enough poetic devices.

Even as a 15 year old know-nothing, I thought to myself, “That’s not how poetry works.” Emily Dickinson never looked at one of her poems and said, “Needs more devices” like she was spiking a punch. And I’m not comparing myself to Emily Dickinson at all. It’s well established that she was brilliant and I’m terrible. I’m just saying that I don’t think that’s the thought process behind crafting a poem. I would think there’s more focus of the utilization of the poetic devices to help convey the meaning and feeling of the poem, not the number of devices used. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe that’s why the greats are so great. They were carefully measuring the poetic devices that they put into their poems.

In my case, I capitalized the last line of the poem to satisfy my teacher’s poetic devices requirement and ended up winning second in both county and state.

Was it that capitalized line that pushed me onto the victory podium? Did the judges look at my poem and count the number of devices and decided I’d inserted a sufficient number of them to be worthy of a prize? I have no idea and I’ll never know. I don’t think I’ve capitalized an entire line in a poem since then, though. Maybe that’s why I’ve never won anything else.

I’ve always liked writing poetry even if I’m not very good at it and don’t use enough devices, but I wasn’t always fond of reading it. I liked some of it, but it seemed like the poetry I was supposed to read and like (much like the literature I was supposed to read and like) wasn’t my cup of tea and I struggled to get into it. I never gave up on reading it, but it took me a long time to finally find my groove. As it turns out, I like free verse best. It speaks to me, as it were. It also seems that I like current poets rather than poets of the past. José Olivarez, Britteney Black Rose Kapri, E’Mon Lauren, Aja Monet, and Kevin Coval are a few of the poets I’ve read recently and I dug their work.

Did I notice their use of poetic devices? Well, as a terrible poem writer always looking to learn how to be less terrible, yeah. I made note of things that they did that caught my attention. But mostly I read for the experience. Because for me, poetry is an experience. Is it supposed to be? I don’t know. That’s just how I prefer to process it. I just absorb the piece, the feeling, the emotion, the meaning and message, intentional and interpreted. I find the most enjoyment in poetry by letting the poem speak for itself.

What I’m saying is that I wasn’t ruined by learning the ins and outs of poetry, but I had to learn for myself how to enjoy it. I was never given that option when I was reading and writing for a grade. I guess you can’t score a good time. Which is a damn shame. Reading for enjoyment is a life skill.

And if after reading all of this you think you still wouldn’t or don’t like poetry, read Shel Silverstein.

If you still don’t like poetry after Where the Sidewalk Ends or A Light in the Attic, then yeah, you don’t like poetry.

The end.

Poem–“My Soul’s Meat Vehicle”

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Hang in there. National Poetry Month and the terrible poetry is almost over. Just one more week after this.

My Soul’s Meat Vehicle

Sometimes I think I’m just stardust
With delusions of grandeur
Living a whole life
That I made no plan for

That I’m nothing more than mediocre
A dull, used old soul
Inhabiting a blob of skin
That does little to keep out the cold

Most times, though, I feel rather bold
And insist on my space
My spirit roars into the room
Scattering folks with haste

It’s true, I am not to everyone’s taste
The gallons I get to the mile
How I customized my ride
They can’t dig my outward style

Just like them, I here for a while
Stardust looking for a miracle
Cruising along with the top down
In my soul’s meat vehicle

Poem–“John’s Last Phone Booth”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

National Poetry Month continues and so does the terrible poetry.

John’s Last Phone Booth

I’d like to get lost
for a little while
look for the last
phone booth

put in some change
dial a number
and talk to no one
in particular

I’d like to get lost
for a little while
walk cracked roads
to nowhere

see no faces
that I know
or no faces
at all

I’d like to get lost
for a little while
lose myself once
or twice

find my way
back again
the same but
someone else

Poem–“Art”

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

April is National Poetry Month and in honor of that, instead of a weekly blog post, you’ll be subjected to a weekly poem. Will they be good? No. Like my tiny terribly art, I do this for my own enjoyment. Being good has nothing to do with it.

Even if I did win second place in a state poetry contest my sophomore year of high school.

But I digress.

Gird your loins.

Art

Colorful and dark
I’ll bring the blues
and greens and pinks
and whites
I’ll always bring the white
the too bright washout
fade
the Browns and the Blacks
and the Yellows and the Reds
I’ll bring the beige
The purples we talk about
and the greys we don’t
The oranges we swallow
and the truths we won’t
I’ll bring the indigo, the violet
the night
the rainbow
I’ll bring the colors
smeared on the dark
A painting
A still life
unframed

Women Are People, Too

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

There is something fascinating about people who have an issue with inclusive language.

Their main argument is that inclusive language -phrases like “humans with a uterus” or “folks who menstruate” or “pregnant people”- erases women. These reproductive ideals have historically been linked with the concept of cis women and therefore that makes them somehow exclusive to them. To include non-binary and trans folks into that conversation somehow excludes women despite women also being people, folks, and humans.

Like I said, fascinating.

It’s fascinating because the fixation on a woman’s reproductive organs and the reduction of a woman’s entire identity to this biological function puts women into their own special category, exalted and oppressed and in dire need of protection, apparently. According to these people, only women can have a uterus; only women menstruate; only women give birth. Are there cis women who don’t have a uterus, menstruate, or give birth? Yes, but the insinuation is that they are somehow less of a woman because of that. The gatekeeping is intense and it’s damaging to those cis women these people purport to protect.

Why do you think Blanche Deveraux on The Golden Girls had a crisis over going through menopause and even said that she was less of a woman because she could no longer bear children? Why do you think women who struggle with infertility feel like failures? Because of the perpetuation of these bullshit requirements that insist that the only real women are biologically capable of bearing children. The underlying message, of course, is that a woman’s most important role -dare I say sole purpose- is to produce and raise the next generation and if you can’t do that (or don’t want to do that), then you’re failing as a woman.

I think, though, the real trouble these people have with inclusive language isn’t just that it includes non-cis women into this formerly cis-women-only conversation, it’s that it refers to all of them as people.

When the inclusive-language haters talk about people, they’re talking about men. Men are people. Women are not people. Women are women. Trans folks are not people. They’re trans. Non-binary folk are not people. They’re non-binary. Men are people. The rest are categories. And when these categories start using inclusive language like “folks who menstruate” or “humans who have a uterus” or “pregnant people”, it doesn’t just include anyone these things apply to, but it also excludes men. Men are people, but they are not these people. And that bothers some humans to such an extent that they feel the need to police language and defend the use of the word “woman” as they believe it’s going extinct.

But the truly fascinating thing is that the word “woman” isn’t going extinct. In fact, it’s growing in popularity and gaining meaning.

Probably because women are people, too.

I Must Art!

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I don’t now about your library, but the library that I work at has some really nifty programs, some of which are arts and/or crafts. We also have Grab and Go Kits, which are usually craft projects. As someone who has creative urges, these things appeal to me greatly. As such, I’ve been doing a lot more arts and crafts since I started working at the library.

When it comes to the Grab and Go Kits, those are usually one and done. I did my fall scene in a jar, my winter votive, my calming heart that you were supposed to embroider something sweet on, but I stitched FU, and I was good. I didn’t feel compelled to buy more supplies and make more of those things (though I do have enough leftover material to make another calming heart, so that’s probably going to happen eventually). However, there were two programs that captured my artistic heart.

Back in the summer of 2021, our wonderful program director Marie held a tiny art show. She created Grab and Go Kits with three colors of acrylic paint and either a 3×3 inch canvas or a package of model clay. Inside the kits were forms for people who wanted to participate in the art show to fill out and return with their art, which was put on display for a month in the old display case that used to house the creepy doll collection that had thankfully been retired not long before.

Since staff was allowed to participate, I was all in.

How could I resist making tiny, terrible art? I love making terrible art. I’ve been using water color pencils for a few years. Acrylic on canvas sounded like fun. I made my tiny, terrible beach scene and loved doing it. All of the art that patrons and staff did was pretty cool, but it wasn’t putting my art on display that gave me the rush. It was that act of arting that I loved. The creation process.

I ended up buying more tiny canvases and some new acrylics. The results were gifted to people for Grinchmas.

And then I bought more canvases. And some more new paints. And I have made more tiny, terrible art.

Recently, my coworker Rachel held a program about pressed flower art. I had to work, but Marie covered the desk for me and my partner in library crimes Trisha so we could attend the program long enough to learn how to make the pressed flower art and collect the supplies so we could do it at home.

I took my cuttings, rolled out my clay, pressed my flowers, painted it all once it dried, and then did some macrame hangers for it. I gifted the results to a friend.

And then ordered more clay. My latest batch of flower art is sitting on the floor of my room waiting to be painted and will ideally be done by the time you read this.

That’s the real trick of all of this. Because I love doing all these things so much, I’m more motivated to find time to do them. As much as I love to do creative things, I’m the kind of person that will put them off, telling myself I don’t have time because I should be doing all of these other things, and now it’s too late. You know. Being responsible. It’s a total drag.

Tiny, terrible art and pressed flower art have challenged that mindset. Why can’t I paint a cherry blossom tree on a Sunday night while watching a movie? Good news! I can!

This is has been a marvelous life change. I don’t have to save my arting for when I have time. I can totally do some macrame or paint some clay on a Wednesday night after work. I am allowed to take that time to indulge my creative urges.

Which is good.

Because sometimes I must art!