Category: Megalomania

I’m Having a Bit of an Existential Episode

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

ThinkingI said last week on my Facebook page that there wasn’t a blog post on Thursday because I was having an existential crisis. That was both true and misleading (that’s a Clue reference, just to be clear). I am having an existential episode for sure, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a crisis. Yet.

Right now I’m feeling deeply unsatisfied with the state of my existence and I’m not exactly sure how to rectify it. Mostly it has to do with my work-life. I feel like there are choices to be made, decisions to be decided, when it comes to my writing career. Mostly, I’m questioning on whether or not to continue it.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking why didn’t I label this as I writing post. Because this sort of thing leaks into the rest of my life as well (and I’ll probably do a writing post about it later). Answer this question: What would I do if I didn’t write?

-First of all, I’d probably still write because that’s what I like to do. I like to tell stories even if my ability to do so is questionable. I just wouldn’t be trying to do it for a living.

-The status of this blog would be up in the air. The big motivation for having it was to establish it as a sort of writing home base. Take that away, and it’s basically nothing more than a ramble about random life thoughts and my favorite old TV shows.

-I’d have to figure out what I want to do with my life. If I’m not going to be a writer, then what am I going to be? If I throw in this towel, then what’s Plan B (or by this point in my life more like plan K)? Am I calling my attempt to make my own life the way I want it a failure? Do I go get a soul sucking job that I’ll hate but will pay the bills and make me the adult everyone says I should be and just plain exist until my heart finally gives out from boredom?

That sounds both unappetizing and fucking scary.

The other day I said on Twitter that some days I feel like I should have just pursued a career in marine biology or meteorology like I wanted to and called it good. Oh sure, I got ribbed to hell and back for saying that I wanted to do those things and I didn’t exactly get any overwhelming support for those possible career choices, but the to be fair, the same can be said for writing. And if I did become a marine biologist or meteorologist, I’d have that coveted grown-up job and I wouldn’t be having an existential incident right now.

Or would I?

Maybe I would have hit this point in my life no matter what I was doing and be forced to question if I still wanted to do it. Maybe no matter what I’d hit the September of my 34th year and be unsatisfied and feel the need to sit down and try to figure out why and what I needed to do to fix it.

Or maybe I wouldn’t.

Maybe I would have had a much more satisfying life studying science and this would never be a problem.

I’ll never know.

I can only go by what’s going on right now in this life which has resulted from the choices I did make.

And right now I need to make another choice.

I didn’t study for this quiz.

Sew, It’s a Mini Dress

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment
The mini dress as first pieced together.
The mini dress as first pieced together.

I had two button down shirts that I bought ages ago but never wore because I hated the sleeves on them. Hey, plus size clothing designers/manufacturers, some of us fat girls have fat arms, too. I know! Shocker! Anyway, I shoved them away in my “fabrics and projects bin” with the idea that I would make something out of them. They’ve been in there for several years and I’ve periodically pulled them out and messed with them whenever an idea hit me. I was stuck on the idea of turning them into a skirt, but I just couldn’t get that to work out. What mostly held me back was how to work the waist.

And then finally the glowing spark of epiphany hit me.

I’d make a shift dress out of them!

I love the shift dress style. It’s very ’60s and I love clothing from that decade (’70s, too, particularly boho stuff). I also decided to go bold and make it a mini dress. I’ve recently become very enamored by the concept of mini dresses, something I thought I shouldn’t wear because I’m fat and have fat legs and such. But now that I’m wearing tights with a lot of my dresses, my fat legs aren’t such an eyesore anymore. I thought this would be a good chance to give a mini dress a try.

When I first started piecing this dress together, I already knew that I’d have one problem with the set up: the shirt I used on the bottom would have to be split up both sides and fabric added so that it would fit my hips. And since I was using the red gingham on the bottom, well, that was going to be interesting. Soon I also realized that I was going to be cutting mini dress really close if I wanted the dress to look the way I wanted to. I had limited fabric I could comfortably work with. There was also the problem with the fabric itself. It’s a crinkly sort of thing that frays pretty easily. I decided the best thing I could do was go for a deconstructed look, which solved the fraying, patching (because the shirts acquired a couple of holes), and pattern matching problems, and pray that the dress would be long enough in the end, knowing I could add fabric to the bottom if I really needed to (but really didn’t want to).

I started by cutting off those hated sleeves from the red shirt and then cutting the bottom of it off. I cut the top off of the gingham print shirt, slit it along the seams up the sides, and pinned the two pieces to the bottom of the now cropped red top. I tried it on to get a feel of how much fabric I’d need for the new sides and the length was pretty shockingly short. This was the moment I doubted that it would work. And so, instead of giving up or trying to work it as something else, I said, “fuck it”, and whip stitched the new top and bottom together to see what would happen.

The length got better.

I sewed in the new sides, which basically completed the overall form of the dress. And it worked! It’s really short as a mini dress should be, but I was pleased to realize that I didn’t HAVE to add any fabric to keep my dignity. If I find that it rides up too much, I can always weight the fabric later.

Featuring my newly acquired button skills!
Featuring my newly acquired button skills!

After I reinforced the stitching between the two former shirts and patched up the holes (gingham on red, red on gingham), I turned my attention to the buttons. In cutting apart the shirts and sewing them back together, there was a gap where a button should be. I debated about this because I had never added a button hole to anything before. I thought maybe I’d just sew that gap together and disguise it with a bow or something, but in the end, I decided to go for broke and try a button hole. If it didn’t work out, I could still cover up my mistake.

I Googled how to do it, ended up learning a new stitch to do it, and, TA DA! I did it! I’m pretty proud of that bit.

And I’m pretty pleased with how the dress turned out.

Oh, and just as a reminder, I can’t work a sewing machine. This was all done by hand.

Let Me Meditate on That

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

sunWhen I first started doing yoga about ten years ago, I sort of snubbed the spiritual/mediation part of it. It felt odd for me to include it since my whole purpose was to use yoga for exercise, not enlightenment. Let me just get my stretch and strength on. I don’t need to appeal to a higher consciousness to make it count.

Things like that, thoughts like that, have a way of coming back to bite me in the ass. Because here I am, ten years later, meditating.

Of course, like yoga, I’m using it more for health purposes rather than enlightenment.

Meditation, taking that brief timeout to rest the brain, has proven to reduce stress levels and that is an area of my world that I’ve always needed help with. I have a tendency to work and stew and think and worry and work some more and never give myself a break. This summer, I decided to teach myself to give myself that break I need.

And I’d like to say that my anecdotal evidence supports the science I’ve seen. I feel much better mentally and my stress levels are quite a bit lower. I’m happier. It’s a nice, bright feeling. I rather like it.

So, if you’d like to give meditating a try, here’s how I do it.

First of all, I don’t think of nothing. A lot of meditating folks will tell you to clear your mind and not think of anything and that’s just an invitation to thinking about something and that’s frustrating when you’re trying so very hard not to think of anything. Total opposite effect that meditating is supposed to have.

If I want to clear my mind as much as possible and not think of anything then I focus on thinking about one thing. The easiest thing to do is just count breaths. Focus solely on your breathing (deep breaths in and out through the nose) and the numbers. That way you’re focused, but not really thinking. You know what I mean? I give myself a set number of breaths that I’m supposed to hit and when I get to that number, I can be done. Just doing even a small number that way relaxes me.

I’ve also used my mediation time to focus on other thoughts. For example, when I meditate in corpse pose (lying on your back, arms out a little, palms up, legs and feet relaxed, eyes closed) I picture myself breathing in happiness and breathing out unhappiness. It sounds stupid, but it’s fun, it’s relaxing, it’s positive, and it keeps my mind from wandering all over hell and thinking stressful thoughts. I end up feeling happier when I’m done because, well, I’ve been breathing in happiness, haven’t I? Yeah.

When I meditate sitting up, I’ll focus on other positive, productive thoughts, a short phrase that I might repeat to myself or a picture I’ll create in my head and concentrate on, but it’ll just be one thing for the entire period.

That sort of focus calms my mind and reduces my stress levels. It’s calming but for me it’s also productive because I’m focusing on something (like breathing in happiness). I’m doing as much as relaxing.

Second of all, meditating takes practice. Your brain needs to be conditioned to accept your quiet time. I try to meditate about the same time every day. That sort of habit helps. Some days I’m very focused and some days, my brain is like a monkey on meth and cannot be contained. I still do it on those days and get what I can from it. Even a little is better than nothing. But the more I do it, the better I get at it.

Which is really good for my stress levels.

Board Quotes

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

quotesI have two small white boards hanging on my closet door. One of them has my two week schedule, bill due dates, and my shopping list. The other used to have a writing To Do list, but I moved all of that business to Evernote. Afterwards, I wondered what to do with it now that it was all empty. I like my things to be useful.

I ended up turning it into a quote board. It all started quite innocently. I wrote my mantra “Let’s Be Brave” on the bottom of it. (For the “Let’s Be Brave” story, click here.) It’s a visual reminder of how I’m supposed to be running my railroad.

The second quote that went up came across my Twitter feed and was attributed to Guillermo del Toro (I’m not sure if he actually said it, I can only relay the circumstances in which I found it; I hope he did, though).

“Success is fucking up on your own terms.”

I love this. I love this so much. It serves as a constant reminder that if I’m going to do this thing called life, the only way I’ll ever be able to call myself a success is if I’m doing what I want to do. Even if I fail at it, it’s still a success because it’s the path I wanted to walk.

Then I added two quotes that I’ve been carrying with me in some fashion since I was about 17. They’re pinned to the cork board over the computer desk in the kitchen and I realized that I needed to bring them into my bedroom work space as well, especially since I don’t work in the kitchen work space all that often anymore.

“The power is inside you. Nobody can give it to you. Nobody can take it away. Now go play the harp.” Michael Nesmith said this on an episode of The Monkees (I’ve talked about it before) and even though it might have been scripted, I like to think that he put a  little something into it. A reminder that I am the master of my command here on the big Earth ship.

And from his fellow Monkee, Peter Tork: “Scary to cope, to have to deal, but sometimes it works out, gets real. Don’t quit just before the miracle.” Life is rough, kids, but you have to keep going. There’s always something just waiting to be great.

Finally, the last quote I added to the board came from Maya Angelou. It was added shortly after she passed away. The woman was so gifted with words and feelings that it’s a shame that I didn’t have this up on my board eons ago.

“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”

Something I need to be reminded of daily, particularly when I’m being questioned about the not-so-conventional life I’ve decided to lead. I don’t have to prove my worth to anyone. I have every right to exist as I am, doing what I’m doing right now.

I look at the board every day, to be inspired and to be reminded.

I think it’s the best use that white board could have had.

 

Edit: After this post was initially written, but before it was posted for the world to read, I added another quote to my board, once again because of a death, this one untimely as all hell. Another quote to remind me that I’m doing things right.

“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” ~Robin Williams

Now I’m Just a Slacker with Only Two Day Jobs

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

slackerYou read that right, kids. I quit working one of my day jobs. I am no longer kid-minding.

During my semi-vacation from teaching home school, I was asked to consider taking on more subjects. So I considered it. I considered it and I considered it. It wasn’t really the actual teaching that was in question, though. A big part of my considering was trying to figure out how to schedule the additional subjects into my work week. If I wanted to keep working all three jobs (as well as the little online plus jobs I do for a few bucks throughout the week), then I’d have to cut into a significant portion of my writing time.

Writing is my career. The day jobs just pay the bills so I can pursue that career. In other words, writing is the priority.

I chose to quit kid-minding and do more home schooling.

There are a few motivations for this.

One, I’ll be teaching science in addition to taking over the reading assignments (I already teach English/grammar and Spanish). I may possibly take over math later on. It’s more lesson planning, but I’ll get to do science, which I love. Plus, I get to make the children read the books I had to read when I was in school. Revenge really is some kind of sweet. Plus doing the reading projects with the kids may prove beneficial for my own writing.

Two, one less job means less stress. Not that kid-minding was hard. The boy, for the most part, was well-behaved (at least with me) and his randomness was quite entertaining. But that three-job schedule could be a bitch to juggle sometimes and to be honest, I was pretty burnt out on it. It’s not fun to be working all the time, even for a workaholic like me. Yes, working one less job means less money, but the bills still get paid, I get a little bit more time for writing, and I’m a little less frazzled thinking about running from one job to the next while trying to squeeze in the household obligations and my own writing deadlines.

Three, this move sharpens my focus on my writing career. It’s time that I stepped it up. Now if I want to make more money, I either need to go back to working three jobs (or worse, get a “real” job) or I need to sell more books. Which would I rather do? Consider this the kick in the ass I’ve long needed.

So, there you go. My reasons for being a slacker and only working two jobs. Not that I need to justify my slackerdom to anyone, but sometimes people like to know the why’s and what for’s of my life as they are generally interested in my existence.

I know. It’s weird.

The Uneven Body Quirk

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Aloha!Nobody is perfect and no body is perfect, either. Definitely not mine. I’ve been rather forward with all of my short comings.

Today, I want to point out a very specific body quirk that never fails to baffle and amuse me.

It’s a reasonably known fact that when it comes to body symmetry, things can be slightly uneven. Typically, the dominate side is slightly bigger simply because it gets worked more. Though, my friend Haley told me that while most women have one boob bigger than the other, it’s usually the left boob that’s bigger regardless of the dominant side. She brought it up because she wondered if that were true for me, since I had breast reduction surgery. It turns out, my left boob was bigger both before AND after surgery, though  the size difference after surgery is much less notable.

But I digress a little (you people know so much about my boobs…).

An example of my body symmetry being off with my dominant side, in my case the right side, being bigger can be seen in my calves. My right calf is bigger than my left, though it’s not immediately noticeable. Lots of people have body symmetry like this. It exists, but you only really notice it if you look.

This is not true for my upper arms.

Of all of the body parts I have available to cause me insecurity, my upper arms are the part I have picked to worry the most. I started doing certain weight lifting exercises to strengthen, tone, and shrink my upper arms, and they’ve been working! But one little thing remains.

My right arm is significantly bigger than my left. Like immediately noticeable, ridiculously bigger.

arm fat

This should give you a decent idea of the size difference, but you can really tell when I spread my bat wings (which I don’t have a picture of). It’s a thing of unsymmetrical awe.

I have no idea if I keep doing these exercises if I can get my right arm to shrink down closer to the size of my left, but it certainly won’t hurt anything to try. And if it never happens, if my arms remain lopsided forever, well, I can live with that, too.

I’ll use it as a conversation piece.

PSA: Stop Saying “Being Fat Isn’t Healthy”

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

stopThis is going to be short because I want to be able to use it as a reference for people every time they make this comment. I want to be able to link to it and call it all good.

Three reasons for you to stop saying “Being fat isn’t healthy.”

1. You can’t tell the state of someone’s health by looking at them. If you could, then doctors wouldn’t need to go to school for so many years because anyone could be diagnosed with a glance (which is, unfortunately, how many doctors do diagnose fat patients). And if all it took to be healthy was to be thin, then Mary Tyler Moore wouldn’t have diabetes, Weight Watchers would be a cure-all, and there’d be no tragic articles about people who did all the right health things and still got cancer.

2. The lack of affordable healthcare in this country, the fact that healthcare is considered a privilege, the fact that healthcare is a for-profit business has contributed more to the state of my and many other’s health than weight ever will.

3. NO ONE IS OBLIGATED TO BE HEALTHY ANYWAY. For real. Fuck off.

So the next time you feel the urge to come at a fatty with the pseudo-concern blather of “being fat isn’t healthy” refer back to this list.

Particularly the last two words of number three.

I Wish I Could Do My Life Like My Hair

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Dark HairI got my hair cut and colored last week. No big thing. I try to go in every six weeks because by then my hair is getting shaggy and the color has faded from red to a copper. This last time, though, my stylist Tammy asked if we could do something different with the color.

She put in the red lowlights like always, but wanted to do something other than leaving the coppery remnants from the previous colorings. She asked my permission and I said sure. I’m always game to do something different with my hair.

Tammy mixed up the color, but didn’t tell me what it was. I didn’t ask. I just let it ride.

I was a little surprised when she washed it all out and it ended up being so dark, but I like it. I think it looks good. I can’t wait to see what happens when the color starts to fade.

I have this tendency to be quite cavalier with my hair. When I went from long to shoulder length in my late 20’s, I told the stylist to do whatever she wanted, just cut it off. Really. When I decided to get the pixie cut, I basically quit coming up with reasons not to and just said, “fuck it”. Every time I’ve colored my hair, it’s been with the idea of “let’s see what happens”. I’ve done it all with a spirit of adventure and an understanding that I could deal with the fallout later if I didn’t like it.

I just wish I could be so free-spirited in the rest of my life. Most of my decisions are made based on taking very little risk. It’s all about being practical and mature, very security-conscious. I’ve always been a rather conservative risk-taker in my life, but there have been times, most notably in my early 20’s, when I was just like, “Hey, whatever. Let’s ride. I’ll deal with any consequences later. I want to enjoy what’s going right now and see how far it can go.” And I’ve paid for it. And in ways I’m still paying for it.

But I’m also paying a heavier price for being so cautious, I think. It’s sort of puts a cramp in my life, living responsibilities first, always. It’s hard to have a good time being so hung up on being safe. I can’t just say “let it ride” anymore because I’m always too busy thinking about the next thing. Part of it has to do with the instability of my income and my overwhelming need to pay the bills. But part of it is because I’ve become very complacent in my 30’s and I don’t want to bust out with something rad because it might mess up my sleep schedule.

And that’s a drag.

I need to live my life more like I do my hair.

At least, maybe, a little bit.

Picture: Fat Girl in a Two-Piece

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Fat girl bikiniWhen I posted about my fat girl two-piece swimwear a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty torn on the idea of actually posting a picture of me wearing it on the interwebs. After all, this is the shit memes are made of. “A fat girl in a bikini? Let me caption this! LOL!”

Also, I am by no means popular, but this sort of thing is a magnet for assholes. “Here! Allow me to comment negatively on your body for no other reason than I like to make other people feel shitty as a means of a controlling them!” For real, that’s what you’re doing. Even if you do it nicely under the guise of being “real” or “truthful” or “helpful”, in the end you’re just propagating stereotypes and garbage knowledge because to allow this sort of thing to exist without comment would go against society’s grain and that would make you feel oogy.

But I said, “fuck it”, and posted it on Twitter and Facebook. And now here.

Isn’t it funny how a picture can bring out this sort of thing? Not just the insensitivity and the bashing, but the discussion of the social implications of me, a fat girl, a woman in general, posting a picture of myself in a swimsuit.

When I first decided to change my Facebook and Twitter profile pictures and use this image, I thought I should crop it to reduce the amount of skin showing. I didn’t want to make certain relatives and friends uncomfortable on Facebook and I didn’t want to appear as unprofessional on Twitter since I do hock my cheesy wares over there from time to time.

Isn’t that funny?

I worried about making people who are supposed to love me for who and what I am uncomfortable by putting up a picture of who and what I am.  Now that’s just stupid. First of all, that picture shouldn’t change their feelings. Second of all, I already make many of them uncomfortable because of who and what I am without displaying any fat rolls. The picture is of no consequence.

I worried about appearing unprofessional on Twitter because I have this thing about being respected and laws knows that a woman can’t be respected if she is at all comfortable with her body and displays it in any way she sees fit. By the power vested in my boobs, I’m already starting way down the respect ladder. And if I show them off in any way, knock me down a few rungs more. Ain’t that some bullshit?

It’s summer. My Twitter bio says I’m the Lincoln Land Cleavage Queen three years running (thanks for that, Carl). Why can’t I be professional AND have a profile picture displaying both of these facts? I think I can and I did. The picture won’t change what I tweet and won’t change the fact that I have always and will always demand the respect I think I’m entitled (I’ve got a real hang-up with it, kids, enough to warrant its own post).

Now, let’s take a look at the picture itself. Pretty nice, huh? Love the hat. The pose and the angle doesn’t really show off the full effect of my 240 pounds. The way I’m angled so you can’t see how wide my hips and shoulders are, the way the swimsuit sits so the fat rolls are subdued, the fact that my arms and legs are mostly out of the picture, it all sort of lies. I mean I do carry my weight somewhat well, but this angle makes me look better. This actually wasn’t my intention. My roommate Carrie said I looked like I belonged on the Riviera, so I posed as such.

From this angle, you also can’t see my bad skin, as it’s mostly on my right side and my back. The height of the bikini bottoms hides the stretchmarks on my upper belly. The bikini top hides the worst of my boob stretchmarks, but if you look sharp there, on the left side just above where that strap comes around my ribs, you can see one of my surgery scars. Snazzy, huh?

When I look at this picture, you know what I focus on? How great my rack looks in the bikini top. Seriously. The girls look fabulous.

You know what bothers me the most when I look at this picture? I’m not wearing lipstick. I wish I was sporting my berry color just to brighten up my face and give myself a little more glamour. Also, I wish I’d picked a different color nail polish. My pink or coral or blue would have been better.

Yeah, I’m  pretty vain like that.

Fat Girl in a Two-Piece

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Two-pieceIt was a half-price sale that got my attention. I like the sound of things being half-price. It sounds like me spending money on things I wouldn’t ordinarily buy.

This half-price sale?

Swimwear.

I haven’t owned a bathing suit since high school. I think the last time I wore one was my freshman year during a band trip to Virginia Beach. At least that’s the last time I remember wearing one. After that, my swimwear was usually an old t-shirt and an old pair of shorts. This was mostly because I didn’t really go swimming enough to justify buying a new swimsuit. It was also because after my freshman year, my chest grew to such a size that finding a bathing suit that fit was incredibly difficult and even if I did find one, I wouldn’t want to be seen in it.

So here were are about twenty years later and I’m faced with a half-price sale on swimwear and I think to myself, “Man, I should really buy a swimsuit. I haven’t had one in years and Mom has a pool and this is just fate, really. I shouldn’t fight it.”

I looked through the offerings of fat girl one-pieces and wasn’t exactly thrilled with them. “Control panel” is a phrase I regard with some suspicion because I interpret it as “SQUISH!” and that doesn’t thrill me. All of the one-piece suits had this feature and it bummed me out because I didn’t want to smoosh my fat and internal organs just to possibly not offend some delicate snowflake that might faint at the glimpse of my pudge.

I thought I was out of luck, and then I thought, “Why can’t I just get a two-piece?”

Indeed, why couldn’t I? Sure, I’d been told by society at large, not to mention people I converse with directly under the guise of being friends and family, that fat girls weren’t allowed to wear two-piece bathing suits, that actually fat girls shouldn’t wear swimsuits at all, but if you insist, cover as much fat and skin as you can. But wouldn’t a two-piece be the answer to my “control panel” problems?

It would.

It would also be cheaper.

See, buying separates meant that I could buy the bottoms from the fat lady department and the tops from the non-fat lady department (thank you, breast reduction) and it’d be cheaper than two fat lady separates or a fat lady one-piece. Plus, more variety.

In looking through my choices of tankinis, another thought occurred to me.

“Why can’t I get a proper  two-piece and just let my fat hang out?”

Again, the only thing I could come up with was society not wanting to see my rolls. But they wouldn’t. I’d be in my mom’s backyard. Only, she, my nieces, my roommate, and maybe my stepdad would see my rolls. And they’ve already seen them. Besides, the cottage cheese would already be on display in the dairy section that is my thighs, so who cares about some rolls in the bakery? Really, what’s the big whooop?

In the end, I got what you see in the picture. A pair of bottoms, a tankini, and a halter style top. I was pretty excited about getting them, more excited that they fit, and positively thrilled at the fact that I think I look pretty damn spiffy in both top styles. Yes, even the one with my fat belly exposed.

Twenty years ago, when I was actually much thinner, I NEVER would have worn a bikini. I wouldn’t have done it seven years ago after I’d lost forty pounds. But today, at age 34 and weighing around 240 pounds, I now own the first two-piece swimsuit I’ve had since I was probably a toddler and I’ll rock it like a badass.

My fat rolls thank me for the freedom.