30 Things About Me

July 30, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those Twitter trending topics, like 50 things about me and 100 things about me, that clogs up my Twitter stream like an unfortunate accident on the log flume ride at Six Flags. And while I’m egotistical enough to want to share 30 things about myself, I’m conscientious enough not to cram it all on my Twitter timeline.

Besides, someone might miss one.

30 Things About Me

1. I still have my tonsils. Despite repeated bouts of strep throat and tonsillitis, I never had them out.

2. I can touch my tongue to my nose. It’s a family trait. My mom and my cousin can do it, too.

3. I broke my dad’s index finger pitching to him when I was a kid. I played little league fast pitch and Dad insisted that I pitch three or four times a week. When your kid can hit 60 on the gun and you don’t have a proper catchers mitt, you sometimes get your finger broken.

4. I also broke a window and put a few dents in the siding while pitching. Mom was surprisingly okay with the broken window, considering she was standing right next to it, doing the dishes, when I broke it.

5. I taught myself to write left-handed. I practice by writing things on my day planner with my left hand. Pretty soon, my writing will be just as legible left-handed as right-handed (in other words, not very).

6. I prefer things in three’s or multiples of three. I don’t know where or why this fascination started. I wear three rings, prefer to wear three bracelets, wear three earrings in each ear. I had three eyebrow rings at one point. I eat little things in multiples of three (example: I’ll eat nine crackers, three cookies, fifteen chips, etc.). It’s not a have-to, but it’s definitely a preference.

7. I wrote my first story at the age of six. I made it look like a book. I folded the paper in half, drew a picture on the cover, and wrote the story inside. The story didn’t get finished and the spelling wasn’t that great, though I’m pretty pleased at the number of big words I used. I still have it.

8. I gave serious consideration to being a meteorologist and a marine biologist when I was in junior high. I’m still fascinated by tornadoes and sharks (the two things I wanted to focus on in those careers). In high school, I also gave some consideration to pursuing acting.

9. I “majored” in English, sociology, and psychology the three times I went to community college.

10. I’m a natural shot. I was eleven the first time I ever shot a gun and I was scared to death. Once I realized that I hit eight out ten at seven yards, I wasn’t scared anymore. I’ve shot several different kinds of guns including an AR-15. My favorite gun to shoot is my dad’s Argentine Colt .45.

11. I fractured my ankle when I was seventeen. Despite having insurance, I refused to go to the hospital because I didn’t want to listen to my dad bitch about how much fixing it would cost. I wrapped it up and gimped around on it for the rest of the summer, including working at my cousin’s daycare.

12. I’m terrible at remembering anniversaries. Not just romantic ones (one boyfriend had to remind me of our anniversary date because I could never remember it), but all of them. When I started a job, when I quit smoking, when I joined Twitter, when I joined Livejournal, how long I’ve known someone, the date of my first Cubs game at Wrigley, none of it sticks well in my head.

13. My scream is broken. I seem to only be capable of screaming if I’m really terrified, and even then it doesn’t always work.

14. The first movie I saw in the theater was E.T. The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was Return of the Jedi.

15. I’ve been thanked in the liner notes of a CD and in the dedications of a book. I’ve also had my picture in the liner notes of a different CD.

16. I don’t like hot dogs. Despite repeated attempts to like hot dogs, they make me gag (mind out of the gutter, kids). The last time I was successfully ate a hot dog that wasn’t a corndog (for some reason, that’s the exception), I was a senior in high school and the hot dog in question had been burned over a campfire and dropped in the ashes. Not kidding.

17. The first horror movie I can remember watching was Poltergeist. I was probably about four or five at the time.

18. We didn’t get a CD player until I was in 7th or 8th grade. The first four CDs my sister and I owned were Janet Jackson, Salt n Peppa, The Cranberries, and Warrant.

19. When I was a kid I could do a pretty good impression of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, particularly while singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.

20. I started a correspondence course in creative writing the summer before my senior year in high school. I finished it not long after I graduated.

21. I won second place in a state in a poetry contest my sophomore year of high school. I’m still bitter that my teacher made me change one line of that poem so it would have more “devices” in it. The poem that won state and ended up winning 2nd in national? Written by the girl’s mother. I’m still a little bit bitter about that, too.

22. I drive left-handed. It just feels more comfortable to me. When I smoked, I did it left-handed as well. Smoking while driving got interesting.

23. I’ve got a scar on my right shoulder that I have no clue how I got.

24. I share a birthday with a great aunt on my dad’s side and a second cousin on my mom’s side. I also share it with Kirstie Alley, Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Rob Zombie, Oliver Platt, and Marian Hossa. Yes, January 12th is a questionable date.

25. My high school graduation present was a 1974 American General mail Jeep. It was flat black, had sliding doors that locked open, no heat or A/C, and was right-hand drive. It cost my dad 200 bucks.

26. I’ve worn the same winter coat for over 15 years.

27. I once burned macaroni and cheese. Despite the vast improvements of my culinary skills, my sister (to whom cooking comes naturally) won’t let me forget it.

28. Kansas City, Missouri is the farthest west I’ve ever been.

29. I have a lot of trouble pronouncing some words. I can read them and can pronounce them in my head, but when I actually say them, they come out completely different and completely wrong.

30. I’m a fatalist. It’ll either kill me or it won’t and I don’t have much say in it no matter what I do.

It took a couple of hours to come up with 30 things. Thank goodness I didn’t pick 50.

Let’s Be Brave

July 23, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

“Let’s be brave” is my new motto. It’s advice I received from the most unlikely source.

A couple of weeks ago, I dreamed about Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. He appeared to me in this dream as he looked back in about 1966, with the wool hat and the denim jacket and the young face with great sideburns. And in this dream he suggested to me that we stage a 1950’s fashion show. I don’t know why he wanted to do that, but I loved the idea of it. And I told him so.

He told me that I shouldn’t love the idea, but that I should love that he was brave enough to have the idea and share the idea. Then he looked at me and smiled and said, “Let’s be brave.”

I woke up in love with that sentence. “Let’s be brave.”

Too many times I’ve found myself holding back because I was afraid. Afraid of how I might be judged for having an idea and putting that idea out into the world. I don’t want to be seen as a failure. I don’t want to be seen as stupid. I don’t want my ideas to be judged as stupid.

This fear of being judged is keeping me from being brave. I can’t get anywhere, doing anything, be anything if I don’t make some bold moves and give my ideas the respect they deserve. First of all, no one else will respect my ideas or support them if I don’t put them out there. And if people don’t respect or support my ideas, than I’m getting the same amount of respect and support I’d be getting if I didn’t tell them at all.

The point is to be brave enough to own and accept my ideas for all the world to see.

I’ve made small steps in doing that already. I posted a novel chapter on the blog for people to read. This is something I don’t do because I don’t like anyone to see what I’m working on. I don’t like talking about it. I don’t want anyone to know.

Well, that’s silly. I’m a writer. I write. Here’s what I’m writing. Enough with this chicken shit.

Enough with the yellow-streak down my back that’s effecting more of my life that just my writing. Yellow is a terrible color on me anyway.

Let’s be brave.

Get My Good Side

July 16, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing this post because I’m in the mood for a new Twitter avatar. I like to change it every couple of months. It alleviates boredom.

You would think this would be an easy task, however, I am one vain little fat girl. I want to look as pretty as I can in my pictures which isn’t always easy.

First of all, I’m limited with what DNA gave me. Filters and cropping only do so much. I’ve got what I got. And while I am fat and acknowledge that I’m fat, I do my best to make that fat look good.

Second of all, with this DNA configuration, I’m not exactly photogenic. You know those people that you can photograph while they’re wearing sweats, no make-up, haven’t brushed their hair in six days, and they’re hungover, but they still look really good? I am not one of those people. I’m also not one of those people that can’t take a good picture to save their life. You know those people. The ones that everyone says they look much better in person no matter when, how, and where the picture was taken or how much work the person put into their appearance prior to the picture being taken.

I’m somewhere in the middle. Some days I’m quite photogenic and with little effort I can take a pretty picture. Other days, it doesn’t matter how many pictures I take. From every angle, I’ve got only badness going on.

Then there’s the kind of picture I want to take. Am I in the mood for playful or serious or sexy? Do I want a solo shot, or do I want to pull a group shot from Facebook and use it? Much of the time, the picture I want to use is the picture I don’t have. Then when I try to take the picture I’d like to use, it doesn’t work out.

Sometimes I settle. Sometimes I wait until the timing is better. Sometimes I’m impatient which leads to frustration. All over a tiny little picture that most people don’t really pay attention to.

But I can justify a little bit. My Twitter is my main forum. Yes, I have a blog and a Facebook page, but Twitter is where I’m most active. I have over 700 followers now (what?). If I was going to brand myself, KikiWrites would be it. As such, the face on that profile is kind of important to me. It’s representing me. So I kind of have a right to be picky about the picture I put out there.

On the other hand, if I could let go of a little of my vanity, this would be a whole lot easier and I wouldn’t get so unnecessarily frustrated.

It’s not easy trying to be presentable.

No Good Deed

July 9, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Shortly after my parents divorced, when I was living in housing with my dad, I decided to make a cake. It was a box mix cake because baking isn’t my strength and when I was 16 cooking in general was not something I had a handle on. I thought it would be nice to surprise my dad with this cake.

So I my cake-baking on, putting the mix in a bowl and getting the eggs out of the fridge. As I’m putting the eggs back into the fridge, I drop the carton. I can’t remember exactly how it happened; I just remember that every egg in the dozen sans the two I pulled out for the cake mix broke all over the floor.

They say not to cry over spilled milk, but I tell you what, I bawled over those broken eggs.

And that incident stands out in mind as the perfect illustration of me trying to do something nice for people. I pay for it in some way. It doesn’t stop me from doing it, but I admit, the price has sometimes been high.

I realize this can come off as whiny and bitter and I admit to being a little whiny and bitter about it, but I’m also fascinated by it. “No good deed goes unpunished” isn’t just a saying for me anymore. It’s a rule to seriously consider before I do something nice for someone.

If you believe in Karma (and I kind of do), then ideally, if you do good, you get good in return. I do good and I, well, I don’t get it back. In terms of Karma, it makes me wonder what bad I’m still burning off that I can’t catch a break.

I should clarify that I don’t do good things for people with the idea of getting good things in return. First of all, it doesn’t happen. Second of all, I do good things because I think they should be done and I want to do them. It’s not an entirely altruistic feeling. Sometimes it feels like a duty or an obligation and maybe that’s where I’m screwing myself. It’s a have-to, not always a want-to. Good things don’t come from obligations. That’s why they’re obligations.

But then you have to figure that it’s because I feel like I have to do nice things for people that I keep doing nice things for people. Let’s face it. You would think that at some point I’d learn my lesson and just stop doing anything nice for anybody to avoid the cosmic retribution that comes with it. But I don’t. I keep doing nice things knowing that a kick in the groin is most likely coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes I get nothing and I’m happy with that.

Nothing beats a groin kick any day.

I guess what I’m trying to say with all of this blathering is that I like to do nice things for people even if I get some not-so-nice things in return from the universe and it just boggles my mind how literally my life takes the “no good deed” saying to heart.

It’s just one of those things.

The Many Hair Colors of Kiki

July 2, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

You saw my many faces, now you get to see my many colors.

In my early 20’s, I decided to break out of the norm and go wild. I needed to express myself and I did it through altering my appearance. I wore a lot of heavy make-up, mostly purple as it’s one of my favorite colors. Purple eyeshadow and purple lipstick were the norm (away from work; I didn’t wear make-up there). Black eye liner and black mascara. Sometimes I’d do glitter designs on my face. Before it was all done, I’d had my eyebrows pierced five times, including three times on the left side (the other two done on my right were done at two separate times because the first one ripped out) and had my nipple pierced (I’ve got a fun story about that, too, but some other time).

And then there was my hair. It was long then and I did a lot of things to it. I’d braid it in pig tails, braid it in tiny little braids and then put ribbons on the end, fashion spiky buns, give myself what one lady called “turkey feathers”, but mostly I wore it in a pony tail.

I was about 20 when I started coloring it. I eased into it, having a professional do it first, then I became the professional. I got really good at coloring my hair myself, bleaching it and then dying it with Manic Panic. I used gloves and a brush and ruined a couple of shirts and a bathroom rug. Sometimes my tub would be blue or purple or red for days. I dyed my friends’ hair. I became the go-t0 hair dye expert.

I worked at Wal-Mart at the time. A lot of customers would come in to see what color my hair was that day (I changed it every six weeks to two months). Only a few times did I get a negative comment. When our HR lady complained, my district manager gave me special permission to keep my hair any color I wanted. I don’t know if it was because I was good at my job or what, but I appreciated it.

Once I quite my job at Wal-Mart, the hair had to go back to normal so I could get a new job. I dyed it burgandy for a few months while I found and got a new job. Then I colored it with the goal of getting it back to my natural hair color. I’d wrecked my hair bad with all of the dying and bleaching and coloring and I wanted a break. That was over ten years ago. I haven’t colored my hair since.

So here are some (not all!) of my hair colors over that time period.

To get a feel for where I was and where I ended, this was my hair before I colored it. My natural color now is actually much darker and I love it.

This was my first color combo: black, purple, and blonde. The blonde and purple hues are very subtle as I had this professionally done and she didn’t get too wild.

I think this was my first go on my own. I ended up with blue, green, and black. Note the purple make-up and the glitter tears. I wasn’t kidding when I said I did that.

Red and black. I loved this combo. I also loved to wear my hair like this. And yes, I did wear this outfit out of my house to places like the mall and the movies. I still have the dress and the jacket.

I bleached my hair A LOT in between dying so the color would take better. I was never blonde for long, though, because I HATED being blonde. The longest I was ever blonde was a week and that’s because I had to have my hair a natural color because I was working at another store. Also, that’s my first rat I’m smooching, Zero. I’ve had a total of five of them.

This is what happens when you want to dye your hair, but don’t have enough dye to do one color. I used the leftovers. Not one of my favorite looks. It didn’t last long. You can also get a sense of how large my chest was. Pictures never really did it justice, though.

I loved the effect of this color combo with the blond bangs. It was really cool. But you can see the damage starting to take its toll on my hair.

Blue and purple. Another combo effect that I really liked with the blue bangs in contrast with the rest of my hair being purple.

My last wild color combo ever: pink, orange, and blonde. One of my co-workers called it Tequila Sunrise.

Hair colors not pictured: Purple and black; orange and yellow; pink and purple; blue and blonde.

I’m not going to lie when I saw I miss some of these hair colors and there are days when I wish I could dye my hair purple or red and black again. But looking back on that time I realize part of the reason why I did it. I was trying to find a way to be pretty. I knew then, with my wide ass and my huge, non-perky boobs and my extra weight that I had no chance to be conventionally pretty. But I still wanted to be pretty. So I made a different way to be pretty.

People have said that I did it for attention and you know, maybe I did a little. But my main goal was I wanted to be pretty, to feel pretty. I couldn’t compete with the little blonde things that men always drool over, but when my hair was green and my eyebrow was pierced, they couldn’t compete with me. I owned that look like they never could.

I was pretty on my own terms.

And I still am.

Fat Business

June 25, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 4 Comments

Someone I follow on Twitter retweeted the following tweet:

Am I the only one that gets angry and wants to yell when I see fat people eating junk food?

Well, I can definitely say that no, you’re not and yes, people actually do.

I also invite you to come up and yell at me while I’m noshing on a corn dog and see if it’s not one of the more ill-advised decisions you make in your life.

Because the first words out of my mouth are going to be, “WHAT FUCKING BUSINESS IS IT OF YOURS, SKIPPY?”

It seems that in this society being fat is everyone’s business should you venture out in public. Like a pregnant lady constantly getting her belly felt up by strangers, it seems to be no breech of etiquette to confront, insult, and/or shame a fat person for being fat.

Now, I can’t go up to a thin person and tell them that they should be eating chocolate or tell them they need a burger. I can’t tell a thin woman that she has the body of a pre-pubescent girl with implants. I can’t tell a thin man how unattractive he is because he’s thin. That’s rude.

But for someone to come up to me and tell me to put down the Ho Ho, that’s fine. It’s perfectly fine for a thin woman to call me a fat bitch. It’s completely acceptable for a thin man to moo at me. I deserve it because I don’t fit society’s ideal standards.

Well, ya know what? Fuck off. It’s none of your business.

No, really, it’s not.

You cannot possibly think that I don’t know that I’m fat. Believe me. I know.

You cannot possibly think that I don’t know the implications of being fat. Believe me. I do. I’m shunned for my size and treated badly because of it. I’m disrespected for it. It’s more socially acceptable to be a heroin addict than a fat person because, hey, at least the junkie is skinny.

And I know the health implications, too. Actually, I probably know MORE about that health implications than a thin person because they’ve been shouted right at me. I’ve also learned to read between the lines and take my health into my own hands because people are so quick to say that I’m unhealthy because of a number on a scale.

Did you know it’s possible to weight over 200 pounds and have good cholesterol, blood pressure, and sugars? It’s true. It’s been done. Hell, I’ve done it. And so have other fat people. Those are actually better measures of health than weight. Why? Well, because thin people can have shitty cholesterol, high blood pressure, and be diabetic. Wild, huh?

Yeah, you don’t know my medical charts. You also don’t know my life. You have no idea why I’m fat, how fat I’ve been, or how fat I’m gonna be.

You don’t know my diet and can’t judge it by one cheeseburger. Maybe that’s my weekly treat and for the rest of the week I live off of salads and water. Maybe I was in a hurry, like you, thin person, and had to grab something quick on the go when I’d rather have eaten a balanced meal. Maybe all I eat is McDonald’s. How do you know? That’s right. You don’t.

Did you know you can be fat without eating all of the time and eating a lot? It’s true. There’s no telling how much I eat. I might graze all day. Or I might go back for seconds. Or thirds. I might only eat one big meal a day. I might eat three balanced ones. Again, how can you possibly know?

Did you know you can be fat but still work out? It’s true. You have no idea how much I work out. I may sit around the house all day. Or I might run 5K’s. I might walk every day after dinner. I might do yoga every morning. Maybe the only exercise I get is lifting that cookie to my mouth. But you don’t know, do you?

Heaven forbid I insinuate that all thin people are workout anorexics that puke after every meal. That’s rude! It’s generalization! It’s not fair! But, it’s perfectly fine to think all fat people are unhealthy, lazy, gorging slobs. That’s not a generalization! It’s a truth!

Well, fuck your truth. Stick your truth straight up your ass. Replace it with this truth:

I don’t hate you for being thin. I hate you for disrespecting me for being fat.

And if you have such an issue with me smashing a DQ Blizzard, then please, come up and say something. We’ll discuss it.

I’ll set you straight.

The Many Faces of Kiki

June 18, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I have this weird single-minded aspect to my personality.

I like to think that what other people think about me doesn’t matter, but in a way it does. Not so much the harsh criticism and insults often hurled my way, sometimes verbally, sometimes only mentally. I mean if you bother to think that I’m a fat, ugly, stupid bitch of a human being, I’m pretty sure I’m not associating with you much for that to be a really big issue.

I guess I’m more concerned with what people think about me in terms of how people think of me in relation to the way I present myself.

If you ask me what I am, I’ll tell you that I’m a writer first and foremost. That’s me. That’s my career (as unsuccessful as it currently is). It’s a big part of my identity. But it’s not my ENTIRE identity. I know that. I’m sure other people know that. And I don’t think that way about other people. But for some ridiculous reason I’ve got it in my head that if I present any other aspect of my identity, then people won’t take me seriously as a writer.

Crazy, right?

It’s like this. I know that most people don’t consider writing a real job. I don’t get a regular paycheck. I don’t go to an office. Hell, I don’t even have to put on real pants. Because I can’t support myself, it’s not real work. It’s hard enough already to be taken seriously as a writer because I’ve yet to publish a book and/or I’m not a best-selling author (yet).

Now, you take that insecurity and couple it with my other interests and I’ve created a great dilemma for myself. For example, I make and sell jewelry. I like jewelry. I like to make jewelry. It’s another creative outlet for me. Selling it gives me a little more money towards making the ends meet every month. But I’m afraid that by promoting the jewelry I make and sell people will think I’m not serious about my writing.

And thus a big part of my identity is negated.

I hate that.

Now, I realize that most of this is all in my head. Not everyone makes their work such a big part of themselves. Most people don’t think of themselves as one thing, so they don’t think of other people as one thing. They probably don’t even bother to break it all down. They don’t think of me as a writer and a jewelry maker and a fat girl belly dancing and a rerun junkie and a baseball floozy and a t-shirt enthusiast and a lover of horrible things. They look at the sum total instead of the parts and it either makes up someone they like or someone they don’t.

It’s my paranoia at play. I know that and I do my best to shove that squirmy thing back into it’s aquarium and lock the top and just let it go and be all of those things. But it’s not always easy. I’m not always able to do it.

Ah, the joys and pains of being a constant work in progress.

Adventures in Housesitting

June 11, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I spent a week at my great-aunt’s house while she and my cousins were on vacation. The task was simple enough. All I had to do was take care of the dogs and cats, get the mail, and water the garden. After that, my time was my own to do what I pleased.

Now I live in a small town in the middle of a cornfield, but it’s definitely a town. My aunt lives on the outskirts of a village. She’s got neighbors and a highway runs behind her house, but it still feels very much more isolated than my little house in my little town. I’ve never spent the night at her house before, but I did sleep over at my grandparents’ house all the time growing up and they lived a couple of miles away in the same scenario (except for the highway part). In short, I’m no stranger to being in the country.

However, I’ve never been in the country alone overnight.

I’ve also never been alone in my aunt’s house, so it was a weird feeling walking in with all of my stuff and no one was there. It felt like I was intruding.

I admit that for the first couple of days I felt like a stranger in a strange land (silly since I’d spent so much time in the house previously, but it’s different being there alone). It was all about getting comfortable being in my aunt’s house alone. I live by a routine when I’m at home. It’s an important part of keeping the flow of my day. Once I was able to establish a routine that involved feeding and playing with the dogs, minding the cats, getting the mail, and watering the garden, I settled in pretty well.

Staying overnight in a new place, particularly one out in the middle of nowhere, it can be easy to spook yourself. I think I locked the door at my aunt’s house more than I locked it at mine. Of course I locked it when I went to sleep, but I also locked it when I took a shower, too. I’d also shut and lock the bathroom door. Maybe that’s just logical. Maybe it’s paranoia. Maybe it’s the effect of watching Psycho.

On the other hand, after the first day I was like, “Why am I shutting the door every time I go to the bathroom? I’m the only one here!”

In a way it was a little taste of living on my own in theory. It wasn’t my house, it wasn’t my ideal choices of food, it wasn’t my animals. But it was me cooking for myself. It was me solely responsible for the animals in the house. It was me being solely responsible for the house.

It was a week of being some kind of grown-up that I haven’t been yet.

I kind of liked it.

Of course, it was only a week. And I wasn’t financially responsible for anything.

I’m sure that makes all the difference.

Venting Explosions Safely

May 21, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

When I had a bout of major depression about 10 years ago, the therapist explained to me a line that I heard on an episode of M*A*S*H, but didn’t give much thought to. Depression is anger turned inward. And I was really good at holding all of my anger, stress, and frustration inside. The key to my recovery (if I didn’t want to go on medication and I didn’t), was to vent my anger, stress, and frustration in a safe, constructive way.

It was long after this, my mother gave me a journal for the now defunct Aunt Kiki Day. That journal became my outlet and it kept my anger, frustration, and stress from building up inside and poisoning me. It was a life saver really and it’s still my go-to way of relieving that kind of tension.

But there are times when I want to vent to an actual person. Like screaming into the void, sometimes I’d rather hear the words of my frustrations rather than just see them written down. Sometimes I’d rather let people know where I’m at and what my deal is.

Sometimes I would like a little support, even if it’s just someone listening.

The problem with this is that I don’t always have someone to vent to. The people in my life don’t always have time for such bullshit. They don’t care, don’t want to listen, and I don’t blame them. They have productive lives of their own. Why take time out to listen to me?

Not to mention that it’s such an established trope that I’m self-sustaining and I don’t NEED any support (that’s a post for a different day) that they don’t really think about me needing that sort of outlet. I’m the one THEY got to when THEY need to vent.

I used to vent on the Internet. Shouting into the void. The problem with that is now with social networking it’s getting harder and harder to vent without the people I’m venting about reading it and then getting offended.

Why not talk to them directly? In a perfect world, that sort of open communication would be nice. However, the reality is that people get offended by that sort of thing. I know from experience. I get pissed at people and the shit they do. I get annoyed with people and the shit they do. I’ve talked to people about the shit they do. And the reality is…nothing changes. In the end, it’s my fault for getting pissed or getting annoyed, they don’t change a damn thing, and the whole argument isn’t productive.

Venting is what I do because I can’t change them. And sometimes (getting more frequent), I can’t vent the way I want to so I can avoid opening a whole can of worms.

Which just adds to my frustration.

It’s a vicious cycle, one that I’m having a tough time escaping, partially because it’s one that’s partially of my own creation. And making the changes I need to make on my end doesn’t completely stop it.

It’s a bitch for sure.

It’s time for me to be a bigger one if things are going to change.

Picture of a Fat Girl

May 14, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 8 Comments

Hey, look! That’s me! I am that fat girl in the picture. When I usually post pictures on the Internet, it’s usually just a head shot because, come on, I have a gorgeous face. Upper body shots are usually designed to highlight the breasts because I paid for them and they look good in the right bra/shirt combo. I don’t try to hide the fact that I’m fat; I tell people that all the time. I just try to put up the most flattering picture I can because, hey, I’m just as narcissistic as the next person.

I know I’m fat. However, when I look in the mirror I don’t see the same fat girl everyone else sees. It’s like the opposite of those skinny girls that look in the mirror and see a bloated cow. I don’t necessarily see a super skinny chick, but I don’t see a girl as fat as I am. I see someone more voluptuous, with curves in all the right places and some of the wrong ones.

But I’m not out of touch with reality. I know that what I see and what other people see aren’t the same thing. At Casino Night last week, waiting for the elevator, I had two stereotypically beautiful women in evening wear give me a disgusted once over before turning away. I know what they were thinking. How dare a fat girl wear a short, tight, black dress?

Kiki Dress — Even at the end of the night with no shoes, I looked good.

Well, I dared and I looked good.

And that’s the thing, isn’t? I know what I think about myself, but I don’t let it cloud the reality of what society thinks about me.

I make jokes about myself. I make harsh, truthful statements about my weight, too, and it tends to upset the people who know me. That’s because they don’t see me as “fat” because “fat” is bad and they don’t think I’m bad. I’m Christin! I’m Kiki! I’m Chesh! I’m Skitz! I’m good, not bad!

Well, I am fat. It’s an accurate description of my physical state. And I get treated differently (often poorly) because of that physical trait.

Scroll back up and look at that picture. You see those hips? There’s actually not a whole lot of padding to them. I have naturally wide hips. And those shoulders? Not a lot of fat on those, either. I’m built to last, baby. The point I’m making is that I could improve the perceptions that people have about me by losing weight, except I’d never be able to lose enough. I’m not built to be a size zero. I’m not sure I’m even built to be a size 8. I could starve, exercise, nip, tuck, and suck myself as thin as possible and it still wouldn’t be enough to make me acceptable by society’s standards.

I’d also look really gross. I’d have to lose all of my body fat and most of my muscle mass to even get close and even then, my bone structure would render it all for naught.

For the most part, despite society’s best efforts to change my mind in various abusive ways, I’m good with the way I look. I can work with what I’ve got and come up with something pretty damn good looking. Do I want to lose weight? Yeah. I’ve got about 35 pounds I need to get rid of to get back down to where I was. But this weight loss is motivated by feeling better. The reduction of my ass size is just a bonus.

I’m a fat girl. I will never not be fat by society’s standards. Now you all can see exactly how I am fat. So when you read something I write and enjoy it, or retweet me on Twitter, or like a Facebook post, or buy something I’ve written or made, you’re enjoying and supporting a fat girl.

I hope you can handle that.