Please Answer Promptly

So here's the deal. I'm not a good blogger when it comes to group blogging projects like NaBloPoMo. As you may have noticed from my many prolonged absences, I'm really not a very good blogger at all, despite my wishes to the contrary. So I try to read the blogging prompts provided by the NaBloPoMoers, and I gotta be honest...they mostly prompt me to be...CRANKY! I'm sure you're shocked. Today's prompt is " If you could live anywhere, where would it be?" and I just don't find that at all inspiring. I don't want to write about where I want to live if I could live anywhere. I don't even know where that is. And I don't find it very inspiring to talk about. I find most of these prompts...so basic. Unchallenging. Uninteresting. So if there is anyone still out there reading...here's my challenge for you - give me a prompt that YOU want to see me writing about this month.

Hold that thought

So, it's NaBloPoMo once again and I had a real cute, pithy blog post that I was all ready to type up and post, but instead I am going to share with you a quick "mini-crank" in the moment. If I am actually standing by the bathroom, with my hand on the doorknob, about to go in, maybe. JUST MAYBE this is not the moment to strike a conversation. Just a thought.

I shall say no more, because enough has been said

Fun fact kids, freedom of speech does not mean that you have the right to say whatever you want without consequences. If you say something that reveals you to be a bigot, that is your legal right. It is MY legal right to disagree with you, and express that in my actions, such as not purchasing your product. Conversely, if you reveal yourself as someone with more liberal views, other people have the right to disagree with you, and express that in their actions. IT WORKS BOTH WAYS. That's the beauty of this wild and wacky country we live in.

CLICK HERE TO GET DEEPLY ANNOYED WITH THE FACT THAT YOU STILL AREN'T THERE YET

I HATE HATE HATE When someone posts a link on Twitter or Facebook or Livejournal or whatever other hellbound social media platform they are choosing to use and I am haplessly trying to follow and then their link goes to a page! That tells you that there is a link! And you click that link! And it goes to another link of a thumbnail or a page or picture and eventually I think...I DON'T CARE THIS MUCH ABOUT THE NEW WOLVERINE MOVIE NO MATTER HOW CUTE HUGH JACKMAN IS. COME ON ALREADY.

Playlist

Needed to change up my walking/workout playlist. I wouldn't say it's all NEW music, but it's different music!

On Fat Acceptance and Self-Acceptance.

Tonight I am reading Bella Tuscany – the sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun. The movie, by the way, has nothing to do with the book though I enjoy them both. In Bella Tuscany, Frances Mayes and her husband (who is actually NOT a cheating dickhead) return to Bramasole, their vacation home in Tuscany. At this particular juncture, they have left Bramasole for a side trip to Sicily. 

                Much of Mayes’ books are given over to describing food in delicious detail, but one particular moment of the Sicily trip stood out to me. She had her husband stop to split a cannoli and she interrupts herself to assure us it’s ok that that they ate one because they’re going to walk it off later. 

                This stuck out to me because it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. A couple weeks ago Skinny Emmie posted a link on her twitter to this article and the article set me off on a bit of a twitter rant. The Fatshionista, aka Lesley Kinzel, a fat acceptance blogger who has a new blog coming out and the author of the article sat down to talk about fat acceptance and how the author of the article had been inspired by the Fatshionista to accept her own body.  The interview took place over breakfast, and while discussing the importance of body acceptance in general, the article’s author made sure to take time to point out that Kinzel had chosen to eat a healthy omelet and whole wheat toast. It felt like she punctuated the article by saying “well, yes, she’s fat and we have both dare to accept our bodies, but it’s ok, we’re the good fatties.” 

                How does this tie into Bella Tuscany? Because in the middle of a travelogue about the glories of Italy, Frances Mayes had to stop and justify her food choices.  A woman who is by no means fat, who had the good fortune to be portrayed onscreen by DIANE LANE – stopped and apologized for SHARING a cannoli. An article on the importance of accepting our bodies stops to make sure we know it’s ok for them to accept themselves – because they are eating “mindfully”. Why do they (and the rest of us) have to justify our food? If I eat a nice healthy omelet one night, does that give me permission to eat a slice of my own birthday cake? If I eat a candy bar do people get to judge me but if I eat a chocolate coated fiber one bar, I’m off the hook? Does Slim Fast come in cans now because we want to make sure people know we’re drinking a diet shake because heaven forbid they think we’re just drinking a shake? 

                This is not a protest against health. You SHOULD be thinking about what you put into your body. But I’ll tell you the truth, there are times when I dread going out to eat with my friends because I worry that everyone is going to judge me no matter what I order. If you order a salad, someone comments “live a little!” if you order pasta…are they thinking “way to go, fattie?” Why do I (we, I’m betting) feel so compelled to justify our right to exist in our own bodies?

                I confess to being conflicted about fat acceptance. I’m all for it on one hand. I believe that people have the right to live, to have access to good drs., to be allowed to walk down the street and to eat as they choose without fear of judgment or harassment no matter what their weight is. On the flipside…I’m not happy with my own body.  I want to be thinner – I want to be fitter, and I know they aren’t identical things…but I feel like they are. And I catch myself judging other people’s bodies and then I feel bad about it. At the same time, I look at the aforementioned Skinny Emmie and I think she’s super cute – and I also know she’s bigger than me. But I don’t find myself to be supercute.  Do I lack style? Do I lack grace? Do I judge myself poorly? Or is my problem just that I need to get a tan because I’m too pale (seriously y’all. I suspect pasty may just not photograph well.)? And why do I feel like I need to compare myself to others at all? I am trying really hard to find the balance in changing my body and accepting it.

Why does it have to be black or white...

Have I mentioned that I very much do not enjoy the new back end of blogger? I keep almost starting new blogs when I just want to start a new blog post. It is fairly annoying. Of course, if I posted more often, some of you may be saying, I would be used to it by now and shush up.

For the record, I have been blogging, but I've been doing it with paper and pencil, retro style. Eventually I will probably share some of those things over here, but they are not all about me being cranky, although they sort of are, because let's face it: inevitable.

I will tell you what I am cranky about right now: people's inability to use common sense when reading articles. I came across this article about teens and physical activity versus technology this morning.   These sorts of articles are published constantly, either condemning technology or promoting it and the reactions are always extreme and I find it so irritating. Here's the thing that I don't understand. Why does it never seem to occur to people that the answer is not "we must take our children away fro the internet because otherwise they will be fat and sad" or "we must let our children use technology or they will fall behind and be stupid and the whole country will fall into ruin" but "maybe we should strive to find a balance for our children that includes technology and activity."

I mean, is it that complicated? Am I naive to believe that children can do sports AND use a computer? It seems simple enough. I've seen it happen. My niece can shoot a basketball and use the remote. I don't understand the problem.

Or maybe I do understand the problem and it goes back to the people who want to ban books from libraries because they don't think their children should read them. Rather than making sure they know what their kids a r reading, they just want those books taken away from everyone. If you put your kid in a sport, then that's all you have to worry about. If you plunk them down in front of a computer, you're good to go. If you need to try and find a balance for your kid (or for yourself) that takes a little more effort.

Of course this is not just to pick on parents, because I know some great parents and some terrible parents. This seems to be a wide spread problem where people are unwilling or unable to realize that the world is not made up of absolutes. You CAN eat cookies and carrots.  You CAN exercise and take naps. You CAN dress nicely and comfortably. Sometimes you can do these things at the same time (granted, that does not include exercising and napping). You don't have to pick one or the other and then live your life, sometimes miserably that way, forever. I wish that the people who read (and sometimes, those who write) articles would acknowledge that.