Tag Archives: judged

Space Invader

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

FLS

Now, I’m guessing it depends where you sit on the fat to skinny spectrum as to whether you’ve really given the matter of space any serious consideration. I’m talking about personal space, and how much of it we take up as we go about our business. I say this because until I joined the realms of the super-obese I don’t recall really thinking too much about how much space I was taking up in this world, but once the penny dropped with me that I might be taking up too much of it to the point where it was pissing other people off, I became super-tuned in to the vibe, and it’s become a major pre-occupation.

We’ve all seen the debate raging about whether fat people should pay extra for flight seats and to be honest, count me in – my lard, my responsibility – just don’t make a fuss and for God’s sake don’t make me sit across two seats…that would be less about equity and more about treating me like livestock. They may as well run down the aisle blowing a bugle and shouting ‘Make way for the moose!!’

When I emerge from my chrysalis as a skinny string bean I’d welcome the chance to fly for peanuts if they want to just hitch up my seat space a little so it cradles my bony ass nicely and frees up a little more room for someone with a bit more padding – everybody’s happy. I’m sure in this age of technology it could be done. And if there does happen to be any aircraft seat designers reading my blog today, can you please sort your shit out with the seat belts whilst you’re at it?

I get it, I get that life is designed for Joe average.  And if you’re a fat person who genuinely believes that fat is as beautiful as skinny, or if you’re a skinny person who’s wandered in here by mistake (you’re very welcome but stop screwing your face up like that, you’ll get wrinkles) then you probably won’t be able to relate to what I’m saying. Which is fine, because we’re all different and if you’re happy, I’m happy. And a tiny bit envious.

You don’t know how lucky you are if you don’t feel the need to tiptoe through life trying to take up as little a space as possible. You won’t feel mortified if your arse or your chunky arms encroach onto someone else’s personal space when you sit beside them and pretend not to see FFS written right across their averagely proportioned face. You won’t feel the need to hold everything tucked in as tight as possible ’till your core muscles quiver, in the hope that you can prevent your body spilling over your quota of space and invading someone else’s. It’s not possible to pick up your body baggage and place it on the tray table in front of you to make room for someone to sit down like you can with your carry-on and I hate how apologetic that makes me feel, as though I’m being deliberately rude just for…being.

Writing it down really helps to focus the mind…you have no idea how much I can’t wait not to feel like that any more.

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Man Marking the Muffins

Freeform thoughts, , , , ,

bun

So it occurred to me that being a food hoover is far more complex when you’re a human being than it is when you belong to some other species. Bit of a random thought, but it popped into my head last night when I was cooking tea, having narrowly avoided tripping over the dog for about the tenth time.

Had anyone been observing the two of us as we moved about the kitchen, it must have looked a bit like a sort of clumsy ballet. Whenever there’s food, or the smell of food, or even the hope of food, my four legged fur baby welds himself to my side and develops eyes in the back of his head so he’s in exactly the right place at the right time to take advantage of anything which might come his way, either by accident or design. I take a step, he takes a step. I turn around, he turns around (unless the food is actually visible in which case he removes all risk of missing anything by walking backwards).

Even as a puppy he was solely motivated by food – within 3 days of coming home he’d pee on the puppy pad and then go wait expectantly by the fridge, and his love affair with chicken and sausage in particular continues to this day. Incidentally so does mine, but as a fat girl I’d die before being quite so obvious. As a skinny girl, you can get away with knocking people out of the way like skittles to get to the cake…people will smile and tease you about how you can love cake so much and stay so trim.  “You must have a worm inside you, ha ha ha”... As a fat girl, no chance. Those same people wouldn’t tease you at all, they’d probably just shake their heads sadly and think “No wonder…”

I’m convinced that’s why a lot of fat folk eat in secret, as though it’s something to be ashamed of. Or maybe it’s because we think people won’t notice that we’re fat if they never actually see us put anything in our mouths…that’s asshole logic if ever I saw it. But I for one have lived it! Eating publicly can be difficult when you’re bigger than the average bear – imagine two people walking away from a fast food counter with overloaded trays, one fat girl and one skinny girl…only one of them is going to feel self conscious, judged, ashamed that she’s not about to eat salad. Am I right?

So how come a slavish devotion to food is cute in a dog but shocking when you’re just a fat girl who can’t get it under control? Why does one provoke smiles where the other provokes scorn and judgement from the world in general? I’d hazard a guess that it’s because we’re supposed to be the ones with a fully formed thought process and a sense of reason – don’t get me wrong, dogs are bright but they’re not likely to think things through in a ‘better not have another bonio if I want to wear my favourite collar at the weekend’ kind of way. But we are, we’re supposed to have it all figured out.

But what if your thought process is broken? What if you have an asshole who lives inside your head and relentlessly kicks all reason into the long grass till you can’t get to it..? What then.

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A broken leg.

Reflections on past times,

200x200_chair

All that talk of armchairs the other day reminded me of an incident with a chair that happened years ago, when my son was little – he’s in his late twenties now but I think he was about 7 years old at the time. We were enjoying some hospitality courtesy of the Golden Arches, and as we made our way to a free table and sat down with our lunch, disaster struck.

Now you know how sometimes when you watch an accident unfold it feels like it’s happening in slow motion..? That’s exactly how it was. I sat down, and then he sat down, but he carried on getting lower and lower until he landed on the floor with a thump. To give him his due, he never dropped so much as a chip – he held onto his lunch like his life depended on it.

I assumed that perhaps he’d perched on the edge of the chair and that it had simply tipped over, but once I’d picked him up and dusted him off, on closer inspection it transpired that the front leg had parted company with the rest of the chair.

He was fine, other than being mortified that lots of people had seen him topple over and thankfully the only injury was a bruise to his pride but I was cross – he could easily have hurt himself. So, chair in one hand and chair leg in the other I set off through the restaurant and approached the counter. Now, picture if you will, the scene; very fat lady carrying a broken chair…what conclusion would you draw?

Yeah, me too actually. Well you would, wouldn’t you…but at the time it didn’t even occur to me until I was standing in front of the duty manager holding the offending chair leg aloft that he’d automatically think I’d broken it. As realisation dawned that he was about to blame me for wrecking his furniture because I was too fat to sit safely I felt like wrapping the chair leg around his chops. I resisted the temptation to do so, and we sorted it out but it’s true you know – fat people are usually the fall guy.

Only yesterday, a colleague was telling me about how he’d sat on a bar stool at the weekend and it had fallen to bits underneath him, depositing him on the floor. The bar owner had been full of apologies, they’d had a giggle about it and he got a free drink by way of apology. I can guarantee that if I’d been the one to sit on that stool only for it to collapse in a heap, first of all I would’ve died a thousand deaths, the asshole in my head would have gone in for the kill by immediately blaming me for being so fat (and screaming at me that everyone else in the bar thought so too), and I would have been the one apologising profusely for breaking the stool and offering to buy another one immediately.

Makes you think, doesn’t it…we all judge, based on what we see. But when you’re fat, you judge yourself more harshly than anyone else does, without question.

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