so it's occured to me recently that though i don't FEEL or really think of myself as "fat" or "old", I'm starting to experience things that indicate I'm fatter and older than I'd like to admit.
Such as...
1) I was asked if i was pregnant. always a winner at the #1 spot. i wasn't terribly upset at the time, but the poor girl who asked me was mortified. it was more of a slow-burn of humiliation. how many other people had wondered the same thing but were too sensible to ask?!?! mental note: do 100 crunches a day
2) Skinny people generally don't HAVE to try on clothes. I used to NEVER try on clothes, unless it was a swimsuit or something like that. If it was a size x and i liked it, it was mine. Now each stupid tshirt needs to be tried on. 'does it make my stomach pooch?', 'does it make my ass look fat?' Puh-leeze. as if the poor factory slaves in southeast asia are deliberately sewing to highlight my gut and booty. they probably look at all the enormous clothes they make for us and think we're giant monsters.
3) I hate to shop. this is a new feeling. i used to love to look at clothes, think about clothes, and occasionally buy clothes. now i hate it. i hate shopping because i have to look at all the sleeveless tops and say, 'oh that woulda been cute about 15 pounds ago'
4) I dread summer. even living in the moderate northwest it gets hot. My summertime staples of sleeveless tops and shorts are loooooong gone. i'm now into capris and flowy tops...all to hide as much of my girth as possible. ugh. i don't even wear shorts to the gym--too much cellulite and jiggly thighs
5) I focus my attention on areas of my body that don't gain weight: nails, shoes and purses. i still stick with my absolute favorites, but i enjoy shoe/purse shopping. manicures and pedicures at my local little vietnam are essential. so far i haven't outgrown those, yet! yippee!
6) i used to buy makeup for fun: lipstick, eyeshadow, whatever. now when i buy makeup i'm more concerned with how it looks with my crows feet, bags under the eyes, forehead wrinkles etc. i never gave a thought to lipstick 'feathering'...you know what that means?!?! it's when the lipstick bleeds into the little tiny wrinkles around your lips. deeeee-lightful! not to worry, there's a product for that. along with the makeup 'primers' i now own to keep the makeup from settling into my 'laugh lines'. i used to need concealer only for zits. now it pretty much goes everywhere. soon i'll be like the old ladies at the walgreens asking for the 'pancake makeup stick'. i'll be trotting around the store with piles of it in my jiggly arms (old-lady 'wings')
7) i'm more interested in ladies magazines like real simple than cosmo. i really don't want to read about jessica biehl's sexy ab workout...tell me how to make rice pudding with ice cream (for reals!!!)
8) i used to say "there'll always be somebody skankier than you" when you go out. now i say "there'll always be somebody older and fatter than you" when I go out....if i ever go out. ho hum. forget skank--i've got the soccer-mom life but without the kids and responsibilities.
9) i find myself calling girls under 30 "little girls"...just like my mama did when i was a kid! "Oh, that little girl at Casual Corner said this blouse will be on sale next week". Replace "casual corner" and "blouse" with "target" and "giant muu muu" and it's exactly the same!!!
10) i have a LOT more understanding of the comic strip Cathy. She was always going on about shoes, dieting, her thighs, her pet and lasagna...no, that was garfield.
ok. gotta get a grip. i'll look back on this ass and age and say 'WTF was i crying about?!?!' just like i do at pictures of me at 25 when i pretty much would have said the same thing....
better go watch tv and eat cereal. just like a 6 year old! :)
Friday, June 29, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
UNINTENTIONAL Hoof in Mouth...a downer
ok, so shouting bigoted, uneducated, terribly tasteless comments from my inner-most id has gotten me in trouble plenty of times.
Sadly, my considerable talents in deducing others' most sensitive and painful topics continues. These accidental and completely ignorant outbursts bother me more than any 'hair on your balls' or 'no way, jew' ever will.
i guess i should have more awareness that the women i associate with are often of child-bearing age and with that comes a need to be evermore delicate. not my strong suit.
example number 1: a few months ago my husband's friends were staying with us. they had photos and copious notes about their cat's new litter of kittens. the wife, a complete doll named jenny, is a pediatric nurse and took her job as surrogate co-mommy very very seriously. each kitten had it's every meal, bm and nap lovingly documented...for weeks. after about an hour and a half of listening to her devotion i blurted out, 'jenny, you need to just hurry up and have kids, already!' ha...freakin....ha. she blushed and just muttered something like, 'yeah....anyway, so here's a picture of "fatty" smothering her brothers' or something. as james and i were getting ready to go to sleep, i remarked at jenny's obvious baby fever and james informed me that they HAD been trying for some time to conceive and after months of frustration they'd decided to relocate across the country so jenny's husband john could take a job where invitro fertilization was covered by insurance. holy crap!!!!! i had no idea! this little tidbit could have saved me and poor jenny a lot of embarassment and pain! he coulda/shoulda mentioned it!!!!! he's clueless.
example number 2: last night (oh yes, it's so fresh i can still taste the tang of shame)i was with some colleages out in the boise metro area. i mentioned that one of my friends had decided the financial hardships of attempting IVF were beyond their means. i went on to blurt (love me some blurting) that it was more common than not that women i knew had trouble conceiving...blah, blah, blah. Well, come to find out (after 2 bottles of wine poolside at the holiday inn) that one of my colleauges had miscarried at 14 weeks and this week would have been her due date. OOOOOOOOUUUUUUCCCCCCHHHHHH!!!! between that and the red wine headache, i couldn't sleep. i kept replaying everything i'd said during our trip about babies. poor girl!!!
i wish i could say that i vow to never blurt out anything that could be painful, but i can't. if only i could use my uncanny talents at intuiting pain for good and not evil.
:(
feeling sad and very very insensitive.
could be worse. i coulda gone on a racist tirade about Katrina-victims over a huge family thanksgiving dinner like my aunt. guess loose tongues and bad judgment run in our family.
Sadly, my considerable talents in deducing others' most sensitive and painful topics continues. These accidental and completely ignorant outbursts bother me more than any 'hair on your balls' or 'no way, jew' ever will.
i guess i should have more awareness that the women i associate with are often of child-bearing age and with that comes a need to be evermore delicate. not my strong suit.
example number 1: a few months ago my husband's friends were staying with us. they had photos and copious notes about their cat's new litter of kittens. the wife, a complete doll named jenny, is a pediatric nurse and took her job as surrogate co-mommy very very seriously. each kitten had it's every meal, bm and nap lovingly documented...for weeks. after about an hour and a half of listening to her devotion i blurted out, 'jenny, you need to just hurry up and have kids, already!' ha...freakin....ha. she blushed and just muttered something like, 'yeah....anyway, so here's a picture of "fatty" smothering her brothers' or something. as james and i were getting ready to go to sleep, i remarked at jenny's obvious baby fever and james informed me that they HAD been trying for some time to conceive and after months of frustration they'd decided to relocate across the country so jenny's husband john could take a job where invitro fertilization was covered by insurance. holy crap!!!!! i had no idea! this little tidbit could have saved me and poor jenny a lot of embarassment and pain! he coulda/shoulda mentioned it!!!!! he's clueless.
example number 2: last night (oh yes, it's so fresh i can still taste the tang of shame)i was with some colleages out in the boise metro area. i mentioned that one of my friends had decided the financial hardships of attempting IVF were beyond their means. i went on to blurt (love me some blurting) that it was more common than not that women i knew had trouble conceiving...blah, blah, blah. Well, come to find out (after 2 bottles of wine poolside at the holiday inn) that one of my colleauges had miscarried at 14 weeks and this week would have been her due date. OOOOOOOOUUUUUUCCCCCCHHHHHH!!!! between that and the red wine headache, i couldn't sleep. i kept replaying everything i'd said during our trip about babies. poor girl!!!
i wish i could say that i vow to never blurt out anything that could be painful, but i can't. if only i could use my uncanny talents at intuiting pain for good and not evil.
:(
feeling sad and very very insensitive.
could be worse. i coulda gone on a racist tirade about Katrina-victims over a huge family thanksgiving dinner like my aunt. guess loose tongues and bad judgment run in our family.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
hoof in mouth disease
omg!!! how many times do i need to insert my dang-old foot in my mouth before i learn to self-edit before speaking?!?!?!
holy moly!
of course, my most famous example of accidentally saying the wrong thing was in college...probably my last month of college. i had become friends with a sweet gal named natalie, who was jewish. she happened to live with her sister marci and her dog maggie. after spending some time at her place studying, i was on my way out when little dog maggie made for the door. now. this was spring of 1994, things were different then...i meant to say either (1) "no way, G" as heard in 'New Jack City' or (2) "no way, dude" as heard in...well everywhere. my stupid brain decided to combine the two and say: "no way, jew!" after an awkward 'ok, gotta go', i made my exit. ooooooppppppsss!! felt like a total dork and semi-anti.semite for a while there.
my uncanny ability to say (and do) the wrong thing continues. just recently i went to lunch with a few of my colleauges: 2 people from washington d.c. who are muckety-mucks in Early Childhood Education, my former boss lilli (with a masters in early childhood education), and my current boss diane who taught early childhood education for many years. after about an hour of calm, uneventful dining the conversation turned to 'why the town of milton-freewater, oregon has adopted frogs as their mascot'. well, i coulda/shoulda kept my ignorant ass quiet. instead i piped up that somebody had tried to explain the connection but that it was a "....RETARDED" explanation. as valid as my assessment had been, the word 'retarded' is clearly as anit-PC or appropriate as possible. Once I had articulated the 'ret' part, i was stuck. the only thing worse than screaming 'retarded' to a table-ful of early educators (2 of whom have children with special needs--oh yeah, i was squirming) is trying to turn 'retarded' into a more socially and developmentally acceptable word. i ended up with 'ridiculous' but it was after crucial moments of stammering and sweating. if i last a year in my new position as 'education specialist' (i.e. goddess of educational practices in our organization) it will be a miracle.
ugh.
oh, did i mention that my 75+ year old great aunt heard/saw me say 'it'll put hair on your balls' just hours after my grandmother (her sister) died?!?!?! i'm horrible.
i truly don't mean any harm. i just have no internal censor.
where's my fundraiser?!
holy moly!
of course, my most famous example of accidentally saying the wrong thing was in college...probably my last month of college. i had become friends with a sweet gal named natalie, who was jewish. she happened to live with her sister marci and her dog maggie. after spending some time at her place studying, i was on my way out when little dog maggie made for the door. now. this was spring of 1994, things were different then...i meant to say either (1) "no way, G" as heard in 'New Jack City' or (2) "no way, dude" as heard in...well everywhere. my stupid brain decided to combine the two and say: "no way, jew!" after an awkward 'ok, gotta go', i made my exit. ooooooppppppsss!! felt like a total dork and semi-anti.semite for a while there.
my uncanny ability to say (and do) the wrong thing continues. just recently i went to lunch with a few of my colleauges: 2 people from washington d.c. who are muckety-mucks in Early Childhood Education, my former boss lilli (with a masters in early childhood education), and my current boss diane who taught early childhood education for many years. after about an hour of calm, uneventful dining the conversation turned to 'why the town of milton-freewater, oregon has adopted frogs as their mascot'. well, i coulda/shoulda kept my ignorant ass quiet. instead i piped up that somebody had tried to explain the connection but that it was a "....RETARDED" explanation. as valid as my assessment had been, the word 'retarded' is clearly as anit-PC or appropriate as possible. Once I had articulated the 'ret' part, i was stuck. the only thing worse than screaming 'retarded' to a table-ful of early educators (2 of whom have children with special needs--oh yeah, i was squirming) is trying to turn 'retarded' into a more socially and developmentally acceptable word. i ended up with 'ridiculous' but it was after crucial moments of stammering and sweating. if i last a year in my new position as 'education specialist' (i.e. goddess of educational practices in our organization) it will be a miracle.
ugh.
oh, did i mention that my 75+ year old great aunt heard/saw me say 'it'll put hair on your balls' just hours after my grandmother (her sister) died?!?!?! i'm horrible.
i truly don't mean any harm. i just have no internal censor.
where's my fundraiser?!
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