In support of the everysize girl

There’s a great discussion going on over at BlogHer today about Glamour magazine’s plus-sized photo shoot. I highly suggest you check out the discussion, because not only is it informative, it also really gives a woman some food for thought (no pun intended?). Since I read Susan Wagner’s post, I’ve been thinking about designers and stylists in general, and what they are doing to our self images.

Media is flooded with talk about the fashion industry, and what it means for society. Little girls are obsessed with their bodies, and who do we blame? Do we blame magazines? Television? Mothers? I say we blame none of the above. What I noted in the BlogHer discussion, and will note here, is that the designers we all love are being supported by both the model-thin and the plus-sized and the everything-in-between. Don’t we buy Marc Jacobs handbags no matter what size we are? Don’t Jimmy Choos fit most every girl (regardless of whether we can afford them)? Haven’t we bought the “frugalista” lines of Anya Hindmarch and Anna Sui and Isaac Mizrahi? When the economy tanked, high-end designers found a new niche: Target shoppers. You can’t tell me that only the model-thin shop at Target, because I shop there and to think of me as anything but larger than the average girl is laughable.

It’s no secret that very few women are sample size, much less smaller than a 12 (I believe that’s still the national “average”).  Certainly we should all strive to be healthy, but as Oprah, Kirstie Alley, Valerie Bertinelli and I know all too well, it takes a while to get where you’re going. And sometimes you go there and come back – several times. I’m not saying here that I think more or less of someone because of their size (except YOU, Blake Lively, I do hate you and your tall skinny self) but I do think less of designers that limit their products to the very rich and the very skinny.

Rachel Zoe

I love fashion magazines. I watch Project Runway and The Rachel Zoe Project. I see Rachel’s collar bones and spine sticking out like a sharp coffee table edge, and I see the models the Runway hopefuls design for. We support their shows and their work; it’s time for designers – and the magazines and shows that feature them – to support everysized women by designing for ALL of us. Haute couture will never be within my financial reach, and to be honest, I wouldn’t wear half the crap that goes down the runway each fall and spring. BUT – and this is a big BUT – Americans are bigger now than they were last year, and I don’t see that trend changing much. We’re not all getting gastric bypass for Christmas, so until the national “average” turns around, design some decent-looking clothes for the rest of us, would ya?

The one where my head turns into a TV set – the old, console kind.

Have you seen that commercial for Bing, the new search engine? It’s the one where everyone is spouting out all this useless information that has nothing to do with anything, except someone asked them a question and they’re all Search Overload! Search Overload! Part of me thinks that commercial is funny, but the other parts of me want to rip my TV out of the wall when it comes on.

My brain feels kind of like that right now – kind of like Overloaded! Please press f6 to reboot and start over! – but I think it has less to do with the amount of Internet searching I do and more to do with the fact that I have been MIA for the last 5 days because SOMEONE GAVE ME THE FLU. I’m looking at you, BB.

Well, it might not be the flu flu. I mean, it technically could be the flu if you consider the chills and aching and head congestion and coughing and misery and insomnia and WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HAND ME A GUN ALREADY? But I haven’t had a fever (someone told me this was the good news) and I don’t so much think I’m going to die today as much as I thought I would on Saturday, so probably I’m in the clear.

But that’s not really my point. My point is: I have watched so much television in the last 5 days that I am pretty for sure that if you asked me a random reality TV question, I would not only ace it, I would also be able to give you background research and statistics and maybe some genealogy (re: the Kardashians, the Lamases – wait, how do you pluralize “Lamas” when it’s a last name attached to people who should not reproduce?). I can tell you about ALL the balloon boy interviews, the number of houses HGTV helped sell in the last month, how many people are left in the running for the next Iron Chef and that Shakira wore the same outfit to SNL that she had on for last week’s Dancing with the Stars performance. I can tell you that Dexter’s hair is longer this season than last. I can tell you that on October 28th “The Proposal” will be available OnDemand, and also that Nightline is rerunning its story about evangelist Benny Hinn again tonight.

My brain is tired.

I think normal sick people probably sleep, or read books or newspapers or something, but not me. No sir. I have had at least one cat attached to my thighs at all times, and my right hand has the remote. Left hand free for phone, Kleenex, juice, whatever. Right hand on the remote at all times. I woke up yesterday morning and the damn thing was still in my hand, right where I left it the night before. I think I need some help.

So, for those of you who called to make sure that I was alive – not because you were necessarily concerned that I might be dying of swine flu, but because I haven’t posted in days – settle down. It’s taken me 5 days to move myself to the computer and I can’t make any promises until my head has finished exploding from all the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader high kicks.

You make me crazy when…

…You have your annual fall conference, which I am obligated to attend, right in the middle of the week where I have trouble existing in normal society. Also, when you charge $12.95 for your Internet access which I will not pay which is why I will not be blogging until after my appointment with the shrink on Wednesday which is after I get back from your stupid conference, unless I have to call BB to come get me in the middle of the night because I went crazy because your stupid conference made me that way.

Possibly.

How do you explain THIS five years later?

Um, Internet . . . I’m in deep doo-doo. I’m up a creek without a paddle, in more than just a little pickle.

I found something today, buried in a drawer behind boxes and boxes of stationery and envelopes and pens and address labels. I’m so embarrassed I just don’t know if I can tell anyone . . . but fine, I’ll tell you.

I found – are you ready? – thank you notes.

Dozens and dozens AND DOZENS of thank you notes, written in May of 2004 right after we got married. Written, sealed, addressed, return-addressed . . . AND SITTING IN A DRAWER. I remembered as soon as I saw them what happened. I put them in my stationery box, next to the empty notecards, and I was going to the post office for more stamps. IN 2004.

And now, five years later, I have still forgotten the stamps. What makes this so very embarrassing is that the people who didn’t receive notes from me are either a) people I see all the time and therefore they are judging me every time they see me in the grocery store line, b) people I haven’t seen since the wedding and this is probably why, and c) people who don’t fall into either A or B but who gave us some REALLY good stuff.

I want to crawl in a hole. I’m so serious. Because what do I do now? Mail them and be like, Damn, that post office is one SLOW piece of government work, I tell you or don’t mail them and continue to look like a jackass? I stuck them back in the drawer for now. I think I’ll wait until our 25th anniversary, mail them, and be like, Yeah, Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter changed the rules and now WE’RE right and you’ve been wrong all along.

The really sad thing though is that some of these people have died since our wedding, and they died thinking that we are two ungrateful somebodies. Well, maybe they were probably thinking of other stuff, LIKE DYING, but it’s possible that they also were thinking that my parents tried really hard to teach me good manners and apparently it didn’t take, and so thank goodness they were leaving their own good-mannered children behind, to procreate and teach the rest of us a lesson.

Good grief.

Half an hour

image by Caroline Waters

That’s how long I stayed at a work/social function tonight. Unless of course we’re counting travel time, so okay maybe I stayed 45 minutes. Either way, we got some funny looks and a few quizzical stares, like Hello, this thing just started, why are you all tacky and leaving early and shit and I’m telling you, Internet, I had to bail. Brian, bless his heart, had to carry all these plastic take-out plates to the car, trying to balance car keys and forks in wrappers and opening doors and all I could do was stand there, feeling tingly and hot and out-of-body and generally like a social failure.

Here’s the thing, in case you didn’t already know the thing: I am crazy.

Call it nutbucket, call it fruitbat, call it whatever the hell you want to, but after looking at myself in the mirror tonight and reading through some old posts from earlier this summer, I have come to one conclusion: it is time to apologize to my dear three readers for miring them down in my obvious funk. Usually you can come here, read for a little while, and happen upon a some funny anecdotes of the undoubtedly silly shit that happens in my life. But lately, I see myself turning into SUCH the Debbie Downer and I just don’t think that’s nice to do to other people.

Full disclosure is that Wednesday I’ll be seeing an extra therapist, one with the ability to prescribe some drugs (and HOLY HELL IF SHE DOESN’T AND THEY DON’T WORK I SWEAR TO YOU I AM NEVER LEAVING THIS HOUSE AGAIN) and so in a few weeks, my hope is that I will get back to semi-normal. Like I’ll be able to get up in the morning, not check my pulse 30 times in the shower, actually do some work at work and leave my house for places like the dollar store, which is probably the least intimidating place that exists. Except for maybe my bed.

I do have to tell you this, though, and if my dad ever discovers that this here blog exists, I’ll probably be disowned, but I’m telling you anyway, Internet, because I think you’ll love it. So Tuesday – hereafter known as one of the scariest days ever – I was such a wreck that I scared everyone around me. I mean, this was close-to-nervous-breakdown day, if there ever was one. I think I scared my mom so much she actually had to tell my dad, who I assumed would turn around and say What the hell’s wrong with that girl, why can’t she just get a grip?

I love it when I’m wrong. My dad showed up at my office yesterday morning, closed the door, sat down and started telling me about all the ways I could try to make myself relax. He gave me every bit of advice he could think of, he told me that if it’s five years from now before I finish school it’s okay and then – then! – he got up, gave me a great big hug, and told me he loved me. (Normal in your house, maybe – but shocking in ours.) And then tonight, when I lasted approximately a half hour at this event, I told him I was leaving, he asked me why and all I had to say was, “Dad, I did the best I could.” And he nodded, patted me on the shoulder, and got back to his steak.

And look! Dammit, Internet, I couldn’t even finish one post without telling a maudlin story. GOOD LORD.