My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

A lot has happened since my last post, and yet little has changed. My body still feels… alien to me in a way it hasn’t since my mid-twenties; I still haven’t seen a doctor (I actually did try, a lot, but it seems that post-GB follow-up is not something bariatric doctors are willing to do with people they haven’t sliced open personally); and I’m still struggling to find the balance between making healthy choices, like getting more cardio in, and making my peace with the changes in my body. One thing that has changed is my state of unemployment. Since we moved to Washington I’ve been in a kind of limbo where my career is concerned – you can read more about the writing side of that over on the author blog , but besides that I’ve been unsure what to do about a day job. The ultimate goal is teaching at the college level, but while I work on that I’ve been living off savings, and as I’m sure you can imagine that is unsustainable. So I picked up part-time w...

So I've been engaged for what feels like five minutes (I know, it's actually been a month, but I still refuse to believe I need to finish planning this budget-friendly wedding in the extremely budget-unfriendly Napa Valley in the next couple of months), and it will come as no surprise at all to most of you that my anxiety levels are riding high.  Not only am I in full-on panic mode about my guy's visa, and trying to keep a level head about planning this wedding spectacle from 5000 miles away, but tomorrow is my first dress trying-on day and I'm kind of freaking out. From what I understand ( from too many Say Yes to the Dress marathons ), wedding sizing is different from 'normal' clothing sizing – specifically, in a move that can only be motivated to make already-stressed brides-to-be feel even more anxious, wedding gowns are apparently made two sizes smaller than normal dresses.  So if you're a size 12 at Nordstrom, you'd be a 16 at Kleinfeld.  What. ...

 If you follow me on Twitter , you'll already know how obsessed I've been recently with a show called Say Yes to the Dress, which is a reality show that follows brides-to-be who are looking for the perfect dress at Kleinfeld's bridal salon in NYC.  I got into the show when I was living with my parents in San Francisco a few years ago, and spending a lot of my free time Tivo-ing reruns of What Not to Wear and other TLC shows (like I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant – NOT recommended for anyone even slightly suggestible).  I'm already a bit dress-obsessed, in general, and I have a weakness for reality TV (the NYTimes says that's okay!), so one episode was all it took to hook me.  I love seeing the different styles of dresses, comparing how they look on different body types, gasping at the incredibly poor taste some brides have and the stunning dresses others choose.  I love tearing up when the dads start to cry and yelling at the entourages when they opine too strongl...

These days, curves are infinitely preferable to straight up-and-down body types.  Or so we're told.  But we're also told that said curves have to be wee and firm, taut and high, perfectly rounded and impeccably proportioned.  So all those curvy chicks out there, flaunting their J-Lo asses and Christina Hendricks breasts (DROOOL), and ostensibly shattering the myth of Twiggy, serve less to comfort me than as an even higher standard of sex appeal which I'll never reach. As a result, I often feel disappointed when I buy a dress I think looks great on me, only to see it on the model (or mannequin), with her (its) perfect, bounce-a-quarter-off-that-ass curves and realize that the dress only looks great on me in comparison to other items in my closet.  From a more objective, overall, survey-the-world sort of view, it looks just ok, mostly due to my many lumps and bumps, and my massive hips. BUT.  This past weekend, I was in New York with the bf, and he insisted on...

Today I set foot in a plus-size store for the first time since losing the weight seven years ago. As I've previously mentioned, sizing is a bitch over here in the UK, and despite my determination to avoid buying pants (in order to avoid facing the realization that no store here carries pants big enough for my hips), I've recently been on the hunt for a cute pair of shorts for my trip to Rome this week. I first tried the good old department store, M&S. Like Old Navy (my favorite store when I was heavy), they carry a wide range of sizes, and are popular with all ranges of body type, so if someone recognizes the dress you're wearing, you're spared the embarrassment of saying it's from Lane Bryant (although I kind of miss Lane Bryant, bc they have adorable clothes). In fact, a stick-insect might even smile at you and say "I have that!" This is a wondrous feeling. Anyway, sadly, the only shorts I liked at M&S were sold out in my size. So, after cru...

I spent all morning cruising the internet for publishing jobs, newspaper opportunities, and magazine internships. I was so excited to really sink my teeth into writing, and specifically I decided I was going to apply (when I’m back in the US) for any and all openings at Cosmo, Marie Claire, Glamour, what have you. But just now I was reading Marie Claire, and all I could think was how I couldn’t afford the beautiful clothes in the pages, and how sickening it is that one article of clothing can even cost that much in the first place. And of course, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how I’d never fit into them anyway. Worse, when I tried to talk to my boyfriend about it, when I thought I was opening up about how sick my mind is, how I used to (and sometimes still do) wish I could be anorexic instead of fat, I realized he wasn’t listening. And he doesn’t see how it’s hurtful, because he doesn’t understand that I was talking about something so important. Because he wasn’t list...