Dancing Down the Moon

Seed Post #2: Gratitude

In the last two years I think I've been sick more often, and worse, than I have my entire life.  I blame my Saturn return, actually, as my Saturn is in Virgo and the issues its return has brought up have surrounded health, stress, daily life, and thorny issues like discipline and routine, the upshot of which is that the horrendous way I've treated my body since my early 20s is coming home to roost.

I won't go through the list of all the things that have gone wrong with me lately, or the steps I'm taking to right them; what's foremost on my mind today is a different sort of list. 

It's amazing what a shift your mind can make if you simply change the language you use when talking to yourself.  I had gotten to the point that I was constantly angry at my body for letting me down (not to mention enraged at myself overall for allowing things to get so far out of alignment when I know better, and have done better), but finally last week the gods said, "All right, if she's going to bitch, let's give her something to really bitch about!"

And lo, I was felled by the mighty axe of gastroenteritis.

(This is simply a fancy schmancy word for stomach flu.  But it was so awful that I decided it deserved its full five-dollar name.)

I missed three days of work and spent most of it either sleeping or sending up wailing prayers to the porcelain god.  Even now that things have returned mostly to normal, I am simply wiped out--I have zero energy, and would love nothing more than to crawl back under my covers and stay there another three days.  I can eat, mostly, but find my appetite wavering between ravenous and apathetic. 

At any rate, somewhere between lying on the bed with a heating pad on my stomach, too weak to even cry; and finally managing to eat normal food on Friday night (which I regretted Saturday, but still), I found myself feeling an unaccustomed sympathy for my poor body and all she's been through lately.  This morning as I tried to convince myself to get out of bed and go to work, I patted my various body parts with my palms, saying soothing words and thanking them for hanging on, and sticking with me even though I've been such a terrible steward of our health. 

Thank you, body, for recovering from this nasty badness.   Thank you for not having anything worse than gastroenteritis and a sprained foot.  Thank you, immune system, for doing your best to get this crud under control.  Thank you, heart, for continuing to beat despite your faulty wiring.  Thank you, right foot, for trying your best to pick up the slack for poor, poor left foot.  She hurts a lot, and you're being a real champ.  Thank you, body, for not giving up on me through every false start and "I'll do better on Monday/Tuesday/next week/Ostara."  Thank you, skin, for being smooth and supple and stretching to accommodate all the extra fat I've piled on you.  Thank you, fat, for doing what fat does, and cushioning and lubricating and protecting all my insides.  I think it's time some of you found another purpose, though, like turning into energy, but we'll talk about that later.  Thank you, hair, for being awesome.  Thank you, eyes, for having great vision.  Thank you, fingers, for staying so nimble.  Thank you, bones, for holding me up despite the strain you're under.  Thank you, lungs, for breathing even when I don't really want to.  Thank you brain, for being the conductor of this soft animal orchestra. 

And so, despite the fact that I continue to feel worn out and puny this Monday morning, mentally I'm in a much better place--and I'm grateful for that too.

Big Girl, You are Beautiful

People can be real assholes, especially on the internet.

I realize that's the biggest ode to Captain Obvious ever, but still, it surprises me sometimes.

Apparently Fox is making a "reality" dating show about fat people.  It is, as you might expect, called More to Love.  I can hear the jokes erupting all over the country already.  I looked at a post that had pics of the women, and some of them are not that big, and some of them are almost my size, which was pretty cool.  They're all beautiful women.  There's even one with tattoos up both arms (who I'm sure will be booted off the show first). 

But the comments on the post included people shrieking in giant blinking letters, and this is a direct quote, THIN IS WIN!!! and things like, "but they can't be beautiful, they're all fat!" and making jokes about lard and pigs and on and on like there's any joke like that that's a) funny and b) not been told already.

"Thin is win?"  Seriously?

I understand an individual person not finding larger women attractive in general; although I think a lot of the fat = ugly attitude comes from societal pressure more than genuine lack of attraction, saying that a big girl cannot possibly be beautiful just because she's big really makes my blood boil.  There are plenty of health considerations for large people, but beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. 

The hilarious (and by hilarious I mean depressing) thing is, it's not men making these comments, it's women.  Skinny straight women who probably hate themselves as much as any fat girl ever could, lashing out at an easy target. 

When it comes down to it, 95% of the direct meanness I've ever dealt with about my size has been from women.  Men by and large just ignore me.  It's the women who feel like they're entitled to treat "the competition" like dirt, to belittle (pardon the pun) any other woman for any reason that they can think of because it might keep male attention on them.  To so many women everything is about landing a man, especially looks.  I mean what is this, the 1950s? 

What they don't realize is that any man who would choose a vapid, bitchy, cruel skinny girl over me is not a man I would want to take from her in the first place.  I don't care how good looking or rich he is.  Nobody that shallow is worth my time.  Honestly, Barbie is welcome to Ken.  She can have his plastic Camaro and his smooth area. 

If Fox really had any interest in being inclusive, they'd have a "reality" show that had all types of contestants in all sizes and ethnicities.  What they're doing is exploiting one of the last safe prejudices and inviting the mockery and scorn of the audience for ratings.  Thankfully, I don't watch "reality" programming or contest shows, and I don't have cable, so I won't be subjected to the ads or the backlash that's sure to come until the pure-hearted-but-chubby leading man chooses his big-and-beautiful leading lady from the throng of women who, regardless of size, are pitting themselves against other women for the approval of a man. 

Here, Lizard, Lizard...

It's funny.  Issues don't exist in a vacuum.  They all feed on each other and when you take the energy away from one, it affects all of them.

A lot of things have been going really well for me lately, but the one thing I've been faltering on is my weight.  I decided months ago it was time to shape up; but all my efforts have come to nothing, and in fact I'm fatter now than I've ever been.  Granted, the upshot of all my meditating and self-analysis has been that I'm not upset about this as I would have been a year ago, but still, it bothers me, because I don't like being out of control, and I don't like how I feel physically in my body when I'm at my heaviest.

 
It has come to my attention, however, that part of what's been sabotaging me is that I'm afraid to lose weight.  Does that fear outweigh (pardon the pun) the concern I have about dying young and never being able to do the things I want to do?  So far apparently it has.

I hate it when I embody a cliché regardless of type.  I've balked against being a Pagan cliché (you know, a poly bisexual (preferably promiscuous) fat white woman walking around in sarongs with dyed red hair and sunburned nipples), and against being a fat girl cliché (jolly, indulging in secret binge eating, denying her sexuality, protecting herself with fat, et cetera), but sometimes, well, you just gotta embrace the possibility that you may, in fact, be a walking stereotype.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A survivor of sexual abuse and assault puts on a hundred pounds of fat out of depression (the need for comfort separated from contact with others), self-hatred (the urge to annihilate her body) and fear (the urge to surround herself with a wall of fat that will drive men away).  

It's so fucking Oprah.  But in my case it's still true.

As long as I've been a big girl I've attracted three basic types of men:  older black guys, Mexican truck drivers, and married guys.  For the most part these men have not been interesting to me, so I'm safe.  (Obviously there have been exceptions.)  But as long as I'm fat, I can blame my spinsterhood on my size.  

Because the question lurks:  what if I were to lose all that weight, and was still invisible to men?  What if it's not the fat that's been the problem?  What am I supposed to do without that convenient scapegoat if I'm thin and cute and still no one wants me?  

Men aren't really the problem, of course.  To broaden the question, think of it this way.  A lot of overweight women spend their lives waiting to lose those precious 20 pounds before they start living.  They put off trips, clothes, careers, and life changes until they're thinner, and when it doesn't happen, they're excused from having to face the fear of the unknown.  Fat is the devil you know.  What if beneath it, you're nobody?  Stripped of your outrage at the world for treating you like a pariah, you have to make it on your real merits, not your reactions to others' reactions.  

It's ironic that the fatter you are the more invisible you are.  But the world is full of thin, pretty women who are completely unremarkable.  (Don't give me that "everyone's a unique beautiful snowflake" crap; I think we all have the potential to be wonderful, but we deny it and end up settling for average when we could be extraordinary.)  More importantly, the world is full of thin, pretty, miserable bitches.  Being thin doesn't make you happy--you have the same flaws and bullshit as you always did, but now you're thin.  And if attractive people don't find you attractive, or find you boring or are just not that into you or whatever the going nonsense is, you've lost your blame-blanket.  You don't have that excuse not to get on with your life anymore.

So I've been getting on with my life, and gaining weight, and I am fairly convinced that it's a last-ditch effort on the part of my inner lizard brain to keep me from growing, except in the most literal of ways.  My fears want me to stay fat and unhappy because if I don't, I'm faced with the awesome responsibility of charting my own course in the world.  And if I insist on doing so despite my fat, said inner lizard panics and tries to up the ante.  

I said, "Fuck my fat.  I'm doing yoga.  And I'm going to this dancing thing."  And the lizard Moosh said, "PANIC!!! PIZZA!!! COOKIES!!!"

This is not to belittle the panic I felt after that whole thing; but that issue isn't separate from my weight, it's all intimately connected with a disconnection from intimacy.  I've always been afraid of letting people close enough to touch me.  If I'm out somewhere with MW and he puts a hand on my waist from behind my first impulse is to deck him, although I don't actually want to.  It's very hard.  That's the nice thing about being fat--people out in regular society don't want to touch you.  (Unless of course you're pregnant, in which case people will just walk up and grab your stomach like it's public property.)

Granted I'm not about to go out and try to convince myself that I want people feeling all over me; I'm not as concerned with having hard boundaries as I am with soft squishy ones that could give me Diabetes and have me shopping at Austin Tent and Awning for pajamas.  I'm not looking to become more touchy-feely; I'm looking to become more myself, and right now, I'm standing in my own way, facing up to fears I've been allowing to fester and stew for almost a decade--no, more like my entire life.  

I haven't come to any firm conclusions about all of this, but it's been percolating in my mind over the weekend and I felt the need to share it.  I'm sure I'll have more to say in the days ahead.

ETA: Please do not take the above post as a blanket statement about all fat women.  I am aware that people are fat for all sorts of reasons.  I have observed that a significant percentage of women share similar issues to mine, but it's not an absolute.

Ahimsa in the Mirror: Part 2

II: Paradigm Shifts Begin at Home

My personal definition of the Sanskrit term Ahimsa is "dynamic nonviolence."  It is the Green Tara, sitting serenely to receive the pain of the world but with one foot extended, ready to step up and act on her compassion.  It's a form of love that is constantly growing and evolving as our consciousness expands, but a ripple must have an epicenter.  Change may be inspired by an outside stimulus, but it still has to come from the inside or it goes nowhere.

For most of my adult life I have been quietly violent toward myself.  Violence, suffering, and pain are not interchangeable terms; pain is unavoidable in life, but violence usually is, and suffering is often a matter of perspective.  There are some kinds of pain that are in fact good, even necessary--growth is not a comfortable thing (and neither is a tattoo).  I've spent years inflicting both violence and suffering upon myself out of a mistaken belief that I didn't deserve any better.  If I were to direct that same hatred at others that I have toward myself I wouldn't have any friends at all.  As it is, my tendency toward self-directed cruelty has at times leaked out, usually unintentionally, via my acid tongue.  I am slowly--very slowly--teaching myself to mind my words, but as I said, that applies to the things I tell myself as much as others.

Some people cut themselves, some people shoot up heroin, some people have empty unsafe sex.  Some people belittle themselves and cling to abusive or simply negative relationships.  Others do all of the above.

I eat.

I'm always going to be a curvy girl, or at least I hope so.  When I was my happiest in my body around age 16 I was a size 14, which is perfectly respectable whatever the charts and "experts" say.  But when I moved to Austin, I started smothering my emotions and abusing myself with food. 

My weight crept up slowly at first, but after I was assaulted in 2001 a switch seemed to flip inside me and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to disappear.  It's funny how getting fatter and fatter makes you less and less visible to the world; you become a sexless floating blob that is somehow too big to be seen.  I wrapped myself in comforting layers of fat, on the wobbly logic that food couldn't hurt me, wouldn't abandon me, and was always with me.  Things evened out after a while, but every time my depression overcame another medication I started working once again on a long term unconscious plan for slow and secret suicide.

This last year was especially bad.  I put on, and I'm not exaggerating, at least fifty pounds in 2008, topping out at 295.  I gorged on ice cream and pizza almost every day and then lay awake at night waiting for my heart to give out.  I felt like I didn't deserve health and well-being, but should resign myself to diabetes and heart disease because obviously I was too weak and pathetic to do anything about it.  I was a worthless, fat slob, and I would die alone and be found with my face chewed off by my cats, and have to be lifted out the window by a crane.

I wanted to carve off hunks of my flesh with a machete, starting with my enormous belly.  I wanted to be humiliated and insulted, to have the rest of the world affirm how useless I was.  But most of all I wanted to eat--I wanted to fill the gaping hole in my soul with cookies and cheese.  I wanted to eat as much dairy as I could to prove that I was too powerless to be vegan. 

I can't say for certain exactly when the moment came, but I remember quite clearly, in the midst of one of my internal litanies of damnation, stopping long enough for a thunderous voice in my head to shout:

BULLSHIT!

I'd been struggling with the realization that Ahimsa is not something that I can only apply to animals for months; I even got my tattoo with that idea in mind.  It took a long time, however, for that understanding to sink in past the rage and self-abnegation I had built up around myself for years.  The strange thing is that once I finally got it, it was as if the decision had been made already and all I had to do was let it happen.

I started working on my health at New Year's, and it's been almost easy.  For a great many people losing weight is a form of abuse, but for me it's more of a process of letting go.  I've been holding on to so much for so long and most of it was hurtful. I've been terrified that without my fat I would lose my identity, lose the Fat Girl image I've been living behind.  After my thirtieth year, however, I have decided that my identity isn't what I thought it was, and that I have to surrender to something higher than my fear if I want to thrive.

I'm finally letting my body speak without censure or censorship, and my body has said, "Dance, drink water, stop talking shit to the mirror, and stop eating crap."

And my mind replied, "Well...okay, I can do that."

I'm trying to treat myself with patience and love instead of severity, and while I wouldn't say I'm all that good at it just yet, I am getting better.  This past weekend for example I had a bit of a setback in the form of a drunken binge that ended in an all-night prayer to the Porcelain God, because I had a depressive episode and threw all my hard-won health discipline to the wind, but afterward I realized that such destructive behavior is simply not worth it.  Ahimsa toward myself is the only way I can live.  It may take a while to fully embody that practice, but I am determined.

When I wrote The Body Sacred, as with my first book, I felt like I was channeling a voice that came from somewhere beyond me, but I'm starting to think that it was actually my real voice, the one that's been bound and gagged for so long.  The words were true and beautiful, but it took them a while to become more than words to me.  I started the book during an "up" phase of my body/mind relationship that unfortunately didn't last much past the last page.  That loving inner voice wanted me to hear it and understand, to be inspired the way other people were when they read the book. 

What can I say?  I'm a little slow sometimes.  And as stubborn as a grey pubic hair.

Devoting myself to the practice of Ahimsa means so much more than veganism and not calling myself Shamu.  It means that I have to consider all parts of my life part of that practice, and gently but persistently bring all my behaviors in line with that ideal. It's a pretty massive undertaking, but I can already say that just the amount of progress I've made in the last few weeks has taken such a huge weight off my shoulders that I already feel like a different person. I'm looking at the way I treated myself in 2008--or, really, my entire life off and on--and finding myself amazed that I've survived so long, but also feeling an upwelling of empathy for myself for all those years of misery and confusion. It's just so sad to me that I felt that way, that I still struggle against feeling that way, to have hated myself so very much when I absolutely did not deserve that kind of cruelty from anyone.

I hope I never get that lost again.

For now, I'm concentrating on being found...and I have to say that so far it feels pretty wonderful.

Ahimsa in the Mirror, Part One

I: Practice Makes...More Practice

If you are alive, you killed something today.

One of the things that veg*ns hear constantly is the worn-out old argument about the "suffering" of plants; one of the things that veg*n Pagans hear ad nauseum is that everything dies and death is just a natural part of the Circle of Life, Simba, so we might as well take all that bacon with us to the grave.  Some even accuse us of being afraid of death or in denial of the dark side of life.  We kill microorganisms by the million just breathing, we hit bugs with our windshields, and insects and rodents die every day in the course of vegetable farming--even organic farming.

So obviously if you can't be 100% vegan--and you absolutely can't in this world--you shouldn't even try, right?

To me the question is not one of death.  Vegetables die for me at every meal.  Granted, about thirty pounds of plants are required to raise one pound of beef, so if you're worried about vegetable suffering I'd still say veg is the way to minimize that, but still, being alive and taking up space means that something else can't.  Law of physics, you know.  Every morsel I eat is one that another being couldn't.  Just like me getting a job means someone else didn't.  Does that mean I should be unemployed?

Literalism is often used to justify unacceptable behavior.  Look at fundamentalist Christians and homosexuality, or Islamic extremists and...everybody.  Taken literally, the mere concept of veganism, Ahimsa, or even the Wiccan Rede is utterly ridiculous, impossible, and just plain silly.

Great! Let's all give up and pull the wings off flies!

That's why I view Ahimsa as a practice as well as a virtue.  Notice that a lot of worthwhile aims--yoga, Wicca, medicine, tantric sex--are all referrred to as "practices," not "perfects."  Just because you can't go all the way doesn't mean you shouldn't try.  Don't think you can stop eating meat?  Eat one less flesh meal a week.  This doesn't just apply to what you eat, either.  Just because you can't stop worldwide poverty doesn't mean you can't help one person.  It may not seem like much but I guarantee to that one person it was everything.

It may be just a burger to you, but to someone, it was life.

Whether or not it's justifiable to kill and eat animals for food is, to me, unimportant.  We could argue about that all day and get nowhere, just like with any fundamental belief.  But the fact is that our appetites have created a system that causes immeasurable suffering to living things, all kept carefully out of sight, torture and murder performed for us by hit men who have next to no worker's rights and are barely paid a living wage, only to come home and transfer the violence of their employment to their families. This isn't some kind of out of proportion veggie propaganda.  Find any video of a slaughterhouse killing floor or read interviews with workers and you'll see what really goes on behind those faraway walls.  If it were only death meted out by the industry, the numbers would still be outrageous, but the abuses and horrors perpetrated against defenseless animals are inexcusable.  There's simply no reason for it. 

All of this to satisfy our taste--not our needs.  Whatever you think about eating flesh, the fact is, nobody needs a Big Mac.

The irony is that this cruelty is also slowly killing us.  Broccoli isn't the culprit in the rising cost of healthcare and the swelling cancer statistics.  Nobody has a heart attack from eating rice every day.  I would take perverse amusement at this, but really it saddens me that people are able to live with blinders on, when the human race is capable of so much more.

I am working to remove myself from the system of innocent blood spilt over willful amnesia.  I am not perfect and never will be.  I can't guarantee I won't go on a cheese bender one day any more than I can guarantee I won't accidentally hit a butterfly with my car.  I have no idea what life has in store for me, but I can make the solemn and earnest declaration that I am committed to the practice of nonviolence and will do the best I can to minimize the suffering of other beings especially in the name of my desires. 

(Sounds awfully Buddhist of me, doesn't it?  I think Paganism needs a version of the Boddhisattva Vows--of course, that would require a much more organized view of the universe than most Pagans have.)

Next post I'll talk about what it means to commit to nonviolence toward the self.

The Spirit of Nia

I'm cross-posting this to both blogs because I wasn't really sure where it fit.  On the one hand it's about movement, dance, and wellness; on the other it's about a really intense spiritual experience...so forgive me if you receive it twice. 

Ten Things I Love - Body Sacred Edition

1 - I love the color of my eyes.  Sometimes they're a sort of sea-grey, sometimes almost brilliantly blue.  They have been described as "mischievous" and "mysterious," which pleases me.  I also have dark lashes, so I don't have to wear mascara--good thing, too, as I am apparently allergic to it and most if it is made of dead bats and gay baby whales and other horrifying things.  (Actually I hardly ever wear makeup at all, thanks to #7.)

2 - I love my feet.  They're cute, and small, and I have nicely-formed toes that I always keep painted some form of dark red or purple.  Even the blisters and calluses forming on the soles are good to me, for they mean I've been dancing and am toughening up.  When I was a kid I ran barefoot on hot asphalt all summer long, so I had very tough feet.  I still go barefoot in places I probably shouldn't, like my apartment parking lot, but my feet enjoy it.  My feet have carried me throughout my life and hopefully will continue to, bad ankles and fat girl knees and all.  As they say in Nia, your feet are "the hands that touch the Earth."

3 - I love my shoulders.  They're strong and have a graceful line, especially when I'm standing up straight and proud (which thrusts my breasts forward, so it's a win-win situation, really).

4 - I love the overall shape of my body.  I have an hourglass figure with about four extra hours poured into it (I have time on my ass), but regardless of size I like having a defined waist and serious curves.  My torso is short and my legs are comparatively long, so long skirts with slits look outrageously good on me.

5 - I love how flexible I am.  It always surprises people that I can bend myself in so many interesting shapes despite the tummy and thighs in the way.  I've always been flexible; I was a gymnast as a child, and actually won ribbons and such on the balance beam.  Then someone told me I was too fat to ever be a real gymnast, and I took it to heart, unfortunately, and quit.  It took me decades to regain my love for movement--this time on my own terms.

6 - I love my hands.  They do my work, and the work of the Goddess and God, in this lifetime; they're also small and cute like my feet.  The only problem I have with them is that I have Essential Tremor so they shake almost constantly, which makes it very hard for me to paint in detail or handwrite for long periods of time.  When I'm really tired I look like a traveling earthquake.  They do so many other things, though, that I don't mind so much.  I even like the v-shaped scar on my left ring finger from a kitchen shear incident when I was 18. 

7 - I love my skin.  I was blessed with remarkably clear, porcelain skin that has miraculously few blemishes and only develops mild acne right before I bleed.  I freckle like a redheaded stepchild if I'm out in the sun, but I try not to do that, as I like being pale and creamy like the flesh of a cherimoya.* 

8 - I'm not as fond of my internal organs, to be honest--my digestive system is afflicted with IBS and I have a sinus arrhythmia that makes life a bit hairy sometimes--but I must say I love how my body is able to adapt to whatever insanity I put her through.  She'll put up with crap food and no sleep for a while, then start sending out reminder notices that I need to get my accounts balanced or there will be hell to pay.  When I take better care of myself, she responds with praise and rewards galore.  People talk as if the mind is smarter than the body, but I think the body has its own wisdom, a wisdom that reaches back much farther than the development of the human intellect.  If I give my body half a chance, she'll step up to any challenge.

9 - I love my hair, though it drives me crazy.  I have a lot, lot, lot of hair.  Always have.  The older I get the more I appreciate it.  Several stylists have gotten panicky when they stuck their hands in it, and the usual line is "Damn, girl, you have a lot of hair!" Even though I've dyed it every color you can imagine (I have no real memory of my natural color except that it's mousy and uninteresting), it's still healthy and soft.  We argue constantly about its refusal to pick a direction and that one spot that tries to curl no matter what, but overall, Iove my hair. 

10 - I love my tattoos.  I want more.  Lots more.  At present I have three:  a butterfly on my right shoulder blade, a spider on my left shoulder blade, and a snake on my left upper arm.  I'm a one-woman zoo over here.  I'm thinking of getting tattoos to celebrate dance on my feet, and possibly "ahimsa" on my right arm with a lotus or other symbol, but those designs are all in development and I'm not in any particular hurry.  I love that I deliberately took on the pain in order to seek beauty.  A friend of mine often says, "make the pain count."  As with skin, so with life, I pray.

All right, it's your turn.  Go forth and make a list of ten things you love about your body, inside or out.  If you love the little mole on your elbow that's shaped like Missouri, or the way your eyes crinkle, or your mastectomy scars, or your right pinkie finger, say so.  We spend too much time talking about what is wrong with our bodies, what we hate, what we wish we could change--let's talk about things we love.  Your body will thank you for it.

* - You must try a cherimoya, also known as a "custard apple," sometime if you find one and can afford it.

Sacred Sexuality, or Something

My goodness, an awful lot of people want me to talk about sex.  Sex, and God.  Pagans have awesome priorities.

I'm actually not being facetious when I say that.

As far as sacred sexuality goes, I'm not sure I'm your girl. 

(The following post is intended for...well, people who want to hear about my sex life.  It's not explicit or anything, but it is Too Much Information in places.  Fair warning.)

For Racu: An Anecdote

A friend of mine (and recently-initiated student, go her!) requested that I post this story which was originally written for my personal journal, which is not public. I agree with her--a story this good deserves to be retold.  And so, submitted for your perusal, "My Last Two Dollars and My Last Good Nerve."

August 30, 2005

I nearly punched someone today. 

The scene is Book People, a Monday evening. The cafe area. Having spent the day feeling like ass and laying around watching TV bundled up in various wubbies on the futon, I decided to make a pilgrimage to the library, then on the way back to Mecca itself, my all-time favorite bookstore and Austin landmark. I can't count the hours I've spent at Book People curled up on a couch or in the cafe sipping chai and collecting recipes, or paging through the latest metaphysical tripe. It's a comforting ritual and a way that my last couple of bucks could support local business.

So I score a table against the wall, put down my stack of cookbooks and various other and my purse, grab my wallet, and head for the counter. (My purse is in plain sight, don't worry; I wanted it to mark my table.) Today's coffee jockey is an adorable pierced-and-tattooed boy en flambe, as most BP baristas tend to be. There's one woman in line in front of me, waffling between a decaf skim milk latte and some other thing.

Now, this woman...oy. There are thin women, and then there are Skinny Bitches, and my radar went screaming off on the latter immediately. She's standing there in her overpriced workout clothes--you know, the kind nobody wears to actually work out in, they just wear around town to make it look like they're oh-so-health-conscious. She has one of those stupid little pink leather purses that should have a dog in it, and an armload of magazines about pilates and yoga; her hair is that expensive streaky blonde that's all the rage in people trying to look young and hip. She's making fake small talk with the adorable pierced-and-tattooed boy en flambe, and taking forever to decide what she wants, talking herself into and out of a piece of cake about five times.

I'm barely paying attention, as I am scanning the menu myself (you know, making up my mind BEFORE I get there?), but she has one of those nasal voices that worms its way into your brain and makes your spine hurt, so before long I'm listening to her; I think she was trying to be flirty. Anyone with half an IQ would have known her charm was absolutely wasted on our friendly neighborhood cafe lad.

The woman is now weighing the pros and cons of having skim milk versus two percent milk in her latte, and she says, "God, I don't know, I just feel so, like, fat today. I feel like such a big fat cow."

Then she turns to me, and she says, GET THIS, "How do you stand it every day?"

I blink.

The adorable pierced-and-tattooed boy en flambe blinks.

Several heads in the cafe pop up because nobody can believe this woman actually said this to a total stranger. I feel as if the sitcom camera is pulling in tight for a closeup on my reaction.

But the gods of snark are smiling upon me today. I reply, straightfaced, "You know, it's normally not too bad, but today I'm having one of those days where I feel like a shallow dumb bitch. How do you stand it every day?"

Just then the barista, who is holding back laughter so hard he's beet red, hands her her skim milk yuppie whatever and says, "Here you go, ma'am." She too is kind of pink, but she doesn't say a damn word, or leave a tip--she storms off, her cell phone already to her ear, because clearly she's the wronged party here.

The pierced-and-tattooed boy en flambe busts out laughing, and I notice a few of the popping-up-heads are laughing too. I'm both shell-shocked and proud of myself, because usually when I'm insulted I'm not quick on the draw enough for the witty retort. "Oh my God, I cannot believe she fucking said that to you," he says, shaking his head.

I can't, either, but at the same time I can. It's not the first time people have made comments like that to me. They only do it when you're alone, because if you're with friends you're upholding the Fat Girl Contract--you're playing the part of asexual sidekick to whoever is the pretty girl. But if you're by yourself, and gods forbid having a good time or--gasp!--eating something besides a salad with the dressing on the side, you're fair game.

If you walk up to a black man and call him that dreaded "n word" or tell him he should be tap dancing and eating fried chicken, you'll be thought of as a bigot, but if you insult someone's appearance to their faces in public or tell a fat woman she should be on Atkins, it's considered "helpful advice." You don't know this woman, why she's fat, or anything about her life, but it's okay to be cruel, because obviously she's lazy and self-indulgent and you, as a skinny evangelist, have the right to say whatever you want if you think it's for her own good. People don't believe this kind of shit happens, but it happens every day.

I order a cherry Italian soda. The adorable pierced-and-tattooed boy en flambe waves my money away. "On the house," he says. "The comeback was worth two-fifty at least."

I slip the two dollars in the tip jar and go back to my table, shaking my head, still too amazed at the whole thing to really process it. A few minutes later I hear a quiet laugh, and I look up to see the adorable pierced-and-tattooed boy en flambe holding a milk jug and grinning a little sheepishly.

He sees me looking and holds up the jug.  "I think I gave her whole milk by accident," he says, and winks.  "Oops."

Sister Moon Lodge Seeks Pie

For the next few entries, I’m going to do what feels right to me to do, and what will no doubt squick out a good many people.  I’m going to talk about my period.

That’s right.  My period.  Menstruation.  My euphemism.  Falling to the Communists, Surfing the Crimson Tide, Riding the Cotton Pony, Seducing Vampires, Being Up on Blocks in the Yard, The Eve of St. Menses, Aunt Flo, my Special Visitor, and so on, and so forth.  I am a bleeding woman, and this bleeding woman is tired of pretending she doesn’t bleed; being a writing bleeding Pagan woman, I have a forum for my insanity, and that forum is this blog. 

I talked about bleeding at some length in The Body Sacred, and I’ll try not to repeat myself too terribly much, but there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest (or out of my pants) and what better place to do it than a body-positive, Earth-spirituality blog? 

For example, I am bleeding today, and I had to go to work even though my belly was twisted in cramps and my back ached.  I couldn’t get comfortable in my office chair, and every time I stood up, well…ladies, you know the GOOSH!!! I was nauseated and hungry and my IBS was at a fever pitch, and I thought to myself, “My Kingdom for a Moon Lodge.”