Chubby Bunny

Posted on June 15th, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Personal, Feminism, Omnia Vanitas.

As anyone who’s seen me in the last several years knows, I am a chubby bunny. Not that I was ever a skinny kitty, as even in high school I was a bit ‘thick,’ but the inevitable freshman fifteen seemed to recur yearly for me, although some strenuous self hate and crash dieting helped keep that in check. But then I moved to California and put on another 40 lbs, for which I of course blame the guy I was living with, ’cause god knows it wasn’t my idea to follow three slices of deep dish with a dozen Krispy Kremes and a four hour nap. Ok, it was, but do you know what that kind of weight gain (in less than six months!) does to a body? It ain’t pretty. For the first time in my life, it wasn’t my chest and hips that made dressing a problem (which was fine, because at least I looked decent in the buff), but rather my waist and my rapidly expanding rear. I shed a tear in many a dressing room, trust me. But since I started my Life Altering Path To Enlightenment (quit smoking, work out, FOMYL), I’ve had some success. Down 20 lbs, about to drop below the 200 lb mark, and cigarettes are basically a thing of the past. You would think that after quitting smoking, losing weight would seem like a walk in the park, but they don’t really have a fried cheese patch to help with the withdrawal, and once you take smoking out of the mix, the only social activity I engaged in was eating out. In fact, 60% of my income has gone straight to my ass. I started the NutriSystem program last week, which is going OK, although in about a month I’ll probably go nuts in the mall and start stealing little kids’ ice cream cones and Auntie Anne’s pretzels.

What really concerns me, however, is that so much of my time has been devoted to improving my appearance that everything else, including figuring out my life (FOMYL) has taken a back seat. Baby steps in the future department, StairMaster in the looks department. Damn, I am the worst feminist EVER! Blame society, folks, I’m the victim here. ;)

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No Surprise There . . .

Posted on May 6th, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Relationships, Personal, Politics, Feminism, Current Events.

Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women, Rate Drops for the Affluent: Marc Kaufman reports that a new study analyzing federal statistics indicates that “Poor women in America are increasingly likely to have unwanted pregnancies, whereas relatively affluent women are succeeding more and more in getting pregnant only when they want to . . . As a result of the growing disparity, women living in poverty are now almost four times more likely to become pregnant unintentionally than women of greater means, the study found.”

Listen well, girlies. Money is freedom, and choice is for the rich. Abstinence education is the worst joke the ridiculous right has played on this country. But don’t worry. Once you’re knocked up, you can undergo the physical discomfort of an abortion and the matching emotional baggage, or better yet, you can pray to your God that some ‘nice,’ straight, wealthy couple will adopt your baby and abuse it as their own. More likely, you will carry that baby for nine months, squeeze it out into this world, and love it in a way you will never, ever love anything else. Including any hopes of being all that you could be. All because you didn’t know or were too afraid/ashamed/asinine to take advantage of the fact that Planned Parenthood or another agency would hand over everything you need to be sexually safe (excluding common sense and self esteem, of course) with relatively few questions asked.

In the meantime, your more affluent sisters will be pursuing self-fulfillment through careers or service or experimental experiences, and maybe eventually finding their ideal partner and deciding “here’s the co-parent of my children, and s/he just happens to be a doctor!” Which is good, because when they say that we’re “getting preganant only when [we] want to,” they’re obviously not considering the women for whom pregnancy doesn’t come easily. Is infertility only a curse upon the wealthy? Or do we just think so much more about it because its yet another course on the buffet table of life that’s grown cold while we rushed about to gobble all the other things we were told we should be consuming?

Think about the meaning of choice. Choice is inherently sacrificial — you choose one thing and another is automatically removed from the table. Good luck directing the rage resulting from this slight of hand. Sure, you can have it all — career, passionate marriage, babies, self fulfillment, and good health. Just not with good sleep habits or all at the same time. Unless, of course, you have the money to invest in having others live your life for you. Kudos to the girls who manage to pull it all off, and make it look easy. Remind me to get the name of your therapist…

(Via Washington Post.)

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Define “Moral Regeneration”

Posted on April 5th, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Education, Politics, Feminism.

Zuma ’showered to avoid HIV’: “South African politician Jacob Zuma says he washed after sex with a woman with Aids to reduce the risk of infection.” This story stuck in my craw after I read this little nugget:

“Before being sacked as deputy president last year, Mr Zuma headed the government’s National Aids Council and the Moral Regeneration Campaign.”

He’s been accused of rape by an HIV-positive woman, and claims the unprotected sex was consensual. But no fear — he took a shower after the encounter to “minimize the risk of contracting the disease [HIV]”. He also said that he was prepared to marry the woman who accused him of rape, and that if he had reached an agreement with her family, he “would have had [his] cows ready.”

Alleged rape and corruption charges aside, it just goes to show you that you probably don’t want the morals police teaching your kid’s sexual education class…

(Via BBC News.)

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