sooooo.....

I spend all this time away from sufficient access to the internet and the whole time I am thinking, oh I gotta get connected, all these emails I gotta send, things I wanna write, sites I gotta visit and yet here I am-all the access in the world and my mind is blank as a white sheet of paper. Or is it? Is my mind in fact, so muddled and thoughts so numerous that they are merely swirling around so fast, so fast that I can barely see them? I think this may be closer to the truth.

Gotta begin somewhere right? Do I want to be vulnerable? Not really. Do I want to talk about how someone called me fat the other day and while the moment it happened I felt distant and detached now that the moment keeps surging up--hinting that I am not as detached as I wanna be? Why is the weight of an insult so much more than the weight of a compliment? Is it because so many of the people I have been romantically interested in have inevitably fallen for a skinnier woman and not me? Is it because Express clothes no longer fit me? Is it because my last boyfriend used to say the same things a stranger so flippantly muttered as he passed my way? Is it because weight loss commercials dominate the airwaves? I DO think I am beautiful. I really do.

A concerned friend took me aside not too many months ago and told me she was concerned for my well-being. It was because every time I went out with her (to the clubs) I felt miserable and hateful. I told her it was because I felt self-conscious in the semi-ill fitting club clothes I was wearing and the because I couldn't afford to buy 'cuter' clothes. I told her I hated how many guys came up and spoke to her and none of them gave me a second glance, unless it was to ask me about her. But what I also told her was that I didn't find it fulfilling to go out just to have people 'notice' me and ask me out, and have semi-sincere conversations about nothing at all. I didn't find it interesting standing in a bar around people who drink a lot and smoked a lot more. I didn't find it interesting to waste half a months' salary on cab rides and entry fares. But what I hated most of all was I wasn't sure whether it bothered me that people didn't find me intriguing and beautiful or whether I was more bothered by the scene in and of itself. She told me I had a low self-esteem and I told her-but I think I'm hot, and I think I'm pretty damn funny, and I also think I am smart....so what is self-esteem because I esteem myself pretty well. I wish I had more money true, some of the previously mentioned issues would not be issues if I could pay my bills AND have a bit left over...but that is not the issue today.

Dr. Joy Degruy Leary said it well when she said "It's not how I see me, it's not how you see me, it's how I think you see me..." or something like that. Is self-esteem inevitably tied with how we think others are seeing us? How rigidly do we each refuse to believe it when someone says something nice and how much does it matter when as soon as it is spoken the person receiving the compliment immediately brings to mind the nameless void of 'other' humans who think the opposite. "Sure you think I am (pretty/skinny/beautiful/smart/funny/attractive) but EVERYONE ELSE does not." I don't know. I know I am pretty tired of being told I am fat/not cute/ugly or worse-being told I am fuckable. That happens on the street all the time. Two months ago someone asked me to have threesome with him and yelled to the entire bus full of people about my ass......

It's a pretty crappy catch-22 if you ask me.

Common human reaction to the phrase "i'm fat" is generally "no you're not" or "you are beautiful" well, I am. I don't need the people who would normally say it to say it though....I need the world to stop being so obsessed with imposssible images. I need the world to change. I also need to wrap it up. More to say later? I swear I am not as bitter as I sound, I just needed to expound a little bit, you know?