The Ongoing Saga of Status Quoman

I Won't Do That

2009-01-07T05:39:00.001-08:00

I find it easy to eat my way through any situation. Mildly depressed:
Time for food. Celebrating: Time for food. Sick: Let's eat! Tired:
Just a nightcap.

But the one time I find I simply can't eat is when I'm crying or on
the verge of tears. I've done it before, but there's something about
that kind of multitasking that clashes in my brain. Perhaps it's a
sense of pathos derived from the desperation that comes from a
complete lack of control -- when I've lost control of my emotions,
losing control of my consumption drives me over the edge of reason.
Disembodied, I can see myself as the fat girl crying as she stuffs her
face, chomping through gasps of breath while the tears roll down her
cheeks, and I feel so pathetic that whatever was bothering me in the
first place just gets that much worse.

So whenever I'm crying, I don't eat.

This is why I lost weight when my heart was broken in summer of 2003.

Five and a half years later, and I'm staring at my unopened yogurt.
Maybe I'll give it another try in an hour.

Transformation

2008-12-01T05:57:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning feeling gross after consuming half a serving of chocolate chip cookie dough pancakes at my hometown diner last night. The pancakes were delicious, don't get me wrong. They were simply highly unnecessary, and horribly bad for me in every way.

Earlier I'd eaten delicious, relatively healthy hibachi while dining out with an old friend. Even though my meal was simply rice and vegetables, I ate until nothing remained on my plate, though I'd reached fullness well earlier on.

I've been going through a cycle during the last few months--well, years, actually: I'll eat myself to oblivion, get disgusted, and swear that I'm turning a new leaf. I'll follow Weight Watchers for a week, maybe two, get more exercise, lose a few pounds, and feel like I'm on my way towards permanent control over how I consume. Then I'll waver; I'll go overboard with free donut holes at the office, or eat the entire pot of pasta when I meant to have leftovers. I'll gain weight, feel disgusted with myself, and the cycle starts all over again.

Even my vegetarianism has wavered lately. It's never been about not eating cute, fuzzy animals to me. It's been about protesting inefficient land use for meat when plant-based foods feed so many more people using far fewer resources. I also prefer to place restrictions on myself in my own personal Kashrut: Though I am top of the food chain, I also have consciousness, and this consciousness leads me to believe that I do not, in spite of my superior intellect, have the right to run about Earth eating up whatever strikes my fancy. Since eating is the ultimate form of conquest (eating something turns that thing into more of you), I am not presuming to be lord over all living things. This is something that makes sense to me intellectually, and, I feel, is healthily humbling. But lately I want fish. I occasionally eat a piece of shrimp or two out of my partner's dish. And then I feel disgusted for something entirely different -- not just that I can't control how much I eat, but that I can't even control the kinds of things I eat when it really, seriously matters to me.

(Also, is eating more vegetable-based food than I need really an efficient way to protest grossly unequal food provision? Grabbing far more than my one body-machine needs?)

It occurs to me this morning that I really do need to transform the status quo -- it was more than a cute superheroine/blog name. The times in which I am in control of my consumption, in which food does not control me, and my body moves into a comfortable state, have been when I was either exceedingly happy (e.g. in 2006 when I had just moved into an amazing job and an amazing apartment and knew what I had and what I needed beyond what was on my dinner plate) or exceedingly sad (e.g. following a horrific breakup, after which I basically only ate dinner every day for a whole summer). Status quo is different.

Status quo is when I am not particularly happy but not particularly sad. They're the long, in-between stretches that I am old enough to realize will probably be the norm for life. A person can't maintain mania or depression for the long haul -- nor should they. Status quo for me is eating until there is nothing left to eat. It is eating until I feel a fullness that imitates the fulfillment that I know, intellectually, is the real thing I'm craving.

I still realize that I am not a huge woman. I realize that people have much bigger difficulties with food than I do. But that does not change the fact that, in this national moment of change, I crave my own. I want my status quo to be stability, even in the face of ennui. I want to find a way to separate myself from food so that, while it necessarily remains an important part of my life, it is not the starring role in every blessed performance of my normal, daily life.

There has to be a way, but right now I can't seem to see it. And in the meantime, I'm sick and tired of oblivion. I miss clarity, but keep forcing it down with excess.

Getting Active

2008-11-10T09:32:00.001-08:00

Saturday night was my local contradancing group's annual Fall Fling, and I decided to go this year for the full five hours of dancing (from 4 to 6 for experienced dancers, and from 8 to 11 for all levels). I popped two Aleve, pulled on my knee brace and a tattered skirt*, and gave it a whirl.

After all that whirling, I am aching in muscles I didn't even know I had. My dear partner, who has better knowledge of human physiology, indulged me by naming each muscle or muscle group when I pointed to a spot that hurt.

I had a very strange reaction the actual night of the fling. After feeling like I hadn't really pushed myself to the limit, and actually being somewhat disappointed in myself for that, I boarded the subway and immediately fell into what felt like a giant, full-on, rushingflu. My throat was aggressively sore, my body ached and felt like it weighed a ton, my head hurt, and my steps dragged. I almost fell asleep walking home. I collapsed into a restless sleep that did not feel satisfying even by noon the next day, which was when I finally hauled my aching body out of bed.

I'm not sure what caused this, but it certainly can't hurt that this was the first extended exercise I've done in months. Possibly even a year, since it's been exactly a year since I hiked Breakneck Ridge with some friends and came to the realization that I was truly an adult (if being an adult means not being able to just up and do physically challenging things without adequate preparation). That also corresponded to my knee problem showing up, so I guess happy one year of knee pain, mazal tov to me. I really want to change this, because I know that one of the things I loved best about myself two years and thirty pounds ago was the feeling of strength, agility, and readiness that came with being physically fit. I was working out at the gym at least three times a week, walking to and from work each day, doing yoga 2 to 4 times a week, jogging a few times a week, and contradancing every few weeks or so.

Honestly, no wonder I dropped nearly forty pounds. That's a shit ton** of exercise.

I want to get back to that place of feeling fit and comfortable and powerful, but I just don't see myself going back to a gym regimen, and until my knee recovers I don't think I'll be jogging much until I have less weight pounding on it with every other step. I went jogging recently, and while it felt good to get that kind of movement again, my convalescing knee relapsed into popping and pain immediately afterwards. The deal is, I want to be able to set and keep a goal of an exercise regimen that works for me as my body is right now, and that will ease me into an active life again without falling into the kind of near-coma I experienced on Saturday night.

So, here is my current plan for Easing Into Activity Without Breaking My Back/Bank, written up as a weekly regimen, and measured in terms of Weight Watchers activity points.***

Swimming, slow - 1 hour: 4
Morris dancing, 1 hour: 4
Walking during lunch 5 days per week, 40 minutes, leisurely pace: 10
Contradancing, 2 hours: 8
Brisk walks to the subway, 5 times per week: 5

This would put me at 31 activity points per week, and Weight Watchers advises at least 28 per week. On weeks that I do not contradance, I will have to make up for it in other ways. I would also like to start going to yoga on Fridays, since after 6 months of no yoga at all I'm
feeling a loss of flexibility and balance. 1 hour of yoga nets 3 activity points.

The things that I will need to succeed on this:

Buddies for swimming: Check. Except that we have to figure out a good day of the week for us to go, which is looking like Mondays, but which won't start until after Thanksgiving.
Morris dancing: I'm hoping that we'll start running dances more regularly here so I can get the most out of those nights.
Walking during lunch: Must self-motivate. Especially during winter, this could get difficult. But even 40 minutes of leisurely walking nets me 2 APs, and also gets me the benefit of removing ass from chair and eyes from screen.
Contradancing: Wish it wasn't so expensive, but I suppose $14 for two hours of cardio isn't so bad.
Brisk walks to/from subway: Sometimes I get a ride one or both ways, so possibly could be variable depending on the day. I should probably start asking myself to walk regardless of the hour or the state of my knee.

If I can keep this up for a month, I can't imagine things won't begin to change. And of course, the longer I do this, and if I start losing weight, I will have to adjust my regimen accordingly. But for now, this seems like something I can do.

Moving forward.

* Said tattered skirt is no longer in one piece following an unfortunate attempt at standing up while standing on the hem.
** Shit ton is the colloquial standard equivalent of four metric tonnes. Or just a lot of something.
*** This may not be the most scientific way to measure how much exercise I'm getting, but I do appreciate that Weight Watchers takes into account your current weight in determining how much exercise will result in a certain level of benefit.

11/4/08

2008-11-06T22:14:00.001-08:00

On Monday night I sang "If I Had a Hammer" with Peter Yarrow at a phone bank in Midtown.

On Tuesday night I reveled and raved with thousands of other proud Americans in Times Square.

On Wednesday night I listened to the Decemberists play "Sons and Daughters" at Terminal 5, and realized for the first time that our generation finally has a chance at redemption -- we no longer have to be the 9/11 Generation, or the George W. Bush Generation.

We can be Generation Obama.

It's Thursday night. I'm at my desk in Astoria, Queens. My country has changed. The world has changed.

And I cannot stop smiling.

Coincidence?

2008-10-30T08:17:00.001-07:00

While editing a passage about rivers, I noticed a strange correlation between seasons and river structure.

Spring moves through summer into fall.

Some rivers start with a spring and move into a fall.

This hippie-dippy realization brought to you by my incessant worry about whether terms are properly introduced before use (I was concerned that "fall" had not yet been defined, when in this case they were talking about the season, not a river structure. And quite obviously, I might add.)

Grateful am I

2008-10-16T10:01:00.001-07:00

I've had an interesting opportunity arise recently, one that is both a
long shot and a sure bet at the same time. I've gone for it with
gusto, and in the process shared my plans with several friends who are
more religious than I, in different religious faiths. A few of them
offered to pray for me.

I haven't regularly prayed in a long time, but when people offer to do
it for me I remember how important it actually is in many ways beyond
the obvious method of having a direct dialog with G-d, which, because
I do not have a strongly formed idea of who G-d is, can be a bit
difficult for me to build into my life in a meaningful way.

At Yom Kippur services, the rabbi in residence talked about the
morning prayer we are meant to say immediately upon waking up, which
starts with "modeh ani" ("modah ani" for women), which translates
directly to "Grateful am I." He noted that it's not "I am grateful,"
not putting yourself first as the first word you utter with the start
of a new day, but by starting the day with an expression of pure
gratitude through that first word. I could go into a lengthy
discussion of semiotics here, but that would probably just be
redundant.

Though I don't have much of a prayer life, I think that having that
kind of tradition, starting each day with gratitude for simply having
that day, can only be a good thing regardless of one's level of
religious observance. I typically don't have time to meditate in the
morning as I'd like, or stretch, or do yoga, or even sometimes pack a
lunch or shower (I'm not too proud to admit that last one). But if I
can take a few seconds after floating--or jarring, as the case may
be--into consciousness to say those few words of recognition that each
day is something worth being thankful to have...well, I can't see
anything but positives in favor of that.

Generational Tones

2008-09-19T12:59:00.001-07:00

The Baby Boomers are known for some of the slang to come out of their youth, such as "groovy," "far out," and "dig it."

Our generation will be known for "squee."

And maybe "omg."

The sad truth is, our children will think we are even more hopelessly lame than *we* think we are.

To Dream the Nonexistent Dream

2008-09-07T13:44:00.001-07:00

When we are small, we're told that we can be anything we dream of being -- doctor, poet, truck driver, explorer, and my wildly lofty childhood dream of choice, astronaut*.

When we are little, nobody tells us that we can strive to any number of careers that simply do not exist yet; however, realistically, there are plenty of legitimate jobs that exist now that did not exist a mere 20 years ago. Given that the internet, in its presently glorious, socialist incarnation, did not exist back then, an entire sector came into being well after our parents could have stroked our heads and said "Suzie, when you grow up, you can be a progressive blogger covering feminist topics in national politics!"

Though my current career did indeed exist when I was a small child dreaming of space shuttles and Mars landers, I certainly did not dream of being an office toad when I hit 25. And now, here I am, squatting on that lily pad for 8 hours a day (minus bathroom breaks), shoulders hunched over a machine with more computing power in its word processing program than my old Apple IIGS could summon to play Zany Golf when I was six. And what of it? What about quarter-life dreams?

I've been trying to figure out if I want to go back to school, even though, honestly, the idea of going back to a world in which homework figures prominently gives me hives. Before taking any sort of leap of education or career, I thought I'd take the sane approach of finding other people whose jobs make me think "Okay, yes, I want to be him/her when I grow up."

After being limited in childhood by the boundaries of what existed at the time, are we still limited once we reach that pinnacle of career? When they said "the sky's the limit," did they mean "the concrete confines of modern technology and current vision are the limit?" Or is that something I'm constructing now in my absolute, abject frustration at not being able to find any career that I can point to and say: Yes, that is exactly what I would love to wake up and do every day for the next few years of my precious life.

I know that it is a wonderful, lucky thing that is unique to my randomly being born into the exact situation that I was, to have so many options. But it is also frustrating to realize that yes, I could be anything, but what it is that I absolutely, wholly want to be?

Paralysis by noncommitment. Still searching, and not getting anywhere faster than a slow, plodding hop.

*Granted, this dream lasted until I was twenty, which kinda pushes the statute of limitations on childhood ambitions.

Too Bad it's Not Michael Palin

2008-08-29T21:58:00.001-07:00

I spent my afternoon tubing down a gorgeous river, with shorebirds, turtles, and yes, even an otter lining up to take turns showing off their adorableness. Quite a relaxing journey.

Then I come home to find out that John McCain has selected for his vice presidential running mate an anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-guns, anti-science, creationist, anti-gay rights, inexperienced nutbag...who just so happens to have a vajayjay.

I then spent the rest of the night fuming and developing horrible cramps and lingering gas. But that might have been all those figs I ate last night. Column A, column B?

I already distrusted McCain, but this is a major, MAJOR slap in the face to women everywhere. It's in line with all the conservative rhetoric about how women are incapable of making important choices for ourselves -- c.f. the decision the Roberts Supreme Court made last April to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Just like women might, in the rush of emotion, not be able to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, women are also unable to differentiate between a progressive candidate with decidedly liberal politics, and a right-wing posterchild with absolutely nothing in common with the Hillary Rodham Clinton whose "disaffected supporters" the McCain campaign is so blatantly and infuriatingly trying to woo across the fence.

As a Reluctant Former Clinton Supporter, may I officially register my absolute outrage and insult over this disgusting farce, and over all the ridiculous party-line-towers who really should be just as outraged that their 72-year-old candidate has just selected a running mate with a mere 20 months of gubernatorial experience under her anti-feminist belt.

Did I mention she apparently opposes abortion even in the case of incest or rape? I didn't think people with daughters were capable of even pretending to hold this belief, but somehow Sarah Palin has proven me horribly, horribly wrong.

This election is now that much more important. I know I'm talking to myself here, but sometimes it's fun to pretend I'm on Feministing or someplace with an actual readership: Get out and talk about this. Write to HRC and tell her to take a stand against Sarah Palin. Don't allow the Republicans to turn Clinton's historic run into a disgrace. And don't let this dream team of human destruction make it to the White House.

Go Obama. Please, go, go, go.

Genes and Aesthetics

2008-08-27T12:16:00.001-07:00

The other day a friend pointed out that I had a noticeable streak of gray in the bun I was wearing.

(This friend is excused from this particular faux pas because the other day some mean asshole douchebag McGee told her she thought she was pregnant. Oh, charming! How delightfully funny, a true comedy of errors! DIE.)

So today in a fit of existential crisis I pulled 7 long, gray hairs out of the back of my dark brown head. They're sitting next to me at my desk tied in a knot, looking up at me pleadingly like abandoned children. I can just hear them sighing "I didn't ask to be born gray!"

The way I see it, this fine foray into premature aging can be due to one of three possibilities:

1. It has been a stressful few months/years.
2. They're all from the same dead follicle I've had since I was a teenager.
3. I did not inherit my mother's magical perpetual youth gene.

I know that at this stage of my life #2 is the best bet, since all the gray hair is concentrated in one spot, but it was still something to muse about. Mainly because I've been reading a lot about genetics lately, and since I'm a huge dork I enjoy applying these ideas in silly situations. According to my mother, my grandfather is the one who carries the magic perpetual youth gene (we'll call it MPY for short). So, since my mother displays the trait for MPY, we know it's X-linked. This gives me a 1 in 4 chance that I have inherited MPY, but it gives my older brothers a 50/50 chance of inheriting it.

I'd say that my 1 in 4 chances are a lot worse -- unless I'm twice as lucky as the guys, I'm going gray by 30 -- but my brothers also have a 50/50 chance of inheriting my grandfather's amazing, never-balding head of hair (also X-linked) or my grandmother's family history of baldies. At least I should have that one in the bag.

Salt and pepper hair can be quite alluring. If not that, I always thought I'd look nice in auburn.

This post brought to you out of a desire to replace crisis with vanity. Mission accomplished?

Overheard in Old Navy

2008-08-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

...in the fitting room while trying on various ill-fitting clothes, because dammit you made big sizes, but did you bother considering the extra bits that girls this size carry around with us?

A song over the loudspeakers that begins with the statement: "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes."

Is the singer implying that the object of her affections changes his/her mind from a standard-issue school uniform into a one-piece swimsuit when Mom picks him/her up for swim practice on Thursdays, and into a leotard in time for dance on Tuesdays? If so, I'd say that person should be applauded for having a relatively strict adherence to a medication schedule, though perhaps the dosage should be altered so that the levels aren't so obvious. And so that said person's mind will stop donning tutus on Tuesdays. Those mind-wedgies have gotta kill.

A quick Google leads me to Kat Perry's "Hot n' Cold." Besides the blatant disregard for apostrophe rules (PUT AN APOSTROPHE IN PLACE OF EACH OMITTED LETTER, YOU IDIOT -- what, is your song called "Hot nd Cold"?), a quick run over the lyrics beyond that rather annoying first line led me to what is arguably a million, gajillion, brazillion times worse:

Yeah you, PMS
Like a bitch
I would know

If I were to list the reasons to egg Kat Perry's house and/or expensive car, I'd need a new blog just for the first third of said list.

Thank you, Old Navy, for enlightening me to the ever worsening state of popular music.

Now with Footnotes!

2008-07-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended not one, but (count 'em) two Obama fundraiser events. As a former Reluctant Clinton Supporter¹, this was a big deal. These were my first ever Obamavents. Over the course of the evening I mingled with two voting blocs -- Young Jewish Professionals for Obama, and what I like to call 30-Something New York Yuppies Who Are Friends With My Brother for Obama (for lack of a more specific umbrella).

Over the course of the evening, I listened uncomfortably to out-of-place hip hop, noshed upon agave nectar-filled dates, downed four glasses of white wine, and posed three different ways with a cardboard cutout of Obama. I also donated $136 total to the campaign: $100 to 3SNYYWAFWMBFO and $36 to YJPFO². I received two buttons for my efforts: One a traditional "Obama '08," and the other, of identical layout except the slogan, which read "ברק אובמה."

So by the end of the evening I have two nearly identical buttons pinned to my almost-but-not-quite-fashionable faux leather purse. It's not at all acceptable to my sense of aesthetic, so I decide to choose one and tuck the other away into an almost-but-not-quite fashionable side pocket. Which to choose?

Remember that I am a former RCS. I used to glare back at all the perky blonde twenty-something women wearing enormous Obama buttons who smiled knowingly at me on Super Tuesday and beyond, assuming that because I was a young, reasonably feminine woman I must obviously be an Obamaniac³. Throwing some money at the presumptive Democratic nominee is one thing; wearing a symbol I so openly loathed but a few months ago is another.

I have to say one thing for Obama: I am much more willing to sport his name than I was Kerry's. As much as I desperately wanted him to win in 2004, Kerry is not the kind of guy you gush about, or the kind of guy the youth rally around. I remember listening to Eminem's "Mosh" on election day and crying -- though he was clearly anti-Bush, he couldn't bring himself to say "vote for Kerry," even though it was clear that that was what we needed to do, anything, anybody to get the madman out of office. 2004's futile "Vote or Die" youth campaign made me lose faith in America for months. Years. On November 3, 2004, I sat in Riverside Park with a friend smoking a clove cigarette (I don't smoke) and not saying a word. It was our first time exercising our role in democracy, and it was an abject, downright, horrifying, abysmal failure.

If Obama can change that, regardless of whether it's due to an overinflated image, I will be able to join Michelle Obama in her overanalyzed non-snafu statement about American pride⁴. And so, for the first time since a half-hearted attempt to support Dean, I am willing to wear my political alignment on my sleeve (quite literally), but the question still remains: to Hebrew, or to English?

My first inclination is to go with English. This could be leftover from a youth among Southern Baptists, but I remain wary of stating my religion openly. Or perhaps it's due to lingering culture shock after arriving in New York to find how simple it was to pick a Jew out of a crowd⁵ and the desire to retain my own identity as a secular but spiritual Jewish woman. Also, to be totally honest, the whole Hebrew-to-English-phonetics deal has reached epically silly proportions⁶. So I left the English Obutton on my purse and slipped the Hebamabutton away.

Of course, five minutes into my newly-established political identity building exercise, I started to feel self-conscious. Had I become one of the blonde, perky Obama Girls? Am I giving in to the obnoxious politicocelebrity culture machine built around a man who, though an excellent public speaker and a perfect posterchild for multiculturalism, is still quite clearly (to me) a consummate politician and a megalomaniac⁷?

Yes, I'm totally overreacting to the simple issue of an Obutton, but it got me thinking. I was invited to two fundraisers on one night. I get e-mails forwarded from all kinds of listservs: Diversity for Obama, Law Students for Obama, Chicks with Dicks for Obama. Of all the voting blocs to which I might belong, which one do I identify most closely with⁸?

I think it really boils down to which bloc needs my affiliation more.

I've been watching all the news about Jews' wariness towards Obama, and the topics range from concern about his stance on Israel to absolutely deranged shock mongering. I mean, typical election stuff, but Obama does appear to be put under a Jewish magnifying glass more closely than any other candidate in recent memory. This is most likely because he is pushing for a more pluralistic approach, courting Palestinians and even insisting on dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas (see the latest from AFP). Pro-Israel Jews have relied on unilateral support for Israel for so long that Obama is putting them through an unexpected wringer. Of course, his promise of an "unshakeable" bond with Israel is complicated by what appears to be contradictory dialog with Israel's enemies.

I am not a 100% Pro-Israel Jew. I see the Palestinians' plight as one of failed policy (possibly deliberate by Israel's neighbors) and missed opportunity. It truly is a failure that generations of Palestinian refugees have grown up without a place to call home. While I align myself with the Jewish people, and feel that Israel does have a right to exist, so do the Palestinians. At this point, I break from most of my peers in the Jewish community, or at least the ones with whom I have had most communciation.

So when it comes to the silly issue of an Obutton, a larger question looms: Which bloc needs my representation more? English-speaking Americans for Obama? Or Jews, as a bloc currently on the fence (supposedly), for the man who truly stands up for the morals that are the cornerstone of our venerable religion/ethnicity, regardless of how those morals manifest themselves in the current political climate?

In addition to these reasons, the Hebrew button would allow me some measure of being an Obamanian on the sly⁹. Only those who have a functional knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet would pick up on it (or those with a photographic memory and an eye for design themes).

The answer seems pretty clear.

Now here's hoping I don't get confronted by any Hassidim for McCain.

1 Clinton Supporter because I was truly excited by her candidacy, and felt she had the tools to catalyze the greatest amount of significant good for our country. Reluctant because I knew from the getgo that she didn't stand a chance.
2 In Hebrew numerology, the letters that spell חי, the Hebrew word for "life," add up to 18. Ergo, money gifts, requested donations, etc. often go in increments of 18. It's like shouting "l'chaim" with every eighteen dollars you shell out. This event's minimum suggested donation was double-חי, or double-life: 36. I know, this all makes a load of sense, especially to those of you who didn't spend 15 years in Hebrew school.
3 It's moments like these that make me want to just shave my head and stop wearing skirts, but what good would that really do?
4 god what a farce this whole process can be.
5 And said crowd is also usually 40% Jewish.
6 .אי ותד פור ברק אובמהא אנד אל אי גת ו׳ז ת׳ס לוו׳זי תרנזלתרעשנ
7 Anyone who runs for president and pretends not to be power-hungry is clearly -- well, a politician.
8 Not the chicks with dicks, though they need representation, too!
9 Not a cookie-cutter white girl on the subway relishing the smell of her own farts.

Like it's My Job

2008-07-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

I have to admit a very silly guilty pleasure: Every so often I find myself skimming through the blogs on the Weightwatchers website. They've got two main bloggers, one called "Shani Weighs In" and the other "Life After Goal." As you might imagine from the names, the former is updated by a woman who is going through the process of losing weight, and the latter is updated by a woman who's been there, done that, and trying to keep it that way. Life After Goal Woman doesn't intrigue me as much. She talks a lot about yoga poses she likes, what it was like to run yet another 5K, getting through the stress of life events (poor thing got engaged recently). You know, normal stuff that any normal person, overweight or no, might experience, just spun in the context of having once been a Big Girl. It's Shani's blog that is my guilty vice. Even though we clearly have plenty in common, she's the WW blogger I love to hate.

She annoys me for all the wrong reasons. It annoys me that she only has X lbs to lose to get to her "ideal weight" and that she was only X lbs to start with, when I have well over that to get to the point where the FDA would recognize me as "healthy." I hate her for complaining about going to the gym and then discovering it really wasn't so bad after all. I mean, duh. Talk about stale ideas. Probably stupidest of all, I hate her for the fact that losing weight is her job, and she still finds ways to screw up. The way I figure, if it was my job to lose weight, I'd be friggin' Mary Kate Olsen by now.

The thing is, I should feel sorry for Shani. Would I really feel professionally fulfilled if all I did all day was write about how bad I felt after eating a donut? No. Would I enjoy pondering each bite I took, wondering which ones would make good blog fodder, or even worse, agonizing over a deadline if (gasp!) nothing particularly blogworthy happened that day? Probably not. Would I want a picture of myself emblazoned across a very public record of my every ounce gained or lost, so that any number of site visitors in New York City could recognize me on the street? Absolutely hell no.

And there are definitely times when I'm not 100% on my game at work, so who's to say that if I were in Shani's shoes I'd do any better?

I suppose we can now safely add "I could lose weight if it was my job" to the Status Quoman's Stupid Excuses for Bad Body Image list.

Forever Twenty-wah?

2008-07-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I spent my lunch break hitting the main drag of clothing stores near where I work. I've been on a quest to find nice, affordable, professional clothing ever since I made a considerably upward move in my career (since my preference for jeans and green hi-tops would most likely be frowned upon by my new colleagues). My main conclusion after several attempts: I have trouble understanding why all shopping experiences geared towards young women must resemble epileptic seisures.

Upon entering these stores, the shopper is immediately hit by a blast of loud, usually cacophonous music that, in itself, is an intensely rattling experience. I've noticed this phenomenon before -- it's most obvious in larger department stores, like the flagship Macy's on 34th Street. I once took the escalators up all the way to the top, just to see the really old, wooden escalators on the upper floors. Each floor had its own blend of mild popular music playing at a reasonable level, but you could pinpoint the juniors floor without even seeing the clothes -- thumping, pulsing music must be statistically proven to whip girls and young women into a consumer frenzy.

The second thing to strike me each and every time is the seemingly random, careless arrangement of wares. While some smaller stores with a longer cycle time (i.e. those stores that keep items in stock longer than a few weeks) still organize their apparel by season, occasion, color, or what have you, many stores with a shorter cycle time cram as much fabric as will physically fit into the space. This leads to a whirlwind of colors and shapes without much in the way of rhyme or reason.

The cramming also leads to smaller aisles, with shoppers examining the overloaded displays in single file. When two examiners meet in the middle, they engage in a complex dance of avoidance, either shimmying past one another, or one going around the long, seemingly counterintuitive way to go back to the original cramped space, just slightly further down.

The aural overload, the visual overload, and the claustrophobia combined are still nothing compared to a real seisure, I'd imagine, but I'd love to see the marketing studies that lead apparel stores for young women to adopt such extreme, uncomfortable measures.

Almost makes the American Girl stores seem like a pleasant return to the good old days of shopping as a special event. Not that I would necessarily encourage implementing this level of branded consumerism early on.

What am I talking about. Today's girls have Hannah Montana. It's too late.

Here Be Bloggins

2008-07-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

Change of course.

It seems this whole superhero-narrative-as-thinly-veiled-autobiography isn't going to cut it. Well, not for my own self-serving needs, anyway.

Status Quoman grew out of a conversation with a dear friend of mine, who also happens to have plenty of body issues. We were talking alternaheroes, such as Captain Misanthrope and Motzi Man, and suddenly there was Status Quoman, fully formed and ready to fight to preserve the status quo. Her nemeses arrived soon after I decided to take Quoman to the streets of Gothapolis in an attempt to elevate the Status Quo. Through Status Quoman I'd achieve a healthy state of body and mind! I'd write a story every day! Maybe I'd do a webcomic! Maybe I'd gather a following on the Weight Watchers boards! Maybe I'd change the way people think about bodies and the large female form!

Life sometimes gets in the way of success. Fittingly enough, raising my real-life status quo a bit did that trick.

This isn't to say that Status Quoman stories don't pop into my head all the time; they do, and how. It's just that Status Quoman has evolved. She's turned into more than a one-woman body-accepting machine, mainly because I've realized that the battle that Quoman fights for me is more complex than simply learning to value the corporeal hand I've been dealt.

Vague enough for you? Let me explain.

On my way home today I was thinking about my weight. This happens regularly, which is just lame, but going on. A young man came onto the subway. He was trim and young and athletic -- and his face was ravaged by extreme acne. Now, being a self-conscious young woman, I often compare myself to others (I wish I could be as thin as her, wish I could pull off that outfit -huh huh huh, get it? Anyone? Other thirteen-year-old boys?). Not always negatively, of course. Sometimes, like today, I compared myself positively, though still in a negative fashion -- I may be fat, but at least I didn't get cursed with a scarring skin condition. Which got me thinking...

Like so many large young people, a good part of my body acceptance problems stem from my parents. Okay, I'll stop being oblique -- my mother. I love my mother dearly, but she has always struggled with my weight. I am the only overweight one in my family -- my mother, father, and brothers are all trim. I've been raised to believe that being overweight is a tragedy, that everything else I've got going for me is eclipsed by this one fatal flaw. And I do have a ton going for me; my genes, as compared to the rest of the family, could not be better. The uncomfortable inheritances that nagged my brothers skipped over my genome. I have never battled acne, I have light, sparse body hair (yeek), I somehow managed not to inherit The Nose, my eyebrows are great without plucking, and, being a woman, I haven't spent my whole life worrying about which X chromosome from Mom might be responsible for potential male pattern baldness. As far as superficial beauty goes, I got dealt a pretty swell hand. The one missing card is the skinny-without-trying card, and believe me, it's a big'un.

I have struggled with this my entire life. I have been on a diet since age 11. Dieting is my status quo. Fighting an eating disorder is also my status quo. My status quo has remained remarkably steady for the past 25 years. I've been questioning my sexuality since developing a giant, terrifying crush on Anne P. from biology class in eighth grade, but have never fully resolved this as part of my identity. I've been a vegetarian for years (cut out red meat at age 14, going on five years now of full lacto-ovo vegetarianism) but haven't really made inroads into how that fits into my sense of activism, which I strongly feel it should be in spite of my refusal to join the ranks of (h)angry herbivores. Even my sense of style, or lack thereof, remains undetermined; my wardrobe contains items from middle school that I know make me feel unattractive but somehow can't seem to unload. For 25 years I've gotten interested in one thing, done it full steam ahead for a while, then gotten lazy and stopped.

Perhaps this is my problem: laziness is my status quo. Or perhaps the status quo in general is my problem.

Time to change that. Status Quoman from now on will be energized. She will discuss matters of body, brain, science, and faith. She will tackle feminist topics with wit and aplomb, which in actuality will probably involve a fair bit of stumbling about in the dark. She won't be afraid to get esoteric or nerdy or even scholarly. She will write about news articles and plays, about catastrophes and discoveries, about the way the honeysuckle a few feet from her front door smells, and why that should mean something on any old Tuesday. There will be no specific special focus to this blog. It will simply be the musings and adventures of a feminist, fat, (sometimes) furious, Jewish, science-minded, indeterminately queer, indomitably optimistic everyday superheroine.

Status Quoman is me. Ready for my saga? Let's go.

A Battle for the Hallows

2007-11-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

Like any good superhero, Status Quoman patrols the streets of Gothapolis on a regular basis, keeping crimes against the female body in check as best as her superabilities allow. Her beat requires more subtlety, more skill than that of Batman or Superman -- no signal alights the sky, no super hearing alerts Status Quoman to a crime being commited three miles away. No, our heroine must seek out evil in all its haunts and homes in this crime-ridden town.

Status Quoman likes to think her job requires more subtlety, but it really just requires being hit over the head with obvious things.

For instance, one night, about a month ago, Status Quoman walked her beat, this time venturing into a neighborhood unfamiliar to her. So far, the night had been uneventful. She found a lovely South Asian grocery store, leaving with a delightfully colorful lentil mix and some excitingly-named spices. The October night air held that slight nip that hints that fall is on its way. Status Quoman felt strong in the prospect of change that autumn always brings. For a superhero whose task it is to transform the status quo, change is one of her most powerful allies.

Her first inkling that Concavia was on the prowl came as Status Quoman approached a chain store infamous for its costume selection during this very season. At first, our heroine admired the selection flaunted by faceless window mannequins: a pirate, an ogre, a Ghostbuster -- and then, as she gazed, Status Quoman felt eyes on her. There, standing next to the Ghostbuster mannequin, was Concavia, smiling evilly. She, too, sported a Ghostbuster uniform. However, hers was the "women's" costume: the only attributes held over from the costume on the mannequin to her right was its yellow color and ghostbuster logo. The pant legs had been reduced to upper-thigh length shorts; the long sleeves to caps, and the collar to a low-cut, cleavage bearing, zip-down-to-the-waist flesh fest.

"How do you like my sexy-Ghostbuster costume, Status Quoman?" cackled Concavia. "I'm going to turn so many heads this Halloween, your sense of self-worth won't stand a chance. What are you going to go as -- oh wait, what was I thinking? You don't get to dress up."

"What do you mean, I don't get to dress up?" Status Quoman growled, her such-a-pretty-face flushing momentarily.

Concavia glanced up and down at Status Quoman once, let out a high-pitched squeal, and bolted into the store. Status Quoman's super big bones swelled into action, her super identity quickly flung into full battle mode. She burst into the store to pursue her archnemesis.

At first, our heroine could not determine where Concavia hid. Status Quoman started by looking for her in the basement. She was informed that this was the "men's section." Concavia was nowhere to be found amongst the racks and racks of colorful, interesting costumes. Status Quoman located the Ghostbuster outfit that she'd seen in the window. It was available in regular, tall, and extra-large sizes. A sales associate helpfully modeled the costume against his own body for our heroine, showing how much extra room it had for men of different sizes and heights. Status Quoman thanked him, but knew she must be on her way to finding and defeating Concavia.

She flew up the stairs and immediately knew she was getting warm. This section, the "women's section," was far different from downstairs. For starters, Status Quoman could tell, using her density sensors, that the total amount of fabric on this floor was far less than the floor below it. As she quietly crept from aisle to aisle, she discovered a horrifying sense of deja-vu. For every costume she'd seen in the men's section, a "women's version" of the costume existed on this floor. The women's versions were uniform in their short lengths and plunging necklines. They often included thigh high socks to accentuate long legs. Even an Elizabethan gown, traditionally low-cut and ornate, was shortened to show off stockinged thighs.

Then Status Quoman found the women's version of her Ghostbusters uniform. To her horror, she discovered that not only was it a napkin version of the men's costume, but it only existed in two sizes: small and medium. Status Quoman's face flashed purple. Now she knew why Concavia said that our heroine would not be dressing up for the holiday.

And that was when Concavia burst forward from behind the rack as the sales associate directing our heroine looked on with amusement.

Status Quoman chased Concavia out of the store. She chased her down the street and across town. She chased her across October and into Halloween. It was then that Status Quoman realized why Concavia was leading her on this chase. On that anticipated night of the carnivalesque, whose very essence requires and celebrates abandonment of self, Concavia replicated herself. Her mirrors were everywhere, in sexy devils, sexy angels, sexy butterflies, sexy cats, sexy cartoon characters, sexy nurses, sexy women-in-bikinis -- the carnivalesque had been reduced to abandonment of self and simultaneous adoption of a socially-mandated order of flesh-baring sex. Concavia was nowhere to be found, because she was everywhere.

Now Status Quoman is not against women showing their bodies. As a feminist superheroine, she fiercely defends a woman's right to wear what she chooses without fear of physical or verbal violence. However, this night of Halloween, Status Quoman saw aggression. She saw it in the guise of women forced into tiny squares of fabric because it was what was available to them, and expected of them. She saw women cloned into marches of identical costumes, lines of lingerie, the sense of creativity and surprise inherent in this holiday reduced to a sad, tired mass production line.

And what about the men, whose costumes afforded interesting levels of creativity (not to mention warmth)? Those men for whom, ostensibly, said women were putting on their mutated form of carnivalesque? They were now jammed into an uncomfortable position.

Status Quoman saw single girls who looked longingly after attached men who did not pay attention to their short skirts and tight bodices. She saw a troupe of sexy devils with cameras descend upon one hapless man waiting for his slice of pizza. And she saw another, unrelated sexy devil, who turned the call for attention on its head: when a man turned to look at her as she walked past, she responded with: "You. You are a pervert. Stop looking at me." Then, swinging her tightly-swathed hips, she strutted past.

Where does one draw the line? When a woman wears a "slutty" costume, whether or not it is something she does out of personal desire or out of social obligation, is that not done, in some part, in order to attract the attention of others? While violence of any kind is unwarranted and unacceptable, are men no longer allowed to look? Or was this yet another attempt to draw attention, or to fill a deficit of expected attention -- no man had thrown himself at her sexy-evil feet yet that night, so did that mean she was not sexy enough, and therefore had not fulfilled the promise of that one evening? No, look, a man, someone, a pervert, was looking at her. And the slutty-Halloween prophecy had been fulfilled.

Status Quoman never tracked down Concavia that night. It was a major victory for the enemy. And Status Quoman knows that, in spite of her own civil disobedience by dressing creatively no matter how much extra fabric she binds to her body, the battle will only get worse before it gets better.

In Which Our Heroine Learns Not to Judge

2007-09-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

It's lunchtime in the Hall of Paperclips, and Status Quoman is taking a well-deserved break from her latest battle. This morning, she fended off a surprise attack from Rotunda, who had been lying in ambush in her closet. As our heroine stood in a state of half-sleep, gazing disinterestedly at the row of hangers bearing item after item of clothing that no longer fit over her super big bones and trying to decide which pair of pants would reduce her super powers the least (for uncomfortably tight clothing is like kryptonite to Status Quoman), Rotunda sprung from behind a size X4 skirt and flung herself upon Status Quoman.

"NO! Not the blue cropped pants! Everyone will see how high you cinch them up on your waist so they'll fit!"

They grappled for about three minutes -- it was a short battle, by Rotunda standards -- until Status Quoman wrenched the blue pants from Rotunda's chubby hands and pulled them up and over her Super Hips. With a final flourish, she zipped, with Rotunda grasping at her shouting "DON'T! DON'T!"

The pants zipped without much trouble. Rotunda looked perplexed.

"I could have sworn those were smaller. No matter. I'll get you next time you try on the pink pleated skirt, Status Quoman!" Rotunda disappeared into the closet, and Status Quoman could hear her rifling through her clothes, giggling quietly and maniacally with each clack of a hanger.

Now, Status Quoman relishes the fruits of her latest Super Initiative: Bringing Lunch to the Hall of Paperclips Every Day. Today's super lunch includes a delicious, healthy sandwich -- an original Gardenburger on high-fiber flax bread, a slice of locally-grown organic tomato, chunks of ripe avocado, locally-grown organic lettuce, locally-grown organic red peppers that she'd roasted last night in a fit of Super Domesticity, and a shmear of spicy chipotle hummus. (Part of Status Quoman's ongoing mission to maintain a happy status quo involves supporting local agriculture, and her Super CSA has saved her from the clutches of Rotunda's processed-food attacks on multiple occasions.)

Even superheros need breaks every now and then. Oh look, Status Quoman thought, Dick Cavett's put out a new article in his column! Actually, Status Quoman has been so busy counting paperclips that she has regrettably missed some of the previous columns; this particular personality has always written with exceeding wit and clarity. Our heroine eagerly devours the article while devouring her Super Lunch.

Oh no, thinks Status Quoman. Rotunda must have escaped my closet and infiltrated the halls of the Grey Lady. How is it possible that Dick Cavett, friend of Groucho Marx and John Lennon, recently revealed to have been persecuted personally by Nixon, teller of ghost stories and stories of awkward rites of childhood passage, could call obese women "a herd of heifers"? Status Quoman had to read further.

It was only a few years ago that I first noticed an obese person in a commercial. Then there were more. Now, like obesity itself, it has gotten out of hand.

This disturbs me in ways I haven’t fully figured out, and in a few that I have. The obese man on the orange bench, the fat pharmacist in the drug store commercial and all of the other heavily larded folks being used to sell products distresses me. Mostly because the message in all this is that its O.K. to be fat.

As we know, it isn’t.

...Fat people, the commercial-makers may feel, are entitled to representation. What’s wrong with that?

Everything.

Status Quoman nearly chokes on her locally-grown, organic red peppers. Cavett goes on to discuss the health problems associated with obesity -- the usual parade of "several cancers, crippling damage to joints, heart attack, stroke, diabetes and sleep apnea," touches briefly on the racial and socioeconomical connections to obesity, confirms that it is becoming a worldwide "revolution," and reminisces about the day of his childhood in which the Fat Lady in the circus, a true human rarity, deserved her place among the freaks.

Status Quoman also detects more than a hint of sexism -- though Cavett does not say so explicitly, women seem more regularly identified as the objects of his disgust: the Fat Lady of his youth, the "herd of heifers," the "fat, sassy black lady" of sitcoms, qualified only slightly by his added parenthetical -- and possibly editorially-mandated -- "(or man)."

Cavett briefly mentions the fast food nationalism sweeping the world, but otherwise does not bother to consider the reasons behind growing rates of obesity. Status Quoman scratches her head; and why would he? The subject is already talked to death and speculated upon and studied and mourned every time a new statistic arrives. Cavett's point is clear: he wants to shed political correctness and point a solid finger at a potato he thinks does not belong in the melting pot. The big, fat, lumpy potato.

Status Quoman's Super Big Bones begin to shake and her Super Such-A-Pretty-Face flashes red, ever so briefly. Cavett accuses the potatoes of being contributors to the "epidemic" that's seizing the world, and accuses advertisers of exploitation in admitting that, for once in the history of popular media, overweight and obese people do exist, and might exist as normal people and not just as butts of fat jokes. What he does not include, for reasons that most likely mean that he does not want to dilute his diatribe with any modicum of compassion or thought-outside-his-healthy-BMI-box, is that overweight and obese people do not benefit from only seeing Concavia and her henchwo/men on TV. In fact, the era preceding popular media's (still completely marginal at present) inclusion of those of above-average body size was the era that shepherded in the rise of obesity in America. Does Mr. Cavett think that showing acceptance -- no, not acceptance, admission of existence! -- of overweight people encourages obesity when their non-acceptance ushered in their growing numbers?

Does Cavett not realize that looking at obese people on television does NOT make Status Quoman wish she were fatter?

Status Quoman realizes with a start that Cavett is engaging in the classic game of blaming the fat people for being fat, as if fat is something that people strive to be. As if, in a Western society dripping with Concavian celebrities and oblique sex, it's preferable to be a fat person: socially reviled as sexually unappealing (or worse, easy), professionally unambitious (because clearly a person who let his/herself go cannot possibly be a go-getter), and physically underperforming (and here Status Quoman flexes her Super Somewhat-Pudgy-But-Still-Muscular Biceps menacingly). As if the rare advertisement that includes an overweight person encourages viewers to chase the American dream of social pariahism!

As if being fat is a choice we make.

All of a sudden, Status Quoman freezes. Concavia's thin, bony fingers are closing around her shoulders. POW! Status Quoman's evil archnemesis sharply tips our heroine's chair, throwing her flat on her back. Status Quoman feels the back of her head and touches warm liquid -- she withdraws a finger and sees that it is sticky, dark; Concavia's attack has hit hard, and she is now lying in a pool of her own hypocrisy.

"Now I have you, Status Quoman," Concavia cackles. "How many times have you bemoaned 'how easy it must be' for those overweight people whose diet consists mainly of fast food and prepackaged, processed food items to lose weight? 'All they have to do is change the quality of food,' you've complained, when you actually have to work for it? When your body is genetically programmed to gain weight even on a diet of vegetables and whole grains?"

Concavia pins Status Quoman to the ground with a bony, knobby knee. Our heroine struggles to free herself, but Concavia's accusation prevents her from rising. Status Quoman knows this is true; she knows that in her moments of self-pity, the moments in which the kryptonite (rather, "Quoptonite") breaks her down, when she reads about someone who lost 100 lbs simply by realizing that a diet of burgers wasn't working, or when the scale creeps up even when she feels as if she isn't having enough fun to be gaining weight, that her self-pity and judgment does not, in fact, help her along her quest. And when she compares herself to other overweight people at all, fully knowing that there is no clear, silver-bullet solution to general obesity.

Concavia cackles louder. "You thought it was Rotunda holding Dick Cavett captive, when it really was ME!" Status Quoman feels her strength fail; then she rallies. Her Super Big Bones expand to their full Big Size, and she throws Concavia and rises.

"Concavia!" Status Quoman shouts. "My arch-nemesis, you have unknowingly helped me in my ongoing pursuit! You have identified a weak point in my Super Armor, the point in which judgment of others for personal benefit seeps through.Now that I see it, I will mend it, and will be that much stronger against your attacks."

Status Quoman's Super Such-A-Pretty-Face flashes blue, then pink, then settles on polka dots. "I would advise you to move aside before my Super Big-Boned hand finishes forming a Fist of New Intentions."

Fearing the threat of Status Quoman's Intentionally Vague Attack, Concavia laughs maniacally as she slips through the door and out of sight.

"You haven't seen the last of me, Status Quoman!" our heroine hears, echoing down the hall.

Status Quoman's Super Big Bones shrink down to their normal size, and her Super Such-A-Pretty-Face settles into its normal hue. Concavia's attack has made her stronger by temporarily allying her with a hostile force in the Opinion section. And really, what is Opinion other than one [thin] man's personal perception?

Status Quoman sits down to mend her super armor. Maybe she should get someone to help her with that. Even Batman has Alfred...

Wait a minute, thinks our heroine. Did Concavia say she was holding Dick Cavett captive? Maybe I should hire new writers.

The Saga Begins...

2007-09-18T10:01:00.001-07:00

Status Quoman woke today to find a cool breeze blowing past the Fortress of Solitude. Granted, the Fortress is cleverly disguised to look like a typical medium-wage-earner's studio apartment, but a true superhero does not require the fancier trappings -- or at least not giant, isolated, mansion-adjacent caverns in which to store them. It would be nice to have an extra cavern somewhere, though, she thought. It would be perfect storage for her tighter civvies.

She walked past her bookshelf, stacked with Wollstonecraft, Woolf, Stein, to sit at the SuperQuomputer for her daily mornings' work: scanning the news for crimes that require the aid of her superpowers. It would be nice if today could be an off day, one in which the Quo-signal would not be lit by a woman or man in need, in which a crime against body and brain would go uncommitted, in which the tenuous balance between a feminist lifestyle and the quest for healthy body and body image would go uncompromised. She could go for a bike ride. Catch up on Wired. Flaunt her secret identity with reckless abandon.

She was abruptly pulled from her reverie as a story caught her eye -- it was about the increasing demand in the Evil Fashion Overlords' Image Mines for ever more raw materials, in this case, models with dance backgrounds. One sentence specifically made Status Quoman's magic big bones quake: “Ten years ago we didn’t have that many models around, but the turnaround now is so high that in order for the girls to compete they have to be perfect.”

Concavia, Status Quoman thought grimly.

She reached for her cape.