You know who's overweight? Nearly every person I know. You know
who hates their body? Nearly every woman I know. The men may have the
same ten or forty or seventy-five pounds they ought to lose for their
health, but they do not wake each morning determined to starve
themselves into looking different, detesting the way they look now,
their self-confidence utterly undermined.
No, that seems to be a woman's purview. And it's sad.
I'm a member of a weight-loss organization which works for many,
but not all. It's a cult, it's a miracle, it's learning how to eat
with health in mind--no matter how much of you there is.
One thing I've learned by attending its meetings is that heavy
women often fall into two groups. There are large women who make the
most of what they have--pretty faces, green eyes that pop with the
right makeup, a sense of style, great posture, great taste in shoes
or glasses, a mix-and-match wardrobe in a small number of flattering
colors, bras that cost more than good shoes--and those who have given
up, characterized by unflattering knit pants with elastic waists,
tops which hug every bulge, cheap bras, hair in a "practical"
style, and little or no makeup.
While it's lovely to see those who are losing weight rediscover
that they can feel good about how they look, it's just as lovely to
see those who are not losing weight see that they, too, can feel good
about how they look. It takes some effort, but a big woman with
access to a thrift store or a sewing machine can do great things for
her appearance and confidence.
So let's embrace the lovely women and girls that we are, including
our bodies, and wear clothes that make us feel good. Let's wear large
plaids, bright colors, lateral stripes, tight knits, and short
skirts. Let's bare our arms in warm weather and wear shorts and
swimsuits. Let's go to good department and clothing stores, try on,
and not blame or hate ourselves when a garment doesn't work for us.
Instead, let's figure out what's not right about it and find
something else to try on which doesn't have the same mismatch with
who we are, what we like, and how we're shaped.
Let's remind ourselves there's no size limit on great makeup,
hairstyles, nail polish, jewelry, accessories, and shoes. Let's shop
with our large friends and help them find wardrobes that make them
smile. Let's not get discouraged when something proves so tight it
won't zip or we can't pull it past our hips. Let's not invest our
emotions in a numerical size but be pleased at how we look in
whatever size fits us. Let's reward stores which offer many choices
for us by buying there, giving favorable online reviews, and
recommending them to friends.
And let's remember that women in our communities and online know
how to sew and will gladly share that knowledge with others. (You
wouldn't believe how easy a skirt can be, especially if it doesn't
have to zip.) Let's remember we are entitled to try on without
buying, then make one like it ourselves at a fifth of the cost and in
a color and print we adore. Let's make ourselves the simpler pieces
of a wardrobe and save our hard-earned money for those beyond our
abilities.
Let us all celebrate who we are, refusing to wear fabric sacks in
dark colors instead of fashionable clothes. And please, let's all
remember to compliment one another when we look especially good,
because we can and we do--unless we've given up.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Those People Just Want Handouts
On a recent trip, I watched workmen
erecting a large white wedding tent on a beautiful white-sand beach.
The canvas tent had multiple peaks on tent poles and clear
plastic-paned windows with rounded tops on all four sides.
Beaches are often windy, and the
foreman had his crew driving three-foot metal stakes at an angle into
the sand to anchor the tent. The foreman was in his forties and
overweight, but the crew appeared to be in their early twenties at
the most. The closest one was classic white trash, skinny with his
shirt off, with a thin chin-beard, a cigarette dangling most of the
time, and bad tattoos, and he worked hard. He raised that sledge
hammer high and brought it down awkward, driving his spike a few
inches deeper with each blow. He always hit the spike's head, but not
always straight on. His spike's angle started out right but gradually
shifted to straight down. The foreman came to talk to him about it.
Anyone could tell the young man was angry but held it in. He struck
the spike from the side, changing its angle in the sand, and finished
the job. Although the day was cool and breezy, he was red-faced and
sweating.
The other worker I could see was
Hispanic, small and slender. He worked with such grace, moving his
sledge hammer in a looping figure eight, his entire body in a dance
with its own rhythm and careful moves. He expended less energy and
drove two stakes for every one the other young man seated. He wasn't
sweating after four stakes. It was a pleasure to watch him work. The
foreman came up to him to talk, apparently including some praise, in
Spanish.
Three days later, we visited that beach
again. Someone had added a sand sculpture of a large heart near the
wedding tent. The side of the tent facing the water had been rolled
up and secured so those inside could see the arch, now covered with white
tulle. The tent stake which had been
straightened had lifted half its length from the sand, but all the
others were holding.
It makes me angry when someone says a
particular ethnic or racial group is lazy and doesn't want to work
hard. The young man I watched defied that ugly stereotype, working
hard, well, and with literal beauty. I imagine he'll be running a crew when he's still a young man--and that the sweating white guy with the dangling cigarette will resent the hell out of it.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Going Pro
Today I read a tweet from Elizabeth
Bentivegna of Oberlin, Ohio (where one of my daughters went to
college), who was denied a computer programming job in Cleveland
based on how she looked. The company said she looked more like she
was dressed for clubbing than an interview, and that she did not look
"put together and professional."
While part of me wanted to agree with
the many who supported her, with remarks about it being outrageous
that women were still judged on appearance rather than skills, part
of me sided with the company.
Why? Because, by her own description,
she wore a lot of makeup and was "mildly sexual" in a black
tee shirt ("a little booby, but what shirt isn't on me?"),
red skater skirt (a flared skirt which reaches the tops of the
thighs, the style an ice dancer might wear), black tights, cardigan,
and heels. She carried a purse. She was outraged at the double
standard, since the men working there wear tee shirts and jeans.
I cannot share Ms. Bentivegna's
indignation. This is not how a young woman presents herself at a job
interview. This look says, I'm young and smokin' much
louder than it says, I'm a competent professional.
"We try to present ourselves how
we want, express ourselves how we like, try to show the world who we
are," Ms. Bentivegna said, "and we are STILL put into these
tiny boxes where we can't fucking breathe. The way we look can make
us or break us in ways that just don't exist for men."
While presenting yourself how you want
to is vital for your personal life, it doesn't fly at a job
interview for either men or women. When a man presents himself for an
interview in a tight shirt unbuttoned to the nipple line, wearing a
few pounds of bling, with heavy facial tats and piercings, or in a
jacket and trousers in two different plaids, he is most certainly
judged harshly. The way he looks can indeed make him or break him,
just as Ms. Bentivegna's did.
Ms. Bentivegna, I promise there's a way
to be both yourself and professional in appearance. A tight tee shirt
and skater skirt isn't it. After graduation, my daughter the Obie put
together a really nice work wardrobe from area thrift stores which
was true to her goth self. She had knee-length and longer skirts,
tailored trousers, blouses and knit tops which did not hug but were
shaped, and a few sweaters, wraps, and blazers, all of it in black
and purple. I'd be surprised if she spent more than $150 for all of
it.
If I lived near Oberlin, I'd be happy
to shop with you to assemble a mix-and-match wardrobe that's both you
and professional, too.
Monday, March 23, 2015
It's Only Three Dollars
I know working retail sucks because
I've done it. They pay is lousy and goes up very, very slowly. Your
hours are at the mercy of the manager, who can make sure you get the
worst ones if you displease him, or just because he gave his
girlfriend the best shift plus the first shot at overtime. You're on
your feet all day. Customers are demanding and sometimes unpleasant.
Too often there's more work than all of you together could possibly
do, even if everybody worked hard--and there are always some who
coast. And corporate, those greedy bastards in their offices with
ergonomic desk chairs, demands that you greet every customer with
some perky store catchphrase. Ugh, just ugh.
So I get why store employees seem
exhausted, act they they could give a rat's ass about my shopping
experience, and are clearly just marking the hours until they can get
the hell out of there. (Which makes a store where they're not like
that all the more amazing.)
This is why, for most of my adult life,
I've tried hard to personalize every transaction. It doesn't take any
longer to ring up my stuff if I say, "How's your day going?"
then listen and respond to the answer. I keep it light and attempt to
be mildly funny, the general idea being that I'd like to be a
customer the employee doesn't mind, maybe even enjoys. Do it long
enough at the same store, and you get small bits of favoritism--they
take your word on the shelf price of an unmarked item, remember that
you like double bags, like that, nothing unfair to other shoppers.
Today my friendly question met with
silence. Everybody has bad days; who knows what else she's got going
on in her life? I would respect her preference for just doing her
job. The woman rang up my purchases, a total of five items. I handed
her my store membership card, which got me a discount on some of the
items, and three coupons. Two went through without a problem,
reducing my total. The third did not.
"It says you didn't buy the
product."
"I did, though." I dug into
the bag and pulled it out.
"Oh, right." She reread the
coupon. "That qualifies."
"Can you override the computer
saying I didn't buy it, then?"
She didn't answer, just punched
buttons. After what seemed like several minutes but was probably less
than three, it turned out she could not. "I have to get the
manager, I guess."
"Okay." I shrugged my
helplessness to the short line behind me.
"Where's Steve?" she called
to the cashier closest to her.
"Lunch, I think. He's late."
"Figures." To me, she said,
"It's only three dollars."
It was hard not to snap at her. I had a
coupon that applied to the product I bought. Why should I have to
wait for Steve the Manager, and inconvenience other shoppers, because
she either didn't know how to override the computer based on what
she'd seen with her own eyes, or because she didn't have the
authority to do that?
Just then Steve arrived--laughing his
apology for being late again!--and he did the override without
any trouble, deducting the three dollars. In a dead voice, the
employee thanked me for shopping there.
But Steve and the greedy bastards at
corporate should know that because they either did not adequately
train or did not trust their employee, I'll think twice about
shopping there again.
It was only three dollars, but those
were my three dollars. I wish she'd pretended that mattered.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Poor, Poor Poor Man's Copyright
To my amazement, the Myth Which Will
Not Die has again reared its head at one of the handful of writing
sites I visit often.
Can't I just mail (or email) a copy
of my novel/script/poem/essay as proof of when I created it, without
going to the bother and expense of copyrighting it?
Sure you can, but in the United States
this will not prove anything at all in a court of law. No US court at
any level has recognized this so-called Poor Man's Copyright. The
website of the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress even says
so, yet people who should know better still pass this information
around as if it has value.
The moment you save your writing to any
fixed medium--your computer's hard drive, a CD or flash drive, a
print-out, handwritten sheet of paper, a cocktail napkin--in the US,
it is copyrighted. Registration of that copyright offers further
protection and is not free, but it is not required for your work to
be copyrighted.
For whatever it may be worth,
violations of copyright for monetary gain are fairly rare.
What's increasingly common is the theft of writing posted online for
reposting elsewhere, without permission or acknowledgment. That's a
pretty compelling argument against posting in an open public forum, whether you're in the US and that work is automatically copyrighted or not.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
What Goes Around Comes Around
"What Goes Around Comes Around." When I was a kid and my mom would say
this, I didn't get it. This folk wisdom only
made sense if you were talking about colds or chicken pox. If it was
going around, it would eventually come around to me. Yippee.
Now, of course, I see what the saying
means: You get back something akin to what you give. Maybe not
exactly what you gave, or immediately, but it does indeed come back.
If you know me, you know I struggle
with my weight, especially in winter when all there is is the cursed
treadmill and snow needing removal. I have a longstanding deal with
myself that if I shovel snow, whether for fifteen minutes or two
hours, I don't have to exercise that day in any other way. On the
average, it works out, and we have the clearest driveway in the
neighborhood, even though our neighbors all use plow services.
Once or twice each winter, some plow
service driver will see me working with the heavy snow the town's big
plow has thrown across the foot of the driveway. He'll gesture me to
move back and he'll clear it in one or two passes. This is a lovely
thing to do, saving me the worst part of the job and letting him feel
good about himself for the day, because even though it took him
literally two minutes, he really did do me a favor. And I'm genuinely
grateful for it each time it happens.
Today, though, was different. I was at
the end of the driveway, working it slow and steady, when a truck
stopped and a big man in a sweatshirt got out.
I knew this guy. The spring and summer
we had the dumpster in the driveway, he'd come to the door and
gestured that he wanted to go in it, and once I understood, I'd let
him. He returned several times, removing metal and anything else he
could resell. He borrowed a broom the one time his taking something
made a bit of a mess. If I saw him stop, I'd wave. Once on a really
hot day when I saw him sweating profusely, I'd brought him a glass of
cold water in a disposable cup. This was not exactly going to a lot
of trouble.
Now he gestured for me to hand him the
shovel, and I did. He cleared the base of the driveway with the ease
of a big person who uses his weight to push. I thanked him--he seems
to understand "Thank you!"--and he waved at me to step
back.
He started to shovel the whole
driveway. Two cars wide. Heavy snow, since it was over thirty
degrees. I got the spare shovel and joined in the work. He gestured
for me to hand him that shovel, and he worked one with each hand. In
less than ten minutes, he'd cleared away the bulk of the snow,
working up a good sweat. Could I pay him? I gestured. No, no. "Thank
you. Thank you!"
"Thank you," he said, then
returned to his car and drove away.
I tidied up the edges, thinking about
him. I'd not gone out of my way much to be kind, but I'd certainly
not been unkind, as I imagine some people are to trash pickers
wanting a shot at their dumpsters. I thought he might be Turkish.
Weren't they nearly all Muslims? Maybe he had his own agenda, showing
Americans that people like him were good people, not terrorists. Or
maybe he had the notion that women should not be doing such heavy
physical labor, and shoveling was proving himself the man.
I suppose I'll never know. But I like
to think he did it because he's a good man who remembers copper pipe,
a medicine cabinet, and a glass of water.
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