Maybe, just maybe, the drugs are starting to kick in. I've been on Effexor for more than a week now. The first six days I was on a half dose, and now I've graduated to the full dose (for now), and just yesterday and today I started to feel more like myself. I actually had the energy today to do the dishes and scoop the cat litter. Oh joy. Really joy, actually. It's a pleasure to be able to do the little things (OK, maybe cat litter isn't such a little thing), instead of leaving everything for Tom to do if and when he gets around to it. So I'm in somewhat less of a vegetative state, thank God, only to wake up to the realization that I'm horrendously behind on my work. So much so that the state of my work all by itself was enough to make me feel rip-roaring depressed yesterday. I e-mailed my clients and fessed up, and it looks like everything is going to be okay. I've got some great clients who know that copyeditors are human beings too (phew!). But I'm going to have to work flat out for the next several weeks, and Tom and I have agreed that I won't take on any more work after that until I'm sure I'm really functioning full tilt again.

I actually worked 7.25 hours today. That may not sound like all that much, but that's actual work, not counting breaks. I'm usually more likely to work an actual 4 hours a day most of the time, but I'm going to have to push really hard to get these next two projects done.

I changed my appointment with the psychiatrist to January 2 and I'm going to one a friend of mine recommended, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. By then we can better evaluate how the Effexor is working for me.

Clearly, for whatever reason, I'm doing better, because I'm writing this. Rockin'. Land of the living, here I come!

 I don't know why this took so long to find its way back to me, but here's a link to a video much of which was filmed at the 2004 NAAFA convention, during my brief but tempestuous stint as NAAFA's PR director.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDakFfLQDF4

OK, we'll see how I do with the fluoxetine. Twenty mg per day until Sunday, and then 40 per day. And I see a psychiatrist mid-November. So if this doesn't work, we'll move on to the next thing. Trial and error. Oy. What an ordeal. But maybe we'll find something that helps. Hope springs. It was sunny today, but I had to get up early for the doctor's appointment and I have a sore throat. No energy. Pffft.

I ordered a new camera yesterday, so it should get here next week, probably in time for the Abundia retreat.

I've been a lot more open this year about the SAD. It's not that I was trying to keep it a secret before. I did tell some people what was going on, but I think I've been clearer or more forthcoming this year, so I'm feeling a lot of warm wonderful support. It really helps. Tom has been wonderful. My car is in the shop (nothing major), so he took off work so I could get to my massage this afternoon. And he got up early this morning to take me to the doctor's appointment. (I don't drive his car. Too big. Gives me the creeps.)

I'm pooped. Ordinarily I don't even like TV, but I'm gonna watch a bunch tonight and take it easy. Maybe tomorrow I'll even be up for getting in some work (now there's a concept).

This Lou & Peter Berryman song has been going through my head a lot lately. It exactly sums up just how it is.

My camera was stolen yesterday. When I got into the van, the strap of its case wrapped around the seat belt. When I got out, the seat belt pulled the camera and case over so that in fact the camera was hanging out of the van when I shut the door. I didn't realize it, so the camera was just hanging there.

And someone I know, a homeless guy who comes to our church service from time to time, was sitting on the curb, just a few feet away, when I got out of the car. He had a funny look on his face when I greeted him. It looked like he was looking at my knees, but in fact I think he was looking in surprise at the camera. He didn't look me in the eye when I asked him how he was. I thought maybe there was something wrong.

Tom parked the van next to the wall of the church, so only someone who knew the camera was hanging there would have taken it. It probably just presented more temptation than this guy was able to resist. *sigh* I can't be one hundred percent certain that he took it, but it seems the most likely explanation.

We had the camera for three years. It cost us $500. Oy. That was an expensive mistake. It took great pictures, so good, in fact, that I referrred to it as my magic camera. I can't manage without a digital camera. So I'm going to replace it right away. Happily, they've come down in price, and the memory especially is a lot less expensive now. So it will cost us about $300 to replace it. It's a bummer, but although money's a little tight at the moment, we'll manage okay. I just wish I'd been a little more careful, or a little more aware or attuned or something.

Called the doc this morning for drugs. Hope to get some tomorrow. See a psychiatrist mid-November. Feeling pretty crappy today, but the sun is supposed to shine tomorrow. I hope it won't take too long to find a prescription that helps with the SAD. SAD sucks.

It's been dark for two days now. OK, not dark, just overcast. I'm just feeling dark. I had to get up early yesterday to go to the dentist to have a couple of fillings done. My mouth still hurts. I slept for nearly 12 hours last night (never a good sign). I feel like a big fat zero today. It's supposed to be sunny this weekend. Let's hope. The light box is not nearly as effectual as actual sunshine. I think I may need to hit my doc up for some drugs. This sucks. I'm discouraged. I'll call her first thing on Monday. I can't go through another winter like the last one. I just can't get over how sensitive I am to this. A couple of cloudy days (plus rapidly diminishing daylight hours I suppose), and I'm around the twist. Yup. Call the doc.

In celebration of Love Your Body Day, I want to share some more of the blissfully fat art we've added to our home over the last year. In the spring I went looking for a cheerful fat Buddha to post by the front door, and I found just the one.

 

And last month, we went to the Willy Street Fair and found Tibetan prayer flags with images of goddesses on them. I was delighted when Tom suggested we hang them above the window in the living room. 



The photo is a little dark, but here are a few of my favorite individual flags:

 


And finally, last summer at another art fair, we found this lovely little beauty, which hangs next to my kitchen sink:



In a world full of images of stick-thin, air-brushed women, I like to fill my house with images that remind me that I have a round voluptuous beauty all my own. Images that celebrate the round body make me so happy. They make me feel affirmed and valued and precious. Images we are bombarded with in the media can make me feel freakish and stigmatized--if I let them. Fat-positive art makes it much easier for me to resist the oppressive messages of the dominant paradigm.

 We are the ones we've been waiting for.

I myself have been waiting to have more time for writing. I have a big project I have to finish by early next week. But I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head, things I want to write about. Somehow I have to figure out how to squeeze a few more hours out of the day.

I read this article in today’s New York Times. It’s so ironic that the land of the peaceable, matriarchal bonobo is also the land of the worst violence against women known to humankind. Bonobos are unquestionably more civilized than humans are.

Congo is the only country in the world where bonobos live in the wild. They're very different from their close relative the chimpanzee because they are matriarchal and very peaceful. They are widely known for their endearing form of peacemaking: bonobos engage in sex for more reasons than humans do, not monogamously, not heterosexually, but in every way, shape, form imaginable. They give new meaning to the expression "Make love, not war." Bless them! 

  A bonobo at the Milwaukee County Zoo

In the last several years it has become increasingly clear that I have seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in spades. This mood disorder and I were destined for each other: (1) I live in Wisconsin. (2) I work what most folks refer to as second shift (3 pm to 11:30 pm, more or less). I work at home, in the basement, which does have a window, but still... I go to bed about 2 or 3 am and wake up about 10 or 11 am, if I’m doing well. I used to wake up at noon, but I’m learning that I do a lot better if I can get up a little earlier. (3) I have sleep apnea (and use a CPAP machine), and in general I’m just not very good at sleeping, so I’m regularly tempted to sleep late. Say I have a cold, so I sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. If it’s deep winter, that gives me a walloping 3 hours of daylight, tops. In which case, I’m completely screwed.

Body shame is far more toxic than body fat! 

Check out this great interview with Linda Bacon on Med Journal Watch: http://medjournalwatch.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-with-linda-bacon-on-weight.html.

Linda says "I believe that FAT STIGMA is a huge problem - for all of us. I do understand that it is extraordinarily difficult to live in the world in a stigmatized body. I'm suggesting that we fight the stigma as opposed to trying to make fat people change (get thin). When we observe racism, it just isn't valuable to encourage people of color to lighten their skin - or to tell them they're somehow wrong. The stigmatization is also wounding for people who are not fat as they have to live in fear of becoming fat."

So how do we fight the stigma? By doing all that we can to jettison body shame from our lives, by talking openly about the effects of fat stigma on us and on our families and friends, by loving our bodies and refusing to hide them from the judgmental eyes of the world, by refusing to accept and internalize that judgment.

Given the pervasiveness of antifat hysteria, that's a tall order. That's why we need each other. Because we're all going to have days when we slide into the old rhythms of body hatred. We need to be compassionate and gentle toward ourselves and each other. This is a rough row we're hoeing. But when we see our friends, people we love and admire, shamelessly reveling in their fat bodies, we are inspired to revel as well. And we in turn inspire others, who inspire others. And little by little our peace movement trumps their war.

I came across this blog entry in my daily nosing around in the New York Times, posted on Med Journal Watch, the author of which is Christian Bachmann:

Distressed Victims of the War on Obesity

"When compared to the lowest weight class, the women with the highest weights have been suffering from anxiety disorder six times as likely and from major depression five times as likely at age 59 on average."

That the "war on obesity" has a multitude of victims is no surprise to me, but the effects of stigma on fat people seem so often not to be taken into account that I am impressed and surprised that Bachmann attributes "the mental health consequences of obesity" to the "war on obesity" rather than to "obesity" itself.

For many, many months I thought I didn't have anything more to write about. I had nothin'. I missed Leona fiercely. And then there's menopause and really bad seasonal affective disorder and no energy and everything is pretty much just blah. It's been a rough year. But I'm here and still swinging. And ready to let my fingers do the keyboard dance again....

So here's a little something that's brightening up our home these days. When he came to live with us a year ago, he weighed four pounds, and he looked like just a little smudge on the floor. Hence the name: Smudge, Mr. Smudge, Señor Smudge, Smudgelet, Smudgiekins. Most of the time it's Smudgie. When he first arrived, he would cuddle in my lap for a long time. We found him via Angel's Wish, where he'd been for only a week. We think he was born in May of 2006, or thereabouts.  He was only four months old or so, and he was a stray found near Mount Horeb. He was crawling with fleas, his ears were full of nasties, and he was starving. Angel's Wish cleaned him up and got him all fixed up (in every respect).

 

"I could lose weight and keep it off if I wanted to badly enough."

Maybe true, but I would have to make everything else in my life take a backseat to a rigidly regimented eating and exercise routine. In other words, I would have to be completely obsessed. There's no way that weighing less in order to conform to our culture's draconian beauty standards could possibly be worth the all-out effort it would take 24/7 for the rest of my life. I am not willing to sacrifice my emotional health--or the rest of my full, rich life--in order to weigh what someone else thinks I should weigh. Moreover, there is no proof that weighing less would necessarily make me healthier than I am right now.

Madison's mayor, Dave Cieslewicz, is apparently participating in the local Walk from Obesity. I wrote him the following letter in protest.

Dear Mayor Dave,

I am very distressed to learn that you are planning to participate in the Walk from Obesity on September 30. Weight-loss surgery, far from being a means of improving health, belongs in the junk heap of history alongside other doomed, dangerous, and ineffectual weight-loss methods like Optifast, fen-phen, speed, Atkins, the South Beach diet, ad nauseum. In fact, it is the most harmful and most expensive of the lot.

I posted the following ad last week in the "groups" section of the Madison Craig's List:

Hoping to find likeminded individuals to meet with regarding issues related to body size: people of size, fat acceptance, fat liberation, fat activism, size acceptance. Ultimately hope to start a chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) here in Madison. Would like initially to meet monthly at A Room of One's Own. All are welcome.

I posted a similar announcement in a Yahoo group I found called WisBBWSnAdmirers, and the Chicago chapter of NAAFA was kind enough to post the announcement to their Yahoo group. Already I have heard from one person who is interested in participating, plus I learned of someone else in the area who might like to get together from time to time. I would so love to get a local NAAFA chapter going to provide vehicles for activism as well as support, camaraderie, and inspiration.