I had planned to write a post about something else this week, but then I remembered that Thursday, the day I usually set my posts to go live, is Thanksgiving here in America. I knew it was coming, and yet at the same time completely forgot that it was anything other than a few free days off of work. I think I kind of forgot about Thanksgiving in the sense of it being a holiday spent with family because while I know I have many many things to be thankful for, I feel pretty bitter about how this year has gone and haven’t felt fully positive and optimistic in months. I’ll go into more detail later, in an “end of year wrap-up” post in December maybe, or around my birthday in January. But right now all you need to know is that I feel like if this year was a big, sports-arena type scoreboard, it would read something like “2017: a bajillion, Krys: 0.”
I’ve tried writing this post from several different approaches, and all of them feel kind of strange and stilted and forced to me, so let me just leave it at this: happy Thanksgiving to you if you’re in the US like I am. And if you’re not, I hope you’re enjoying your holiday season so far.
Let us all do our best to keep in mind the blessings the universe has seen fit to give us, even when that is difficult because we are not feeling mentally or physically well. After all, I firmly believe we get what we give, so if we put positivity out into the world, even if it’s just in the form of inwardly appreciating the good things we have, hopefully we will be rewarded with more of the good things we want and/or need. That’s my two cents anyway.
It was Saturday afternoon, and I was stuck at the car dealership, as not only was my regular maintenance being done, they were also dealing with a flat tire that had turned up on my car the day before. One other woman was waiting at the same time as me and, as happens sometimes, small talk sprouted.
I misheard her at first. “I’m a receptionist,” I replied, thinking she’d asked, “What do you do?” And then she repeated herself.
“No, I asked, when are you due?”
I felt blood rush to my face. “Oh, no, I’m not pregnant,” I told her.
The woman I shared the car dealership waiting room with turned into a fountain of apologies, which I in my shocked state quickly accepted, eager to end the interaction.
In my surprise I didn’t have it in me to be offended or mad at her. I carry a lot of my weight in my stomach and when I sit/slouch it kind of gets all pushed together and forward in a way that could perhaps look like there’s a baby inside, especially in certain clothes. This is what I was wearing at the time (the picture is from last year).
This dress used to be a favorite of mine, before some shit happened this spring and the happy memories attached to it became painful. I still bust it out from time to time, because it’s still cute, and also work appropriate. But that empire waist cuts me off under the bust and emphasizes my stomach, again, especially when I’m sitting down.
Thankfully, I wasn’t trapped in waiting room purgatory with that woman for much longer. When I left the dealership, the first thing I did was park in the lot of the Home Depot next door to return a phone call from my mom. And then when I got off the phone I was hit with a wave of emotion, now that I no longer had to put on composed front for strangers. I’m not too proud to say that I started crying in my car.
I had occasionally joked to myself and others about the chance that someone might mistake me for a pregnant person. But now that such a thing had happened to me, embarrassment and shame overrode my “crack a joke to lighten the mood” reflex. I texted my friends about it and they reassured me, but I still felt pretty terrible.
I’m not a fucking idiot. I know I’m fat, but very rarely do I feel bad about it. I’ve reached a place in my life where I feel good about my body just the way it is, and think that anyone who has anything negative to say about all 240-ish pounds of me can fuck right the fuck off. (Although I do keep health concerns in the back of my head and try to make good choices as best I can, naturally, because while I love my body, I know obesity is not healthy.)
But somehow this one woman’s inquiry about a baby that doesn’t (and hopefully will never) exist turned my self-esteem on its ear. I felt incredibly self-conscious. I wondered how many other people had ever looked at me and though the same thing she did. I thought about how there were probably a number of people out there who had probably talked smack about me, at least in their own heads, because of how much space I take up.
I felt fat, in the most disgusting way.
I don’t know why people feel the right to ask about the bodies of people that are strangers, or who they don’t really know well personally. I have one coworker who will occasionally ask me if I’ve lost weight, phrasing it in a kindly “you’re looking really great” kind of way. I know that I haven’t; whatever I happen to be wearing on the days that she asks must just be particularly flattering. It just makes me feel kind of awkward, because I’m receiving praise for something I haven’t even done or really have any serious plan for pursuing.
And it seems that with pregnant people it’s twofold. The coworker I’m closest to is pregnant with her second child right now, and she was showing me pictures from the baby shower the office threw for her first child and in one of them basically all the other secretaries were crowded around touching her stomach. From my outside perspective watching her pregnancy, it feels like once you’ve got a baby in you everyone is so excited that you’re continuing the human race that they feel entitled to ask you invasive questions.
What if I had been pregnant but I’d miscarried? Or I’d recently carried to term, but then the baby was stillborn, or born with medical issues? Or if I was just fat, but trying desperately to conceive without success? She’s lucky she asked me if I was expecting, someone who’s only overweight and not interested in starting a ruckus, instead of someone who might’ve had a larger reaction.
But anyway, I digress. Let’s just discuss the rest of my day.
I had originally planned to grab an early dinner from one of the restaurants up by the dealership, but considering crying had made my face all red and awful that was out of the question, even at the shitty diner, because what if I ran into someone I knew? And besides I was suddenly torn between two competing urges: order and eat a whole pizza or not eat anything for the whole rest of the night.
I settled on something in between. I drove home, crying on and off along the way. I changed my clothes and washed my face, browsed the internet a little bit to calm myself down. And then I went to my favorite local burrito place and got my usual shrimp burrito, which is only just slightly too much food for me. I still felt emotionally wrecked, but not as emotionally wrecked as I knew I would’ve been if I’d just stayed home and dwelled on my thoughts.
After dinner, I had a really specific craving for rice pudding, so I went to the nearest grocery store, feeling every feeling from Sabrina Benaim’s poem “The Loneliest Sweet Potato” as I wandered the aisles.
The trouble with rice pudding is that only one brand really makes it, and they only sell it in a giant tub, or in packets of 6 pudding cups, which really is more rice pudding than I ever want during my weird, occasional rice pudding craving times. Basically after I eat a little, then I’m good, and then I’m left with way too much extra. But then I spotted it.
Single serving rice pudding. It wasn’t great, to be honest. The grains were bigger and harder than I would’ve liked. But it was good enough for what I needed in that moment.
I don’t really have a good moral or anything to wrap this up with. Just…please think before you speak. Don’t ask people weird questions that aren’t any of your business. That’s all.
I know I’m a few days (almost a week!) late on this, but I wanted to do a write-up on my Halloween anyway, because this one was a good one!
The Saturday before Halloween, I hosted a little Halloween party for my friends at my house — I affectionately titled this “Friendoween.” My friend T was going to host, but our friend S has cat allergies, and T has two cats and a small apartment. S’s allergies aren’t too severe, but it’s still more comfortable for her to not be around cats, so since my mom was going to be away, I volunteered to play host. My friends brought the food, and I was in charge of decorating / general supplies like cups and plates.
I’ve hosted two of our friend parties before, and in the past my decorations have been kind of elaborate (balloons taped everywhere, tons of streamers and other odds and ends), but this time I went a little more subtle. When I saw what decorations and supplies were still available at Target, the theme I settled on was “sort of witchy.”
I pulled one of my family’s tablecloths onto the table, and covered our dining chairs with fake spiderweb. From the doorways I just hung gentle, graceful loops of streamers. This was more difficult than you’d think because I am short, lol.
(Don’t mind the black boxes, just covered up my family’s faces for privacy’s sake!)
This area was kind of my piece de resistance. This party happened during a weird period of time where we had two sofas in the living room. This one had a funny little stain on the cushions, so to make it nicer, I took this starry curtain that I used to use to cover the scarred ugly top of my old desk and tucked it over the cushions. We had that owl and spider in a box of Halloween decorations, so I set them out and then twisted some little lights around a length of streamer to make a garland over the fireplace.
Once everyone arrived, we wound up with quite a varied spread. And we also ordered pizza to have a “proper” dinner. It was so. much. food. But all so good! And then once we’d chatted and snacked a little, we went out in my backyard to photograph our costumes!
In September I was casually browsing Torrid’s website and noticed they had their Halloween section up, and that this dress was in it. Ariel is my favorite Disney princess, and I’d wanted to cosplay her for awhile, but I have no skill with sewing and it can be hard to find the right clothing to build a costume when you’re plus size. So this dress was an exciting find! It’s nice and soft and holds up well in the washing machine. I wish I had got it a size smaller, but it’s really not that big a deal.
Torrid doesn’t have it up on their website anymore, but you can still grab it at Hot Topic, in straight sizes as well! (Pro-tip for my fellow plus size girls: Torrid and Hot Topic have the same parent company, and sometimes carry the same merchandise, so if something you want is sold out on Torrid, check Hot Topic!)
My wig is the Ferrari Classic from Arda Wigs in Apple Red. A lot of people told me it looked really good on me, but it was kind of frustrating. I’d like to trim the bangs so I don’t have to pin them back, but I’m also terrified of ruining this nice wig, so pinning it is! My bow came from Tita’s Hiding Place on Etsy.
All in all, I’m super pleased with how this came out, and now I have a solid cosplay for any future cons I go to!
My friends did some good costumes too, so I asked permission to post pictures of them and they said yes!
L’s costume is an homage to Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance. She was listening to them a lot to get in the right mindset for drawing one of her characters, and the costume was originally going to be kind of a joke on the stereotype of an emo kid, but then she researched a bit about Gerard and MCR and grew to respect them a lot. I think she did really well with this!
T dressed as the extreme stereotype of a disgruntled art student. T knows all about this because they commuted to college at one of the big famous art schools in the city. This costume meant lots of plaid, fingerless gloves, scarves and beanies, and large amounts of Starbucks coffee.
Since I graduated a semester early, I was home while T was working on their last projects for school and I can attest to the accuracy of this portrayal, lol.
S and her girlfriend M both dressed as Rey from Star Wars. M (not pictured in this post) was Force Awakens Rey and S was Last Jedi Rey.
Didn’t you know a lightsaber makes a great guitar?
Then we went back inside and watched this Japanese horror movie that is nowhere near as scary as its box. House (sometimes known as Hausu) is a movie from the 70’s that’s mainly known for being kind of goofy, kitschy, and somewhat surreal. Maybe I’ll do a write-up in a blog post sometime! I found a trailer for it on YouTube, and it makes the movie look scarier than it really is. And I hope you like that song at the start of the trailer, because different versions of it are basically the entire soundtrack of the movie, lol.
Then after the movie we played some spooky video games for awhile until gradually everyone started to fall asleep on the couches and we decided to call it a night. Everyone had a great time, and I couldn’t have asked to have more fun, or better company. I’m very glad to have the friends that I do.
What did you guys do for Halloween? Did you dress up?
This is Krys 