Ahhh, the joys of interstate relocation.
That's right, folken, my husband and I have once again abandoned our former domicile for greener pastures; in this case, moving back to Asheville. And I have to say, as complicated and harrowing as moves can be, this one was cake. We've got this thing pretty much down to a science, as much as we've done it since we moved in together (woo-hoo, livin' in sin!), and a good bit of planning ahead and steady follow-through will turn pretty much anything into a much easier experience.
Speaking of planning ahead, I'm so relieved that I remembered to pack my thermal leggings. Over the couple of days we spent loading our truck and moving our stuff, Atlanta had its first bout of 80-degree weather for the year. It was truly beautiful, my friends, after a snappy (but not as devastating as last year) winter and breezy early spring. To just be able to go out in a tee shirt and shorts and not run back into the house desperately seeking a hoodie was pure bliss. Despite the beautiful weather we had, though, I remembered how Asheville gets around this time of year. Oh, she's a temptress. "Come on, it's 75 outside! Isn't it beautiful? Put those sweaters away; unpack your linen pants and go saunter around downtown all day! Let the sweet scent of patchouli and lady armpits wash over you, aaaaaaaaannnnnd BOOM, MOTHAFUCKA! 44 DEGREES AND HIGH WINDS! HOWDOYA LIKE ME NOW?"
But you can suck it, fickle mountain weather! I've got my longjohns, my leg-warmers, my fuzzy socks and my Fugg boots! I've got sweaters and jackets and hoodies galore! BOOYAH!
Still, I am looking forward to the gorgeous spring weather no doubt coming just around the corner in fits and starts. I know it'll show up soon, and then I'll wax my legs and shave my armpits and everything, and get outside and enjoy it.
What's on the agenda these days? House hunting, putting in some part-time hours on the old retail circuit in between coloring my comic pages, figuring out what I'm going to do with my hair next, and looking for a cat to adopt. Busy times, y'all, and I'll likely write entries about each of those things as they come up. But for now, I'll just be chillin' in the mountains with the fam, drinking excellent coffee again, being able (and willing) to walk places, and not taking my damn life into my hands every time I decide to drive. Ahhh...it's good to be home.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Moms: A Body Acceptance Rant
Hey chilluns. I know it's been a while; Mama's been busy with her new job, her family, and packing up her humble abode in umpteen liquor boxes in preparation for The Big Move next week. (FYI, liquor boxes make the best moving boxes, ladies and gents; they're designed to be strong enough to port glass bottles full of liquid safely, surely they will hold your books and Yule decorations. Plus, they're small enough that even if you're a noodle-armed mini-chubber like me, you can still lift them, no matter what you fill them with. LIFE HACK.)
Today I want to talk about something that's really been burning my biscuits lately: the perception of mom bodies.
I'm so beyond sick of the stigma surrounding mom bodies! I'm tired of hearing it echoed over and over that "childbirth ruins your body." You can sense it when you hear discussions about the changes a woman goes through bearing children--the sadness that another lithe young frame is now all used up, busted, blown out, worn out, burned out, RUINED.
Oh, we see the beautiful celebrity moms with their healthy glow and baby bump, their oh-so-modest weight gain, and immediate shedding of those few pounds to regain their red-carpet bodies a few days after quietly slipping a precious infant out of their magic vaginas...or that's the image we're sold, anyway. Oh, we know that in order to look so good pregnant, they must spend millions of dollars and employ an army of personnel to make sure that they don't cave to a craving for pizza or even osmose the vapors from a glass of wine 50 feet away from them; that they employ personal trainers from hell and sadistic nutritionists after the magic birth to restrict their diets down to nothing but raw fruits and vegetables and pill supplements and keep them chained to the treadmill 24 hours a day in order to torture their post-birth bodies back into shape...because that's what the magazines tell us. And we despair, because without all that money and help and self-control, we're doomed to become fat, saggy, stretch-marked RUINS.
And it's that word, that awful word, RUINED, that really gets me. It insists that there is only one acceptable body, and that a woman who bears children, a mother, is permanently banned from it. That if you choose to have children, you're no longer able to be considered sexually; you've been relegated to livestock status; you're a brood mare, a breeding cow, or at the very least just plain gross.
What the hell? Seriously, what the hell? I know our society has an obsession with maintaining a preteen body, and that a post-birth body is symbolically the complete opposite of that, but this really takes the whole damn cake in the Pissing Me Off contest. GUESS WHAT, PEEPS? WE'RE ALL GONNA GET OLD, IF WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY. We will gain weight; our skin's collagen will just give out eventually; gravity will do transformative magic to flesh we didn't even know we had; we will get wrinkles; we will no longer be 21! THE HORROR.
And as someone who is planning on getting knocked up in the next year or two, yup, I know what I've got in store. I will get stretch marks; I know this because I already have them from frickin' puberty (oh shit, where did these baby-bearing hips and giant fluffy boobies come from?!), and I do not care. My tummy will not have the same snap it used to, and I give not one shit, because I plan on getting a little heavier as I age anyway; my frame happens to be of the sort that looks better with a little weight on it, despite what social messages say. My boobies will probably not go too far south, because they have some amazing staying power even at the retarded huge size they are now, but even if they did, so what? And yes, I will probably wear sweatpants a good amount of the time, and may not take the time to brush the spaghetti out of my hair before I go to the store, but you can bite my chubby, baby-bearing ass, public. My body will not be RUINED, it will just be different, and it will be frackin' magical for having produced LIFE, and for surviving what is still one of the most dangerous human activities outside of extreme sports or bear-fighting.
My stretch marks are my tiger stripes, and my floppy milk tits will be my fertility badges. So back the fuck off.
Today I want to talk about something that's really been burning my biscuits lately: the perception of mom bodies.
I'm so beyond sick of the stigma surrounding mom bodies! I'm tired of hearing it echoed over and over that "childbirth ruins your body." You can sense it when you hear discussions about the changes a woman goes through bearing children--the sadness that another lithe young frame is now all used up, busted, blown out, worn out, burned out, RUINED.
Oh, we see the beautiful celebrity moms with their healthy glow and baby bump, their oh-so-modest weight gain, and immediate shedding of those few pounds to regain their red-carpet bodies a few days after quietly slipping a precious infant out of their magic vaginas...or that's the image we're sold, anyway. Oh, we know that in order to look so good pregnant, they must spend millions of dollars and employ an army of personnel to make sure that they don't cave to a craving for pizza or even osmose the vapors from a glass of wine 50 feet away from them; that they employ personal trainers from hell and sadistic nutritionists after the magic birth to restrict their diets down to nothing but raw fruits and vegetables and pill supplements and keep them chained to the treadmill 24 hours a day in order to torture their post-birth bodies back into shape...because that's what the magazines tell us. And we despair, because without all that money and help and self-control, we're doomed to become fat, saggy, stretch-marked RUINS.
And it's that word, that awful word, RUINED, that really gets me. It insists that there is only one acceptable body, and that a woman who bears children, a mother, is permanently banned from it. That if you choose to have children, you're no longer able to be considered sexually; you've been relegated to livestock status; you're a brood mare, a breeding cow, or at the very least just plain gross.
What the hell? Seriously, what the hell? I know our society has an obsession with maintaining a preteen body, and that a post-birth body is symbolically the complete opposite of that, but this really takes the whole damn cake in the Pissing Me Off contest. GUESS WHAT, PEEPS? WE'RE ALL GONNA GET OLD, IF WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY. We will gain weight; our skin's collagen will just give out eventually; gravity will do transformative magic to flesh we didn't even know we had; we will get wrinkles; we will no longer be 21! THE HORROR.
And as someone who is planning on getting knocked up in the next year or two, yup, I know what I've got in store. I will get stretch marks; I know this because I already have them from frickin' puberty (oh shit, where did these baby-bearing hips and giant fluffy boobies come from?!), and I do not care. My tummy will not have the same snap it used to, and I give not one shit, because I plan on getting a little heavier as I age anyway; my frame happens to be of the sort that looks better with a little weight on it, despite what social messages say. My boobies will probably not go too far south, because they have some amazing staying power even at the retarded huge size they are now, but even if they did, so what? And yes, I will probably wear sweatpants a good amount of the time, and may not take the time to brush the spaghetti out of my hair before I go to the store, but you can bite my chubby, baby-bearing ass, public. My body will not be RUINED, it will just be different, and it will be frackin' magical for having produced LIFE, and for surviving what is still one of the most dangerous human activities outside of extreme sports or bear-fighting.
My stretch marks are my tiger stripes, and my floppy milk tits will be my fertility badges. So back the fuck off.
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