Thursday 27th March 2025

Feeling a bit better and more settled than I was last week.

I'm volunteering at a local carnival and I feel excited about that. I'm going to be dressed up as a fancy fish lady and even though that sounds really ridiculous, it made me feel really happy in my body in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. When I was trying on the costume it didn't fit over my body, but I figure they're just gonna have to make some kind of adjustments to the skirt or something. The underskirt, top and headpiece fit okay and I felt beautiful and perfect.

I usually don't like wearing fancy dress because people think that things will fit me and then the clothes often get stuck on my boobs or on my hips and I don't feel that much bigger than everybody else but apparently I am. I have quite narrow shoulders so I wonder if that makes people think I'm smaller than I really am when I'm talking to them and they forget about all the curves underneath. I've dressed for quite a few years now in a way that often hides my chest and my waist and gives me a more vague silhouette so that probably doesn't help either.

I think combined with the working out I've been doing at home though, I feel strong and beautiful. Important note, my body doesn't look any different, I've only been working out for a couple of weeks. I just feel good.

I do wonder if there's something in there about being a fat person and appearing in public. Like do fat people not normally appear in carnivals, and that's why there's no costumes that fit? I know when I used to do dance classes people didn't expect me to be as fit and agile as I was and sometimes the other women would be audibly surprised (I would pretend not to hear).

I've been overweight my entire life and it was pretty rough when I was younger. I'd try starving myself when I was 11 or 12 while my (smaller) friends would complain about how fat and disgusting THEY were. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my much taller and thinner sister and the clothes that were bought for me were usually too small so that my kid body would bulge out in uncomfortable and awkward places.

It was the height of heroin chiq in the early 2000s and I would put off going outside or trying new things, wanting to wait until I was somehow smaller. There wasn't really much choice for plus-size exercise clothes or even the idea that bigger people have different body shapes and just sizing up the measurements on a piece of clothing was somehow effective. If it looked bad, that was just because you were fat.

Fat was a swear word, it meant lazy, stupid and bad. A walking joke. That probably smelled bad. You didn't deserve to look good or feel good. Like a penance for your sins. I know that Health At Every Size and Fat Acceptance gets a lot of shit but I really think that if I hadn't found out about fat fashion and fat activism in my late teens that my life would just be so much worse.

The idea that fat people shouldn't be seen, that they should hide at home or a cave somewhere and not come out again until they are thin felt really real to me. Seeing fat men and women doing things in public, like fat ballerinas, fat people in athleisure clothes that fit and looked good, pictures of fat people falling in love, of being desirable, of going to the beach in their fat swimsuits. It was honestly so healing, and it helped me so much. It gave me courage to go out into the world, to not put my life on hold until I looked like a person in a celebrity magazine.

Fat is not a swear word, it is a description, an adjective. I would have never dreamed of being a dancer or being in a carnival, of doing any of the things I do really. Perhaps there's a chubby awkward kid somewhere that will see me and know that they too have a place in the world, that their life doesn't need to be put on hold because of their weight. I would like to be the person that I needed to see when I was a teenager.

Stuck in my head: Dreams by Rumours of Fleetwood Mac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qa-VQsEPNs

Reading: Scholomance by Naomi Novik
https://www.naominovik.com/category/scholomance/ 

Wednesday 19th March 2025

Feeling particularly feral today. I guess some days gonna be worse than others. Thought maybe writing a bit might help.

A few days ago I had this batshit nightmare that I broke into my ex's house and was going through his shit to try to find evidence that his life was sucky and I got caught and I woke up in a dead sweat dreaming about running away crying to hide in the big Tescos. Like I felt so ashamed and cringe that the person in my dreams was such a loser and a creep it really rattled me for a few days.

Dead ass I was like maybe I need to lift weights or some shit, it really fucked me up. I would never even want to do something that awful and crazy. It was a stupid dream. I started to do a bit of exercise though.

I even managed a few days but today I am having the shittiest period and I'm back to wishing I just didn't exist. The exercise did make some of the burning feelings go away a bit. Back on my everything is completely hopeless spiel today though.

Perhaps if I just give into it today and resign myself to not eating or showering and find a movie or some shit to even my feelings out a little bit. I'm so stuck. In my head, in my body, in my life. I want to run away from everything I have ever known and just disappear.

Yeesh I think it did help to write all that out.

I'm supposed to make and send a card based on awakening because I signed up for a spring postal project but that theme is sort of eating at me.

Wake up? I would like to wake up. I think they mean flowers opening and birds singing and springtime sort of shit but I just think of a big pair of dead eyes, opening, going am I awake? Not exactly mantle-piece worthy artwork I fear. I thought I could do this and it wouldn't be hard and it would be a nice little thing to do and be a part of.  I don't have any joy to share right now though.

I guess that means that I will have to use joyless persistence. Just do a nice picture of a flower, that's not impossible I love taking pictures of flowers, there's got to be some from springtime that I can draw from. Today has been a bit like torture start to finish.

Wednesday 12th March 2025

I had like 7 hours of sleep last night which is the most ever I've had in ages.

I got to about 3am and I was just agitated and bored, there was nothing I wanted to read, I couldn't find anything I wanted to listen to, absolutely didn't want to watch something with my eyes.

The agitation is just my anxiety, the stuff I'm trying to avoid feeling. That's less fun. I found a funny podcast to listen to so that I could sleep.

I think I like that feeling of boredom though, it's like my head finally being like enough of this shit. I normally lack that impulse, normally it's like nah fuck this reality more shit please.

I've had a week of kind-of not existing which is hard. It's like hours of time just speed past me and I really can't explain the inefficacy. I had like a weeks worth of clean washing piled up on the end of the bed and I just could not fold it and put it away to save my life. Like an overwhelming fugue or disassociation.

I feel a little bit better today and yesterday. Mount clean washing has been put away, I feel a little bit more alive and able to reply to my messages.

I've been working on fixing my old jeans and I finished one half which feels pretty good. It's good to do things with your hands, especially when there's something physically at the end that you have made. Just have the other side to finish.

In my head today: Dark Red by Steve Lacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-OzspEcQG8

Film: Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9362722/