Reality Fiction
Being fat isn’t just a source of shame. It’s also a source of health issues. While historically a woman with a bit of meat on her bones was viewed as healthy and therefore fertile, nowadays, excess meat on those bones can mean poor health and infertility. Yup, as good as that pizza looks, it’s the Grim Reaper that’s the delivery boy. Continue reading “Fat – Oh The Shame!”
When you are overweight, it is an unspoken rule that you must be larger than life—no pun intended. What I mean is the driving need to try harder, to be “more” than you are in order to be accepted. You have got to be big and boisterous and jolly to make up for the fact that you are big. You must give others a reason to like you besides your uniqueness. You must bribe them into friendship. Continue reading “Fat People’s Rule – Be Larger Than Life”
You can always expect the unexpected. So why are we surprised when it happens? Whether it is comedy or tragedy, the unexpected brings out the real us, the person we try to keep under a polished veneer of gentility and complicity. Continue reading “Expect The Unexpected”
Is there room enough in the world for fat people? If calculations are correct, physically, there is. Not counting Antarctica, the population density of the planet is 115 persons per square kilometer. Some say the earth’s population can fit into one city; others claim we can all fit into the state of Texas (but Texans are known for their absurd claims on size, so I’ll have to get back with you on that one). Continue reading “Is there room enough in the world for fat people?”
Bang-Bang-Bang. Â A fist pounds on the door.
“Bella! Open this door! I swear I’ll kick it in if you don’t. Bella? Do you hear me?”
Bang-Bang-Bang. Sands is determined to talk to me just as I am determined to avoid her.
“Mummy, why won’t you let Sands in?” Fi asks.
Bang-Bang-Bang. “So help me God, I’ll break a window if you don’t let me in!” Sands threatens.
“Go play in your room, sweetie,” I avoid Fi’s question.
Bang-Bang-Bang. “All right, you asked for it. I’m calling the police. I mean it!”  Bang-Bang-Bang.
Abe wanders from his room to the kitchen. “Mummy, I can’t play my videogame with all that noise. Can I open the door?”
“No,” I say and try to focus on the romance novel I was reading before Sands descended on the comfort of my misery.
The banging stops and I breathe a sigh of relief. I just can’t face anyone, not after what happened on the Date from Hell. So at home I stay, avoiding calls, knocks at the door and emails from inquisitive minds.
“Bella! What in the world is wrong with you?”
I nearly come off the sofa in fright and spill my tea across my lap. Sands is standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
“How did you get in here?” I demand.
“Abe let me the back door,” she says.
Abe parades into the room. “Look, Mummy, Auntie Sands gave me a dollar!” He holds the coin aloft as if it is the greatest treasure the world has ever seen
“I want a dollar, too!” Fi cries.
Sands pulls another coin out. “Here you go. Now kids, I need to talk to your mummy, so run outside and play awhile.”
Abe crosses his arms. Â “That’ll cost you another dollar.”
“Scram. NOW,” Sands points toward the door.  Abe and Fi hustle out.  Abe knows he can only push her so far.
Sands plops down on the opposite end of the sofa while I get up. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To get dishtowel to clean up the mess you caused by barging in here uninvited,” I reply dryly.
“I wouldn’t have been uninvited if you returned my calls in the first place,” she retorts. “Now talk. What happened on your date that’s so bad to make you cut off your friends?” I ignore her as I grab a towel and mop up the tea on myself and the sofa. “Bella, come on.  You can’t hide in here forever.”
“I might as well,” I mutter.
Sands shakes her head. “Cat said you had sleeping pills and liquor. Bella, what were you thinking?
“What do you think I was thinking?” I snap. “And by the way, tell Cat I want those pills back.”
“It’s a good thing she took them and cared enough to stop by and check on you. God, Bella, you’re so freaking selfish sometimes. Can’t you think about anyone but yourself? What about Abe and Fi? What about your dad and grandmother?”
I’m planning to write a book entitled How to Extract Yourself from Embarrassing Moments with Your Pride Intact. Actually, the book is already half written. It’s based on a lifetime of embarrassing moments. Problem is, I haven’t figured out how to extract myself from these moments with my pride intact, so don’t look for it on bookshelves any time soon. Continue reading “How to Extract Yourself from Embarrassing Moments…Pride Intact”
Everyone has to read this post by Dan Pearce over at Single Dad Laughing… I promise, you will not look at perfection the same…I didn’t!
First impressions are everything, and when you’re overweight and on a first date, you have to work harder to look more appealing than if you are a slender or pleasingly curvaceous beauty who’s never had to try to get a date. Continue reading “First Impressions”
It’s a week before I see Sands again. On the way home from the grocery store, I stop by her gym. She’s just finished an aerobics class and waves me into her office.
“I did it,” I say as we step inside.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“No way.”
“It’s done.”
“I told you not to!” she wails and plops into the chair behind her desk. “You can find a guy here for only $12 a month. How much did you pay? You paid double that amount, didn’t you? Triple?”
“It was a special offer. $49 for three months. But never mind,” I say as I squeeze into the narrow plastic chair in front of the desk and pray it doesn’t collapse. Its arms dig into my sides. Why did its designer think it necessary to make arms with such sharp edges? “I’ll probably delete my account when I get home.”
“So did you meet anyone yet?” she inquires.
“Yes and no,” I offer vaguely.
She peers at me suspiciously. “You did. You met someone already and you’re going to meet him for dinner. No way you’re going alone. Text me when you find out where you’re going and I’ll go there and sit at a nearby table and make sure he doesn’t slip you the date rape drug.”
“You’re over-dramatizing this just a bit, aren’t you? Yes,” I sigh, “I have chatted with a few guys and am unceremoniously dumped when they find out my weight.”
Now she looks at me like I’m crazy. “You’re weight is a topic of conversation?”
I shrug. “I feel bad because my photo only shows an extreme close up of my face and I want to be honest. I don’t want to lie to men. I want them to accept me, ALL of me.” I pinch my flabby upper arm for emphasis.
“Hence the extreme close up. That’s really honest, Bella. What else did you lie about?”
I shrug again. “I might have made being a stay-at-home mom sound a bit more glamorous.”
Sands lets her face fall into her hands and she shakes her head in disbelief. Sands is my best friend from way back. A shrewd businesswoman, she is a fitness instructor and owns her own gym with plans to open more. Why we are best friends, I don’t know. She has everything yet chooses me, the antithesis of everything she represents, as a friend. She’s tall and beautiful and obsessed with staying fit and a consummate flirt. She gets any guy she wants, though ninety-nine percent turn out to be jerks. While my problem is not meeting any men, her problem is meeting too many men at her gym, the problem being that most take off their weddings rings before entering the gym or hide the fact that they have girlfriends until after she sleeps with them.
“Like I said,” I continue, “I’ll probably delete my account. I can’t take more rejection.” Continue reading “Sneek Peak~~Chapter 4”
I stare at myself in the full-length mirror. “Fat may be what I am, but not who I am,” I say. It doesn’t work.
There is nothing more terrifying for a fat person than to look into a full-length mirror. Multiple times a day, I traverse the Walk of Shame—also known as the hallway in my home—where at the far end the tormentor hangs. My dearest Pa noticed I didn’t have a proper mirror and kindly gave me a full-length one he had lying about. He even came around with the picture hooks and hammer to hang it. What could I do-refuse his well-meaning gift? Until then, I mercifully had just a small face mirror in the bathroom, which allowed me to avoid viewing parts of me I prefer to keep out of sight.
Most days, I make the Walk of Shame with eyes lowered, but try as I may to NOT to look, sometimes I just can’t help myself—like now. I am a sucker for self-torment.
“Being fat doesn’t define me. It’s simply extra baggage which I carry and I won’t carry it forever,” I tell the bloated image, trying to sound convincing but I’m not so sure. I know all too well the hard work which goes into “losing” extra baggage. And not just a few pieces of luggage—it’s a cargo load.
The tormentor reveals all. A huge flabby apron hangs around my mid section. Thunder thighs with Jell-O cellulite glisten and wink in the sun. More gelatinous mass hangs under my arms, which wobbles and rolls and juts out whenever my arms are flush against my body. It’s a hard task to not get lost in the disgust of it all. I mean, who wants to look at my fat ugly rolls and love handles? Ironic name, since nobody actually loves them.
But I do have amazing eyes and a great smile, complete with two cheeky dimples. I inherited my best physical features from both parents: my late Polynesian mother’s caramel-latte skin, high cheekbones, perfectly oval face and full, pouty lips; and my Pa’s glittering emerald-shaped eyes and unruly curly hair.
“I am a strong, beautiful, confident woman, mother and friend. My weight does not enslave me,†I pronounce to the woman in the mirror. “Hello, who am I kidding?” I sigh, shoulders slumped. My weight rears its ugly, embarrassing head all the time. To say it doesn’t enslave me is highly optimistic at best, a lie at worst. It has been the bane of my existence for most of my 30 years. I stop short at saying affirmations are a waste of time, but some days it’s easier to believe them than others. Today is not one of those days.
Defeated, I resumed my usual activity of picking up after my two darling but messy preschoolers. With eyes cast down, I work while trying to avoid the hippopotamus at the end of the hallway. Even still, I nearly trip over an open photo album lying in the doorway to the kids’ room. Fi loved to look through the albums. This one contained pictures from university through Fi’s birth. Continue reading “Sneek Peak~~Chapter 3”
When life gives you lemons, add vodka and throw a party. Why? Because if you don’t, the lemons are going to go bad anyway, so you might as well use them to your advantage. Continue reading “When Life Gives You Lemons”
Pa lives eight kilometers from my house. It’s an easy drive distance-wise, but a hard one knowing what I’ll find at the end of the journey.
Pa doesn’t use his front door so I slip around the side to the sliding glass patio door—another tormentor to remind me of how I look.
I slide open the door. “Pa? It’s me,” I call.
“Right here,” he mumbles and stirs in his recliner chair.
“Did I wake you up? I’m sorry,” I say.
“I dozed off just now” he claims. There’s a crossword puzzle a pencil on his lap. “How’s my girl?” he asks as I lean down to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek.
Pa is the most constant thing in my life, a sweet man with a fiery Scottish temper when aroused, which wasn’t often. Though only 54, he looks a decade older from the trauma of fighting—and beating—cancer. His body was still emaciated, though.
“What brings you by?” Pa asks with his warm smile.
“Can’t a girl visit her pa for no reason but that she loves him?” I tease.
Pa studies my face and I know I can’t hide this most recent hurt from him. “Come on, now. Tell me what’s wrong. There’s no use holding it in, you know.”
I ease down onto the old sofa, its springs groaning in protest under my weight.
“Well? Get on with it,” he orders kindly.
I burst into tears. “Oh Pa!” I sob. “Tiresa and Mika are getting married. I found out through Mama Rose, who wants me to go to the engagement party and the wedding just because they’re family. It’s not fair. Why doesn’t anyone take my side? Mika abandons me and Abe and Fi and Tiresa stabs me in the back, but I’m expected to be nice and act like nothing’s wrong!” I bury my face in my hands and let the tears flow.
Pa rises form his chair and comes over to wrap his arms around me. Emaciated as they are, they are the strongest arms in the world to me.
“What did I do to deserve this? I quit school to marry him. I stayed at home to take care of the house and the kids, but I still wasn’t good enough. Tiresa swoops in and steals my husband and now she’s trying to steal my kids and be their stepmum. Soon Abe and Fi won’t like me and won’t want to see anymore. They can give them toys and games and everything while I have to scrimp and save for months to buy things. She did it on purpose. She did it because she’s a mean, spiteful komo mai tainga!” I didn’t know much of the Samoan language, but I did know the curse words. “Oh, Pa, why does this happen to me?”
I continue to cry while Pa holds me, patting my back and murmuring something soothing yet unintelligible. Continue reading “Sneek Peak~~Chapter 2”
“Great personality.” That’s code for “Fat.” Either phrase tolls a death knell for anyone doing online dating.
Online dating: it’s a euphemism for, ‘opportunity to be someone you’re not in order to get someone you want’. Problem is, if everyone is lying about themselves, how can anyone find Mr/Miss Right? Continue reading “Online Dating”
Mirrors: I used to hate them. Mirrors reveal what you don’t want to see, and when you’re significantly overweight, there’s a lot you don’t want to see.
At home, there are mirrors in the bath, bedroom and hallway to remind you how you look. It’s your own personal carnival fun house, which isn’t fun at all. And these mirrors aren’t distorted, making you look stretched or squatty or bulbous. No, they provide a perfect reflection which is perfectly awful. Continue reading “Mirror Mirror on the wall…”
Here are the songs that are shaping the book! A selection of songs i have been listening to whilst writing that go perfectly with Bella’s story.
Here is a book trailer/teaser i have prepared for the novel I am writing called The Lighter Side of Large… All going well it should be ready for publication in early 2012. Let me know what you think of the trailer.
“Resist the temptation†they say. Well, I live on the corner of temptation right between carrot cake boulevard and ice cream parade…as Oscar Wilde so aptly puts it “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it…I can resist everything but temptation.†Continue reading “Intro”
The Lighter Side of Large is a modern day comedy romance, and disguised self-help guide set in Nelson, New Zealand. Isabella “Bella” White, a first generation Samoan New Zealander, is a talented artist with a flair for writing. Problem is, no one knows it. She hides from the world, men and her potential behind 60 kg of excess weight. The weight, however, is not so easy to hide and Bella endures revulsion, ridicule and rudeness for being fat. But when she discovers her ex-husband is marrying her sister in nine months, Bella embarks on a mission: lose the weight, get a career and find the perfect man in time for the wedding. Continue reading “The Story”