The Notorious V-E-S-T- Vest!

One vest: black fleece, bulky, pocketed, bought circa 2004 

Dude, this vest? Holy shit, this sucker has a history. Many purposes. Many reasons why I wear it All. The. Time.

First of all, The Pockets: who doesn’t love a good old pocketed vest? The muscle memory in my arms and hands creepily finagling the left & right chest-pocket zippers is more ingrained than the muscle memory in my legs for, like, walking. Seriously.

Left chest pocket: Burt’s Bees champagne lip tint, random Rite Aid brand chapstick to offset the chunky nature of the Bert’s Bees stuff [Side bar: check out my twitter for every-once-in-a-while chapstick critiques and reviews with accompanying funky instagram photos], Food Stamp electronic credit-card-type thing for quick & easy food-purchasing powers that don’t involve a wallet or a purse (it’s is on the left hand side b/c most grocery store self-checkout lanes have the card swipe thing on the right). Never underestimate my capacity to nail this shit down: I have got this down to a science.

Right chest pocket: headphones (Ok, earbuds. Yes, I grew up in the ‘80s and didn’t get an ipod until 3 years ago and have yet to download music b/c I’m a cheapskate who is convinced that most downloading involves blowing up my computer). Somehow I have accumulated many sets of headphones over the years. They have come from:

a) The YMCA lost and found (Julia, that is gross)

b) ______. I have actually no idea where all these goddamn headphones (Arg: earbuds, Julia!) have come from.

But I have some in my kitchen drawers and at least one pair in this vest. This is so I can easily & quickly

a) Listen to Pandora on my iphone (usually the Jurassic 5 station b/c I love hip hop with good, smart, & artistic beats and lyrics).

b) Put the earbuds (nailed it!) in and pretend to listen to Pandora on my iphone in order to eavesdrop on people in cafes, at the library, or at the Y where I usually end up wanting to stab people. People at the Y yakking about how many calories their machine arbitrarily tells them they’ve lost or teaching their 7 year-old child how to work the elliptical machine – even though it’s sunny and 75 degrees outside and a plastic bat and ball are cheaper than a Y membership – are people I want to stab!  

[Side bar: There are many people at the Y that I want to stab, but they have nothing to do with The Vest so I’ll save those adventures in crazytown, USA for another time. Perhaps a YMCA post tab/label is in order…]

[Side bar: I have many times obsessed about those ‘arbitrary’ machine calorie counts. In fact, I still do out of habit. I no longer rely on those numbers and try really hard not to think about exercise as having anything to do with calories/food/weight but only as a key element in my quest for complete kickass Julia].

Okay.

The Truth about the Vest:

The vest has zero to do with the pockets. No, that’s not true (obviously). But, I started wearing the vest like six years ago in order to hide my completely binged-out & bloated belly.

To look at me on the street, you wouldn’t necessarily think I have an eating disorder. There were years when you could. That was my anorexic phase when I was in & out of hospitals as if I thought I could  get an MD through osmosis instead of the fact that I was fucking dying of starvation!

These days, though, the bingeing has taken care of that. And The Vest is perfect way to hide my shame and internally reinforce the concept that my body is wrong and inappropriate for public viewing. It is also a way to avoid being asked when my due date is.

I am not overweight. I haven’t always struggled with weight ‘issues’ (that loved/hated word). I was not a pudgy kid, adolescent, or teen (which doesn't mean I wasn’t bullied or betrayed or shamed – trust and other risky business).

I am not an overeater. I am a food addict. This means that even though I used to be able to binge and then kind of ‘just get over it’ and move on with my day, I can’t do that anymore. For the past year or so every time I binge, I cannot stop Just Us Girls. My bingeing becomes a week long (the longest was 12 days) bingeing-and-nothing-else escapade.

This is all just to show you that I swear to god my stomach needs to be hidden by The Vest and the thought of not wearing it makes me want to cry like a kid without her ridiculously old and frayed blankie.

I have – in my new on-the-road-to-wellness and Completely Kickass Julia jamming – considered:

 1.  Buying a new vest because this one:

a. Is beginning to smell.

b. Is circling the realm of butchy and I already drive a Subaru and yak like a drunken sailor and I don’t think my pink water bottle and sports bra are powerful enough to convince people that I swear to god I’m a girl!

      2.  Giving this vest to my Judy my Trusty Therapist for safe keeping under her Trusty Psychotherapy Couch. She will probably say yes then delicately remove the vest from her office with latex gloves and stow it in the dumpster out back. And if then I were to ask for it back I would tell her, Wow this smells much better. Did you launder it for me?

I think I’m actually going to do these two things. A friend suggested I just go to a store or lululemon.com and just look at different vests. I fucking love that my friends dispense advice that would make completely zero sense to anyone else. And is, in fact bordering unintelligible & straight-from Crazytown, USA. All in an effort to release completely kickass Julia from the pilly-fleece disaster that is The Vest. Friends who don't judge your dependency on things like smelly vest are PRICELESS.

OK! Revisited: An Ode to Ashley Judd and Wardrobe Malfunctions

Are you a fan of Ashley Judd movies? I don’t know if I am. There’s that one where she’s being chased in the woods and that one where she’s being chased in…Europe, maybe?

I am, however, a fan of Ashley Judd. I’ve listened to some quality NPR interviews with her (most likely Terry Gross’s Fresh Air or Tom Ashbrook’s On Point because I have an unhealthy dependent relationship with both these people/shows). Ashley Judd is really super smart. She went (goes?) to Harvard and is married to a NASCAR phenom with perfect scruff.

[ Side bar: I have more than a dependent relationship with Terry Gross and Tom Ashbrook. An entire blog post is in order, but I’ll give you a taste: Terry Gross a) has the same haircut as my mother which is also the same as Trusty Therapist Judy’s b) wears almost the same glasses as my mother which are also almost the same as Trusty Therapist Judy’s c) asks insightful but bordering on super inappropriate and awkward questions just like….you get it.]

As expected and noted in OK!post, I have been inspired by OK!’s April 30, 2012 issue. I am now referring to page 28 for those of us who care (of which I am the only one). Here is my response:

Dear Ashley (can I call you, Ash?),

I apologize that I am writing to you with little knowledge of your career. And at this point I am too lazy to scroll the internet to research it and unfortunately my April 30, 2010 issue of OK! Magazine is going to have to suffice. I am on retreat (re: rehab) in Vermont. You can only imagine what kind of resources I have. Every night I fall asleep with the windows open convinced I hear the creak of old rocking chairs and the twanging of broken banjos echoing in the Green Mountain valley.

I have gone astray. Back to YOU, my dear. Your essay for the The Daily Beast wherein you decry the onslaught of negative comments about your as-of-late physical appearance is, according to OK! About really rad topics: “hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation.” Mini props to OK! For actually printing that line (because OK! will never get major, or even average-sized props).

Because I was watching TV while reading this blurb about your essay…

[Side bar: I don’t have TV at home. I only watch DVDs borrowed from the library because I also don’t have a Netflix account. Give me your pity, if you must. A post dedicated to my cave of an apartment is set for next week!]

Again: Because I was watching TV (on retreat in VT) while reading the OK! blurb, I was thinking hard and long about how much are culture basically sucks and is in no way helping me to become completely kickass Julia.

I am reminded of the times that I have watched shows like The Closer and Leverage (which is a super awesome show. I don’t like The Closer) and wanted to throw small pebbles at the TV screen. Kyra Sedgwick’s character’s main tragic flaw is her sweet tooth. She’s constantly hording candy and lusting after her mother’s homemade amazeballs brownies stuffed with that white fluffy bliss stuff (melted Oreo filling mixed with fairy dust?). Have you seen Kyra Sedgwick?! Cut like I don’t even know. True, she’s not conventionally Hollywood beautiful. But could someone even, like, Photoshop a little pudge on her when she’s in character, because I am sick of watching her stuff brownies in her face with abs of goddamn steel.

And on Leverage there’s a super skinny and flexible character who can hop skip jump and backflip over Mt. Everest and also fit through vents and is also just as obsessed with cereal as I am! (my fave thing ever). When I maw down on cereal, there’s no way I crawling through anything. It a) doesn’t have enough nutritional value to enable me to do the things I want to (which quite possibly are things like backflipping over Mt. Everest) and b) leaves me feeling carb-loaded-bloated, etc. Granted, I am a food addict and my cereal dependency is second only to my NPR dependency. But, still…come on.

Staying with me, Ash? Cause I’m going to keep going. Love ya, Girl!

A few more notes about women on TV. Have you ever noticed that on…let’s say Parks and Recreation the wardrobe of the characters is pretty straight-on? Like Amy Poehler’s overly designed and bordering polyester tops. Her character, Leslie shops at TJMaxx. Very cool.

Now, take the new show Veep wherein Julia Lousie Dreyfus’s character, the Vice President of the United States (!) is walking around in sleeveless dresses. Remember the media’s ‘bare arm’ ridiculous myopic analysis of M. Obama?! Come on!

Wrapping this all up for you, Ash: You are great. But please never apologize for your ‘puffy’ face by telling the media you’re on steroids and then writing an article about the media’s horrific body-hatred inducing focus.

Can’t wait for your next chasing movie! Maybe the Amazon this time? Or the Australian Outback? Get in touch if you want more ideas.

LOVE YA, GIRL!

~ Julia (feedmedaily.blogspot.com: shameless pleas for you to read my shit)

OK! (yes, the guilty-pleasure magazine)

All right, so the term 'guilty-pleasure' doesn't really apply here because reading OK! magazine and USWeekly and (when all else fails) Life&Style isn't actually pleasurable for me, I won't judge you if you enjoy them. This does not mean I don't read them and horde them from the magazine racks at various waiting rooms and YMCA cardio rooms. But they always leave that wonky shadow of pseudo-despair in the back of my head. Re: Steady Hearts.

Why am I not at as many amazeballs parties as all these beautiful people? Why am I not as beautiful as all these beautiful people? Why is my skin not as completely hairless and smooth and tan as all these beautiful people? It's a lot of mental crap to take in as your struggling along on the elliptical or treadmill or what-have-you. But, again, doesn't mean I'm gonna stop doing it any time soon. Because it's either that or sweat ridonckulously all over my library books or new kindle - which protect with the same care I would if anyone actually allowed me near their newborn, soft-spotted babies (I tend to shutter when given technological gifts from the parents, as if I really would just prefer to live in the nook of a maple tree and write with sticks in the dirt).

But anyway, back to the hording of shame-inducing paraphernalia:

I'm just getting to the pile I had stowed under the passenger's seat of my trusty Subaru, Janice. Dated April 30, 2012 (not as old as I'd thought), purloined from the end table in the hall outside my Trusty Therapist, Judy's (she can also dish out drugs, totes lucky me) office. NOT addressed to Judy. Do you really think my trusty therapist would have a subscription to OK!mag? Do you even know me at all....

Page 1, after the diabolical ad for Skyy Vodka - wherein two apparently African-orgined models with skin clearly photoshopped to become a) smoother than is anatomically possible and b) verging on caucasian to better ease the eyes of skin pigment-biased readers - there's a sumptuous little article about Kanye and Kim Kardashian that makes me whoot and holler and rush of the stationary bike in order to shot down notes for this exact post on whatever scrap of paper (re: scratchy paper towel used for cleaning off exercise machines with that obviously diluted to the point of ineffective antibacterial stuff) I can get my sweaty little hands on.

Forgive me is this Kanye and Kim news is no longer news to you and forgive me if they have since broken up, but their apparent budding romance is only part of why I messily jotted down notes at the Y.

Apparently (insert side ways, gossip-loving, yenta-like squinty-eye face and accompanying voice), K&K are just so totally meant for each other and their relationship is based on such similar passions such as...wait for it...their of "glamour, being famous, and shopping."

Holy moly what the F?! Nowhere in this 400 word 'artcile' (riiight, grreat journalism here, people) is there any hint that these are completely problematic, shallow, and useless points of communal interest, connection, or meaning. "Kanye has great taste. He bought her strappy Christian Louboutin  stilettos, and Kim is crazy about them."

It occurs to me that a) I have no idea who or what the designer Christian Louboutin is (your turn to judge me?) b) this article is probably funded by said designer/company and also Neiman Marcus, Saks, and whatever else place crazy rich and crazy wannabe rich people dream of c) I have managed to actually read an entire OK! article and am somehow still very much engaged and willing to read the quotations that correspond to the wonderfully staged photos of K&K and d) other people (re: the young and the innocent and malleable are reading this and SO MANY other chicken scratch 'articles' like this.

Which leads me to this: WTF kind of culture are we continually propagating over here?! Consumerism and the eternally superficial, fantastical, unattainable concepts about love and even the pure and heart-wrenching process of good old fashioned courtship.

Kanye calls Kim his "Beyonce", apparently. If by "Beyonce" he means blinged-out, just-another-pigeon-holed representation of a curvy woman, then good on him. But he's forgetting that Beyonce is fucking talented as a singer, dancer, producer, and business woman AND she's in a committed, family-oriented, brilliant partnership with Jay-Z (which of course is full of bling and courtside seats and paparazzi and ridiculous names like Jay-Z and Blue Ivy, but you get my drift).

It's not news to anyone that Kim Kardashian and that whole fam is straight from hey-lets-make-ourselves famous-just-cause-we-wanna crowd. And it's no news to anyone that OK! and the like a filled with super self-esteem popping images, articles, and nonsense. But it's the subtle things that really get me. Like K&K building a relationship around their multi-platinum credit cards and not multi-platinum records that prove some kind of talent and artistic interest if not passion. Or the adds that (even Beyonce is a real participant in) that re-tint skin tone, straighten and blond-ify every hair type or simply don't have the heads! of the models shown. And, wtf?, women read this shit, why are there still twelve-foot leggy girls advertising vodka? Because we too, as women, buy into that image. Somewhere in us we want to be leggy and lusted-after. We want to win wet t-shirt contests because then we'll know we're attractive.

Well, phewy phewy to it all. I haven't shaved in a really sad, bordering maple-tree-nook-living long time. It's not for any other reason than because I've been far too busy bingeing on Kashi cereal and Stonyfield ice cream (ahem, fro yo). Re: Adventures of a Food Addict. But, I'll tell you this, next time I decide it's time to shave, I'm gonna do it without the expectation that my legs need to be anything other than clean and functional.

And next time I put on makeup - even though I always say I do it for me and no one else - I'm going to do it without the expectation that anyone needs to say "wow, I really love your blue eyeliner" or that because of my blue eyeliner I will now meet my prince charming. It's ok for me to be the only mother fucker around who appreciates my gosh darn blue eyeliner and really-poorly shaven legs.

You guys, I'm still only on page 1 of the stupid magazine! Geeeeesh.