Molting: Breaking the Shell

It's just begun, the process of shedding. In the coming days I'll break it out properly, but this is the exact moment I was waiting for for the last 10 years, and it's become much more complicated than I thought. Victories swish around the same glass as failures. The sweet and sour bubbles of reality fill my nose. I guess I'll have to drink first, to breathe the fresh air later.

This is the beginning of molting.

Self-Reminder

I just need to remind myself that "today" is not my life. That hours are just a fraction of a day, and that not all hours can be as pleasant as I wish they were.

I need to keep in mind that the clothes I wear to work and what I do for a living do not define me as a person. I am not my career, and this too shall pass.


I need to keep my inner peace in check today, because the lack of information and details in the orders given to me is not my fault. I can and will do the best I can do given the circumstances.

And as soon as I get home, I'll be able to sleep.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Confession is Good for the Soul

I confess I've been spending increasingly excessive (and unnecessary) amounts of time in certain forum I will not name. It's usually not a problem, until a week ago. Someone I personally know opened a thread about plus-sized model Chloe Marshall, who was up for the title of Miss England.

I didn't post anything in this blog about this particular topic because:
1) I didn't have the time
2) I didn't know what to say
3) I believe that a single size 16 model won't make a true change in the beauty and health industry
4) It's a beauty pageant, for gossakes! And given point #3, it's such a biased event, with such a narrow spectrum of what beauty is, that I find all of it incredibly boring.

However, the girl that posted the thread thrives on pageants, celebrity gossip and your general menagerie of "girly" topics (makeup, diets, clothes). I decided to dive in when some other girls started talking about Miss Marshall's health.

The only facts stated in press releases are Miss Marshall's height and weight. This is, in my opinion, not enough data to go on to make a solid statement about the girl's health. However, I found out last week that there are more fans of the BMI index than believers in "God". And it seems a bit funny to me, considering that the BMI index was originally created by a Belgian mathematician for statistical purposes. It was not meant to be the end-all/be-all of health, much less was it meant to be the founding stone for physicians and health-care professionals to diagnose their patients' health.

Most people I know, however, swear by this scale. They don't believe that someone size 16 could be a healthy person. Miss Marshall said in her interviews that she eats sensibly and exercises regularly. I, for one, believe her, because I've seen girls the same size, young girls, beautiful girls, girls that eat normal amounts of healthy food (vegetables, fruit ... not junk food) and exercise normally as well. They are not naturally thin, and I really hope that these girls will understand that being a healthy size 12, for them, will always be more beautiful than a forced and emaciated size 5.

So, back to the forum thread, I immediately started voicing the opposing point of view, always the dissonance in the crowd. Obviously, most girls started voicing their own opinions, most of them based on the BMI index philosophy, most of them awash with fashion-industry culture and thought. But there was one, sister to the girl that started the thread, that right away pointed spears at me as an individual. Not so much my opinions, but the reason for them. Her specific words, and I quote, were: "Girl, instead of a stick on your shoulder, you have a sequoia tree."

Of course, she kept on at it, and the barrage didn't stop when I clarified that this was more of a cause than a personal issue. She made sure to always state that my points of view were an exclusive product of my body and image issues.

Well ... I wish I had had this blog post that day. Later on that day a friend of mine read the thread and insisted that I did have to lower my weight, of course, for health issues.

And this is the thing: they're both right. My friend is completely right and I know where he is coming from: concern, worry, affection. I appreciate it, the same way I appreciated every single comment I received the last time I touched the subject. Most of you who read this blog mean well, and I thank you for your attention and friendship.

But the girl at the forum, my ex-roommate's sister to be more precise ... well, she may be right. That afternoon, after all was written and read, I had to sit down and come to terms with the fact that I have as much a body and image issue as I did when I was an anorexic 16-year-old. But I do not appreciate her intentions. The way she expressed herself about the things I said helped me realize that she was more bent on hurting me or making me feel bad about being fat (and she probably thinks I am in denial about it too) than she could have intended for her words to be enlightening or helpful.

Whatever her reasons for being such a bitch (which she was, no se puede tapar el cielo con la mano), I suspect it has less to do with difference of opinion and more to do with things that went down a year ago. And that, to me, seems petty, shallow and rude.

However, I gotta thank her. That afternoon I cried a bit, because coming to terms with issues that have been standing there for 14 years is not easy. What my friend said made me realize that I do have to do something. But what that bitch said gave me the strength to actually START doing it.

So, thank you, bitch, whether you read this or not. You did me MUCH LESS harm than you probably intended. :) Isn't it ironic?

Uneven Score

I don't usually do this (post quiz results), but this is so wrong! And worse yet is the fact that I'm proud! I could take on a whole kindergarten classroom! Yay!

18

The Man Who Made Me Believe Again

It's been nearly a year since we visited San Diego to attend the yearly Comic Con. Right after our return, I diligently posted and discussed my experiences there, specifically in San Diego in general, as well as in the San Diego Zoo. But I never said anything about our experience in the Comic Con itself, the main reason of our visit to SD. I think that it has taken a long while for the experience to sink in and get digested: it was so rich, so vast, so powerful... we spent 5 days dawdling around in a convention center, and it's amazing to believe that those 5 days changed our lives a little bit.

However, I'm gonna have to postpone the review of the whole deal in favor of the highlight of the visit, which deserves its own blog entry.

Mr. Peter S. Beagle
The man who made me believe again



This happened on the fourth day of our visit, as we were walking around the show floor looking at the different booths and just gawking and being amazed by the variety of it all. But something caught my eye then, an echo of my roots; more than an echo, a stark beacon. If you look closely at the photograph above, you will see what I saw: two big posters at each side of the booth, one of Lady Amalthea, one of The Last Unicorn.

The Last Unicorn is a story that has been in my conscious since I saw it when I was a small child, so this wasn't an "Ohmygawd, so LONG since I saw this last, I had forgotten!" kind of moment. I just wasn't expecting it there, among all the Supermans and sci-fi characters. It caught me by surprise so much that it brought tears to my eyes, and the guy at the booth caught me at that, crying a bit, with a wide smile of amazement on my face. So he seizes the moment to start driving his sale (they were selling DVD copies, as well as books by the author), but then he twisted it around a bit and starts telling me about a legal situation the author has been going through, regarding unpaid work, including being cheated out of payment for his collaboration in the making of the The Last Unicorn movie (you can read a bit more about it here).

And then, the moment of brain-shock, he tells me that the man who wrote this wonderful story was right there. Just then and there, I started bawling my heart out ... and let me explain:

Little Diana was brought up surrounded by fantastical figures, either inherited from her aunt's toy collection or things that popped up in the toy and entertainment market. Her world included gods from the Greek and Roman mythology, unicorns, mermaids, pegasus, horses, mammoths, faeries, spirits and the occasional princess from a fairy tale. These characters had sprung up from books, drawings and movies. And one of the movies that introduced her to the unicorns was The Last Unicorn.

The unicorn, as a figure, would accompany Little Diana for years to come, until adolescence would render the unicorn incompatible with her interests and beliefs. However, in the time she allowed it so, she surrounded herself with unicorn plush toys, rubber figurines (Hasbro's My Little Pony had a lot to do with that as well), drawings, posters, notebooks, books, movies ... all things unicorn came hand in hand with as much as she could find about mermaids (which was much less, since this was before Disney bastardized Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" and provoked the deluge of mermaid merchandise afterwards).

Little by little, all unicorn things were shed, and only a distant memory remained of the legendary horned beast. The steadfast belief that unicorns existed gave way to a good-natured indifference ... until she met with the one who made her believe first.

Mr. Peter S. Beagle, author to The Last Unicorn, creator of the world that in its turn helped me create mine, came over to me and hugged me, and talked to me, and embraced me in his words. During the time of our conversation, I was enveloped in a warm cocoon of stories, lullabied by a soft, flowing voice that spoke of the roots of my world, of the nutrients that gave life to that humongous tree that was the fantasy I knew. He reached into my heart and blew life back into that dormant seed that was Little Diana and her steadfast beliefs.

At that moment I felt more alive and more eternal than I had felt in decades. I still choke up when I remember how it felt to be before the man that helped shape what I've become. No other worlds existed at that moment, only him, and me curled up around the fluid stream of flowers, magic and music his words made.

I purchased a different book from the one I already knew by heart: The Unicorn Sonata. It sat in my nightstand's shelf for a few months, but as soon as I read it, it became water to the seed Mr. Beagle had brought back to life. As soon as I finished it and closed its covers, I realized: once again I believed in unicorns with all of my heart.

The Nose Experience

At the beginning of this week, at some point while I drove, I had the distinct feeling of being back in 1999. How does that happen? Was it the smell? I've been aware for about ten or eleven years now that one of my favorite senses is the sense of smell. Contrary to taste, it hasn't been as deeply crippled by my smoking vice. My eyesight is not the best either (I have a mild case of progressive myopia and astigmatism, a trademark for computer professionals). I think I might have also lost some of my hearing at one point or another, since I can remember having problems with it as far as 11 years ago. And hell, I can't go around touching everything I please! Haha! So ... smell!


Smell is what drives me around my world: with a whiff of fragrance I've been able to recognize someone faster than by a look to their face. I get hungrier by the smell of BBQ'ed steak than by the sight of a juicy meat cut. The fragrance of apple/cinnamon incenses and candles has been irrevocably associated with my stepmother. Same applies for the smell of perfumes like Shalimar, Ciara and Anais Anais (each one represents an era in my mother's life). Some smells have haunted me for years as well, like for example the aroma one of my friends exuded, which I was never able to identify as any cologne, soap or perfume I knew. Others, I will never forget, like the smell of puppy breath.

I can better determine how dirty my house is by the smell that welcomes me in the afternoon. The tiles can look clean as whistles, but if I can smell mop water, I know it's time to clean up a bit.

It's safe to say then that each era in my life has a set of smells inherent to it. Perfumes on the trend are primary examples of how this works, and then there are also the smells of friends and places (years 1995 - 1997 had a high incidence of fun fair smells - musty oil, vomit and cotton candy).

But what happened to me earlier this week, I'm sure it wasn't a smell. Smells are just the perceptible face of the deal. When I felt like I was back in 1999, it wasn't the smell of business office lobby that triggered it. It must have been the feeling of impending doom, of sunlight bouncing off mirrored windows from offices in buildings towering overhead. It must have been the realization (and in a way, coming to terms with) that I am what I feared I'd become. Thankfully, that same morning I decided to take control of what I could to change what I didn't like in my life. I'll start with the small things ... like the smell of my car.

Disconnected - Disjointed

These past few months I've felt somewhat "out of it", disconnected from myself in a way, like a spectator watching the daily events this body goes through from a balcony seat far away.

Sometimes I even lose interest, it's a tragedy, really.

It's like my consciousness is waiting for the larvae to turn into a moth and break away from the cocoon these last 30 years have been.

Yeah, it's the issue of inconformity (always is), turned into a solid perception of my own self-worth. I'm trying to turn it around, to make myself believe that It will not always be like this, that someday I will not dread to wake up in the morning to go to work in something I absolutely detest.

But pessimism is a die hard trait, and more times than not, I have this sinking feeling that this is my lot in life, that I've been doomed by my own choices, that It will not work out the way I've been hoping.

So I carry on, I turn 30, it's no big deal. Age is not a big deal, specially because as of late, some things have given me hope for my future, and I've seen 30 as an opportunity for a rebirth, a renewal.

But pessimism, and the day-to-day reality (waking up, going to work, feeling out of sorts, going back home, sleeping) have made me forget hope and the reason for hope (reasons that also surround me day by day, and I sometimes take for granted, I apologize for that).

So what to do? Keep dragging my feet through the bad times just to see the good on the other side? Or try to leap over the puddle of muddy corporate waters, try to find footing on the other side?

30th

Well, my weekend has begun.

I'm finally turning all of 30 in two days, and I'm glad about it.

I'm glad because at the age of 30 I've finally decided the turns I want my life to take, and I have the ways of starting down that road (if things turn out differently from what I expect, no matter, because at least I'll know I truly tried this time around).

I'm glad because I didn't succumb to the whims and expectations of society, and the life I lead right now is pretty unconventional for most 30-year-olds (my group of friends not included, since life has recently surrounded me with like-minded people).

I'm glad because unlike some 30-year old women I know or see around me, my lifestyle is not shackled down by unhappy marriages or unwanted children. I'm glad because I've been able to flip the bird (and kept it up) at the standards society has set, including contentment with the chosen career. I know I chose wrong, and unlike most women my age, I'm not striving to grow and be of importance in my workplace.

I'm not a suit-clad career woman, bent on showing the world that I can do it as well or better than a man. I couldn't care less about feminism in the polyester rat race.

I'm glad because I've been able to fit in with all aforementioned stereotypes without losing my identity and my motivations. I don't read gossip magazines, and couldn't care less about Britney Spears or Maripily (don't ask, local paparazzi sensation, that's all I care to explain). I don't watch soap operas, and I don't drown my sorrows in aimless 5-hour television binges.

At 30 I'm stilll a geek, I still believe in unicorns, and a well-made anime movie can still bring me to tears.

The child is still alive and well inside me, and the 20-something idiot I once was is long dead. How I did that, I do not know. But it happened. I'm more in touch with 5-year-old Din Din (yay! finally my nickname out in the open! Hahahah!) than I am with 23-year-old idiotic Diana.

And I'm glad, because at 30, I know much more about who I am, and care much less about what the world wants me to be.

From The Heart

These past few weeks, eyes in general have been poised on the presidential candidate elections of the United States. This once, said process has proven to be incredibly intense, specially on the Democratic side (the side the whole world would prefer as victorious, given the horrid state of affairs thanks to Republican President George W. Bush). Up until now, both primary candidates for the Democratic Party (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) have been going at it neck-to-neck, one brushing by very closely to the other. Nothing definitive has been decided yet, not until the majority of delegates has voted in (last primaries will be held in June).


I'm not usually one to have my nose stuck in politics, but I suffer the consequences of a ridiculous, overlong war along with the rest of the world. And being an American citizen, I also suffer the consequences of a government led by an ass-head along with the rest of the American nation (like it or not, because I couldn't choose who to be born to). So, when it comes to an election which could have a strong impact on where we go from now on as a nation and as a people, I can't help but have some strong reactions, even if based on pure emotion rather than on an analytical process.

I don't know when it occurred to me first, but a while after the war was kick-started out of the rubble of the World Trade Center, I became convinced that what could start fixing this world (yeah, the world in general) is another revolution.

Yes, I know it can be seen as a moronically romantic notion, specially in this age of skepticism and irony. Nowadays, the definition of cool is "sarcastic" and not much more. The more heartless you are, the cooler you are, no matter where your lack of faith is coming from. I've participated on this practice of sizing people up by their quality of nonchalant. Being naive has become the worst sin of all, akin to having sucked off an entire police squad.

"Not caring" is the sport of the 21st century. Suddenly all important issues can be found in a copy of the Entertainment Weekly.

So, I am aware of my un-coolness when I say that, regardless of the fact that I know that 99.99% of politicians are corrupted by power or will soon be, seeing these commercials reinforce the notions I've had that what we need is to turn the world upside down.



Maybe what we need is a black president. Or who knows, maybe I'm wrong, maybe a woman would be the right choice. I'm just glad the opposition has candidates that, either way, do not conform to the established norm.

I just hope that the one that wins will show that he or she has the cojones to truly change things around...



... and not let American History keep on this nonsensical course of violence by inertia.

The Beautiful Fat Girl - A Fallacy

Even the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty chickens out before putting an obese woman at front and center

"Real women have curves", or so some say. Specially in this Caribbean piece of land, where we are told from a very early age that our heritage includes equal parts of Taínos (the indigenous people who occupied this island before the Spanish invasion), Spanish and African. Of course, that is pretty much a lie, since most taínos were finished off before the second or third generation after the invasion came to life, but I digress.

We are a mixed breed: we have African blood, as well as heritage from the Middle East and from Europe. Obviously, the mix of breeds results in the passage of dominant genes...

A huge, round ass is apparently the most widespread, lasting gift to us as a race.

Whether you're out at the supermarket, the mall, a disco, a church ... everywhere you will observe that most females are equipped with a considerable butt. The size of the rest of the body will depend mostly on age, and then metabolic heritage. But most women I've seen nearing their thirties have already lost their washboard abs and thighs of steel. A slim and lithe build seems to be reserved for girls 23 and under.

You would think then that given the increasing difficulty with which we face keeping a given weight and shape, we would be more empathic towards each other. Maybe I'm being too naive to expect women to be more enlightened as time passes, to start seeing beauty in things other than a perfectly formed butt and ribs that hint themselves out of a sinewy torso.

Some of us will never have the experience of fitting in with what the populace considers beautiful: an "ugly" face is rarely so as a general rule (someone will eventually find the most hideous of mugs strangely endearing), but a fat girl will never be considered pleasant to look at. If a girl is born fat and grows up fat, she will most likely live through the experience of being put through numberless diets by her own family, never being quite accepted for who she is, always being an "opportunity for improvement".

Eventually, those born fat will either start ignoring these forms of aggression (the "well-intended" advice to diet, the slanted looks, the whispers, the loud scorn by classmates - children can and WILL be cruel!) ... or in the worst of cases they will let the criticism eat away at their self worth. I have yet to meet a fat person who is completely happy with who she or he is. "There is always room for improvement".

There are other cases in which a girl is born slim, or grows up to be slim, and eventually age will do its job and fill her form out to a plump and round issue of itself. I don't mean to be an absolute judge of which pain is worse, but I can tell you it's incredibly mortifying to
a) not be recognized by old friends because you went way beyond recognizable with 50 additional pounds weighing on your belly and hips
b) being recognized by old friends, and said friends presuming off-the-bat that you are pregnant
c) look at pictures of barely 2 years ago and realizing you're not only growing old, you're growing fat.

In short: changing from "that hot mama" to "that fat mama" in 2 or 3 years' time is frustrating, and it gives a more somber perspective to aging.

However, one good thing I've noticed about my friends (most of which are fat) is that they usually will find loveliness in a person due mostly to what the person is like, rather than what the person looks like. We hate ourselves, we hate our bodies, but we can usually see beauty when it stands in front of us, even if it's living under 200 pounds of fat.


You type in "sexy girl" in google.com, and what do you get? A girl that is barely thicker than the snake she is holding.

Not so with thinner girls. I've surmised that somewhere along the line, something goes on in a thin girl's brain that clicks, and then suddenly they're on a class their own, they belong to a clique, and whatever stands outside this circle is not worth even looking at.

I've heard the most hurtful, insulting comments about fat people coming from a thin person's lips. I guess it's the same "fear of the different" that plays into action in racism and xenophobia.

And incredibly enough, we the "fatties" will give credit to what they say. We will let these comments corrode at our own confidence. I don't know why, I haven't yet figured it out, much less found out a solution to protect ourselves from it. But apparently, the bigger we are, the more vulnerable we become to comments coming from razor-thin assholes.

Saddest part is, these razor-thin assholes, given the way the corporate mechanism works, are the ones in charge, the ones making the decisions on marketing, advertising, purchasing, etc. These are the ones that will push for the airbrushed look on magazine covers, these are the ones that will create demand for thinner models and actresses, these are the ones creating a homogenized world of creatures more resembling the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, rather than a homo sapiens.

The tragedy of all of this? That the new generations are eating it up. Girls will want to emulate the next Kate Moss, and will begin checking themselves out in the mirror, making sure that the hip bone sticks out enough to be sexy. Boys will be fed pictures of airbrushed females, creating expectations that no regular girl will be able to fulfill (and let's not even talk about how males have been put under scrutiny lately, as well. That is a whole other chapter!). All around, a more strict guideline for beauty is being set up. And wherever we look and read, it's being perpetrated by males and females alike.

Long gone is the perception that men would prefer a "healthier" female over the stick-thin models showing up in street signs and corners in the 90s. I've been reading and hearing men, regular men, ogling at these stick-thin figures, more frequently as time passes. Suddenly, sexual desire is sparked by showing bones and slender thighs, not by the abundance of skin or shapely hips.


No matter that she's gorgeous, she will never be considered beautiful again until she loses those extra pounds...

We've been assimilated into the society of thin. A fat girl with a beautiful face will NEVER be "a beautiful girl". She will be "a beautiful fat girl", 'cuz you have to make it clear: she's beautiful but she's fat. Hence, she's not as beautiful as she could be (don't believe me? Even gorgeous girls will be put down in public if they're not picture perfect!).

So ... a girl both beautiful AND fat? Impossible. Not true in the eyes of society.



Writer's Note: This has been a rant brought to you by Diana Campo. You are welcome to express your opinions on the comment section, but be warned: I do not intend to give off the impression that I am in possession of the absolute truth about how things work and how people feel. This is just MY take on things, and I am very aware that my take on things will differ from a lot of other people's. Variety in opinion is most welcome. I look forward to your reactions! ;-)