You Know You're Fat When...

I have found in life, that a LOT of women gain weight as they grow older and we like to sit around and talk about how and why it happened. But the one thing it seems like most of us chunky women have in common, is the fact that we usually don't think we look as bad as the other fat women, mingling in the world around us. The other night, I was talking to one of my besties of fifteen years and she said, "Yea, when I'm watching The Biggest Loser, I think how fat those bitches look and then realize they don't weigh that much more than me, but I'm sure I don't look no ways that big."

After I finished choking on my spit, and got my laughter under control, I agreed with her. I am always amazed when I see pictures of myself these days. I swear, I look at pictures and think something must be wrong because there's no way I am that big but when everybody else in the picture looks the same size as they do in person, then you have to know that you're just fucking fat and you need to hit the gym. Every fat woman has a defining moment when you have to just suck it up and get over yourself and admit that you've let yourself go and "Yes, you are fat!"

My defining moment was about a year ago. I had gone to Lane Bryant to get some new bras which is where I have bought my bras for years because I have huge watermelon titties (and I hate them). In the recent years, I have started buying more than just bras there because I now fit into "big girl clothes". After going home, I realized that one of the bras was really comfortable and decided to exchange the others for the new comfy model. Back at the register, with the new bras I wanted in exchange, the cashier (all employees of Lane Bryant are big women - I think you have to be fat to work there) begins polite, small talk. "Oh yea, I just love the "back smoothers" - they're really comfortable."

This was my defining moment. You know you're fat when you have to wear a bra that is built to cover up the fat rolls on your fucking back. Then I went to Cinn-a-bun.

Trailer Park Names

I have a number of women walking around in my body. She doesn't show herself often, but a classy, respectable woman that is completely level headed and business minded, is in the mix. The older I get, that raging, hormonal bitch that wants to rip everyone's head off and shit down their throats, has spent more time at bat. Then there's the silly stoner that is infinitely young. And the tomboy, that thinks time spent drinking beer, farting and talking shit with the boys is absolutely necessary, that is most commonly in the lime light. A sassy, black girl also walks in these shoes. And, let's not forget the deep thinker and big dreamer - if only half of my dreams come true, I will still have a better life than anyone could ever wish for. Some of these ladies have names.

Nancy, the queen of the trailer park, was the first one that was labeled. Nancy sometimes drinks too much and goes out in public. Back in the day, Nancy did that a LOT. And she had her best friend right there with her -  drinking too much and having fun they didn't remember the next day. They were always the life of the party. Holla!

When anybody would say they had seen us out at the bar, we'd always say, "Oh no, that wasn't us. That was Nancy and Conrad." We thought they were fitting names, very random with some trailer park qualities. After a while, we began giving other people names as well. Sometimes we knew the people we renamed, but sometimes we didn't. It became a serious contest to see who could come up with the best trailer park name. (The following are examples of some classic trailer park names: Bobby Joe, Candy, Brandy, Rae Jean, Colby, Bert, Guy, Bubba, Sherry, Gary, Billy....and I think you get the picture.)

Years later, Conrad took a trip from North Carolina to California to visit his bestest friend, Nancy. We sat at a bar in the San Francisco airport upon his arrival, pointing and naming - Barb! Floyd! Roberta! Finally Conrad halted the game. "I just came up with the best trailer park name ever. Are you ready?...This is a good one...MISTY!" We both busted into uncontrollable laughter.

I'm not sure how he never found out that Misty is my legal, first name. "You stupid fucker, that's my first name. How do you not know that after all these years?"

When he heard that, he laughed harder, till tears ran down his face. "What the fuck ever! I don't believe you. Lemme see your driver's license."

I pulled out my wallet and showed him. We both laughed until our faces hurt.

What is your trailer park name?

The Powdered Doughnut Look

Before I moved to Cali, I worked at UPS for five sucky years. That's no job for a danty princess which is exactly why it suited me so well. I didn't have to dress up or do my hair or make-up. I could cuss as much as I wanted and didn't have to worry about offending anybody. And I could always count on the boys to go out drinking with me after our shift. But there were draw backs to the job as well - in the summer you sweated your ass off and sometimes left work literally wringing out your clothes. Then in the winter, it was so cold that your hands and lips would crack and bleed from being so dry. And I was always walking around with some kind of back pain or other injury from the toll it took on my body.

One night I got off and was heading straight to the grocery to get beer and chapstick. I kept washing my chapstick and when it came out of the dryer there was nothing left. I had been out for a couple days and my lips were so chapped, it felt like I was licking sandpaper. They were cracked and hurt like hell. When I was almost to the store, I got a call from my boss saying that I forgot to turn in all of my truck keys and needed to bring them back, but I decided to go to the store first since I was already right there at it.

Meanwhile, a buddy of mine called so I talked to him while I was running into the grocery store. I grabbed the beer and chapstick and headed back to work. Before I got back, I lathered on the chapstick as if it may be my last chance to use it. I already have some kind of OCD chapstick issue as it is and on that night I used like half the tube because I was hurten' for certain. I pulled up to the door, hung up the phone and ran inside to hang up my keys.

On the way in, Aaron asked me what I had on my face. I kind of wiped at my face and didn't think much else about it. He was always fucking with me so I assumed he was then too. I went in the office and a couple of the guys were still in there wrapping up paperwork. I was making small talk and when I turned around and looked at Phil, he had a big grin on his face. As I talked, his grin got bigger. Finally, I asked him what was so funny and he asked me what I had all around my mouth. I shrugged, "Just chapstick."

"Dude, you look like Tyrone Biggums."

"What the fuck are you talking about? I just put on a bunch of chapstick cause my lips are really chapped."

"Maybe you should go look at yourself." And then he actually started laughing.

I went in the bathroom and busted out laughing because I looked like I had just eaten a box of powdered doughnuts. While I was talking on the phone, I hadn't realized that I picked up the white sunscreen instead of chapstick and without looking at myself after putting it on, I didn't know I was walking around with a big white circle around my mouth. Damn good thing I have no problem laughing at myself.

My hat is to the back and my pants keep sagging...

I remember one of the first nights I ever spent in Santa Cruz. My friend, that I moved here with, and I had come out for a week to find a place to live and we stayed in a hostel on Beach Hill. Before we even got our stuff to our beds, we struck up a conversation with an older gent that was staying there as well. He told us some useful things about the area and how to get around. Just as we were heading in our room, he called out to us, "Oh, and there's a hot tub around the corner. You can wear your swim suit if you want."

I was confused. Well duh, it's not like I'd wear regular clothes in a hot tub. "What else would we wear?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Like, naked?"

"Indeed."

When we got in the room, I expressed my disbelief to my friend. "Dude, I am so glad that mother fucker told us that shit cause if I did find out about the hot tub and went out there, and there was was a bunch of naked people hanging out in it, I don't think I could've covered up my shock. How are people just gonna be walking around naked? I like clothes way too much for that shit."

This is the moment I thought about years later when I was standing in the middle of the road with my drawstring pajama pants around my ankles with a clothes basket in one hand and my cat in the other. I had stayed at my boyfriend's house the night before and did my laundry there. Kitkat had tagged along as usual because I hated being away from her so I just dragged her everywhere I went. I had come home to get ready for work around 6:30 in the morning and as I walked across the street, completely loaded down, my pants fell to the ground. I looked around and even though it was already day light, there was nobody out of their house yet. At first, I tried to shuffle along with my pants around my ankles but I quickly started to trip. It was a very awkward situation and I couldn't quit laughing because I was imagining what I must look like standing there in the middle of the street with my pants around my ankles laughing incessantly.

Sheeeze! Someone missed a Kodak moment for sure but I figured if people could walk around, getting in hot tubs naked,what was the big deal if someone got a shot of my underwear. Since nobody was there to catch it on camera, this is just an idea of what I looked like. LOL

Some Things Never Change

On my latest visit back to the Red States, I scored some shitty ass weed from a friend of a friend. Weed in the Carolina's and weed in Cali are two totally different things. (I thank God every day for bringing me to California - 'Land of good and plentiful Herb'.) I'll have to admit, I have become a weed snob and I am not apologizing for it. Some people like fine wine, well I love good bud.

I went to visit one of my best buddies who had also come home for a visit the same time I was in town. I went and picked him up and we headed into town for a Walmart run and on the way back to his house, I broke out a joint. "Hey Man. Let's smoke this shit before we get back to your house."

He looked very hesitant. "Oh, I don't know if I should. Ya know, I never really smoked weed unless I hung out with you. And I don't think I'll get high off a joint, I think I need to smoke out of a bong."

"Dude, quit being a poo boy and hit the fucking joint."

Twenty minutes later, I could have kicked myself for my persuasive ways. We'd already been sitting in the driveway for almost five minutes while he unsuccessfully tried to contain his howling laughter at nothing. Between giggles he managed to get out, "That must've been some really good shit cause I'm so fucking stoned...I can't believe how good I feel right now...Did I ever tell you I wish you were my sister?"

I was trying desperately to be authoritarian but was too tickled to keep a straight face. "You have got to get it together cause we can't sit in the driveway much longer. Your parents are gonna wonder what the hell we're doing out here. And if you go in there laughing like that, they're gonna know something's up."

Instantaneously, I felt like I was back in high school because he started trying to create an alibi. "Okay, so let's just say we went to the bar and took a bunch of shots and that's why we can't quit laughing...what kind of shots were we doing?"

We both laughed at his ridiculous lie. "That is so dumb. Why is getting all whiskeyed up and driving home any better than smoking a joint? Besides, we are almost forty fucking years old. Let's just go in, and if they ask why we're eating everything in the house and can't quit laughing, then we'll tell them we smoked a joint. What's the big deal?"

The laughter pursued before he spoke up. "That's even dumber. No way am I going in there and telling them I'm stoned. So here's what we're gonna do, I'm gonna go in and go straight back to the bathroom and if they try to talk to me, then I'm gonna pretend like I have to shit real bad. You come in and handle the small talk cause you've always been good at talking to them when you're stoned. And then, you grab the ice cream out of the freezer and meet me in my room and we can say we're just looking through old pictures and shit. Okay?"

Game went as planned. May the kid in us live forever!

Liberal Redneck?

I had gay friends before I moved to California, but when I first got to the paradise known as Santa Cruz, it seemed like almost every new friend I made for a while was homosexual. I've experienced stranger things in life and knowing there was going to be a much larger gay community in California, I brushed it off and thought about how celibacy wouldn't be the end of the world if I couldn't eventually find a single, straight man suitable of getting to know 'in the biblical sense'. I've never been big on the dating scene anyway so I really wasn't losing out on too much.

My first and best California friend to this day, is a hot gay guy. We worked together at my first job where I soon developed a crush on him before seeing him out at a bar and realizing we were both checking out the same guy. I was shocked but then I looked over and saw another girl we worked with and she was hugging another lady, and not in a just friend way. "Oh wow! Are they gay too?" I asked, still in shock about the first discovery.

"Yes, Redneck. That's why they're all hugged up on each other." Jay had already given me the nickname before, after a few conversations we'd had in the break room at work about the deep fried South. "Those are my housemates, just a house full of homos." 

It wasn't long before I became a fixture in the 'homo house'. We had fun times together and they loved hearing my hillbilly stories about four wheeling escapades and drinking whiskey with the boys and us beating the shit out of one another just for fun. Let's just say, we were all enlightened.

Gay Pride rolled around in the spring. I never had seen people celebrating being gay before but in Cali, these homos do it up right! Gay Pride was the buzz in the air and as it got closer, Jay, my new BFF, asked me, "So, what are you wearing to Gay Pride?" as if my attire was something I'd ever spent much time worrying about.

"Uuuummm, I'm not gay. I thought you had to be gay for that shit."

He laughed at me like he still does to this day. "I swear Redneck, I can't believe the shit that comes out of your mouth sometimes. You should have got out from under that rock a hell of a lot sooner."

Long story short, I went to Gay Pride, got ripped and the homos dressed me up in rainbow beads and bracelets and I had the time of my life. Does that make me a liberal redneck?

I've attached a picture from the Gay Pride parade (2009). That's my darling friend, George, holding up the "We're so gay!" sign. If you want to be yourself and not feel scrutinized for it, live in Cali!

One Love!

If Heaven Ain't A Lot Like Dixie, I Don't Want To Go...

I just made a trip back to North Carolina for the second time in the last three and a half years since moving to California. The people out here in Cali don't believe me when I tell them how the Confederate flag still flies on many houses and big jacked up trucks with dual exhaust. They don't believe people are still racist and homophobic. And they don't always believe the stories about some good, clean, redneck fun.

I've decided I can't go without blogging about this trip because I love to connect people and things and I feel like I am capable of bringing together the best of two polar opposite worlds. My brother and I had a blast talking about how redneck our family is (but also with a sense of pride of our Southern roots). We took lots of redneck pictures and even did a RTV (Redneck TV) Cribs video of Daddy's house. I was going to post it on YouTube but Daddy asked me not to. Despite the fact that I think we are sitting a fucking gold mine, I will not post it because I adore my daddy and he is more important to me than the most hilarious video you have ever seen in your life.

So what exactly do rednecks and liberal freaks have in common? The ability to laugh at one another. The Rednecks back home are appalled when I tell them about some of the "Individualism" in Cali. I just bought a new camera and am planning on giving both of these worlds, a taste of the other. Maybe we can even start a new game: I'll post a picture and you have to guess which side of the country it came from. (FYI-This is going to be a rather easy game.) And with no further ado: