Day 01 - Introduce Yourself

Hi. I'm Bree. Only, I'm not actually Bree; Bree is a pseudonym I've been using since I started blogging about eight years ago. Actually, it's a pseudonym I created around 2000ish when I had a brief and fairly dull foray into cyber chatting in those lonely little virtual chat rooms when people were still on IRC channels or some such shit that I didn't understand then and don't understand now. So I've gone by Bree in some circles for 'bout a decade, plus/minus.

I grew up in San Jose and Los Gatos, California, suburban sprawl about fifty miles south of San Francisco. Most of you reading this blog probably already know that. Maybe I should introduce myself in a more enticing way. Let's see now...well, I'm pushing 40, I'm a big ol' dyke (who makes infrequent exceptions for an occasional boy as long as he's fey, geeky, and submissive enough), I took the Meyers-Briggs personality type test when I was 17 at Jewish youth group camp, and was revealed to be an ENFP, and I think it's still pretty accurate.

What else? I wear two career hats, well, really one job hat and one career hat: my money-earning work is bookkeeping, basically paying other peoples' bills and balancing their checkbooks (something I've pretty much never managed to do for myself) and my career path work, which hasn't quite made me money yet, is as a psychotherapist. I'm an intern working in private practice in Berkeley, and I mainly work with queer and trans folks, and individuals and relationship partners who are in polyamorous relationships or who are identified with alternative sexualities in some form.

I think a lot about death and grief and loss.

I really enjoy the minutia of consciousness and perception and exploring the endless mental and emotional crevices of experience and memory and fantasy and nostalgia and here-and-nowness.

I enjoy documenting things. One day a year, I try to document every single thing I do from waking until slumber on my Facebook page. Hundreds of Facebook friends seem to be fascinated by this myopic, indulgent navel-gazing exercise, or at least are polite enough to make comments every now and then. For seven years running, I blogged about every movie I viewed, every book I read, and every noteworthy experience I had in a series of annual year-end wraps. You can read the last one right here.

I have several friends in the world who I cherish and who I feel deeply emotionally tied to. I really adore my family. My nieces and nephews are some of the smartest, kindest people I know. I live with my girlfriend Astrid and our dog Dorrie, a pit bull-border collie mutt, who I'm totally in love with. Astrid and I have had a really tough year together, and I've scarcely blogged about it. Maybe I'll share more of this process later. Maybe I won't.

My mom died about a year ago, of lung cancer. She was 73. My dad died 37 years ago of a heart attack, when he was just 43. I'm an orphan, I guess. I miss my mom, and I also feel just a shred of a bit more freedom to move about the world as myself since she's been gone. I feel lighter, but also somewhat guilty about this. I can't imagine my life without my sisters.

I'm slutty. Usually more in my imagination than in actuality, but I do get around some. I really enjoy riding my bicycle. I eat a lot of meat. I listen to quirky emotional indie rock. I like excruciatingly cheesy pop culture. I can talk a blue streak, and I often get bored of the stories I tell over and over, but also I often remain freshly amused by myself.

That's some of me.

April Overload

April was incredible: more than I asked for, in good ways and pretty terrible ways. Here's a handy-dandy timeline of my life over the last four or five weeks:


April 1: I ran into my ex-girlfriend N. for the first time in nearly four years. It was sweet, and it was bitter, and I don't really know what to say about it.

April 2: Astrid and I took a guy home from a bar together. He was Quebecois, and quoted Baudelaire in bed. Astrid and he had outrageous chemistry, but it was damned fun for me, too!

April 3: Astrid and Montréal Boy had a second glorious date together while I hung out with pals for the evening, then dropped from exhaustion.

April 4: My mom called me in the morning. Her doctor found a mass in her lung. As I adjusted to this news, Astrid and I joined pals for an invigorating hike in the freezing rain on Mount Tam.

April 6: Astrid and I celebrated the fifth annual Orbit Day: the anniversary of our first date!

April 11: A dear friend of astro-b's was in town for the weekend. He's geeky-sweet, just what I like in a boy. I suckered him into bed with me, eventually. I guess April was the month for my latent bisexuality to emerge. Grin.

April 20: We learned that the mass in Mom's lung isn't the only one. She's got "suspicious" masses in or near her liver and kidneys, in her bones, between her shoulder blades. Everywhere. We're still waiting for the biopsy results.

April 29: Evidently my clinical supervisor had an intense April as well. She informed me that due to a personal crisis in her family, she would need to resume seeing clients on Fridays, which has been one of my two full days to use our shared office space. In other words, my internship and my weekly schedule are going to be altered in a major way.

Shit howdy, I'm glad it's May.

Eyes and Hugs

We are eye contact and vivid embraces and desire. As awkward as it is to hug someone intently while embracing over the emergency brake, somehow it's working. We're holding off for now, from kissing, from groping, from fucking. But the gazing at one another, the hugs; it's like we're lovers already.

Insatiable...in our dreams

Astrid and I woke up this morning feeling all cuddly, and eventually shared timid morning breath kisses and groped each other until our sleeping clothes came off. She told me about the dream she'd just had, a gorgeously smutty dream in which she was having sex with a current crush boy of hers among the throngs at a sort of pride parade for perverts. I told her about my dream in which I'd been making out with one of my current crush girls. My entire body seized with desire when she told me about fucking her boy in the dream, and I wanted her so badly. After we groped and kissed more, Astrid's urge to get on with the day superseded the urge to get it on, and so she left bed to make us a glorious frittata with eggs, greens, shallots, and garlic. I stayed in bed and got myself off three times. Not a bad way to start the day.

Red to Green, Part Two (of Four)

…in which Bree's follies continue.

Click here for the legend, which will open in a new window.

Jump back to Part One

1992. Drama factor: 4. Notes: After many months of sexual tension, Casey and I finally started dating. In the interim, I was still burning a candle for Iris, and had hooked up with Ube's UCLA housemate at some Jewish student retreat. I had the opportunity to see her again after Casey and I had gone GF. I was straightforward with Casey, but she wasn't happy about it. After I moved to Santa Cruz that fall, Casey and I both became involved with other people, she with a guy friend of hers and me with Lola, who would become my first really long-term partner. We discussed both our other involvements with much maturity, and at that point, even though I was open to our relationship continuing, Casey read this moment as our break up. At least, that's how I think it went (Casey – any feedback from your side of the table?) High point: those magical, unforgettable hugs. Low point: showing up to meet Casey with a fresh Lola hickey on my neck. At my eldest nephew's bar mitzvah. Real classy, Bree.

1992-1994. Drama factor: 7. Notes: Lola and I were together for two years, and during that time, I was always clear about wanting to be open. She was willing to negotiate, but it wasn't ever something she was into, and so I remained nonmonogamous mostly in my fantasies. I still had the Energy with Iris, and became really smitten with my friend A. who lived in Tucson and wrote the most intellectually juicy letters, but I didn't discuss these emotional involvements with Lola. Somehow I was able to talk openly with her about my crush on my friend G., maybe because my feelings for men have always been less serious and therefore seemingly less threatening to my primary relationships. G. and I had made out at a party early on in my relationship with Lola, before we were calling ourselves girlfriends, and I didn't reveal that. I ended up smooching a casual friend, and Lola wasn't thrilled, but we discussed it at least. Then toward the end of our relationship, Lola and I both kissed our mutual friend Spider unbeknownst to each other! I think I may not have known that Spider and Lola kissed until years later. So somehow the nonmonogamy was not working properly in that relationship, even though I was constantly preoccupied with it. High point: a lot of great communication, despite my intermittent tendencies toward repression. Low point: oh, that breakup really stung. It was awful for us both.

1994-early '95. Drama factor: 4. Notes: Dani and I dated but were never SO's, which I think accounts for some of why the nonmonogamy went smoother than many relationships before and after. We were also both oriented toward being open, and this was a first time for me, dating someone else as slutty as I was. The drama wasn't about the negotiations re: nonmonogamy, but about my push-pull with intimacy. Fresh from the breakup with Lola and wanting to be a free agent (not to mention I was kind of insane at this time in my life) I wasn't willing to be very present with Dani, even though I cared about her a lot. I had a passionate evening with A. (the letter-writer from Tucson), and got to fuck Iris again for the first time in years, and had a one-night fling with Kym, a friend from school. All were talked about freely with Dani (and with my other lovers). When I started to become involved with Bianca, Dani knew it was the death knell for us, and the drama spiked. High point: most above-board nonmonogamy yet. Low point: hurting Dani and the resulting awkwardness at work. Yes, we were co-workers. Can't say it was the last time for that nonsense…

Jump to back to Part One
Jump forward to Part Three
Jump forward to Part Four

And even...what now?

Thanks for the tip, Spider!

Back in the Swing?

For those of you who missed the 13-episode run of Swingtown, a racy and stylish homage to partner swapping and finding yourself in suburban Chicago in the '70s, now's the chance for you and everyone you know to throw your keys in the bowl and join the action. The CBS summer replacement series that couldn't pull enough viewers to stay on the air passed its first season arc is going to be rebroacast on Bravo this month. Please watch it and if you dig it, tell CBS and Bravo that you want the series to continue. Though I think the CBS run suffered from uneven writing, the premise--a conventionally stifled couple moves on up to a nicer suburb and across the street from a pair of swingers who school them not only in free love but also in how to honor their deeper desires for authenticity--is a winning one. Likewise, the characters, the excellent acting, and the amazing sets and costumes are exactly what this series needs to see new life on a cable network that can take the provocative material and make it juicier. Check out the Save Swingtown site to get involved in the fan-driven effort to keep the show in production and keep positive portrayals of open relationships and unconventional lifestyle politics on the air!

Peace & Love,
Bree

The Germans!

Four lovely German dykes are staying with the us this week - a friend and former make-outy person of Astrid's, L., and her three traveling pals. We had a grand night out on the town with them last night which consisted of Indian food at Pakwan and much alcohol at the local dyke watering hole. Then I walked back to the apartment with some of the ladies and Astrid and L. continued to catch up at the bar, and it seems that L. is quickly becoming a current make-outy pal of Astrid's, too! This is really hot and fun for me to hear about and I'm definitely experiencing some nice compersion, picturing Astrid and L. getting down and wondering about how the group dynamics around it will unfold during the week.

Today, the girls are off exploring the Golden Gate Bridge, and Astrid and I are lunching and taking a bike ride. And then later, we'll all convene to watch Astrid perform some smutty poetry at her very first public literary reading! Yay sex! Yay creativity! Yay Germans!

Update

Maybe I haven't been blogging because I haven't been making any "progress," and by progress, I mean I haven't been eating more healthfully overall and haven't lost any weight. Generally, I've been less down on myself about these things, so that is a mark of progress I can be reasonably happy about. I've also been going to the gym: not as much as I ultimately want to, but I have gotten there several times. I'm up to ten minutes on the elliptical and another 30 minutes on the recumbent bike, so that's a decent aerobic workout, compared to my first couple times.

I'm doing crunches on this really fun thing where you climb up on a tall doohickey, rest against a back rest while holding onto these handles, legs swinging free off the ground, and then do leg lifts to work out the lower abdominal muscles. I can do about ten of these at present. I like the idea of getting stronger in my core - I want to be able to move more gracefully, have better stamina, be able to get up from sitting on the floor without grunting and straining, for god's sake. My out-of-shapeness makes me feel older than I am, and that's just silly. I've got lots of life to explore through movement, and I want to make it easier for myself not to automatically resist things like biking or hiking long distances, dancing with Ms. Astrid, and having long sessions of fantastic fucking. Core muscles help immensely with all that.

Relief

Just turned in the last of my work for the Spring term. I'm on break this week, then I've got twelve more weeks til I have my masters degree, provided I actually turn in my thesis. Which is due in 6 or so weeks. Sigh.

It feels good, though. I'm in high spirits. My class is doing a little ritual together on Ocean Beach tomorrow, to mark the transition to the new university, to mourn the loss of our old school, and, well, just to celebrate each other.

I've also got Spring fever bad. I'm horny and high, like Don McLean sang in the 70s. Except that I'm not currently drinking whiskey nor rye. It's just a palpable oozing of libidinal energy, is all. Beware if you're around me: I might come on to you.

What It's About

(The first Ambivalent Fat Girl entry.)

By way of introduction, I am a fat dyke in my mid-30s, living a beautiful life in San Francisco. I'm shacked up with a really swell lady and I'm currently a grad student in clinical psychology. My academic and professional interests swim around such issues as death, sitting with the unknown, existential anxiety, body image issues, fatness, fat positivity, health and well-being, sexuality, queer/GLB identity, gender variance, genderqueer and transgender identity issues, spirituality, finding meaning in life, and yadda yadda. For fun, I like listening to music (mostly of the post-punk, folkie, political, artsy, nerdy-emo indie variety) riding my bike, lazing about, blogging, being social, drinking gorgeous cocktails, and more often than not, eating lots of yummy food.



I've been fat my whole life. I'm 5'4" and I currently weigh around 220 pounds. I've weighed as much as 235, but in the last few years, I've stayed pretty consistently between 210 and 220, most often lingering at exactly 215. I weighed 210 at the end of high school, so my weight's been fairly steady over the last 18 years.

My feelings about my weight yo-yo a bit more than that, to be true, thus with the "ambivalence." After growing up with a lot of anxiety and unhappiness about my weight, in an unforgiving fatphobic culture, with a mom (whom I adore, by the way) who constantly dieted and modeled body self-hatred for me, coming into my own sensibility about my weight involved everything from internalizing the self-hatred to rejecting the paradigm and refusing to get on a scale for more than ten years. Back in high school, I ate like absolute shit. Taco Bell, Denny's, everything fried, crispy and golden brown. I still love me some chicken strips. Moving my body as little as possible was a matter of true slacker pride. In college I went vegetarian for three years and lost a bit of weight that way, but I can't say I was eating much healthier, really. It wasn't until about five years ago that I started exercising, and now I totally dig getting myself around by bike. I actually enjoy working up a sweat, even. So since biking entered my life, and a new consciousness around healthy eating has crept slowly into my routine, things have shifted for me a bit. I'm still a chronic overeater, and tend to indulge my cravings too often, so despite an overall healthier lifestyle, I really haven't experienced a significant net weight loss. Sometimes I feel okay about that, and sometimes I don't.

I experience some health problems which I feel to be related to my weight and to overeating. My knees are stressed and weak, and I had a bad case of patello-femoral syndrome for a couple years, which still affects me, but has lessened some since doing physical therapy and getting more exercise. I can't squat or spend too much time kneeling, or else the knees crack and pop in a very unpleasant way. I've had a low-grade but chronic struggle with acid reflux, which I'm quite sure is caused mainly by overeating, and has diminished some since quitting coffee about four years ago or so. My overall and long-term health would be much improved if I were to dramatically cut back on saturated fats (main culprits: red meat and all things fried) and if I were to make a habit out of eating til satisfied and not until utterly stuffed. Though I'm a fan of salty snacks which carry their own kinds of risks (raising blood pressure and water retention) I will say I'm not much of a sweet tooth. A small square of chocolate is a totally doable limit for me, but get me near a bowl of briny green olives, and the lot of 'em will be gone before you can say "bowl of briny green olives."

It's also noteworthy that since getting into biking, I realize that if I weighed less, I would actually have more endurance and be able to bike faster and farther. Climbing the San Francisco hills is a painful and slow undertaking for me, and if I weighed even twenty pounds less, I think my biking efficiency would be vastly improved, not to mention my stamina and energy for lots of other fun stuff like sex and walking and um, sex.

So I'm inaugurating this here blog with an admission that I'm making quite public. I'm interested in losing some weight. Even as a fat-positive feminist anti-establishment dyke, I have come to understand that for my own body, for my own lifestyle, and for my own long-term health goals, this makes sense for me. I don't know if I'll be successful. I don't know if I'll be any "happier" if I weigh less. I don't know whether, even if I lose a significant amount of weight, I will keep it off or not. I just dunno. But I want to blog the progress, the literal ups & downs, and mostly the fleeting thoughts, feelings, fears, and myopic obsessions that run through this noggin when anything related to these topics floats on through. Welcome to the contradictory journey.

Please feel free to leave comments, but if you flame me for being a "fat hater" I will have to lash you roundly. Also, if you leave inane fatphobic comments like, "Oh my god, you'll look so much better when you're skinny!" I'll also have to lash you. My feelings about this subject are ambivalent for very complex personal, political, cultural and healh-related reasons. In this blog, I am attempting to be as honest as I can about my mixed feelings on weight loss, what is at stake for me emotionally, how I've been conditioned to hate myself and other fat people, and how wanting to lose weight is mired in all kinds of problematic socio-cultural ideologies, prejudices, and power relationships. In other words, I know. Don't judge me for being human, please.

Peace, y'all.

Bree

Three More Days

...of staring at a blank screen. Of making chocolate chip cookies, playing my guitar, playing Dr. Mario, building my library on Shelfari, of eating everything in sight. Of doing anything, everything, but writing my damned thesis.

Okay, I have done something. I've culled all the random notes I've jotted down in the books I've read, in articles, in spiral notebooks, on lil post-its. I've typed all those disparate notes into my thesis draft, there for organizing, embellishing, expanding upon. Four pages of notes in all, not bad for a pile of disparate notes. I've also got about three pages of intro, and a few usable pages of lit review, which also have to be organized, and woven into a semi-coherent structure, together with my "original" (laughs) thoughts and then I'll have a first draft on my hands. It'll be a thin, barely adequate first draft, but a first draft it shall be. To be handed in no later than Thursday.

Plus, Astrid is in Boise, on a teaching gig, and I am so relentlessly horny for her. I can't even get a good procrastinatory screw in til Tuesday evening. Bah!