Fat Friday: Standing My Ground

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Nothing is wrong with your big body.

The way people with big bodies are abused, bullied, and devalued is wrong.

So, I told myself that I was doing all right, but I was actually starting to spiral. It all came crashing down after I ended up making a casserole that was a culinary disaster and then reading a post on a medical site by a dietitian looking for a punching bag so she turned to fat people, but of course. The sharticle in question used terms like "glorifying obesity." 

After leaving this unoriginal twatwaffle a scathing reply pointing out that there is no "glorifying obesity", there are merely people daring to exist in public while fat and it offends her delicate sensibilities, I deflated like a balloon that had been poked with a pin. I crawled under the covers and went to bed without dinner, falling asleep while watching Clone Wars and wishing I was dead.

People do not take care of things that they hate, and that includes our bodies.

Assholes like this dietitian who rail against fat people like we were the fucking second coming of the black death end up pushing fat people away from seeking help for whatever may be ailing them rather than engaging in preventative or maintenance care. Fat people tend to only go to the doctor when things become critical because of the way we are treated by the medical establishment. This goes a long way towards explaining why doctors only see unhealthy fat people. Who the hell wants to go to a place where they know they are going to be bullied?

This is why size shaming and diet culture don't work. Health at Every Size works.

I'm fat, not stupid. I know when I'm being othered and scapegoated. It's a bullshit approach, and if you use it, I'm going to tell you to go fuck yourself. 

Believe it or not, I used to be a really nice, sweet person. Being bullied and made to feel ashamed of myself at every turn beat that right the fuck out of me.

Right now, t 'is the season for "so, how's your New Years Resolutions (translate: diet culture adherence and burst of orthorexia) going?" posts.

I ditched diet culture ten years ago after 33 years of yo-yo dieting and trying to hate myself thin. I don't do new year's resolutions. If I'm going to exercise, I'm going to exercise. It's hard to do much at this point with my disabilities, but I do try to get in a walk every day. 

I absolutely do not diet. Dieting destroys a person's metabolism. I was a serial dieter and every time I dieted, the weight I lost came back with friends. 

Yes, I'm fat, and if people are going to be jerks about it, they are not people I want around me anyway.

“Is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me.”

― J.K. Rowling

Fat and Ornery

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"Fat isn't the problem. Dieting is the problem."
--Dr. Linda Bacon

Wordy Thursday: New Mindest, New Results

Genre:

Business

Rating:

Four out of Four Stars for Online Book Club

Disclosure:

I received an advance copy of this book for review purposes.

This post contains affiliate links. If readers purchase a copy of the book through the above link, I will receive a small commission from Amazon.

Please read my exclusive Online Book Club review of this book here.

This is a brief, encouraging book geared towards small business owners who have employees. It can also be utilized by solo entrepreneurs and by managers in a larger business or corporate setting. The author writes in a friendly, personable tone. He addresses issues such as communicating with one's staff in an encouraging and forthright manner as well as personal perseverance. 

When employees feel as though they are a valued part of a business, they will be engaged and involved in its growth. I wish that some of my past employers had a book like this at their disposal. They might have enjoyed increased staff retention and performance if they had treated their employees as assets rather than disposable components.

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Wordy Thursday: On Writing by Stephen King

Genre:
Nonfiction, Autobiography, Instructional, Writing

Rating:
Five out of Five Stars

The following is a duplicate of my review on Goodreads for this book.

If readers purchase the book through the above preview link, I will earn a small commission from Amazon.

I have been a fan of Stephen King for many years. I read this book when it first came out and enjoyed reading it again. Of course, I am very glad that he survived his terrible accident and is now doing better.

I would not thrive writing the way Mr. King recommends: by shutting myself in a room for two hours with everything tuned out. I would start to feel as if I was in a dungeon fairly quickly. I am based in my living room where I can look out the window. I don't know if he would like my writing. I enjoy some of the elements that he recommends eliminating. However, I did learn two things from him a long time ago: mind the adverbs, and watch out for overly long and descriptive sentences.

I am glad to have this book in my library again.

Questions from the Insecure Writers' Support Group Book Club:

1. Stephen King says, “You can read anywhere, almost, but when it comes to writing, library carrels, park benches, and rented flats should be courts of last resort."
I reckon you've gotta write where you've gotta write. However, I doubt I'd get much writing done on a park bench. Probably nothing more than a bit of note-taking would transpire there.

QUESTIONS: Where do you like to write? Have you written in the places King says should be last resorts and found them to work better for you?
I usually write in the living room with my butt parked on the dilapidated couch that doubles as my bed. I don't write much of anywhere else at this juncture.

2. QUESTION: King states that story comes first, never theme. I disagree. Do you think a theme only develops after the story has come together or can a good story be developed from a theme?

I usually don't think much about the theme beyond it planting a seed in my disheveled brain. I probably have a theme in mind when I start.

3. QUESTIONS: What "tools" do you find most indispensable when you write? Are there any you would add to King's toolbox (which includes grammar, vocabulary, elements of style and form, character development, descriptions, dialogue, tools for revision help)?
Coffee.

4. QUESTIONS: King believes that stories are "found things, like fossils in the ground." Let’s discuss King's extended metaphor of "writing as excavation." Do you agree with this theory? How would you describe writing if different from his point-of-view?
Sometimes my story ideas come sailing through the air and smack me on the head.

5. QUESTIONS: Was this your first time reading a book by Stephen King or were you a fan before? Either way, what did you think of his book On Writing?

I've been a big fan since I was about fourteen years old. Stephen King is one of those people that I'd love to meet except for the fact that he'd probably think I was the biggest loser to ever be plopped down on this lousy planet, so I imagine I'd slink off into the shadows if the opportunity to meet him ever arose.

I think that On Writing has many excellent suggestions. Not all of them work for me.

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Sly Speaks + Fat Friday + Friday Flashback: Diet Culture Rhetoric Is Not Poetry

This poignant gem was originally published on 17 January 2010 on my now-retired poetry blog.

life It would be far easier to diet if I didn't like food.

This, apparently, was the entire-ass poem.

A year later, I would finally take the long-needed step of ditching diet culture for good.

That is a terrible statement, let alone being a terrible poem. 

It isn't even a poem, it's a blurb. A very stupid and brainwashed blurb. It's a tweet that shouldn't have been tweeted. It is a lot of things, none of them good. A poem it is not. 

The Chili Bean Tanka is a better poem, and it is not a good poem. In fact, it is close to Vogon poetry in its poetic injustice.

It goes a little bit something like this.

I ate the chili

between the beans and the spice

digestive horror

beneath the cover of night

noxious eruptions take place

As I mentioned previously, I struggled over the holidays. My abusive partner ED (Eating Disorder) reared his ugly head and I relapsed into my old restrictive eating and self-loathing patterns. Which, by the way, never made me thin, they just fucked my metabolism over and made me hate myself even more. 

However, reading this micro-poem that should not be, I could see where I'd been myopic in my criticism of a poet whose book I reviewed recently. I gave the book overall high praise, but I stated that her "poem" which read as follows, and I quote:

love ends but calories are forever

was not so much a poem as unfortunate diet culture rhetoric, and I wouldn't want to read it as a tweet, let alone in a book of poetry.

Given the unseemly evidence above, that critique was hypocritical of me.

However, there is a lesson to be learned.

Next time you think publishing a pithy pearl of poignant perspicacity such as this...

Go to the kitchen and grab yourself a snack. Or at least have something to drink. Your blood sugar may be low because if you think that's worth publishing, you obviously haven't been thinking clearly. Step out for a breath of air and clear your head of the Diet Culture nonsense. You've obviously bitten off more of it than you can chew.

That being said, Words Written in the Dark is, overall, a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume of modern poetry, and I recommend it highly.

Fat and Ornery

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Coming to Earth Again: MFRW Book Hooks 15 January 2020 + Tidbit Tuesday

Click the preview link to check out the story. I uploaded the second edition and lowered the price to 99 cents. I am planning to have a few free promo days for this book, but I have to wait for Amazon to finish approving my changes before I can create a promo. This book is the first in the Carnal Invasion series and was originally published on June 20, 2018.

Blurb:

Geeky Gandy Stafford's lifelong fantasy comes true when he meets the otherworldly Dorma and Desyra. These last remnants of a botched extraterrestrial invasion discover that they require a great deal of energy to maintain their human forms.

The easiest way to obtain essential power?

Sex, and lots of it.

Snippet:

When the Earth invasion fleet from Gamma Iridon was wiped out by irradiated space junk, there were only two survivors. 110X1 was the spawn of the vice-admiral and 1X0X1 was the spawn of the lead wing commander. The pair were notorious for being exceptionally lazy; when space junk devastated the fleet, they were napping in an escape pod, which detached from the doomed flagship and fell to Earth, landing in a sand trap at Big Putt Golf Haven at the stroke of midnight.

The pod dematerialized ninety seconds after the surprised occupants evacuated. No-one witnessed the event except for countless mosquitoes, several hundred fireflies, approximately 108 mice, one screech owl, and a young groundskeeper named Gandolph Stafford, known to his gaming friends as Gandy.

“Holy chimera crap!” Gandy gasped.

The evacuees of the pod initially appeared to be amorphous, transparent blobs. Gandy attempted to stay hidden from them. He was just twenty-five years old, and he had every intention of celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday in 172 days. The invaders, however, had far more advanced senses than humans.

Come As You Are Party + MFRW Blog Challenge: Catch-up: Week 1: Vacay or Staycay

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I am playing catch-up with this prompt. I missed the first two weeks. If you are interested in joining in, visit this blog.

The question is, vacay or staycay.

Well...

I don't have enough money to consider vacay-ing, and even if I did, my disabilities limit what I can do. So, that's a big Staycay. Which at this stage of my life is probably what I'd prefer anyway. 

Road trips really aren't fun anymore. There are too many aggressive drivers and the speed limits are ridiculously high. The speed limit on I-80 heading to Cheyenne is 80 MPH. Personally, I think that's courting disaster. Whenever I have to drive to Cheyenne, I take the frontage road. 

Road trips aren't fun, and the airport sucks big hairy donkey balls.

Yeah, I'm staying home.

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

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Wordy Thursday: Ornery Reviews: Ashes of Raging Water

Genre: Modern Fantasy/Science Fiction

Rating: Five out of Five Stars on Amazon and Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a promotional copy of this book. This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission from Amazon if the book is purchased through the preview link. This review is a duplicate of my review on Amazon and Goodreads.

An intricate and cerebral novel about a garrison of phoenix guardians known as a Shield operating in Atlanta. There is one phoenix for each element, plus a Shieldheart. The main protagonist is Aquaylae (Quayla), a youthful and impetuous water phoenix whose Shieldheart, Vitae, dislikes her and finds reasons to punish her.

The Fae in Ashes of Raging Water are not friendly pixies and fairies happy to grant human wishes because it's the kind thing to do. For a human to accept assistance from a Fae is akin to selling one's soul. Many of the Fae are badly behaved. The story opens with Quayla attempting to defend helpless pets waiting for adoption at an animal shelter against unscrupulous Fae hellbent on taking the animals for their own nefarious ends.

The reader learns more about the strange world of the phoenix and the fae as they read through this intricately woven tale. Humans should be careful what they wish for, because the fairies may be willing to grant wishes, but the price will be high.

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Sly's WTF Wednesday + Ornery Reviews: Don't Be Like a Girl and Play Through the Pain

Disclosure: If readers purchase a copy of the book through the preview link, I will receive a small commission from Amazon.

Man Mission is actually a very enjoyable book, and I recommend it. The following comes from a discussion of the Pink Bracelet Rule: he who whines loudest wears the pink bracelet. 

This rule is amusing in the context of the book and is in keeping with the book's characters. However, I had a few thoughts.

I've always found the "don't be like a girl" thing to be both sexist and untrue. Girls have plenty of strength and ability. What are we telling boys about girls when being "like a girl" is an insult?

The pink bracelet bit was fitting for the dudebro camaraderie in the story. However, in real life, "playing through the pain" tends to lead to lasting problems, and it isn't only guys who do it. I ignored numbness and tingling in the fingers of my left hand and kept working a job with a lot of heavy lifting for months until one day I woke up with my left arm in excruciating pain. I didn't have insurance and had to quit my job and wait a month until I could get Medicaid and get physical therapy. The pain was so bad that I considered committing suicide. It took a long time for the arm to become anywhere close to normal again. It still isn't entirely normal, and I still have to be careful with it so I don't exacerbate the injury that I allowed to become as bad as it did by "trying not to whine" and "playing through the pain."

Last time I checked, I was a woman. This bad idea isn't reserved for men, although for some inane reason society pats them on the back for it.

What the fuck, you guys?

~Sly Has Spoken~

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Ketil and Yitzy's Adventure in the Xura Dream House is FREE For Five Days!

Don't blink or you'll miss it!

In fact, don't blink until you've clicked the preview link and grabbed your FREE copy of Ketil and Yitzy's Adventure in the Xura Dream House. But hurry, this deal is only available between January 5 and January 9, 2020.

This unique novella is the first in a hopefully long-running series of New Cthulhu Mythos cliffhangers with that special blend of emotion, humor, and suspense that only Team Netherworld can provide.

In this snappy story, the spectral sorcerer Ketil Nagel sets out on a quest to save the cosmos from an ancient evil. During his short, miserable time on Earth in his most recent incarnation, Ketil was an underground metal musician who sacrificed himself to the vampire goddess Mormo on his twenty-fifth birthday, 6 June 1991. While searching for answers on the dead world Zetar 6, otherwise known as Zecor, Ketil encounters a renegade Yithian scientist. The pair decide that working together would benefit them both, and they set out for the cursed land of Xura, located in the storied Dreamlands of the Earth realm.

While preparing to enter the forboding Dream House, Ketil and Yitzy are approached by a pair of adventuring ghouls. "Little John" and "Robin Hood" are longtime chums who dabbled in the wrong magic for the right reasons and were transformed into ghouls following their demise during the influenza pandemic of 1918.

The four unlikely heroes join forces and step into the Dream House, where many perils and gateways to other worlds await them. Will they emerge triumphant, or will they wind up being just another group of desperate victims who go missing in the infamous structure?

If you enjoy suspenseful tales with a spine-tingling atmosphere and unexpected heroes, be sure to pick up your copy of this one-of-a-kind adventure today! Just click the preview link to check it out and make it yours.

~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~

Content Adviser

This book is rated R. It contains strong adult themes including suicide and torture. It includes frequent paranormal elements and contains scenes of gore and sci-fi terror. There is copious use of heavy profanity. The story contains no sex scenes, gratuitous or otherwise.

Friday Flashback + Snippet Sunday + Weekend Writing Warriors 5 January 2020

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This post was originally published on 3 January 2019. The text of the post has not been changed, the notes have been updated. 

The following is a snippet from Sanguine and Scandalous, the eighth installment in the Carnal Invasion series. Our previous snippet from this tale can be found here.

The journey to the material realm proved to be a bumpy ride. In choosing the most clandestine path, the magical reindeer ended up dodging asteroids and evading various extraterrestrial flotsam and jetsam before swooping in for a landing in the alley behind Xquenda Jewels Headquarters. Tinsel staggered forth from the sleigh and dropped to the ground in a faint.

Fortunately for the depleted elf, he was spotted by the benevolent Pythios, who at once recognized him as a mythical being. The genial security guard hurried to Tinsel’s side.

“Certainly, you must be of the same kind as my friend Teacake!” Pythios remarked as he helped Tinsel onto the seat of the sleigh. “Perhaps you are even this brother of whom he speaks so high. Ah, but we cannot allow the awful masters of this place to see you. Devils they are, and I come to think I mean this in a literal sense.”

Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press

Notes:

The book that this snippet is taken from contains explicit erotic material, none of it featuring Tinsel the Elf, Teacake the Elf, or Pythios the Security Guard. This book is part of the Carnal Invasion collection of erotic stories from Naughty Netherworld Press.

Tackle It NEWsday (On Wednesday) With the Ornery Old Lady: Make Your Own Hot Cocoa Mix and More with Living On a Dime

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Greetings to all our readers! I generally do not make New Years Resolutions because those have become inexorably tied to dreadful diet culture ideals and that gods-awful mantra "NEW YOU IN 52!" Yes, unless I die, my body will have all-new cells in 52 weeks. I believe we generally have all new cells every three months. So there will also be a "new me" in 12, at least on a cellular level. And if I do die, my body will be turned into ashes, thus giving it a completely new form, and I will become a free-floating full-torso apparition. Just sayin'.

As Grover says, we don't do none of that New Years Resolution nonsense 'round here.

Grover has a pretty big aversion to Resolutions. Last time he thought a Resolution was a good idea, he ended up getting run over by a train. However, he did meet his best friend, Cactus Clem, so it wasn't entirely bad.

Cactus Clem has never bothered with New Years Resolutions because he's a happy-go-lucky feller. 

However, I made a discovery recently which changed all of our minds.

This year, we resolve to make more recipes from the Dining on a Dime cookbook! And you should too.

At this point, you may be saying to yourself:

"Now, hold on just a gol-dang minute there, Ornery! Jest what in the flamin' heck is this Dinin' on a Dime Cookbook? That sounds fishy to me!"

Well, that's what Grover said anyway, but you have to keep in mind that he was a miner during the Gold Rush, and he's used to people trying to grift him.

Now, you may wonder why Cactus Clem has an opinion about this, considering that he is a mutant cactus man who drinks his nourishment.

Well...

Let me introduce you to the best gol-durn hot chocolate mix you will ever drink. It doesn't come in a box of little envelopes or even an economy-size cylinder. You make it yourself! Before you tell me I must have been nipping at Cuzzin Hildy-Bob and Virgil-Joe's moonshine, let me tell you that it will take you less than ten minutes to make this stuff, and you will save a lot of money compared to even the economy-size cylinders of hot cocoa mix.

Here is what you will need:

10 + 2/3 cups dry milk

6 ounces powdered non-dairy creamer

16 ounces Nesquick powder

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients in a big bowl. I recommend either a flexible plastic bowl or a plastic bowl with a spout on the side for pouring into your storage container. I store mine in a big covered plastic pitcher. 

This recipe makes a big batch of very delicious cocoa, which should last for a long time. I can vouch for the deliciousness. I can't vouch for how long it will last if Cactus Clem drops by your house for a visit.

To drink the cocoa, heat one cup (8 ounces) of water. Pour in half a cup (4 ounces) of the cocoa mix. Stir it up and drink it down! I recommend using a big mug. You can top it with whipped cream, Cool Whip, or mini marshmallows if you like. 

This is just one of the many fantastic, money-saving recipes you will find in the Dining on a Dime cookbook. Since it's an e-book, I believe you can order it wherever in the world you may be. If I'm wrong about that, please kindly inform me of the error of my mistake.

The Dining on a Dime cookbook is only $19.99 for a wealth of recipes. But if you're not convinced that you want to spend that much, why not give their FREE e-book of 22 recipes a try? You'll find it in the sidebar on their main page. It contains a nice sampling of the sorts of recipes you can expect in the cookbook.

For those who prefer a physical cookbook, there is one in the works, which is due to be released this month. This link will allow you to read a description and pre-order the book. I'm honestly not sure about international shipping. The books are printed in the United States.

To sum things up, I recommend the Dining on a Dime cookbook. It is full of awesome recipes! Click the link to order it. 

If you love instant hot cocoa but hate the high prices, try the hot cocoa recipe in this post! You can find the fixins in Grover's General Store at the end of this post! Note that you might be able to get some of the ingredients cheaper at your local grocery store, so check the prices. But you probably can't beat the cost of the 2-quart plastic pitcher. I paid $7.99 for the Rubbermaid 2-quart pitcher at the grocery store. The very same one is just $2.99 in the search grid below.

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Ghost Town Grover sez: "This here cookbook is one of them scientific miracles! I can't believe you kin make good food so cheap. Ornery dang near fainted when she seen this here list of what things costed in a minin' camp back in the day. Yes sir, that's why I try to make sure the stuff in my General Store is affordable to regular folks, not jest the rich."

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Cactus Clem Sez: "I'll drink durn near anything, but I love me some hot chocolate in the winter an' lemonade in the summer. Y'all kin add in some moonshine iffen ya wanna give it a little extra kick!"