OOTD: Easter bunnies

I have a million outfit posts I need to catch up on, so I’m going to start with the most recent one. This is what I wore for Easter egg-hunting and frolicking with my friends in our local park, which was wonderfully silly and fun.

At first, I put together a pastel outfit, but I just wasn’t feeling it, so I changed into yoga pants and my killer bunny shirt. Steve was on the same wavelength, and wore his TARDIS bunnies shirt (which I got for him as a holiday present last year).

T-shirt: TeeTurtle, cardigan: Torrid via eBay, necklace: eBay, earrings: clothing swap, tiny hat: Claire’s, yoga pants: Target

Follow-up to my piece on art in Boston, with lots of pictures

Benjamin Reynolds contact juggling at Figment 2013.

First off, thank you to everyone who read, shared, and commented on my post earlier today! I am so grateful for the creative communities I have here in, as Jojo calls it, “Bostosomedfordville,” and I’m glad that my piece resonated with many of my fellow Bostonians.

Second, throughout this post I’ll be using a few pictures that I dug up while working on the original post, but didn’t have enough space to use. Enjoy!

Morris dancers at NEFFA 2009.

This morning, I tweeted the link to my post to Sarah Kendzior, and she responded, “Thanks! I’m not sure we disagree that much. Boston has great things to offer, I only wish daily life were more affordable.”

I appreciate that she clarified her position, and I think we do agree more than we disagree when it comes to art, money, and cities. I still wish her original essay hadn’t made such sweeping generalizations, but I’m glad it started so many conversations and inspired me to write about why I love my Boston so damn much.

Sometimes I get sick of living here–not because of anything wrong with the area itself, but because I have cravings for adventure and new places to explore, and Boston can get pretty small after a few years. So it was great to have a reminder of all the things I love about living here: how amazingly creative my friends and communities are,  how there’s always something unusual and fun (and often geeky) going on, what a wonderful big little city this is. Or is it a little big city?

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations 11/6/13, Halloween edition part 2

Because you all have such awesome costumes and outfits! 🙂

Iridessence

Sqeenamore

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations 11/6/13, Halloween Edition

Vintage or Tacky

Marianne Kirby on XOJane

Friday links, 8/23/13

Fa(t)shion
-Ragini rounds up awesome costume-y clothes in both plus and straight sizes.
-A big boo to Forever 21 for demoting all their full-time non-management employees to part-time.
–Outfit ideas: how does a grown girl wear cat ears?
–A history of fast fashion in comic form.
-Bella Styles interviews plus model Tiffany “Tip” Jones.
-I so want to make it to Fat Fancy, a radical fatshion boutique in Portland, someday. Virgie Tovar’s reading there looks like it was so much fun!

Fat Acceptance
-If you read one thing this week, make it this: The HAES files: death threats, anxiety, and dying while fat.
-Lindy West is brilliant. Always.
-Great pictures of fab fatties enjoying NOLOSE.
–“Apology accepted” and other things I’ll never get to say to my former diet counselors.
-This watercolor painting of a fat flapper is the best thing ever.
–I am not a fetish. YES.

Climate and Sustainability
–A piazza on every block: how DIY placemaking is transforming communities.
-Bethany muses on mice, mountains, and risk-taking spirit.

Pseudo-DIY flower crown fun

So, this isn’t exactly a DIY flower crown, but it’s not exactly a store-bought one either.

This is what happens when I put a whole bunch of hairclips all over my head:

I really like how it came out–I will definitely do an outfit post wearing it at some point!

The clips are from: Forever 21 (pink roses), H&M (butterflies and mint roses), and Claire’s (silver, white, and champagne roses). And yes, that is Steve’s TARDIS lunchbox in the background! I intend to do an outfit post featuring it as well–it would go so perfectly with my TARDIS earrings and the royal blue sundress I thrifted a while back.

Friday links, 6/21/13

An awesomely geeky car I saw recently.

Happy Friday! As usual, feel free to link to anything interesting you’ve read or written this week in the comments.

Fa(t)shion
-Lesley rounds up some cute floral print stuff.
–Elegance for all: can ModCloth change plus size fashion for good?
-Advanced Style’s photoshoot in Vogue Australia is gorgeous.
–We’re here, we’re queer, and we look real cute: indie designers challenging gender norms.
-There’s now a blog for fatshionable apples!
–This dress. Oh, this dress! It’s like a giant cupcake and I want one just like it.

Fat Activism
–A great interview with Virgie Tovar in both English and German.
–This protest outside of a Victoria’s Secret in California, including both Virgie Tovar and Marilyn Wann, is awesome! You can see more pictures here on About-Face’s Facebook page.
-Melissa at Shakesville has yet another addition to the Fatstronauts 101 series, this time taking down the myth that fat people are stupid.
-Are you looking for a part-time internship doing fat activism? Check out the Militant Baker’s call for interns.
–Public health does not make me public property.
–Death is always a shock: on James Gandolfini and the rush to explain an unexpected loss.
-Two more good analyses of the AMA’s decision, from the Fat Nutritionist and Feed Me, I’m Cranky.

A great takedown of the idea that fat women shouldn’t cosplay thinner characters:

Climate and Sustainability
-The Climate Justice Hub here in Somerville is now open, and it’s an awesome space for community-building and action. If you live in the area, check out their calendar of events.
-Through an event at the CJ Hub, I met Bethany, an amazing writer who blogs about making the world a better place at Granite Bunny. I highly recommend everything she writes, but here are a few places to start: Bicknell’s thrush, Yoga and Montana’s Tongue River Valley, and We’re gonna win.
–Local, self-sufficient, optimistic: are transition towns the way forward?

Everything Else
-I recently came across anthropologist Sarah Kendzior‘s writing, and I love all of it. I wish more people were deconstructing our economic system the way she does. A few of my favorite recent pieces: In defense of complaining, The moral bankruptcy of the internship economy, and The unaffordable Baby Boomer dream.
–On being a “good” black man, from the perspective of a transgender man who started to face a different kind of racism once he transitioned.
-I love these answers from students about why they need feminism.
–On invisible health issues, and the complex space between “healthy” and “disabled.”
–Enforcing poverty to access health care.
–Why cops don’t believe rape victims, and how brain science can help solve the problem.

Happy International No Diet Day!

Today, May 6th, is International No Diet Day. (It comes a day after Cinco de Mayo, and two days after Star Wars Day, making for quite the festive week!)

It’s been six years since I first came across Shapely Prose while exploring the feminist blog-o-sphere,  and there has been nothing more influential on my journey to accepting my body. It took time, and working through resistance, but the idea that there was nothing wrong with being fat–that it was possible to be healthy and happy at any size, and that weight-loss dieting was in fact both harmful and counterproductive–was a revolutionary spark.

And now here I am, blogging about fatshion and  living fabulously.

Loving my body isn’t always easy, and sometimes I still struggle with taking care of it: with eating the right foods for my body, getting enough joyful movement, finding ways to reduce stress and anxiety. But beneath those struggles is a baseline of acceptance: of knowing that my body is ok just the way it is. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.

Valentine’s Day: Daleks, cupcakes, and Jedi hugs for all!

I’m neither single nor Floridian, but I’m so happy this exists. Image credit: Ken Spivey

I’ve always had a conflicted relationship with Valentine’s Day. On one hand, how could I hate a pink-and-red holiday that revolves around chocolate-worship? On the other hand, for the many many years I was single, it was just another reminder of what I wanted and hadn’t yet found.

Now I have a relationship, and it’s awesome. I’m happy for the opportunity to celebrate it, but I also want to keep in mind that this holiday can be hard for a lot of people.

For anyone who’s single and doesn’t want to be, there’s one post I can’t recommend enough: Kate Harding’s On Dumb Luck. I wish it were required reading for everyone, ever.

Single folks, here’s what I know: you are exactly what someone is looking for, and that someone is exactly what you’re looking for. You just don’t have a damned bit of control over when or where you’ll stumble across each other. That sucks a hundred kinds of ass. But you don’t have to be prettier. You don’t have to be better. You don’t even have to be patient, if you don’t feel like it. You just have to be.

My favorite part of V-Day. Image credit: Kickass Cupcakes

Everyone’s your friend when you’re in New York City

Steve and I went to NYC to see John and Hank Green’s Evening of Awesome–which was indeed awesome, and which I’ll post about soon. For now, here are are a few highlights of our trip.

We stayed with Rachel, one of my college friends:

I love how New York has eateries devoted to any kind of food you can imagine. We didn’t make it to the rice pudding place, but we did stop for lunch at Baconery, whose specialty you can guess from the name. Their bacon grilled cheese and bacon chocolate peanut butter cookies were delicious!