She Blinded Me With Science

To my recollection, for a long time Ides of March meming on Tumblr was confined to the day itself. You'd log in on the 15th and your dash would be all Julius Caesar memes and be like ohh it's the Ides of March today, ok!

Over time it has expanded & last year was the first time I became aware of substantial pre-gaming. The Ides of March has been a big annual meme on Tumblr for years but it being preceded by 2 full weeks of people getting hyped up is pretty recent.

There's also recently been an element of hmm almost roleplaying to it? Various newer posts circulating with people pretending like they're personally gonna stab Caesar.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

My best friend cannot find a bra.

She’s fat. We won’t get into the ~why~ here because it honestly wouldn’t matter whether it was “all her fault” or whether it was a result of outside forces like genes and such, she still deserves a goddamn fucking bra that fits.

And she cannot find a bra.

She’s short and fat, and Fat Bras are usually full cup, but because she’s short the full cups are usually too tall, or the armbands around them are too tall, to the point where what’ll fit around her chest and over her boobs will also dig up into her arms or have such high coverage that she literally cannot wear a shirt with a neckline high enough. Any bra that goes out enough goes too high.

This affects her ability to find clothing, impacting her ability to go outside sometimes, because she has this tiny selection of bras and she constantly has to wash them and when they’re gone she has no idea when she’ll next be able to find another unicorn bra. They appear in a flash usually in startups that die soon after, and COVID has killed most the small businesses remaining where she had even a hint of a chance of finding a fitting bra.

So she wears bras that don’t fit. Or she doesn’t leave the house. One gives her back pain. The other is, obviously, not very active. She likes to be active.

If she brings it up, people suggest breast reduction surgery.

But the thing is, with a good bra, she does not get back pain.

But if it’s that hard to find a good bra, they say, wouldn’t a reduction just be easier?

Wouldn’t it be easier for you to chop off part of your flesh, they say, then for us to cut fabric and underwire to more sizes? As if that is normal. As if that isn’t horrifying.

It’s not just bras. It’s chairs. It’s benches. It’s goddamn shoes. It’s seatbelts. It’s exercise equipment - I just got an exercise bike for Christmas. I had to shop around to find an affordable one that was also rated to take my level of fat. If I were 100 pounds heavier, which some people are? I don’t think any equipment would have existed in a price range that any working person could expect to afford. I don’t think most people even look at the weight ratings on chairs and couches and furniture. Once you start? They are lower than you think. There are absolutely 100% people you love in your life - whether really tall men or just average kinda overweight fat people - who should not be using the things they are using. Who are not getting support from their mattress, their footwear, their office chair. It might be you! You might be thinking “but I am average size!”, but the amount of furniture out there that’s only weighted to about 200lbs? Or 175??? It’s SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU REALIZE. Get into the Proper Fat? The 350lb, 400lb, 500lb fat? There’s virtually nothing.

Seatbelts are not tested for fat bodies and seatbelt extenders aren’t regulated.

We know about the problems with too small a blood pressure cuff. With too low a medicine dose. With no MRI a really fat body can fit in for a thousand miles.

We know, from multiple studies on multiple oppressed communities, that social bias by itself, with zero other compounding factors, can give people worse health outcomes.

Now add up

+ one of the social biases with the least pushback even from the educated liberal set with

+ having a world that is literally not made for you. Where you cannot get clothes, furniture, or transportation in a way that will actually accommodate you,

+ where society is constantly blaming you for this. And even if you somehow (and if you know how, please tell me) manage to retain some sense of self worth and optimism and determination despite all that

+ that’s not gonna magically give you access to the daily supplies a person needs in their home and out in public that’ll make living safe and healthy life literally physically possible.

If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health start a bra company. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health mandate changes to seatbelt requirements. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health have a variety of chairs in your waiting room with at least some being properly Fat Rated. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health, make it easier for fat people to be active by making exercise equipment that fits them, swimwear that’ll actually stay on them, athletic shoes that can bear them. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health ask they be included in more medical trials. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health, promote fat visibility and fat people loving their bodies - because hating yourself has literally never been good for anyone’s health.

If you’re using “concern for health” as a shield to allow you to judge and criticize strangers, you don’t give a fuck about anyone’s health. You’re just an asshole who prefers a veneer of respectability when you bully people. You’re hateful and we can see right through you.

I’m really tired of seeing people broken up into labels of absolutes.

People are not just “good” or “bad”.

People are not a list of labels. 

People are complex, situations are complex.

I know, that makes it a lot harder when you want to just write off everything someone’s ever done as bad – but that’s not how people actually are, and it would do everyone good to stop pretending they are.

I am tired of hearing about the fear people have in putting themselves out there. And it is a scary thing! Putting yourself out there means subjecting yourself to people who want a really good reason to tear you down, who will jump at the first chance to feel “good” by labeling someone else as “bad”.

I reject this. I reject the idea that there should be fear in speaking up and talking about experiences and trying to reach an understanding of a situation.

I’m unhappy to see people spitefully urging others to cut off ties with their friends under the guise of “well, that person’s just inherently bad, so if you talk to them you’re bad too.” That is fucked up. You definitely have the right to let the friend know you don’t want to hear about whoever troubles you, but you do not at all have the right to decide who their friends should be. This includes guilt trips.

Anyway, just try to be more aware of others. Everyone else is a person like you. They might not have the same experiences as you. They might not understand how their words are harmful, or how what they’re doing is wrong. They certainly won’t if you never tell them.

Most people are trying to be good, but they’re going to mess it up sometimes. Try to keep that in mind. Even when people do really fucked up shit, sometimes they are trying to do good. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and all that.

Nothing gets solved, no growth happens when you put people into a box from which you’ll never let them escape.

Yes, you absolutely must be careful about people who have tendencies and patterns that are harmful to you. Sometimes people try to overcome those patterns and they fail, and you have to distance yourself from them: that is the sad reality of life. Sometimes though, they can overcome it. But they certainly won’t if the first thing you do is write them off after a fuck up. 

My default state of thinking is very black and white and its super easy for me to spiral out. But like with any negative behaviour knowledge, time, and practice means the issue can be controllable and you can learn from your mistakes