It's mine so hush...

So I participated in this little campaign.  The point is that everybody is a bathing suit body.  It was the first time I had done a project quite like this.  I really enjoy the meaning behind it.  I think so many people get so caught up in their heads about how they have to look before they can live.  It's so unfortunate.  What are we waiting for?  There is always going to be something that we think we should change.  I say suit up and play!  It's what life is about...                                       

I participated in a photo shoot for an event called the #suitupcampaign.  It is the hope of the woman organizing it to have a more varied representation of body types in swim suits, which would in turn  invite other women to feel comfortable "suiting up" for summer if they saw bodies that looked like theirs.  I was asked to submit a picture of my suit and so I set out to take a couple selfies.  As I was going through them and I started to notice something; I looked beautiful. As a fat, white, cisgender, femme-presenting, often mis-identified queer woman who is currently partnered with a cisgender man, I have received many messages about my body over the course of my life. From a very young age my body was labeled as fat.  I understood the resounding message that my worth was directly tied to in how much space I was supposed to take up in the world.  I understood that it was always open season on my body - from family, friends, doctors and even stranger...

It's been a minute since we last chatted.  I'll admit I have been having loads of fun on  Instagram  as a means to explore fashion, HAES and the world around me.  I keep meaning to come back and actually blog and I get myself so worked up over the idea that I just let it go.  So I am going to try to come here more.  Share some of my fun fashion stuff.  Explore my thoughts on books I am currently reading.  Here's to new adventures together!

I remember as a young girl hating to go shopping.  I was a fat kid and a relatively small town.  Mind you, this was long before Lane Bryant, Torrid, The Avenue or anything like them existed on the West coast, if at all.  There was no hopping on the internet and having the latest fashions shipped to you in two days time.  In fact, it often took several weeks when ordering from a catalog, assuming there was anything that I liked. Shopping was a chore.  It was a time that I was reminded that my body was broken and that I must be immoral, lazy, and cheating on my diet, because if I wasn't then I should have been able to shop in the "right" section. But I couldn't. When I was a little kid, I was wearing teen sizes.  When I was a teen, I was wearing larger women's sizes.  In 1989, when Guess jeans, Vuarnet tank tops and Keds were in style, I was wearing Sears women's jeans, men's cut Vuarnet shirts and knock-off Keds from the K-mart.  It was fin...

Yesterday I got to play dress up all afternoon.  It was sooooo much fun.  Through some luck and random connections, I was introduced to the fabulous  Jessica Kane  who is an amazing fashion blogger, owner/publisher of  Skorch Magazine , talented photographer/model and loving mama and wife - so basically a really cool role model and inspiration.  We spent the afternoon shooting some basic shots and details on several really cute dresses and tunics from  SWAK Designs  and  Simply Be .  Jessica, along with her lovely friend Brit, and I had some great conversations about how fatshion often misses the mark.  It has a difficult time finding space for a verity of bodies, in my case, bodies farther up the size scale.  We are often overlooked and not marketed to, even though 1) we exist 2) we have to clothe our bodies 3) like everyone else we want to look and feel good in our clothing. Needless to say, it was an amazing afternoon and ...

It's Rose Bowl day!  Woohoo! I have to work this morning, and it doesn't mean I can't get into the spirit.   Notice the shirt, necklace and earrings.   GO DUCKS!!