I’ve played Constitution Hall. Well, okay, technically it was 9th grade and I was in the school band playing Pomp and Circumstance over and over again (think Sartre)  for our high school graduation, but I was in Constitution Hall and I was playing an instrument and so I’m counting it.

I almost wasn’t allowed to go.

I almost wasn’t allowed to go because of this woman:

Singer Marian Anderson.

See, back in 1939 the Daughters of the American Revolution, who own Constitution Hall refused to let Anderson –who was one of the most popular classical vocalists in the world– perform at Constitution Hall because she wasn’t white.

Eleanor Roosevelt –right-minded old broad that she was– resigned from the DAR and helped organize Anderson’s famous Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial, attended by over 75,000 folks.

(seriously, if this doesn’t give you goosebumps, you have lizards in your soul)

“I forgave the DAR many years ago. You lose a lot of time hating people.”

“Prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can’t see it, you can’t find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.”

“The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.”

“As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.”

“I suppose I might insist on making issues of things. But that is not my nature, and I always bear in mind that my mission is to leave behind me the kind of impression that will make it easier for those who follow.”

For a goosebump par excellence experience check out this incredible speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and hear Ms Anderson sing “My Country ’tis of Thee”

Happy Independence Day gang.  Celebrate it if you’ve got it.

Francesca has dropped her former primary care physician like a hot potato, after said “doctor,” in response to Francesca’s suggestion that she (Francesca) might have sleep apnea, said “Sleep apnea isn’t important. If you are snoring, it would be annoying to anyone else who might be sleeping with you, but it’s not a risk to your health. Since you live alone, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not worth testing for.”

Setting aside the idea that a person who lives alone gets different health care from someone with a regular, uh, long-term sleeping partner, sleep apnea causes metabolic problems, which Francesca has. Francesca mentioned to some doctor friends about the sleep apnea, all of whom said without blinking “oh, yeah, sleep apnea is bad. It causes depression, metabolic disorders, and besides, you are tired all the time.” Hello?!?

Anyhow, this means that Francesca has to “break in” a new doctor. Francesca brought the new doctor a letter outlining her health history and issues and what she is doing to manage them, and explaining the “health at every size” outlook.  He spent the first few minutes reading the letter, and then asked me questions, such as the following:

Doctor: You’ve been exercising 30 minutes a day and haven’t lost weight?

Francesca: That is correct.

Doctor: For weight loss, I’m going to recommend 40 minutes.

Francesca: I’m sorry to interrupt, but want to make it clear that I’m not interested in weight loss. I’m interested in staying healthy.

Doctor: But to be healthy, you have to lose weight.

Francesca (with forced patience): Well, I’ve been trying that for 30 years, since I was 6 years old, and it hasn’t worked. I’d rather focus on healthy behaviors than on my weight.

Doctor: I’m very confused because over here (pointing to letter) you say that you’d like a referral to a new nutritionist, but you don’t want to lose weight?

Francesca: I want some support in adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet [Francesca's note: even though it contradicts the HAES "intuitive eating" model], because I’m not good at that and I want to make sure my body gets the nutrients it needs. But I don’t want it to be that if I eat healthy and exercise but don’t lose weight, that I’ve failed. I want it to be that if I eat nutritious food and exercise regularly, I’ve succeeded, whether I lose weight or not.

This absolutely “clicked” it for the doctor, and he said he might even use that line with other patients. I was so proud! My first thought was “I hope Kate Harding sees the post about this!”

It takes a little time and effort to treat one’s doctor!

When I was 10, I thought if I got one more stupid porcelain doll I would literally go mad.  Being insane is a highly-respected career choice for a well-bred Southern woman,  and I was one be-ringleted Jane Austen commemorative dolly away from becoming the fifth-grade inspiration for a posthumous Tennessee Williams play.

The problem was, I’d discovered, that after years of being notoriously difficult to shop for I’d accidentally mentioned that I liked a doll. A doll, as in one particular doll.

Well, I got that doll.

All would have been well had the clarion call of “Plumcake Likes Dolls” not gone out to my four wonderful but completely clueless-in-the-ways-of-young-girls uncle. But it did.

I think you see where this is going.

I was inundated by porcelain dolls, I had dolls for Christmas and my birthday and for times when I’d helped them pick up cute girls, which SOUNDS like a nice problem to have EXCEPT:

Dolls have eyes.

They don’t blink.

I’m not afraid of dolls like my friend Cassie is –well, she’s really afraid of doll PARTS, not dolls in general– but when you wake up and the moonlight is streaming in your bedroom, illuminating dozens upon dozens of cold, unblinking eyes staring out of faces without emotions or flaws…well, actually that’s a lot like an initiation rite of The Junior League, but honestly, that just adds to the creepiness.

See? Creepy.

The same thing happened to my grandmother, apparently, and her affection for owls.  I imagine she at one point liked them; the little carved alabaster objet I’ve got on my desk is an owl she picked up while she was on Capri, and their racing yacht was The Night Owl (always a good gift). I do not, however, suspect she particularly yearned for a paint-it-yourself owl-shaped ceramic umbrella stand which my brother and I affectionately called “The Hoo” all through our childhoods.

The Hoo lives with me now –you twitterati will recall I woke up spooning him on Saturday morning for reasons known only to God and the makers of my freakishly potent melatonin capsules– and I love it as a cherished token from my childhood. I haven’t received a doll in nearly twenty years and even my grandmother was eventually able to end to the slew of Strigiformes (that’s Latin, yo. You think I don’t know stuff, but I know stuff. You’re not the boss of me.) but we can’t be the only ones.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

It was dolls with me and owls with my grandmother. What was the theme-gift YOU couldn’t escape?

If you were fortunate enough NOT to be riddled with 300 My Little Ponies or nylon loop potholder kits, tell me another funny story about presents.

finally, if you just CANNOT LIVE another moment without your very own ceramic owl umbrella stand –which looks a good deal like mine, although mine is painted in harvest gold, white and avocado– you can get one here:

meaningful spooning sessions and childhood conversations not included

EDIT:

It is indeed the self same Hoo! This one is dated 1972, which happens to be the same year as my Caddy. Astute readers will notice the Neiman’s bag peeping out of its head and the fabulous cobalt blue pony hair pump behind it. Also for what it’s worth this is about the closest I’ve ever come to actually USING the baby grand piano I bought on a whim.

Francesca knows that she promised a sculpture series, but that involves sifting through her notes and emails and bookmarks, and frankly it is too hot outside.  When the temperature dips below that of the surface of the sun, she will consider it.

Meanwhile, she must point you to the fat-tastic Adipositivity Project of the talented photographer Substantia Jones. The name comes from “adipose tissue,” ie fat, and positivity, ie celebrate! Some of the very few safe-for-work examples:

Francesca notes that as a matter of policy, Jones has left out the models’ faces in order to “coax observers into imagining they’re looking at the fat women in their own lives, ideally then accepting them as having aesthetic appeal which, for better or worse, often translates into more complete forms of acceptance.”

Francesca rather wishes she had included the faces as a way of forcing viewers to confront the woman in her entirety, with each subject’s face and personality and unique visage represented along with her body. We get enough “headless fatties” in media reports about obesity. Fat women, say “this is me!”

What say you? Is leaving out the faces a good artistic decision? A good political one?  Does intent matter in cases like this?