Anyhoodle, the other day I received an email from superfantastic reader Rachel:

Dear Miss Plumcake,

I apologize if you covered this before on Manolo for the Big Girls, but I am looking for some nice sleepwear (and I think others who are plus sized and not 21 any more might appreciate). I’m looking for something pretty, made with fabrics found in nature and something I can actually sleep in. Any advice you could give would be much appreciated.

Thank you.
Rachel

From personal experience I got nothin’.

I am what my baby brother used to call a “wuff sweeper.”

Try as I might, I cannot find a nightie, jimjam or other form of nocturnal costuming that doesn’t end up wrapped around my throat or lodged irretrievably in one of my more tender nooks and crannies after just an hour or so of sleep. If I attempt to sleep in anything more substantial than moisturizer, I risk serious self-injury, and frankly that is NOT something I want to explain to emergency responders, especially not in Spanish.

Pretty and nice are subjective as is something you can “actually sleep in”, and “not 21 anymore” covers a lot of ground, so the best I can do is offer my one feeble suggestion and open it up to the crowd.

I have heard good things from people whose taste and style I respect about Eileen West sleepwear.

She does old-fashioned nightgowns and pajamas that might fit the bill.

I don’t find them particularly alluring, but I think some of them could possibly fit the description of pretty if you cast your net wide enough. Also Vermont Country Store seems to offer Eileen West as well as a few other purveyors of olde-tymey sleepwear.

So okay girls, open your pajama drawers and help Rachel out.

In the intervening 48 hours, I made Hot Latin Boy his first ever banana pudding.

He’d never had it before and by the low moaning sounds he’s been making –similar to the sounds my shar-pei makes when I rub his ears, I call it an eargasm– I can tell the pleasures of warm, homemade vanilla pudding (do you even need to ask whether there’s bourbon in it?) are new to him.

Over on the Facebook page, I pondered which is the greater sin: using a half of a Hershey’s bar when making a single s’more (excessive and ruins the whole delicate taste and texture ratio) or those miserly folks who only use one slice of banana per Nilla wafer in their banana pudding.

One reader seemed unclear as to the usage of the phrase “banana pudding”.

It is not the same thing as banana-flavored pudding.

Banana pudding is alternating layers of Nilla wafers and sliced ripe bananas drenched in warm homemade vanilla custard and let to chill. Some people top their pudding with meringue and others with whipped cream.

Some may use homemade ladyfingers as their cookie and some use Chessmen (though usually this is seen as embarrassingly bougie and most likely to be sign of a social climbing Methodist who wants to impress the Episcopalian Daughters of the King) but if it isn’t homemade pudding –and honestly there is no reason not to make your own custard, it takes five minutes and is infinitely superior to any boxed variety– it’s not banana pudding.

I don’t even have the strength to discuss Cool Whip as a topping.

Which brings me to my next point.

I don’t want to overgeneralize or make some sort of inflammatory logically indefensible assertion here, but it must be said:

I’m pretty sure people who don’t make their own mayonnaise don’t get into heaven, at least not on their first try.

Admittedly, this might not hold up to rigorous theological testing and Duke’s enthusiasts probably go to limbo instead of straight to the bottom floor. I haven’t really worked out all the details yet. Hmm, I wonder what Mayo Limbo would be like…probably a place where you can get shrimp and grits but they’re lumpy and made by some guy from Connecticut.

*shudder*

Anyway, the other day Twistie was talking about kitchen gadgets she didn’t need. I also have an aebelskiver pan, although I’ve never actually had aebelskiver as I was most likely vaccinated against it as a child.

Although I’ve been felled by the siren song of a completely useless gadget once or twice (I’m looking at you, bread machine) I tend to save my serious errors in judgment for outside the kitchen.

Still, one must look on the sunny side, so here is a list of five kitchen tools that more than earn their counter space.

Cuisinart Stick Blender

This thing sees near-daily service. Yesterday I used it to make agua sandia, a refreshing watermelon drink. I just cut the top off a seedless watermelon, removed a chunk from the middle and put the stick blender right in the melon and made two liters of delicious fresh watermelon juice in approximately two minutes. Blending soups right in the pot, making pesto, whizzing up smoothies or frozen umbrella drink and of course, making homemade mayonnaise. This is one of my solid gold gadget purchases and I’d buy one again in a heartbeat.

Kitchen Kettle Multi-Cooker

Unlike Twistie, I do love my deep fryer.

I rarely eat deep fried foods, but potato chips are so much better when homemade that storebought ones –excluding the divine Grandma Utz’s– just aren’t worth the caloric investment. Still, I’m not interested in one trick ponies, so it’s nice to know the Kitchen Kettle also serves as a rice and veggie steamer, pasta cooker and slow cooker, so it earns its place on my counter. I’m pretty sure it’d be great for popcorn too, but popcorn is an abomination unto the Lord and also gets stuck in my teeth, so I guess that will remain a mystery.

Enameled Aluminum Lemon Squeezer

Another tool that gets a daily workout here at Villa Plumcake is my lemon squeezer. The lime tree in my backyard assaults me with citrus on a near daily basis and very few things in Mexico are served without a final hit of lime, but even when I lived stateside my enamel-coated metal squeezer saw a lot of action, particularly around cocktail time.

BonJour Mini Butane Torch

Okay, a mini butane torch is just fun. I used it on my banana pudding and there’s always this frisson of excitement. It’s like a handgun, but slightly less likely to ruin your meringue.

It’s also useful, especially for those of us whose favorite dessert is crème brûlée but have yet to master the art of broiling sugar in the oven.

As much as I’d like to eat crème brûlée every day, my little blowtorch sees more action browning sugar atop grapefruit halves, roasting small peppers and tomatoes, toasting small quantities of spices or easily-burned nuts (pine nuts do wonderfully in this, giving you even less of an excuse to not make your own pesto) or giving that extra punch of crispy caramelization for whatever comes out of the kitchen. Necessary? Not really, but surprisingly useful and unsurprisingly fun.

Weighmax Electronic Kitchen Scale

I think I mentioned my hesitation buying a kitchen scale before.

To me they were always related to fad diets and gave me ugly flashbacks just thinking of them, but honestly, they’re damn handy and make using European recipes which usually give dry measurements in weight, not volume, a snap. Plus, if you’re baking in less-than-ideal circumstances or can’t understand why your famous layer cake sometimes comes out like heaven and other times like hockey pucks, measure your ingredients by weight. You’ll be glad you did.

Do you think it is appropriate to wear blue wedge espadrilles with a Chico’s maxidress and lightweight cotton sweater to a wedding in June? It’s at the Newark Museum in fabulous downtown Newark, NJ. Thanks in advance. The Chico’s lady told me to wear strappy sandals but with my size 11, not particularly nice feet, I vetoed that immediately.

I know what you’re thinking, and although the jokes just write themselves (I mean Chico’s and the Garden State? It’s a slow soft one right down the middle), one must always remember that some are born Newark, some achieve Newark and some –presumably like our friend Helena– have Newark thrust upon them.

That being said, I’m not entirely sure espadrilles –which I love and will feature in an upcoming post– are the way to go here.

One of the few fashion rules actually reliable in the real world is “the longer the skirt, the flatter the shoe.”

The inverse –shorter skirts require higher heels– often is true as well, but it’s by no means as reliable and should be approached with fear and trembling, especially in New Jersey.

I love maxi dresses because they are so effortless. In fact, the only time I see a maxi dress gone truly wrong is when some well-meaning but inevitably dopey-looking person Tries Too Hard.

Jean Arthur in a hostess gown circa 1929

Prior to to the baby boom, a hostess gown might be worn with low-heeled mules, but when maxis re-emerged slightly before the days of disco –thank YOU, Halston– they were considerably less formal and best served by nearly pancake flat sandals.

Do we think that's Marisa Berenson modeling a homemade hostess gown in Woman's Day, 1967?

The same holds true today.

I tried on all four of my maxi dresses with shoes of varying heights and the highest heel that didn’t look actively bad was a 1 1/2″ wedge.

As owner of not one but two “size 11, not particularly nice feet” I understand your hesitation re: strappy sandals. They’re questionable as a species in the best of times since so often they show a lack of discipline, surely one of the few cases where more straps equals less restraint.

Instead of espadrilles or strappy sandals, here are five appealing but relatively minimalist sandals, streamlined enough to be elegant, but casual enough to reinforce the effortless glamor of a maxi dress (which I’m sure you’ll be accessorizing with a shawl or wrap instead of a cardigan and one –count ‘em ONE– piece of Major Statement Jewelry and little else, correct?)

Read on the see the shoes

The Larissa from Cole Haan, available in four colors and two widths, this has a micro wedge and is special enough for a casual wedding but could easily serve double duty with jeans.

The Zigi Intrigue in burnished gold or pewter is a little fancier though still not flashy, and the lovers knot is a sweet touch for a wedding especially if you’re one of those sentimental types who loves love and gives the stink eye whenever I try to add a discreet fiver to the divorce pool at the reception.

On the ultra-minimalist end of the spectrum we have the Frye Madison braided sandal.  It’s got the Greek thing happening, which might be nice if the reception involves wine, philosophy, and drunken acts of sodomy (and really, what reception doesn’t?) and since it’s Frye, you know they’ll last forever.

One of the rare examples of the well-executed strappy sandal, the Delman D-Shaya is streamlined and elegant. It’s also on pretty significant sale which makes it extra appealing, especially for a blue chip brand like Delman.

Finally for the budget minded there’s the perfectly serviceable Gigi from Sam Edelman. It’s available in approximately six squillion colors including this unusual combination.

They’re worth a look in the entirely likely event being seen in New Jersey without at least some leopard print is a criminally punishable offense.

Once upon a time, luxury for me meant a new Hermès or a call to my gal at Barneys in New York to get my hands on the latest and most exclusive Le Labo or Serge Lutens export.

Now luxury is toilet paper with anything resembling structural integrity.

Then vs. Now

Yet even in those heady days, I was still just a Career Girl in the newspaper industry.

What the dead tree biz lacked in job security it made up for in low wages, and my attempt to indulge in champagne tastes on a cava budget was not exactly effortless. Each glittering bottle of rarefied perfume, each instantly recognizable square orange box, represented weeks or months of sacrifices –most small, some large– in other parts of my life.

I call it my Luxury Tithe, a phrase I first heard from my friend Amy, author of the brilliant and sadly dormant Style Spy, as she diligently squirreled away a portion of her pay each week to save for a pair of Miu Miu sandals or a trip to her beloved Paris.

The eminently tithe-worthy Alexander McQueen Seasonal Satchel, click picture for link

I’m happier in Scotland than on the Seine and Miu Miu sandals rarely fit my feet (not that it matters since I refuse to support Miuccia Prada anyway after her fatty-firing opera stunt) but aside from the ideas of paying cash and not living beyond your means as just good sense, I had two reasons to start my own luxury tithe.

First, I knew my dream job –the real one, not the designated thigh oiler for Real Madrid (although if anyone’s hiring…)– has even less money in it than the newspaper industry, and believe me, very few things have less money in it than the newspaper industry.

I knew someday the reasonably well-paid party would end, and when it did I wanted to be able to walk away with an accessories wardrobe to last a lifetime and not a penny of credit card debt, which is exactly what I did.

Second, I wanted to learn the joys of living a discriminating life.

It’s painfully simple, but if something’s not extremely good, I don’t want it. I’d rather go without than have my fill of mediocrity or worse. It’s probably why I’ve lost so much weight in Mexico (well, you know, that and the cholera): Mangoes, fish and veggies are good here; pastry, meat and sweets are not, at least not to a palate that prefers butter to lard and thick ribeyes to thin strips of carne asada.

Television isn’t very good in America (it’s worse in Mexico) so I happily gave it a miss and the money I saved by not paying to have Real Housewives of a Culturally Declining Nation piped into Château Gâteau bought me a Paris-only bell jar of the shiveringly dry yet animalic Bois et Musc  (which smells exactly like my lynx coat after a post-prandial walk in the woods) and fuchsia Dolce and Gabbana heels in suede so buttery I want to spread it on toast.

Let’s turn this into a Big Question.

Right now my Luxury Tithe –pathetic as it may be– is dedicated to funding an exploratory trip to Buenos Aires to see whether the so-called Paris of Latin America is destined to be the next stop on the Miss Plumcake Expatriate World Tour.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know whether you have a Luxury Tithe. If so, what’s the desired result? If not, what’s your preferred method of acquiring what you want?

Yesterday I spent much of the day at the American Consulate waiting for Hot Latin Boy to renew his tourist visa.

As such, I spent four hours people watching and wondering what sort of decision-making process would start out “What should I wear to my very important potentially life-changing government interview” and arrive at “shredded thigh jeans, shooties ordered from the back of Modern Streetwalker and a hickey the size of Gorbachev’s port wine stain.”

Baffling.

Anyway, it’s been a while, but since it’s time to resurrect the featurette and see What Miss Plumcake is…

Reading: “The Sunday Philosophy Club” by Alexander McCall Smith. Not quite as good as his more famous and thoroughly charming No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, but a pleasant, entertaining light read for people who don’t leave their brains behind when they go to the beach.

Watching: Mary and Max. An uncomfortable yet tender black comedy from the country who does it best: Australia. The story of a neglected Australian school girl and her middle-aged Asperger’s penpal from New York is somewhere between Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit) and Tim Burton, with the signature dark quirkiness of the best of Oz cinema . It’s not without flaws, but it’s worth a watch just for the blackboard at the Over-Eaters Anonymous meeting.

Hearing: La Bamba: Sones Jarochos from Veracruz. Like most Americans, I was only familiar with son jarocho via Ritchie Valens’ electric iteration of the oeuvre’s 800 pound gorilla, La Bamba; but last night Hot Latin Boy and I were treated to a more traditional setting of the Afro-Cuban influenced music of Mexico’s largest Atlantic port. Two scruffy young men in tight-brimmed fedoras called out verses while playing jaranas, small eight-stringed guitar-like instruments native to Veracruz, while a willowy woman –all shoulder blades and arrogance– stomped out a sort of flamenco percussion with her feet. I downloaded this album last night as a sort of primer course, and I’ve been listening to it nonstop.

Smelling: Poivre by Caron. Scandalously expensive, notoriously hard to get and heart-wrenchingly sublime, Caron’s 1954 ode to pepper and carnation is a masterpiece of composition, a savage dance contained within absolute restraint; it’s Stravinsky in a bottle. It’s the 1913 Sacre Printemps riot at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. It’s magnificent and I’d trade my Birkin for an ounce of the original juice. Interestingly, I’m not the only one making symphonic comparisons. Read more about Poivre and its little sister Coup de Fouet, at Perfume Shrine.

Loving: Kay Unger Shimmer Bolero on Super Sale (sizes limited). Where the heck was this when I was going to six weddings a month and couldn’t find a damn dress with sleeves?

Hating: Candycornsayswhat? I can almost see a good dress in there somewhere, were it not afflicted with the dreaded shapelessness that Saks Fifth Avenue (among others) seems determined fat people want.

Wanting: Gourmet Sea Salt Sampler There’s nothing quite like a good dose of cholera to set one’s usually adventurous dining habits straight back to “just some buttered toast please” for another six weeks. I take my toast –and there’s been so much toast– buttered, with just the lightest imaginable sprinkling of salt. I’m a sucker for exotics, and although the local cheapo stuff is actually a surprisingly subtle, flaky sea salt, I’ve been having almost untoward fantasies about this sampler.

Buying: Almond Meal. A few weeks ago while fantasizing about my future life in Spain, I whipped up a simple orange and almond olive oil cake inspired by one I sampled at a dinner party thrown by a charming Iberian lawyer and his two equally charming (and equally Iberian too, I suppose) sons.  At least it would’ve been simple if I hadn’t had to grind the almonds by hand in my molcajete. The cake is right up my alley –a simple unfrosted round, bright with citrus, olive oil and ground nuts– so I invested in a large bag of raw almond meal. Now I add it to everything I bake. I love the texture, the nutty taste and hey, replacing a bit of wheat flour with almond meal increases the nutritional value and flavor profile at the same time. What’s not to love?

Just a quick note: Will the young lady who contacted me  for fashion advice about her friend’s wedding in New York please contact me again via email or Facebook message?

I was halfway through what I will admit is a thoughtful and entertaining response when I realized I had an important and unanswered question. I’ve tried responding through the contacts I have, so if you still want advice, please contact me.

Gin and Tonics,

Miss Plumcake

Mother’s Day in the United States is upon us –it was yesterday here in Mexico– and we’ve been discussing the complex mother/daughter relationship all week.

I know this has been a particularly hard time for some of my readers.

Maybe I’m more sensitive to it myself this year as a close friend lost her mother recently, but for many –myself included– the second Sunday in May is not always filled with the happiest of feelings.

Some of us have lost our mothers through death, and some of us through methods more subtle but possibly just as painful.

I’ve received some emails –the readers have requested anonymity and I’ll respect their wishes, though I’ll never be able to compete with their eloquence– asking for advice on how to deal with mothers who don’t exactly merit the card-and-corsage treatment.

Obviously I’m not a therapist, although I HAVE seen that dishy Gabriel Byrne play one on TV, so I’m not sure how much wisdom I’ll be able to impart, but hey, it’s either that or talking about how I burned my finger this morning (hint: hot glass looks deceptively like cold glass) so let me give it a go:

Sometimes you get dealt a bum hand. You just do. So you rub some dirt in it (by “dirt” I mean therapy, meditation, medication, shoes or a combination of all four) and walk it off. It’s not fun and it’s not pretty, but there it is.

See, as much as we’d like to believe our appearance would be enough to make previously incapable people rise to the occasion, that’s not necessarily how it works. There’s no qualifying exam to getting knocked up and just because your mom or my mom or whoever’s mom managed to get her Ivanka trumped doesn’t mean she’s going to be a good or even loving mother. That’s not something everyone’s capable of; myself, perhaps, included.

I don’t have kids because I don’t think I’d be that great a mother.

I’m a reasonably decent person according to the people I pay to say that, but you know how some people yearn for years about having a baby? Smelling them, washing them, tucking them in at night? The only thing I’ve felt like that about was a pair of green Dior heels, and they didn’t even come in my size.

So I play Auntie Mame and in the evening when I’ve sent those blessed bundles to their respective homes, I say a thankful prayer to Saint NuvaRing and drift off to a gentle, uninterrupted slumber.

But, you know, a woman’s right to control her reproductive destiny hasn’t always been as easy or socially accepted as it is now.

Sometimes women who were never suited to be mothers, who never WANTED to be mothers *poof* became mothers.

Passing a toaster through a light socket doesn’t automatically bestow a woman with magical Donna Reed powers. Some women don’t have the parenting tool in their toolbox and yet they’re still expected to fix that leaky toilet (oh what, like comparing a child to a leaky toilet is the worst analogy I’ve ever made? It’s not even the worst analogy I’ve made in this post.)

And sometimes your mother simply is, to quote the great French Age of Enlightenment thinker François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, “crazier than a sack of ferrets.”*

But fear not my friends, plenty of respectable people have socks on wire hangers for mothers, challenging maternal situations. The key is to remember there is just as much to learn from a bad example as a good (see also: hot glass v. cold glass): It’s just a lot more painful.

Many of my best qualities –not that there are all that many to choose from– were developed as an equal and opposite reaction to those things I saw as a child and said “That’s not gonna be me” including:

• my feminism

• my general disinclination-to-the-point-of-revulsion to willful neediness/helplessness

• my independence

• trust in my own critical processes (my definition of right is not “anything opined by someone with balls”)

• my refusal to believe beauty hinges on a number

• my understanding that approval can be nice but is rarely necessary

• my unwillingness to spend a lifetime as Professional Victim (and distaste for those who do)

…and most of all my unshakable, unerring knowledge of my own worth that has allowed me to walk away from bad relationships, friendships and situations (or, you know, not get into them in the first place) before they sucked me in, took me down and just generally screwed me up.

So, dear readers who eat cold spaghetti out of the container when the rest of the world is at mediocre prix fixe brunch drinking watery mimosas and eating wedge salads even though it hasn’t been 1972 for some time now, I invite you to write your own list.

Don’t dwell on what they did wrong, focus on what you do right. Write it down, keep it in a safe place and revisit it each year.

I invite you to share your lists here, if it helps, and remember…don’t touch hot glass twice!

*He probably didn’t actually say this

With the thin mother, I could see the struggles that come with obliviousness. Their slim bodies act a certain way when fed and watered normally, why shouldn’t it be the same for their daughter’s young form? I can also imagine a mother whose tiny dress size has always been a point of pride being disappointed or embarrassed at their daughter’s less-than-svelte body.

On the other hand, if you’re a chubby kid and big momma is constantly complaining about her fat thighs and bouncing from cabbage soup this to meal replacement shake that in an effort to drop “the weight”, congratulations:  odds are you’re going to be her de facto diet buddy until you finagle your way to an out-of-state college.

Sometimes it’s difficult to have empathy for these characters.

After all, I’m going to venture onto a very sturdy limb and say many if not most big girls who struggle with disordered eating patterns learned it at the feet of their fad dieting mothers. And let’s not even get into the body hate projection, the screwed up approach to self-worth and all the rest of the stuff that’s put our therapists’ kids through private school.

Still, a little compassion is in order.

Our mothers didn’t have the size-acceptance community we do for support. They might not have even known liking themselves just as they are was even an option, much less have a place where they could rage, share and occasionally get some sense lovingly –if virtually– slapped into them.

Besides, their mothers might’ve been pieces of work themselves, this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum you know and it wasn’t too long ago that most of the western world was on food rations. I know my grandmother very nearly starved during the Great Depression and she kept a lifelong eating disorder and a raging case of fat hate as unfortunate souvenirs.

I’ve got nothing but sympathy –okay, almost nothing but sympathy– for women whose sense of personal value is so tenuous that a swing of the scale can make a difference between love and shame. I can only imagine how difficult it is not to pass it on to their children.

I do believe most mothers truly want the best for their children. For every Joan Crawford doppelganger, there are hundreds of well-intentioned moms who inflicted harm not out of cruelty, but out of their own human brokenness. They did what they thought was best using the tools they had at the time and although I’m sure we could spend ages comparing ridiculous and painful war stories, the best WE can do is forgive our mothers, learn from them and not make the same mistakes.

What do you think? I know it’s a sensitive subject, but I’m particularly interested in hearing how those of you who’ve struggled over size with your mother have forgiven, moved on and developed a new, healthier relationship…or not.

Me? I’m fab. Signed the lease on the teensy new Plumcake Cottage in my equally teensy new village where my neighbors are the Pacific ocean, a motionless shriveled man who is approximately 300 years old and looks like Voldemort’s granddad (but, you know, in a nice way, although if he doesn’t move soon I’m going to have to check if he’s dead) and about three dozen dusty old trail horses who seem very interested in what’s going on with their new neighbors and ohbytheway was that a bag of apples they saw being loaded into the kitchen?

Nice work if you can get it.

Back in the states several of my friends still act as if I’ve moved into an uncharted, cannibal-filled area of New Guinea instead of a blissfully bucolic seaside village where, okay, the closest gas station is 20 miles away and if you want eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast you find the tree with the hand-painted wooden sign reading “Huevos Aqui” and follow the shakily pointing arrow to your cholesterol-laden destiny; but it’s also a place where you can walk for six miles on a white sand beach without meeting anyone except an escaped horse and and –at low tide– plump old women peeling mejillones (marine mussels) off craggy semi-submerged rocks.

Still, it’s a long way off from the hipster haven of Austin, Texas or the international moving and shaking of Washington, D.C.. So why the drastic move?

Simply put, I never thought I wouldn’t live in other countries, especially developing ones, and that in a large part has to do with my mother.

Born in Hong Kong, her formative years were spent moving all over Asia.

All her brothers and sisters were born in different countries and as a child I would delight in hearing their stories of cobras and monsoons and peasant revolts…a life totally different than anything I could know from the Benneton-diverse (you can be any color you want as long as you’re rich) confines of privileged suburban D.C..

Love and luck took me to Mexico specifically, but I’ve always been jealous of my mother’s experiences and believed a life lived entirely in your native country is something to be mourned, not cherished.

Although she’s no longer a part of my life and the tell-all fodder far outweighs the Hallmark moments, I thought we could take this week to discuss and yes, even appreciate, our mothers.

Since mother-daughter relationships are so complicated, especially when there’s a weight issue involved –raise your hand if your mother put you on a diet as a child because she couldn’t control her own size so she’d at least try to control yours– we’ll get into the deeper stuff later, but I thought it might be nice to start out on a generous foot.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What’s the most valuable gift your mother gave you, not by being a bad example, but through positive influence or personal inspiration?

But I’m not convinced it’s an accurate statement for the fat kids out there; especially not those who grow into fat adults.

For people of size, I’m not sure it does Get Better, at least not naturally.

Left to its own devices, the Western Beauty and Culture Machine will happily crush you underfoot –for your own good, of course– for being too big for their britches.

Everywhere you look there will be pop-up ads and billboards and interchangeable vapid reality TV “stars” admonishing you from photoshopped pages to change your body into something society deems acceptable. Only then will you get invited to the cool parties, have a partner who loves you and finally be worthy of full human status.

Oh, and don’t you dare be angry. They’re just doing it so you’ll feel better about you! They’re “just worried about your health”. Did they mention you have Such A Pretty Face? Did they make the Pointed Sigh?

Sigh.

It’s not like people really need much of a push to treat fat people as sub-human anyway. We’re manifestations of weakness, of the laziness and sloth they fear in themselves, we deserve our bad treatment because really, we’ve brought it upon ourselves. (You can try pointing out science refuting the claim that size is more than just a case of calories in vs. calories out, but be aware it’s dancing-with-a-pig futile in many if not most cases.)

Nope, you’re a lazy cow and there’s nothing sacred about cows in this culture: They just get slaughtered…or worse, slaughter themselves.

Bullying is now news, after too many –one is too many– kids, perceived or identifying as something other than cut-and-dried hetero, committed suicide.

But bullying, we all know, is not new news and it’s not solely the domain of gay kids.

Yet how many front page human interest stories do you hear about the plight of the fat kid being bullied in school?

Whither our tearful congressmen? Where’s the garment-rending when a bullied fat kid commits suicide?

More importantly, where are our 24-hour specialized hotlines to stop those suicides before they happen?

Tormenting fat kids is less of a headline and more of a forgivable rite of passage, swept neatly under the Children Can Be So Cruel rug (Children Can Be So Cruel, a fully-licensed subsidiary of Boys Will Be Boys and She Was Asking For It In That Skirt Partners, International)

Yeah, children can be so cruel.

Is it a newsflash that adults can be too?  The “War on Childhood Obesity”, however good its intentions might be, is just another way to codify and institutionalize size discrimination against the people least capable of defending their own interests: children.

Regardless of age, if you’re fat, Society, either openly or covertly, wants you to hate yourself thin. Except we can’t hate ourselves thin, at least not in the long term. Sometimes only thing that sticks from years of being hit in the head with the anti-fat hammer until our ears ring with self-hate is…guess what? Self hate.

So it’s hard to say It Gets Better because really, it’s going to get worse. Subtler, to be sure, but worse.

What’s the solution? We can’t wait for it to GET better. We have to MAKE it better.  Individually. Put on your own oxygen mask, then help your neighbor.

Make it better by applying a critical eye (and okay, sometimes a critical finger) to anti-fat bias.

Surround yourself with positive, thought-provoking friends and resources. Read The Fat Nutritionist. Understand Health at Every Size.

Reject any media that celebrates a culture where our bodies are punchlines and our feelings don’t count but still want our precious, precious dollars. I’m not the smartest girl on the block (and it’s not even a very big block) but even I have a problem with giving companies money to insult me.

Stop watching E! and its equally abysmal coterie (Those channels make you stupid. They just do. Read a book. Watch a documentary. Just step away from the “Reality TV” before mindless describes more than just your choice in entertainment).

For the love of all things holy, stop buying women’s magazines.

Watch the runway shows if you want to be up on fashion, at least you’ll only subject yourself to the models and not hot pink headlines offering quadruple chocolate fudge bombs, plastic surgery tips and “630 Ways To Drop Fifty Pounds By Thursday You Pathetic Spinster Cow!” on the same cover.

Find your own path, define your self BY yourself.

McDonald’s (stay with me now) has served “billions and billions” and is probably technically the most popular restaurant in America, but it isn’t popular because it’s good or because it has meaningful value. It’s popular because McDonald’s is non-threatening, low-investment (mentally and economically) and easily accessible.

Those descriptors are fine if you want to grow up to be a Happy Meal, but consider setting the bar a bit higher if you want to be a Happy Human.

Speaking of being a happy human, getting to that goal is easier when you recognize just because someone is in a position of authority in your life, it doesn’t mean they’re right.

Easy to see on the macro level –we disagree with politicians all the time– but a little tougher in the micro.

One of the greatest gifts my mother ever gave me was the day she denied me a glass of juice by announcing “Orange juice has a lot of fat in it.”

My teenage brain wobbled with confusion.

How, precisely, does a product whose one ingredient is naturally fat-free get to have “a lot of fat in it”? Were the otherwise trustworthy and respectable people at Tropicana sneaking sticks of butter into my freshly-squeezed not-from-concentrate?

Maybe she meant to say orange juice has a lot of calories, maybe she was on some low carb kick and was convinced downing even a drop of juice was the nutritional equivalent of slurping from Satan’s own toilet bowl, maybe she honestly thought the big zero next to the grams of fat on the nutritional label was a mountebank’s ruse used to trick the foolish and unsuspecting into a life of obesity, though –it must be admitted– very little scurvy.

No, my mother was just wrong.

And if my mother was wrong about that, maybe she was wrong about other things too. Maybe other adults were wrong about things I never thought made sense.  That certainly would shed some light on the whole “You’re never going to get anyone to like you if you’re fat but don’t hang around black guys because they like big butts.” conundrum of 1995.

It’s not easy, this whole Making It Better thing, and we’re all dealt a different hand. Sometimes we come up with aces in terms of supportive family and friends and sometimes we’re playing five card stud with two baseball cards and the remnants of an Uno deck, but you CAN make it better, just a little bit at a time.

If you are a struggling young person, or know a struggling young person who could benefit from counseling, size-positive resources or heck, even a one-on-one chat with your not-in-any-way-professional-counselor Pal Plummy, please email me at plumcake@shoeblogs.com. I can’t promise to make things better, but I can promise to listen and try.