BFF: I want to do something really special for my thirty-second birthday, like go back to Galway or pose as a wealthy Japanese businessman and offer David Bowie an obscene amount of cash to give me a foot massage while wearing those silver spandex leggings from Labyrinth.

Me: I think we better stick to Ireland. No offense, but you’re broke and couldn’t be any more Irish if your name was Sunburn McDrinkingproblem so I don’t think the Japanese thing would work. Wait, you’re going to be thirty-two?

BFF: …yes.

Me: Then how old am I?

BFF: You’re also thirty-two.

Me: WHAT?

and so on and so on.

I paint you that little picture only as a side note to illustrate that, despite my dewy fresh skin and inability to sleep through the night without a bottle, I was not born yesterday.

Almost a third of a century has slipped through my well-manicured hands and now, for the first time ever, do I have a nickname about my weight.

Okay, let’s be honest here. It’s entirely possible, plausible even that were one to look through the Vaseline and gauze-covered lens of the past I might’ve had a fat-related nickname kept carefully from my delicate, shell-like ears. But what are you gonna do? Reagan couldn’t fix EVERYTHING in the 80′s and haters, as the internet so wisely tells me, gonna hate.

But now it’s out in the open. Last night Hot Latin Boy and I were chatting about his mother and how much I like her. My personal maternal experience, while a blessing in the potential bestselling roman a clef arena (because it’s not libel if it says “a novel” on the front!), is a little light in the tiny little ball of cherubic goodness arena so I have taken to his viejita in a big way and want to do everything I can to make her happy, as long as it doesn’t involve my cervix or Roman Catholicism.

And she likes me. She can’t say my name –no one here can– but she likes me.

“Whenever I talk to her” reported Hot Latin Boy “she always asks about you. ‘How’s your gordita?’ she’ll say.”

Gordita.

It means “little fat girl” and, strangely enough to American ears where fat = insult, it’s usually an affectionate term for attractive girls with a few extra scoops in their milkshake.

Strangely, it doesn’t bother me.

I thought it would, and the first time I heard it, I felt odd. I felt like it ought to bother me, having been raised in a society where nicknames based on physical characteristics are not generally nice things, especially for women.

And yet I sort of like being gordita. It’s affectionate, non-judgmental, worlds better than “You have such a pretty face” and then a Meaningful Sigh –don’t pretend you don’t know what Meaningful Sigh I’m talking about– as their eyes survey the rest of my body in disappointment.

It’s taking some readjustment, this whole living in a culture where fatness is not a cardinal sin and it’s made me think about how we are so afraid of admitting our bodies exist in space that we just don’t talk about them unless we’re complaining about how they “should” be.

I’m interested in hearing your take on it, especially if you come from a culture where comments or nicknames on weight are acceptable and not shame-based. Put it in the comments.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves and share any adventures (mis- or otherwise) from your weekend in the comments!

See, that’s the thing about living on the wrong coast (sorry, I’m an Atlantic girl and although I love my new country, I still generally object to the west coast, especially because so much of it is California) if I accidentally sleep ’til 11 because I am too fundamentally stupid to remember Time Bandits scares every last milky drop of bejeezus out of me and has since I was a kid, then by the time I wake up, it’s 2 p.m. in D.C.

The original plan for today’s picnic was some tuna salad sort of nicoise-style stuffed into these enormous tomatoes my neighbor grew, some cornbread from the only purveyor in town (it’s sweet, but sweet cornbread is better than no cornbread at all) a cold bean salad, one bottle of homemade jamaica each, some chocolate cake from the hardcore Mayan chocolatier down the street and a bottle of green Spanish wine, to split.

Sadly, the tomatoes and the bean salad are going to have to wait, because I only have time to run to our favorite taco place (I give them limes from my tree, they give us tacos from their parilla) to get a torta –a sort of enormous sandwich filled with carne asada and happiness– and the chocolate shop. I’ve got the wine at home and we’ll just have to have the bean salad at a time when I’m not too stupid to remember I’m afraid of Terry Gilliam and puppets.

Today’s question is simple:

You’re going on a picnic. You get to pick up to five living guests (dead people at a picnic are a drag, but I suppose they do help weigh down the blanket if there’s a breeze) and the menu. Who would you invite, what would you eat, where would you go and for extra imaginary bonus points: What would you do after?

(took this photo outside a shop in Aberystwyth, Wales. It’s so hard to pick just one)

I’d take my brother, my best friend Megh, my high school sweetheart (why not? He’s turned into a cool guy and I’d like to know him as an adult) Hot Latin Boy and my beloved pooch Dozer to have lunch on a beach somewhere desolate and beautiful on the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales.

We’d have a combination of traditional Welsh food –laverbread, cockles, some nice meaty faggots, and bara brith– plus shrimp and grits and my grandmother’s brownie pecan pie, and after we’d all go for a long hike along the coast and then have a good tea and a nap. Then later, a game of football and the pub!

Because the charming follow-up article, titled “Paula Deen Needs to Accept Blame for her Diabetes” (note: blame, not responsibility because make no mistake, we are talking about something shameful. I wonder if athletic legend Billie Jean King also has to accept blame for her Type 2 Diabetes.) makes me confused.

If Paula Deen has to accept the “blame” for her diabetes because of the choices she personally made, then doesn’t that sort of mean we ALL are responsible for the choices we personally make? And yet she’s contributing to the Big Scary Obesity Epidemic because…what now?

Listen, I can’t say I have total recall of every morsel I’ve shoved into my elegant maw in the past 32 years, but I am almost certain even during my discotheque days I would’ve remembered a chubby Southern lady with strip lashes force-feeding me Krispy Kreme bread pudding.

We are all responsible for our own decisions and although I make my living on the internet, which as we all know is the Intergalactic Capital of Moron, even I give people enough credit not to base their entire nutritional lifestyle on someone they see on th’ teevee.

It’s not Paula Deen’s job or responsibility to be the health model of our nation because she makes food on television.

Do you think Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods or whathisname, the guy who needs a shave and a shower in a carwash from Man vs Food, gulp down cold picked yak balls and 20 pounds of hotwings every day? Maybe, I don’t know their lives, but probably not. We imagine, because even on the internet we are marginally rational human beings, that they do what they do for a show, and that is not how they eat, or are suggesting WE eat, in our daily lives.

Neither of them are exactly willowy (hmm, could it be that men’s bodies aren’t generally considered public domain, existing mainly as an object to be appreciated or reviled, depending on how much random strangers find them physically desirable?) but no one seems to be on their mantits about healthful eating.

And what about Anthony Bourdain?

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him smoke more cigarettes in his apparent lifelong quest to become Lou Reed (never gonna happen Tony, not for me, not for you, not for David Bowie) than anyone outside of a Thin Man movie. Is he responsible for the lung cancer epidemic?

Oh wait, not responsible…to blame.

Mine was okay. Friday, when I totally promised myself to write about Mode Merr (I will soon, I double promise) took an unexpected turn as I discovered when you live on the beach and the weather is perfect year ’round, that the appropriate length for a Friday lunch is just about five hours and involves a trip into town for a cultural event/random people watching, a leisurely lunch of aquatic foodstuffs and the mandatory accompanying cervezas, an even more leisurely stroll on the beach with the occasional smooch (recommended) and watching the minor league futbol team train in the sand (HIGHLY recommended) all topped off with a cafecito at home.

Nice work if you can get it.

Saturday was all fun and games, literally and Sunday. Well, let’s just say introducing the local population to Lemon Drops (straight shots of vodka with a sugar-coated lemon wedge as a chaser) was not the kindest thing I’ve done to my host country, so this morning –and not for the last time, I suspect– I uttered the phrase “I love you, but I warned you and I am NOT cleaning that up.”

Boys.

So while the shining stars of central American athletics were trying to locate their livers, dignity and any of my four complete (and thankfully tiled) bathrooms, all with little success, I was toodling around the internet for News of the Fats.

First up is this smug little article about Paula Deen getting type 2 diabetes. Honestly I don’t know much about her other than a few clips I’ve caught on the internet. From what I can tell, she makes high fat soul food . Okay. And?

Listen, if you’re going to make traditional soul food, it’s going to be high fat, it’s the nature of the southern fried beast.

Sure, she revels in her use of butter and other high fat ingredients, but it’s her shtick. Celebrity chefs gotta have a gimmick and that’s hers. Now I’m not going to pretend to say there isn’t possibly a correlation between eating high fat foods all the time and getting diabetes, but it ain’t that simple and pretending only fat people get sick is ridiculous, harmful and just another brick in the socially-acceptable wall of fat shaming.

Also, in 20 years or so, when our young, thin, vegan stars get osteoporosis, which is far less likely to affect a woman whose diets are chock-full of dairy and who carry a little extra weight on their frames, how many people are going to be smug about that, saying they had it coming?

I’ll have more for you tomorrow, someone just woke up downstairs and there are loud and pained cries for menudo. I sort of hope they mean the soup. But then again, I sort of don’t.

No, I don’t own this purse. But it’s a beauty, isn’t it? It’s the Florentine Toggle crossbody bag by Dooney & Bourke in Natural. You can find it at Nordstrom, along with a lot of other great purses. It also comes in black. I like it. This is a purse I could really fall in love with, use and abuse until we are both old and battered, and still really love.

See, this is what I personally adore in purses. I like something simple, but with good detailing and made of quality materials. I love a good crossbody, because my shoulders are narrow and sloping and I like to have my hands free to use. I like something big enough to carry some serious stuff without being so large it gets in my way.

In fact, my current favorite daytime purse looks a tiny bit like this. It’s actually a mustard-yellow leather, and it doesn’t feature the cool flap and toggle closure this one does. It just zips closed along the top. But it’s a good size, has pockets inside and out, closes securely, and sits perfectly on my left hip when I slip that strap over my head. I plan to carry that sucker until either it dies or I do. I’m like that with purses. I use them hard until they die in harness. Therefore, it behooves me whenever possible to get the best possible purse I can manage.

But everyone has a different idea of what makes the perfect purse. For everyone nodding happily at the concept of simple, capacious, and sturdy… there’s someone out there who’s dream is a tiny clutch with a rhinestone handle. For everyone who couldn’t imagine ever buying any purse that wasn’t a snake or lizard leather, there’s someone like me who would rather juggle all her possessions in her bare hands than do snake.

So I’m curious: what is your perfect daytime purse? Large or small? Leather or denim? Simple or outrageously ornate? There is no right or wrong answer to this. There’s only what speaks to you.

The answer is I don’t know.

I’d like to introduce you to a little concept called Mama’s Got Bills. Okay, I don’t have that many bills and the ones I do have I can afford by myself, but there’s a whole lot of Scotch and shoes out there that I don’t own and frankly, I’m not okay with that.

I’m only good at two things and I’m only allowed to charge for one of them (except for in one district of Tijuana, go ahead and Image Search “Zona Norte Tijuana” I’ll wait. Hint: those aren’t really Catholic school girls) so I’ve been keeping my scribblings to ‘myself with hopes that in the next year or so essays like “How Crossing the Border is Just Like the County Fair But With Slightly Fewer Piglets” and “How to Win Friends and Outdrink Waiters: a Beginners’ Guide to Being the Only White Girl in the Village” will amalgamate themselves into an actual book with pages and pictures and decent copy editing (my favorite part) a price tag (my  OTHER favorite part) and everything. Woo!

Stay tuned for more information, and if you’ve got any more questions or interests, shoot me an email. Otherwise it’s back to fat fashion from small houses tomorrow!

I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: manual labor is not my strong suit. This would be fine if I ever once in my entire life actually REMEMBERED manual labor was not my strong suit before I went out and spent $300 at Home Depot but I never, ever do.

It’s always the same: I get an idea (I’m GREAT at ideas) and because I’m good at mechanical-type things, I think to myself  “Self, surely painting the entire walled garden three different colors, plus doing faux finishes on two walls in a Sunday is within your capable grasp, all you need is a friend who is willing to help.”

I think anyone who’s read The Wind in the Willows knows where this is going.

Thank goodness Hot Latin Boy is an excellent Rat to my Mr Toad, and while I was selecting the perfect painting outfit (chocolate leggings, brown and orange cowboy boots, a grey knit shift dress, vintage western shirt complete with embroidered deer heads and one of my beater Hermes scarves to tie my hair back) and playlist (Cafe Tacuba and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs for the major painting, Maria Callas for the detail work) HLB was, you know, actually painting.

In all fairness, I did my share of work, and I did it with as much gusto as I could muster considering my other partner in crime was a treacherous and not at all structurally sound stepladder whose rickety aluminum slats will be the first things I’ll see in hell.

All of that is to say it’s okay to have a niche.

I should never be allowed near a paint roller, as my dog, the tile floors of the patio and my own face will testify, but I can design the color scheme and decorate it like a palace once someone more competent than I has managed to get the color on the walls.

The same goes for small plus size fashion houses.

They’re not going to be All Things for All People, Everywhere. If you want that, go to Harrods (except don’t because the last time I went I couldn’t find grits for love nor money) so while it’s okay to mock bad construction, terrible photoshopping, questionable taste and shoddy design, calling a company out for designing clothes that don’t fit your lifestyle is like saying a restaurant is bad because you don’t like Chinese food.

Case in point:

Eddy & Bri

Yeah, I don’t really get it either, but I’m also not their target audience.

If you’re a young big girl without a lot of expendable income who wants the same sort of clubwear your skinny sisters wear, then Eddy & Bri is perfect for you. I’m not, so it isn’t. No big deal.

Clearly they’re still having growing pains –although I LOVE that model in the pale bronze minidress, girlfriend is throwing some serious shade– and their choice to offer the majority of their clothing in one, maybe two sizes is…unusual, but they’ve identified their market (it would be unkind of me to say their market apparently pays their rent in ones and quick handies at stoplights, so I won’t) and they’re sticking to it.

For the rest of this week I’m going to feature smaller design houses that are generally geared to specific probably-not-us markets along with reasons not to throw the baby out with the niche bathwater.

Most of you came down on the side of “Decent concept, terribly flawed and shiny execution.” which is about where I landed myself.

Of course there were some brand new commenters, all coincidentally originating from the same IP address, who were as staunch in their support of the clothes as they were in their unwillingness to adhere to the basic rules of grammar (on a COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, if a website says something less-than-glowing about your product, it’s almost never a good idea to post fake comments in your own support. Site administrators can see that stuff from a mile away and it’s totally embarrassing for everyone involved).

Still, as much as I love to mock, there’s something to be said for process. Very few designers launch a pristine, immaculately produced and edited collection their first time out of the gate, so my only beef is when designers pretend to be something they’re not.

This goes back to one of my very favorite warhorses: “Words Have Meanings”.

I understand language is fluid. It looks like impact has become a verb and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, other than loudly and not for the first time wish fiery death upon marketing people at all times and everywhere.

But when you say your materials are The Best Available or Ultra Luxe, then your product should not be polyester or rayon. To me, ultra luxe and its equivalents mean exceptionally high quality in materials already known for their intrinsic quality. So not just cashmere, but GOOD cashmere. Long staple cotton, napa or kid–never bonded– leather.

Am I being unreasonable? I don’t think so. There’s nothing wrong intrinsically with a polyester skirt. It’s not inherently cheap or poorly made, but it’s not a luxury material and shouldn’t be touted as such.

Now about what is and is not a martini…

The upshot is yours truly will be back to regularly scheduled blogging effective today.

So what did you all do for New Year’s Eve?

For the first time in recorded mammaries, I was dead asleep to the world.

See, I’d been driving a long, LONG while hauling a heavy, HEAVY trailer from Austin to Houston and then to San Diego. I used to think if my life of glamor and intrigue didn’t work out, I’d be a long haul trucker. I like driving. I like beef jerky. I mean what else is there? I have since been disabused of that notion in a big way.

I won’t say it wasn’t ALL drudgery. I got to offroad in West Texas a little, and the 6×12 UHaul trailer did remarkably well. I also got to sleep in the back of my new and unendurably awesome FJ Cruiser, nestled between my dog, a 100 pound carved snail and an enormous stuffed tiger, using my lynx coat as a blanket. I felt like Dr Doolittle and smelled like…well, I’m going to be honest, I’m pretty sure my dog, if not Jesus himself, wept.

By the time I got to San Diego and had all my worldly possessions cubbied away into a little storage cave (“You have a lot of shoes, ma’am.”) and crossed the border I wanted nothing more than to walk through a carwash in my underwear and settle down for a long winter’s nap.

Hot Latin Boy informed me in the morning that he kissed me at midnight but I was in the arms of sweet lady slumber for all of that day, the next and most of yesterday (I did manage to send out my laundry and I’m pretty sure it’s back now. Either that or I just gave one very lucky lady a heck of a new wardrobe).

So that’s where I am. So what about you?