I am woman. I AM!
I'm all woman, for sure, and I do womanly things. Though I can pee standing up, I opt to sit. I enjoy Oprah, having tea, and I am frequently very hard on myself for not being totally perfect all the time. I own an apron and I do it front ways now and again. But one thing makes me an anomalous and somewhat atypical female: I FUCKIN' HATE CLOTHES SHOPPING.
If I ever find myself getting a little big in the head, imagining for a moment that I'm a super fox or something, the quickest way to knock myself down a peg or two is to go shopping for clothes.
My Hell will be a tiny department store dressing room with terrible cellulite-enhancing overhead lights and piles of things that I know won't fit me but I need to try on anyway. It's only with friendly intervention and white-knuckled determination that I have anything decent to wear on stage. Left to my own devices I would always buy stretchy black sweats (maybe gray....DARK gray) and a bag of junior wife-beaters or a super soft black t-shirt that I take home and cut up into a wife-beater.
Part of my loathing to join the throngs of women and girls trolling the malls and thrift stores is the size issue. There is something damn stinking wrong with the whole system. The size discrepancy seems to be based on economics. Not American vs. Euro sizes, oh no. I'm talking about the difference between low- and high-end fashion. The nicer the store, the fatter I seem to get.
Old Navy says I'm a size four. The Gap says I'm around an eight. And that spendy cunt, Banana Republic, and her date-raping brother, J.Crew, tell me I'm a big fat 12, they're all out of my size, and I should take my stretchy black clothes and my chubby self down the road to the gym and stay there.
Then there's the whole size zero phenomenon. Go to the store right now, a big store like Freddie’s. Ask for a dozen eggs, you'll get twelve eggs. Six of Pabst? That's right: six clinky bottles in a box. Now go to the butcher counter and ask for zero lamb chops. How 'bout zero sausages? Zero pounds of buffalo burger meat? What do you get? Nothing. Because, meth heads, zero means nothing's there.
I don't give a fuck how many tubes of Oreos you've barfed or how long it's been since you've menstruated; YOU HAVE A BODY, THUS YOU HAVE MASS. So unless you're a ghost, a memory or an oily fart floating through the store, you take up space and therefore have measurements. Get over it.
No disrespect to my tiny bird-framed sisters who have as hard a time finding flattering clothes as I do. But I'm convinced size zero is another evil that exists only to make women feel humongous. And I, being all woman, feel fat enough of the time that I need no reminder that the fashion world considers me a six-foot banana slug in sweats.
Don't get me wrong. I know I'm hot. It's my job to be healthy, strong and, above all, fuckable. I am proud to be a big loud woman in a world where 3% of the female population is considered physically ideal. My womanliness is something to celebrate. Maybe by poppin' open some beers and grilling up some lamb chops. But never EVER by shopping.