About Cie Monday + Inspire Me Monday #241+ Promote Yourself Monday + Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion 2019: Adam's Peak

Image Source

I can only dream

of walking up Adam's Peak

body compromised

~Cie~

Notes:

Once we are fully moved into our new home, I would like to begin practicing remote viewing again. I will also be taking daily walks to the park and hope to increase my endurance enough to be able to walk from one end of the main street to the other. Grover is a very small town, so I don't want you-all thinking: "Wow, Cie, impressive goal walking twenty miles!" 

I would also like to rehabilitate myself to the point where I can walk up a set of stairs without having to pull myself up using the banister or to lean against an opposite wall to support myself. However, one thing I need to avoid is making this a shame-based goal, i.e. calling myself a loser because I need to support myself to climb stairs. We are taught from the time we are very young that it is shameful to be in a lesser state of physical ability than a competition class athlete, and I'm not being particularly hyperbolic when I say this. It's horrible.

Your physical abilities and disabilities are not a marker of success or worthiness. They are simply conditions that exist.

With physical therapy, I was able to bring my left arm back to a state of functionality where I'm not in constant debilitating pain. I still don't have the full range of motion in the arm. I am not a better person for having an arm that functions reasonably well than I was when I had an arm that I could barely use, and having an arm that was fully functional and had normal sensations would not make me a better person than I am now.

Physical ability is not a hallmark of greater worth, and physical disability is not something that people should be punished for.

Visit us at www.goodstufffromgrover.com. We're nearly there! The moving truck comes Friday!

30 Days of De-Objectification: Elvis Presley

This chapter deviates slightly from the previous ones in this series in that I have not seen a great deal of recent objectification directed at Elvis Presley. However, Elvis has long been objectified and dehumanized, and, thus, I have chosen him for the subject of today’s post.

This is not intended to be an extensive history of Elvis Presley. There have been plenty of works devoted to the story of this most iconic individual. The nature of this piece is to point out the ways in which Elvis was exploited and to humanize him.

Elvis Aaron Presley was born January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi to Gladys and Vernon Presley. He was a shy young man blessed with musical talent. He was very close with his parents, particularly his mother. When Gladys passed away on August 14, 1958, Elvis suffered a nervous breakdown.

As Elvis’ popularity grew, his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, became more and more involved in both his business affairs and his personal life. Over time, Elvis became dependent on more and more medications, many to calm his nerves or give him the energy he needed to perform. While Elvis may have had underlying health issues, the multiple medications exacerbated them. He died from cardiac arrest on August 16, 1977. He was only 42 years old.

I was twelve years old when Elvis died. I was sitting in the chair at the orthodontist’s office when his passing was announced. Even at twelve, I thought that it was very sad that he had died at such a young age. He was a little over a year older than my father.

I realized even then that Elvis had come to be viewed as something other than human. Some people looked to him as a sort of demi-god. There were women who saw him as a perfect specimen of manhood. There were those who refused to believe that he was dead and convinced themselves that he had gone into hiding and would one day re-emerge to bring joy to a troubled world. 

Then there were those who viewed Elvis as an object of ridicule. He was in poor health and had put on quite a bit of weight before his passing. The medications Elvis was on probably had a great deal to do with his weight gain, but even if they didn’t, there is no excuse for ridiculing a person’s physique. It’s simply a shitty thing to do, and we all have a duty to reject this sort of bullying, belittling “humor.”

Although Elvis came to be viewed as a caricature in the eyes of the public, he was still a human being. Alice Cooper recalled the time that he met Elvis. To paraphrase what Alice said, Elvis seemed lonely. He really wanted Alice to stick around and just hang out with him. He didn’t have that sort of connection in his life. His popularity had become a prison for him. He had enough money to have anything he wanted, but all his money couldn’t buy the friendship he really needed.

 Behind every carefully cultivated and marketed image, there is a real human being. The image of Elvis Presley the Rock and Roll God is a costume. Elvis Presley the Person became lost behind that façade. He deserves to be remembered too.

With Love and Respect,

Cie

 Elvis for your listening pleasure:

The Cheese Grates It + OctPoWriMo 2017: Day 25: Don't Buy the Bullshit

This image was found in multiple places and I am unable to determine its origin.

If anyone knows the origin of the image, I will be glad to properly credit its creator.

Don't Buy the Bullshit

Nobody

Has the right

To make you feel

Bad about your body

Never apologize

To anybody

For your body

Those busybodies

Who think it's okay

To belittle others' bodies

Need to take a long walk

Off a short pier

Into shark-infested waters

With raw steaks

Tied to their bodies

The Cheese

No Longer Apologizing for My Body

Note:

I am not officially participating in today's OctPoWriMo prompt, although I did create a poem in spite of the fact that I initially wasn't going to because die-t talk is such a turn-off for me. However, I have to keep in mind that many people haven't been lucky enough to find Size Acceptance and Health At Every Size as I did. This is why I share here my response to this prompt.

If I hadn't found size acceptance and health at every size at age 45 (seven years ago now) I would be 52 and still hating myself and calling myself horrific names like "fat pig" and "disgusting land whale." Thanks to my myriad of endocrine problems plus DNA (my mother's side of the family tends to be heavy, and to have endocrine problems) I will never be thin unless I develop a deadly disease such as acute myelogenous leukemia as my great-grandmother did. She went from 300 pounds to 95 in the space of a year, and then the disease killed her.

It isn't being a "foodie" that determines a person's body type. The multi-billion dollar die-t industry has doctors and the FDA in its pocket. Most so-called diseases of obesity are actually diseases which become more likely with aging in people of all sizes. 

I worked with the elderly for close to 25 years. There are elderly people of all sizes. The idea that there are no fat old people is a fallacy. Fat old people are no less healthy than old people of other sizes. In fact, many of the fat older folk that I worked with were reasonably healthy. There was one portly gent in his nineties who was a diabetic and still taking care of himself. I worked night shift and only heard from him on one occasion: when he hurt his hand.

Nobody needs to apologize to anyone for their body type. It's really not something we can help and trying to change it tends to result in temporary weight loss with more weight ensuing. Dieting is horrible for the metabolism. 

I am not the best person to explain the science behind this. I recommend these blogs:

danceswithfat.wordpress.com

bigfatscience.tumblr.com

Ragen Chastain, the blogger behind Dances With Fat, is a competitive dancer who participates in marathons. She is five foot four inches tall and weighs 280 pounds. 

For my own part, I sometimes can't afford more than one meal a day and I work a very physical job. Still fat. However, unlike in the past, I don't give myself added stress by hating myself for my weight.

I hope you'll consider my thoughts. Too many people hurt themselves hating the bodies we were given to live in. There's nothing wrong with your body or your love for good food.

Here are some bodies that people have been shamed for having.

Too short and skinny to be "manly"

In good health for someone in his age range

Too short and skinny to be "manly"

Terminally ill/multiple health issues

Too fat to be "attractive."

In good health for someone in his age range

Too short and skinny to be "manly"

Died from stomach cancer at age 67

Too fat to be "attractive"

Shot to death at age 24

Too short and skinny to be "manly"

In good health for someone in his age range

Too fat to be "attractive"

In good health and putting up with no bullshit from haters

Dare you speak ill of the Queen of Soul?

I wish there had been a Beth Ditto around when I was younger

Maybe I wouldn't have abused my body with years of dieting and myself with years of hate for "failing" at dieting

When I opened this photo of Adele, one of the first suggested searches that came up was "flattering hairstyles for overweight women."

May I just say, fuck that shit.

Fuck "flattering," and over what weight?

The B in BMI stands for Bullshit.

The BMI is an actuarial tool. It was never meant to be used as a measure of health.

We need to stop conflating our worth with a number on a scale.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~