Dear Max and Erma's

I will be heading to the NAAFA conference on Thursday so I only have time for a quick post, but expect a lot of updates next week about the conference!

I was in Pittsburgh this weekend and we went to a chain restaurant called Max and Erma's.  I've been there three times before and had the best chicken parm of my life so I wanted to go while we were still in the area.  Their menu had changed a lot in a year and one of the things I noticed was the burgers.  Under each one it said "Max size (x price) or Erma size (y price).  The Erma size was cheaper so I can only imagine it was smaller.

Way to be sexist and sizeist all in one!  Like it isn't hard enough for a woman to order a burger in a restaurant?  Now if she wants the big one she has to ask for the "man's serving"?  And men who don't want as much (or are on a budget) have to order the girl one? This is exactly the kind of thing that keeps women (and especially fat women) down.  If a woman wants to eat (let alone enjoy) the same amount of food as a man she becomes too much like a man and is considered a threat.

Some people, regardless of size or sex, eat more than other people.  And some people are hungrier at a given moment than others.  It is utterly humiliating to gender hamburgers in order to offer two sizes.  Shame on you Max and Erma's, I'll be getting my chicken parm elsewhere from now on!

My Body is My Body

It's time for the profound statement of the day.  Ready?  My body is... my body.  Simple, obvious and yet no one can seem to get it.

I have been very lucky so far on the hair front.  Almost everyone has loved it, without question.  On my real Facebook, where I am not "out" about FA to most people, tons of comments have come in supporting me.  Even at work at ON, no one has even batted an eye.  That's pretty amazing for retail. I'm there to sell a product, so I could see if they disapproved of my looking very different from their customer base.  But all my managers loved it and treated it as though it was the most normal thing ever.

That being said, I have gotten a couple of not so happy responses, from family members, isn't that always the way?  Fine.   It's a big change all at once, with no real warning (I mean I've always been saying I wanted to shave my head but I guess people thought I was joking.)  I could see where they wouldn't immediately tell me I look great.

But here's the thing that really gets me.  Right after the "so what did you do that for?" speech, came this question.  "What does your husband think about it?"

To which I've been answering that he's the one who encouraged me to do it when I started to second-guess myself AND he's the one who took all the pictures of me while I was in the chair.  But I really feel what I should have said is "it's my damn head!"

Now, I love my husband very much and I would never make a big decision without consulting him first.  But at the end of the day, it's my head.  He doesn't own my head, I am not his property.  It's such sexist bull to ask me what he thinks (in a certain way, some of my coworkers asked nicely.)  My husband who loves me and supports me no matter what is going leave me because we both have short hair and of course women cannot be attractive if they have short hair?  Will I stop loving my husband when he goes bald?  Or if he gets a "bad" haircut or decides to go for a ponytail?  Of course not.  But men are allowed to do those kinds of things.  A woman shaving her head means she doesn't love her husband.

I love my new hairdo.  It makes me happy.  And that makes my husband happy.  And, oh yeah, not that it matters, but I look pretty damn good like this so I think it actually turns Mr. Sprat on more.  And he doesn't have to worry about putting his arm around me and pulling my hair anymore.  But that's not the point.  It's my decision and if you don't like it, tell me you don't like it, don't allude to the fact that my head exists solely for my husband's pleasure by asking what he thinks.

I also love my fat, it makes me happy and it is a part of me.  And my husband married me with all that fat there already.  So step off my body, it's mine and mine alone and the people who really care about me, will love it, no matter what.

Acts of Definance; The One Where I Shaved My Head

I want to start this post by saying that I LOVE my hair.  I love the color, I love the texture, I love how recently it's been drying wavy instead of straight.  I have never dyed my hair (well once, I did dye it pink temporarily, but nothing permanent) nor shall I ever.  I don't even blow-dry it because, well 1) it's too much damn work and 2) it's bad for your hair and I LOVE MY HAIR.

That being said, I have always wanted to shave my head.  Over the years, I've had many reasons for wanting to. First of all, I'm just not a huge fan of hair, ever.  On anyone.  I like my men bald, and I've often thought that I would like to be bald too.  I've always wanted to do it for feminist reasons, to prove that my looks were not my only value, or that gender roles blow, etc.

I've also always wanted to do it because of something my grandfather said to me, one time when I got a haircut. It was pretty short for me (maybe chin length) and I was a bit nervous about showing it off to the rest of the family.  Grandpa told me it looked beautiful but that it didn't matter, I would look beautiful even if I was bald.  It was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me, the exact kind of thing family members should say to their children and I really believe he felt that way too.  Sadly, I won't know because he passed away in 2007, but I've always wondered what I would look like.

Lately, I have been thinking about doing it for body acceptance reasons. I knew a few people in college who did it for Love Your Body day (which is in October).  I also was inspired by Fat Heffalump when she shaved her head earlier this year.  I'm attending the NAAFA conference in August and I began thinking about doing it for then.  And then yesterday, when the temperature gauge in the car read 101 when we first got in it, I decided I was going to do it right damn now!

Here's the before.  Notice all my beautiful golden locks, but my hot sweaty face.  

Here's what she hacked off of me.  It was long enough to donate, which I was super stoked about!

And....
Here it is....
...................

The after picture!

It's been less than 24 hours but I LOVE IT.  It feels really nice and I think I oddly look more feminine, not less, at least head-on.  The side view is a little harder to adjust to but I'm loving it so far.  Mr. Sprat has been great through all of it and I think he really likes it too.  Besides now he won't find my hair everywhere!  No more clogging up the bathtub!  

A big thank you to the whole FA community and Kath in particular for helping me finally do what I've talked about for years and years!  Ba-ba-da-ba!   I have no hair!