Armed with a gift card in my hand and Nordstrom love in my heart, I headed to the nearest Nordstrom Rack, in San Leandro, California, to do a little shopping.

The first thing I noticed is that Nordstrom Rack does not exactly provide the full Nordstrom Experience. I’ve been to Nordstrom proper many a time, and have had luck finding gorgeous clothes and fancy party dresses. Nordstrom also has impeccable customer service, making it a joy to shop there. Not so with Nordstrom Rack, which is more like shopping at a really really nice Ross Dress for Less. But of course, the prices are a lot lower, so that’s the tradeoff.

Whereas the selection at Ross is hit-or-miss (and mostly miss), the selection at Nordstrom Rack is amazing. (And they are expanding their plus size selection and adding plus to more stores starting September 15.) They have everything from Coach handbags to Bliss products to (of course) designer clothes, with a nice selection of plus sizes (I saw sizes up to 3XL and 26/28). My favorite thing about the Rack is actually the shoe section, as they have a great selection of shoes that go up to Women’s 13. My time was a little limited since I had a B-A-B-Y with me, but I found a lot of stuff to try on in an effort to put together a fall outfit. I was looking for something to wear when I go back to an office job in October, with “comfortable” being my main criteria.

The first thing I found was a pair of black Not Your Daughter’s Jeans. I’ve never heard of this brand before, but they are super comfortable. I was in love with this pair of pants the minute I put it on (original price $138). I paired it with an oversized striped Blu Seven top ($48) that says “fall” to me somehow. I’m also super into stripes! I added a Calvin Klein cropped shrug ($58) as a nod to the crisp San Francisco weather, and a super long, jet crystal necklace ($78) from the Nordstrom Crystal Collection. The original total cost was $322; my total before tax was $125.88 (pants $37.97, top $24.97, shrug $19.97, necklace $30.97). I saved almost $200! That’s almost enough for one of the purses I was drooling over!

fall outfit , a photo by mo pie on Flickr.

I also had picked out a pair of gold shoes (original price $78; my price $38.97) in size 11 1/2 to finish off the look. However, there was a slight customer service snafu, and I didn’t end up getting them. I didn’t get bad customer service, exactly, it just wasn’t particularly good. I should say that the dressing room attendant was very nice about accommodating me and the stroller that I had, and a woman restocking merchandise was very friendly, but the checkout experience wasn’t great.

I had picked out a shoe and had neglected to go to the “shoe mate” window because A) the baby had started crying, and B) I had no idea how the shoe mate window worked. I asked if I could pay for the shoes and then go pick up the second one; this is apparently against policy (which I understand) but I was told I had to go to the back of the store to get the second shoe, wait in the line again (which had gotten really long) and then pay for the shoes separately. Since the baby was fussy and hungry by that point, I simply had to put the shoe back. I think if I were at regular Nordstrom, someone might have been willing to either run back and get the shoe for me, or let me skip the giant register line that I’d already waited in once. But again, it was my mistake, and their policy makes sense.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Nordstrom and a fan of saving money on expensive Nordstrom merchandise, it’s definitely worth poking around Nordstrom Rack.

Want to try Nordstrom Rack out for yourself? One lucky winner will receive a $100 Nordstrom Rack gift card to create their perfect fall look! Simply leave a comment telling me what fabulous fall piece is a must-have in your wardrobe. Make sure to leave your email address! Sweepstakes runs 9/15-10/31. Visit the Promotions & Prizes section. Official Rules.

No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
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d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to U.S. Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. Good luck!

And here’s the thing: I got really really really really really really sick. I wish I could convey to you how incapacitated I was. I was so sick that I could barely function. Just to get to work and home again was all I could do, for many weeks. Looking at a computer screen made me nauseous, so I didn’t reply to emails (my inbox is still stuffed) or moderate comments or post to the blog. Other things that made me throw up included eating, not eating, thinking about eating, moving around, looking at things, and talking (which made lecturing fun, let me tell you). At one point I was driving to campus and in the middle of the faculty parking lot I had to slam on the brakes, open the door, and puke on the concrete. Then I had to go brush my teeth and give a lecture. That was a fun day.

I got so sick, in fact, that I’m actually still a little sick. (It’s supposed to go away at 16 weeks. This in my case was a terrible lie.) It’s just that when I got to the point where I couldn’t leave my bed and was in fact doing nothing but curling up in the fetal position while occasionally projectile vomiting, I finally got some Zofran, an anti-emetic that I probably should have asked for weeks before I did. But in the meantime I was busy trying every remedy under the sun, from Vitamin B6 and Unisom to special Sri Lankan ginger cookies procured by a friend. And I was busy puking! Let’s not forget the puking.

In the meantime, and in addition, we bought a house! (I know. Lots of news from these here parts.) It’s a fixer-upper, and we’ve been working on fixing it up. That’s also been taking a lot of time. Add in teaching and traveling for the holidays, and there you have it. Where I’ve been.

The thing is, I have a lot of stuff I want to post about. We never talked about important things like Huge being cancelled (nooooooo!!!) (still sad) or the Harry Potter Theme Park adding fat-people seats to their ride just in time for me not to be able to ride roller coasters. Plus, now there’s all this fat and pregnant stuff to talk about, such as the fact that I still don’t really look pregnant and what that means (in fact, so far I’ve lost 15 pounds, even though none of my pants fit), or the fact that Wigburg is a girl, and that I need advice from all of you about how to help her grow up feminist and confident and awesome. And also, the fact that none of my bras fit, because apparently no matter how big your boobs are, they can still get bigger. Scientific fact.

I’m not going to commit to posting every day quite yet, but I will commit to at least one post per week, and see how that goes. I will also try not to turn into a mommyblog. But you know. There might be more mommyblog-esque content here and there. Once again: it’s Wigburg’s fault.

You’ll love the title.

Without further delay, I give you the official trailer for Blubberella.

(Safe for work but probably not safe for potential body image triggers)

Io9 called it “ridiculously offensive fatsploitation” and judging from its tagline (“She will kick major ass – with her major ass”) it’s hard to disagree.

In case you’re wondering who the cute-as-sin actor is in the title role, it’s Lindsay Hollister who you may remember from Joan of Arcaia and the dance scene in Get Smart

It’s important to note that she is still listing the film on her resume as “Untitled Spoof Movie”.  She had this to say in an interview over on Big Fat Blog:

What challenges have you faced in your career due to your size?

I am definitely bigger than a size 10 and have lost out on several big parts because I’ve been too fat to play the “fat woman”. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful. My career began because of my size (playing an overweight student on Boston Public), and I’ve been able to play some amazing roles because I am a character actress. But I’ve also hit a lot of walls because compared to the average size of an actress in Hollywood (size 0/2), I’m gigantic! It’s a double edge sword and I think that networks/producers just don’t want to take the chance on me. Like casting me as a love interest for example. Again, they play it safe with an actress who is a size 10 or 12. It’s frustrating because I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to shake it up a little bit. Make a statement. I think people would watch. And love it!

Blubberella is definitely a statement, Lindsay. As is that hot corset number. I’m going to focus on that instead of the food jokes, m’kay?

But this brings about another question: Boll is claiming to have the first supersize superhero (which, no). I somehow doubt that Blubberella will represent the hope of the fatosphere quite the same as the X-Men’s Storm or John Stewart from the Green Lantern are role models as black superheroes.  In fact, I think if I had to pick from the options offered, I’d exchange Blubberella for Fat Momma, doughnuts and all.

I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

Oh, before you get upset about this, you should know that Kelly insists that she doesn’t hate fat people, and in fact, has some friends who are pudgy, so really, it’s because she cares so much about our health. Oh, ok then! She also offers the advice that if we exercised more and ate whole foods, we’d lose weight in a jiffy.  Fat people never do any of those things! Maura Kelly saves the day! As usual, my hardcore crush Lesley nails it:

…you’re not required to find all fat people attractive, certainly, but Kelly’s comments above are dehumanizing and offensive and really have no place associated with a widely-read publication such as Marie Claire. This is not simply because their candor subverts the standard feel-good ladymag message of “Love yourself! (But not too much!)” but because sentiments like those expressed in Kelly’s post are bad for everyone: they make fat people feel terrible about themselves, and they make thin people terrified of becoming one of those disgusting fatties they so revile.

After reading Ms. Kelly’s blurb on her alumni website, I was most struck by this paragraph:

She struggled with anorexia growing up and credits the psychologists who worked with her for helping her to overcome the disorder. She was so thankful to her psychologists that she decided to major in psychology at Dartmouth so she could one day help others in the same way. Upon graduation, Kelly reread Catcher in the Rye and decided that being a psychologist no longer appealed to her and what she really wanted to do was write a book that would “make people feel less alone in the world.”

After reading the comments on the Marie Claire blog (seriously, go read them and cheer), I feel bad for Kelly. Her sizist screed against fat has obviously more to do with her own eating disorder (which she wrote about and examined in depth in this NYTimes article) and body dysmorphia than any actual concern for the health and welfare of her common man.  Check out her anecdote where  man told her that she looked “athletic” and she mentally twisted it into being called fat. Also, I’m absolutely betting that the next time she bumps into Marie Claire’s pet plus-sized columnist Ashley Falcon in the elevator, it’s going to be awwwwkward!

Good luck with that making “people feel less alone in the world” thing, Maura! You certainly have bonded the fatosphere in outrage and disbelief.

Cooks require heft, to prove they eat their own creations….It’s not just the skinny women chefs. I don’t trust skinny male chefs either, especially if they’re dressed like teenage vampires in “Twilight” with their skinny black jeans and tight T-shirts and ample hair product. When I think of a chef I can trust, I think of cooks with gravitas, some weight on their bones, women who clearly are no strangers to the knife and fork.

Before you start thinking about this being a win for fat acceptance, think again: I don’t care if it’s disregarding Beth Ditto on the runway because she’s over size 12 or disregarding Padma Lakshmi because she’s under size 12, it’s still sizism no matter how you slice it.  Sure, fats are getting the positive assumption that they are more competent when it comes to food, but it’s just as damaging as assuming an athlete is stupid or a gay person is good with fashion. And the assumption that you’re such a good chef that you can’t stop eating your own creations is insulting at best, not to mention the bad reasoning that fat OR thin chefs are only eating their own food. Certainly, we can point to some anecdotal evidence to support the stereotype of a great chef at a higher BMI but we can just as easily point out situations to the opposite. For every Mario Batali, there’s a Grant Achatz who is amazing in the kitchen (trust me, the man’s food is perfection)!

What do you guys think? Do you distrust thin chefs? The comments are dying for some juicy morsels!

[Alley] recently bragged on her Twitter site that she’s lost 50 pounds with exercise and her Organic Liaison weight-loss program. But those close to her say she’s lost barely half that weight and that there’s no way she’s down to 180 pounds!

What’s more, a photo taken on Sept. 29…shows that the plus-size actress hasn’t lost nearly as much as she claims… The struggling star “has been goosing her weight-loss numbers” – insisting she’s dropped 50 pounds, when it’s more like 25…

In September, while in Italy, she tweeted that she had lost 50 pounds, posting a photo of herself surrounded by handsome men. But the picture appeared to be air-brushed to make Kirstie look thin, and she hid her lower body behind one of the hunky men.

As if weight-loss programs aren’t enough of a scam, hers doesn’t even temporarily work! I hunted down that picture so you can see for yourself. She does look pretty airbrushed, no?

2. Ricky Gervais has lost weight recently, and now feels like jokes about fat people are off-limits.

“Now I’ve got to stop making jokes about fat people, which is annoying. When I was fat, it was okay,” the creator of ‘The Office’ tells People. Gervais, 49, lost “20 or 22 pounds,” he says. “It wasn’t so much about the weight. It was more that I was a fat, lazy, out of shape slob, to be honest.”

Ricky Gervais shutting up about fat people is probably for the best, then, isn’t it? Oh, Ricky.

3. Kim Kardashian posed nude for W Magazine (photos at this link are NSFW) and the pictures are everywhere. There have been a lot of ugly comments that I’m sure you can find if you search for about ten seconds, but I liked this one:

I’m 5’1 and I love the way I look, and it’s nice to see more women with hourglass figures in the media lately, being unafraid to [bare] it all, like Christina Hendricks and Ms. Kardashian here. I’m not going to stop loving myself just because I have the figure of a cartoon character.

Stop the hate, people! There’s so much hate in the world, do we really have to tear each other down over how we perceive each others’ bodies?

4. Crystal Renn is a size 10, and Manolo for the Big Girl is over it.

There’s nothing wrong with being a size 10. She’s had a tough row to hoe body-image wise and if that’s where her body is happy then far be it from me to complain.

But she’s a size 10.

That’s not plus-sized, that’s not close to plus-sized and even though I am the biggest fashion industry apologist on the planet, I just can’t pretend that she counts as a plus-sized model in any meaningful sense and therefore she deserves no more and no less press or attention than any other model who doesn’t wear plus-size clothes.

I’m a big proponent for variety and I’d rather see a size 10 model as a staple than a size 20 as a gimmick every few years, but the days of breathlessly reporting on her every move as a victory for fat girl kind –inasmuch as I ever have– are over.

5. Via The F Word, celebrities who have struggled with eating disorders include Felicity Huffman, Elton John, Kate Winslet, Victoria Beckham, and Snooki.

For years she denied the rumors that she had an eating disorder, but Calista Flockhart finally admitted to her problem with anorexia. “I started under-eating, over-exercising, pushing myself too hard and brutalizing my immune system. I guess I just didn’t find time to eat.” Even though the actress hasn’t gained much noticeable weight she ensures, “I am much more healthy these days.”

I recently read Kathy Griffin’s Official Book Club Selection, where she talked frankly about her binge eating, her husband’s binge eating, and going to Overeaters Anonymous—as well as the botched liposuction that nearly killed her.

Thanks to the snowball effect, I also haven’t been reading or answering my email as diligently as usual. If you’ve sent me something that requires a response, and it’s not too late for that response, it would be great if you would re-send it! It may take me a while to dig through my email and catch up, and I’d hate to miss anything urgent.

I also went through and screened something like 200 backlogged comments a couple of days ago. If you had a comment held in moderation, it should be up now. And if I deleted your comment by mistake, or approved something trolly or spammy, please let me know! I did speed through them pretty quickly. You can find the newest comments on the comments RSS feed.

I am also faced with the daunting task of catching up on everything I missed in the world of Fat News. I haven’t been reading the Fatosphere or anything like that, so if there is a Big Huge Topic that needs to be discussed, please assume I don’t know anything about it and shoot me a Tweet, an email, or a comment letting me know!

I was actually going to segue this into a real post, but this got longer than I thought it would. (That’s what she said.) I missed you, my blog friends! Look for more posts soon.

While Dr. Benjamin isn’t coming right out as a fat advocate, she definitely takes a shot at the media for its doom and gloom finger pointing at the fat rampage so-called obesity epidemic. The winds of change are blowing, BFDivas and BFDudes!

(Via Big Fat Blog)

Well. I’m not entirely sure how to start this, so I suppose I’ll begin at (what’s more or less) the beginning.

A couple of days ago, I was . . . down. Not for any particular reason; nothing especially momentous or even noteworthy had happened, I hadn’t been the victim of any fat-based insults or disgusted/pitying/mocking looks. When it comes right down to it, I just felt fat. That’s all. I felt fat and ugly and basically worthless. While I’d love to say that this is something unusual, it’s really not.

I’ve been heavy my entire life. Yes, heavy. No, not fat. Because looking back now, with a sense of perspective that you can really only achieve years after the fact, I wasn’t fat. Actually, I was pretty damn cute. I never felt that way, despite the fact that my family (and family friends) continually told me that I was. I knew the truth, though–when I went to school I got teased for being fat, and I didn’t look like the other girls there or the girls and women on TV, and surely society as a whole wouldn’t be constantly telling me I was fat if it wasn’t actually true, right? And the people who loved me, the very ones who told me that I was cute, wouldn’t all echo that sentiment if it wasn’t true. Would they? Of course not. They loved me, they were concerned, and I was Fat. I had no reason to doubt all those well-intentioned voices.

As it turns out (as I’m sure you know), living your entire life Fat doesn’t mean that it gets easier to deal with. I keep capitalizing the word because that’s always how it sounded when I heard it. I was Big, Overweight, Fat. (I have the most insane urge right now to start calling myself a Person of Weight. Apparently emotional vulnerability brings out my snark? Not terribly surprising, I guess.) The gist of all this being: most times I’m more or less fine, but sometimes twenty-seven years of insecurities and self-esteem issues all seem to hit me at once, and things are bad for a while. It’s nothing new, but it sucks just as much every time.

So, yes. I was having one of those days, and for reasons now lost to me in the whirl of whatever the hell was going on in my head at the time, I decided for the first time that I would look online to see if there was somewhere out there where people understood. People who had lived with being Fat, and who knew all the millions of tiny ways that you were constantly reminded of it and the damage–mental, emotional, even physical–that it could cause. Surely, I thought, there had to be something out there. The internet is so huge! So many tubes! Some of them must be big enough for us.

My initial results were less than encouraging. It seemed like every blog I found about Being Fat was, well, not. They were about Not Being Fat, about struggles to lose weight and look good and let me tell you it wasn’t helping my mood any. I’ve dieted and exercised and lost weight, but I can never seem to keep it off. I always “backslide” at some point into poor eating habits and inactivity, always pack what I’ve shed right back on again. So no, I’m sorry Random Internet Ladies, I’m sure you’re lovely but I didn’t want to read about your struggles against your own weight. What I wanted was someone talking about still being Fat, and how they dealt with that. I wanted someone to tell me that maybe, just maybe, it was still okay. I was beginning to think I’d never find it, though, when suddenly I followed a link and found your blog and . . . oh.

Oh.

It was like a light being turned on. Here were these women–clearly intelligent, definitely funny, quite attractive women–who were telling me things I’d always secretly hoped but never really believed. That not only was it possible to be bigger than the “ideal” we’re fed and still be healthy, you can be healthy when you’re bigger than “average”, as well. That I didn’t have to be ashamed just because of my weight. That I was deserving and worthy and beautiful, and anyone who tried to tell me otherwise could fuck right off. I read posts about self-confidence, about the media’s acceptance of “fatism”, about fashion, about women I had always thought were beautiful “even though” they weren’t as thin as society apparently thinks we all should be. (Crystal Renn. Seriously. There are just no words.) There were posts about being conflicted, torn between irritation/outrage at the continued exploitation of Fatness for the sake of a punchline, and wondering if that was just taking things too seriously. There were some posts that I could’ve written, and some that I could’ve written if I were smarter and better informed. Insight and humor and acceptance from people who didn’t think I was less worthy just because of how I look.

I’ve been reading back through the entries pretty much nonstop for the past two days (excepting tedious breaks for things like “work” and “sleep”). I’m at the beginning of 2009 now, and I plan to keep going. Because you took a girl who really believed that she was less because she was more, and made her think . . . maybe that’s not true. Maybe I don’t have to wait to be thin to feel pretty. Maybe I don’t have to look in the mirror before going out and think, “Good enough.” Maybe I am already beautiful, already sexy. And wouldn’t that be something?

I won’t pretend that everything is fixed now. It will still be hard; I know it will. I’ll still have moments, or hours, or days when other people’s disapproval will outweigh (pun not intended, but not really regretted, either) my own hard-won self-acceptance. But tonight I put on some pretty clothes and some girly shoes and some sexy red lipstick; I went out with my friends, and looked at art, and had fun. I ate and drank without stressing over what other people were thinking when they saw me. I felt good, and confident, and yes, pretty. Desirable.

Tonight I wasn’t Fat; I was fat. And that was okay.

So . . . thanks.

Sincerely yours,
Mel

She also reposted this letter at her Livejournal, where a terrific conversation is also going on. Thanks so much for sharing this, Mel.

1. From Feed Me: Fat women are paid less than men in the workplace. So obviously, we should lose weight. Wait, what?

Fat women are paid less than women who aren’t fat; fat men, on average, earn comparable salaries to men who aren’t fat. So women are penalized by employers for being fat… All the young women who don’t identify as feminists because they don’t have to fly that flag anymore should take note of studies like this one. Gender discrimination is alive and well in 21st-century America.

But that’s not where the writer of this story went. No, her conclusion was quite different. She wrote, “It’s bad news, but maybe it will help fund better prevention strategies and new treatment methods for this growing scourge.”

Excuse me? Did I hear you right? The answer to discrimination is getting rid of the quality that’s being discriminated against?

2. From Already Pretty: the problem with “she shouldn’t wear that.”

[S]tylistic shoulds and shouldn’ts reinforce the idea that there are absolute rights and wrongs in clothing choices, tastes, and body shapes. Saying a woman “shouldn’t” wear something because of her figure supports the idea that there is one way to look good. And there isn’t. In fact, women who push social comfort levels with their stylistic choices may gradually force the observing public to accept that. Although some may prefer that women with cellulite conceal it, women with bony clavicles mask them, and women with zits apply cover-up, each woman is entitled to make her own choices.

3. The theme of the comp class I’m teaching this semester is feminism (actually, I told them it was unofficially called “F the Patriarchy”—it’s led to some terrific debate and discussion) and I shared this tidbit from Shakesville with them the other day. A headline reads “Man badly burned when girlfriend’s house set on fire” when, in actuality, he was her ex-boyfriend and stalker. And oh yeah, he set the fire.

[A]n amazing example of how violence against women is minimized in news reporting… the violent stalker is badly burned. His intended victims, who merely were doused with gasoline and terrorized, are OK.

4. From Womanist Musings: Gabourey Sidibe as “Mammy.”

There can be no denial that there are some people who will look at Gabourey and see mammy smiling back at them both consciously and unconsciously, yet that is not a function of her, but a function of Whiteness. When we use fat hatred to claim that her success is obscuring the talents of other Black women, we are only playing into the divisive strategy that Whiteness has long used to control people of colour. Even the Black women that some believe are deserving of greater accolades, are still perceived by Whiteness as fitting into either the jezebel or sapphire trope, and therefore; the way to divest ourselves of these horrible caricatures, is not to further demean another Black woman, but to defeat the idea that any of these labels are representative of Black womanhood. The entity that needs to disappear is mammy and not Gabourey.

5. Terrific satirical essay from Lesley about the importance of the “suffering ween.”

The sight of fat women is a heavy cross said men must bear every moment they step out into the public spaces where people congregate, be they city streets or shopping malls or public transportation or the dentist’s office. Their eyes burning as though filled with a raging fire, their inability to control their speech — the inescapable, uncontrollable need to instruct the offending woman on the pain she is selfishly causing them — this is hardly their fault! They must say something, in the hope that their words will drive the fat woman back into the shadows and thereby cause the unthinkable torture being imposed upon their enfeebled weens to finally relent. They cannot be responsible for the things they say and do while in such agony. We cannot rightly blame them when it is men, and the relative rigidity of their supremely important peckers, who are being attacked here, attacked by fat women who dare to allow themselves to be seen.

Pretty awesome collection of links, am I right? Let’s discuss in the comments!