Category: Inside Lane

Depending on who you ask, the people who can math (Leslieann and Renae), or the people who want a better date for the story (Me), it is either the 16th, or 15th anniversary of an ill-fated camping trip we took (along with the also math-able Karen) to Tyler, Texas as part of a Baptist church outing.

Of the four of us, one had some camping experience, having once helped someone put up a tent sometime in the far past, but all of us piled into Leslieann’s Kia Sportage, loaded up with Karen’s brother’s loaned camping equipment and several backpacks full of enthusiasm, naivety, and sense of adventure.  It’s a lot easier to do things when you are totally ignorant of the right way to go about them.

We arrived at the State park in time to pitch our tent in the one remaining campsite in a prime spot, facing the lake.  We weren’t supposed to have that spot.  You see, as the lone representatives of the Singles group, and as unmarried women who might be a temptation to the men in the family area (this was said out loud), we had been assigned a site that was about a mile away, down a cliff, in a literal ravine that was a steep climb back up to the rest of the Baptist campers, and the toilets.  Still, since we were four girls alone, one brave husband took pity on us, and told us we could set up there for the night.

After helping us get our tent set up, he and the rest of the church group avoided us like we had the plague.  Or free-range vaginas.  You have to watch out for those because they will jump right out of an unwed woman’s cargo shorts and try to trap you into having an affair.

Aside from being treated like a pack of slavering succubi, we passed a pretty decent night for as hot and humid as it was.  At least there was a breeze coming off the water.

When we got up the next morning, we were run out of the campground by the wives (and I mean they were hands-on-hips telling us we had to GO), and sent on our way down the ravine so that the other married couple (who had still not yet arrived) could take over our vacated space.  Alone, this time, we managed to get our tent up in the curve of the cliff wall, under shelter of some massive pine trees, and we laid out our camp.

There were weenies to roast, s’mores to toast, coffee to make, and a lake to swim in.  For the next few hours after lunch, we were fairly self-entertaining.  Then, several things happened at once.

1.  The temperature dropped

2.  The wind kicked up

3.  The campers at the campsite about 6 sites away from us started packing things up and moving them into their tent

4.  It started pelting down rain

5.  I got my period

You can guess which was the most troublesome for me.  #5 meant I was scrambling up the ravine on the steep, cut out steps that were quickly turning into mud slicks, at some points on my hands and feet because of the angle, to make it up to the dingy, spider filled bathrooms before I could ruin my favorite pair of shorts.  Once managed, I had to make my way back down the ravine to our tent, where we four huddled inside and listened to the trees rocking in the wind.

My first trip up the ravine wasn’t pleasant, but at least it was still light out.  My second trip up, not only was I trying to navigate the dark of the woods with a penlight, I picked up a friend.

A raccoon came out of the bushes and took a sudden, serious interest in me.

Have you ever heard a lovesick raccoon?

My second trip up the ravine, I made in half the time because I had one chasing me.  He stood outside the bathroom and chirped, trilled, and growled at me, while I cursed every married Baptist woman in our church.  I did not mind changing campsites–we were having a better time on our own anyway–but I did mind being chased by wildlife.

That stinking raccoon waited for me to come out, and he chased me back down the ravine (laying cold paws on me exactly once), where I jumped into Leslieann’s car and hid until he disappeared, and I could lurch back into the tent.  (You would be so grossed out by how I got him to dive into the woods, away from the car that I will not even tell you.  I don’t think I’ve ever told the girls.  I’ll leave it to your imagination.)

When I did make it back into the tent the wind and rain were really bad.  A little scary.  I found the girls discussing whether or not we should pack up and leave.  We agreed that we would stay until the other campers down the way packed up.  They seemed to know what they were doing, and if they were staying put, we thought it was wisest for us to do the same.

Weather alerts started bleeping out of the radio, warning us of flash floods and tornadoes in Smith County, wherever that was.  With nothing else to do, and with the other campers hunkering down, we did the same.  I took four Advil and got in my sleeping bag, hoping I wasn’t going to flood out anything myself, and I went to sleep.

I can sleep through anything.  There’s this funny story about the time I slept through a tornado on a camping trip…

Somewhere in the middle of the night, our tent started flooding.  Apparently, Leslieann and I can sleep with rain pelting us in the face.  Karen and Renae cannot.  So, the two of them got up, got out, and found the tarp Karen’s brother had loaned us.  They took off their shoelaces and rigged the tarp to further shelter the tent, then took turns wanting to kill Leslieann and me as we snored away.

Well, I snored away.  Karen said that at one point, she thought a tree limb had come loose and was falling to crush us, only to realize it was me.  I have a deviated septum!  I can’t help it!  It’s part of my charm!

In the morning, we got up and went about our business of ablutions and breakfast.  We all felt gross and tired, but we were fine.  When we climbed the hill to the bathroom, we didn’t pay much attention to the disarray.  I was keeping one eye out for the amorous raccoon.  Karen and Renae could barely keep their eyes open.

Back down the cliff, later in the morning as we packed up to go, Karen overheard the other campers arguing.  It seemed they had stayed out in the weather not because they were expert campers, as we had surmised, but because they were novice campers and they were “watching the girls.”  If the girls left, they would leave.  If the girls stayed–well, it couldn’t be that bad if a bunch of girls were waiting it out.

Oh, it was that bad.

Karen came back with that report, which had us rolling until the man who had helped us the first night came driving up.  Some eight hours after the worst was over, the Baptists had remembered the four girls they’d cast out, and were coming to see if we’d blown away.  Because, yes, we had just happened to be in Smith County, where a tornado touched down in a State Park–ours–and where the winds had been so strong coming off the lake, they’d blown down and sucked out a full tent and gear.

Guess which tent.

It was a good thing we’d moved!  If the Baptist wives had allowed us to stay in their midst, we’d have been swimming.

Where we were, aside from the wet and the wildlife, we’d been safe as houses.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling unfairly persecuted, I like to remember this story and laugh.

Today, Renae, Leslieann, and I were laughing about it together.

(And because I love all three of you, I did not post the pictures I have of us on this trip.)

Over dinner:

Thor:  Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom!  Do you know what Nathan Hale’s last words were?

Me: ” Urrk glurrrg unf” *flop*

Thor:  *eye roll*  That is not right.

Me:  “Help me!”

Thor:  Not right.

Me:  (in my best JFK voice)  “Ask not what your country can do for you…”

Thor:  Wrong.  And wrong accent.

Me:  (in my best Patrick Henry voice)  “But as for me, give me liberty…”

Thor:  *sigh*  Wrong quote, wrong accent.

Me:  (in my best Forrest Gump)  “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country!”

Thor:  Mom.  Seriously.  That’s the right quote, but the way wrong accent.

Me:  British?

Thor:  Probably.

Me:  Hm.

Thor:  Do you know how he was captured?  Nathan Hale?

Me:  Oh, yes.  The British set out a trap for him.  It was a really big box with a stick holding it up, with a piece of rope tied around the stick.  They put a pie in the shadow of the box because Nathan Hale was known to love pie.  He was walking through the forest, saw the pie and just went for it.  He loved pie so much, he didn’t even notice the box, the stick, or the string.  When he crouched down and started eating, the British pulled the string, which dislodged the stick, causing the box to fall over Hale, capturing him.

Thor:  Wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Me:  Oh!  It was cake?  Not Pie?

Thor:  Mom.  They sent in a spy, who was pretending to be a double agent, and that spy got Hale to confess that he was a double agent, so they captured him and killed him.

Me:  I like my story better.

Thor:  Your story is better, but mine is right.

B:  *never says a word–just keeps eating his dinner*

Let’s talk body image.  But let’s start with one of the reasons I hated Pitch Perfect as vehemently as the majority of theater goers loved it:  Fat Amy.

Pitch Perfect fans, stick with me.  I’ll explain, then I’ll explain some more.

I won’t confuse Rebel Wilson with Fat Amy, but I will take umbrage at the idea that it is okay to laugh at fat people if they call themselves fat first.  It is never okay to make fun of someone’s body.

Let me say that again:  It is never okay to make fun of someone’s body.

People got excited about Fat Representation with Wilson.  For me, plopping Rebel Wilson down in the middle of the rest of the Bellas was sheer tokenism.  Representation should mean a statistically proportionate show of X in a group of Y.  In a sea of Hollywood-sized beauties, we had one spotlighted overweight girl, who was presented as the gross-out character.  She was barely human.  She was one zit-pop above John Belushi’s character in Animal House

The Fat Girl couldn’t be the smart one, or the one with the best voice, or the one with the A-Plot romance, or the one struggling with any issue other than her weight.  Because, you know, Fat Girls exist in a bubble outside reality where they only worry about dieting and finding a man who is willing to touch their lard.

Fat Girls aren’t out there getting law degrees, finding cures for diseases, worrying about their 401k growth, or raising babies.  They are just eating and crying, or eating and letting you in on the joke of their sad, Twinkie-filled lives, agreeing with you about how gross they are.  Fat Girls aren’t people. 

Fat Girls are jokes.  That is not representation.

That was my 3rd biggest problem with Pitch Perfect, and how it was presented as a refreshing option for fat people.  My biggest problems were what a terrible human being Anna Kendrick’s character was, and the sloppy writing.

Rebel Wilson is in trouble because she, an actress, lied about her age, her name, and her socio-economic background.  I’m not sure why this shocks anyone who has ever heard of acting, but it’s raised some scandal and in addressing it, Wilson threwback to her Fat Amy character in saying her real name was “Fat Patricia”.

I started wondering about what Rebel Wilson owes us as an audience, and decided she owes nothing but a good performance when we’re paying to see her work.  The rest?  Come on.  We’re not paying to learn about her mundane life, to paraphrase Cate Blanchett’s beautiful statement regarding the possibility of her having had lesbian love affairs, last week.  We’re paying to see, god help us, Fat Amy.

What does Fat Amy owe us? 

Fat Amy owes us less than Rebel Wilson does.  Fat Amy owes us what we owe each other:  Basic human decency.

I was thinking about buying a new swimsuit, so I’ve been trying them on here and there, just for fun.  There is no lighting so unflattering as that of a dressing room, and there are few moments with such potential to destroy a woman’s self-confidence as those spent in said ill-lit dressing rooms, squeezing bodies into lycra casings.

I wear a size 16.  At best, when I put on a swimsuit, I can expect it not to look too bad.  At worst, I can throw out my back laughing.  People, there are some badly made options out there.

Last night, I went over to Ross and found seven different suits to try on.  All the suits were the same size, save for one, which was two sizes bigger just because I wanted to see it on.  The one I liked best was too big, and the one I liked second best was designed by someone who did not understand that putting a seam up the center crotch of a ladies’ swim-bottom means her labia will end up occupying entirely different halves of that bottom, like when Marcia and Jan Brady put the tape line down between their beds, and neither was allowed to cross over.  You don’t want Jan and Marcia fighting in your bikini bottom.  It draws all the wrong kind of attention.

Here we see the Jan and Marcia suit while the sisters are still being friendly.

Anyway, the suits I avoided trying on were suits with tags screaming INSTANT MINIMIZER! and SPANX! and MAGICALLY SLIM! and REDUCES TUMMY!  Why?  Because for the love of pete, if I’m going swimming, I want to be able to actually move my parts and breathe.  The last thing I need are jokes about me having beached myself because I am gasping for air in my Spanx suit. 

Also, because a size 16 is a size 16 no matter what you stuff it into.  If it magically reduces your belly fat, that’s probably because it has squished the fat around to your back, and is bubbling up over the straps in a place you can’t see it.

And also, because I don’t owe anyone my perfection in swimwear.  My body is not a problem to be solved, and I thumb my nose in the general direction of anyone who thinks it is.

Your body is not a problem to be solved, either.  Are you fat?  That’s okay.  Are you skinny?  That’s okay.  Are you Cindy Crawford?  Thank you, I like looking at you. 

You don’t like looking at me?  That’s okay.  Don’t look at me.  But don’t ask me not to exist because I am the sight that makes your eyes sore, and not the other way around.

In preaching to the choir (because I know if you are reading this, you are delightful), let me say these things:

1.  If you own a mirror, own your reflection.

2.  Understand that you are not your body.  Your body is just the costume your soul is wearing.  If you love your costume, wear it with pride.  If you don’t like it, change it.  But do not let anyone else tell you there is anything wrong with it–you are the star of your movie, and you are in charge of the wardrobe.  No. One. Else. Gets. To. Pick. Your. Costume.  Only you.

3.  Understand that it is okay to love your Body Costume the same way you love your favorite outfit.  Anyone who tells you different–anyone who gets upset with you for liking how you look has bigger problems than you can imagine.

4.  Stop looking at People of Walmart pictures and laughing.  Don’t do to someone else, what you’d die if someone else did to you.  You don’t know those people, or the hows, and whys of what brought them to the day someone snuck a photo of them for the purpose of mockery.  Those are human beings.  Those people are not Fat Amy. 

5.  Find ways to appreciate other people as forms of art.  Everyone is a different genre, from your realists to your abstractionists.  Enjoy them the way you would enjoy something wonderful in a museum.  You don’t have to want it hanging on your living room wall to recognize the value of it.  You can simply appreciate it for what it is.

6.  For a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous literary representation of a girl who happens to be fat, read Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell.

Now that the dust has settled from that last post…whew!  People, thank you for the kind responses you made, and those of you who contacted me privately with your own stories, thank you for trusting me.  Please, don’t carry things like that alone.  Find someone you trust, or find a stranger (because sometimes that’s easier) and unburden yourself.

I think what you’ll find is that sharing your story not only helps you, but also creates opportunity for others to heal.

With that said, I’m going to put in a quick plug for your local rape crisis center.  Find out where it is, and support them.  Women and girls, men and boys, and the elderly all suffer, and your rape crisis center is sometimes the only emotional support a child, young person, or senior adult has access to. 

Think about how hard it is to share a story like that, then multiply it by police stations, emergency rooms, and evidence collection kits.  We need crisis centers, who are there to help people pick up the pieces, and hold it together before, during, and after the authorities and health care professionals do their investigations and necessarily intrusive examinations.

There.  I’m exhausted of being serious!  Let’s talk about something fun.

Have you read any good books lately?

I develop serious relationships with books, so it isn’t easy for me to read fiction.  I approach fiction like I approach friendships.  I want to find out all about the book before I commit to spending any amount of time with it.  If I like it, I’ll keep coming back to it, until it has become a part of me. 

If I’m not happy with what I find out about the book, no matter the recommendations, I am just not going to take it to coffee.  Nope.

Non-fiction, I’ll gobble up happily, any time, any day, don’t really care.  I love memoirs, but those don’t become my friends like other books have.

And then, there are the books I loved so much, I will only ever read them once because to read them again would only bring me the pain of realizing I can never get back to that first time experience.  Where’d You Go, Bernadette is one of those.  If you haven’t read that, you are cheating yourself.

Slummy Mummy is a book I read over, and over again.  The protagonist reminds me so much of a friend that I hear her voice in my head as I read.  Oh!  Your Voice In My Head is another book I won’t ever read again, but loved.  Non-fiction, memoir.