the duff

i was just now scratching an ill-placed itch near the middle of my back with a ballpoint pen and its cap came off while i was doing so and proceeded to get inaccessibly lodged in the back of my sports bra and it became this whole big thing. but never mind that for now.

for reasons best attributed to the twisted manner in which my brain works, the pen cap mishap reminded me of a story that recently sent me over the edge. 2 women i used to know are best friends. those 2 women have sporadic contact with my Best Girl back home. stay with me on this. one of those 2 women is what you'd call petite. the other is a woman of size. the petite woman disclosed to my Best Girl that she did not ask her best friend to be her maid of honour because she is "fat" and therefore, would not look pretty in a dress and would ruin such things as photos and ambience. she chose, instead, an estranged friend whom she had recently said mean things about openly to all kinds of people. but in that the estranged friend is pleasant to look at, she was indeed a preferable choice.

here's the thing: whether you're a fattie or a waif, if you're at all normal or sane or decent, you don't bounce back from a story like that. you just don't.

here's what's worse: the bride holds a master's degree in women's studies and has worked in the union movement for over 10 years.

i make no apologies for holding educated so-called feminists, or any so-called progressive, to a higher standard. i do apologize, however, for being so fucking gullible as to think that one day, the shocking examples of hypocrisy actually might stop. over the last while, i have been re-visiting the notion of "should know better". where politics, straight men, the left, friends, journalism, and even mothers are concerned, i've been struggling to let go of "should know better" because no one actually ever does. are we all fallible? yes. do we slip up from time to time? yes. but must we all be raging ass holes all the time? um, no. the hypocrisy is what makes me fantasize about picking up and moving to a trailer park, a place i've come to romanticize as having no pretense, where people are who they are, don't care who you are not, and don't fumble around with reconciling the walk and the talk.

my disgust around this story is not just on behalf of the duffs. it's on behalf of humankind, or basically anyone with a soul. this story is almost unbelievable. it hurts you in the guts.

what i know is that me and my Best Girl - a petite former ballerina better-hair-than-me knockout in her own right - will never ever ever ever discuss whether or not i will stand at her wedding. whether i'm so large that i have to fashion a gigantic industrial tent like a toga from which would be exposed my hideously puffy limbs, triple chin, and tree trunk shins, i would be at her side to hand her over to the goon and that would be that. some might consider her noble for that, but then i guess that would make them bigger shitwipes than the hypocritical bride who started this whole mess in the first place, so WTF.

why do people suck?