Weekend Thoughts

Yesterday was Father's Day. We give Dad presents, of course, but it's not a holiday that means anything. At least not to me. I call my step-father Dad here because he's married to my mother and I try not to use my families names on the blog. Why? Who knows. Pretty sure ya'll aren't psychos, but it's a habit at this point. And calling him Dad differentiates him from both the man who adopted and raised me and the man who was my biological father.

I even refer to him as 'my father' or 'my dad' in conversations in real life. But he's not. It's just easier, see? I do love him, he's a great guy. But the word 'father' doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to me. I'm not denigrating the position, really. I do think it's best and important if children can have two parents, parents who are active in the childs life and supportive and loving. I'm not so hot on the 'it must be one man, one woman' thing. That's one of those things that I'm just never going to manage to be 'orthodox' in any religion about, so I've basically decided to say screw it and believe what I believe anyway. But I digress.

My point is, I don't have warm fuzzy feelings for a personal 'father'. It doesn't mean jack and/or shit to me, really. My grandfather has been dead for more than a decade, and he was, honest to god, the only man I've ever thought was worth anything on a personal level. So 'father's day' doesn't mean anything to me. I don't have envy or anything toward the father/child(ren) groups that I saw out that day. I'm glad that they have a father, that it means something to them. It's just an observation, really. Random and pointless. And maybe acknowledgement that I do still have vaguely (or maybe not so vaguely, really) father shaped 'issues'. Is a lack of feeling toward an experienced type of person an 'issue'?

And on another note: I was talking to a friend of mine and she was explaining how she got her sunburn. Basically, she was in the pool and some people came over unexpectedly. And the woman, who was apparently very thin, sat out on the pool deck to talk with my friend and her mother. Well my friend, who is very 'not thin', didn't want to get out of the pool with the thin woman there. So she stayed in for about two and a half hours, total. Which gave her the sunburn. I didn't say it to her, but this struck me as asinine and ridiculous. But is it any more ridiculous than what I used to do? Wearing long sleeves and such and thinking that it meant people couldn't see how fat I was? No. It's not.

I'm not happy, or *proud* of the way I look, except maybe in the sense that I know how much better it is from what it was a year ago and I know how much work I've put in to losing the weight and building muscle. So I'm proud of that, but I still see the problems. Not 'flaws'. Problems. Areas where I'm still carrying unhealthy weight. But I've also apparently taken a....'screw it!' attitude. I'm heavy. Fat. Overweight. Whatever. I'm not a tiny little princess. Never will be, even after I lose all the fat. I lift too much weight for that. I have too much muscle, even now. The point is, though, that if people don't like the way I look they can bite me. I'm not ashamed of the way I look. I dress nicely. I'm clean, I'm friendly. I don't go around wearing bikini tops in public or anything like that, because it's no appropriate for *anyone*, unless you're at the pool or on the beach or something.

One of the movies I saw this weekend, X-Men: First Class (which, yes, I am obsessed. Live with it. And we can discuss Why Magneto Is So Awesome, Far More Awesome Than You at a later date.), has a character named Raven/Mystique who is blue and scaly. The mutants in the Marvel universe are usually seen and understood to be analogous to people who are not heterosexual. Of course their being the 'other' and hated, feared, etc. can be applied to any outsider group, but it's typically understood to best be compared to non-heteronormative sexual identities. Anyway. Raven spends much of the movie hiding her true form. Her mutation allows her to shape shift, so she can give the appearance of a 'normal' human girl, blonde hair, pretty. But that's not who she really is. And in the end, she understands the injustice of being forced to hide who she is. 'Mutant, and proud.' She ends the movie comfortable in her true form. Being herself, no matter what anyone else thinks about it. I love the attitude. Pride in ones self, no matter what.