Big people have feelings too

I was all in a big huff yesterday afternoon because of a letter to the editor.

Some local woman had written in to complain about the upcoming demise of the Ontario Northlander, a train that links Toronto to North Bay. Hey, I'm not happy about it either. In fact I wrote my own opinion piece for the North Bay Nipissing Life blog, here. (By the way, I'm really trying to stir up interest in this blog – it's for a magazine I work on, and it's new, and it's hard up for comments and followers - hint, hint.)

But I really took offence to the her comment about a "very large woman" on a bus whose flesh overflowed onto her own seat, who ate garlic meat pies and belched continuously.

In retrospect, I can see that the smell of garlic, of someone else's leg touching my own, and continual burping would be gross. I would probably move.

Still, my first reaction to the letter was to get pissed off. Being a fat person myself, I am very sensitive to crude remarks of any kind directed to overweight people and it seems to me that it's OK to make fun of them, it's socially acceptable. It's not OK to point out the colour of someone's skin or their accent but it's still apparently all right to comment on their size.

It was the tone of the woman's letter that upset me the most. It was so derogatory. In the next paragraph she commented on someone's kid sitting in the seat behind her. Instead of calling him a child or a kid she called him a little "brat" who repeatedly kicked the back of her seat even after she told the mother to keep control of him.

So what I get from that scenario is an angry, skinny kid-hater who generally can't stand to be around other people and should probably fork over some cashola for a bubble-wrapped car so she doesn't have to ever take public transportation again.

I remember reading a short story a few years back about a person who worked in a retail store and had an obese woman as a customer. The woman paid for whatever she bought with coins from her pocket and the main character was repulsed by the warmth of the coins. The writer made it clear that the cashier didn't even want to touch the coins because they were warm from the fat woman's grotesque body.

I don't care how fat you are or how skinny you are, if you have money in your pocket it is going to be warm! Obviously the cashier wouldn't be offended at all if the warm cash was coming from the pocket of some stud-muffin.

I went off on a rant about that story and, honestly, I shouldn't have. The writer was being honest about the situation. If the cashier wasn't grossed out, I guess it would have been less realistic. The writer was doing her job and the story was actually pretty good.

I guess I just don't like to see people being discriminated because of their size. I know a woman who told me she would never hire a fat person because they're lazy. She said this to my face. I felt like smacking her.

Yup, we've come a long way in the fight against racial stereotypes but unless you're skinny you're still feeling the rage that comes your way when you're not.

A stellar debut for North Bay Nipissing Life and some, ahem, bragging

Ok, I have to do a little bragging for a moment. I apologize in advance for making you roll your eyes and skip through to a more interesting non-bragging blog, but when a short story you write gets published in the debut issue of a slick new magazine, ya gotta share the news, know what I mean?

The magazine is North Bay Nipissing Life and it just hit newsstands in North Bay (a city about four hours north of Toronto, depending how fast you drive). Our company, Metroland North Media, started a weekly community newspaper there almost a year ago called North Bay Nipissing News and it's been doing extremely well. Readers are excited about the comprehensive community news coverage and the casual vibe. Advertisers are starting to realize that it's the paper everyone's reading and are responding accordingly. All in all, things are looking up, which is why Metroland decided to launch a slick quarterly magazine to supplement the News and provide a vehicle for celebrating the people of the area in a more in-depth way.

I designed the magazine, laid it out and made it pretty so I'm proud of it for those reasons but I'm extra pleased to have one of my short stories in the magazine. The caveat is I WORK for the magazine so it's not like the editorial heavens opened up and said, "You are the best writer known to man and we must print your story." No, it was more like I asked the editor if he was interested and he read it and said, yeah, okay. Also, I didn't get paid.

STILL. The editor has very, very strong opinions on certain things. If he didn't like my story, it wouldn't have been published. So I'm hanging on to that knowledge and celebrating it.

Kiosk is a perfect story for NBN Life. Kiosk is a ghost town in that area, about halfway between North Bay and Mattawa. You've heard me blog about it before – Dave and I go there every spring and every fall to do some fishing and camp in Algonquin Park. What used to be a lumber mill town is now nothing but ruins within the park. Which is great if you're an outdoorsy person who loves camping and loves nature, but is heartbreaking if you're one of the people who used to live here.

"Claire" is one of those people. She runs a bakery out of her log home just north of the park. She makes and sells amazing, almost legendary, butter tarts and delicious pies with crust just like my mom's. She also makes jams, jellies and sells coffee to everyone who goes by. Claire (I hope I am spelling her name correctly) grew up in Kiosk. For her the story of its demise is pure sadness. It was with people like her in mind that I wrote the short story Kiosk and year or so ago. The original story is posted here on my blog.

Gotta love that byline!

Second page spread of the story. The old photos are from Kiosk.

Last page of the spread. In case you can't see the tiny yet IMPORTANT
photo of the girl in the blue sweater, I've blown it up bigger for you, below!

That photo was taken during our honeymoon trip to Newfoundland. I love that place. Yup, chubby bare toes in a mag.
Yup.

The cover.

The masthead. Look Mom, that's ME! :)

***

As an aside, today is a sad day for the people of the Muskoka community. We are mourning the death of Gillian Brunette, a much loved local writer who used to work for the Huntsville Forester and freelanced for many of our other publications. I can't believe cancer managed to claim her. She had such incredible enthusiasm for life, such indomitable energy and she will be missed. Today is her "Celebration of Life" and, in Gillian's case, it is a perfect term because she lived her entire life like it was a celebration. We'll miss you so much, Gillian, and in your own wise words and sunny English accent, "BLOODY HELL."