Virgie Tovar

I've gone into Lane Bryant about 68 times in my life, and each time I'm lucky to leave with a faux-snakeskin belt or wide-shaft boots in an on-trend style. Most of the clothing, however, is draping, muted, and made up of superfluous yards of fabric covered in condescending ruffles and flowers. Imagine a fat baby going to a funeral for her former fat self and you've got Lane Bryant's general look.

This week in Babecamp we were talking about Sarai Walker’s novel Dietland.

Weight gain is — in my anecdotal experience — quite common once you stop attempting to control your weight. My story is not everyone’s story.

The other day I was having coffee and ice cream with my friend. We were talking about who we follow online.

As much as I love the idea of family, I actually like not being married, and I actually like not being a mother right now.

There are a lot of places where fat people don’t feel safe because of fatphobia. What does it feel like to feel safe in your fat body?

There had only been room for a persona - a sunshiney child-parent. My mother and grandmother had always fixated on my childhood. It finally made sense how the happiest time of their lives could be my darkest.

The politics of food are the politics of class, and the subtlety of those politics creates a kind of deniability that makes it hard to discern the rules of engagement. One’s success in ascending the ladder is marked by fluency with these invisible boundaries.

Jealousy is such an interesting thing to me. As immediate and intense as it feels when it hits, it has always struck me as a secondary — a smokescreen for something else.

So, recently I started dipping my toe back into the poisonous dump site that is straight dating. Deep breath.