Shop My Closet

Hi folks! Thanks again for the kind and supportive comments lately. I am very bad at maintaining online communication, but all comments are read and appreciated, even if I do not respond to them.

I'm just popping by to let you know that I am selling a TON of my clothes and shoes on this here blog (seriously, there are more than fourty items listed!). I have a lot of unworn items in my closet, and not so much in the way of money, so it's time for another clothing sale. There are clothes sizes 14-22 and shoes in size 11. You can check it out with this link here or click the "shop my closet" link just underneath the blog header.

Here are just a few of the items I'm selling. If anything tickles your fancy, leave a comment on this post or email be at anomalous_allure AT hotmail DOT com.

Do I owe you an apology?

I don't feel like a part of the fatshion/fat acceptance blogging community. At one time, I did, but that has been fading as I post less and less, and read blogs less frequently. I can't keep up with blogs I know and love, let alone keep track of all the new fashionable fat people sharing their wardrobes and lives online. I think I might feel less engaged in online communities because I feel more engaged in 'in-person' communities. At the very least, I notice the two to be connected  And the more I'm away from the blogging world, the harder I find it to express my passion and personality and life via text and photographs. Perhaps I feel enough of a sense of community and validation in my offline world that I no longer need to seek it online, but I still long to feel like a part of the fat acceptance world again.

I deleted my tumblr this past fall. I utilized it as a way of broadcasting my mental illness in what felt like self-destructive ways, and it was making this sense of isolation I felt from what should be my communities all the more obvious. I remade it, and used it for a few more months while posting less and following significantly fewer people, but the same problems still arose. I finally deleted it again a few months ago, and haven't read anyone's tumblr since then. Which is a shame, because there a lot of really cool people who only use tumblr, but I have so many frustrations with it that it's just easier to avoid it all together.

That being said, I don't want to put an end to this blog or say goodbye to the fatshion blogosphere altogether. It has been an important part of my life for many years, and I still love having a place where I can share my outfits, art, photos, thoughts, or anything else, even if I don't often do that.

So, do I owe you an apology? I doubt that very many folks are regular readers, considering how slow it has been over the last year. But I know that some of you do still read my blog, and I really appreciate the kind and compassionate comments I've received on my last two posts regarding mental health.

How many times do I try to start anew? Once more, perhaps? A hundred times more?

Hello again, I'm Sonia. When I started this blog, I was a fat, crazy seventeen year-old girl starting my final year of high school. Now, I'm a fat, crazy queer femme girl in my third year of university (though not likely to graduate soon). I moved to a city where I knew no one, and fell into a group of really amazing friends. I'm not the most hard-working student, and my mental health hinders me a lot, but I've grown and learned a lot as an artist and my skills are constantly improving. I've started doing spoken word and going to poetry slams. Art openings still make me anxious, but I'm less likely to leave crying within the first five minutes. I love the sense of community I've found here. I seem to have fallen in love with this small Prairie city, and don't even get me started on the big sky. Sometimes my life is boring and monotonous. Sometimes it is so wonderful I am overwhelmed with love and appreciation and awe. Sometimes I am depressed and anxious, feel disengaged or detached with myself and my surroundings. Sometimes I don't quite understand how I've survived so far or how I will continue to do it. But there is a lot about my life I enjoy, and I want to share that with you through this blog. 

I hope some of you will want to be a part of that.

More Mental Health Stuff

Thank you for your kind words on my last post. Mental health and self care and recovery and survival are really fucking hard. And really fucking vital. So I'm going to continue talking about it as honestly as I can.

Over the past year and a half since moving to Regina my mental health has gotten worse and worse, to the point where I think I'm having the same feelings and thoughts I did at 15 and 16, pre-diagnosis/treatment/counseling. To feel that so much hard work to "get better" had been wasted is really scary. I think there are a lot of reasons why it's gotten to this point and while I'd like to blame it entirely on the lack of mental health care in this city (oh my god is it lacking) I've also postponed trying to access services more than I should have. Moving to a new city was a huge signifier of a adulthood, and it's so ingrained that being depressed and/or having the desire to self harm are only for teenagers, and people should just grow out of those feelings. And sometimes it feels like if you can just convince yourself hard enough that things are okay, that you are not actually that crazy, then these things will be true. Which is really just a long, roundabout way to say that I had secretly hoped that I could (and should) just get over my mental illness.

This is not to say that the poor mental health care in this city hasn't also been a huge problem. It is really frustrating to, while experiencing deep depression, try to make all the right phone calls to all the right people and still get no where. I think that being able to say "these feelings are overwhelming, I want to remain safe, I want to access help" is so incredibly powerful and being met with absolutely nothing in return is awful. Regina does not have enough psychiatrists, psychologists, or counselors of any kind. The waiting time with the health region's mental health clinic can take over a year, but after a year without any service they close your file. Total catch 22. After 9 months of waiting I got an appointment with a psychiatrist who changed my medications without a follow-up. A few week later I was CC'd a letter  that stated that I "no longer needed psychiatric care" (as if I had gotten any at all). I was filled with rage and burst into tears, and still feel like that appointment and letter did more harm than good.

This is really just an example as to how frustrating trying to access mental health care can be. I certainly don't mean to suggest that it's easy in any Canadian city, but in Regina the services just do not exist and that is endlessly frustrating. Still, survival and recovery are my top priorities right now, and after a lot of patience and an unfortunate hospital visit, I actually have a referral to a psychiatrist for the first week in July. I've also started seeing someone through my university's counseling services, and I hope I'll be able to see a counselor on a weekly basis, at least for a while. This sort of mental health care isn't right for everyone, but it's something I need right now, so I'm gritting my teeth and practicing patience and doing everything I can to survive. I am surviving, and sometimes that's the most important thing.

Self Care and Mental Health

This has been one of the worst mental health weeks I've experienced in a long time. But I've survived it, and that means I can continue to survive. So I'm thinking a lot about self care because, honestly, I've forgotten how to take care of myself. "Self care" is a buzzword. What the fuck does it mean? It's thrown around so much without really talking about how we can care for ourselves. I want to talk about taking care of myself. With the help of some incredibly supportive friends, I'm re-learning how to do that. I am thinking and writing, making lists of things that make me happy, what I could do to make myself happier.

Survival is an interesting concept because it seems like such little but it can be so fucking hard. It can be unbearable at times. But it's the most important thing. And it's something I need to prioritize.

I am just rambling, though I plan to talk more about mental health and self care in the future.

But today is the first time in the last week I've felt content, and that's nice. So I thought I'd share a spoken word piece I came across this week and really, really love. I hope you do, too.

Cinnamon Hearts

You know when you intend to do something that would take no more than half an hour and then all of a sudden it's three weeks later and it still hasn't happened? Or is that just me? That's what happened with this post. And a lot of other things, lately. My mental health hasn't been the best the past few months, but today is already shaping up to be a good day. And so, a blog post!



Anyways, the weekend after Valentine's day I had a potluck while my roommates where away for reading week. I named it Valen-friend's day and, along with telling my friends how much I like them via sparkly heart-shaped cutouts, I made cinnamon heart cupcakes for the evening. My roommate's sister had made these cupcakes sometime in January, and when she offered me one I almost weeped with joy. I'm certainly biased - cinnamon hearts are my #1 favourite candy, Valentine's day or not - but it was the best cupcake I'd ever eaten. When I asked for the recipe my roommate said "Oh, it's online. When you find it, you'll know." Which is true, I guess, seeing as most cinnamon heart cupcakes are either chocolate or red velvet, the first white cupcake recipe I found was indeed the one. And so worth the search.



These delicious cupcakes were invented by Erica of Erica's Sweet Tooth, and I cannot recommend them enough. If you want to read the recipe or see some fancy cupcake photographs, hop on over there. My cupcakes aren't very fancy by blogging standards, but they are so super fancy by real life standards. My friends even called them pretty. If that's not fancy, then I don't know what is.

The cupcakes were gone by the end of the evening, but I'm still snacking on cinnamon hearts non-stop.