Demented Product of the Day: "Bigfoot, the Garden Yeti" Statue

Princess of the Day: Nessa on Gavin and Stacey

If you're not familiar, Gavin and Stacey is a funny BBC America show about an adorable couple (he's British, she's Welsh) and their close-knit, super wacky friends and family. Gavin and Stacey are both sort of, whatever; they are likable and maybe too perfect to really get attached to. But the supporting characters are totally awesome and quirky. Today I would like to focus on Nessa, Stacey's best friend, who sports an excellent goth look, is matter-of-factly outspoken and has unshakable self-confidence. She is played by Ruth Jones, who seems to be in a lot of Masterpiece Theater productions as well.

I just love Nessa. The very sight of her cheers me, and every sentence she utters cracks me up. In the above scene from season three (which premieres May 14 at 9; set your DVR!), Nessa is chatting with some bouncers outside a club that she is entering for a girl's night. She has the obvious respect of these burly guys. Apparently, Nessa used to be a bouncer (!) and she offers help if any trouble comes up.

Nessa has a long, colorful history, and she is generous with tales of her exploits, sexual and otherwise. But she is not some snide hipster. She is good friends with Bryn, Stacey's dorky uncle. Basically, she treats everyone the same. Nessa is not to be crossed, but she is loyal.

Nessa is also hilariously self-centered. I'm not sure she's winning any mother of the year awards. Of her baby, she says: "He's always after something." That's how babies are. And I can relate. It's funny when she says it, though, because her fiance (who is not the baby's dad) does most of the child care.

Nessa eats with gusto and is clearly proud of her full figure, but it's not like she ever even mentions it. She just is hot, and knows it. In one scene she tries on some sexy black lingerie at a bridal show. "Oh, I'll take all of this," she declares. "But I don't need another whip!"

"You look wonderful," breathes the respectable-looking older saleswoman.

"I feels it," says Nessa, nodding.

FP's First Guest Blogger: Mayim Bialik!!! Can you believe it?

"I hope you got fat. I hope you got really fat.
'Cause if you got really really fat, fat, fat, you just might want to see me come back."
"Fat" by Violent Femmes

I can't say when I realized I had gained 35 pounds. Okay, that's sort of a lie. It was the autumn of 2004. I was married in 2003, and I was on a medication that was a known teratogen (unsafe to ingest while pregnant), so before I got pregnant, I switched to a medicine that was safe. The side effect, I was told, was significant weight gain and metabolic disturbance so that even if I tried to not eat "too much," I would probably gain weight anyway. And gain I did. My first son was born in October of 2005, and at that point, I weighed several pounds more than my husband. And he's a broad shouldered, wide-chested 6 feet tall.

I have never spoken about "the 35 pounds" publicly. Why? Because it's really nobody’s business. But why have I always sort of wanted to talk about it? Because being "fat" in show business is just about as unfriendly a thing to be as anything you can imagine. Besides the fact that the internet has made it an international pasttime to anonymously and cruelly attack people's physical appearance (saying things you would not say to your worst enemy face-to-face and trying to “top” other people’s vicious name-calling and insults in some sort of bizarre cyber-competition), the fact still remains that thin is as in as ever in Hollywood. It is still seen as the ideal, which ought to be attained at almost any cost, and ultimately, thin still rules the day. I made a feature film called "Kalamazoo" at that weight, and someone during the filming told me how "courageous" it was of me to take the job. I like to think that I am, indeed, a courageous woman for a lot of noble and significant reasons, but not because I chose to be in a film at "that weight."

Fortunately, I got off the medication after my first son was born and lost both my pregnancy and medicine-induced weight pretty quickly by simply breastfeeding on demand and taking mild walks with my baby in a sling. I did not (nor do I now) diet, have a trainer or a personal chef, and actually, I eat a LOT in general, help myself to seconds, and really enjoy eating dessert (when vegan dessert is an option). When people see me eating as enthusiastically and unashamedly as I do, they often joke that I must be bulimic. A) I'm not, nor do I have any eating disorder, and B) it's not funny to joke about bulimia. But I know why the way that I eat makes people squirm: most women a lot of us know (actors or not) have a complicated regimen of eating habits that range from covert eating disorders to overt avoiding eating and/or compulsive exercising. When we see someone eating without worrying about it, especially someone who is not obese, it makes us wonder what is going on both with that person and with our culture.

I don't blame women for being the way many of us are. It's what we are told we have to do to compete, to be loved, and to be accepted by our society. And I am not asking for sympathy because I happen to be small by genetics (being a foot shorter than my entire class every year from kindergarten through 10th grade was NOT fun). No one likes to hear the skinny girl describe how she doesn't diet or exercise, eats what she wants and still fits into sample sizes. And being a vegetarian since I was 19 and a vegan now, I know that I tend to eat a low-fat diet even though my motivation for eating this way has absolutely nothing to do with weight or fat intake.

So what I will tell you is the strange truth. Even though I am small-ish, by Hollywood standards, I am still somewhat of an oddball. I go to publicity events where size 0 is the norm, and I feel like a clumsy, giant woman when I stand next to the truly tiny ladies with very little fat or flesh on their bodies who grace the covers of your average magazine. When I see those magazines, I shrink a little bit and wonder "what if" I were to start working out twice a week, four times a week, maybe a little bit every day!? What if I started to abstain from second helpings and followed all of the advice from those magazines. You know what advice I mean: drink a lot of water to fill yourself up, take tiny bites, eat super slow...Could I then compete and wear "whatever I want?" Would my life be perfect then... if only I were really truly thin?

And then I think of the sadness and the intensity of our culture's influence and its obsession with perfection in the form of thin. And I think of the millions of young girls -- and boys -- who are growing up thinking that happiness lies in how thin they are. And I think of the generations of women who fought for us to have equal rights in the voting booths, in the factories, on the streets, and even in our homes. And I try to remember that the value of my character, my dignity, and the potential to somehow repair this fragmented world matters more than the size of my dress.

And so I try little by little to find clothing that I feel dignifies my body without the need for a girdle, to enjoy my body as it is, to love my body for birthing children and nursing them, to respect my body as it changes and grows, to and to nourish it the best way I know how. With seconds.

Irksome Blog Alert: Fat or Pregnant?

Last week TheGloss posted an item about the website Fat or Pregnant? (I'm not linking to it because F or P? doesn't deserve more traffic.) I'm sure you can guess, but the site consists of photos of unfortunate people along with speculations about their gestational status. TheGloss ladies were curious to know if people found F or P? funny.

I did not.

I know, you're shocked, shocked by my reaction.

Often, people ask me if I am pregnant. I am not. But apparently I look about 4 months pregnant. Unfortunately.

I'll give you some recent examples. A woman comes to pick up her daughter from the Girl Scout meeting. (I'm co-leader of my daughter's Daisy troop). I am wearing a voluminous horizontally striped tunic from Anthropologie. "When are you due?" she asks pleasantly? "I'm not," I say. I need to get out of there. I pack my kid in the car, race home, tear the shirt off, and put it in a giveaway bag. My mood is black. I hate myself for caring.

The dry cleaner: "You having a baby right now?" A mom collecting her son from a playdate at my house: "Congratulations!" Guess what, lady? Your son can't play here anymore. He can stay home and read Fat or Pregnant.

A little diversity, please?

I hesitate to post this, because I know there's something vaguely disturbing about a person my age watching Gossip Girl. (I'm 48 1/2, if you must know; my half birthday was on March 15.)
But could they get at least one average-sized girl on that show? Bring back Hillary Duff. This was my thought last night as I watched Jenny's shoulder bones jutting frighteningly.

Princess of the Day: Crystal Renn

I'm so glad Glamour had the good sense to put plus-size model/body image activist Crystal Renn on the cover. I just wish she didn't have to share it. Read my interview with Crystal at www.viceland.com/int/v17n3/htdocs/crystal-renn-371.php.

Demented Product of the Day: Sling Couture Fashion Face Mask

I mean, come on now.