I tried to take my daughter out for a short walk a little while ago. Our apartment is small and filled with sharp and breakable things that aren't mine to rearrange so I've made a habit, since she started walking while holding hands, of taking her out for a walk on sunny days. There is a new level sidewalk that runs parallel to the back of my apartment complex where I take her because I've felt it was pretty safe. Given that the sidewalk frames the parking lot of a Christian high school and as Christians no longer burn my kind I tend to think of them as fairly harmless and generally well meaning when in groups of their fellows. Today as we turned the corner to step onto the sidewalk a car load of teen boys pulled into the parking lot behind us and began immediately to scream "cow" at the top of their lungs and blare their horn while speeding across the width of the parking lot to the other exit to the main street.

And so I turned around and brought my daughter home because, though having been overweight my whole life I've grown as used to that sort of thing as any sensitive just soul can, I'm now afraid to take my daughter out in public alone for fear that just being with me will endanger her and subject her to the whims of humans who don't see me as a person because of the size of my ass and belly.

Learn from my example.. it is unwise to stay up till 4 in the morning when you KNOW that your one year old's gonna be up before 7am. I had fun writing and playing around on tribe though. And there is something infinitely comforting about writing while my husband snores away in the recliner two feet behind me and my daughter's occasional snore sounds over the baby monitor... But, wow, am I gonna regret this in a couple hours.