MsCezanne's Odyssey

When Sheila woke up, there was a cart of food waiting for her. She waited a few moments for Basil, but he didn't show up. She went right into eating it.

A few minutes after she finished, Basil came in, without a word, and sat down, staring at her expectantly.

Sheila went right back into Alexandra's Story.

Alexandra: A Painter's Story - Continued.

Alexandra was not happy. She was a good painter, she knew she was. It seemed totally unfair that people would judge her work based on her appearance. She didn't even see the big deal with her appearance either. Yes, she was fat, but so what? She was happy with it, why can't other people be happy with it?

Cut off from the community she wished to be part of, Alexandra fell into a deep funk. It wasn't such a stretch for her to find solace in the food that she had loved so much the past year. Before long she wasn't merely a fat artist, but had become quite enormous.

One day, when she was out of clothes that fit, she was watching herself in the mirror. She was struck at how unique she now appeared, and was immediately inspired to self portrait. She was so happy with the results of her self portrait she made another. Right away she could see the contrast of the miserable, ugly, fat Alexandra who was the first subject, and the bright, beautiful round Alexandra who was the second subject.

She followed up her portraits by painting herself at different times, as a child full of hope, a teenager wanting to get out, an artist wishing to accepted, an artist who has been accepted, and finally the artist shunned.

It was the first time in a long time she had painted for herself, rather than creating paintings for others to buy. There was no one to impress, no one would be impressed by her any more. She was creating art, not a product, and it made her happy.

Even though Alexandra had broken her funk, she continued to eat and gain. It was what she did now, who she was. She even enjoyed painting self portraits to compare herself over time.

She began to run low of funds again, and she began wondering what she could do now. If people thought she was fat before, what would they think now? Her morose view on life was beginning to return when she happened to turn on the TV and see a story about some woman suing for fat rights. She was pretty big, and her lawyer was absolutely gigantic, bigger than Alexandra herself!

Alexandra became steeled. She wrote a long letter to dozens of magazines, saying that what someone contributed was far more important than anything about themselves. In a day and age where the world fights to rid itself of sexism, racism and other discriminations, adding sizism to the mix was a terrible idea.

Her letter came to the attention of a cable news producer who actually had one of her paintings, and was rather curious what she was up to now. He'd never known her, fat or thin, and was ready to have her interviewed in her art studio. Alexandra jumped at the chance.

Her interviewer was fascinated by the self portraits she had scattered around the studio. Alexandra got a chance to explain what each and every one represented to her. Over night her first pair of portraits, dubbed 'Melancholy and Joy', became the symbol of art. They were on magazine covers, her art started to sell for vast sums at auctions, and everyone wanted to speak to her.

Alexandra revived her painting career by painting other large men and women. It became a status symbol to be one of her subjects. She even helped to get some Hollywood stars who had faded from the spotlight after their weight woes.

She then began her most ambitious project: she would paint a series documenting someone's weight gain over time.

Alexandra was worried that it would take a lot of time to find the perfect subject. As luck would have it though, she met him the very next day.

Anthony: The Model - Part One

Anthony had the world at his feet. At least, that's what everyone told him. His dad was mayor of the town. It was a successful town, and quite powerful ever since his father had arranged the ethanol plant to be built. Anthony lead the high school football team to its first ever championship. He had the cutest girlfriend in town. He had his choice of plum jobs. He would be mayor when he was ready. He had everything the town could offer.

It wasn't enough. Anthony knew that he did have the world at his feet, and the world was not in some hick town. He caught the acting bug, and moved to Hollywood to share his good looks and easy charm with the world.

Two years of waiting tables, and never getting the break he deserved, or meeting the people he needed to, Anthony began to realise that it wasn't going to happen. Rather than admit defeat and head home, he sold his shares in the ethanol plant (a gift from his grandfather) and bought a restaurant. He'd worked in enough, it was time to make the money.

Two years after opening a restaurant in the underserved arts quarter, Anthony had a better understanding of the term 'starving artist'. They couldn't afford good food, and Anthony's wasn't about to serve anything less. The restaurant was going down the tubes fast.

It was a typically empty lunch. In the back his chef, another failed actor who was actually a very good cook, was feeding prepped but unsold food to the waitress. The waitress was a failed actress, of course. Anthony sighed. He could see the buttons straining on her blouse, he'd have to buy her a bigger uniform. Again. At least she liked the food.

Anthony was startled when the door opened. He was still staring at how much wasted food his waitress was eating. He turned to the front and was shocked to see a a mountain of a woman standing there. She was at least 3 times the size of the waitress. He watched in fascination as his waitress got up from her own meal and escorted the slowly waddling woman to a table.

He looked on in pleasure as the fat woman ordered even more food than even the wildest stereotype.

As the chef got busy in the kitchen, Anthony decided to head over and talk with his client. With any luck, she could become a regular and put some cash in the till.

Just as he arrived at the table to introduce himself, the woman looked him up and down, and her face lit up. "Are you an actor?" she asked.

Anthony was caught off guard, "I, well, I try, but, why?"

"You're perfect!" Her voice filled the restaurant.

Anthony waited a moment, at a complete loss of words. Was this what a big break felt like?

"Turn around," she commanded, holding up pudgy finger to trace a circle in the air.

Anthony did a slow turn on the spot, fixing his smile on her.

"Yes, yes. I'll take you!"

"Um. Take me where?" Anthony was trying to keep his excitement, and confusion, contained.

"You'll be my model. Oh, you're so perfect. Do you work out?" The fat woman continued to gush. Her whole body seemed to be jiggling with excitement.

"Yes I work out... but I'm an actor, not a model. I've never modelled before. Are you a designer?"

For the first time since he came over the big woman was silent. "You don't know who I am?"

"No." Anthony could feel his excitement draining. Hollywood was full of hacks who thought they should be famous, and offered nothing but empty promised. He'd just never seen a fake that was so fat before.

"I'm Alexandra, the painter."

The name certainly rang a bell. Despite being in an artistic neighbourhood, he didn't have much interest himself. But she had been on TV or something he thought.

His waitress came by with a tray full of food, which she began to arrange in front of Alexandra. Anthony smiled again, if nothing else, he was going to pocket $50 from this meal. And if she really was famous, and word got out... he could be going places after all!

Anthony watched Alexandra eat as though she only had minutes left to live. After a few minutes she looked up, and seemed astonished that Anthony was still there, "Give me your card, I'll get my people to call your agent and we'll get this settled."

The next day Anthony was on the phone with his agent. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I'm going to get paid how much?!" He was going to get enough that the restaurant could stay open for years without another customer! "And I have to do what?" He would have to double his weight over the course of a year, and allow Alexandra to paint him at any time.

All Anthony could think about was dollar signs. Gaining weight? Hell, his waitress had done it, so it was no big deal at all.

Shiela smiled at Basil.

He stared back for a moment before finally muttering “okay, have a good sleep”, before he stalked out of the room.

Labels: Adiposity Nights, Alexandra: A Painter's Story, Anthony: The Model, FA, ffa, fiction, weight gain

Sheila was awake when Basil came in with his cart of food. "I thought you'd never get here, I'm starving!" As she began eating, she realised that the lie was actually true. She was starving.

Basil waited for a few moments. "Go, I'm eating. You'll hear the rest later!"

When Basil came back, Sheila was full, as usual, and ready to continue.

The Case of the Crash Diet - Continued.

The woman was successful at work. She was successful with her diet. She was having success in her personal life. She dressed for success. She felt successful, she was successful.

At work she was rewarded for her success with greater responsibilities. She travelled more to meet with bigger clients. When she met clients, it was usually in catered boardrooms, or going out to fancy restaurants. She knew she had earned her success, she had earned the right to eat well.

With a busy work and social life, the woman no longer stuck with the diet that had brought her success. She eased into her old eating habits, quickly, as her body had really missed them.

Before long she found her weight creeping back up. She promised herself she'd try to exercise more, but she never found time. She promised she'd go back on her old diet, but it would be impossible with the food she was expected to eat at the meetings that were making her so much more successful.

She had to switch out her wardrobe for bigger clothes, which she had luckily kept. She noticed that her social calendar had more and more holes in it. Without even thinking about it, these holes were filled with more food.

Her weight continued to climb, not so gradually any more. Contacts wondered if she was okay. Sales were starting to dry up. She found herself home more and more, filling the time with more and more food.

She reached the size she was before the merger. Her sales were falling drastically, she was home alone with her cats and her fridge more than ever, and even her fat clothes were becoming perilously tight. Life was as mundane as ever, but she had tasted something more, and mundane wasn't going to cut it anymore.

Without any warning or probation she was let go from the company. Her sales had fallen, her weight had grown, and they wondered how dedicated she really was.

The woman started a tailspin, she would stay at home for days, only venturing out in overly tight clothes to buy more food, or maybe some new clothes. She quickly ate up her severance package, and found herself heading out to collect unemployment.

At the unemployment office she ran into one of her friends. Her friend commented on how big the woman had become, and why it had happened. The woman broke down into tears, explaining the crash diet, the new pressures and everything she had to do for work, and how it all came undone, and things were worse than ever.

Her friend consoled her, and told her that it wasn't right, that a job shouldn't have such control over her life. She consulted with some lawyers to see if the woman had a case against her company. It turned out that a lawyer, named Arnold, was actually looking for such a case, and would represent the woman in court pro bono.

The woman met with the lawyer. He was incredibly large, far larger than she was, in fact. He liked to eat while they met, and while he was very well mannered at the meetings, he did eat a lot. The woman found herself eating a lot too as they met.

As the case made its way through the various stages of the legal process, the stress was incredible on the woman. She continued to eat and gain weight, and Arnold even suggested that her increased weight would help the case.

Arnold took care of her, paying her rent, her food and clothing out of his own pocket. With his support, she became somewhat famous. Her weight skyrocketed, and by the time the court case was decided in her favour, she was Arnold's equal in girth, despite his own weight gain over the time.

The woman received a generous settlement that allowed her to live an idle life on a pacific island. She enjoyed both her fame in a groundbreaking case, and the ever growing frame that won her riches.

One of her favourite things was to read her fan mail, about the men and women who had learned to stand up for themselves, and gaining acceptance in a world that still hated fat.

The first letter she received was from Alexandra, a painter who overcame prejudice to gain acceptance amongst her peers.

Alexandra: A Painter's Story - Part One

Alexandra grew up in an ordinary family, in an ordinary agricultural town. Her parents worked on a farm. Her aunts and uncles worked on farms. Her grandparents had worked on farms, her cousins worked on farms. Everyone worked on a farm, except Alexandra. She wanted to paint.

From an early age she would create with her crayons and finger paints. She created images of fields of wheat, fields of corn, barns, silos and scenes from the country fair. No one had seen a child with so much interest in farming before her.

It wasn't until Alexandra was a teenager that people began to realise she painted farms because farms were all she saw. She hated farms, and when all her friends went to work on farms after school and in the summer, Alexandra desperately wanted to stay to herself and paint. She found herself often alone, and practically disowned by her family.

Aside from farming, Alexandra began to loathe ordinary agricultural town life itself. All her life she had eaten the same hearty home cooking. While she was an average size for the girls in the town, she was far bigger than any of the girls seen on TV. Alexandra longed to look like them, to be a real person!

The day Alexandra graduated from high school she took her meagre savings and travelled to the coast to attend school and become a real painter.

Alexandra's techniques were very well honed for an amateur, and her works blossomed with new inspirations and experiences. She earned a scholarship that covered her educational expenses, but she needed money to cover her living expenses. She naively went the 'starving artist' route, trying to sell paintings wherever she could. Alas, her well fed heartland body was far too fat to garner her any success as a starving artist.

Alexandra had to settle for menial jobs at fast food and small retail outlets. Soon she really was a starving artist though, and she revelled as years of well fed farm flab melted off her, and she gained the jaded, angular look that artists were to have.

She quit her jobs and began to sell her paintings. She began to develop a standing in the local art community, her paintings were better than ever, and she was among the thinnest artists on the scene too.

When she graduated with her bachelor of art history, she had numerous invitations to create paintings for prestigious collectors. Alexandra spent a year travelling the world, painting for the rich and famous in exotic and cosmopolitan locales.

When she came home, she was thinner, more angular than ever. One of her friends commented that with all that great food, it was a wonder that Alexandra could stay so thing. Alexandra replied that she was travelling to paint, not to eat. She was admonished, so few people get a chance to visit as many cultures as Alexandra had, if she didn't eat the local cuisine, everyone would think she was some sort of hick farm girl.

Alexandra had worked so hard to escape the farm, the very thought that anyone could still see her as hick enraged her. She exploded at her friends, and vowed to show them just how cultured she could be.

She worked on a masters degree, studying with renowned artists and historians across the globe. This time though, she took the time to focus on the culture, history, art and food of the various lands she came to.

Alexandra was extremely glad to have had her eyes opened. Painting was such a small part of life, of culture, of history. She learned about other forms of art, sculpture, poetry, dance, and cooking. Alexandra learned how cooking could encapsulate so much about a culture, the history of their land, contact with other cultures, what they value among the different classes. Tastes, textures, smells, techniques, the sounds of a busy kitchen, the quiet of an exquisite meal. Alexandra had grown up in the very heartland of food production, and yet now she understood what food meant, and how much culture she had simply dismissed.

Upon completing her masters degree, Alexandra's lank angles had been replaced by round curves. Her harsh expression was softer and happier as well. The world had so much to offer, and she was going to partake as much as she could!

She took a year off from study and began to experiment in cooking. She visited with different chefs, made her own attempts at fusion cuisine, trying to tie together histories and cultures in many ways from logical to utterly bizarre. Her many creations ran an enormous gamut from completely unpalatable to rivalling anything a king had ever dined upon.

Alexandra's year of food had a great impact on her weight, she was now bigger than she ever had been before, but she saw it as a badge of the experiences she had allowed herself. It also had a great impact on her finances, all of her savings had been used up, it was time to paint again.

Once it was known that Alexandra was painting again friends and associates quickly put together a show for her, and she created several works to show off her new found appreciation of the world. The night of her show was very tense, everyone wanted to see what she had learned on her sabbaticals (for few knew what she had been up to, they assumed it was a sabbatical). When the art was revealed, it was as magical as everyone had expected.

However, when Alexandra waddled forth to accept her peers' acclaim, everyone fell silent. This wasn't the tortured Alexandra who saw the world through a scrappy, tortured light. Instead she was a fat, bourgeois consumer. She could barely stand the muttering as everyone quickly left, and few pieces of her work were actually purchased.

"But what's Alexandra going to do?" Basil asked as Sheila stopped speaking. "She's as good an artist as she ever was, what are these people thinking?"

Sheila just smiled, her eyes drooping partially shut.

Basil looked at her. "I know, I know, you need to sleep, I'll be back tomorrow."

Labels: A Journey to Fat Acceptance, Adiposity Nights, Alexandra: A Painter's Story, fiction, Part One, Part Two, The Case of the Crash Diet, weight gain