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So before I get to the regular news portion of this blog post, I have a question I’d like your opinion on.  You see, in the latest episode of Glee, the bad-boy, mohawk-sporting, totally hot character Puck falls in love with Lauren, the fat girl.  And she’s not the attractively fat girl, she’s the really, really fat girl who is a championship wrestler.  Now, to begin with, it’s rather amazing that the show seems to be treating this story arc fairly seriously.  Usually in TV shows or movies fat girls in love are portrayed as the comic relief.  For example, in the 1995 version of A Little Princess, there’s a subplot about the evil school mistress’s sister (who happens to be rather overweight) falling in love with the normal sized milkman.  It is played almost entirely for laughs, culminating in their comic elopement where the sister crushes her lover, first by tossing her large trunk out of a window for him to “catch”, and then by tossing her even larger self.  The only counter-example I can think of where a fat girl gets the guy without being an object of ridicule is the various iterations of Hairspray (and possibly Shallow Hal, but even that mocks fat people fairly harshly, and posits a situation in which the only way the guy even considers the fat girl is because he’s hypnotized into thinking that she’s thin).  So the plain fact that the show’s writers are willing to write a romance about a fat girl without playing it for laughs is really something.

However, my question is this: while Puck (who tends to be a bit clueless) is trying to court Lauren, he serenades her with Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls.  You can watch it here. Later in the show, Lauren repeatedly describes the song as offensive.  And, well, I dunno.  I mean, yes, the song is pretty crude, but then, it’s Queen.  I’ve always been fond of it simply for its whole-hearted appreciation of, you now, lush female forms.  But Lauren has a point.  Regardless of how big or small your body is, you want to be appreciated for more than that, especially if you’re sensitive about what you perceive as your physical shortcomings.  I mean, a woman with a large chest (particularly one who isn’t comfortable with it) wouldn’t want a man serenading her with a song all about her breasts.  So my question for you is this:

In other news, I believe we have found a solution to the great Wedding Veil Yarn Shortage Crisis of 2011.  While I was discussing options and showing Sae the yarn alternative on Sunday, Mr. T offered to finance the acquisition of more angora yarn from the little yarn shop in Wisconsin.  So Monday I started trying to get in touch.  It took a little while.  It seems that the yarn shop has been sold since I visited there last summer, and once I’d tracked down the new owner she still needed to check whether she still had enough of that yarn in stock.  In the end, all was well, she had more than enough, a package with 800 more yards is on its way to me, and knitting on the veil will hopefully recommence very soon.

Also, I’m starting to get excited about Valentine’s Day.  I know that this is not a popular attitude, particularly among single people in our culture.  But I rather like Valentine’s Day.  I view it as a celebration of the fact that love exists, that true love does happen, that some people really do find their true loves, and that this is a good thing even if it isn’t currently happening to me.  In the past I used to buy a pack of the cheap valentines they sell for kids, and inflicted them on everyone and anyone I met.  It was awfully fun.  I haven’t done it the last two years, but this year I’m back in the game.  Yesterday I printed off a bunch of the free knitting-themed valentines from Mochimochi Land, and gave them to everyone at dancing.  (My favorite is the one that says, “I want to knit you things!” Now that’s an expression of true devotion if I ever saw one!)  It was a lot of fun.  Also, one of the reasons I know Swing Snark likes me is that she lets me give her valentines even though she hates them.

However, the real reason I’m starting to get excited about Velentine’s Day is because of Operation Valentinus.  This is a project sponsored by Seraphic of Seraphic Singles (also Seraphic Spouse) to help make Valentine’s Day not nearly so painful for singles.  She’s encouraging single women to pick three other single women to send special Valentines packages.  It not only distracts you from your own dread of the great rubbing-of-salt-into-the-singleness-wound that Valentine’s Day can be by focusing your energies on making another person happy, but also improves your chances of getting your own sweet surprise in the mail.  Personally, I’ve been have a wonderful time scheming up various packages for a few dear friends and relatives (though I don’t have nearly so many single relatives anymore).  I’m hoping to get them in the mail today, and can’t wait until they reach their destinations.  Surprises are so much fun!