Fat Girl, Skinny City: MTV Makes the List

*Editors Note* Cee is a twenty-something writer and sometimes student in San Diego. We will be keeping her exact identity a secret in hopes that it garners more attention and makes people interested in solving the "Who is the fat girl in our skinny city" mystery (or because she asked us to). Truth is, she's a nice girl, with a great personality ("something that comes with the territory"-she says), who knows there are a lot of skinny bitches in San Diego, but there are a lot of chubby ones too (and they love, love, love them some city life).

Fat girl, Skinny city.

So I'm pissed. Well, not pissed, more like annoyed. I didn't want to start off with the whole "I'm a pissed overweight girl with a chip on her shoulder and a tub of ice cream by my side while I write about it" but guess what, I'm pissed and annoyed and drinking my after workout smoothie before I have actually gone to work out.

It's The Hills, which is a show that probably pisses most people off on a pretty regular basis, (yes I watch it, line me up with the rest of the bastards and shoot me) and no I'm not still reeling because Elodie went and quit (that made me smile, not frown) nor am I upset because MTV went and ran a complete "round up this season" 1/2 hour recap of the show the other night and therefore illustrated that the HOURS I've wasted actually watching the show were moot, considering you only need 1/2 hour to really watch the entire season.

Nope, it's because of this girl Jill. Jill is Lauren's friend who doesn't garner any direct camera focus NOR any reciprocal dialogue from the girls. Not only that, in said recap, MTV goes so far as to say that "Lauren, Audrina and Lo head off to Vegas." Oh yeah, there was that other girl too, Jill something, we tried to avoid her as much as possible.

Is it because Jill isn't four feet tall with extra straight hair and a teeny, tiny brain (I mean waist)?. Suck it MTV, you are on my list.

That will probably all be cut from the article. I’m supposed to be writing an article about being “overweight” in San Diego. I don’t know where to begin. First, I guess, is that I don’t really consider myself “fat”, well wait, scratch that, I do consider myself fat but you can’t get me to admit that in a court of law, or to my group of closest friends. You see, all my friends are skinny (though a lot of them wouldn’t say that in a court of law either, something about women always seeing fat on their thighs, arms, butt, stomach, no matter how skinny), and the men I date tend to be pretty skinny (or, smaller than me) and the people in my classes are skinny, and the people at work are skinny.

Have you ever gone into a room and sized up exactly who is bigger and who is smaller than you. Yeah, me neither. No really, I don’t (not any more). I simply ignore size altogether and try not to think about it because if I think about it more often then not I’ll probably come to realize that I’m probably the biggest one in the immediate vicinity. This does not stop me from, say, going to the gym after work every other day (at least). Nor does it stop me from congratulating myself for said workouts with a nice big Chronic Smoothie or Chai Latte at Café 976.

It also doesn’t stop me from going out salsa dancing on Wednesdays at Café Sevilla and wearing uncomfortable pointy toed shoes. I am just like any other girl, except I live here, in a city where swimsuits rule and short skirts are every where and the girl sitting next to me right now in class is impulsively tightening her stomach muscles because (I kid you not) she told her other friend how it helps her to tone and burn calories, even during class hours.

When I first decided to come to San Diego I got a whole bunch of warnings from my friends. “Southern California is so superficial.” “Southern California really only cares about image.” “Southern California isn’t really very nice to people who don’t fit a certain stereotype.”

Apparently I didn’t fit the type, even though nobody specifically said that, exactly. They just warned me. “It can be hard to live down there.” I was freaked out when I drove in for the first time. Were they going to stop me at the city limits and take my height and weight? Was I going to be denied food at random restaurants? Would I ever be able to get a drink at a bar again? I didn't want to go on (yet another) diet because I really wanted to make friends and I can’t do that without carbs (“I’m so sorry I’m an evil witch right now, but I can’t eat bread and it makes me INSANE.”).

The truth is it has never really been all that bad. There was some culture shock when I saw how girls dressed just to go to class and I owned NO short skirts, tube tops OR huge platform shoes. But I do now, well the shoes any way. This week in “big girl/ little city” or whatever? I’d like to say, hello. I’m pretty much a normal girl, living in a pretty awesome city. You won’t catch me in a bikini on the beach reading US Magazine and rotating every 7 minutes, but I still have some stories to tell (others I won’t tell cause you gotta buy me a drink first if you want that kind of talk). Have a good week, see you next week.

Off to work, will probably save next weeks article thing until the last minute AGAIN (I guess I’m supposed to write about shopping and dating and stuff. Okay, I’ll write about shopping and dating next week then, hopefully MTV doesn't piss me off again).