Chronically Fabulous

Hello all! Apologies for the long hiatus. Alyssa has been transitioning into her PhD program at Santa Cruz and I (Willow) have been surviving grad school and batting with my health and everything that comes with that

The latest adventure is my pharmacy health insurance, navatis, is denying ivabradine. EVEN THOUGH there are Studies that show it’s effectiveness in POTS patients. Just like the week before when I pleaded with navatis to approve my medication (all $1500 of it ) they smugly informed me they weren’t STOPPING me from getting it, just declining to pay for it.

What are chronically ill folks supposed to do when our conditions are rare and not included in FDA approved uses of certain prescriptions???? It is simply an elitist, evil, cost preventing stategy to prevent patients like me from getting medication that has research to back up it’s effectiveness.

I’m so tired of fighting my insurance just to see my humanity.

As I hung up the phone with navatis I said “when I die, that’s on YOU, (insert you can buy it yourself ) you’ve signed my death certificate. I hope you know that”

Surviving 2019: the dollar store edition

Hello friends!

I’ve been wanting to make this post for a long time but I couldn’t figure out the right format so I figure- we’re just gonna do it and work out the kinks as we go!

I was proudly raised on trips to the dollar store, but I know not everyone is familiar with it so I’m gonna post my latest haul show you just how much money you can save. Just on this trip alone I saved $130

So check this out, I got:

  • 3 folders
  • 1 organized file (think a super folder)
  • 1 decorative wood love piece
  • 1 pocket calculator
  • 2 glitter markers
  • 1 binder cup/ small thing holder
  • 1 rose gold notebook
  • 1 “craft jar”
  • 1 pot with sisal rope around the top
  • 100 craft sticks
  • 30 antibacterial travel wipes
  • 1 (adorable) cacti composition notebook
  • 15 sparkly glue sticks
  • 1 thing of wood filler
  • 1 pair of scissors
  • 1 wet n wild mascara
  • 18 medium trash bags (for those smaller trash bins around the apartment)
  • 1 box of tissues (big n small are the same price)
  • 1 pop lock jar
  • 2 cabinet shelves
  • 3 travel Kleenex packs w cute sayings
  • 1 eye mask (migraine saver)

THIS ALL WAS ONLY $25!!!!!!!!

Ok now I’m gonna go through and price all this stuff at a big store (probs Walmart)

  • 3 folders ( 6 bucks EACH for plastic ones that don’t even have cute designs on them omg) $18
  • 1 organized file (think a super folder) $9
  • 1 decorative wood love piece (I found something comparable on Walmart for $40!?!? But let’s say $20 because it’s probably made out of particle board)
  • 1 pocket calculator $8
  • 2 glitter markers $12
  • 1 binder cup/ small thing holder $3 (and it is NOT cute mind you)
  • 1 rose gold notebook $10
  • 1 “craft jar” 83 c
  • 1 pot with sisal rope around the top 8$ (no sisal rope and dollar store props has cornered the market on faux galvanized tin)
  • 100 craft sticks $5.60
  • 30 antibacterial travel wipes $5
  • 1 (adorable) cacti composition notebook $5.99
  • 15 sparkly glue sticks $6.80
  • 1 thing of wood filler $6
  • 1 pair of kid scissors $2
  • 1 wet n wild mascara $4
  • 18 medium trash bags (for those smaller trash bins around the apartment) $5
  • 1 box of tissues (big n small are the same price) $1.50
  • 1 pop lock jar $4
  • 2 cabinet shelves $14
  • 3 travel Kleenex packs w cute sayings .50c
  • 1 eye mask (migraine saver) $10

So if I did a regular shopping trip at Walmart for all this stuff my total would be:

$159.22

AND! I would have had to make a trip to a couple of different stores because I couldn’t find all this stuff on the Walmart website. Honestly with my chronic illnesses the size of the dollar store is way more manageable for me.

I’m gonna do more posts in the future on the dollar store but lemme know if y’all have any questions and I hope this inspires you to save your money that capitalism is draining from you and get out to the dollar store!!!!

Episode 8: Cellulite and Skin Rolls

We have genuinely no excuses for this episode. We got together, we sat down, and we completely lost the plot. But hopefully along the way we manage to teach you something about cellulite and skin rolls, things you probably have that the Internet says you shouldn’t.

Our twitter: @beautbodiescast

Personal twitter: @queerwillow @alyssamazer 

Our insta: @beautifulbodiespodcast

Our facebook: Beautiful Bodies Podcast

 

 

3%

I went down a bit of a research wormhole today, I was doing my reading for The American Community College and found a line that I couldn’t get out of my head.

“the result is that 74% of students at the nations top 146 colleges come from the richest socioeconomic quartile and just 3% come from the poorest quartile” Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose

This was in comparison to the 26% of students from the poorest quartile that attend Community Colleges. During my last year at Beloit College, Olivia Love and I got an unexpected check from the college and when we started asking questions, Olivia was told that there was left over money and it went to the poorest 30 students at the school, the bottom 2.5% out of our classmates. Using the same metrics that Carnevale and Rose used to determine the top 146 schools in 2004, I looked at Beloit college and found that it was in the top two tiers of most competitive/ highly competitive plus, their cut off for the top schools.

I had a strong suspicion that Olivia and I would fall into the poorest of the poor category. We both grew up hovering at or just below the poverty level, we met as children and reconnected at our local community college, College of Lake County. Olivia was there to finish high school (always a brilliant student, never challenged enough by her local public high school) and I was there after just barely managing to graduate high school, with a GPA so low that it was below most colleges cut off for admission.

I will defend Community Colleges until I take my dying breath, they are amazing resources that folks from all different walks of life have access to. For me, I was able to build my confidence in school. For the first time I got an A in a class, and my professors encouraged me and I felt a new fire. Both Olivia and I were able to work along going to classes, as did most of the students in our classes.

I didn’t have the social/familial capital to know how to set my sights on a college and apply, so once I was in my 3rd year of Community College I thought that would be the end of my formal education journey, and I heavily considered applying for a banker promotion at my job. Olivia had applied to a handful of colleges in Wisconsin and Beloit seemed really appealing to her and Susan, Olivia’s mother and my good family friend. They pulled me aside for an intervention of sorts and helped me look at 4 year colleges, I didn’t understand that students like us (poor) could go to a baccalaureate granting institution. I had gone to CLC for free because of federal aid, and they showed me that Beloit offered generous financial aid packages to poor families too.

 

We both applied and were accepted. Olivia and I lived together for our first year, non-traditional students against the bougie world that is Beloit. We both acclimated well (with our own missteps and terrible stories, no doubt) but we made it.

 

At Beloit we represent/ed the 2.5% of the poorest students, in the nation we represent the 3% of students from the lowest socioeconomic quartile attending one of the top colleges in the top two tiers of selectivity in the United States.

 

Olivia has been on the Dean’s List every semester she has attended Beloit, she has starred in musicals and made long lasting friendships. She still works multiple jobs, a reality of low-income students and a habit that will probably never go away.

I started my first semester of grad-school at UW-Madison in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis program, with an emphasis on Higher Education Student Affairs, it is the #1 program of its kind in the United States.

Is this a Community College success story? Is this a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” example? How many students out of that 3% graduate from the “top-colleges” that they got into? At what cost- emotionally and financially?

Olivia and I both still experience imposter-syndrome in our respective spaces, I’ve been told that no matter how much success we have that feeling will never go away.

Written by: Willow Wallis

Episode 7: Beauty and White Supremacy

Who do we consider “beautiful”? Who is worthy of space? Of attention? Of money? Of living? Race and beauty are intrinsically tied to perceived worth – and to each other. Come along with us as we talk beauty culture, white supremacy, and a whole lot more. Please listen for the content warning at the beginning, and leave us an iTunes review! @queerwillow @alyssamazer @beautbodiescast

Episode 6: Ketchup and Fat Shaming

 

We ate, we swam, we drank, and now we eat again, AND we share updates on our lives and our feelings about FATSHAMING! From Aretha Franklin to doctor’s visits to the newest bullshit called Insatiable, we have plenty of stuff to talk about. Join us as we critique content creators, shout about the difference between Gandalf and Dumbledore, and “ketchup” on each other’s lives

Episode 4: Sex

Let’s talk about sex. (Try not to sing that in your head, I dare you.) From sexuality to the four supposed stages of sex, and so much more. Willow and Alyssa begin the very deep dive of body positivity and sex, and we touch on abortion. Explicit, perhaps a little squicky, and totally, completely improved. (Who needs a plan anyway? Not us.)

Episode 3: Surviving Doctors

We all have a story about a time we had a bad doctor’s visit. Even an institution meant to care and heal people is not immune to biases. Willow and Alyssa talk gender and race health disparities, fatphobic doctors, and how to take care of yourself, even before you walk into a doctor’s office.

Head’s up! This episode involves extra explicit content, including intimate discussion of experiences with doctors, and potential triggers towards forced medical exams, poor health outcomes for women of color, and traumatic stories of women in pain. This one gets rough, but we promise that your regular dose of radical positivity will keep it light!

Email: beautifulbodiescast@gmail.com / Twitter: beautifulbodiescast / Insta: beautifulbodiespodcast / Willow’s Twitter: @QueerWillow / Alyssa’s Twitter: @AlyssaMazer

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