Fatter Somewhere

funhouse mirror self-portrait
Originally uploaded by craftivista

I grew up in San Antonio and I am fatter there than I am anywhere else. I am a little fatter in Austin, where I went to college, than I am in other places, but I pull it off better than I do in San Antonio. I am always very fat in my mother's house. I am fatter in Seattle than I am on the Eastside (where I currently reside). I am thinner downstairs in my own house than I am upstairs. I am always thinner in church than I am out in the world. Feeling forgiven makes me feel thinner.

I have accepted that it will always be so: being fatter some places and thinner others. I have understood that my perception makes my reality and alters it according to my mood and my circumstance. I am not an objectivist. I like Ayn Rand, but I don't subscribe to her theories, at least not where my belly is concerned. My upper arms vary minute by minute, mirror to mirror. I can gain 200 pounds in the span of an hour. I can acquire a pound per mile as I travel from one part of the country to another. Memories and insecurities add fat as surely as the lack of them slim me down to my true size.

I take my clothes off in the middle of the day to check their size. Not that it matters. The 4s or 8s or 6s don't matter. the P after the 8 makes me feel no better or a little better depending on my mood. Everything is judged by what is better a 4 regular or an 8 petite... Everything is that kind of trade off. I see what I want to see. I see what I can't bear to see.

At the dentist office I ask him to turn up the Nitrous because I'm not feeling it. I feel drunk when he says, "are you sure? You're pretty small." I say, I'm not paying extra for that, right? I wonder why he tries to flatter me, what his agenda might be. He's tricking me. They're laughing at me behind my back, he and the hygenist, that's what I think.

Sometimes I go into the bathroom and do what I need to do without ever catching my reflection in the mirror. Sometimes I can't stop staring.

Post Your Secret

This is incredible:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Ugly, ugly, ugly

Jon Gosselin
Originally uploaded by argo21

Ok, I can't figure this out. Why would one woman (much less three or four) show even a passing interest in this loser?

For one thing he's as ugly as homemade sin. Those puffy eyes and that squashy face. Ugh. He's soft. He's got a fat neck and a weak chin.

For another he has a brood of kids and a lot of baggage. He'd better be makin' a lot of money because he is going to be paying a fortune in child support. He's going to have to keep drumming up the drama just to keep the payola flowing in to support all these kids and exes.

Just gross.

The point is mute

Moot is what he meant but mute is what he said. Moot: meaning debatable - like a moot court, not important, or just academic -- it doesn't mean soundless...

I can't tell you how often I hear someone say, "irregardless" which, of course, isn't a word. They really mean irrespective or regardless.

But, when people say, "the point is mute" I either want to laugh or scream.

Don't look... but stay right there

My children are ridiculously modest. They can't have anyone be in the bathroom with them, no looking while they get dressed - all that. But they've been that way since each was about 2 1/2. So, it's difficult with a small, boy child not to help at all in the bathroom. I mean if you care anything about the walls and floor of your bathroom.

So Wilbur wants me to go with him to the bathroom, but he doesn't want me to come in, and, in fact, he locks the door as if I might want to terrorize him by popping my head in mid-stream. But he also does not want me to go away. What he wants is for me to stand outside the bathroom door and wait. What he says is, "Don't look. But stay right here."

It struck me this morning that this is a metaphor for parenting. As my children grow up they say that to me in many different ways and sometimes it's hard to hear. The 'don't look' part feels like, 'don't meddle, don't be in my life.' I have to remind myself of the 'stay right here' part that comes after.