Why I Will Never Weigh Less

This should be subtitled: Ya Want Me Thin or Ya Want Me Happy?

I have just come back from a Sugar Run. This is when I get in my car and go! anywhere! there's! sweetstuff! I knew I had to do this when I read an email about MidLifeBloggers and didn't give a shit that I didn't care at all to find out what the sender was talking about. "Hold all discussion about logo colors. I have to get a cupcake."

But first, Molly and I had to get her some food. That dog is going to eat me out of house and home, as my mother used to say (and I didn't understand what it meant then either, hello Chris Martin).

But first I had to go to Michael's to get me a gem or two to fiddle with. And in Michael's, I met with a Very Large Woman who was insidiously insistent on jumping the queue. When I called her on it the first time, she got all humble "Sorry sorry sorry..." she said in what I think was a West Indian accent. And then she preceded to sprint for the next open cash register. Do I have to describe to you my wrath and chagrin and how I arrived at the cash register just a beat after she did and waved my goods over her head for the clerk to take. But the clerk was cowering and yelling for help and obviously wasn't going to Do The Right Thing And Instill Public Decorum. So I flung myself over to the next cash register and stopped myself from hissing a multitude of Ugly American comments.

Still seething, I got into my car, turned the key in the ignition, and--nada. So I jumped out, put Molly on a leash and we walked WALKED all the way down to the pet store. She was hyper as hell which manifests itself as Whirling Dervish act. This, as you might imagine, did not help my mood. I dragged her around the store--actually, she dragged me, more or less--and finally we WALKED all the way back to where the car was parked.

And it still wouldn't start.

So I called D, because when my car won't start I like to remind him that it's his fault I bought it. He told me to call AAA. I called AAA and the operator was just tellling me that there were no tow trucks available but he'd put an order in--. And my car started. Just like that. Obviously some sympatico thing between the AAA vibes and--whatever.

I drove straight to Starbucks because I was lusting after a cupcake. But when I got there, they had those Almond Pecan Cookie things that I'm addicted to. What To Do? What To Do? What To Do?

It was a tough afternoon, guys, so I bought both cupcake and cookie.

There is now a smile on my face (and a crumb on my chest...).

Today, Tomorrow, but never yesterday...

I don't really know what that means. It just came to me, and when things like that come, I write them down, and some time later, I say, Oh yeah, that's what that meant.

I had a hard day today. It didn't start out that way. For the first half of the day, I was charging through--gettin' stuff done, achieving, crossing items off the list. Then I went to this meeting I have every Wednesday. I went vowing to keep my mouth shut and my nose clean, and pretty much, I succeeded--but at what cost?

Why am I so bothered by other people's bullshit? Why can I not sit still when those around me are doing their paltry little ego dances? Why does this stuff not drive others nuts the way it does me? Why am I so intolerant? Why am I gritting my teeth--still, hours later?

I recall a dressing down I got from a boss a long time ago. He said, and I quote, "You walk around this office as if we owe you a living." And I was pretty proud of that, thought it acknowledged my obvious superiority which could not be hidden underneath that proverbial bushel. Now I think--man, how arrogant I was--and am. I really do have a sense of entitlement that is somewhat off-kilter. And if it drives other people crazy, you can't imagine what it's doing to me. I'm the one that lives inside this head, and somedays, I'll tell you, it just ain't fun.

Tonight I saw that Polly Williams died. You can read about it here: Polly Williams Of HBOs Thin Found Dead Did you see Thin, Lauren Greenfield's documentary on eating disorders? I've never had an eating disorder, so watching that doc was like visiting a foreign land to me. I sort of spoke the language--had a couple of nouns and verbs here and there--because after all, I am an American woman and I have spent my life not liking my body. But if I had a hard time understanding what motivated the other women to binge and purge and starve themselves to such drastic measures, I was completely undone by Polly Williams. She was just what I want to be: beautiful and outspoken and smart and not giving a damn and so very sure of herself and seemingly accepting of who she was. And yet--not. She died of an overdose, and intentional or not, she is gone. Jesus, I think, if someone like Polly Williams can't make it, what hope is there for the rest of us? And then I remember where I got to know her: on a TV program about eating disorders. Which are, as we know, a form of suicide. Which is, as we know, the response of a body in unbearable pain. Yet I envied her, eating disorder and all, I wanted to be her.

I can't come up with some grand summation here. Or maybe I could, but it would be trite, facile, bullshitty. Best to leave well enough alone, and say Goodnight, Polly, I will not soon forget you and I will someday make sense of what you're telling me.

Christmas is officially over

Did you have a good Christmas?
Yeah, quiet, but good.
Whadja get?
An Ipod.
Which one?
The Nano.
Like it?
So far, love it.

I think I've got to accept that the thirty pounds I gained after the aneurysm were not from the Baskin Robbins diet, as I like to tell people. They were the fifteen pounds you gain when you stop smoking and the fifteen pounds you gain when you stop Hormone Replacement Therapy. Together, that makes thirty pounds. This is an important realization, it seems to me, because I don't think I'm gonna lose them just by watching what I eat. I think maybe they're with me for a long, long time.

When I think about this, I think of my mom, in the last months of her life, looking at her cancer-emaciated body, and saying, "Look at me. Look how thin I am. When I think of how hard I tried to lose weight, and now look at me." I don't want someday to find myself saying the same thing.

I don't like to [mis]quote Wordsworth lightly, but: "What though the radiance which was once so bright/Be now forever taken from our sight/..../We will grieve not,/But rather find strength in what remains behind."

So maybe I should sit shiva for the body I once had. Maybe I'll take a sewing class, so I can learn to alter my clothes to fit the body I now have.