Last Word

Okay. This is the last word on the topic of weight and body image for the time being. I've been meaning to post this entry for a few days now, but I've been overwhelmingly busy for eight days straight with projects, projects, and more projects, taking an occasional break to cover traffic fatalities and bite Joel's head off over the phone about the proper way to make tomato soup. Lovable, no? :)

Happily, I have the next three days off! Comp time! COMP. TIME. Tomorrow is "Sleep until I'm ready to wake up" day (and clean and grocery shop and prepare for houseguest and make returns and print baby shower invites and mail parent album to clients day.) BUT! None of that has to happen before 2 p.m.

So the last word on weight is.... that women are batshit insane about their bodies. Seriously, I met an amazing, phenomenal woman over the weekend who has achieved international acclaim as a celebrated guru for an intricate, difficult, physically demanding form of classical Indian dance. She sang and drummed for four straight hours, chanting one of her students through a 3,000-year-old ritual that dates back to the temples of her native India. She has given birth to two beautiful, talented daughters, also dancers. And...

She is on a diet. She recently lost 20 pounds, and she wants to lose 20 more. When people (women from all over the world, actually) complimented her and asked her how she did it, she joked (not really), "I'm starving!" I overheard her longing, out loud, for this small pack of M&Ms on the table at least three times.

Almost no one I know is happy with their size. There's no universal correlation between "fat" and miserable; "thin" and content. I wish there was, like, a diagram. Even a confusing one, like the kind they print on the back of pantyhose packages where you can see plain as day- if you are 5'6" and 140 pounds, then your little square is pink and BING! You are happy! Buy the slender size! but if you top 160 pounds then BOO! Your square is aqua and you are miserable and should buy the "Queen" size.**

Who decided that fat women are "queenly," by the way? You hear that all the time. I say, fuck it all, no more coy signs that say "Divas" or "Misses" or "Plus." They should just hang a sign over ALL the clothes that say, "These bathing suits have been made for you by slave children in Indonesia. Every single one of you will hate the way your ass looks no matter what. Drop your money on the counter on your way out, and feel very very guilty about everything."

That is all.