Uppercase Woman

Ho Hum, and it's snowing AGAIN

It's a quiet snowy Monday, and Charlie and I spent much of the weekend emotionally clawing each other's eyes out. We've both been on edge as tomorrow (Nicholas and Zachary's due date) approaches. Big post in the works about that. This post is going to be very, very dull.

The good news is on Saturday I went with Sarah and her mother and daughter to go wedding dress shopping, and she found a dress! The fifth one she tried on! Go visit her site for a preview...you might have to scroll back an entry or two.

Is it just me, or were the Oscars pretty entertaining last night?

Monday Morning Movie Reviews

The Wedding Date

It's like they found a really good script writer, tied him/her up in a closet, and pissed all over the original screenplay. Not even REMOTELY believable, but every once in a while, the script writer worked loose of the bonds and shouted out a good line. Sarah said she wanted the last two hours of her life back.

The Aviator

Pretty damn good. It's difficult watching people descend into madness, and Leo did a great job with it. I thought the whole weird color thing was pretty silly though. Cate Blanchett as Hepburn fucking ROCKED. Wow. Kate Beckinsale made a damn fine Ava Gardner as well.

Alright, now I'm PISSED

First off, there’s this situation with the asshole attorney general in Kansas. Thanks so much to all of you that emailed me about it.

Once again, an attorney general is overstating his bounds by requesting information about women that received late term abortions (past 22 weeks). He claims he has “the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children” (sex with anyone under 16 is illegal in Kansas—damn—good thing I didn’t live in Kansas). He is, of course, a staunch opponent to abortion rights, and therefore his claims of “protecting the children” should really be read as “humiliating, demeaning, prosecuting, and torturing women and their doctors.”

There are two clinics being investigated. We don’t know what clinics are involved, but there is an organization that is dedicated to defeating the bastard now and in 2006. You can give online here (mailed contributions go to ProKanDo, PO Box 8249, Wichita, KS). Please consider it. Tell ‘em Cecily at Wasted Birth Control sent you.

I’m also furious about last night’s episode of CSI. I’m only a moderate fan of the show, but I most certainly won’t be watching it any more.

For those of you who missed it last night, it featured a man found dead in his hotel room. He’d been, apparently, slowly suffocated over eight or ten hours, from having a 300-pound weight over his chest.

Guess what the weight was? Go on. Guess. What would be really, truly offensive?

Yeah. It was a woman.

Apparently, there was a “Hogs and Heifers” convention in Las Vegas that week (basically, a convention for fat people and those who are attracted to fat people). Just for the record, no such convention by that name exists (according to that which sees all things, otherwise known as Google). There are, frequently, “fat pride” gatherings (actually, the CSI website lists a fake organization; here is the real one), but trust me, they don’t call themselves “Hogs and Heifers.”

So, the guy who died was basically into fat women and was there to pick up and fuck as many as he could. But the more “enlightened” fat chicks at the convention knew him for what he was--a man who would fuck a fat woman but not hold her hand in public, so they avoided him. In a moment where the show was clearly trying to be “sensitive” one of the characters replied to one of these “enlightened” fat woman, “Well, you don’t have to be large to have low self-esteem.”

Now, a week ago, when I wrote that “skinny wasn’t sexy” I was accused of discriminating against the naturally thin. I’m sorry for saying that; there are plenty of naturally slender women that are very hot (I just don’t think MODELS are hot—look at how they have to contort their bodies to create the curves most of us have naturally).

But making fun of fat people is the last safe discrimination (along with the Indian/Pakistani store owner). Think about it; remember “Fat Bastard” in the Austin Powers movies (turned me off Mike Meyers forever)? How about every fucking talk show where husbands are having affairs because their wives gained weight because of having kids? What about every male stand-up comedian who talks about fat women? Hell, even in the movie “Ray” there’s a scene where he rejects a woman based on how plump her arm is.

I know I’ve been discriminated against because of my weight. I used to book events for a Big Chain Bookstore in the suburbs, and a new store was opening up downtown. I’d been living in the city and booking music and poetry readings downtown for nearly five years, and had already been working for the Big Chain Book Store for a year when I went up for the job. The thin, blond woman who actually got the position had only just moved to the area a few months before, and had never lived in or booked events in our city. I was most assuredly more qualified, but my district manager felt I wasn’t “right” for the more visible position.

While CSI got some things right—there are, in fact, men we fat chicks call “chubby chasers”—they were really wrong about a lot. I find it impossible to believe that a man strong enough to lift a woman up on a table while they’re having sex (as he did with a woman before the one who killed him—and it actually cracked the table for god’s sake) wouldn’t be able to squirm his way out from under the woman who killed him (she passed out on him cause she was drunk, you see). The actress that played the “killer fat chick” was actually a quite lovely woman, but when she cried about being fat and trying to diet, you could see it was real. It broke my heart.

The “killer fat chick” claimed to have smothered him with a pillow because she couldn’t bear to become the butt of jokes on Jay Leno. And you know she would have. If she were a real woman, and this had really happened, I suspect she would have killed herself. That’s how deep the pain goes.

Because fatness is viewed as a moral failing, and not a medical condition or a result of a race you were born into, people feel safe to discriminate against us. But “fat acceptance” movements are treated as a joke. We don’t have marches or rallies to go to; instead, we just quietly suffer, and try the next diet. Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying that fat is good or healthy or the right way to be. I'm just saying that making fun of fat people is not the best way to solve the American obesity problem.

Something is really wrong with this picture, and wrong with CSI. Not that they care, but I won’t watch it again.

Trying to summon my inner bitch

So, I figured you guys are really sick of my posts about God and how content I’m feeling these days. And you are all probably really, really done with being “inspired.”

So I was trying to come up with a nice bitter and funny post for you about current affairs. But I tell you, I am really just too goddamned at peace to really be bitter.

I was going to write something scathing about the newly released tape recordings made of George Bush back when he was governor of Texas, but all I can think about is how sad and angry George must be to find out that a “friend” of his secretly taped their conversations so he could ride to fame on George’s coattails. Sure, I’m frustrated to find out that all the stuff he said is perfectly acceptable and not damning at all. So he tried a little pot. Is anyone really surprised? It’s common knowledge that he did cocaine, and please, no one starts with coke. You always warm up with a little pot. Plus, as Jon Stewart noted last night, the George Bush in those tapes is a little nicer than our president. After all, the taped George didn’t want to discriminate against homosexuals. So again, instead of being enraged, I find myself feeling sad that George had to suck the dicks of religious conservatives (by saying he’d do things like the constitutional marriage amendment) to get elected.

Then I was thinking I might want to whine about the fact that I can’t get up to New York City to see The Gates before they come down on Sunday. But hell, why would I complain? I’m going to spend the day with Sarah watching her try on wedding dresses instead. It was just two years ago that Sarah announced to me that her daughter (currently nine years old) would probably get married first, and that was fine, she was happy anyway. It’s going to be a waterproof mascara day for sure.

I was going to admit, shamefacedly, that I couldn’t maintain the DIET any longer. That yesterday I made the decision to switch to Weight Watchers. But, as you know, I’ve already decided not to waste my time in regret about all things relating to food. The DIET was just too restrictive, and ironically, it makes Weight Watchers look like Nirvana. Which is awesome, since Weight Watchers looked too restrictive to me a month ago. Instead, today I was able to do what my therapist wants me too—luxuriate in my food. I had a lovely breakfast of steel cut oats and fresh blueberries. Who could complain about that?

I could bitch about the woman I met at my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday. We were talking about saboteurs, and she said her husband sabotages her all the time. In fact, he insists on fried food exclusively, and insists that she cooks it for him. So she has to fry him up his meals, and also make something different for herself. When I asked, perhaps a bit bluntly, why she doesn’t tell him to fry his own damn food, she replied, primly, that he would burn the house down. I could bitch about that, but instead I’ll just pray that her husband has a nice scary but harmless heart “event” and decides he needs to eat healthy food instead.

I could write about how watching Charlie read books to Elise's daughter last night makes me cry because the boy's actual due date is coming up on Monday. But Miss P is just so goddamned cute, greeting us loudly by name and demanding we take our coats off (and asking us where Sarah and her daughter are), so thinking about her makes me smile instead of weep.

So what does leave? I could make a fuss about the weather. It’s snowing hard here. But I love snow, plus I get to go home four hours early. No complaints again.

So. I guess you will have to wait until I have PMS to get another bitchy post from me. But that’s only a week away. You can wait, can’t you?

In which I actually become a Self-Help Book

So I had therapy this morning, and have yet another reason to believe my therapist in not only a genius, but further proof of the “thumbprint” of God in my life.

I told her about what I wrote yesterday, about how I felt like I’d unplugged from the universe while struggling with my infertility (oh, and you know, that whole losing my sons thing), and now I was slowly getting reconnected and it felt good to be part of the big picture again. She said something really interesting. She said perhaps I was always plugged in to the universe, and losing my sons was actually about being too plugged it—too much a part of the cycle of birth and life and death, too plugged in to the way the universe flows. That losing my boys was like a power surge—it blew all my fuses, flipped all my circuit breakers, and caused a life overdose.

If you think about it, she’s right. Trying to get pregnant is all about embracing life. Not butterflies-and-rainbows life, but blood-vomit-diapers-pain life. Actually being pregnant makes you go from embrace to expectation; you know you’ve got nothing BUT pee and shit and blood and pain in your future.

Losing a pregnancy fucks up the system completely. Suddenly, you've lost a child, something that isn’t supposed to happen, since parents should die first in the ideal cycle of the universe. The death of a child, even one that hasn’t yet been born, floods us with the power of the universe—hence the blown fuses.

So instead of viewing myself as reconnecting, I’m viewing myself as being under repair. Also, I think I might consider expanding my internal electrical panel so I can handle more of this life stuff.

Speaking of life: inspiration is coming from all over. Amy sent me this amazing link to a sermon given by a Unitarian minister that was just awesome (I so love a religion that doesn’t choose your God for you!). Part of the sermon included this poem by Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean –

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

 

I know I’ve read it before. I don’t know about you, but today that ROCKED MY WORLD.

I know what I don’t want to do with my “one wild and precious life.” I don’t want to spend more time at the office (as Charlie always says, no one on their death bed says, “I really wish I’d spent more time at work.”). I don’t want to worry the bills. I don’t want to live with regret about how this time last year I was beginning to inject myself for my first (successful) IVF cycle, yet I don’t have a baby. I don’t want to spend my days worrying about how much I weigh, or about what I ate yesterday (don’t worry—I’m still on a weight loss path, I just don’t want to obsess). And more than anything else, I don’t want to spend it hating God for taking my sons. I want to spend my time being “idle and blessed” instead.

I want to enjoy the things that matter to me. Like the fact that spring is coming, and some wild flowers are already on the path to blooming (skunk cabbage, anyone? It blooms in February, and actually melts the snow around it. Yeah, it's ugly, but it's BLOOMING). Or how Charlie bought a new hat and looks so wild sexy in it. Or how I’m going to the opera with my best friend on Sunday and will get to immerse myself in the beauty of sound.

There are a million glorious things in my life, and I am deepening my commitment to enjoy them. Hopefully, some day, raising a child will be a part of my life; until then, I’m going to do my best to seek joy and be happy. Enough with the sadness. Enough.

So tell me: what are you going to do with “your one wild and precious life?” How will you be “idle and blessed?”

Like an old loyal dog...

So it appears that God has crept back in my life.

I struggled with my spirituality the whole time I’ve been sober, but had settled into a nice, comfortable relationship with God until I began struggling with infertility (you can read about that here). My faith was completely restored again once I got pregnant, and I even contemplated joining a church (you can read about that here).

Faith, for me, was not about following any particular rules or regulations; it was more of a gentle sense that I was part of the universe and I was being taken care of. I felt, in the long run, that everything was going to be ok. I believed that most things happened for a reason, that coincidences were anything but. It was a nice way to live.

Then October 26 happened. I couldn’t believe it. How could God do that to me? After all I’d already been through? So, I dumped him/her like an abusive boyfriend and tried to survive without any faith.

Living without faith was unpleasant. I had a nagging sense of impending doom; I felt abandoned, rejected, alone. It wasn’t that I stopped believing in God, not at all. God just went from being a kind, loving universal spirit to being Lucy yanking the football out from under Charlie Brown.

Bizarrely enough, when my father died, it helped clear the path. Here was a different kind of grief than that I had for my sons. It was a clean grief. I couldn’t hold God responsible for my father’s death at all—no one to blame there but my Dad himself. In a way, the fire that killed him burned away some of my doubt and suspicion—I could suddenly pray again, and it felt ok.

Anne brought it the rest of the way. When she emailed me, and told me about her daughter, I could suddenly and clearly see the work of God. Now, before you get all uncomfortable, I don’t literally mean “the hand of God”--more like the thumbprint.

Even though she and I had vehemently disagreed on spiritual perspectives and politics, and yes, abortion, she still trusted me enough to reach out to me in her pain. And I was able to set aside our differences and try to help.

That’s God. Not big-old-man-in-the-sky God, but personal, internal God (or “good orderly direction, if you prefer). God gave me the ability to be compassionate, and Anne had faith that I still had that ability, even in all my grief and rage.

So, again, after such a long absence, I can turn my face into “the sunlight of the spirit” as we say in recovery. I can forgive, hopefully, and slowly learn to trust again, to have a little faith that everything is going to be all right, starting with me.

I think I’m going to be ok. Yeah. I really do.

Monday Morning Anger

If you are a “pro-life” Catholic that reads my blog because you think I am a baby-killer and lover of other baby-killers, I have something to say to you (all other pro-life Catholics can ignore the below).

I posted the link to Anne’s site (with her permission) so the wonderful and kind people who read this blog could offer her support and prayers. But somehow a group of people found her blog and began haranguing her instead.

So, if you found her from my site, let me say this: Fuck you. I hope my kind, loving, and forgiving God comes to your house and kicks your ass.

Accuse me all you like, but leave Anne alone to her pain. You bastards.

So did anyone else see Maureen Dowd’s article in the New York Times on Sunday?

Go read it. You have to register, but if you haven’t registered to read the New York Times on line yet, well, you just aren’t a real blog reader, now are you?

Ok. Read it? Moving on.

WHAT THE FUCK???

First off, the asshole in charge of Harvard and his recent comments about women.

I, personally, believe that men and women are not the same. We don’t think the same way, and we don’t process or problem-solve the same way. Clearly there are differences.

Thinking differently, processing differently, and problem solving differently does NOT mean that one way is less sufficient or effective. Saying so is, indeed, not a statement of fact but a clear sign of horrendous sexism. Personally, I think the reason there aren’t more women in the field of math and sciences is because, after all, who in their right fucking mind wants to work in MATH? Ok, just kidding. Truth is, the men who already work in that field are the reason that women aren’t breaking in. Those men are absolutely terrified that women will come in and show them how they’ve been doing it wrong all these years. Obviously.

But enough has already been said about that asshole. On to the ball players.

First off, GASP! OH MY GOD! Could it be? Sexism is prevalent among men who spend all their time with other men competing in SPORTS??? Say it isn’t so.

Please. Of course these men think and say such disgusting things! Their minds (and possibly their penises) have to be very, very small if the only job they can do successfully is one that relies on brute strength. While it disgusts me, I take issue with Ms. Dowd’s air of surprise.

Also, regarding the “practice” of ball players finding and fucking the ugliest girl they can to break a losing streak, I found this section of Ms. Dowd’s commentary rather appalling:

“Even some men I know felt awful for the unwitting slump busters who would now read "Juiced" and realize that the best night of their lives was actually the worst. That really cute baseball player they thought liked them just the way they are, as Bridget Jones likes to say, was really holding his nose to break a curse. Way harsh.”

Um, hello? Isn't it just a tad bit condescending to assume that the night some woman fucked a ball player is "the best night of her life?" Did she consider that maybe it was the “fat” and “ugly” women that were doing the slumming?

I picture a lovely large woman, sitting at a bar, thinking, “You know, I am just SO tired of dating these intellectual fuckers. I think I’ll break this pattern and fuck the biggest, stupidest guy I can find. Hey—isn’t that the third baseman from the Tigers?”

Christ almighty, like I didn’t ALREADY have a headache about body image without finding stick figure Maureen Dowd (whom I normally like) sticking her nose in it. Me thinks this particular rant revealed a bit of body-facism on her part.

 

So: DIET update. This weekend? Not so much.

Saturday I went out to dinner with for a friend’s 40^th birthday, at a Malaysian restaurant. I was perfectly Fat Flushing all day before that (making up for Friday’s popcorn) but after studying the menu for twenty minutes I realized there was nothing appropriate to the plan I could order. And the waiters didn’t speak English well enough to request something special. So I just ate dinner.

And Sunday I didn’t feel like dieting either. I ate breakfast at Denny’s, went to the movies again, and had a PBJ before bed.

BUT. This morning I got right back up and made a good breakfast and lunch. This is something I’ve never done before—had a few bad days and kept on going anyway. Usually I’m filled with shame and guilt, but today? Nope. Just moving ahead, and not looking back. At least not at what I ate. What a waste of fucking time that is.

I did learn one thing, however. My body is not a big fan of white flour-based carbohydrates. Last night I had to take a Prilosec for stomach acid (something that’s happened a lot since my pregnancy), and that hadn’t happened all week. Even though I was drinking all that unsweetened cranberry juice and lemon juice and stuff.

Very interesting. Will this change my behavior? Dunno.

Monday Morning Movie Reviews

Constantine

I was really excited to see this movie. It’s been called a “biblical thriller.” What can I say? IT FUCKING ROCKED. Keanu almost looks cute in it (not a big fan); Rachel Weiz was very good, and absolutely brilliant fucking casting to have Tilda Swinton play the gender-bending angel Gabriel. Enjoyed every moment. Best line: Rachel’s character says, despairingly, “But doesn’t God have a plan?” and Keanu’s character says, tiredly, “God’s a kid with an ant farm, lady. He’s not planning anything.”

Boogeyman

Um, should I be scared yet? Yawn. PLEASE BAN ALL PG13 HORROR MOVIES.

And on video…

King Arthur

Why did they say this movie sucked so badly? Clearly, the reviewers hadn’t yet been subjected to the horror that was Troy and Alexander, cause by that standard, this movie was motherfucking Oscar-worthy. Plus, Clive Owen with tousled hair (and for the boys, Kiera Knightly in some weird strappy outfit). Yummy.

 

Friends, and a diet update

I just got an email from Anne. She found out this week that her daughter has a serious brain development disorder, and has had to make the agonizing choice to end this much wanted pregnancy (she's just under 22 weeks). You may remember Anne from that remarkably civil discussion we had a while back about the issues surrounding abortion; this situation has not only been about making a horrible choice but I imagine also a spiritual crisis for her. Please extend your prayers and support; she needs us.
______________________________________

Also, Susan is heading off to the Sher Institute in New York to continue her fertility journey, and she could really use some feedback. If you know anything about Sher, please let her know.

______________________________________

The diet has been going well, although I had a little breakdown last night at the movies. I enjoyed, wholeheartedly, a large diet coke (not permitted on the Fat Flush Plan--her thinking is that nutrasweet causes the same insulin response that sugar does) and some buttered popcorn. Yes, you heard me right, that was buttered popcorn.

I considered, briefly, just switching right to Weight Watchers today and not continuing the Fat Flush Plan, but overnight I decided to stick with it.

The fucked up thing about blogging about this DIET is that I know if I fuck up I have to post about it. All week long, every time I was tempted, I'd think, damn it, if I eat that french fry, I'll have to post it. And I'd pass.

But movies and popcorn are my downfall. Sigh. Ah well. Another day, another chance.

Happy Saturday, everyone.

On Being A Fat Chick

Someone asked me to write about “the female beauty standard.” Here is a poem I wrote many years ago on the theme:

Barbie

My mother never let me play with Barbie Dolls.
She’d already felt the pain stabbing her from those
torpedo tits topped on tiptoed impossibly tiny feet.
Put on her first diet at 12,
30 years later she still
slumps her shoulders and carries her arms
carefully tucked into her sides
as if apologizing for taking up
so much room.

She tried to save me from that, but
Charlie’s Angels lured me into longing
for velour dresses
and platform heels so at 11
I went on my first liquid diet.

Now as I read stories about
anorexic models and bulimic college girls
right next to stories about babies being malnourished
from being given skim milk,
I wear my flesh proudly.

But even as I walk,
breasts thrust forward,
shoulders straight
claiming my space

I still harbor secret coma fantasies…you know,
you’re in a terrible accident
and years later you wake up

thin.

________________________________________________

While I’ve felt fat as long as I can remember, it wasn’t really until my late teens that I actually became a Fat Chick. Since that time, as the poem illustrates, I’ve wavered strongly between feeling a sense of pride and a sense of shame.

In my partying days, I was often victim to what I used to call “drive-by mooings” where young men would shout things about my weight at me from cars. I would shout back, screaming things that led to another poem called “Why Fat Chicks Are Better in Bed” which I used to win poetry slams for a while. In the poem (I don’t have a copy anymore, sadly, or I’d just include it here) I talk about how fat girls usually have big tits and how they LOVE to put things in their mouths (and the almost always swallow).

Yes, I was a nasty girl back then.

Severe thinness as a beauty standard is, of course, the luxury of a wealthy society. Depriving yourself in a society of wealth somehow must give a person a feeling of superiority. Plus, if it’s only food you deprive yourself of, you don’t have to give up cool things like fancy cars or big houses. Sadly, we Americans have spread this unreasonable standard across the world, thanks to television. Trying to achieve this unreasonable standard of beauty is killing young people (but mostly women) around the world.

The odd thing about this is that super skinny is simply not beautiful. I don’t know any man that prefers a woman with a supermodel body. Most men I know like a woman with tits and an ass.

While thinness has been prized by American society for a hundred years or more, it wasn’t until the 60’s and 70’s that the beauty standard became nearly impossible to attain. Models became unreasonably tall, long legged and armed, and had square jaws. My mom’s friend Jan had a brilliant observation back in 1978; she said that most designers were now gay men, and they were designing clothes for the bodies of 17-year-old boys. If you think about it, it’s true—most models look like adolescent boys.

I’m 5’2” tall (have been since I was ten). I’ve heard all sorts of weights I need to be to be healthy. The lowest is 110lbs (that’s the 100 lbs to five feet, and five pounds for each additional inch after) and the highest is about 140 lbs (if you’re large boned).

Currently, my left leg weighs about 110 lbs. I’m not, no matter what DIET I go on, ever going to be in the weight range for my height. I’m someone who fits, quite nicely, into a size 14/16 when I’m still well over 200 lbs. Right now, I’d settle for that (although I dream of being a size 12).

I plan to stay, by American standards, a Fat Chick. I’ll always retain my ass, thighs, and tits. I have no desire to be a tiny girl.

But once I have this baby, I’m SOOOOO getting a tummy tuck. I want to rid myself of the “apron” of fat the women in my family all have. So I guess I have an unreasonable personal beauty standard after all, and am just as fucked up about it as the rest of the world. Sigh.

 

Questions

What’s the difference between “detoxing” and “starving to motherfucking death?”

None, as far as I can tell.

Well, I survived day two of the DIET, but I’ll tell ya, it was rough. By the time I was ready to eat dinner, I was also seriously considering the tastiness of Sarah’s arm (she’s a scrawny thing, so it would have only been a snack). You could, I suppose, say I cheated a bit; I ate caesar salad dressing instead of the flaxseed oil stuff, but I always go to the diner on Tuesday night and that was the best choice I could make (but it was the good stuff—straight up olive oil, parmesan, and anchovie paste). But it was otherwise a perfect day, even if I was alternately weeping and wanting to kill people.

Today I feel MUCH better, although a tad weak and dizzy. I’m also flat out of blogging subjects (due to diminished brain power from the DIET) so I thought I’d give you all a topical questionnaire. Ready?

1. So what do you think of Howard Dean being the next head of the Democratic National Convention? Will he keep the party left, or move the party even further central?

2. Why don't we hear more about the religious left (idea totally stolen from Charlie’s blog)? And why doesn’t the DNC court them instead of doing things like making an anti-choice advocate the new minority leader in the Senate in order to appeal to the new “morality voters”?

3. Is “reality” television losing steam?

4. Do you think Hillary Clinton has a shot in 2008?

5. Who is the hottest man over forty on TV right now (I vote Treat Williams on Everwood or David Caruso on CSI Miami)?

6. What takes better photographs, film or digital?

7. Didn’t chemo-bald Melissa Etheridge mop the fucking floor with Joss Stone singing “Piece Of My Heart” by Janis Joplin at the Grammys?

8. If you watch the HBO show Carnivale, what the FUCK is going on?

9. What’s your favorite bad movie of all time (mine is Roadhouse)?

10. What made you start your blog? If you don’t have one, why the hell not?

Broken

You know how you can find yourself going along and feeling ok, and then something tiny happens, and it ruins your whole day, and you are suddenly standing in front of the mirror trying to put on your mascara while you are sobbing uncontrollably? You know?

Yeah.

I went to the doctor’s office this morning to ask about weight loss medication.

Now before I go into what happened, I want to be clear about something. I realize that THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL. I did not go to the doctor thinking they could give me Meridia and I would suddenly be able to eat whatever I wanted and the pounds would just melt away. I understand that without diet and exercise, taking a pill does absolutely fucking nothing. I went hoping to find something to support my weight loss efforts, nothing more.

I can’t take Meridia. Although my blood pressure is currently normal, because of the preeclampsia, I’m considered too high risk to give any medications to that may—just may—raise blood pressure. Even though I had perfect blood pressure before the preeclampsia, and it’s fine now.

I was surprised to find myself completely deflated by this news. First off, it’s just so disheartening to have to face trying to lose the weight AGAIN alone (you buddies notwithstanding). I’ve done this. I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was eleven years old and all I have to show for 25 years of dieting is FAT (I’ll do another blog entry about how dieting makes us fat, I know, I know). I’ve been in support groups. I’ve gone to therapy. I’ve tried every diet. I always lose weight. I just can’t keep it off.

Additionally, to find that pregnancy basically broke my body was tough. Of course, being at risk for high blood pressure would be a small price to pay if I actually had a fucking baby.

Then I got an email calling me harsh because of something I posted on someone else’s blog, and was informed that this person would no longer read mine because of it.

Standing in my room this morning, facing another day of the DIET, another day without a baby (with the boy’s actual due date looming), rejected by a blog reader, and living in a broken body was just too much and I found myself sobbing.

Living in this fragile state is dangerous and uncomfortable, and now I’m not even using food to soften the edges (although the shortcake I saw in the cafeteria sure looked like it would have helped).

But then you know how you read something and it just totally changes your view point and the sky suddenly clears up and it’s sunny and it’s 60 degrees even though it's February and it’s all not that bad and, hey, even the cranberry water suddenly isn’t too awful?

Well, that happened. First off, my friend and former writing group buddy Julie, who just started her blog, got a nibble from an agent about her novel. Second, my other dear friend Emily posted this incredibly inspiring quote on her blog:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are a child of God; your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela –1996

Third, Sarah’s fiancé Pete started his blog, and it had me peeing my pants, I was laughing so hard.

So, the sun is out, and I’m going to live. I’m following my DIET (surprisingly, I’m feeling ok even with the carb restrictions—the buzzing in my head is normal, right?). Hopefully tomorrow will start off better.