G is for God
I prayed today. I've can't remember the last time a prayed in the quiet of my apartment. I usually only find God on planes - take off and landing. Dear God: I really hope that you carry this plane safely to nameless city. Thanks, Me. Dear God: The plane is shaking right now, and I'm not sure if you are following through on the carrying this plane safely bit - can we land soon? Thanks, Me. I forget God once my seatbelt is off, and I'm in that mad-dash-to-no-where that is exiting an airplane.
Today was much different. I prayed for direction and peace. Hope and tranquility. Rather strangely, I found these things for a moment, along with heart-wrenching honesty. Direction, peace, hope and tranquility came to me in two simple words: love myself.
D is for Dead
Dead, I’d be better off.
Did you know that over half of women between 18 and 25 would rather toss themselves in front of a Mack truck than be fat?* I imagine myself on the side of the road, gravel underfoot, and the occasional cactus pointing the way. Do it. Just Do It. The trucks ride by at eighty miles-per-hour throwing dirt in my eyes. Does anyone see me here? Probably not. We only see thin people. Beautiful people. I imagine the truckers sitting in their cushioned seats, smoking cigarettes and talking smack over the CB radio. I reach into my pocket, pull out a piece of gum, and place it on my tongue. Chewsugarchewsugar. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down. I take a step forward. I pass the yellow line. I think of the speedometer on the truck as if it’s the weight on the scale. Too fast to stop. Too fat to stop.
* J.J. Brumberg, "The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls," (New York: Random House, 1997).
W is for White Castle
J called and called and called. He's good a calling, but still bad at kissing. I went to his place on Monday. He answered the door in a haze of sleep, and then, smoked about 8 cigarettes before he was ready to venture outside to grab a bite. I drove, of course. I told him that I would pick up some wine, if he picked the food. Oh, the regrets in life. He picks: White Castle. I'm 28, almost 29. He's 31. Shouldn't he know by now that White Castle isn't really a date place? But, as usual, I was a good sport. I pick the place to get wine: Papa Joe's. I wanted a good wine - to make up for the food (which ended up being a cross between grease and barf). J insisted on a wine called "rock, paper, scissors." Good Grief!
We watched Jack Ass, the movie. How appropriate the J's name is Jack. I was thirsty and decided to have a glass of water - only to find that J had put his cigarette out in my glass. My necklace starts to feel hot and itchy, so I take it off (big mistake) and put it on the floor. J and I try to talk, but I soon realize, that much like J's writing, he's stuck in pre-college/college years. I want to tell him that his writing would be much more interesting if he discussed his life now: chain smoking writer barreling towards middle age whose idea of a hot date is some sliders and fries. He asks me for the third time: you're a student, right? What are you studying? Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
The Castle must be rotting his brain.
I decide to leave. He walks me to my car and leans in for a kiss. ARRGH. No. No. No. I apologize for being short in stature. He keeps kissing me. Ugh. I back away. Scramble for my keys. Say goodbye.
I arrive home. Look in my bag. Grab my neck. MY NECKLACE!!
Fuck.
C is for Comforter
Cavernous creation where soul might be, where more might be, if I wasn’t so focused on how there’s so much of me.
So much of me.
So much of me.
So much of me.
But wait, this is funny right? Fat and funny go together like fries and super size. When I was ten I took an Exacto knife to my Precious Moments comforter, thinking that it wasn’t precious or comforting. That was the day I came home crying from 5th grade again. Brian (later high school drop-out and probable inmate) decided to rename me. It was like Baptism, but without holy water. I wonder if God was watching when Brian started calling me Big Fat Melissa, or BFM for short. You see, I was one of those kids whose head spent more time in books than in front of the TV. I was reading Rahl Dahl’s BFG when Brian spotted me in a crowd of students waiting to go on a field trip.
“Boom boom boom boom.” Brian found it immensely amusing to put a soundtrack to my movements. “What you reading, lardass?”
“The BFG.”
“What’s that about?”
“Big Friendly Giant – that’s what it stands for.”
“Hahaaa. How about Big Fat Melissa.” It wasn’t a question. Murmurs and laughs come from the surrounding students, but when Betsy, the popular girl, laughed my fate was sealed. The name stuck.
C is for Camels
N and I were on a walk. We walked around the city, past the school where I lost so much of myself, the overpass, the new loft developments and the empty buildings that hint at what Detroit was once. We talked about JY, beauty and weight. Weight. Weight, waist, wait, waste. I've finally found some control over food. Amazingly, it has been so freeing - not so much of a noose around my neck, as a feather tap on my shoulder.
N mentioned she had a friend that I might like. She gave him my number and he called. I was caught off guard, but he's funny and smart. A writer. And a chain smoker without a car because of something to do with too many tickets. Oh well. I'm not looking for perfect, just fun. He was hot - in that tall, lanky, sexy way. Hazel eyes and big hands. We sat in his living room, drank wine and ate cheese and olives. It was kind of like show and tell. He would bring out a book he published and tell me a story. I would read, and he would look at me. I would tell a story. We would change the music. Eventually he sat next to me and started to touch me. But, he had to finish his cigarette before he kissed me; it was the slowest smoke. (And I'm having that moment as a writer where I realize I could describe that smoke in a long rambling sentence full of descriptive adjectives, but I won't) He said a had beautiful lips and breasts. We moved to his bed, where when he saw my underwear he said it was fucking beautiful. Fucking beautiful.
But frankly, I was bored. I didn't want to have sex. I didn't want release. I want tension. That moment before a kiss that lasts for days.
He didn't want me to leave, but I insisted. I drove home with Charlie Parker and the slow melody of a sax in the night. The moon was the most beautiful I'd seen in a long time. Somehow, it was all better by myself.
A is for Ass, B is for Big.
When I was five, they called me big-boned. At ten, I just hadn’t lost
my baby fat. Now at twenty-seven, I’ve left delusion behind. I’m fat.
Assstronomical ampleness asking for acceptance for the collective area of my ass
I come from a particular genetic lineage: weight-obsessed-Weight-Watcher dropouts. Among us are a few who have defied the genetic code; my grandmother is one such person. While her body remains toned by years of Jazzercise, weight lifting, and diet obsession, her face taught by the talents of a surgeon, she now obsesses about the weight of her cat. Elli is by no means obese. She looks like a cuddly cat, but grandma believes her “chubby.” She’s on diet cat food, and my grandma orders the latest and greatest cat-fitness toys off QVC, which Elli chases religiously. I never hesitate to tell grandma that my cat, Elli’s sister Etta, is tiny, petite and perfect. Etta eats whatever she wants, including ice cream, and never has to diet.
Big, bountiful booty big-boned like a backdrop, back step to beauty.
I can’t say the same for myself; even when I’m not dieting, I’m dieting. I’d call it the no-diet diet, where I stop obsessing about food and eat what I want. But even in my attempts to not think about food, I’m secretly obsessing. Like there’s a starving child within me who’s watching her mother on a diet – who taught me to sneak food when I was five? I remember climbing onto the kitchen counter, opening the painted orange and gold cabinet, reaching for the Swiss Miss, which I would spoon into my mouth in all its powdery, chocolaty goodness. Saliva and sugar mixed together in my mouth creating a gooey form of not quite liquid, but not quite plasma, which may eventually become a nasty case of gas. Swallow and repeat as needed.
