My mother, in her housecoat on a Sunday. She is trying to quit smoking. She tears open a package of plain M&Ms and pours them into her pocket, and it’s an ingenious idea. Candy on your person, for any kind of emergency that occurs—nicotine craving or chocolate urge, need for candy or [...]
Wow, what has it been, four years since the last leap? What have you done for the past four years? What are you going to do with the next four years? And what are you going to do with this extra day we have had handed to us? An extra day inserted [...]
My very first tattoo was a lie.
When you lie, you are reshaping the world in the image that burns bright in your head. And the version of yourself that you present is so much better than the Universe’s version. In the Universe’s version, you are not nearly as interesting as you [...]
It was when I was thrift store shopping that I remembered that one of the things I want to do when I get a wheelbarrow full of money, besides purchase a nuclear-powered stove and get my name etched on the surface of the moon, was get a tummy tuck. Flat-out, straight-up plastic surgery.
I [...]
It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten weight loss surgery—five years, I want to say. Maybe six? Maybe less than that. Maybe somewhere in between that. I could get up and find the stack of paper I have, a whole folder’s worth,about as thick as ream of printer paper, of documentation and [...]
A few weeks ago, as I do, I started running again. The Couch to 5K, that old reliable standby which removes your buttocks from the couch and sets you bouncing and cursing down the road towards ultimate health and total fitness, or at least the ability to run for 3 miles without passing out and [...]
I like happy endings. It’s why I read romance novels for so long—I want the romantic kiss and the sunset and the ever-after where the music surges joyfully and has got harmonicas in it and everything is swell and nothing will ever be sad, not ever again.
The problem with happy endings, though, is figuring [...]
On Saturday there was a Chinese new year party at a friend’s parent’s house, and it was delightful, as their parties always are, and filled with excellent people who I want to talk to and good food and a lot of booze and I was very excited to go, because people! Conversation! Dressing up and [...]
Two weekends ago I tore through The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl–Shauna’s awesome book, based on her awesome blog. I knew it would be funny, and that it would be well-written, thoughtful, catch me off guard sometimes, that it would be moving. That I’d do that embarrassing thing where you snort out loud [...]
There is nothing in the world weirder than revisiting your past in great and glorious Technicolor surround-sound. I am working on a project about my weight loss surgery, about what came before and what came after, and I am spending a lot of time sitting down and looking through things I want to call relics–my [...]

