I [...]]]> 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 knew I’d want one even before I got weight loss surgery. My stomach has always made me uncomfortable—I remember thinking as a teenager, when a friend confessed that she had let the boy she was making out with put his hand down her pants, that I could NEVER, EVER do that. He would TOUCH my STOMACH. The idea filled me with revulsion.

My own body, filling me with revulsion.

There’s so much wrong with that. There’s everything wrong with that. I don’t know how to explain how much there is that’s wrong with it. I don’t know how to fix it, either, except to do the same thing I did. I went and got weight loss surgery, because I thought my size and my shape and my fat were repulsive.

And I thought I had come to terms with that. That whatever problems I have, they were not the sole consequence of being fat, and that being fat was not an ugly thing or bad thing, that being fat was having a particular physical description, not a moral failing.

So see, weight loss surgery did make me a better person after all! We are all beautiful unique flowers with beautiful bodies and precious souls.

Except that I want to go get a tummy tuck because I think the stomach I have left over, from having been twice as wide as I am now, is ugly, unappealing, will actually physically repel anyone who glimpses it.

The idea of anyone looking at my stomach makes me so uncomfortable I can hardly sit still. It is difficult to continue to type this, to continue to talk about this idea. To confront the fact that the way we deal with the things we dislike about our bodies is so often to find a way to fix it.

I want to be fixed. There it is. Weight loss surgery was a way to fix my body, tattoos are a way to fix my body, saving up six thousand dollars and letting a doctor whack off the skin he calls “excess” and hauling it all up like he was pulling up a pair of panties for me—that will fix my body. Until I figure out what else needs fixing, and how much it’s going to cost to fix it.

Sometimes I feel like despite of All The Adversity, I still manage to comport myself as a fairly adult member of society. I’m generally responsible and reasonably with-it. I pay my bills, I floss, I change the sheets weekly, I keep up with the laundry and the dishes. My deadlines are all met [...]]]>

Sometimes I feel like despite of All The Adversity, I still manage to comport myself as a fairly adult member of society. I’m generally responsible and reasonably with-it. I pay my bills, I floss, I change the sheets weekly, I keep up with the laundry and the dishes. My deadlines are all met and my to-do lists, for the most part, have neat, straight strike-outs marching down the page.

That’s pretty damn good, I think. But then you meet my dog, and you think huh. That is a dog who thinks he is a little person, and can get on the couch with the rest of the people. That is a dog who does what he likes. That is a spoiled rotten little dog. Luckily he is the cutest dog the world has ever seen, or boy oh boy he’d be in trouble.

Those are all true things. He sits, he shakes, he lies down, he will not go through the front door until we say Okay, he stops at every corner until we give him the go ahead, he knows fetch, and give, and drop it, and down and uh-uh, kisses!, get him!, and no. He’s working on roll over.

But Crommy is also allowed on the couch and in the bed. Crommy gives kisses like he’s trying to take your face off. Crommy jumps up. Crommy barks when he is worried. Crommy thinks you should cook him a hamburger. Crommy sounds like a badly oiled door when he does not get his way—he creaks and cries and he suffers. Oh, how he suffers. Oh, how we don’t understand the pain he is enduring, when he does not get what he wants when he wants it, and oh how badly he wants it—we’ll never truly understand. Luckily what he usually wants is love. He wants to be next to me, on me, in my arms, looking into my eyes and expressing all the adoration he has in his heart for me, and for hamburger. For such a small dog, he can carry around a lot of love.

Part of this is my fault—I’ve never owned a dog, until my little bug. It never occurred to me that dogs shouldn’t get certain privileges. It did not even cross my mind that I shouldn’t snuggle him every time he wanted snuggling because I would be engendering in him a feeling that he has rights and by god I am taking those rights away when I do not drop everything to give him what he needs, without which he shall die.

Part of this is not my fault—no, seriously. He never begged—until he spent extended time at grandma and grandpa’s house, the magical land where treats rain from the sky and a sausage is cooked special for the dogs every morning and dogs can jump up and never have to sit before they get a treat or their dinner. He didn’t beg until Eben started working at home and sharing his chicken nuggets, I promise you that.

And I’ve tried very hard to teach him manners, but he is half Boston Terrier, and those suckers are excitable. Seriously. They are all like this, all the Boston Terriers in the world. They jump and run and they creak and whine and are tragically neurotic and there is very little to combat that particular personality trait. Or at least very little I’m willing to do, because yes. He’s not crate trained because the noises of tragedy broke my heart and yes, he sleeps between E and I every night, and also he steals the covers.

And when I meet people with perfectly behaved dogs, or when Crom jumps up or he gets anxious when a stranger comes in and won’t stop barking or he won’t quit mooning around the house like we’ve grounded him or he won’t just settle down, I feel like I’m a bad person who broke her dog.

But he’s also one of the best things that has ever happened to me. There is very little in the world that is like the unconditional love that a dog is willing to provide you. He is so smart, and so loving. He is playful, and silly, and when he bursts across the field in flat-out pursuit of the ball you just threw for him, the joy in every line of his body fills me with that very same happiness. When he is only content when he’s finally curled up against my hip with his chin on my leg, I am content too. He is ridiculous and he makes me laugh every day and I love that little dog more than I love most things. I think I’m probably coming to a place where I am okay with what that says tabout me as a person.

I surprised myself yesterday when I realized I’ve written two books. That’s not, like, a lot of books. It’s a very small number of books, in fact. It is more than one, which is its distinguishing characteristic, but it’s a lot less than, say, fifteen.

But two books feels like a [...]]]>

I surprised myself yesterday when I realized I’ve written two books. That’s not, like, a lot of books. It’s a very small number of books, in fact. It is more than one, which is its distinguishing characteristic, but it’s a lot less than, say, fifteen.

But two books feels like a respectable number of books to have written. Manuscripts to have finished. I sat down, and on two separate occasions, plus a lot of bonus occasions for editing, I sweated through several hundred thousand words. Sometimes I wonder why my hands ache and my forearms are tight and I get this pain in my wrist, but that’s only because I am very forgetful and even not so bright, sometimes.

Two books is huge, though, considering the fact that even though I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid (I have this whole story about discovering that books were written by regular people and that I, too, could be one of those regular people and how it was a magical discovery that changed my whole life, blah blah blah) but I never wrote a word when I was a kid. Maybe a couple of words. Maybe a page or two. I was not one of those kids who was always scribbling, who wrote forty-three books in crayon and stapled them together and kept them in a trunk.

I wrote a soap opera for some friends when I was in high school. I think about two pages of a story to impress a boy at some point. In college, I wrote creative essays and some poems. After college, I wrote about a chapter of something I was calling a novel except it was really a lie because all I ever wrote was that chapter but I kept revising it and making people read it. I started to do a thing called Online Journaling that everyone calls blogging now, and that was my major creative outlet. Wait, creative should be in quotes. “Creative” outlet. There we go.

For whatever reason, I had this conviction that I was a writer and that I wanted to write when I grew up and that I was really totally great at writing, but somehow I never managed to write a single goddamn thing. And yet I applied to graduate school to get an MFA in creative writing and they let me in—on the basis, if I recall, of that single awful chapter of that pretend novel I was pretending I was writing.

In school, in my very first graduate course, I wrote a truly terrible not-memoir, which was basically me rehashing all the online journal posts—blog posts—I had been writing about moving to San Francisco to go to grad school. It did not have a beginning or an ending but I decided to call the first page the beginning and the last page the ending and hope no one noticed. It was called “tectonic” because that was a pun. Then I wrote a short story and it was a miracle! Because I started something and finished it and it was—bad. It was pretty bad. (Every once in awhile I pull it up to try to revise it and then I laugh a lot and put it away again.)

Then more stories. And I finished them! And I got one published! And I cried! And I thought, holy wow, maybe I am a writer! Check this shit out, yo! However: I didn’t write unless I had an assignment. And having to write a thesis-slash-novel almost killed me. I wrote the same chapter over and over and my long-fiction workshop professor kind of hated me and then hated me more while he summer-advised me during which I gave him the same chapters over and over again and then I threw my hands in the air and ran away crying and dropped out of school. But I came back. And I took another long-fiction workshop and then another and somehow, I wrote that thesis, and when I sat back and looked at it, I realized I had written a book. A book!

It wasn’t (still isn’t) a good book. But I wrote it. And then I didn’t write anything again for about four years, I think, except an occasional online journal entry (blog), and then a blog about weight loss surgery.

Then, I wrote a book about weight loss surgery. It took three years to write that fucking thing and I cried a lot during it because it is hard to be honest about how awful you can be and the horrible mistakes you’ve made. And in the end, I wrote a good book. I know it’s good. It’s honest and it’s the best I could do to say important things about body image and weight and the psychology of fat. I am proud of that book.

And maybe that’s what broke me. Because I’m writing again. That eleven thousand words is now about 16,000 more words on the young adult novel I’ve been writing and it’s almost finished, I think, close to it anyway, and I’ve written four more short-short stories and there is a feeling inside me that is very akin to happiness and satisfaction or maybe even joy. I can call it joy, I think. I’m going to go ahead and do that.

Two books, a lot of little stories. I haven’t written much for how old I am and how long I’ve thought about writing, but feel like maybe I really am one of those regular people, the kind who make books.

One of those days where every single thing in the whole wide world is stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid. You are stupid and you, and you and you and especially you and I hate you all, but that’s okay, because I hate myself even more, okay? Okay then!

I laid in bed for [...]]]>

One of those days where every single thing in the whole wide world is stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid. You are stupid and you, and you and you and especially you and I hate you all, but that’s okay, because I hate myself even more, okay? Okay then!

I laid in bed for an hour after the alarm went off and the dogs were supposed to stay with me and snore and make me feel better—that is their job. But they went off to pad around the house and wrestle and growl and Ogre was probably peeing all over everything and the room was too bright to go back to sleep and I hate everything especially sunshine and dogs and these pillows and life.

E came in and threw my pants at my head. “Come on,” he said.

“No,” I said, and rolled over and put my face in one of the stupid pillows.

“Get up,” he said, and pulled the comforter off of me. The dogs jumped up on the bed and started wrestling on my head.

“I hate you!” I said. I was filled with a great sense of injustice and rage.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Get up. Get dressed.”

“No!” I said, and then “Okay, okay!” when he reached for my feet because he is cruel and doesn’t understand that tickling is not a proportionate response.

I got dressed sullenly and stomped down the stairs. Ogre was wearing his winter coat with the fur hood and bouncing around. Crom was staring patiently, fixedly at the door. E handed me the keys. The dogs quivered at the front door when we opened it, and then exploded off the stoop like we had shot them from a t-shirt cannon when we said “Okay.”

We drove to the park. We threw the ball for Crom across the field of snow, and he took off in a gallop, his feet not touching the ground at all. Ogre leapt across the drifts like a fat gazelle and rubbed his face in the snow and spun in circles and looked delighted to be alive. Crom shot back and forth across the field in single-minded pursuit, his heart full of the joy of the fetch and return. Everything was bright and clear and the mountain was close enough to put in your pocket and E turned to me and I was going to punch him if he said, “I told you so,” because I could feel myself grinning when Crom leapt high and neatly plucked the ball from the air.

But he said, “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” and I said, “Me too.”

If I stick to my schedule—and I am dorky enough to have carefully written out a schedule—I will be finished with the second rewrite of my memoir come Saturday afternoon. On my schedule, there is a note that says “SUN: Day of Rest.” And then a space, and then below that, “MON: Line [...]]]>

If I stick to my schedule—and I am dorky enough to have carefully written out a schedule—I will be finished with the second rewrite of my memoir come Saturday afternoon. On my schedule, there is a note that says “SUN: Day of Rest.” And then a space, and then below that, “MON: Line edit begins. “ And if history repeats itself, as frequently it does, I will finish the line edit fairly rapidly, ask various people for feedback on my manuscript, and then panic and sit all alone in the dark for two years without touching the thing again.

It’s getting a little embarrassing, how long this thing is taking me. I know I shouldn’t compare myself to other writers. I know that that is a short ride to a long hell inside my head. I know that beating myself up for being lazy, or scared, or scared and lazy all at once in a dizzying strawberry swirl is no use, at this point, and I should quit worrying about how it looks that I’ve taken so long and quit imagining that I’ve done something wrong, and just get back to the writing. That’s the important bit, right? Of course it is! The play’s the thing! Fucking etcetera.

I am so tired of writing this book that is about me and all my interesting opinions (note: they are not that interesting). I could write something else! But I’ve got to finish this book. Why? I just do. I have to write down all the stupid bullshit I have in my head about weight loss surgery and the math and the duringmath and aftermath. I will incorporate feedback and edits promptly and with great efficiency. And then my agents will take it off and do magical agent things and come back with some kind of news for me.

I am assuming it’ll be “bad” news (because everyone knows that publishing rulez), because it’s safer that way, and because then I don’t have to think about all the non-writer things that happen when you publish a book, like “having to talk to people” in the name of “self-marketing.”  But if someone wants to publish it, I will have a party, I will not lie to you. It really would totally rule.

However, if no nice publisher with many good qualities is interested? I will by-god self-publish the thing even if that means I Xerox it and then throw it up in the air on a windy day in a crosswalk, and then I will burn something in effigy—a pair of my fat pants? A pair of my skinny pants? A small eskimo child clutching a pine cone? Something symbolic, I dunno—and then I will move on with my life. I will stop being stuck in this run of 9 or so years of my past that I’ve been wallowing in for so long, and I will find new things to think about and new things to say and new things to care about.

I will write fiction again. Oh my god, I can’t even tell you how lovely that sounds. Imaginary things about imaginary people and imaginary events. Shit will blow up and animals will speak in tongues and the pillar of the universe will tremble and I can go back to being self-absorbed in smaller doses, like on facebook and in blog posts and twitter, and all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well. Ish.

The problem with happy endings, though, is figuring [...]]]> 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 out where the ending is. Sometimes, it is very very easy. The hero and the heroine kiss, that’s one. The family torn apart is reunited, there’s another. The small, wiry kid wins the national boating championship despite all odds and is hoisted up on his teammates’ shoulders and there is cheering.

Weight loss stories are supposed to have very definitive endings—you reach your goal! You have triumphed! There go the harmonicas, and here comes the hero of our story, wearing a slinky dress in size whatever, newly proud of herself and her accomplishments and her rockin’ bod, and there she goes off over the horizon and into the setting sun that is as hot as she suddenly believes she is and then the credits roll and you are dabbing away a little tear and pressing your fist to your heart because it is throbbing with the beauty of it all, so hard it might just thump right out of your chest.

I keep waiting for the credits to roll, I think, and that is my problem. After the credits roll, I can stop thinking about my body, and what I eat and what I drink and if my intestines are going to be difficult that day. I can stop worrying about how I look in jeans and that my belly is still sort of poochy and I can stop hating my boobs and I can just go on and live my life the way life is supposed to be lived, after a happy ending—completely off-screen, without a director’s commentary, without wondering what’s next.

As I understand it, that happens pretty often when you reach a goal. You plant your flag, you look around, and you go “huh. Well. That’s done.” And you realize that there’s nowhere to go but right back down. Here’s where the mountain stops, and it looked pretty high when you were down at the bottom, but now that you’re up there, it looks pretty boring.

I’ve lost all the weight, I’ve gotten the high fives, I’ve gone woo! And now I am waiting for the flourish of trumpets to let me know that I can stop waiting–well, for the flourish of trumpets. Now I am just kind of torn between relaxing into just giving up and forgetting all about it (this is who I am, now, and this is how it’s going to be and things are easy-peasy, from here on out) and fading undramatically into black, and being very disappointed that there’s not more to it, getting mad that there’s nothing left.

Things were so exciting when I was losing the weight. Things were dynamic, ever-changing, and it was a Thrilling Adventure, Full of Spills, Chills, and extra, additional Thrills.  And now things are not exciting. Things require work. Pushups and running and vitamins and being healthy without the immediate reward of five pounds down and a compliment every time I see someone I haven’t seen in ten to fifteen minutes.

A few weeks ago I visited San Francisco—my incredibly talented friend Josh Mohr was having his book release party for his (awesomely best-selling, completely amazing) novel Some Things That Meant the World to Me. He was in my grad program; people and instructors from the grad program showed up, and over and over they gasped, and hardly-recognized-me, and told me I looked wonderful and asked how I was and it was startling, to be in that place again, where it was all new and fresh and completely astonishing, how much weight I had lost and how different I look and how awesome everything in the world was and how totally I rule.

I missed that, I realized. I’ve been just ordinary for a long time, and sort of coasting along, waiting for someone to tell me that things were over and done with, and I missed the rush of it. The validation. The high fives and the wows and the holy, holy that comes when you do something dramatic and people recognize how very dramatic it is. I had forgotten, a little bit, where I used to be and what I used to look like, and how I had passed through the gates of paradise and had been issued my passel of virgins and my portion of olive oil and grapes and been warned that this was the way it was going to be, from now on. It crept up so slowly, the complacency and the odd, ungrateful boredom.

There’s plenty I can do—I can declare that my next goal is Ultimate Fitness. My next goal can be a marathon. My next goal can be a six pack. My next goal can be buttocks which can crack a walnut. My next goal can be a triathlon. My next goal can be curing cancer and finding missing children and rehabilitating abused hamsters and looking for the face of god and brokering peace in places that are broken. My next goal ought to be accepting that I had a happy ending, even if I can’t reach out and place my finger directly on the moment where that happened—maybe as far back as when I saw the scale drop below 200 pounds, or the first time I walked up a flight of stairs without dying, or the time I realized that I was worth something, that I had been worth something all along, that I would always be worth something, and I took the batteries out of the scale and gave it away, cue the triumphant kazoo.

I’m done losing weight, and I have been for so long, and probably it is long, so long past time to stop being vaguely dissatisfied, maybe, and figure out what’s next.  Cue the extra-triumphant entire band of kazoos.

image by LunaDiRimmel