My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

As Jennifer Lawrence cried perfect, beautiful tears of rage onscreen, her home in ash and rubble around her, my gaze settled lower down on something inside the theater: my legs.   Tessa and I were sitting in the prime seats in the front row of the back section at the AMC, our feet propped up on the bar in front of us, and for the first time I could remember I had a moment of positive revelation; my legs are normal-sized , I thought, with so much surprise that the moment was instantly notable. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt abnormally large.   For much of my life, reality was at least mostly in line with this self-assessment – I was larger than average, or at least larger than any person I knew.   Later, as I got smaller, I still felt massive.   It took me years to force myself to believe that my idea of my body was out of proportion to how ‘freakish’ I actually was.   And even then, reality was often on the side of my ne...

Things have been crazy lately.   I’ve finished my MA, started looking for a full-time job, and gotten an agent and a book deal, all in quick succession.   It’s all happening really fast, and it’s almost all good news; as my friend pointed out on Facebook when I announced that I had a publisher, I’m finally profiting from my all-consuming neuroses.   They’ve always been the source of my self-deprecating humor, these nerves of mine, but they were never much good for anything else until now.   Suddenly, I have an audience for my particular brand of crazy, and everyone around me seems to be thrilled on my behalf.   I should be thrilled too, and I am , I keep insisting… well, my logical brain is thrilled. The thing is, in my heart I’m terrified.   Publishing a book about my body anxiety publicizes it, and while I’ve always been one for publicizing my issues on a conversational level, I’ve never really had to deal with a large audience before.   ...

I have something to confess: I haven't worked out in a while.   And by a while, I mean at least a couple of months.  And by worked out, I mean anything besides walking around at a leisurely pace (that includes super low-key yoga/pilates). Amazingly, I'm smaller/lighter right now than I was back in the spring, when I was much better about exercising (well, I say it's surprising, but I guess it's been the case 90% of the last ten years, so I don't know why I continue to be surprised), but nonetheless I've been feeling sluggish and soft lately, and last week I decided to get back on the horse. A friend of mine on facebook has been doing a Jillian Michaels* workout, and she's been posting a lot about how exhausted it makes her and how much it hurts – my kind of workout, when I really want to get stuck in.  I messaged her and we chatted back and forth about the video, and based on her review ("it kills, but it's only half an hour and it isn't bo...

I just finished a yoga/pilates/ballet workout, and I felt the need to vent. I feel like yoga is supposed to make me more centered, more peaceful and one with my body, etc. And it does, when I can manage to not look at myself while I’m doing it. But when I do succumb to the temptation to look at my body in the poses, as I usually do, I feel the opposite of what I should. Instead of peace and harmony I feel rage and frustration. This is especially true during downward dog, when I can’t help but look at my legs, the contracted thigh muscles lost under a rippling, hanging sea of excess flesh. I know, I know, I shouldn’t do yoga in shorts (or undies and a tee, which is usually my lazy at-home workout outfit). But it seems to me that covering up the problem is only a short-term solution. Of course, staring furiously at the problem and fucking up my chakra (or whatever) doesn’t seem like any sort of solution at all. What I really want is a quick-fix (or a slow, guaranteed fix), but I do...