Back in the Bay

To anybody who actually reads this blog (Derek), you have my apologies. I know I haven’t written in forever, because I was waiting to be inspired to humor and wit, but now instead I’ll just be updating the black hole of cyberspace on my life and my angstiness.
I left London in mid-August, which sucked because I had to leave my boyfriend behind, but I figured I’d be coming home to a land of a slightly more normal body scale. Women in London seem defined in class by their weight, much like Postal Packages. The thinner you are, the wealthier/better educated/generally classier you are. Or at least that’s how I felt there. The only women above a size 4 (US) were big, apple-shaped messes of fake blonde hair and loud offensive voices. Usually they didn’t live in London. (Of course I’m generalizing. Broadly. But I’m going to continue to do so, hiding behind my secure belief that hardly anyone reads this anyway, and Derek knows I’m not really an asshole!)
San Francisco, on the other hand, is diverse not only in race/gender/sexuality, but in body type as well. There are big people, small people, tall people, fat people, pear-shaped people (woo), apple-shaped people, and about a million other kinds of people here, and their shapes seem to have little or no bearing on class/attractiveness. I dig that. So I was excited to come home for that reason. I figured it might be good for my self-image to live in a diverse city again.
But oh boy did I repress a very important influence. When I lived in London I was living with my boyfriend, who is a med student and is ridiculously good to me. These two seemingly unrelated facts are actually inextricably linked: he’s constantly telling me I’m not fat, and that I eat well and am healthy so I should stop hating on myself, and because he’s studying medicine, I sort of almost believe him sometimes. So even though the world outside our apartment made me feel like shit, at least I had a little haven of potential sanity to come home to.
Here in SF, on the other hand, it’s a bit of a flip. The city makes me feel normal (most of the time), and sometimes I even feel sexy (apparently the cheap polyester dress I almost never wear is a man magnet. Noted). But my home is deceptive. It seems cozy, and there’s a lot of love here-– my parents are the silently, invisibly loving types-– but in fact it’s a cesspool of bad body vibes. My mother has been on diets and generally unhappy with her body as long as I can remember (and she’s a size 10 in pants and looks ridiculously slender and hot), except for the short periods of diet success, which are always tainted by the fear that she’ll re-gain. My sister has been unhappy with her body for years as well, and she and my mom discuss little else. And my dad, while he’s not really introspective enough to feel much unhappiness, is brusquely dismissive of my attempts to be happy with my own body/lifestyle, and every now and again slips back into envious watchdog mode: ‘you don’t want to eat those red vines! Here, I’ll save you from yourself.’
So anyway (and may I say how relieved I am that my family takes no interest in my writing and will never see this), it’s not the best environment for someone who tends towards body self-loathing. All I’ve thought about in my spare time since I’ve been back has been diets and gym memberships (which I can’t afford) and Bliss FatGirlSlim (which is actually AWESOME, even on my flabby post-GB ass). But I can’t move out because I’m poor and trying to be a writer, and anyway I love living with my parents (I know, I’m a nerd). I just wish my family could love themselves more, because all their self-hatred rubs off on me in a really bad way, and I’m pretty sure they have no idea. Although, being WASPs, I’m sure if they were made aware they’d immediately repress. Which is my plan for today.
To Do: 1. post blog entry, 2. repress blog entry, 3. rub FatGirlSlim all over body while eating chocolate and watching Extreme Makeover.