stilltrying

My shrink has left me.  Retired from private practice.  Philistine.  How could she?  Shrinks are like Moms — they’re always supposed to be there.   I actually took the news (delivered by mail in a cheery letter) far better than I expected.  Only two tubs of Edy’s, four bags of Oreo’s Double Stuffed, and maybe 14 or 15 daiquiris were required to see me through the critical first four-day-in-shock period.  In case you are worried about drunk driving, fear not.  I remained in seclusion during that difficult time.   I’m doing better on the diet now, too, thank heaven.  Back on the salad wagon.

Since then I have been asking friends for recommendations.  What I am really looking for is a good mother — rather like Mrs. Walton or Mrs. Cosby.  By the way, will yours fit the bill and work pro bono or take my insurance?

However, in the last few days my attitude has improved immensely.  I had an epiphany in the car a few days ago as I listened to a sad country song about all the years gone by and how I would miss them.  These songs usually have me in short order tearfully singing along, nodding and thinking to myself, “Yes, I miss it already!”  Afterward I cry and sometimes call my husband Richard to tell him I love him.  Poor thing.  He finds it confusing to have sniffling wife call him out of the blue to say, “You know I love you, don’t you?  I mean, in case I die in a car accident or something?”

“Stephania, have you been in a car accident?” he’ll ask.

“No.”  Sniff, sniff.

“Are you alright?  What’s the matter?”

So then I go into my explanation about the country song and he says, “Awww,” and offers to take me out to dinner since I’m feeling down.  What a man!

But I digressed from my epiphany.  On this occasion, sniffling along to this country song, I asked myself, So what was your life like?  What are you leaving behind, exactly?   I realized that I grew up in a circus of a family, but I learned a lot in the process and I love them anyway.  I realized that I am a wonderful friend to count on in a pinch, but I’m lousy at returning phone calls and emails.  I’m very protective of the ones I love, and I have a hard time letting them care for me.  I am an embracer of new ideas.  I like to see how things can be applied, not how they come apart.  I can sometimes be a bull in a china shop, but it is unintentional and I try to rectify any problems I have caused as soon as I can.  I saved a man’s life once, and might have saved others’ at the same time.  The number of people I can call friends has to be counted on my toes, my fingers are full.  The toes might fill up, too, if I counted people I don’t get a chance to talk to very often.   I’ve had some accomplishments, but that’s no guarantee that I’ll get what I want today.  When I don’t, it helps me to remember that one of the best yardsticks of my life’s achievements is the love I have given.  And when I look at that - the love I have given and the love I have received — my life has been rich and beautiful.  I could die right now without any regrets for the past. 

I’d be miserable about missing the future, of course.  But my epiphany felt good.   When I got home and told my husband, Richard about my epiphany he said, “And you’re very  generous, too.   I can just imagine you as a little child, a little toddler, sharing one of your cookies with your brother.  I can see you standing there, reaching your hand out to him, with the half cookie in it.  Can’t you picture that?”

Richard is sweet, but I had to be honest.  “No.  No way.  I’d eat the whole thing and he’d be on his own.”

A couple days later I was on the phone with my brother — the brother with whom I would in theory have shared the cookie — and I told him about Richard’s sweet vision of us.  “What do you think?” I asked.  “Do you think I would have shared a cookie with you?”

My brother is very diplomatic.  “I think kids of that age don’t really know how to share yet.”

Now you see why I love my family.

I don’t know about you, but I need motivation for my diets.  And nothing motivates me like men.   Guess what I learned yesterday?  Firemen are often artists.  As if firemen weren’t hunky enough, the work schedule — three or four days on, then three or four days off — works very well for artists, who like large blocks of time for the muse to take over their bodies as they paint or sculpt with their shirts off and their pants clinging suggestively around their manly hips.  Oh, my — somebody hand me a fan, I find myself becoming a bit overheated.

I don’t know about you, but I and many of my less-than-svelte friends have all been drawn to artists at one time or another.  Unfortunately, having an artist as a love-mate is a bit of a crap-shoot.  On the one  hand, they are misunderstood, wounded, tearing out their hearts and putting it forth to the world in their art.  So alluring, especially to those of us who feel under-appreciated ourselves.  On the other hand, America does not have a crying need for full and part-time artists.  They are usually paupers, living on the incomes of — you guessed it — their love mates.  I was lucky enough to actually snag and marry a painter who has a day job that pays the mortgage.   Artists, aside from the whole soulful suffering romantic mystique, are particularly popular among larger women because they often view the female form differently than their male peers.  My wonderful husband, for example, described my size 24 rear end and size 18 top as “like a sumptuous pear.”   All of my girlfriends wanted to clone him. 

Photographers, on the other hand, are iffy.   I am not a photographer, and hence don’t know the proper terms, but if they are gentlemen, they will airbrush or use blurry focus to help disguise any flaws in their paramour’s physiques.  Some, however, are hell bent on doing studies of interesting textures - such as cellulite and flab — regardless of the psychological effect on the subject of the photographs.  Date and mate photographers with extreme caution.

Apparently the women-of-all-sizes-are-interesting-and-and-even-beautiful-subjects-for-painting/sculpting/shooting (ideally not with a gun) world view on the part of modern male artists can be traced back to Peter Paul Rubens (I’m not sure if they named the candy bar after him or not).  He’s the one who painted the lovely reclining nudes, virtually all of whom were plump or more by today’s standards.   Although he painted in a very realistic style, he often draped his subjects artfully — which in my opinion did wonders to direct the eye away from any unfortunate imperfections.

Well, if you decide you do want to risk your luck with an artist, I recommend buying a cheap cut of steak, a pan without non-stick coating, and some black powdered eye shadow.  Put the steak on the pan on high, go into your room, and put some eye shadow on your hands.  Rub them together vigorously.  Then rub your face and hair, leaving smudges.   Give another dose of eye shadow to your sleeves and upper body.  Finish with your hands.  By now the steak should be burning and smoking on the stove and setting off the fire alarm.  DO NOT TAKE IT OFF THE STOVE!!!!  You want as much smoke in the house as possible!  Wait until you hear the pounding on the door, then stagger over, coughing like crazy, and claim you were in the other room asleep and your roommate left food cooking on the stove.  With luck, one of the firemen will be the artist of your dreams.

A number of people wrote kind and supportive messages to me, but because I am new to blogging, and even newer to blogging on Wordpress, I goofed and somehow deleted your comments.  Can someone out there tell me how to set up this program so that comments appear automatically without having to be moderated?  That is what I was trying to do when I somehow deleted the earlier comments.  Help!  Thanks.

Stephania

    I want to sound off about being a woman of size vs. being a man of size.  I think men have it easier than we women do.   They’re far more desirable on the dating market than women of size.  Why?  Because walking into a room on the arm of a large man makes your butt look smaller, that’s why.  Short rotund men are even better, because not only do they slim the thighs and buttocks, they make one appear taller and slimmer overall, rather like supermodel  Emme.    I believe we should have a rating system, a BQ (Butt Quotient), measuring the extent to which this male’s body slims the body of the woman next to him.  Vincent D’Onofrio (whom I consider to be a sex god anyway) would rate a good 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.  He might score higher but he is too tall.  Bono (another god in my libido’s firmament) would be about a  4.  He’d score higher, but he’s not wide enough. 

      Whatever you do, beware the man with tight buns and washboard abs.  Jeffrey Donovan, who pays Michael Westen in Burn Notice, would score a minus 10 on the BQ scale.  Unless you happen to have been born blessed with perfect womanly curves that his skinny little rear will bring into sharp contrast (say, 36-24-36), your every defect will be magnified.  Avoid men like this at all cost, although this advice can be modified in certain ethnic groups and subcultures.  I heard a wonderful song on a country station the other day extolling the virtues of a woman holding onto her beer gut, which gave her “more for him to love.”  Please clone that man and his friends.

   Now, if you are a large gentlemen who happens to be reading this blog today and doubts my word, I tell you all that you need is a bit of panache.  Think of yourself as Nero Wolfe, or as my beloved Bono.   Get yourself some impeccable outfits, imagine yourself walking into the room with Angelina Jolie in stiletto heels on your arm, hanging on your every word, and hot as hell for you.  Everyone is jealous of you.  You are an intelligent man with a very keen sense of taste.  You can show a lady a fabulous  time anywhere from Ristorante Enoteca Pinchiorre in Florence (arguably one of the top 20 restaurants in Europe) to your handsomely accessorized boudoir.  You tiger, you.

    Consider these things well, ladies, the next time you select your escort for a social function.  Just remember my mantra:  The bigger his gut, the smaller your butt!

Is there no one among you who reads this quite inspirational blog while guiltily nibbling on a Dove bar, Starbucks espresso brownie (if you’re upwardly mobile, probably still thin and considering bulimia to stay that way), or, if you’re a plebe like me, an original Rice Krispies Treats bar?  Oh, please tell me that I’m not the only one who regularly falls off the wagon and into the loving arms of Ghiradelli.  I was the poster child of my weight loss support group — lost down to a normal weight and kept it off for two years.  About a year ago, the weight started creeping back on (I swear  it was hormones!), but in about the time it takes for a twenty-something Hollywood starlet’s marriage to end,  I caved.   Gave in to the urges completely.  Then those pounds leapt onto my body like ravenous Cheetahs — or should I say onto my dimpling thighs and rear like malicious Cheetohs?   Despite regular efforts to waddle onto the straight and narrow, I continue to veer off course.

I credit my demise to menopause, stress, and, sadly, a half a roll of chocolate chip cookie dough a day (Nestle recall or not, chocolate chip cookie dough is sacred).   ARGH!  Surely some of you agree that severe trauma (father dying, family a circus, dogs peeing on the rug, and similar calamities) can only be assuaged with liberal doses of the Edy’s of your choice, Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux or Oreo Double Stuffed cookies (depending on if you need gourmet or gourmand), and lots of frozen lime daiquiris?

Yet I remain ever hopeful.  I think all I need is the support of other diet challenged individuals like me.  If I am not alone, please share with me at here or at my humor blog www.illjuststartagainmonday.blogspot.com.  (The link is on the right side of this screen.)  Remember, research shows that dieters who have PEER support (People whose Efficacy is Equally Rotten in the diet department) are much more successful than those without it.  Excelsior!