Girl Talk

Ginger Rogers famously said that she had to do everything that Fred Astaire did except backward in high heels. This sentiment works better for me than Helen Reddy's anthem to femaleness, "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" as when I was in high school, all the boys changed the following lyric to "With an ass too big to ignore." Which brings me to weight, a topic I find galling in so many ways. Gaining it is akin to what missing church was in the old days (ie, my teenage years) where if you didn't attend for a few Sundays, people asked in that particular judging way, Where have you been? Losing it brings all sorts of laurels, albeit poisonous ones. When going through a bit of a relatively (and it's all relative)low period, I get the old "You look so much better" as if I had faced the ultimate moral showdown and won. When the scales are up, my stock is down, as if I had let Jesus stay up all night alone before His crucifixion. It's truly odd.

And it explains the popularity of shows like "The Biggest Loser" and "Heavy." Fight fat, win the war against Satan! To hear the trainers talk, obesity is the cause of all problems and not going to the gym is akin to letting Baby Jesus die on your cell phone if you don't forward Him after getting a text message version of what we used to call chain mail. I kind of miss the letters which had more examples of all the evils that would befall you if you didn't respond -- brain tumors, death, loss of money, etc. So here's my chain mail/text message -- Fuck all that! Don't worry about it. Let those sadistic trainers make other people cry. And women, whatever happens, be proud of that ass too big to ignore.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"No woman is required to build the world by destroying herself." Rabbi Sofer

Cocktail Hour
Memoir suggestion: Talking To Girls About Duran Duran Rob Sheffield

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Saturday!