Eat the Damn Cake

This is a guest post from someone I like a lot. She described herself this way when I asked for a bio: “Jess is a teacher and occasional writer who lives in Brooklyn. She occasionally writes here: therealmsmanners.tumblr.com.” She is also ridiculously smart and has unfair hair. Unfair because when I cut mine off, I was imagining it looking just like hers, and then it didn’t. 

I am not a naked person.

I am not the kind of person who gets out of the shower and wanders around, air-drying at my leisure. I grab a towel. I am not the kind of person who casually carries on locker room conversations in the nude. I get in and out of there as quickly as possible.

Which is why, when a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I got an email from our friend inviting us to a place called “Spa Castle,” I immediately responded with:

“Um…maybe? Exactly how disrobed would I have to be?”

Despite my hesitation, and despite the fact that we aren’t the kind of people who typically go to spas (or castles, for that matter), my husband and I figured that the beginning of a new year is probably a good time to branch out and try different things, and besides—how bad could it possibly be to spend a few hours imagining you’re in a tropical paradise resort instead of Queens in the middle of January?

Which is why we found ourselves riding the 7 train to the end of the line that Saturday. While we were watching the stops roll by, our friend nudged my husband.

“So, uh, we’re going to have to make a decision pretty soon.”

“About being naked or not, you mean?” my husband asked.

“Yup!”

“Yeah, I dunno. We’ll see…”

I exchanged looks with my friend’s beautiful blonde girlfriend, as if to say, “men! So childish! So weird about being with each other!” but underneath my knowing smile, panic was beginning to set in.

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There are some things I stopped wearing when my belly stopped being flat. Tight dresses, for one. I used to have a skintight gray knit dress that I thought was the hottest thing in the world. I gave it away when I gained weight.

I hit my heaviest weight ever (again) back in November and I’m still there. Which kinda surprised me the last time I weighed myself (at my parents’ house, of course, since I don’t own a scale). I thought I’d slip back. I thought I’d return to normal. Y’know, to my real body.

I think this might be normal, guys.

And the good news is, there’s a chance I’m curvy now! At least a little. I think I might be. Even my boobs are contributing, in the gradual, half-hearted manner in which I used to do my laundry after my mom reminded me ten times.

I didn’t know until I put on this incredibly tight dress covered in rabbits. And then it turned out that I am a (potential?) bombshell. It was like BAM BAM BAM!

BOOBS BELLY BUTT!

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Note: Argh! I’m trying to get the weight-loss ad removed from the blog. It popped up before I had time to banish it. Don’t read that book! Eat some cake! You’re gorgeous!

We act like we have a couple different bodies. There’s the one you’re in now, and then there’s the one that’s your real body.

It might be from the past or the future. It’s mysterious, but thoroughly detailed. The real body gets obscured by the obnoxious, floppy, hungry, unflattering  current one. The real body is like a place you really, really want to go. Where life makes more sense. Where it’s sunnier and you can wear a bathing suit without even thinking about it.

I caught myself thinking like that when I gained 20 pounds in college. My new body wasn’t really me. It was a costume I was trying on for a while. A slightly scary costume. A slightly daring costume. With an unfamiliar soft little belly and squishy thighs. Sometimes I caught myself staring at my new thighs. They took up so much space! They felt nice. They weren’t my real thighs. But they were OK.

(source)

My body never regressed gracefully into its precollege state. My weight went up and down, and my shape shifted, so that I tucked fat into new, creative spots. My face changed. My hair changed. And eventually I cut my hair off completely.

But sometimes I feel like I am looking through someone else’s eyes at myself. This isn’t me. There is a different, better, streamlined me in there, somewhere, but I can’t quite get to her.

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I noticed it when I was pivoting sexily to admire myself in the mirror over my shoulder. Bear had caught me– sometimes he sort of snatches me out of the air as I go by– and we happened to be in front of a mirror, and I turned, to see the perfect snapshot of us. My big, muscular man with the sweet face, his hands on my waist, and me, sensual in my jeans and bra, halfway through a transformation.

And there it was.

A generous roll. Soft and buttery and creamy and smooth. It sat just above Bear’s hand, just above my waist.

Back fat.

(source)

I quickly straightened. “You look amazing, honey,” I said, using diversionary tactics.

“You look amazing.”

Hmm. Do I?

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Guys– not to bug you, but ETDC’s sneakpeeq giveaway is ending on the 13th, and since you get 20% off your next purchase just for entering, plus a chance at a $25 gift card, it’s definitely worth it. Also, this time there are lots of winners. Check it out here!

I noticed it when I was fourteen or so, and I started making a semi-regular effort. I had this great outfit, with a short skirt, and it perfectly matched the butterfly clips I wore in my hair. My mom was driving me to meet some friends, and there was this cute guy who distinguished himself by having a few muscles, and he was supposed to be there. So obviously I’d doubled the number of butterfly clips, and I’d shaved my legs immediately before leaving, so that they would be freshly smooth. I was hoping they might gleam a little.

Getting out of the car, and walking towards my friends, who were hanging out by an ice cream place in a strip mall (New Jersey!), I happened to glance down. I stopped in my tracks. Blood was trickling down my legs. It looked as though I had been shot, many times, by a tiny soldier– like one of those little guys from The Indian in the Cupboard. There were bloody tears all over my legs. It was a war zone. It was horrifying. I ducked for cover behind the car, licked my hands like a crazed animal, and began trying to rub the blood away. I got most of it, but my legs were left looking raw, agitated, and generally unfriendly. I hadn’t felt the cuts in the shower. I thought there was probably something wrong with me. Do I not feel pain? Am I superwoman? No, probably just a freak who will never have sexy legs. Yes. That’s the truth. I know because it’s the worst possibility.

I’d like to say I got a lot better at shaving my legs over the years, but that would be a lie, and I’m bad at lying (my mom caught me too many times in too many lies as a child, and I’m traumatized).

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This is my series called Little Victories. In it, I talk about what’s going right for me, in terms of how I’m feeling about the way I look, and the world, in general (maybe. I haven’t gotten that far yet). The entry before this one was called “my breasts.” 

Sometimes I go through a schlumpy phase. I don’t feel like dressing up. At all. I want to wear things that don’t squeeze me too tight and don’t itch in the back, and don’t require heels, and would look stupid with makeup. I want to wear things that would enable me to have a shot at running away if ninjas attacked me. It wouldn’t probably be much of a shot. But it’d be better than if I was wearing stilettos and a tight skirt.

I want to wear my dad’s old stained sweatshirt, with something related to football that I don’t understand on the front. I want to wear it with loose-fitting yoga pants that have never seen a yoga studio. During the schlumpy phase, I am not interested in looking good.

If I happen to look good, it is accidental, and almost irrelevant. Not totally irrelevant. But closer than normal.

“You look great!” says Bear, who doesn’t understand fashion at all. Who thinks sexiness is soft material and easy access.

I roll my eyes.

(because this is the truth. note the sports related shirt that was once owned by a male member of my family and the pink hoodie under it that no one should ever wear. and I do that with my hands a lot. it’s really weird. I don’t understand it. at least Bear is  schlumpy here, too)

When I come home during my schlumpy phase, I change immediately into my most unflattering clothing. Sometimes I forget half of it, and I’m walking around in socks with no pants, with my giant sweatshirt swelling like a football-related bubble over my torso.

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