Bread and Bread

Confession: I joined Weight Watchers. Why is this a confession and not just a statement of what-I-did yesterday? A bunch of reasons: Canned fruit platter anyone? Feminism: As I’ve said before, good feminists are supposed to love their bodies and, if they want to get in better shape, train for triathlons or something. They’re not supposed to give money and energy to the Weight Loss Industrial Complex. Despite feeling a bit doughy these days, I do actually love my body. I don’t always like it, but I love it. Once you hit a certain age and/or have survived a disease or two, you have genuine gratitude for every day without organ failure. But I’m not so great at treating my body like I love it. Eating M&Ms (which, let’s be honest, are the Charles Shaw of chocolate) by the truckload is not love. It's a salad bowl and a melting pot! It’s so middle-brow: Weight Watchers sounds like something a forty-year-old mom should do, not a vibrant young person like…oh wait. A...

1. embracing your wiggly kid (even if he wiggles right out of your arms) Dash is super wiggly these days. Whereas once the edge of the changing table was a place to put diaper cream and hand sanitizer and something called “bottom spray” that is just a made-up product invented for baby registries, Dash now sees those things as clay pigeons for him to knock over with one sweep of his magnificent grabbing arm. This guy will steal the glasses right off your face. I imagined his near future as a wiggly bigger baby and then a wiggly, curious, running-everywhere toddler. I thought of Matea, Jamie’s year-old daughter, who is gentle and cuddly, though plenty curious as well. I thought about how it wouldn’t be hard, if you were so inclined, to mourn the not-having of a certain kind of baby. Bouncy if you wanted cuddly, cuddly if you wanted bouncy. But just as quickly I dismissed the thought. It would be so much work wishing for another kind of kid! You’d waste so much time! You’d be anxi...

After my previous post, I got a Facebook message from a friend (who is staying anonymous because she is private, not because she has body shame). With her permission, I ’m posting our exchange. Body stuff is such a loaded topic, so it makes me happy that we can talk about it sanely, in stark contrast to most of the internet. Cheryl, I just read your post about weight and dieting, and I have a lot to say about this post and would be happy to have a longer 1:1 conversation after you have had some sleep...say in 2-3 years! Briefly let me just say that in not one of the photos you posted were you fat by anyone ’s definition -- anyone ’s but your own. To say that you were the “fattest cheerleader ” is a disservice to you and to all of us who are fat. Further, you ’ ve set up a double dichotomy of skinny = good and fat = bad. For your sake, and most especially for your son ’ s, I would encourage you to spend some time reading in the Health At Any Size (HAES) and All Bodies are Good Bodies...

1. nudity of abundance Sunday afternoon, AK and I went to a potluck for all the participants in Bodies Mapping Time , the photo project I’d posed for a few months back. J Michael Walker , the artist/photographer, had snagged a room at the Flintridge Foundation, a tree-flanked compound in Pasadena. The room was institutional, with desks arranged in a square donut and a projection screen. I plopped my couscous down among the lentils and zucchini and scones that other people had brought. J Michael had roasted tomatillos from his garden and made a hot, smoky, delicious salsa. As far as I could tell, he was a Latina woman trapped in a white man’s body. But moving through the world in a white man’s body shapes you. That’s the nature of the body, and the people who witness it. It wasn’t my nature to trust men who were too quick to idealize women as goddesses. But the shoot had been fun, cozy, intimate but simple. So I trusted J Michael’s sincerity.  Flashback to the ba...

1. relaxing with sex workers AK is taking this class where she’s required to put herself in culturally uncomfortable/unfamiliar situations and write about them. I clearly don’t totally understand it, because every time I suggest something (“Ooh! I know! Take that improv class you’ve been talking about!”), she tells me, No, it’s not like that. But somehow we ended up at a Korean spa at ten p.m. last night because one of the “spheres” she can investigate is race/ethnicity. All I knew about Korean spas was that they’re really naked, and Margaret Cho got kicked out of one for having too many tattoos. Sure enough, there was a sign at the front desk that said: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone with offensive tattoos or infectious skin conditions.  The pride parade committee was not offended. All signs were pointing to this not being a great place to run around without nipples. I mean, I don’t think my tits look infectious, but the thing about having a nonconfor...

1. at least frida kahlo had awesome hair This morning at Starbucks an unassuming, middle-aged man came up to me and said he was gathering signatures for a new strip mall down the street. At first I was all skeptical and Occupy-ish, but then he said he was hiring a local architect, and I figured that local poor folks could benefit more from a 7-Eleven and a Chipotle than from a fifth record store or a seventeenth art gallery. So I signed. He said he liked my Frida Kahlo day planner. I bought it because I wanted a daily reminder that people who spend a lot of time in hospitals can be fierce and glorious. He said he liked my hat , the one Keely made. This is what people did in hospitals before iPads. “Thanks,” I said. “A friend made it for me.” “I have a friend who makes hats like that too,” he said. “Only she does it for chemo patients.” “Well, that’s me right now.” “Oh. Well, you look really healthy and vibrant.” (When people say this, I think what they’re s...