9:41 p.m. - 2007-01-16
I'm So Vain, I Probably Think This Entry's About Me
I have never, in my life, owned my own camera. I have had family cameras, and I have had cameras that I have used at work, but never my own. I do not know why. I suspect that this has something to do with the conviction, long held, that I can't take pictures for shit, something I confirmed, for the most part, during my stint in high school on the yearbook staff. I wrote interesting articles that were hacked to pieces by the editor (who won the writing award in high school sucky editor? You? No? Me? YES! So stop fucking with my copy!) and schlocky headlines that usually remained intact, but I always tried my hardest to get someone else to take my pictures for me. My editor was on my side on that one, at least.
Now, however, I have a camera phone, so for the first time in my life I find myself taking pictures. I've taken pictures of friends and set it up so that when they call, I see a little picture of them, which would be useful if I were not already obsessive about listing people's last names. As is, I don't have multiple Becca Fletchers to distinguish from. I take pictures at concerts, and even managed to get some good shots of the shimmering, glittering, nearly-incandescently hot naked torso of Jake Shears, lead singer of the Scissor Sisters and the sexiest gay man currently living. Seriously, the guy is the Holy Grail of mansex, and I would gladly give up my sight to drink from him. I took pictures of a parade I was involved in on New Year's Eve (I'll write about that soon, possibly), and the wallpaper on my phone is of the giant monarch butterfly float, the christmas lights glowing in the Austin evening.
This evening, however, I indulged in an activity that proves that no matter how useful an invention is, no matter how much joy it brings into your life, it also, in some ways, makes you an asshole. I spent a solid ten minutes or so, this evening, taking pictures of myself.
I obviously need to explain myself. However, the explanation does not make me sound any less narcissistic and self-obsessed. On the other hand, this is an online journal, and therefore narcissism and self-obsession is its hallmark. As a matter of fact, I am reminded that The Notorious RRZ was born the first time around as a result of reading a weight loss blog, and the first entry dealt with me thinking, in the voice of Mira Sorvino in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, "I think I should lose some weight."
Well, I did. And . . . I'm sorry?
Okay, no, I'm not sorry. I am happy. Except, well, a lot of this started because I wasn't happy. But I'm happier. Although not because of the weight. Well, alright, partially because of the weight. Actually, at the moment, I am kinda, not ecstatic, but certainly quite high off of . . . let me start again.
Let me go WAY back.
I think of the phrase "eating disorder" in much the same way as I think of the word "racist." On the one hand, you could say that nearly everyone in the United States has, to use Margaret Cho's term, food issues, and that nearly everyone in United States makes certain assumptions that can be termed racist. Racism pervades our society every day, and it is impossible to be immune from it. Likewise with bad ideas about what to eat, how much, and, for that matter, why to eat (sorry, had to do this: To eat or not to eat, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the pangs and gurgles of outrageous hunger, or to take up chips against a sea of salsa and queso and by dipping, eat them!). However, I think that the word "racist," when thrown around too readily at people (as opposed to policies), at once dilutes the power of the term and taints the reputation of people who may not deserve such a . . . I was going to say black mark, but I'm not falling into my own trap, unless I walk in willingly hoping for the protection of ellipses . . . scarlet letter. I feel the same way about "eating disorder": I don't want to diminish the tremendous pain that millions of women and men experience by referring to someone who skips breakfast as having an "eating disorder."
So what term do I use for a period of about a year in high school when I ate very little and exercised a lot, resulting in a quick and dramatic weight loss that coincided with a period of intense depression. Sometimes I have called it what many argue is the technical term for it: exercise bulimia, although it occurs to me that I didn't really binge. Also, I wasn't starving, or at least I don't remember starving. It was just that one day in science class we were asked to tally up our daily caloric intake and after adding up my numbers a few times I went to lunch and got two helpings of fried chicken. If anything, the fact that I had that reaction suggests that it wasn't an eating disorder, or maybe not, I don't know. I do know that at that lunch I told my friends that I realized I was taking in far too few calories, and they said they had been worried about me but hadn't wanted to say anything. Thanks, guys, of course I probably wouldn't have listened.
At this point, I usually just tell a short version of the story when I tell people about the experience at all, rather than referring to it by a clinical name when I had no clinical diagnosis, although I think I did use the term exercise bulimia with the guys I had a crush on last semester, in order to explain to him why I was being very careful not only to eat healthier and exercise, but not to starve myself of exercise too much. Why I felt the need to explain it to him . . . I'll just file that under "Stupid Shit I Did in the Process of Distracting Myself from Grad School with Yet Another Unrequited Love Affair" and leave it at that.
Anyway, I managed to stay relatively healthy for a while after that fried chicken lunch. The weight came back slowly at first, settling for some time at a point where I definitely wasn't thin but was still cute enough to be really slutty in college. I was sorta kinda watching what I was eating, but sorta kinda not, and exercising when I could, but not being crazy about it, and most of the time I was doing those things because I was ridiculously happy. Then came a really bad semester, and when I went to get a tuxedo fitted for my brother's wedding the semester after that (spring of 2001, I was heavier than I'd ever been, which put me in a GREAT mood, let me tell you.
For the next few years, there were a lot of "This will be the year!" moments followed by "Mmm, mozzarella sticks" moments. Becoming a vegetarian in 2003 helped, to a degree. Hurting my back in 2004 forced me to strengthen my abs, which helped a little more. Then came last spring, when I went to my first night at Trannyshack, the premier drag night in San Francisco. The theme for the evening was "Sweating to the Trannies," and the concluding number was a multi-drag queen rendition of Kanye West's "The New Workout Plan." When those fat-ass bitches lip-synched to "Eat your salad, no dessert, get that man you deserve!" something clicked. It took not one but four drag queens, but all of a sudden I had motivation, and an iPod, the greatest piece of workout equipment ever created. With the aid of this magical device--which, of course, had Kanye's aformentioned song on heavy rotation--I went walking in the mornings all summer. I even did a little bit of running. This, of course, caused me to fuck up my knees, but I pressed on. I started doing weights. In May I had a 46" waist. In September, I was buying 40" pants.
Don't think for a second I wasn't happy about this. I was. I was really happy about this. I was especially happy about this the night I went out with a bunch of the gay boys, including the crush object, and when I walked in wearing a new outfit and he saw me and said, "Well look at you!" in a tone of voice that, I could tell, had a little bit of "Damn!" in it (unfortunately, a voice in my head took that tone and ran with it, which is a whole other entry and possible a major performance piece). For the first time in a very long time, I didn't feel like the fat friend. I felt like one of the boys. And it felt good.
And yet I spent last semester hugely depressed. And I remembered that I had spent my year of high school when I lost the weight hugely depressed. So, what the fuck? I want to be happy, and I want to look hot. Can't I do both? Is it TOO MUCH TO FUCKING ASK that I be HOT and HAPPY?! IS IT GOD?! ANSWER ME?!?!?!
Having had two and half years of postmodernist, poststructuralist graduate education, I know now to be suspicious of cause and effect. Granted, I state here and now that weight loss depresses you on a physical level. Doctors have said this, and I believe them. I believe it is the secret that the weight loss industry is trying to keep covered up because it perpetuates the fucking cycle that keeps them rolling in it. However, I don't think that "I was depressed because I was losing weight" tells the whole story. I think that I felt totally out of control in my life and I thought, "Well, at least I can control my body."
Haha.
One of my favorite episodes of South Park satirizes a certain kind of liberal/progressive, one that buys the electric car and then makes sure everyone else knows how much better it makes them than the gas-guzzling rabble. South Park points out that there is an inordinate number of these liberal/progressives in the Bay Area, and they are quite correct. I could tell you stories, and I will. It ends the episode, however, by reminding the audience that buying electric cars IS the right thing to do; that it is only the smugness with which people do it that is offensive and ultimately harmful to the environmentalist cause. I think that losing weight and getting a healthier body is a good thing, but I think that there's a lot of shit that aggregates around that process, and it is quite easy to drop the pounds only to find yourself splattered with the shit you dropped them in. This shit includes, but is not limited to, 1) a sense of superiority over those who don't choose to lose weight, or those who still struggle with it, 2) a belief that weight loss will ultimately solve your problems (it won't, not even your romantic worries, TRUST ME ON THIS), 3) further inculcation into unattainable societal norms of beauty, which are, among other things, racist, hahaha, 4) having to buy all new clothes, which is awesome until you see your credit card statement, 5) the limiting of your social life due to your need to exercise or, God forbid, eat at the right place, 6) envy for those who are still thinner than you, and 7) the spiraling together of all these things and more into a cycle that forces you to keep losing weight and hating yourself when you can't.
I could tell you stories about a certain friend of mine, but I won't. All I will say is that if anyone you know ever thinks about getting one of the stomach surgeries designed to force a body into starvation, tell them that you love them and that you will firebomb the hospital before you will let them do it. Okay, that's a little extreme, but that shit FUCKS you UP.
I am trying to keep myself clean of the shit. At the same time, I want to enjoy this. Which brings me to this evening. For the past few days, I've been very consistent with my exercising. I've been walking and lifting weights nearly every day, and now that Austin has FROZEN OVER I dance around the upstairs of my Dad's house, where I am camping out for the duration of the APOCALYPTIC ICE AGE that has descended upon us (there was HALF AN INCH OF SNOW! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!). I have also started doing a workout video. I have done many workout videos in my time. The first was, and I kid you not, Sweating to the Oldies II (the sequel, which was, not, unfortunately, entitled Electric Bugaloo). Suddenly the motivating power of that night at Trannyshack is clear to me. See, my mother also had issues with her weight, and so we would do Sweating to the Oldies II together. My mother, not feeling it was enough to indoctrinate me into a lifetime of body dysmorphia, also felt the need to make sure I got an early start at becoming a homo. I kid, Mom, because I love. Imagine a small boy, doing jumping jacks and lunges while singing along to "Big Girls Don't Cry," a song that, only now, strikes me as an unusually poor choice for a workout video. Imagine that boy and feel free to laugh, because for all that those videos have become a joke, they had a sense of humor about themselves, and were good enough to include a range of participants in the video, from the taught and trim to the oh-my-God-they're-gonna-pass-out-and-they're-gonna-need-a-forklift. And they were having fun, because Richard Simmons had no doubt given him whatever drug he uses.
Cindy Crawford's work-out video did not have a sense of humor, although, in some ways, it had a deep sense of pathos.
The current video is quite fun. It's a Latin dance workout, and it is perfect for me for two reasons. First, dancing is the only form of exercise that I genuinely like. As long as there's music, I can keep moving (I swear, cancel your gym membership and buy an iPod). Latin music, in particular, always gets me going. I usually make playlists to workout to, including a rockworkout when I feel like punching the air and a gay workout for, well, most of the rest of the time. However, I'll also set it on Celia Cruz's albums and hit shuffle. Even talking about it makes my hips shake. It's like my favorite Chappelle's Show sketch: I'm Latino, and therefore when I hear drums and electric piano, I can't not move.
In addition to being Latin, this video also features Jaana and Julia. They are not drag queens, because they have too little body fat to hide a bulge. Jaana, however, has hair the color of a Sonic cherry slush, whereas Julia is content to be a platinum blonde with olive skin. I feel a kinship with these women, particularly when Julia cheers me on by saying "Ju can do it! Ju can do it! Jucandoitjucandoitjucandoit!" It's like having the rich Mexican girls I went to high school with working out with me, in a good way. They make me want to ride around in a beemer with a flask of Patron.
The workout also works, I have to say, and after I did the video and then lifted weights I went to take a shower and I . . . noticed . . . something. It was, well, this weird bulge. Actually, a number of weird bulges. On my arms. And I noticed that, although, granted, I'm still PLENTY fat, especially by gay standards, there was also less of me hanging off. You could even say that there were lines (other than stretch marks) that suggested contours of my body that were not, in fact, defined by fat, but by something underneath the fat.
I'm talkin' MUSCLE, BITCHES! I've got MUSCLE! OOH YEAH, LOOK AT ME AND MY BAD SELF! I've got muscle! I am so sexy! Uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh! I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt so sexy it huuuurts! And I'm too sexy for thiI'm sorry, where was I?
I took a picture of the muscle and sent it to my best friend. And when I got out of the shower, I took some pictures of me in a shirt. A lot of pictures. An embarrassing amount of pictures. But I did because, in some of them, you wouldn't be able to tell that I was heavy. I just looked handsome.
Now, this is bad. It's bad because of what I just wrote. I wrote that what I liked about these picture is that they didn't look like the way I know I look, that they weren't an accurate representation. However, I don't want to throw the baby of "I just looked handsome" with the bathwater of "you wouldn't be able to tell I was heavy." What I need to do is get to the point where I can say "I am heavy, AND I am handsome, bitch." Well, I don't need to say the bitch part, but something tells me it would help. Of course, doing so will be about as hard as buying an electric car without being smug about it, and I am know for being, from time to time, a smug motherfucker.
Tonight, though, I am just a vain motherfucker. I am just someone who is avoiding reading The Wings of the Dove (which is actually surprisingly good, just extremely dense and long) by taking a few minutes to note, with some satisfaction, that I am cute, and then writing for an hour and a half about how fucking conflicted I feel about that. I also note, with some satisfaction, that I don't feel depressed, that I feel hopeful and in something of a reparative mode (a sneak preview to the upcoming return of the Orals Blog). So between all these things, I am considering the possibility that one day I might manage to be hot and happy at the same time.
There is a part of me that hopes my crush object of last semester is there when it happens, although said part is divided as to whether it wants him free and single or miserable and, let's face it, fatter than me. I'm dealing with that.
