august 16, 2001. I just finished reading one of Wendy's old archived entries about buying a scale (there's also a good entry about the death of the scale - yes, I'm addicted to Wendy. When I read what she wrote about coma fantasies, fantasies in which she would go into a coma and come out thin, I clapped my hands over my mouth & giggled because I have those fantasies too. Sigh.) Anyway. I just finished the entry about the scale. And I thought about our scale-less house. It's just something that never occurred to us in the year we've been married; partly because we're lazy minimalists, partly because we're poor-ish and a scale seems more unnecessary than a Swamp Thing graphic novel, and partly because the Boy has a stunning Ichabod Crane physique and he's never had to monitor his weight. But now I'm thinking, why do I have to monitor my weight? Just because some stupid number is attached to it, does that make it better? I'd much rather rely on how I feel; how my clothes settle around me. It just seems more sensible. But that may be because I don't need numerical validation this week. Since Dirk left I've been cutting back on the snacky excess that marked the days of his menstruation vacation, and it seems to be paying off in a slight way. This morning I put on a pair of the Boy's pants that are usually dismayingly pouchy around the waist, and found myself looking slimmer than I have in years. Of course, I hadn't eaten a blessed thing at that point in the day, and it's relatively easy to look slim when you're actually starving. Still. I have a superstitious faith that whatever I'm not doing at the moment will be the key to "fixing" me. This translates into a firm conviction that if I ever got off my round copious butt and exercised, I have utter faith that all of my body image problems would melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West. (fat: "oh, my beautiful evil!! oh, what a world!") In September I plan to pick up yoga and belly dancing, which I hope will be fun enough to stick with. When we moved here last year, I had vague plans to continue my sporadic exercise program via free university aerobic classes. But I soon discovered that I did not have the brass balls to flail around ineptly in the university gym, not when this institution is so full of real athletes. I cower under their imagined withering gazes, and slink away before they have a chance to scorn me. I am oppressed by imaginary jocks. Maybe I'll go on an imaginary shooting spree. (I like to call this place a jock-ocracy, but the jocks don't really run anything. It's the computer support guys who are the real powers on campus, since every one on campus is at the mercy of our insanely overpriced laptops. Which, I suppose, would make it a geek-ocracy. In theory that should be appearing. But it is not.) this time 3 years ago: I found myself wanting to caress the backs & faces of the figures, to trace the curve of spines, to curl my hands into massive unmoving fingers, to step within the circle of tortured bronze arms & kiss perfectly molded bronze lips.