acceptable desires for a lady
The things I want are things people should feel ashamed of or guilty for wanting. No — not things you can get pictures of on the Internet for monthly fees discreetly billed to your credit card. That would make it easy. But I do want things that depend on attitude shifts of other people, and that’s supposed to be wrong. So I’m going to try to want more appropriate things, instead.
I want a new car. That’s good, because materialism is one of the great motivational forces of our society, isn’t it? (Understand that when I say “new”, I mean “less used.”) Never mind that it’s just as implausible as anything else I might ask for — to get paid fairly for doing something I really enjoy, for instance, or to be valued and respected for my talents, or for somebody to be in love with me without me having to lose a hundred pounds and totally change my personality, or something like that. A new car is a good thing to dream about. Some day my post-divorce credit will clear up like a pimply face, or else I’ll save enough money to buy another car outright. (My dad couldn’t cosign, after all.) And I hope to God that one of these events occurs before my current car stops running again. Then my life will be complete, because that’s all I’m going to want, because anything else would be silly and pathetic.
I could want to lose weight, I guess. I could want to be bikini thin. But I’m already taking care of that. I’m losing weight. I lost two inches from my waist in the past month and a half. Now I can buy size XL from Lerner New York and even from some designers at Kohl’s. Isn’t that exciting? No? You’ll understand if you’re a fat girl like me. Otherwise you’ll have to use an analogy. Pretend the plus size stores are specialty parts stores, and Lerner New York is Auto Zone. Pretend you used to have to buy specialty parts for your car. Then, one day, a magic fairy makes your car work with standard parts. “Yay!” you say. “Now I can just shop at any nearby Auto Zone and get the same good deals as everybody else!! I no longer have to drive all the way to the specialty auto parts store and hope that they have the part I need for a price I can afford! Woo!!!” See, a whole new world has been opened to me. Really, all I want is to be able to shop in all the regular stores. I don’t even care how I look in a swimsuit.
If you’ve been struggling to lose weight, I bet you’re not exactly jumping for joy to hear my crowing. But at the same time, I bet you have a nicer car than mine, so any deficiency in sympathetic sentiment is mutual.
Normally I’d be out shopping for shoes with my cousin Randy on such a lovely Saturday with my kids away. But I feel kind of crappy today. I slime-coated myself and put on warm clothing so I can lie around and do nothing for an hour or five. One of my numerous work projects suddenly became very stressful this past week, and the end is nowhere in sight. If I don’t make myself chill out now, I’ll have no one but myself to blame later.
