upcoming show
I keep forgetting to post to this blog that I’m gonna be in a really cool literary reading-event-thing very soon. I remembered to post it right now because I’m meeting up with a photographer from the Houston Press this evening so they can photograph me in the costume I’m gonna wear. I’ll read one piece from my upcoming book and one piece from this chapbook that I just did while waiting for the book to come out. (More on that later.)
Anyway, in case you’re in Houston or will be here on the 25th and you want to go, here’s the pertinent info:
Who: MECA Writers’ Lounge
[that’s me and my friend Sylvia and the people currently on our good side]
What: The Quinceanera You Were Too Poor to Have – literary performance
[a quinceanera is a Latino thing, but everybody’s welcome — just come on]
When: Friday, July 25, 2003, 7:00 – 9:30 p.m.
Where: MECA, 1900 Kane, Houston, TX 77007
Admission: $3.00 donation suggested
There’ll be free food and an open mic session. Come on! It’ll be super fun. Come see me and I’ll let you try on my tiara. Seriously.
meanwhile: (fat. FAT ISSUES. Watch out!)
The other day I was beating myself up because I’ve been on the Atkins diet since Jan 1, but I’ve only lost two sizes. Ostensibly. Then I realized that I’ve really gone down three sizes, because I now wear size 16 and size 16 is really 14W, not 16W, and I started at 20W in January, and I couldn’t tell what was going on because I no longer bother to shop at Lame Giant because they almost never have 14Ws in the store.
And none of that even mattered, because I was beating myself up anyway, feeling like I was still fat. Looking at myself in the mirror and saying, “Goddam, Gwen, you sure are big. Jesus.”
And then I remembered way back into the past to when I was 17 years old, five-foot-nine and wearing size 6, and looking in the mirror thinking, “Why do I have to be so big?” and feeling the exact same feeling that I’ve been feeling lately.
So I decided to quit worrying about it. Who the hell is ever happy with the way they look? At least I’m three sizes smaller than I was seven months ago.
And then the other day I went to this huge costume store — costume warehouse — to buy a tiara for the show advertised in the entry above. And the costume warehouse had this HUGE mirror. It was the size of a living room wall. And I was idling near the tiara counter, feeling happy because I thought I looked pretty freaking hot that day in my short black skirt and cobalt blue sweater. And then I saw my reflection in the huge mirror with the corner of my eye, and I thought, “What the hell is that fat chick staring at me for?”
I turned to stare back at her, and I saw that it was me. I looked really, really fat.
The most horrible thoughts shot through my head before I could try to stop them. In order, but paraphrased, they went like this:
- “Oh my god, I’m so fat!”
- “Oh my god, how can Tad stand to date me? How awful for him!”
- “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’ve been telling people I’ve been losing weight! Why did I lie?”
- “No wonder Biff never asked me out, even though I thought I had lost weight. Can I blame him?”
- “Everybody at work is just telling me I lost weight to be nice. They have to see me looking like this every day.”
- “No wonder I can’t make more money — look at me.”
- “God, I can’t believe I thought I had lost weight. It was all a lie. My new clothes must be labelled wrong…”
- “Man. I just want to go home right now and cry. No — and eat little Debbie Cakes. No — just cry and starve…”
Within the space of about 2.4 seconds, I thought all that stuff. And then I got hold of myself. I realized that this mirror was probably just bad. I mean, it wasn’t even real glass. It couldn’t be. Look how big and dim and warpy it was, standing in the middle of a costume shop like that. It had to be a bad mirror. I wasn’t sad anymore. I was annoyed.
After paying for my tiara, I said to the cashier, who seemed to be around my size, “Is it just me, or does y’all’s mirror make people look fat?”
Bitter-faced and in her fifties, this woman looked me in the eye and said, “It’s a big mirror. It shows you all the things you don’t wanna see.”
“No,” I reasoned. “I’ve seen myself in big mirrors before, and I’m not that big. That mirror is distorted.”
This poor woman said to me, “I see that mirror every day and I’ve just learned to face the fact that that’s how fat I am. I just try not to look at it. It’s too depressing.” And then she handed me my receipt and shuffled away.
Hell freaking no. No way. I don’t believe it. Fuck that mirror. It’s messed up. I’m sorry that woman has to work there and see herself like that every day, but I don’t have to accept her reality. I am not that fat.
And, dude… even if I really am that fat… who gives a damn? Tad is dating me. I have lost weight. I will make more money. Biff is just a dumb ass. I don’t need any freaking Little Debbie cakes because I am the queen. I rule my own freaking world. I now have the tiara to prove it.
Fuck that mirror and the horse it rode in on. I look good, baby.
