Conversation with my Sister in the car on the way to the Gas Lamp District:
- I don’t care about people. I don’t care what they think, she says.
- Okay, I say.
The next five minutes trudges by peacefully. And then:
- I like it when people say I’m pretty. That’s what I like, she says.
- What…
- But not if they point out I’m fat.
- …are you trying to say?
- That’s it. That’s all I’m trying to say.
- That you don’t care about what people think just as long as they don’t think negatively about you?
- Right.
- So like, if I’m talking to you and I say, “You’re pretty”, but I leave out the “fat” part, you’d be okay with it? Is that it?
She frowns.
Our conversation ends there. She’s as thin as a rail anyway. I don’t know why she’s always harping about it. It runs in the family. People generally want to stuff me with food because of it, as if I'm a malnourished Martian. Sometimes when waitresses give me extra portions, I grab them by the wrist and say, " Excuse me. What's all this?"
And all I'll get back is a seeping, swampy, all knowing smile.
There was a scene in Ally Mcbeal that comes to mind.
Woman in the elevator: " You look like you could use a cookie."
Ally: "Great. Why don't weshare it?"
Or something like that. But unfortunately, I never have clever quips for when I'm actually there.
__
This morning I wake up to find someone’s chicken-bone arm splayed beside me. I was frightened, so I try desperately to sweep it off the bed, only it rolls over and dangles mercilessly over the edge like a broken door-hinge, and I realize suddenly – morosely – that it was really my chicken-bone arm and not some stranger’s, and that I am very late for work.
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