Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer (5 page)

But now I’m having trouble sleeping again, so I’m off to beg for new drugs.

I
love
my doctor! She’s the first one I’ve ever had who I don’t actively dread going to see, which is likely because of her bedside manner. I mean, outside of a social situation, how many doctors have you met who insist you call them by their first names? Plus, her personal style is to die for. If I saw her on the street, I would think she was incredibly cool and con fident, the way she carries off her spiky blond Annie Lennox haircut. Last time I was here she was clad in a vintage Pucci dress and baby pink motorcycle boots. Wonder what she’ll be in today?

In the waiting area of her office are paintings by local artists and a bunch of signed photos—looks like she’s treated Cameron Diaz and Sean Penn and a ton of famous athletes. I dig going to Chicago’s version of the doctor to the stars.

Of course, it’s not accidental that I’m here. Years ago I worked in health care and learned how to check out a physician ’s practice history. Dr. Awesome’s credentials could not be more flawless, so I’ve never questioned or second-guessed her judgment.

Exactly on time, she calls my name, so I follow her to the examination room. We enter an immaculate space, and she gestures for me to sit in the chair next to the computer rather than on the exam table. I dig how she conducts herself—it’s like we’re going to have a conversation and not some scary, impersonal exam.

We settle into our respective seats, and Dr. Awesome asks me the reason for my visit. I explain how I’ve been having trouble falling asleep because of stress and I’d like to do something about it.

“Is the stress you feel new, or has it been ongoing?” she asks.

Back when I was a salesperson, I worried about making my numbers and completing projects. The stress I felt when I was unemployed was obvious, and when I started temping, my anxiety was linked to a combination of boredom and misplaced aggression. (I dare you to try to keep smiling when a high school graduate details a three-point process of stapling documents together and then quizzes you on it.)

Now that I’m writing professionally, the anxiety is more free-floating because I have no control over the business portion of bookselling. What if someone else writes a story like mine first? Or better? What if everyone hates my work? Or worse, completely ignores it?

“Yes and no,” I reply. “Here’s the thing—back when I was doing sales, if my numbers were low, I could channel my stress by working harder. I could make more phone calls, give more quotes, take more meetings, create more proposals, but in my new career as a writer, there’s no set of rules to follow to guarantee success. It’s a big, fat crapshoot, hence the insomnia.”

“I understand. Tell me, Jen, what’s your activity level like?”

Just shy of cadaverous?

“Um, it’s OK. I was doing really well last year going to the gym. I even had a trainer for a little while, but for Christmas she gave me a size medium sweatshirt—like that would
ever
fit me—and a bill for six hundred dollars for sessions we hadn’t even had, and I stopped seeing her. Then I got busy with my second book, and . . . well, here we are.” Vanity had previously driven me to hit the gym when I thought I was going to be featured in some magazines as part of a publicity push. Turns out everyone just used photos of the book cover. Regardless, I still look pretty good right now. I mean, I’ve got a glowing tan and a faboo haircut, no less than four shades of blond perfectly showcasing said tan, and the whole package is tied together nicely with proper accessories and well-tailored pants. What’s not to like?

Dr. Awesome scans her computer screen and furrows her brow, tapping a finger to her lips. “Your weight troubles me. According to your chart, you’ve put on more than thirty pounds since last year, and that’s without weighing you today. Do you feel like the gain came on because of the stress, or is the stress causing you to gain? Or would you say it’s your lack of activity?”

I would say it’s the ten pies I’ve eaten in the past two months.

“Um, the stress is causing my gain?” I totally sound like I’m guessing. Which I am.

“For a course of action, we need to up your activity level immediately. I believe your weight and your stress are linked, and ...”

Ugh. I don’t want to hear this. Avoiding her earnest eyes, I look down at my feet.

And then I look at her feet.

And then I shout, “Oh, my God. You’re wearing leopard-print Manolo ballet flats! I didn’t know those existed outside of my dreams!”

And here’s where we get to Jen’s Life Lesson #1012: Never interrupt your doctor to discuss her taste in designer footwear.

A flash of recognition crosses my fun, stylish doctor’s face. Suddenly she doesn’t want to dance around my feelings about my anxiety or hear how I camouflage my weight with pretty hair, cute shoes, and shapely ankle-revealing capri pants. Her entire demeanor changes. Her spine stiffens, and she leans forward in her chair, delivering what amounts to a death sentence.

She talks way too candidly about the danger presented by my high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol level. She delivers a long, blood-curdlingly descriptive monologue about diabetes and gallstones, moving on to the horrors of coronary heart disease and stroke, with a side of breast cancer and cirrhosis of the liver and, for good measure after taking in my savage tan, squamous cell carcinoma.

In painstaking detail, Dr. Awesome describes the number of agonizing, wasting ways I will die if I don’t change my eating and fitness habits, like, immediately.

Dude.

Dude.

Ouch
.

Tough love
sucks
.

But tomorrow I begin to change my life.

For real.

from the desk of the logan square
-
bucktown neighborhood association

Dear Resident at 2331 North x——Street,

Our office has received numerous calls about the state of the front of your home. Although we encourage the recognition of national holidays through tasteful adornment, it is now December, so we respectfully request that you dismantle your Easter décor, like, immediately.

Best,

Jen Cognito, Association President
³⁷

P.S. Throwing down a cylinder of Morton table salt is not the new “shoveling.” Kindly attend to the snow on your sidewalk, or fines shall be assessed.

CHAPTER FOUR

Two Fat People Admit Defeat

"Since when is macaroni and cheese diet food?” Fletch asks as he closes the front door behind a retreating army of service professionals.

“Um,
hello
? Near-death experience? I’m supposed to comfort myself with lettuce? I think not,” I reply. I tuck back into the melt-y, breadcrumb-crusted plate of happiness in front of me after pulling a quilt fashioned from old college sweatshirts around my shoulders, trying to fend off the arctic wind currently blowing through my living room.

Not long ago we started running the heat when fall finally turned to winter. I noticed an odd smell coming from the basement, and Fletch explained that all gas furnaces do that. I disagreed vehemently, and we squabbled about it until today, when I couldn’t stand it anymore and called the HVAC guys.

Apparently our chimney has caved in, and all sorts of loose bricks and mortar are blocking the gas our furnace is
supposed
to vent. The toxic fumes can’t escape, and what I’ve smelled is the paint melting inside our furnace, and had I actually listened to Fletch, we’d have been exploded or poisoned at some point in the very near future!
³⁸

I continue, “I figured if I was going to die this weekend, I was
not
heading to the afterlife with nothing in my stomach but broccoli, so I broke out one of the servings of macaroni and cheese I froze for just such an emergency.” I keep a number of emergency rations in the freezer. Fletch looks down at my plate and back at me. “Okay, fine. Two servings. Whatever. We almost
died
, you know.”

“We’re not in danger anymore,” he counters.

“Maybe we’re not
right this minute
, but my system is in the delayed kind of shock only Italian ham and three kinds of melted cheese can fix.” I’m anxious to change the subject. “What did the furnace guys say?”

“One of two things—either we get a whole new furnace that doesn’t need to be vented through the chimney, or we hire a chimney sweep to clean out all the debris. They suggested we try that first.”

“How much will that cost?” I take another bite of the creamy concoction, and it’s smoky and delicious. The key to really perfect mac ’n’ cheese is pancetta. Dice and sauté it first; then set it aside to mix with the elbows and cheese sauce before it goes in the oven. Use the pancetta drippings as a base for the roux and whichever mild white cheese you prefer, but whatever you choose, do your taste buds a favor and toss in some fontina because there’s almost nothing that melts more smoothly and—

Fletch interrupts my reverie. “Are you listening to me, or are you thinking about your macaroni?”

Busted. “Um, I’m listening. Of course. You were saying it would cost how much?”

“About six hundred dollars.”

“Ouch.” Although I presently have such house lust, I actually dream of escrow and have already picked out paint colors and backsplashes, at times like this I don’t mind being a renter. I fear I lack the responsibility homeownership requires. I mean, last week I gave myself food poisoning eating pie left over from Thanksgiving—twice—and still buy cereal based on the prizes inside. Plus, there’s no way we can buy a home in the city as nice as where we live now. Our place is a hundred-year -old row house that’s been completely renovated
³⁹
and filled with top-of-the-line appliances and fixtures. We’ve got a full basement, a garage, three bathrooms, and a gourmet kitchen with no less than forty-seven pristine white cabinets, fortunate considering our barware situation. Better yet, we have a small, grassy front lawn and a twee little backyard that I’ve turned into a tropical paradise with $2,000 worth of landscaping and my own backbreaking labor. If we didn’t live next door to idiots who patch their broken windows with plastic bags from the grocery store, this place would be perfect.
⁴⁰

More important, we have the first landlord I’ve ever liked, so I refrain from cackling
Gee, that sounds expensive!
in the background while Fletch describes the possible solutions to her on the phone. I return my attention to lunch and my daily dose of FOX News. I hear him brief our landlord and then call the chimney sweeps before returning to the living room.

“What time will they be here?” I ask.

“Not ’til Monday morning.”

“But today is Friday.” The HVAC guys red-tagged the furnace and water heater and cut the gas to both, so until the chimney is swept, getting warm or washed in our house is not an option.

“Still wearing your days-of-the-week underpants, I see,” he dryly replies.

“No.”
Yes.
“What’s our game plan, then?” I drop my fork and have to scramble for it before the dogs get there first. Ha! Victory! I wipe it on a napkin and continue eating.

“Our landlord said she’d pay for us to take the dogs and go to a hotel.”

“What about the cats?”

“Two dogs and four cats in a hotel room sounds far worse than no heat or hot water. The cats can stay here. It won’t go below about sixty degrees with the way this place is insulated, so they’ll have to deal with being a little chilly. That’s why they have fur.”

“They’ll mutiny!” I love our cats, but I got them in college, so they’re all between twelve and fourteen years old, and now it’s like living with a group of loud, pushy, cranky senior citizens who take extraordinary pleasure in vomiting in your shoes. The dogs won’t even walk past them in the hallway, they’re so scary. “Sounds like we’re not in any danger with the furnace and hot-water heater turned off, right?”

“Correct.”

I consider our options for a moment. “Let’s just stay here.”

“You wouldn’t rather go to a hotel?”

“Nah. We’ll be all right.”

Fletch narrows his eyes at me. I am
never
amenable, especially when it comes to being physically uncomfortable. He strictly adheres to my HHT credo, meaning I can’t be held responsible for my actions should I ever get Hot, Hungry, or Tired. (Special dispensation is made for instances that are humid, cold, and boring, too, e.g., any outdoor sporting event.) “What’s your angle?”

“No angle. We survived with our utilities being shut off when we were unemployed and broke; this is no big deal. Also, I don’t want the hassle of packing up and heading to a hotel.”

Okay, that’s kind of a lie. Truth is, we just dumped our satellite service and switched to cable with on-demand. There’s a whole season of
Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel
cached in the player’s memory.
⁴¹
Although neither Miz nor Coral is participating in this challenge, big Beth from
The Real World
’s second season in Los Angeles is. Beth’s almost as evil as Tonya and her Kidney Stones of Doom from
The Real World Chicago
cast, which means
someone’s
getting bitch slapped, and I can’t miss it. Of course, if I had my druthers, I’d cast Puck from San Francisco because he’s always stirring shit up, Cyrus and Montana from Boston for their snarky commentary, Mormon Julie from New Orleans for the hate factor, and the oh-so-oily Veronica because she makes out with everyone and every—

Ahem.

He shrugs. “As long as you’re fine with it, we can stay. I guess we’ll shower at the gym.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I reply. We joined West Loop a couple of years ago specifically so we could bathe after losing gas service. We took advantage of their free trial offer but ended up liking the place so much that we decided to join. After paying our gas bill, we funded our membership by listing a couple of things on Craigslist, including an exercise bike. The bike sold the very first day, largely due to the ad I posted:

TWO FAT PEOPLE ADMIT DEFEAT

Two fat people are looking to dump their Excel 395 Recumbent Magnetic Exercise Bike for $100 OBO.

Although we don’t know from a lot of firsthand experience, this terrific bike comes with:

• Adjustable seat (extralarge to accommodate even the biggest caboose)

• Adjustable tension (which apparently would have been an excellent cardiovascular workout, had we ever gotten past the second level)

• Computerized speed, distance, odometer, timer, and calorie display

• Less than 250 miles on the odometer

• Cup holder (and, really, isn’t everything better with a cup holder?)

Don’t need an exercise bike? No problem!

The Excel 395 also makes a great clothes-drying rack.

Please buy our bike and get it out of our house so it’s no longer a daily reminder of how we failed in our quest for fitness. Also? We’re tired of dusting it. Thanks!

P.S. It will fit in an SUV, but we can also deliver it for an additional fee, although do you really want two sweaty fat people having simultaneous heart attacks in your stairwell?

P.P.S. Naturally, we’ll need cash because we’ll probably use the money for pie.

I continue, “Now there’s no way I’ll skip my workout if I have to go there to wash my hair anyway. Problem solved. Except . . .” I trail off.

“Now what?

“I won’t be home on Monday.”

“I will, so I can let the chimney sweeps in.”

“I kind of wanted to see them.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

Fletch looks puzzled for a minute, and then chokes back a laugh. “You think Dick Van Dyke and a band of sooty Cockneys are going to sing and dance in the basement, don’t you?”

“No.”
Maybe.

As Fletch wanders off to the kitchen for more coffee, he calls, “Oh, I forgot to mention it—the HVAC guys said the trapped gas was making us sick. They said once it’s vented, we’ll have a lot fewer headaches and far less lethargy, and we’ll feel much better because of the improved air quality.” He heads into his office at the back of the house, and I can hear him turn on the space heater before closing the door.

I chew on this information for a moment. This is great news! (Except for the us-almost-dying-from-toxic-gas part.) The leak means all the lying around I’ve done lately is technically not my fault. My problem hasn’t been lethargy; it’s been chemistry! Nuts to you, you vicious inner critic! Now you can go back to helping me mock others! No wonder I didn’t pop out of bed, don spandex, and head to the gym for a prebreakfast workout like I’d pledged to do every night this week when I went to sleep. How was I supposed to take the dogs on their power walk when my system was being compromised by noxious fumes? And my body was slowly being poisoned, no wonder it craved Snickers bars and not salads!

But, I wonder, how do I explain all the years of lazy
prior
to our gas leak?

TO: stacey_at_work

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Next Week?

Sorry to have missed you last night—let’s plan a time to get together when you’re back in town. Except for thinking up reasons I’m allowed to skip the gym, my schedule is almost totally empty. (Today’s reason is because I have a cold. Yesterday’s was the dogs seemed sad. Tomorrow I can probably milk the cold angle again, with the one-two punch of also being mad at my mother.)

See you soon?

Jen

TO: [email protected]

FROM: stacey_at_work

SUBJECT: Re: Next Week?

Some excuses I use to avoid the gym that you are welcome to borrow:

1. Mercury is in retrograde. As is my ass.

2. My pedicure color clashes with my only clean workout outfit.

3. My inner child thinks walking on a treadmill is stupid and boring and only doo-doo heads do it.

4. My iPod needs to charge.

5. There is a marathon of
I Love the 80s
on VH1, and I miss A-Ha so much.

6. I have a tapeworm on backorder.

7. It’s raining.

8. It’s snowing.

9. It’s sunny.

10. It’s mild with a 42 percent chance of precipitation later in the day.

11. There’s a full moon and I am suspicious that there are at least four guys at my gym who are werewolves. Okay, maybe just in need of a good back waxing, but better not to risk it.

12. That bitch with the perfect bod who always tells me in the locker room how hard it is for her to keep on weight no matter how much she eats is probably going to be there again, and I might just kill her this time. Going to prison for homicide is so much worse than staying fat.

13. I dreamed about working out; that counts, right?

14. I’m having a good hair day.

15. I’m having a bad hair day.

16. I’m having a pulling-my-hair-out day.

17. Today is surely the day that George Clooney is gonna call to ask me out.

18. In which case when I get laid tomorrow, I don’t want my quads to cramp up in the middle.

I get back Sunday morning. If you don’t have plans in the evening, we could hook up for dinner or postdinner drinks. Otherwise, next week Monday and Thursday night both look good right now.

Have a great weekend!

biglove,

s.