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I have been overweight all my life, and I still am, according to any of the usual charts. I'm much less so than I once was, though.
They warned me before I lost that weight that I might have some psychological problems from it, for a reason you might not expect. And so I did.
See, after I'd lost about 80 pounds I began to notice something. On occasion, people would smile at me on the street, or speak a word to me, completely at random. When their eyes flicked across me, they might actually focus as if they were aware I was there.
When I went to conventions with my friends, some of them who had been unable to see me could actually see me some distance away, and would say hi. I had been invisible before. I had fun with it. I could walk up to people and wave my hand to catch their attention, and they would JUMP as if I had materialized out of thin air. Scared the hell out of folks. I actually enjoyed the effect, until I lost the weight and found out what had caused it.
You see, I now realize that I had been ugly, just a blob of fat in peoples' eyes-- and to be honest, in my own as well. People don't want to see ugly things, and what we don't want to see, we don't. I had been invisible. I had been a not-person.
When I came to understand that, I got furious. Not because people treat me badly, but because I realized how badly they HAD been treating me. It's bad enough to be trapped with a problem that is going to kill you early. It's worse to be despised for it.
Well, I got over the anger. You get used to being a person. You get used to having people see you, and when you smile at someone they might even smile back. You get used to having the Honest Businessmen you anger during an inspection have to dredge up some insult other than "fatso" or "lardo." It's kind of nice.
I still get angry sometimes when I'm reminded of how quick people are to judge and dismiss as worthless those who don't live up to the airbrushed ideals of a hair gel ad. The recent flap about Rush Limbaugh hit me that way.
I am not El Rushbo's greatest fan, to say the least. He is best described, as they say, with "a seven-letter word beginning with A, and it's not 'astronaut,' because that has nine." The fact that he is still wasting perfectly good oxygen on national radio is a prime example of the lack of justice in the world.
But it makes me furious that so many of his benevolent and enlightened critics start their reasoned criticism of the man with "that fat" whatever. Or as one columnist who is always so so careful to point out every possible instance of bigotry put it, "Limbaugh is no more careful with what comes out of his mouth than he is with what goes into it." Clever words, sir! How logically you have refuted any of Rush's words there, and I bet you don't think you yourself a bigot at all!
Don't be bigots, folks. The guy's a jerk. His weight has nothing to do with it.
They warned me before I lost that weight that I might have some psychological problems from it, for a reason you might not expect. And so I did.
See, after I'd lost about 80 pounds I began to notice something. On occasion, people would smile at me on the street, or speak a word to me, completely at random. When their eyes flicked across me, they might actually focus as if they were aware I was there.
When I went to conventions with my friends, some of them who had been unable to see me could actually see me some distance away, and would say hi. I had been invisible before. I had fun with it. I could walk up to people and wave my hand to catch their attention, and they would JUMP as if I had materialized out of thin air. Scared the hell out of folks. I actually enjoyed the effect, until I lost the weight and found out what had caused it.
You see, I now realize that I had been ugly, just a blob of fat in peoples' eyes-- and to be honest, in my own as well. People don't want to see ugly things, and what we don't want to see, we don't. I had been invisible. I had been a not-person.
When I came to understand that, I got furious. Not because people treat me badly, but because I realized how badly they HAD been treating me. It's bad enough to be trapped with a problem that is going to kill you early. It's worse to be despised for it.
Well, I got over the anger. You get used to being a person. You get used to having people see you, and when you smile at someone they might even smile back. You get used to having the Honest Businessmen you anger during an inspection have to dredge up some insult other than "fatso" or "lardo." It's kind of nice.
I still get angry sometimes when I'm reminded of how quick people are to judge and dismiss as worthless those who don't live up to the airbrushed ideals of a hair gel ad. The recent flap about Rush Limbaugh hit me that way.
I am not El Rushbo's greatest fan, to say the least. He is best described, as they say, with "a seven-letter word beginning with A, and it's not 'astronaut,' because that has nine." The fact that he is still wasting perfectly good oxygen on national radio is a prime example of the lack of justice in the world.
But it makes me furious that so many of his benevolent and enlightened critics start their reasoned criticism of the man with "that fat" whatever. Or as one columnist who is always so so careful to point out every possible instance of bigotry put it, "Limbaugh is no more careful with what comes out of his mouth than he is with what goes into it." Clever words, sir! How logically you have refuted any of Rush's words there, and I bet you don't think you yourself a bigot at all!
Don't be bigots, folks. The guy's a jerk. His weight has nothing to do with it.
