body image thinky things
Catherynne M. Valente, a brilliant writer whose books I occasionally rave about here, because they often feel like the distilled insides of my head made magical, recently wrote the first of a series of entries about her weight-loss journey recent adventures in and with her body. I found both the posts and the ensuing discussions really interesting, partly because she's an amazing writer who writes excellently precise/painful/funny descriptions of unpleasant things, and partly because it's a thing I find inherently really interesting. And admittedly, because my relationship with my body has currently deteriorated such that it is a wild, unkempt, neglected child, because I have been prioritizing my career and intellectual life over physical health, much less caring about appearances or establishing mutual respect between me and my skin. If you're interested, the post is in three places: Blog (no comments), DW (a few comments), LJ (a lot of comments). She also has photos documenting everything on Facebook. When we saw her at Philcon last fall (and she complimented my very not-work-appropriate outfit) she was clearly partway through this, which adds some layers to that exchange. She writes, in "Same Girl, Different Skin":So as not to bury the lede, and so that if you find this sort of thing triggery or simply boring, you can skip right along, let me cut to the title card: I have lost 90 pounds (about 41 kg) over the last 18 months. I’ve gone from a size 18, creeping up on 20 to a size 6 creeping down on 4, if the black alchemical demonology of American women’s clothes sizing is a thing you can parse.
It’s weird. It’s surreal. It still seems impossible, even though I was, obviously, there the whole time and I did it on purpose. I’m gonna talk about it. With gusto.
Obviously, don't read it if you are not interested/if this kind of thing is triggery for you/if you don't want to.
η (5:23 pm): Sequel posted now. "The secret is that there is no secret." Again, the real conversation will probably happen on LJ. Blog, LJ, DW.
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It’s weird. It’s surreal. It still seems impossible, even though I was, obviously, there the whole time and I did it on purpose. I’m gonna talk about it. With gusto.
Obviously, don't read it if you are not interested/if this kind of thing is triggery for you/if you don't want to.
η (5:23 pm): Sequel posted now. "The secret is that there is no secret." Again, the real conversation will probably happen on LJ. Blog, LJ, DW.
This entry has
comments. Leave a comment? (Click "Log in with OpenID?", top right corner.)