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 by Jen Lancaster Read Free Book Online
Authors: Jen Lancaster
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
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
Similar Books
A Chance Encounter
Mary Balogh
The American: A Middle Western Legend
Howard Fast
The New York Stories of Elizbeth Hardwick
Elizabeth Hardwick
Only Human
Maria Bradley
The Outcasts
Kathleen Kent
Like Dandelion Dust
Karen Kingsbury
Southern Charm
Tinsley Mortimer
You Were Meant For Me
Yona Zeldis McDonough
Wickedest Witch
Eve Langlais
Words and Music by Cameron David
Gina Watson