December 12: they eat pancakes, don't they?

It’s Sunday morning—post-inoculation, pre-final essay grading, day 2—and I am starting my day with breakfast.

To you, the non-hungry reader, that may not seem blog-worthy, but to me, a perpetually hungry writer, it is.

Like many beings my age, shape, size, demographic, sex, and species, I worry about how I look. Mostly, I worry about what I weigh. So Monday through Saturday each week, I measure and track everything I eat. And on Sunday, I just eat.

If y’all are shaking your heads about eating disorders or body dysmorphia, don’t. And if you feel compelled to text me about how beautiful I am already, feel free, but I know.

People who struggle with their weight often say they are overweight because they love food. I don’t think this is true. I believe most people who are overweight don’t much care for food at all—they just like to eat. Just like JLo loves weddings but not marriage and Republicans love babies but not people, fat people love eating but not food.

I like to think I have flipped the script—I am not terribly interested in eating, but I really like food. Which is why, six days a week, I track calories and on Sunday I eat food.

Whenever members of the diet culture mention “eating normally” I think about Joseph Merrick, aka The Elephant Man, and his lifelong and fatal wish to “sleep like a normal human being.” As he became more and more accepted by society, he began to think of himself more as more as a normal person. And when he tried to act like one by sleeping on his back without propping his 20 pound head, the weight of it crushed his spine and killed him.

Considering some of my other Advent reflections, perhaps I am not that good at having a body—I don’t like feeding it, I don’t like resting it, and I am generally happiest when I am working it so hard as to be somewhat outside of it.

But I am not interested in giving it up—there’s pancakes to finish and wine with dinner. And tomorrow, after black coffee, I may not be interested in eating at all. Is that normal? Probably not. But, as we know, trying to be normal when you are not is deadly.