baby fat

today a man named eddie used this little scale/pincher to grab my fat and measure it. he squeezed my oprah (the fat behind my tricep), my love handle, and then he had to really dig up a good amount of that tough non- doughy fat on my thigh. he said it would hurt. he asked if i bruise easily. it did, and i dont. it was somewhere between the second time he had to take my measurements (because the body fat percentage seemed too high, {hes been doing this for years, he knows what that much looks like} even for me!) and the PULL UPs he made me do (which i cant, clearly, do even one of, which made people in gym actually laugh as i hung there, dead weighted), that i asked myself what made me get a personal trainer to begin with. and then i remembered the day i joined this gym, the first day i had ever met the fat pincher, how sticky and damp my skin was under my overalls as Jorge the membership counselor got a good chunk, the way he assured me that it may be a rude awakening but it was a necessary one. i remembered the little number appearing as the tongs chomped down on the part of my arm that wigglees separately when i wave goodbye. Why did i get a personal trainer? Jorge made me do it. And the fact that that day, I hated my body.

But not today. Which is why i wasn't quite as motivated to do a "circuit" of sqauts and side lunge things with a thick rubber band around my ankles begging my legs to meet. Maybe it was the fact that last night, i washed my feet in my tub after jared's party and just sat there, for what felt like 30 or 40 minutes, loving the way the hot water felt against my tired toes and the way my feet looked, all relieved and smiley because they werent in those heels anymore. but i think it started before that-- the it-all-being-ok-ness, the not being willing to do so many reps that i feel like my muscles are going to rip my skin off. it started after ryan and i arrived at jared's, my first time at a usc party, with all those usc people, in 10 months. it started when i saw gary and for the first time got him. and then i saw alex and for the first time i got him. and maybe i got jared for the first time too, though i think he's served me the plate more over the years than the rest of them.

but it was strange, all of us talking, since really the only way i had known gary or alex was class, and i hadnt ever entertained the thought that being in class was being in a zoo- its constantly being watched and studied, youre always on. last night they weren't, and when alex said "yeah i just dont really like to talk in class" i got it! oh, its not that youre quiet! i thought i understood you! how stupid jessica- that would be like saying you understood polar bear's habits by watching them in the greenish dry igloo at the birmingham zoo- it would be like saying all polar bears pace around in circles, all polar bears have splotchy patches of hair, all polar bears have forgotten that you are the enemy.

gary made me laugh in a way that i havent in a long time. not only with the realization that he was so infinitely more than what he had ever let me see before (or what i had ever known to want to see) but with his refreshing unselfconsciousness. lil' val kilmer. man, it was nice to be tickled pink by someone other than someone who knows how specifically to tickle you. to be accidentally delighted by someone.

ryan and i realized that we are the brother and sister that we have never had. being only children and living together now and being the way we are, both so fucking similar and both so fucking stubborn that we have to argue about it. when im bored i pick a fight with him. when i know he's right i still argue until he puts his head in his hands and says "well i want to die." but after every time, no matter how irritating or how relationship-alteringly huge the arugement was, we have no choice but to make it OK again. we're family. we're part of a family that we are unwilling to see fall apart. we're doing what we couldnt with our biological families. we're patching things up, we're a set of lungs constantly re-healing after every drag of a cigarette. and realizing it, though i guess ive always known it, makes every interaction with him so much easier. it erases the conversation we had in the kitchen the other day- "why do we fight so much ryan?"... "i dont know. " it makes it easier to breathe.

i called lauren last night before i washed my feet (we used to wash our feet in that giant tub, in that white beachy bathroom, because there is something about the floor in this house that makes your feet BLACK by the end of night, caked in it, a visible reminder that the night actually happened, that if all that dirt stuck then maybe something else did too) and left a long long message on her phone. her phone which is now is new jersey. with her. which is a far away place from here. which makes me sad, until i realize that she is like the paper- she is encompassing and forgiving and enveloping. she doesnt spit it back at you, she doesnt tell you that its anything but OK. she is the one right now who is whispering "still give your plate- someone will like whats on it! someone will be perfectly satisfied with the meal youve offered them." and that isnt sad.

it isnt sad at all!
its all OK!
(even the baby fat??)
YES!
(even the tears?)
YES! That too!

what do we do now? now that nothing is pushing us to change?