Hello readers! I am so behind on WordPress assignments-and comments-so sorry! It’s great to be a part of the community. Hope you all are having a good week. I love reading all your posts.
Today’s WordPress Writing 101 assignment was to open the nearest book to page 29 and see what word jumps out.
The nearest book on the shelf as I walked into my office was a writing text recommended to me back in community college, The Fourth Genre, Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. Page 29 is a Frank Conroy story, “Running the Table.” It’s a memoir piece on growing up in New York City and attending Stuyvesant High School. He loves the orderliness of the local pool hall because his own world is “a tunnel of melancholy.” But the M-word is not the word that jumped out at me.
This is raw honesty here, folks. I turned to p. 29 and Conroy describes a cashier at the pool hall. I know about all those types of jobs. You learn people, inside and out, doing service jobs. The sentence he used to describe the money-handler at the pool hall was: “The cashier was bald and overweight.”
It was “overweight” that jumped out at me.
I am on the chunky side. Thank you Lord, I am not bald, but I have noticed some hair thinning in the back.
Weight is the bane of American culture, and my ultra-sensitivity at sixty something is mashed every time the subject is spit out at us in the media. We are so obsessed with looks in this country. I think we are all permanently stuck in adolescence. It’s all image, looks, weight, acceptance, and….shame-based, in my opinion. Enough!
I do try and be healthy, but I would like to remind you, “never trust a skinny cook.” Feel me?
Coincidence on page 29? I was just writing a body image rant for my blog. I read it to my husband who said he thought it was a bit “piercing” so I filed it. So, about the body thing: aside from a lower back problem and…knock on wood…some minor aches and pains, things are ok. My husband is a polio survivor and my granddaughter has cystic fibrosis-I’m interested in healing. I want to live a good long life. I love writing, art, peace and love. Real love. Humanitarian love. Can you dig it?
My biggest pet peeve is skinny women who write about how they have great bikini bodies and how they are cool grandmothers, never frumpy. To you all, I say, bite me. One writer had the audacity to rate another woman on a scale of 1 to 10. If I am frumpy, so be it. Rate away, b-words. I don’t use that terrible word to talk about other women, but sometimes it’s tempting. If they’re going to talk about you now, they’ll talk about you later. They will find something to pick apart about another woman like vultures on a road kill.
My response to slender tenders who need a lot of self-adoration is, well, go knock yourself out. You won’t see me in a bikini, and if I had the bathing suit body, I would not be interested in bragging about it. If it happens, you’ll be the first to know.
My point: Over 200 girls were stolen away from their schools in a foreign country. Girls are being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Boys are too. What is important is health and well-being. Ending disease and oppression. My personal weight issue is not as important as character and action.
And this all started because of page 29!
Me keeping up with the moves.
Treat Yourself to a Journaling Adventure 
So true. Women make it hard to love each other when they constantly have a track of judgment playing in the back (or sometimes forefront) of their minds. I’m with you – enough of the obsession over weight and fear of frumpiness! It is cool to be yourself. Thanks for your honest rant! I feel you 🙂
Hi Leslie! Ah yes, to have the Audrey Hepburn litheness again. If I get the bikini body back, I’ll let you know. 🙂 On another topic-Conroy’s story is interesting once I got past the word that jumped out. Five pages of pure genius about his life transition playing pool. Maybe I’ll take up pool and see if it’s a good way to lose weight. xo
Amen, sister, been there, done that. I used to get mad at the LLBean catalogue when they started showing skinny models and made my size impossible to get into, at least the pants. Now, on good days, I love my body a little bit. And I’ve forgiven the skinny models. I had my time, now it’s theirs. But that doesn’t solve anything, does it?
Haha, yes. As you said, you’ve had your time. That truly is part of it. Seriously though, I think the most wonderful thing in life is to feel good. I love a good day with no major aches. Also, to be nice to women writers who want to glorify their bodies, “Go on ahead with yo’ bad self!” 🙂 I mean, we can’t all be perfect, it might hurt their feelings. xx
What a fun “assignment.” I’ve got to go check page 29!
🙂 Thanks for the comment-great to meet you. I love doing the random flip open to page___ in the nearest book. Going to read your blog, too, Teagan. Have fun with the writing. x