2000-03-27
Another lovely weekend weather-wise. On Saturday we took the canoe to the lake for the first time this year. Everyone else with boats decided to go as well, it seemed; we've never seen the place so crowded. Only saw one other canoe, everyone else was in gasoline-powered boats, most of them fishing. And of course there were the usual jet-skiers. I'm sure there are those who enjoy jet-skiing in responsible, considerate fashion, but I haven't observed them. The ones who frequent this lake are really obnoxious, zipping about heedless of their effect on those of us paddling. There are lakes that prohibit power boats; we'll have to check them out.
Then yesterday, Sunday, B and I played a little tennis. Well, we batted the ball back and forth, we didn't do anything like keep score since we're both novices doing this primarily for exercise. We're getting better, though much of our exercise comes from running to retrieve errant balls. I have a particular talent for whacking them over the fence.
The above paragraphs, coupled with my mention a few weeks back of having gone for a walk and a bike ride, might give you the impression that I'm moderately outdoorsy. And I suppose that is at least somewhat the case. It feels odd, though, feels as though I'm misrepresenting myself.
See, I grew up and spent most of my life as the most emphatically indoorsy sort of person. The bookish sort, pale and uncoordinated and, to varying degrees, fat. I remain pale and bookish, but in recent years think of myself as reasonably well-coordinated. And I'm no longer fat. I guess. I'm not thin, but rather kind of average. I think. It's hard to know for sure.
Having been fat and no longer being so is a big complicated kettle of fish that I may or may not explore here. It's awfully personal and possibly boring. I do think I'd find value in writing some kind of "body autobiography" -- it's on my mental To Do Someday list -- which I might or might not share. I've also thought about trying to package some of this content to sell to women's magazines.
But I will tell you one anecdote. Probably some eight or ten years ago my father organized a birthday party for his mother, my grandmother, in the midwestern city where she lived. At this point my size fell somewhere between its all-time high and what it is now. My grandmother had had this boyfriend for years, though I'd never met him. Upon our being introduced, he exclaimed, "You're Helene? I expected you to be three times the size you are!" I suppose I reddened. "You have a lovely figure," he went on. "Thank you," I suppose I stammered, trying to imagine exactly how my grandmother had described me.
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