The high on Saturday will be 10 degrees Farenheit

I have never talked about body image issues or the hefty-ish (HA!) problems I had to deal with being a twee bit larger than what I should be and the subsequent self-consciousness stemming from this. Why hadn't I talked about this before? Because they are extremely typical and boring, and because it's personal and no concern of yours. And because no one REALLY cares.

I'm happy to say that I'm getting to a point where I don't feel cripplingly bashful around others or angry about what I see in the mirror. This was facilitated not by a miraculous drop in my weight, but more because I grew up and because of this:



Why yes, that is a fully length mirror in my bathroom. (And yes, that is the toilet paper in the most inconvenient location imaginable). I've never had one before. In addition to being forced to see almost every nook and cranny of my body, clad or unclad, which I have never done before this year, nor have I ever wanted to, I have also had to come to terms with how I look while going to the bathroom.

I'd say elegant and contemplative.

Yennie's latest project has also been a positive influence upon this revamping of my body image. Yennie is a page at Special Collections and I think it would appropriate to liken our friendship to a passionate romance: involved and sudden. And who knows how long. It was at the end of last quarter where we discovered each others' existence and that lo, they were pretty compatible. Within a relatively short amount of time we were revealing our hearts' desires, confessing how hard it is to find some of the books in the "waiting to be reshelved" shelves, and our love for leather binding.

It was her idea to go on the "Special K" diet (which I just christened the "Special Kollections" diet), not necessarily because we need to, but more out of curiosity. In this form of self-induced torture and penitential living, one substitutes 2 bowls of cereal for 2 meals and eats the third meal as one would normally, and can consume fruits and vegetables with abandon. One is also allowed 2 Special K bars per day, which measure about 1"x3" and can keep a very small bird alive for half a day. This actually isn't so bad, aside from the cereal tasting more and more styrofoam-like with each successive bowl. I thought this would be a diet we'd keep from others, something that would let us pass significant glances at each other over the photocopy machine and to smile mysteriously at each other while she passed me at the exhibit cases. That illusion quickly dissolved as she brought the costco sized Special K boxes to work and announced to everyone that she and her girlfriend, Adrianne, were going on the Special K diet. This instigated a whole chain of conversation, which led to people I didn't even know in the department coming up to me to tell me they knew I was on the Special K diet, almost like they were telling me they knew what I ate the night before.

One day after work last week Yennie waited for me to get off my shift so we could shop for our fruits and veggies together. As she saw me walking toward her, she exclaimed "Adrianne, it IS almost like we're dating each other! I'm waiting for you after work!" To which I replied "Want to make out in the stacks?" David, a man sitting at the desk then said "You two don't have enough calories in you to make out."