On my last trip to the library, I picked up a few books. When my oldest daughter saw my selections,she was a bit surprised. The books were: Fat Girl (a memoir), The Fat Girl (an old YA book from the 80s) and a fiction novel titled Beautiful Bodies.

I have tried to read Beautiful Bodies, and I am not liking it. It is supposed to be about six friends having a dinner party and talking, but the first few chapters are each of the characters time before arriving at the party, and it is boring. Very boring. I don’t think I’m going to read anymore. This is progress. I used to keep reading books that didn’t appeal to me.

I haven’t read the YA book yet (or tried), but I did read the memoir Fat Girl by Judith Moore. This is a  book that I have thought about buying more than once, but I didn’t because it is a tiny book and expensive by comparison.

It is also a depressing book. I didn’t learn anything interesting or different about fat issues. There was a lot of self-loathing, and I forced myself to finish it. One review called the book “breathtaking,” but I didn’t get that at all.

One book that I did like recently, and I liked it because it offered a new perspective as well as lots of good stuff about weight — Life in the Fat Lane by Cherie Bennett. It is a YA book. It really makes you think, I think. Or at least it did me.

And that’s my review. I am going to avoid weight-related reading for a bit. Next on my reading list: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

It was on an envelope. A few quick lines. I wrote it while stopped at a traffic light, and I used my steering wheel as a table. I didn’t want to forget. It was an entire passage of thoughts, a new room, that I wanted to explore as I continue to write my memoir. I needed to record it, so I wouldn’t forget. I remember writing on the envelope. I remember recording an important thought.

I can’t find the envelope. I don’t remember what I wrote. I just remember writing….

I have not yet given up hope the envelope is gone. There is a pile of paper I brought in from my car Saturday, and the envelope is probably in the pile.

I just wrote it Friday morning. It can’t be lost yet. Can it?

***

I was reading the memoir, Three Dog Life, and there was a passage about memory that I really liked. I want to record it, so I remember. This passage has nothing to do with the envelope, other than both have to do with memory….

And this passage struck me because it addresses something I’ve wondered about — how my memories in written form impact other people.

“Six months ago a friend was angry with me and I with her. I had written something someone said years ago, but it was she who heard the words, not me, a fact I had completely forgotten. Her experience was precious, and she accused me of stealing her memory. Not only that, but what she remembered with grief I had somehow transmuted to gratitude, so besides stealing her memory, I also got it wrong. We argued, but there was no meeting place. For days the same questions went through my head. Is memory property? If two people remember something differently is one of them wrong? Wasn’t my memory of a memory also real? There were no solid answers, just winding paths I went round and round on. I thought of nothing else; a chasm had opened between me and my friend.

“When I went to see Rich that Thursday, the first thing he said was, “Please forgive the selfishness of an old man who seizes the past for his own.” He paused, but I was already listening closely. This sounded oddly like what I’d been thinking about” (Thomas 129-130).

There’s more, but I have class.

Thomas, Abigail. Three Dog Life. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2007.

Aug. 18, 2006, I went to an amusement park with my children. It was the first time I was confronted with the possibility of being too big to be the parent I want to be. I had already been writing about my weight since January 2006, so it was on my mind. The humiliating experience ended up being the first chapter of my memoir, Fat Man’s Daughter.

This past weekend, the date, Aug. 18, 2007 arrived, and I wasn’t at an amusement park, but as the day went by, I also realized I wasn’t where I wanted to be either. I have talked and talked about losing weight, and I’ve tried to do something about it, but I haven’t had a lot of success in actually losing weight. I have a lot of up and down the scale within about a 10 pound range.

So I am recommitting to my weight loss journey. I am not going to be discouraged by what I haven’t done. Instead, I am going to focus on what still needs to be done. I don’t need to do the math and think about how much weight I could have lost. I need to do the exercise and be better about keeping the calories done. I’m starting again and maybe by Aug. 18, 2008, I’ll have something more encouraging to report. But I’m not going to wait until then. I want to see some results — maybe not on the scale but at least in my behavior — by Sept. 18, 2007. I want to exercise regularly. Key word there — regularly. I can do this.