comics

comics about weight loss surgery suck.

in general.

My husband and I own a small comic book store. Naturally I wanted to see if there was someone out there in comics addressing this subject. Other than gags or political cartoons, there's not much out there at all. I guess people are pretty touchy about WLS. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to finally write something interesting.

Anyway, the best thing I found was an old Natalie Dee piece that I'd completely forgotten about. (I love Natalie Dee!!! Read more of her stuff here.)

In other comics news, I've been mentoring a girl at my old high school who just finished her first graphic novel. It was 23 pages (which is a lot for a debut piece) and she did it as her senior project. My high school is a private college preparatory / boarding school - very intense academics and mountains of pressure. Her final presentation was this morning, and she asked me to come sit in on it.  For anything else, I wouldn't have gone back to that school looking like I do. But she worked so hard, and genuinely seemed want me there.

So I went. I got up early this morning, I put on makeup, picked the one semi-almost-professional outfit I have, and drove to the school that I went to for 12 years.

I forgot how polite and well mannered everyone at my school was expected to be. Like Stepford Teenagers. After UVA and going to class in sweatpants, it was a little surreal to be back in a school with really high expectations of student conduct and appearance. No chubby students. Everyone must participate in athletics and extracurriculars.

And then I remembered looking at some old photos of me in high school. At the time I thought I was fat and ugly and nerdy. But what I see today in those old photos is a very lovely girl, normal sized but tall, and trying her best.

To go back there today, weighing 300lbs and looking like a hot pink mess, was awful and oddly liberating. A total "fuck it" moment - I'm here as a successful person with expertise in something.

And then an former teacher of mine came into the room, and I went from proud adult mentor to shameful fat failure in 0.0003 seconds. She looked exactly the same as when I was in school over ten years ago. Young, pretty, thin - the math teacher - the focus of at least 40% of the boys locker room talk. I wanted to curl into a shame-ball.

But I didn't. Instead I met my mentee's mother, gave them both a hug after the presentation, took photos with them, chatted politely with some of her students, and tried not to be as awkward as I felt.