Beautification Project Week Six

I'm now starting to piss off my friends. Every third sentence out of my mouth seems to start with "Jonny says...".

Most are pretty pleased that I'm getting healthier, but there are some that I'm starting to annoy. One of my male friends - someone I used to date - snaps during a dinner. "What is he? This Jonny? Your guru, or something?" he snorts.

But, embarrassingly, in some ways, he is. When I was young, my highly sporty family spent a small fortune trying to get me fit (read: thin). Weight Watchers, personal trainers, tennis, skiing, horseback riding, three fancy new bikes, pilates, yoga, countless gym memberships, the best trainers, and, strangely, once, a skateboard - the Cheevers, me included, really took throwing money at the problem to a new level.

Allegedly, I was a pretty good runner until I hit puberty and decided I wanted an ample bosom rather than a sporty body. All good, until I started packing on the pounds.

And because I was never properly fat - just varying degrees of chubby - I think it was all the more frustrating. My friend's mother put it most succinctly over drink in a pub, when she was visiting from our sickly healthy homeland, Vancouver. "Why did you f*ck up your beauty?" she wailed to the table of us: all girls in our twenties, all very familiar with the chippie. We laughed it off, and kept on drinking pints. But it hit a nerve.

I think lots of girls - and maybe boys, too, who knows - rely on a crutch. If only I had a nose job, lost ten pounds, was taller, had bigger/smaller boobs, then my life would be perfect. But the crutch, at least for me, has been pretty convenient. I didn't get the job, or the guy, or anything,
really - well, it's not about me, it's because I need to lose a few.