We Are All Anthony Weiner
I’m not usually one for heartfelt confessions, but the news this week drove me to just the other side of intimacy, so here it goes: Until very recently, I weighed slightly more than 350 pounds. Nightly, I would feast on meals that could comfortably nourish a gaggle of refugee children. I measured out my life with tablespoons of ice cream, swallowed mindlessly by the freezer late at night, or pizza pies of noble proportions chewed over with joy and washed down with wine. I ate even as my waistline grew larger and my breaths more shallow, even as everyday activities required rest, even as loved ones intervened and told me, again and again and again, that I was gorging my way to morbidity. Eventually, I listened and turned to steamed cauliflower and SoulCycle and other desperate measures you take when the scale is stacked against you, and within seven months dropped the aggregated weight of the American Olympic women’s gymnastics team. I feel much better now, and am grateful for my transformation, but every time I hear the sound of teeth on tacos, say, or smell the submission of soft butter to warm bread, I wonder if I won’t be fat again soon. I wish I could say for certain that the answer is a definite no, but I can’t: My conviction is only as strong as the next meal.
Why am I telling you this? Because I know what it’s like to be Anthony Weiner, and if you’re the least bit honest, then so do you.