I just cut myself on Occam's Razor.

Obesity tied to risk of psychiatric disorders, Reuters is telling me today (via Jezebel, that is). Naturally, since they're scientists (which then triggers a soundbite in my head of Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters": "Back off, man. I'm a scientist"), they're just plain old baffled and their gasts are somewhat flabbered at not being able to "fully investigate" the reasons why us fats seem to come down with depression, anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and phobias.

First of all, in my head I'm thinking, "well...that's a bit of a half-assed study, then, innit, if you couldn't quite 'fully investigate' something?" Kind of like going for a college degree and then deciding you couldn't fully complete all four years of study. You don't wind up with a shiny diploma for thinking "boy, I'd sure like to have a degree in something" and then fucking off to do something else.



And the other thing, the thing that's caused my forehead to become embedded in my IKEA desk...is it any fucking wonder the fat tend to be more depressed, etcetera? Not because of our fat, but...oh, I don't know...the reactions we tend to get from the outside world because of it? I know it's been hard to put a spring in my motherfucking step when I've been called a fat bitch by a car full of teenage boys. It's a bit of a push to turn my frown upside-fucking-down when almost everywhere I go in the media or on the internet I'm being cheerfully informed that I'm a horrible, disgusting, lazy creature responsible for multitudes of ills in the world, from global warming to terrorism. I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for hysterical stories claiming the food shortage and higher price issues the U.S. is currently having is due, somehow, to the Obeeeeesity Epidemic. Why, it's a never-ending festival of laughter and joy being tagged as something less than human and undeserving of respect and love! As Howard Stern once proclaimed, "a waste of a perfectly good vagina".

Undoubtedly, there will be a cavalcade of articles at various "lifestyle" websites holding this study up as more inspiration to continue dieting yourself silly and doing whatever it takes to reach the miraculous state of thinness that is easily achieved if only you'd just fucking TRY HARDER YOU LAZY, LAZY ASS. If you would only stop stuffing your silly fat face with all manner of cookies and donuts and candy bars and Big Macs and WORK HARD TO BE THIN, you could be happy. Shit, it even insinuates in the article that us bummed-out chubs can't help but reach for the pint of Ben and Jerry's when we're sadclowning, so it's just a vicious circle that perhaps, one day, Very Smart Scientists can break. But only after they get large grants from the weight loss and bariatric surgery industry.

Seeing as I am someone who wanted a college diploma but dropped out after three years so therefore, I have a college diploma strictly because I wished it, I'm going to tighten up what theory this study is trying to put forth:

If you're not fat, you won't be sad.

BOOM. PRINT IT. SCIENCE. Hell, it's as much of a viable theory as this one from Ann Elk (Miss). If you're thin, absolutely nothing bad ever happens to you, you're never sad, you're never sick, and you wake up every morning whistling "Zippity Doo Dah". If you're fat, well...I think we all know just what it means.

I know it's not scientifically sexy to Occam's Razor shit like this, because Occaming studies doesn't get you the fat cash from the weight loss industry. But holy crap, how about taking a step back, donning the ole Thinking Cap, and positing that perhaps a sizable chunk of us having issues with depression just might be having those issues because the never-ending story shoved up our generous rectums is that WE SUCK? And the message isn't coming just from the media or whatever--loads of us get it from the people who are supposed to love us unconditionally, like family or friends. Incorporate the bigger picture into your study, Mr and Ms. Wizards. Then maybe I'd be more impressed and I wouldn't have to lord my clearly superior theoretical skills over you. Read more on this article...

It's okay to want more...right?

So I'm kind of half-heartedly wading through the online dating "scene", just kind of scoping out my options. My general attitude about it is probably not the best, in that I irk easily and I have certain things that I just cannot let go of: my preferences when it comes to religion and children...and spelling and grammar.



I thought it would be in my best interest to head to websites that are specifically geared towards teh fats. I dutifully put up my profile and pictures (I think the one where I'm wearing a hat shaped like a shark is bound to attract scads of fellas), and sat back to await the flood of interested parties.

Because of COURSE there would be a flood, people, COME ON. I'm ME.

The flood...well...the flood consisted of some of the most violent spelling errors I've ever witnessed. Now, don't get me wrong--I'm not talking about a transposed letter here and there. We're talking passages of spelling errors. And apparently, my religious beliefs (or lack thereof, I should say) as well as my disinterest in having children...let's just say it didn't stop me being messaged by a gentleman whose entire introductory profile paragraph was about his love for Jesus and how if I didn't love Jesus, we would not be COMPATIABLE(sic). Dude, it says very very blatantly in my profile that I am an atheist. Therefore...I must say one could conclude that I do not love Jesus. He's a nice guy, we just don't have much in common and don't run in the same circles.

Then I had another message from a guy who loves "weman" and wants me to know that "weman were made for us men". Which is...fine...I guess? I mean, rock on with your bad self, if you want to go with that approach. But the most lolleriffic thing for me was that why yes, he was willing to relocate for his perfect lady love. And why wouldn't you be willing to relocate when you live...IN GHANA.

Of course, there's the voice in my head that says I'm being too picky, that I'm being too much of a snob to be so bent and unmoving about the spelling and grammar, that I'm being a pedant. And someone like me (that is, FAAAAAT) shouldn't be so picky. Rather, shouldn't dare to be so picky. After all, who do I think I am? I'm old, I'm plain, I'm certainly no fashion model--who am I to be such a stickler when I should be grateful that any male is paying attention to me?

Thing is, though, no matter how irritated I get with myself and how downright hateful I can be to myself, there's still enough of an ego in me where I know I deserve better. At the very least, I deserve someone who can write a semi-snappy, well-crafted motherfucking dating profile, for Christ's sake. Frankly, I've still enough of my ego preserved from my teenage years where I thought I was the shit where I'm occasionally genuinely baffled as to why I've been rejected by some of the men I've been rejected by. Especially when seeing what kind of women they wind up with. Back in high school, I had myself a little crushola on a guy that was a year younger than me. My kind of guy--kind of shy, fairly geekish, could play the piano like a son of a bitch, and had a very dry, silly wit that made me swoon. He knew that I found him foxy and didn't seem that perturbed by the concept. Little did I know that a girl that I was mentoring somewhat in the high school radio station had her eyes on him, and dammit if she didn't snatch him right out from under me.

When it all went down, I was truly, truly baffled. I barely thought "shit, it's because I'm such a fat fucking cow"--it was more "what the FUCK??? She's--she's--she's EWWW!! And dumb! And not funny! And weird (not in the fun way, either)!!" I was boggled for months. Even looking back now, I'm having a moment of "BWUH???". But that could be the ridiculous amount of snot that is currently coursing out of my nose thanks to a sinus infection breaking up.

I'm sorry, my sinuses derailed my train of thought. All right. Yes. Got it. Bottom line, I know what I want. And what I want is what I want, and can spell "want" correctly. And at the end of the day, I sincerely and wholeheartedly mean it when I say I would rather be alone (despite my whinery) than settle. Because I deserve what I consider the best, and the size of my ass is not going to alter my criteria.

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Talking out both sides of your mouth.

"Removal of Aussie model sparks up skinny debate", Yahoo informed me today, and the gist of it is that a young woman who appeared to have lost weight since moving to Paris to do runway, and she was briefly pulled from the show so that they could ascertain her health status.



A couple things caught my eye and caused me to "Bwuhhhh?" this morning as I sat at my desk. There was the agency spokeswoman stating, ""She is on a positive track now and is going to relax, take time out, not work as hard and have lunches and dinners." The vibe I catch from it is like, "we'd best make sure people know she's not a complete hog and having *gasp* BREAKFAST" combined with that old PR move of showing Hollywood celebrities who have been tagged by the tabloids as "OMG TOO THIN!" eating absolutely everywhere they go so as to prove, somehow, that Hollywood celebrities are just like us.

The other thing that caused my head to tilt like Nipper the RCA dog was this bit:

Spain and Italy have recommended banning catwalk models with a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5 -- a measure expressing a ratio of weight to height -- but shows in London, New York and Paris say this index is not an accurate measure of health. Wait wait wait WAIT a second, hold up, hold up, HOLD THE PHONE HERE, COWBOY. Are you telling me...that the BMI...isn't an accurate measure of health? But every frigging time I turn on the T and V or look at the Internets and they talk about the Obeeeeesity Epidemic, the doctor fellas and suchnot are telling me that the BMI *IS SO* an accurate measure of health! Let's take me as an example. According to the Most Blessed And True BMI charts, I have a BMI of 90 bazillion with a side of turkey gravy. (Actually, my BMI is 41.3 - SACRE BLEU I AM MORRRRRRBIDLY OBESICAL!) From a "medical" point of view, my heart should be exploding any...minute...now.

*waits*
*keeps waiting*
*checks watch*
*has a bit of dried pineapple*

So it is quite clear that I'm only moments away from keeling over because the BMI is an accurate, no-bullshit measure of a person's health. Oh, but not if you're a fashion model or otherwise a thin citizen of the world. In order for me to be considered "normal", I should clock in at 125 to 165 pounds. Even when I was food journaling my metaphorical balls off and exercising five days a week and watching every single item that flew into my mouth, the lowest weight I ever achieved in my life (that I can recall) was 225. This is me at 225, when I was 18 years old (I was big into the Cure, so shoosh):



This is me at 280 and 35:



Wow, I can sure tell the difference...can't...you? And I think it's clear that it took all of my effort and energy to kick up that leg in such a saucy fashion. Shortly after this picture was taken, I had to lay down on the walkway for a while. I know the wizard peeking out of that hole up in the Excalibur's thinking "FAT HOG!" But look! I was being "good"! I was drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper, goddammit!

The simple fact of the matter is, no matter what I do (and I have done it over and over and over again, so no need to pass on "helpful tips" on ways that dadgummit, this time around I could finally drop those pesky 120 pounds I've carried since forever), I am NEVER going to see 165 pounds until I've been in the ground for a couple of years. I'd be shocked if I ever saw 225 again, mostly because I suspect I would discover soon after that I had some sort of awful disease that was devouring me from the inside out or that I had an unknown twin residing in me, Rusty Venture-style.

Another thing that caught my eye and irked the snot out of me occurred while I was eating dinner tonight (mmmm, peas)-- that ad for Ensure, which is used in nursing homes to keep old and sickly people from, you know, starving to death because they can't eat for any number of reasons. Now it's being touted as, basically, a meal replacement. There's all sorts of fucked up tied into that sort of shit, but that's not my current bitch. My current bitch is that Ensure should be used by adults who aren't "always eating right", the smarmy voiceover says. So if you're the kind of hateful, un-American asshole who decides you're in the mood for fries versus a small salad, there is all kinds of wrong with you and you had better chug yourself some Ensure immediately in order to undo all the harm you've done to society at large, let alone yourself. That phrase...oh, it sets my spine on fire, "eating right". You should always EAT RIGHT and eat GOOD FOODS and NEVER, NEVER EAT BAD FOODS EVER. It's the Trifecta of Rage for me, in fact, when the "good" food vs. "bad" food bullshit crops up alongside "eating right". And that insidious push in the world that you can simply never, ever have ice cream/brownies/cookies/fries/burgers/pizza or else you're going to spontaneously combust and take out a litter of adorable kittens while you're at it. You don't want to kill kittens, do you? Then you had damn well better put down that cookie right now and hop on the treadmill. HOP ON IT. No, literally hop on it, because it'd be funny. And it's probably make exercise way more fun for you. I bet if you made it fun instead of a horrific drudgery and punishment for being "bad", you'd find it was a lot easier to do it and enjoy it.

Look, all I'm saying is that there are many truths in this world, and here are some of them:

Thin does not equal healthy
Fat does not equal unhealthy
You cannot look at ANYONE, be they built like me or built like a fashion model, and determine what their health status is, so STOP FUCKING DOING IT
"Naturally fat" is not bullshit and neither is "naturally thin"
There are no "good" foods and no "bad" foods
Weight Watchers -- yeah, IT IS A FUCKING DIET

The BMI being an accurate indicator of anyone's health status has never been and never will be anywhere near truth. The fashionistas in New York, Paris, and London have at least got that one right on the nosey.

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Non-Entity.

I'm having a Barbra Streisand moment, I reckon. The joke always has been that in Barbra’s movies (that she’s directed, that is), there’s always a moment that can be pointed at as her proclaiming “MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME I WAS PRETTY!” Think back to “Prince of Tides” and all the lingering shots of Barbra’s immaculate manicure, Donna Karan clothes, perfect make-up, elegantly coiffed ‘do. Almost every shot containing Barbra screams “FUCK YOU MOM I AM MAKING OUT WITH NICK NOLTE FTW” Shit, if I had more money than God and was making a movie, it’d probably be one long paean about how no one ever has told me I’m pretty or beautiful.



What’s so irksome is that it bothers me. It bothers me a lot. It’s not supposed to, if I’m going by the Official Handbook* you’re given when you’re hopped up on feminism, HAES and fat acceptance. I should be completely inured to anyone’s opinion on the superficial. I shouldn’t be craving such trivial things. I think, “well, you’re always on the defensive waiting for someone to take a shot at you because you’re fat, so maybe you’re so defensive that you’re not HEARING the compliments”. Well, no. That would be inaccurate. I’ve never been a major make-up wearing, clothes-horsing, shoe-loving kind of woman. I don’t like the way I look in make-up, I generally dress like a 14-year-old fat teenage boy, and my size 10 boats never were and never will be at home in anything but thick-soled Doc Martens, Vans, or Chuck Taylors. As I do tend to dress in a more masculine fashion and my body shape is not hourglass, I’m often mistaken for a man. Couple that with an inability to behave in a more stereotypically feminine fashion, and I’m an It. I’m not a man, not yet a woman (oh, Britney, thank you for that song and my insane need to use variations on it 24/7). And as a result, “pretty” is not a descriptor used by anyone in relation to me, ever. Certainly my parents must have said it at some point, right? Well...not really, exactly. Not too long ago, my father was talking about how Dawn French would be pretty if she lost weight. Seeing as I’m kind of built like Dawn French (just sans the tits), I think it’s fair to infer that I, too, would be pretty if I just lost the weight. I look “nice”. That’s the phrase that has always paid, that I look “nice”. (I’d like to add that to the clichés and platitudes I never motherfucking want to hear ever again, “oh don’t you look...nice”.)

What winds up happening in my messy brain is that I take the most innocuous things personally. When I witness or read compliments on the aesthetic aspects of those around me, I’m immediately spiraled into a “fuck, I’m ugly, fuck, I’m worthless, fuck, I’m nothing” dance routine (jazz hands are involved) that only gets more spiral-y as I then berate myself for giving a shit in the first place. The thing is, though, in today’s society...I am nothing. And at the end of the day, I made that choice. I made the choice to not be someone who won’t leave the house without make-up, I chose to dress for comfort. I made the choice to stop dieting. If you reject the societal norms, society rejects you. There’s no clandestine wink from society at large that says, “well, we don’t necessarily approve, but...gosh, you crazy kid, we love ya anyway!” If you decide to say no, you must be prepared to handle what may follow: ostracization (note: Dictionary.com says that’s a word, I swear to Christ), depression, loneliness, regret. If you’re lucky, you’ll find like-minded individuals. But that’s if you’re lucky...and we all know just how lucky I am (saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad trumpet). Well, I should slightly alter that to say I have found like-minded individuals...in the platonic sense, that is. (saaaaaaadder trumpet)

So then the question is: do I regret the choices I’ve made? Honestly, it depends on the day. If I was 10 years younger, I’d be quick to say “OH HELL NO”. But being 36 and currently enduring one of the more unpleasant depressive spells I’ve had in many years of depressive spells, it’s harder for me to answer “OH HELL NO”. The one I can safely say 100 percent I don’t regret is the dieting thing. Me on a diet = me being a bigger asshole than usual because I was doing the Fat Girl Tap Dance of making sure the world at large KNEW I was working on being a “better person” and would gladly share with anyone who would listen that I was eating “right” and exercising. Perhaps it was interesting conversation to others, but in my head, I was constantly telling myself to shut the fuck up. As for not being a “womanly” woman...that’s a tougher sell as of late. It does sting when I get “mistered”. It’s hurtful to feel like I don’t belong anywhere, really. That I’m not good enough in a wide variety of areas, let alone in the aesthetic one. It’s not terribly festive being an It, being a non-entity. I’m decent at distracting myself with whatever so it’s not a constant rocking back and forth and dwelling on boo-hoo-poor-me. The bitch is that the pain, anger, frustration, and embarrassment sneak up on me. I can be tootling along and feeling decent, and then KA-BAM, I’m mired in a seemingly never-ending retrospective of my Greatest Misses, pulling up each and every regret, every moment where I’ve felt particularly It-like, every rejection, every misstep, every fuck-up, what a fucking enormous mess I’ve made of things. Then comes the full-snot tears while riding public transportation or sitting at my desk at work and it’s like I’m a walking goddamned episode of “Dr. Phil” without the homespun cornpone advice that makes no sense being screamed at me. “What YOU NEEEEED is something we like to call in Texas ‘a sassafrassin’ ramtambler’!”

I am quite the super special snowflake, ain’t I. Believe me, no one’s more exhausted of my ass than I am. But I’ve decided that soon, I must make one of the most important choices of my life: just how dark I want to dye my hair, because my roots—WOOF. Eighteen miles long of mousy brown comin’ into town.



*note: there is no Official Handbook; but you can choose between a toaster oven or an electric skillet Read more on this article...

Going belly up.

(NOTE: the picture behind the cut might be slightly NSFW.)

When I regard my carcass, I've always had two pain points: my flibbety-flubbety upper arms (despite the leaps I've made in self-acceptance, the upper arms will always be an ARGH for me), and my belly. To be honest, I've always felt something of a disconnect with my entire body, simply because for such a long time, it was a failure in my eyes. The second you get the "you have SUCH a pretty face" line, it's almost impossible not to experience that disconnect. Occasionally, my legs would be admired (even before getting more active, I sported fairly hardcore gams), but other than that...a trainwreck on two legs.

So it's safe to say taking pictures of myself in less than full-metal clothing coverage never, ever happened. Well, until this evening.



Stacy Bias, the founder of Fat Girl Speaks, has a new project, Bellies Are Beautiful, which encourages people to upload pictures of their bellies. All bellies, be they flubbety-jubbety, wiggly-woggly, scarred, stretch-marked, concave, convex, flat, or otherwise. I went through the pictures and enjoyed seeing so many different bellies, as silly as that might sound. And I started thinking, "why the fuck not post up my own". I put it off for a few days, "forgetting" to bring my camera into my room and swearing to myself, "oh, I'll do it tomorrow". Finally, I couldn't excuse myself out of it anymore and spent about 20 minutes taking pictures of my belly.

At first...horrified. I had a certain view in my head of what my bare belly looked like, and what I was seeing in the pictures WAS NOT WHAT WAS IN MY HEAD. Flesh poking out at angles that I never noticed before, for Christ's sake. Flesh...just...EVERYWHERE. MUST COVER THAT FLESH, my brain shrieked. But I resisted the urge to delete the holy fuck out of the pictures I was taking and just kept on truckin' until I started...to dig it. I'm telling you, I was thisclose to ditching the bra and letting it hang, baby. And maybe that'll be another picture for another day as that particular area's another pain point. Fuck, if I can't get one person to eyeball my equipment in private, why not fling it onto the internet for all to see? :-P

I finally got three or four that I wasn't just satisfied with, but that...well, that I loved. I suddenly came over all lovey about something I had hated for so long. It looks all...pretty and soft. At least, it does to me. Which, at this stage of the game, is really all I care about. And I dig it enough to let it make its internet debut.

ETA: I thought I should have encircled it in sparklies and flashy things. Instead, under the advice of a friend, I suggest you make a little trumpet flourishy sound right as you look at it.

BELLAY!!!!!!!!!!

(with a hint of terribly stylish Lane Bryant bra) Read more on this article...

The power of "no".

I work a fairly dull-ass job. So it gives me a lot of time to think and chew on things. It's not always the best thing in the world, especially since I have that...crying problem. But today I had one of those mini-epiphanies or maybe just a mental Post-It note reminder that it's okay to say no. It's okay to define my life the way I want to define my life. I don't need to do everything within my power to keep friends that do nothing to add to my life. It's okay to jettison people who are nothing but walking black holes or don't want the best for me. There's no reason to make myself crazy trying to make people like me.

Of course, we all want to be liked, but I think you kind of become a real adult when you realize it's fine to be not liked. Not everyone wants to be in your fan club and no matter how hard you try, they'll never sign up for a lifetime membership. And that's okay. That's life. The only way to make life livable is to shape it into the form you want it to be, and that includes realizing that there's nothing wrong with telling someone they can't be a part of it. It's just a matter of summoning up the courage to say no. Or no more.

Read more on this article...

Orthorexia is the new black and other random thoughts.

Rachel at The F-Word takes care of the heavy lifting on this subject, and you should make her required reading anyway for her remarkable insight on a variety of subjects. She threw down a great letter to the editor in response to this reporter's half-assed article--you can catch a link to it at The F-Word.



The reporter's decision to go for the snark rather than, you know, any kind of actual reporting/insight only highlights to me how little people understand eating disorders. What little *I* know comes from having a mother (a retired registered nurse) who worked with eating disordered patients, and the wee bit of knowledge I have could fit into a thimble. But there seems to be a fairly decent-sized contingent of people who believe that if the ultimate result of thinness is achieved, who the fuck cares how you got to that point in the first place or what kind of toll it took on one's mental state. The article put me in mind of an interview I saw many, many years ago on that Judith Regan interview show that was on...Fox News, maybe? She was talking to Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi on "Star Trek: The Next Generation) and at some point, the conversation turned towards looks and Hollywood standards for women. Marina discussed having been anorexic in her youth and Judith said, "boy, I wouldn't mind catching a little anorexia". It stuck with me so hard because I wanted to reach through the television and shake Judith by her shoulders for saying something so fucking moronic and dismissive. I'm sure she would have said she was just joshing around, and believe me, I like a good chuckle. BUT I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE IT AT THE EXPENSE OF A GUEST ON MY TALK SHOW WHO HAS JUST REVEALED HER EATING DISORDERED PAST. OH, and ALSO? ANOREXIA: NOT FUNNY. Eating disorders: NOT A HOOT.

But nothing matters more than being thin, no matter how you do it or what it winds up doing to your mind, your body, or soul. That is the message being sent, loud and clear, each and every day to all of us. If you really want to see me get bent, trot out any number of the "inspirational" cliches that have been trotted out over the years regarding weight loss:

you can never be too rich or too thin!
nothing tastes as good as thin feels!
a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!
"What? Lose weight."

That last one was my sister's "inspiration". Brief explanation: I have two older sisters, and all three of us were always big, stocky women. They got the boobs, however--I'm not particularly gifted in the knocker area. Anyway. My sister J.M. was fat for most of her life, and shortly after high school was enamored with a fella. She and he got on like crazy, the chemistry was unreal. However, his response to her when she confessed her feelings for him? "What? Lose weight." For a few months afterwards, she taped up pictures of swimsuit models to the wall with "What? Lose weight" scrawled underneath one of the pictures. She lost some weight...and gained it back. And lost it. And gained it. She did Jenny Craig. She did Weight Watchers (back when you weighed every portion of food). She did Sugarbusters, she did Atkins, you name it, she tried it. And in 2001, she had gastric bypass surgery.

I wasn't down with her having the surgery, and I certainly wasn't down with the second adolescence she went through. For about three years, J.M. was kind of insufferable because she was dealing with people's revised perceptions of her (suddenly, she was "good" because she was losing weight) and testing out just what she could do in her "new" body. After all, there were loads of things she simply "couldn't do" when she was fat versus her being thin. Now, almost seven years down the road, she's gained some weight back which happens with almost all bariatric surgeries. While she's still well, well, WELL below her top weight of 374 pounds, the nagging is still there, the voice screaming "you're not good enough, you're not thin enough" remains in her head. She's still "a fat pig", still "lazy", still all those things she was before having her stomach jacked with. But one thing I'm extremely grateful for is that she's starting to get it. She's starting to understand the Fantasy of Being Thin and how it applied (and applies) to her situation. Does she regret having the surgery? No. Does she appreciate how lucky she was that she didn't have any massive complications to date? Oh, yes.

It's not unusual for my sister to tell me that she's impressed that I go out and do things at the size I'm at, that I've rarely not done something because of my fat. I've done a lot of shit fat--I've been on Comedy Central, I've done a one-woman show, I recently traveled to New Zealand on my own, I've spent many nights going out dancing. I wish she could have realized the "old" her was just as good and able as the "new" her. But that she's starting to understand that her "old" self was as good as her "new" self? That impresses me more than she'll ever know. Read more on this article...