The problem with that question is that it implies that people gain weight on purpose, when many of us have watched every bite we've eaten for years and still gained. The naturally skinny have no idea what it's like. They're the guys who just have to stop supersizing their McDonald's meals for a couple of weeks to lose 10 pounds. It's probably impossible for him to know the true depth of your feelings about weight. From everything else you've said about him, I think it had to be cluelessness or temporary insanity, and not a statement that his love for you is contingent on your weight.

I'm depressed about the subject myself, having just read Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin, which was much more depressing than her book about the 1918 flu pandemic. (What she says, essentially, is that nothing works.)

((((Teppy))))

I'm going to try blundering into this because, even though I'm male, I also have long experience in a relationship with another male. And I'm not sure if this will help, but Hubs and I have learned over the years how to phrase questions to each other. A lot of it involves asking open-ended questions.

It sounds like The Boy was stupid/ignorant rather than malicious. And needs to realize that the correct reaction to your huffing and puffing around San Francisco is, "Are you okay?" Which you could answer in any of a million ways.

And if he can't get that certain topics are simply Out Of Bounds, I'd be happy to beat him soundly about the head and shoulders with a plush Eiffel Tower. Which I just happen to have in my office.

I am OVER today. Actually, I'm OVER this entire week. I'm feeling a slide down a depression-lined slope of late and it needs to stop. What is making me happy today is my adorable skull bag (red and white striped with black skull and crossbones print by Loungefly). Let's forget that it's filled with research for my paper that's due in 2 WEEKS!

ETA: Bag [link]

So, I've been playing over at FreeRice.com and got up to about level 42 before calling S into the room to help out. She was able to get us up to about level 48. Then she got a few wrong, and our collective vocaubulary has kept us fluttering between level 45 and 47 or so.

Then we hit a few words that she got wrong and I got right, and she's now wandered off in a huff, saying the game isn't fun any more.

I think I've never quite adored her as much as I do right now.

Everyone, thanks SO much for all your comments and different perspectives. It really helps.

And if he can't get that certain topics are simply Out Of Bounds, I'd be happy to beat him soundly about the head and shoulders with a plush Eiffel Tower. Which I just happen to have in my office.

If you can come up with a way to trick him into coming to your office, you may feel free to pummel away.

If the plush Eiffel Tower isn't sufficiently convincing, you could send him to me. I have a bobblehead Jesus who could, um, bobble chidingly at him, and also a miniature redcoat who could poke him with an extremely wee bayonet.

I've got a tiny but very heavy cast-iron Doctor Zoidberg, claws and tentacle-mandibles at your service.

{{{{Teppy}}}}

Suzi, insent.

One moment from the funeral which reminds me why we do not include young children in funerary rites: My MiL begged me to bring Owen and Olivia into the funeral home briefly, so a good friend of hers could see the kids (she'd never even seen Olivia). While they were chattering with Liv, I had Owen and was showing him the flowers. He saw the casket spray (gorgeous, lavender, Stainless Steel roses) and said, "pretty!" Of course, then he noticed his great-grandmother's corpse and looked at her and yelled, "WAKE UP, GRANDMA!"

I have to admit that I was only half-horrified.

t chokes back laughter

Oh Cash. My goodness. t stern (ish) look Owen's-way

And because it needs its own post:

{{{Tep}}} Everyone else was already so wise. Boys are sometimes teh dum. As are Body Image Demons. Maybe that's why each sets off the other so easily sometimes.