One of my first memories of New York City, after moving there to be an actress, is getting up really early one morning to go be an extra in the worst indie movie of all time. At the time, I lived in the back of a hair salon on 45th and 8th really close to Times Square. That’s right a hair salon. The cool spinning chair, the big alien looking bubble blow drier that engulfs your head. I was young, poor, and despite the constant headache from the lingering chemical smell of various hair treatments, it was a fun apartment. As I walked through Times Square at 5 a.m. I realized this was the worst time to be out. Because everyone around me was not early risers, these people were still up from the night before.
As I walked along, I was so hopeful in my new life in the big city. My hair freshly groomed with stolen products from my hair salon abode. I was in a total hat-throwing-I’m-gonna-make-it-after-all moment when from behind me I heard low faint chants. They went something like this,
“White girl ... with a fat ass. white girl ... with a fat ass, white girl with a FAT ass.”
What can only be described as your classic 80’s movie drunken homeless wino, was following me chanting. As I walked faster, hoping to God he wasn’t talking about me, my hurried movement only emphasized the jiggling momentum of said “Ass” causing his chants to escalate until they reached a fevered pitch,
“WHITE GIRL with a fat ass WHITE girl with a FAT ASS white girl WITH a FaaaTTTT ASSSSSSSS.”
No matter how fast I hauled my now infamous ass, I could not escape his words. I continued to run but those haunting words always followed me.
When I started an online blog called White Girl with a Fat Ass, my second adult relationship had recently crumbled around me, and I once again found myself being unceremoniously dumped right before the holidays. At the same time, I was the heaviest I had ever been weighing in at 200 pounds. I have thought about food every day for as long as I can remember. I dreaded holiday parties because if I don’t eat all that food, who will? There are starving children in (insert country of choice here) we can’t just let food go to waste. I have also made my relationships more complicated with my food and body issues, guilty bad moods, and sugar crashes. I had to do something. But I have Yo-Yo’d up and down in weight for years, what was going to be different this time? Eating all the food in sight is never going to help those in need, but what would?
