wherefore and why

i'm beginning to ponder why people blog. why they do it, why i do it, why i read them. why i've connected - sortof - with a cupcake obsessesed housewife in north carolina and a group of fat feminists in chicago, and why i come back to my blog time and time again, even if i have a readership of one.

i enjoy kate harding's "shapely prose" a lot. more than that, i learn. every day day i learn as she vocalizing something that's fierce and funny and thoughtful and MAKES ME THINK about fat. thinking, not worrying! i don't think i'm "too fat" - i'm just "fat," in the same way that i have brown hair and glasses and am tall. i don't feel guilty anymore. i've changed my goal from "lose x number of pounds" to "run twenty minutes on the treadmill." and that is due, let me give credit where it belongs, to a blog written by three women that i know as kate harding, fillyjonk, and sweet machine. it's kind of ridiculous, because i always think of the first as "kateharding," all one word. if i met her on the street, i couldn't just call her "kate!" i know about her private life, her boyfriend, her opinions and her history (my goodness gracious, what on EARTH must be like to be the SKINNIEST person in your family?) and i've lurked, i suppose, in the comments pages, and seen the close relationships she has with a lot of her readers. but i'm not one of them - at least not yet, nor am i sure i want to be known for posterity as some snazzy disembodied username like "origamiduck," or something.

i know why i read her blog. i read it because it educates me, it's amusing, and intelligent, and thoughtful, and says things that many people don't dare to say because being fat is associated with shame and hate. it's easy to rag on fat people because we're all so damn afraid of being one of those fat people that everybody rags on - a CIRCULAR ARGUMENT if there ever was one (and NOT a tautology, thank you very much, stupid australian english teachers). but why on earth does kateharding WRITE it?

because she's a writer, and writers write! because she's writing about principles that are difficult to maintain in one's own life, even if you KNOW they're true. you hate yourself for eating 'too much' sometimes, even if you're hungry, even if your boyfriend eats less (or in my case, weighs less. not much less, but still less. hey, man has no boobs!) and this is why i blog too, i think. i write to remind myself of who i am and what i'm thinking, even if it's dorky. i write because i love words and i could use the practice.

and i write because i like it.

it's in the sun above, it's in the one you love, you'll never know the reason why.