.babe.

My stomach grumbles as I carefully pop cookie mix onto my nicely greased pans. I put my hand on my belly and think "Alright, just this little bit of cookie dough won’t kill me." I look down at my belly again and see it protruding just a bit through my black sweater. I pat it affectionately and feed it some more cookie dough.

Oh don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always like this. I’ve wasted hundreds of hours on crunches whenever spring rolled around, and countless good meals were tainted with calorie counting. Even back then, I did have a certain amount of respect, if not love, for this seemingly separate organism that was happily making a home around my waist. This "Thing" defied the exercise, scoffed a the diets, easily fended off the diet pills, and proudly made itself known through any attempts I made to cover it up.

Oh, covering it up, there’s another good one. I could weep when I think of the amount of money I’ve spend on clothes meant to conceal that I never wore once.

I’ve tried pretending it wasn’t there, sucking it in, yelling at it, begging it to go away, and even hitting it with a ruler, hoping it would get offended and leave.

It took a long time for it to dawn on me that this thing was in it for the long haul. As I said before, I can respect its determination.

The more I realized it wasn’t going away, the more I actually began to like it. I even went so far as to name it: Babe, as in the famous pot-bellied pig. Babe and I merrily cohabitate, sharing everything from clothes to food. We even shower and sleep together.

Ok, so my body has a few more curves than some say it should. Who are these people anyway? I would like to meet the person who set the universal standard for beauty, for he or she must surely be a genius! I resent the pressure from the world (not just the media) to fit the mold. I like being soft. I like the big muscles in my legs that don’t fir into a size two pair of jeans. I like being the type of person that people like to hug. I’m squeezably soft.

I remember reading in Cosmo that Sara Michelle Geller is a total heifer, tipping the scales at 98 pounds. Ninety-eight pounds! Maybe it’s some deeply buried maternal instinct but I really want to send her some brownies or something.

So as Ms. Geller, and millions of others the world over, pick through their salads with fat free dressing, I will be watching Pop-Up Video with a bag of Doritos and a nice big glass of chocolate milk (the nectar of the gods). Hey, if I want Babe to keep me company for the rest of my life, I have to feed him.