So I'm sorry and pleased at the same time to report that the Office Ghost did not follow us to the new building. In fact, the new building is both bland and utterly void of psychic energy. Which is good, in a way (we had a number of people over the last few years abruptly quit with no notice and I can't help but wonder if they Saw Something, or, like in my case, Heard Something). Plus, with supernatural entities, you just never know what they're gonna do. I mean, besides scare the bejabbers out of you, which it did to me, twice.
But, it's also disappointing, in a way. I for one was very curious, once I realized that I was in fact experiencing something and it wasn't just another case of "Well hey, I'm in a haunted place and I'm not seeing anything, guess I can't see them." It was because of the Office Ghost that I discovered I can hear them, and what's more, I've been hearing them my whole life. I just can't see them, for whatever reason. Hey, I also can't see to read without glasses. Every person is different.
Anyway, so long, Office Ghost. I hope you found what you were looking for, and if not, I hope you scare the bejabbers out of the next tenants, whoever they be.
Speaking of bejabbers and scaredness, it is the Spooky Season, and it is time once again to think about Mortality. I mean, if you want. I don't think it ever hurts to ponder that none of us have unlimited time on Earth and what we still want to do, experience and feel. If there's something you've been putting off, move that to the top of your list. You could get hit by a bus and die tomorrow. Some of us, in fact, have serious medical conditions and are not looking at a lot more years. I personally was told by a doctor that I'd be dead by February of 2026, so I have to live until at least March so I can flip him off.
That was only the most recent prediction of my demise. There have been several. The one before that told me I wouldn't live past 50. (I was 53 at the time.) The reason for this is not kidney disease, or diabetes, or hypertension, all of which I have. The reason is that I'm fat.
Fat. Not a little on the heavy side, not plump, not zaftig, not curvy. Fat. I weigh more than 300 pounds. People usually don't know that and put me in the mid-250s, but anyway, I am fat. I have been fat since I was, oh, about nine, and I'm going to die fat.
But wait! screams the panicked, fatphobic Voice of America. There are GLP-1s now! You can be cured! Uh, back up. Being fat is not a disease. It is a condition of the body. There is a range of body types, and I happen to be at one end of it. Some people are naturally very skinny. (There's a woman in my office who I swear would disappear if she turned sideways.) Some are fat, and most are in the middle. There have always been fat people. We have paintings. We have letters. Being fat even used to be super fashionable, back when it meant you were rich and not of poor moral character.
I have some bad news. There are no long term studies on users of GLP-1s. The longest study done tapped out at four years, after which most of the participants had started to regain weight and a whopping 89% of the test subjects had dropped out of the study because they had stopped taking the medication for various reasons.
Also, GLP-1s are not for everybody. In my case they blocked absorption of all my mental health meds, sent me flying through a figurative windshield at 95 mph and had me convinced that I was going to have to stop working and go on disability because I could not get a fucking thing done. That was a fun couple of weeks. I will not be doing that again. By the way, this can happen to anybody taking any other med for any reason. Google "Ozempic pregnancies" to see how this works. If you are taking any other medication for any health condition whatsoever, and your doctor wants you on a GLP-1, you MUST be monitored to make sure your meds are still working. Do not skip this step.
GLP-1s are only the latest innovations that claim they are going to cure fat people. The one before that was bariatric surgery, which is still practiced. However, bariatric surgery patients regain the weight at the same rate as other people who lost weight by any other method. Within six years, most have regained 50% or more of the weight lost and some regain all of it and more.
Anyway, I am fat, and I am not going to try to lose weight. I have already done that and the net result was that I gained it all back plus more. This is the same net result that about 90% of the population experiences within five years of losing the weight, so people who try to lose weight end up fatter and with poorer muscle mass each and every time. Plus, there is measurable heart and lung damage, which is almost certainly why fat people supposedly die young. (I mean, to test that, they would need to find a bunch of fat people who have never tried to lose weight and follow them for twenty years. But there are no such people.) Combine that with the notoriously bad medical care that fat people get, and it's no wonder fat people have a shorter life expectancy.
Do I wish I'd figured this out when I was in my 20s and only weighed about 180? Sure. But Everybody was still telling me I was too fat, so I must not be skinny enough, so I had to keep trying. I have lost 30 pounds and regained 40-45 about twenty times, by my estimate. I figured out the results were never permanent about ten years ago, and my weight has been stable since then. Which, considering I've been on antipsychotics for 20 years, is practically a miracle. (Antipsychotics and antidepressants are notorious for causing weight gain, even when all other factors are controlled.) The only change in my weight that whole time was six months before my knee surgery, when I gained 25 pounds, largely because I couldn't walk. Then I had the surgery and lost 25 pounds. Which just goes to show something or other.
Anyway, I am cool with this. They make plus size coffins, and even if I weighed 100 pounds I'd still be looking at a shortened life span because of the kidney disease.
The problem is everybody else. It is still okay, in certain circles, to make fun of or gossip about fat people. It is also somehow okay to walk up to a total stranger and give them diet advice. The weight loss industry took in $75 billion last year trying to convince people that if they just follow this plan they're about to sell you, you! too! can lose weight. They'd stop making all that money if people just shrugged and said, "Well, okay, I'm fat." So there's a vested interest in keeping the gravy train going. Anybody who nags somebody to lose weight, puts a kid on a diet, denies somebody medical care because they "just need to lose some weight" (this happens a lot) or puts somebody down because they are not skinny is working for the diet industrial complex. So are all the temporarily skinny people who get on social media and gush about how they lost ___ number of pounds and if I can do it anyone can!!" as if that's anything that can be predicted.
It's also wholly untrue. If I told you "I learned to play the bagpipes, and if I can do it anyone can," you'd believe me and take up the bagpipes, right? Right. I mean, this may come as a news flash, but all of us can't do everything. Nobody, for another example, has ever swum like Michael Phelps, and probably no one ever will again. If Michael Phelps said, "If I won eight gold Olympic medals, anyone can," we'd all laugh at him. Some people can sing. Some people can write. Some people are really good with numbers, or logistics, or any number of other things. But we all don't have to do everything. I, for example, hire a mechanic to change my oil. Because they can do it and I can't.
Never assume that other people can do what you can do. Also, never assume that other people experienced what you experienced. A black child of a single mom with 3 jobs growing up poor in the Bronx is not going to have the same experience as a rich white child who goes to private schools and has a nanny, and it's ridiculous to assume they do. (The black child also has a much better chance of being both malnourished and fat. Money is irrevocably tied to weight gain, or lack thereof.) In fact, just don't assume shit. If you want to know why a person does something or acts a certain way, try asking them.
Anyway. I'm fat. I'm cool with it.
I just wish the rest of the planet would fucking relax about it, too.
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