It’s Love Your Body Day 2012, everyone!  I’m celebrating by having pizza for lunch and feeling really, really terrible about it.

Ugh….that triangle skirt looks like a slice….  *burp* …. I made sure I had a salad and hummus for dinner.

I wish I loved my body every day.  If I did, I would have vast supplies of psychic energy available to me if I dropped the daily anxiety about my wobbly bits–oh, the things I could accomplish!  Instead, I grow mushier and gushier every year, unlike the Yummy Mummies I see on the newsracks at Target and Cub Foods.  Why is it that I get softer while Madonna, who is also 12 years older than me, gets harder?

I’ve already written truckloads about bodies, body image, and body shame.  Check out these posts for ideas that can be safely chewed on without gastric distress:

• Perfect diet. (Minnesota Women’s Press, July 2007) In which I reflect on periods when I was quite thin due to some really horrendous circumstances that had nothing whatever to do with health–quite the opposite, actually.
• The stories bodies tell. (Minnesota Women’s Press, June 2009) In which I admit that I weigh more than I did when I wrote that 2007 column, and how much that irritates me.
• It’s National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, so let’s talk about it. (February 2011) In which I write a blog post that refers back to the 2009 column that mentions the 2007 column AND a piece I wrote for HipMama many moons ago.

And around and around we go.

It’s like I’m stuck.  Trapped in three cold, metallic rings that are squeezing me, crushing me, HOLDING ME BACK!

Do you feel that way, too?

I didn’t watch last night’s Veep debate.  I didn’t watch the Presidential debate last week, either, and I don’t plan on watching the next two.

Though I am nowhere near as adorable as this kitteh, I don’t feel guilty.

I like to think of myself as a model of civic engagement, but the truth is I’m burned out.  I know who’s getting my vote, and so do you (Him. Her. Him. Her. Him. No. No).

Skipping the debates doesn’t make me ignorant about the issues at stake in the election. Quite the contrary!  As every idiot with a wi-fi enabled laptop and smartphone knows, we are never wanting for information.  The amount of information, and the volume and tenor of that information, can be totally crazy-making.

When our kids near tantrum stage for not achieving the high scores of their dreams on any of our four Just Dance games, we say this: “If it’s not fun anymore, stop.”  Sometimes this dose of reality works.  Sometimes, of course, there is an explosion of tears and curses and AA batteries as the Wii-mote hits the wall.

The Romney-Ryan philosophy of governing makes me ill.  They are not fun, and I can no longer watch them.

Happily, they inspire jokes and memes that are hysterical.  I love the @FiredBigBird Twitter feed and the P90X caption contests.  Thanks to social media, the debates can be GIFed into a form that does not make me want to scream and destroy my household possessions.  That’s FUN we can believe in!

Speaking of social media, this Audre Lorde quote has been making the rounds among my connected friends and social justice allies lately, which proves that I’m not the only one experiencing severe political burnout:

Dear readers, don’t forget to take care of yourself, too. Remember:

If it’s not fun anymore, stop.

If it IS fun, repost it on my Facebook and Twitter so I know about it!