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To avoid dwelling on the numbers, I’ve been working on the finishing details of my pieces, such as adding a second coat of wax, or gilding the raised portions of the hardware. Really, though,
everything’s done and our only crucial task is to move the twenty new pieces from the workshop to the gallery.

The cursing on the other side of the basement continues.

“You should stop biting yourself,” I suggest.

When I hear him charging up the stairs, I mosey over to his side of the workshop, more curious than concerned. I don’t see any evidence of M&M’S. I spot a little trail of fluid leading to his fancy new saw and I trace the line back to its origin, where I expect to find a Hambone-based puddle. Instead, I see that the window well in the basement is not only filled with three feet of water, but the glass is bulging. I guess we’ve had so many thunderstorms this summer that I didn’t realize it had been raining, let alone pouring.

(Sidebar: I really am immune to loud noises at this point.)

One of the reasons we bought our house is that the basement is supposedly flood-proof, with its watertight system of checks and balances, such as a fail-safe drainage system, cement walls and floor, and triple sump pumps with bonus backup battery power. Then I realize that none of these precautions actually work if the window well glass breaks, in which case . . . every damn piece of furniture I’ve slaved over in the past month will be soaked in storm sewer runoff and I won’t be able to sell any of it.

Shit! God save the Queen (dresser)! I can’t do that kind of geometry again!

With power and speed I didn’t realize I possessed, I immediately go all Noah’s Ark, hoisting up all twenty desks, dressers, bookcases, and tables onto our workbenches. I throw an old piece of plywood onto a couple of sawhorses in order to provide more stacking space and I start rehoming other basement items.

I’m in the process of unplugging everything when the glass in the window well shatters. I witness hundreds of gallons of water pouring through the gaping hole, with a handful of very confused toads riding the crest of the wave as it sweeps across the entire basement.

Flood-proof, my ass.

As the water begins to rise, I slosh around, rescuing anything of value (including toads) before using a broom to direct the water flow over to the sump pumps.

Any sensible person would have likely retreated to the first floor after the initial tsunami, but no one ever accused either of us of prudence. Fletch, who’d been outside trying to unclog the French drain in the backyard, returns to take care of killing the gas to the water heater. Our furnace is seated on cement blocks, so we have about six inches of leeway before it’s destroyed. Between exorbitant homeowner’s insurance deductibles, paying for our trip, and covering our property taxes, we currently don’t have the funds to replace an entire heating and cooling system.

So, if I want to keep my furnace, I need to save it my damn self.

We strap on our headlamps and cut the power to the basement. I use my broom to deflect the water away from the HVAC system while he guards the water heater and his precious finger-eschewing saw.

I manipulate giant swaths of mulch-studded water to spread the tide across the basement in order to engage all three pumps and keep my Trane running. I throw some spare screen material on top of the sump pumps so they don’t fill with debris. I feel like I’m suddenly Patrick Roy defending my net for the Montreal Canadiens and I’m not stopping until I bring home the Stanley Cup.

After about forty-five treacherous minutes, my hands are blistered from my fancy broom maneuvering when the water finally recedes to below the lip of the window in the well and stops gushing in. Within the hour, we’re able to remove the whole window housing and block the massive hole.

Through teamwork, we’re able to protect everything of value. What’s funny is that, save for Fletch’s initial outburst, we handle this emergency in calm, rational tones. As both of us are so
loud when it comes to petty annoyances, all the hollering must be out of our systems when we deal with what’s important.

I shudder to think of the damage wrought had we been in Italy during this storm and I’m so thankful. I’m not at all aggravated by the extra effort we have to put in sanitizing the basement on top of prepping for the show and working on a novel deadline. I’m far too relieved at having been spared to grouse.

What does chap my ass, as always, is social media. Last week, I’d found a disgusting old horsehair footstool and perpetrated a fix that was nothing short of miraculous, even going so far as to learn how to reupholster with furniture tacks. I’m so proud of the craftsmanship and I want to show others that there’s almost nothing that can’t be brought back from the brink with due effort, so I post a before and after shot on Facebook. Lots of people are engaged and I happily talk them through how to make something similar.

The comment that makes me want to say, “Screw it all,” and delete my stupid profile is someone named Lorraine, whom I’ve never met. Her response is, “Oh,
nice
. The idle hobbies of the idle rich. I used to like your writing, but you’re all privileged now and I can’t stand you anymore.”

Mind you, I’m all about free speech and have no issue with folks sharing opinions in public forums. Others’ thoughts and feelings are none of my business, and not within my purview. But what gets me is when others decide to take their ugliness to
my
page. Not cool.

When, in polite society, did it become acceptable to walk uninvited into someone else’s virtual living room and piss all over the sofa? And then for said urinator to feign indignation at the sofa owner’s shock and dismay at having been the victim of an unprovoked attack? I could understand if I were posting hate speech or spreading false, inflammatory information. But putting up a picture of a lemon-yellow footstool covered in fabric boasting cartoon frogs and goats?

Really, Lorraine?

This
is what sent you over the edge?

A
frog footstool?

Personally, I dislike caraway seeds. In my opinion, caraway seeds mar otherwise delicious sausage links and slices of bread. Because I don’t enjoy caraway seeds, I avoid eating caraway seeds. That’s it. I just don’t eat them.

What I don’t do is invite myself into caraway seeds’ social media presence to renounce caraway seeds to caraway seeds’ devoted following. I’m not looking to negatively influence caraway seeds’ fans, nor am I hoping to fight with them, because who cares if someone else loves caraway seeds? Personally, I’d never actively try to derail caraway seeds’ ability to conduct business. I’m not storming the caraway fields of Egypt because I feel these terrible seeds (technically bits of fruit) shouldn’t exist. I
simply don’t buy caraway seeds
because engaging in any other sort of action against that which has no impact on my life is as fucked-up as a soup-sandwich,
Lorraine.

Moving past the general rudeness of her commentary, what I want to say is, “Lorraine, feel free to grab a broom and stand next to me, ankle-deep in toad-infested water after putting in a month of fifteen-hour days worked for the express purpose of guaranteeing I can cover my mortgage and then please tell me exactly how idle and privileged
you
feel. By the way, you should wash your feet with soap before getting into bed because I’m not one hundred percent sure the water doesn’t contain sewage overflow, too.”

Instead, because I’m a decent person, I delete her comment. I don’t need a hundred people ganging up on her, regardless of how satisfying that might be to witness.

So, between catching rogue toads, scrubbing every basement
surface with a bleach water solution, prepping for my show, and actively restraining myself from signing Lorraine up for the NAMBLA newsletter, I don’t have a moment to dwell on what the scale read after my ham-tastic breakfast a few days ago.

Once the opening is over, however, I feel I have no choice, so I weigh myself again.

That’s when I realize that maybe the flood of toads wasn’t an indication that we need to have our backyard drainage system inspected so much as it’s a sign of my own pending personal apocalypse if I don’t get my weight in check.

I have to do this.

But how?

•   •   •

In 2007, I dedicated six months of my life to document the experience of losing fifty pounds in a memoir. The resulting
Such a Pretty Fat
was a huge success, spending six weeks on the
New York Times
bestseller list.

Except at the end?

I didn’t actually lose fifty pounds.

And now, almost eight years after conducting my initial experiment, I’m bigger than ever. The only difference now is that when I searched for quotes about being overweight, I found that
I’m
now a source that others quote.

So I’m famous . . . for being fat. In fact, I was recently approached for an interview about how fat writers are generally funnier than their skinnier counterparts—in all seriousness, and as though this wasn’t the most insulting proposition I’d ever encountered.

I declined.

In the proposal for
Pretty Fat
(the original title before I discovered the URL linked to a big-girl-fetish site), I pledged to do the following:

Stop sweating while I eat.

Stop driving one block to Starbucks.

Stop having cookies for dinner.

Stop promising to go to the gym instead of actually going to the gym.

Stop treating my body like a fraternity party.

Start growing up.

I largely failed at keeping those promises, save for not eating cookies for dinner, mostly because I learned how to prepare homemade, Martha Stewart–style fettuccini Alfredo and cheesecake and pulled pork instead.

Also, breakfast cake. This, in the scheme of things, is worse.

What bothers me so much is that despite the effort I’ve put forth to attain professional success, the first thing that strangers notice when they look at me isn’t the cute bag or the flattering haircut.

What they see is my size.

Regardless of my achievements, I still note the panic in people’s eyes when they think they’re going to be stuck next to me on an airplane. Despite my upgraded circumstances, the second I clash with a stranger—and regardless of my being in the right—I’m still called a “Fat Bitch.”

I’m finding it harder and harder to laugh off these instances. I’m tired of being pitied for my perceived lack of self-control. I’m weary of feeling like I have to apologize for something that is no one’s business but my own. I’m sick of cringing every time I see a full-body photo. I’m at the point where if I hear I have “such a pretty face” one more time, something very bad is going to happen.

Most of all, I’m so very over having others on social media speculate that there’s something very wrong in my life simply because I haven’t managed to conquer this weight business . . . largely because a part of me wonders if they’re not right.

Fortunately, I did keep the most important promise I implicitly made when writing
Such a Pretty Fat
.

I grew up.

So, in the past year, I’ve begun therapy to discuss the kind of issues that have no place in a humorous memoir. (Sorry. Not that kind of book.) I’ve learned about emotional eating and I’ve had nutritional counseling. Overall, I’m in a positive mental state. The more I pursue my bucket list items, the better I feel about life in general. I’m sure I’m on the right track, as I’ve laid bare my problems and rebuilt my whole self on a more solid emotional foundation.

Truly, my regrets are few. But
I’m still as fat as ever.

Really, what’s twenty pounds? A couple of bags of flour? A few gallons of milk? A bag of kitty litter? In the scheme of what I have to lose, it’s really not that much; why can’t I just do it already? Losing twenty pounds might not make a big difference in my appearance but it would sure help my aching knees and, just maybe, give me a jump start that spurs healthier actions.

(Sidebar: I’m especially frustrated because I visited the doctor when it occurred to me that I’ve never had my thyroid checked. I mean, what if something chemical has been keeping me fat this whole time and I didn’t even know it? How great would that be? I blew it with not having a cyst the size of a football, so a thyroid dysfunction seemed like a real second chance. Too bad my doctor ran every test imaginable and . . . THERE’S NOT A DAMN THING WRONG WITH ME. Except for high cholesterol, every single one of my levels is fine—optimum, in fact. All of this extra weight I’m carrying around is entirely my doing, my fault, and my responsibility.)

Earlier this year, when I told Julia about my plan to complete a 5K, she said she wanted to do it with me. We made plans to run together on our upcoming girls’ trip in September. I told her that
I was tired of being Team Butter and I wanted to merge with Team Lettuce. Julia replied, “That’s awesome because butter lettuce has always been my favorite.” But now I have fewer than two months to try to go from couch to 5K.