Ftrain, by Paul Ford

I excised a large chunk of my earlier post. Dear God, what was I thinking? You people need to watch me closely. This is an exercise in humility with seven readers, max. I made myself, for a few hours, potoid (part of the ongoing Internet dialogue) about fatness. Even worse I was writing not about the fatness, which I understand, but about the dialogue about the fatness, which-- well, as you know, my body is a battlefield. But I have the choice to remain outside of the dialogue, to simply learn what I can from careful observation rather than by wading into some fray. No no no no no. I do not want to be potoid. Let the Awl do all of that they want. But I did have questions:

1. What are we to make of transgressive, famous fatness--say, Beth Ditto--as opposed to regular everyday fatness of those who shop at Penny's? Is one different from the other?

2. Is the culture of (blargh) microcelebrity leading to a change in role models? It seems to me that, role-model-wise, it's all skinny models and actresses out there. I used to get emails when I was writing Ftrain, from sixteen-year-olds, telling me that they read my website and they really liked it and it helped them understand the world. I didn't respect that enough. I always saw my work being meaningful to people as a sort of selfish thing-- that it was about me, and that by enjoying that, or letting it make a difference to work, I was somehow failing. I think I dicked that up, frankly-- I favored aesthetics and self-importance over common sense.

3. How much do you want to poke Gary's belly in that picture at the top? Real bad, right? She's all like, LOOK AT IT, POKE IT, DO YOUR WORST.