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On Stomachs

I feel bad about my stomach. Like Nora Ephron, I have tried to combat my "body issue." Unlike Nora Ephron, I haven't tried very hard.

Ephron didn't like her small breasts, and so she would sleep in a certain position for years, believing that this would change things. She would purchase physique-altering garments. She would change her diet. None of this worked, of course.

To combat the issue of my stomach, I lazily step onto a treadmill. I do this maybe once or twice per week. Tops. The duration of my treadmill visit is four songs. And they're Taylor Swift songs, so they aren't particularly long. It's not like four Adele songs.

I'm so irritated at the thought of visiting the treadmill, I refuse to make any concession to normal behavior. I do not change into "gym clothing." I do not "stretch" or "hydrate." I strip down to my underwear and my argyle socks--impatiently--and I throw on some ratty old shoes, and that's my running outfit. I'm told you're meant to change your running shoes once every six months. I haven't changed mine in over two years. Somehow, I suspect that the intensity of the workout has not actually done too much damage to the Pumas--over those two years.

Sandra Tsing Lo once wrote approvingly about an aging lesbian couple. She said the two women had more or less shelved the idea of vigorous and fresh and imaginative sex. In place of that idea, they had built a tradition. The tradition was: sitting in front of a movie every Monday with a large pizza and a tub of ice cream. For some reason, that story came into my head just now.

Dan Savage says that a trim physique is an ethical obligation; it's something we owe to our partners. He says, if we let ourselves slide, then our partner is actually entitled to stray. The straying is really *our* fault. I don't know if I agree with that, but I admire Savage's willingness to be contrarian. To fly in the face of warm and mushy left-wing heroes--people such as Amy Schumer and Meghan Trainor--who urge us to love and take pride in our flabby bodies. I hear Schumer, or, say, Lena Dunham, on this topic, and a big part of me thinks, "You are full of sh*t."

Also, I admire Nora Ephron for giving us permission to indulge our feelings of self-loathing. She was honest about the war she fought with herself. Where is the Katy Perry self-empowerment anthem about the freedom to loathe one's own fat rolls? "Baby, you're a firework! Come on! Show them how much you disliiiiike your own body!!!" That's a song I would enjoy hearing.

My shrink says, "Run. Run not for your body, but FOR YOUR MIND. Emotionally, you're so much better after you run." And he takes his own advice. Bizarrely, he does not run with music. He does not run quickly. He has a long, silent, slow, meditative run--up and down the Hudson River, maybe two hours--as often as possible. But, in this area, as in all others, my shrink is not to be confused with a human being. He is more like an alien.

I have a feeling that, in the war between my stomach and me, we already have a winner. It's the stomach. It's not going anywhere. It has laughed at my own memories of my twenty-year-old self. It has said: "You, sir, are nearing forty, and *I* am here to stay."

That said, I can still feebly pretend I am fighting. I can look at Greg Kinnear, for example. I can see him on HOUSE OF CARDS. This is a man whose Hollywood prime was long, long ago. That Oscar nomination is now so dusty, people have forgotten about it. Many men Kinnear's age look like Santa Claus. Not Kinnear. He is as fit as a teenager--and, perhaps for that alone, he deserves a Golden Globe.

I can struggle to follow HOUSE OF CARDS's gaseous, sloppy, inscrutable pseudo-plot, or I can just admire the outline of Mr. Kinnear's abdomen. I have that choice.

If one simply went to the gym, on a regular basis....woke up earlier....edited out the hot chocolates....just imagine what might be possible!

A fellow can always dream.

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