Saturday, October 25, 2008
Have you ever discovered something about yourself that you, oh say, just failed to notice for the last 36 years? Well I did. I was hanging out on the deck with some friends drinking a beer (or 12)and having casual conversation. They were dressed very relaxed in skinny jeans and tops that doubled as dresses. No I was not wearing skinny jeans and a top that doubled as a dress. That alone would have been enough of a discovery to call the authorities. No I’m talking subtleties here. As we were laughing and talking I realized something… I was “posing.” Pause for shock factor. There I was… standing tall, clothes perfectly positioned to cover the problem areas with my hands placed slightly above the muffin top. I was in fact, posing. The girls were too involved in random conversation to notice that standing in front of them was a bonified poser! I was visibly horrified but apparently not enough to stop. I found it necessary to promptly interrupt the smoking, drinking and laughter to acknowledge the red elephant in the room….me!
Who does this? I can’t be sure. It’s one thing to be a starving, statuesque model type who’s qualified to strike a pose at any given moment. It’s quite another to be an overweight, starving fatty type who poses to cover up the fact that her jeans are about to spontaneously combust. After acknowledging that they were in the presence bonified poser, they convinced me to go to dinner. Perhaps convinced is too strong of a word. Yes, yes it is. Let’s just say we headed off to PF Changs and leave it at that. Does it really matter who’s idea it was? We sat down to dinner and promptly ordered wine…a bottle. As the conversation picked up where it had left off, I was again amazed to notice that while the skinny chicks were flailing their arms across the table I was once again posing. I was sitting sideways, legs neatly tucked under my chair, top button of my jeans popped open, shirt pulled down over the jeans, hands neatly placed on the hips and head tilted slightly at a 90 degree angle. If one were looking to debunk the pose they would only have to look as far as what lay underneath the table… fat rolls, cankles and a button that use to belong to my jeans. Once again, I drew them into the pose. We laughed and got down to business…ordering food.
I was sure the more wine I drank the less likely I would be to continue this new found phenomenon called posing. This was a theory that would prove to be false. With one bottle down, I was still giving Madonna a run for her money. “Strike a pose there’s nothing to it”… fact, not fiction. Here’s a SIF revelation…it’s quite possible to consume an appetizer, your entire meal, a bottle of wine and still make the overindulgence look good given the right pose.I won’t lie and say that posing takes away the pain of jeans that shouldn’t have left the closest. No. In fact, the “inner SIF” was screaming for relief from the jeans, the pose and the fiction but the “outer SIF” was whispering, “I am one of you.” Whisper being the key word. If you were wondering about the “head tilted slightly at a 90 degree angle” comment…that’s actually from the SIF rule book. SIF rule #7654….when posing always title the head slightly at a 90 degree angle. Doing so is guaranteed to eliminate at least one chin. I got more chins than a Chinese phone book so this is one rule I never break! At the end of the day, this new poser person that I am isn’t so bad. I dare say fat never looked so good!