My body is my own inside joke

MELLIE MACKER

"I finally have the body that I want. I'm going to tell you the secret to getting the body that you want. You just have to want a shitty body." Louis CK, Shameless

My mom once asked me why I go running sometimes. Jogging, whatever. Briskly walking--same thing, who gives a shit.

"That's not good for you, with all that weight on your chest, you could really get hurt!" Then she bounced her hands up and down in front of herself, miming housecats bouncing into the air and plummeting to the ground.

She's right. Running is bad for me; it must if it hurts this goddamned much. All people who work out and claim that they "feel energized" afterwards are bullshitters. The only reason people say shit like that is to force them to hear their own lies and then subsequently believe them.

"Are you running to get in shape?" No, mom. Truly. I obsess over my diet because it's genuinely interesting and fun. I too am a gullible self-liar and I've fooled myself into believing that kale and quinoa don't taste like houseplant and mulch. I have been a vegan/ovo-lacto pescatarian/ pollo-pescatarian (but dairy free!)/"I only gnaw on the bones of reptiles"/FULL ON CARNIVORE more times than I can count. But that shit comes with recipes, fun activities that don't make you question whether your heart has actually exited your chest cavity. 

Of course, the drastic and ridiculous changes in my diet often originate from my desire to wear actual human pants (They Look Like Jeans But They're Not Even Pants: The Mellie Macker Story), or my occasional insane whimsy to be hot enough for a fictional character portrayed by Matthew McConaughey, but my foray into the Mysterious World of Gymnasia stems from something.

You see, deep in my core I know that the zombie apocalypse is nigh, my friends. That may be a slight overstatement.

Instead, let’s say that I have a conversation with myself every time to decide to go for a run:

“What if the zombies come tomorrow? You can’t die immediately! You need to see what that shit looks like.”

“But I don’t want to go running.”

“Fine, then you can die at them hands of a far-fetched hypothetical situation. Just don’t blame me when you reawaken as a flesh-hungry undead biological travesty.”

“... Okay, I’ll get my sneakers.”

Despite my strange relationship with my body and my size, my motivation to engage in mobile activity or healthy lifestyle doesn’t usually originate from the loathing of my corporeal experience. The loathing generally surmounts to zero results, because I enjoy wading through the tribulation of my body mass index. That shit is funny later when I remember how miserable I was over this thing that I have theoretical control over. But that is just funny for me, not for you.

My body is my own inside joke.