I was scanning old family photos this weekend and came across this photo of me at the beach. I don’t remember that swimsuit. I don’t remember having my picture snapped. But there I am, in a moment, enjoying the sand and the waves. Did people ever get a chance to sneak peeks into their past like this before Kodak came along?

Java Bean hits a dead end at the drive-through.

What? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I swear!

Office Krupke is my copy editor, which is why there are so many typos.

It is kind of sad knowing these people’s futures, almost as sad as looking at what they’re wearing. Wow, a poncho. Really? But it can be happy too. Look, there’s Uncle Terry before he met his wife and made his beautiful babies. He’s got good times to look forward to. And there is Aunt Kelly the day she found out she had uterine cancer. She’ll be happy to find out they get it all during the hysterectomy. I wish I could tell Aunt Karen she will be so much happier after she divorces that man.

So many pictures. So many ways to remember the past. Take a picture today and remember it the way you want to.

It’s kind of fun to check my PO box because I never know what will be in there. Sometimes it’s a bait and tackle catalog addressed to the previous owner. Sometimes it’s a nice letter from a reader. And sometimes its an ad for a retouching service that promises that you’ll “look great in your summer pics,” though by “great” they mean “less like Porky the Pig.”

I’ve blurred out the company’s name because I’m not sure what to think about their service. I don’t want to promote them or unfairly bash their name. My first reaction was to be insulted by the implication that I needed to be retouched. Then I read the text on the back of the card which says, “Our new xxxx service is just what Half of Me Blog fans need to look great in their summer pictures!” Oh, so I don’t need to be retouched, it’s you guys, who are evidently too fat to appear in your own summer vacation photos.

But before I get up on my high horse and lead the cavalry to raid this evil domain, I have to knock myself out of the saddle because I myself am guilty of retouching a photo I thought I looked fat in. (Except it was an autumn photo and I didn’t have to pay anybody to do it for me, so it’s totally different situation. Totally.)

I believe everyone has a right to like their body, no matter what size it is. However, I also know what it’s like to see a photo of yourself and dislike what the pixel sensors pick up. I wish people didn’t dislike those images so much that they felt the need to tell a lie with a picture. But of course, I was one of those people, wasn’t I?

In their defense, they also provide typical retouching services such as red-eye reduction and acne removal. The slimming service looks like a new product. What do you guys think? Is this service a force of good or evil or somewhere in between?

Then I lost about 200 pounds and I totally understand where they were coming from. I present exhibits A, B, and C.

These three photos were all taken on the same day, which is odd because it looks like I gained 10 pounds and then lost it again before noon. I ran a half-marathon that day, but running 13.1 miles does NOT burn 35,000 calories, nor could the lasagna I had for lunch make me that much fatter.

In the first photo, I’m striking the “skinny pose.” I have one foot placed in front of the other. I’m turning at the waist, but rotating my shoulders towards the camera. I’m jutting my chin out slightly. I read how to do this online and at first I felt silly and awkward arranging my limbs and torso like this, but then I noticed it actually works so I do it often. If you watch starlets on the red carpet, they use these tricks too. I’m also wearing a dark color on the bottom and a light color on the top to balance my bottom-heavy pear shape. All in all, I look pretty thin.

About 2 minutes earlier, the second photo was taken right after I finished my race. I eagerly downloaded it from the official race site online and was crestfallen when I saw it and immediately thought, “I look so fat in that photo!” I don’t know if it’s the angle or the lighting or post-race bloat that evaporated 120 seconds later, but I think I look fat in that photo. Which sucks, because it’s supposed to be my proud, victory photo and I don’t feel particularly victorious when looking at it.

Then, there is photo number 3, taken a couple hours later at my book release party. My face looks the thinnest in this photo to me and I’m rather satisfied with my size. Maybe the dark lighting helps? :) I’m sure some of you will comment that I look great in all these photos (or that I look like a bean bag chair if you’re a hater), but it doesn’t really matter what you think, it’s what I think.

It seems odd that all these photos were taken within hours of each other and yet I look so different in all of them. I know my face and my body better than anyone else, so I’m probably the most critical of my appearance, noticing the smallest variations. It’s amazing how different I can appear, not because of my size, but because of the way my body is turned or whether I’m wearing makeup or whether someone turned on the overhead light.

I might not be the best judge though. There are times when I don’t think I look particularly good or bad in a photo and other people compliment me on it. For instance, I got several compliments on my Jamba Juice photo, but when I saw it I thought it was far too dark and that I looked a little bit irked. I would caption this photo with a thought bubble saying, “Have you taken the photo yet? I want to pick up my orange dream machine!”

The worst was when I was still morbidly obese and I’d look at a photo in horror and someone would say, “What a great picture! It looks just like you!” Geez, really? That’s awful. Not only would I feel bad about an ugly photo, I would feel bad that I evidently looked like an ugly photo all the time.

Photos confound me. I like living in a technologically advanced society, but if I’d been born in the 1700′s without running water or electricity, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with the head game that digital imagery now provides on a daily basis. Am I fat? Am I thin? Who knows?

Somewhere all those skinny girls I never understood are laughing.

Meme Rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts

2) List 8 random facts about yourself

3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them

4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

I’ve spilled my guts on this blog so much I sometimes feel like I need my own biohazard waste bin to clean it all up. But here are eight health and weight-loss related things about me that you probably did not already know.

1) I don’t care if artificial sweeteners kill me, I’m eating them anyway

I know some people don’t like to use aspartame, sucralose, saccharin or any of those sweet, sweet, chemicals that end in –ol (sorbitol, xylitol, malitol, etc.) because they are concerned about having three-headed babies or growing a sixth finger. I don’t care. I will be the guinea pig who drinks diet soda every day for 30 years so we can determine if all those modified molecules actually cause cancer. You’ve got to die of something. If it’s going to be death by artificial sweetener, so be it.

2) I watched TV constantly as a child, but now, not so much

I was a complete TV addict as a kid and through high school. In 4th grade we had to track our watching habits and I think I watched at least 30 hours a week, more than almost anyone else. I honestly didn’t think I could live without cable, but once money got tight in college and the credit card debt started piling up, I canceled my Comcast subscription and surprisingly I did not miss it that much. I still love TV. The best stuff on TV is better than it has ever been before. I carefully select the shows I watch, just like I am picky about what I eat. Of course, we also didn’t have the Internet back then, so maybe I’m just spending time reading blogs now that I would have previously spent watching The CW.

3) I was thrilled the day I learned I could order pizza online

I used to have severe phone anxiety. For several years in middle school I didn’t answer the phone at all. I hated a required journalism class in college because I had to call up strangers and ask them questions. I would get nervous and fret and stare at the phone for at least 20 minutes before getting up the nerve to make the call. Even now, I still prefer to e-mail strangers, but I can answer the phone and can call people without throwing up first. I always hated ordering pizza though because I was scared to call the pizza place and go through the ordering process. (Yes, I know this is bizarre and weird, but as I said yesterday we all have our own personal weirdness going on.) In college I was searching the Papa John’s website for the phone number of the closest store and discovered I could bypass the stressful “talking to strangers” process completely by ordering online, thus making it easier to eat an entire box of cheese sticks than ever before. It was awesome.

4) I licked the frosting off the cake

I wrote an entry last year about an episode of Desperate Housewives where a fat girl at a birthday party was accused of licking the frosting off of a birthday cake, even though a thin person had done it. I bemoaned how horrible it was that stereotypes like these persisted, that the fat people of the world were not necessarily out to lick the frosting off of your birthday cakes. Except, I totally did that. I don’t remember whose cake it was, either my own birthday cake or a cake at some family function, but I remember I once stuck my finger into the gooey puffs where the frosting met the cardboard bottom of the box and licked that buttercreamy goodness up. It was awesome.

5) I am not a weight-loss role model 100% of the time

The same week I so effortlessly avoided eating the apple pie at work I also went home and ate two bowls of oatmeal and a batch of sweet potato muffins. As I was pouring the water into that second bowl of cinnamon and sugar and dried oats, I thought to myself, “This is not behavior becoming of a weight-loss success story.” And I stuck it in the microwave anyway and it was really good. I knew what I was doing and I did it anyway. I don’t always mention this stuff because this isn’t a food diary and I don’t feel a need for “forgiveness” or “confession” that much anymore when I overeat. I ate too much. I shouldn’t have done that. Oh, well. I’ll try not to do that tomorrow. But I’m not perfect, people, and it feels a bit odd when people congratulate me for having such control over my eating these days when it’s only true maybe 95% of the time.

6) I don’t think Spanx are all that uncomfortable

Spanx are a body-contouring undergarment that help smooth out your body and make you look thinner. I always hear about how uncomfortable they are, like a modern-day corset, but when I wore a pair I felt fine. Maybe I needed a smaller size to completely cut off my circulation and turn my thighs blue?

7) I still have some photos of fatter versions of myself around the house and it doesn’t bother me

I do have some no-good, horrible, fat photos that never fail to make me cringe. These are not on display. However, I also have some fat photos where I am neatly groomed, well attired, smiling and with my family. These are on display. Ironically, I have far less shame for my morbidly obese self now that I am no longer morbidly obese. However, if we were ever to take a more recent family photo I would probably replace them since they would be more up-to-date and I do enjoy looking thin in my photos.

8) I am one of the Nursing Online Education Database’s Top 100 Health and Wellness Blogs

Okay, this is not so much a fact as a way to thank the NOED for linking to me and to point out a list of 100 health and wellness blogs. It’s an annotated list too, which means it must have taken forever to put together. I was recently putting together some footnotes and it was a horrible, draining, tedious process that made me glad I am no longer in school. However, the list is a good place to start if you are looking for more health resources online.

I’m not going to tag anyone because I am a daring rule-breaker, but if you want to run with these, go for it. And if you just want to run, period, go for that too! Just remember to stretch first.

I’m writing a book about my weight-loss experience (in bookstores Spring 2008!) and I know the first two things people are going to do when they pick it up is 1) read the back to see how much weight I lost and 2) flip to my author photo to see exactly how thin I look. Normally, I don’t care that much about looking thin in photos. I prefer to look thin, of course, but I focus more on standing up straight, brushing any crumbs off of my shirt and gluing my eyes open so I don’t get caught mid-blink. However, since this is a book about weight-loss, I would be naïve not to admit that I have to look thin in my author photo. No one wants to read a weight-loss memoir written by a fat girl. The reverse is true too. I once picked the book Fat Girl: A True Story off the shelf at the bookstore and was disappointed that the author wasn’t very fat at all.

I could hypothetically chose not to have an author photo, but that wasn’t really an option either because 1) people would think I secretly regained the weight and was too ashamed to show my face and 2) I’ve spent almost a year writing this thing and almost three years losing all the weight, so you’re going to take a look at my pretty face.

So, I had an assignment: Find a flattering, high-resolution photo of myself smiling naturally in good lighting with a contrasting background. It is much easier to glare at a camera convincingly than to smile without looking like your faking it, but I had to be smiling because this is a funny book and no one wants to read a funny book by someone with glaring issues. I decided to have my picture taken professionally. I set up a photo sitting and even scheduled an appointment for makeup application because I don’t know an eyelash curler from a potato peeler. I thought it would be fun to dress up and look glamorous and have my picture taken. I was looking forward to it.

The day before the photo shoot I went insane.

I started to obsess over what I should wear. I wanted to show off my collarbones, so I needed to wear either my green or black shirt. However, we were shooting on a white background for my full-body shot, so I needed to avoid black or navy. That left the green shirt. All my pants were black except for a brown pair, but they had blue embroidery on the bottom that did not match the green. I had a flattering red and black patterned dress that showed my collarbones, but I didn’t think it would read well on the white. I hadn’t found a pair of jeans that fit my tush right yet, so I was left with my skirts or a dress. I could try buying something new, but what if I decided I hated it next week? I ended up taking a dozen test shots in my kitchen wearing different combinations of shoes, tights, skirts and tops. And jewelry. Should I wear jewelry? I never wear jewelry but a pendant might look pretty against the scoop neckline. Am I being dishonest if I accessorize?

Then I looked up tips online about how to look thinner in photos. Yes, there are whole entire articles just on this topic. If you look at lots of celebrity photos, you will find most starlets are experts at this. You can put one foot in front of the other and turn from the hips to make your silhouette slimmer. You can suck it in a little, but don’t suck it in too much or else you’ll look like you’re sucking it in. Wearing monochromatic colors is supposed to help too. You can push your chin up and out to make your neck fat look smaller. Neck fat, who knew?

I practiced smiling in the mirror.

I woke up early on a Saturday morning, styled my own hair, and got my make-up done. After that I headed down to the photo studio with a bag of extra clothes, just in case I changed my mind about what to wear. Then I sat in front of the background, looked at the photographer and froze. What was I supposed to do here? Smile? Okay, I’ll try to smile even though I feel really uncomfortable turned sideways on this stool, and oh I’d better remember to sit up straight, and don’t forget to stick my chin out! But smile like you’re enjoying it too. Oh no, are my upper arms pressed up against my body and making my arm fat look bigger? And does my hair look cute? It looked cute in the car but it does not look cute in those proofs. And why did it not occur to me that the corduroy mini-skirt would wrinkle in the car? Aaaaaaaaah!

Finally the shoot was over and I got my photos on a CD which I promptly took home and obsessed over on my computer for an hour. My smile was great in this one, but my eyes were half-closed. This one would be great, but my hair looks funny. I forgot to take off my watch! Moron, you specifically reminded yourself in the car to take off your watch. Why did I think I could style my own hair? I can’t even style my Barbie’s hair. The mini-skirt was a bad choice because it is not as slimming as a pair of jeans would be. Why didn’t I just go buy a pair of jeans instead of waiting for the sale next weekend?

At which point I turned off the computer and decided The. Madness. Must. End. This was what it was like to be one of those girls, those girls who obsessed over fashion magazines and never thought they were thin enough and complained about their flabby tummys that were as flat as Kansas.

It was AWFUL.

I feel so sorry for those girls who look in the mirror every day and obsess over their image like I had been obsessing the day before my photo shoot and for the hour afterwards. I hated putting importance on how thin I looked through a camera lens, because it’s not very important at all (unless you’re trying to sell a weight-loss memoir). It’s also a massive time suck. I spent hours upon hours scheduling appointments and picking out clothes and having foundation expertly applied. I have to give models proper respect because looking glamorous is hard work. I only went through it because I didn’t want there to be a nagging voice in my head a year from now saying, “Well, PastaQueen, you could have sold a bazillion copies of your book and be lying on a sandy beach in Tahiti right now instead of sitting in the gutter on a pile of cigarette butts, if only you didn’t look so FAT in your author photo.” I don’t regret doing it, but I never want to do it again. (I didn’t want to obsess over it for the next couple days afterwards either, but the madness had a lot of inertia and took several days to stop.) I thought having my picture taken would make me feel pretty, but I felt so much prettier before I started focusing on all my flaws. I’m the type of person who will go to the grocery store covered in cat hair and really doesn’t care. When I created a situation where I decided being thin and pretty mattered, it messed up my head. It’s so much better living a life where being thin and pretty is nice, but not all that important.

Ironically, I’m going to use another photo for the back of my book that was taken when I wasn’t freaking the f%$# out. It looks more natural and my hair looks pretty decent. The photographer did do an excellent job even though his model left something to be desired. We got a great shot of me in one leg of my fat pants. I love being the girl who can stand in one leg of her fat pants, even if I still have arm flab and neck fat and have absolutely no future in modeling.

(Note: I know someone will suggest that this should be my author photo, but I want my close-up, Mr. DeMille. I’m going with a headshot and you can see it when the book comes out.)

Oh yeah, did I mention my brother is marrying Aja from the 80′s band Jem and the Holograms? (She’s the one with blue hair.) She got the old band together and we had a fun night on the town. We invited Jerica too, but she didn’t show up for some reason. Before you ask, no, they’re not playing at the reception. It would be rather silly for the bride to be playing at her own wedding, wouldn’t it? And don’t worry, security will be very tight. We don’t want The Misfits crashing the party! Oh that Pizazz, what misdemeanors and felonies will she commit next?

When I looked at this photo I noticed three things:

1) Being the only person without animated hair really makes me stick out.

2) I am rather tall, aren’t I? I’m even taller than Kimber’s blown-out hair. Maybe that’s why people are surprised to find out I weigh 180. A shorter girl of my proportions would most likely weigh less.

3) If you were to ask someone to guess which girl in this photo used to weigh 372 pounds, they would only have a 1 in 5 chance of getting it right. I totally blend. I am not significantly fatter or thinner than any other person in this photo. We all look rockin’! The only giveaway might be the bit of extra skin under my chin. You can’t really see it in this smaller photo, but in the original large photo you can see it if you look for it.

Typically, I would not be excited to be considered normal. Normal is overrated in my opinion. Be unique. Embrace your inner freak. However, when weight is concerned, I have to admit I like being normal or average or “not afraid the seatbelt won’t buckle in my future sister-in-law’s sister’s car.” I was not tempted to stand behind someone else to hide my body like I used to when I was fat. I also no longer fear looking at photos from events I have attended. Actually, there is a lot less fear in general now. Here’s to a life with less fear!

I’m wearing one of my new small t-shirts. When I was going through my files making this photo, I stumbled across an old PhotoShop image that estimated what I would look like when I was skinny. I can’t remember if I made this or if it was one Mark at CalorieLab made me. The timestamp says it was last modified on October 5, 2005, when I was weighing in at around 260 pounds. I compared it to the pictures I took this morning, and I look pretty much like the estimate projected. Except I have a perkier butt. (Thanks, Ana Caban!)

So yeah, I’m looking pretty awesome. I’m still going to go for the last 20 pounds though. The reasons why are fodder for a whole ‘nother entry.