COMMENT ON KIM'S "TRUTH"
Kim, eons ago, maybe even on one of your visits to La Jolla, you made me aware of my baggy clothes tendency, a revelation that has stuck with me all these years. I still tend that way, but I'm way better. Even when I was rail-thin (now, when was that exactly?), I wore baggy clothes to cover up two things about my body that I thought were permanent defects: my wide, non-18" waist and my big hips. In my mind, my hips were 
H-U-G-E. I wanted the straight, boyish look, not the curves. (I'm fairly certain my childhood memory is accurate that Mom used to talk derisively about her waist and hips.) I feel like a different person, in a positive sense, when I wear clothes that hug rather than hide my body. That's where the thinness comes in. The thinner I am, the more likely I am to wear something form-fitting. I know I've thanked you for telling me long ago that I had a good "figure" and should show it off. But I'm thanking you again. And I probably will continue to thank you ad infinitum for making the first crack into my negative body-image.

An aside: Imagine my shock when a boyfriend in my twenties said he thought I had a good body (not great, just good) except for one thing. My knees. He said there was something not-good about my knees. I can't recall what the nature of the not-good was exactly. Wrinkly? Fleshy? Unshapely? I was stunned. Not my waist? Not my hips? My knees?!?!