Consider this little speech a gift from me to all my fellow fatties who toil in obesity, reviled and hated, as hopelessly addicted as any junkie or drunk but offered none of the tolerance and understanding enjoyed by other addictions.

This one is for you. Feel free to use it should you need to defend yourself from the haters.

You look at me and think I weak, slow, and out of shape.

But I am, in fact, stronger than you in every way.

It’s easy to prove. Take my weight, subtract yours, and make note of the answer. Now, pick up that much weight and hold it at around gut level.

Now tell me…. how does that feel right now? How will it feel in ten minutes? How will it feel three hours from now? How would you like to have that there for the rest of your life?

Still think you are stronger and healthier than me? You wouldn’t even be able to stay on your feet, let alone walk.

Tell me, how do your feet feel? All swollen up and hurting like hell? Good. That’s not even half of what we fat folk go through with all that weight pressing down on our vascular systems.

Finding it hard to breathe? Fantastic. That’s what we go through 24/7 because our hearts are overtaxed and our lungs have to supply far more oxygen than they are designed to do.

Does it feel like the temperature of the room shot up? Well it didn’t. It’s just that overtaxed muscles produce a lot of heat. If you were truly obese, you would also find out the hard way that at generates a lot of heat and you don’t have nearly enough surface area to radiate it out. That’s why we are hot all the damned time.

But you could always change, you say. Just stop eating so much. And cut out all the bad stuff!

Okay. Let me ask, have you gone without your favorite foods for two weeks lately? Probably not. And if you did, you know that it’s very hard to do.

Well in order to lose a significant amount of weight, I would have to do that for two years.

And that’s not easy. Ask any addict. Because that’s what we are : addicts. Our addiction happens to be food, especially high-reward foods like junk food.

We all know that tasty foods makes people happy, right? Well addicts are people who can’t generate enough happiness on their own and try to fill the gap with artificial sources of happiness like drugs, alcohol, or tasty, tasty food.

But our addiction is different, because its major symptom – obesity – makes us unpleasant in your eyes. And that makes it easy to view us as no longer human and thus make the easy jump to just blaming us for it instead of wondering what the hell is happening to make so many people fat.

I am pretty sure that you will find that we are the largest addict group in the world…. and the most hated.

So the next time you see an obese person, think to yourself ‘There goes someone who as gone through things that would have crippled me, survives in a society that hates them for things beyond their control. and lives a life full of pains, drains, and sprains, and still manages to lead a normal life. ‘

You know, the same normal life you complain about when you don’t have half the problems we do.

So damned right we are stronger than you haters.

We have to be.

Had my first experience of being workshopped today. It was my turn to deliver a little presentation of this worksheet we were given in Character class, and so I used an idea I have had about a detective who is a 17 year old pretty pink princess type girl who wants to prove to her father (who is a homicide detective) and the world that she is not just a puff of pink in polka dot panties, and she chooses to do this by trying to solve the murder of the biggest bully in her high school.

After that, we workshop the idea, which means everyone in the class (plus the prof, natch) offers suggestions as to how to extend or improve the basic concept.

And I was not sure how I would handle it, but it turned out to be downright magical. Having others listen to and show interest in my idea was thrilling enough, but to have them make some extremely good suggestions was like holy communion to me.

The idea changed in detail quite a bit in the workshopping without anything of substance being altered. I just have a much better case for her to solve now.

Her name is Teresa Heintz. She is the prettiest and nicest girl in her school. Everybody loves her. Everyone has always loved her. And for a long time, that was more than enough. But now she’s in high school, she just got her driver’s license, and she is starting to realize that not everyone has had the kind of life she’s had, and the sad truth about why everyone has always been so nice to her (her looks), and how she find herself driven, for the first time in her life, by a strong need to prove herself.

She’s not used to having strong drives. Her life has always been so easy. So she is not used to it, and all the pain and discontent that comes with it.

But one thing’s for sure : The kid the bully picked on the most did not kill him, and she’s going to figure out who the real killer is, and what’s more, she will do it faster than her father can.

Then he will HAVE to take her more seriously!

I love this character more every time I think about her. I am seriously thinking of turning this idea into my pilot pitch.

I am told my ides is similar to the show Veronica Mars, which bums me out of the house. It’ also slightly like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But mostly, of course, it is all me.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.