Yesterday, in the pool, there was a slender young African American teenage boy, about 16, very handsome with fine, chiselled features, and his much heavier girlfriend, also about fifteen or sixteen. They were nuzzling so much in the Jacuzzi that I had to get out, but then they continued, from Jacuzzi to sauna to steam room, with an occasional laugh and splash in the pool.

She wore a tiny bikini and her flesh was literally spilling out of it--not just baby fat, puppy fat, but rich, buttery woman-fat, boobs and hips and tummy and thighs, and he was getting lost in all of it, his small face and slender dark hands wrapped around her big caramel back.

Last night (this morning) I dreamed I was lounging naked in the arms of a naked fat woman, voluptuous, soft, fleshy. A bunch of us were disporting ourselves like sea lions like this, naked, soft, feminine, and Beth was there, and she opened a curtain which I wanted kept closed (a common theme for me when I'm having sex in my dreams--someone always comes along and opens a curtain which bothers me, but not enough to stop what I'm doing.)

I woke late--having overslept the alarm--(damn this daylight savings time or non daylight savings time or whatever it is that's making me drive to school with the sun in my eyes!)-- still feeling the delicious pillowy softness of being held by all that flesh, and stumbled reluctantly downstairs where I packed a couple of cheese sticks and some carrots and a container of mixed nuts and some water for my forty minute drive to school.

I'm supposed to be on a diet.

I should lose the ten pounds that crept back up and fastened themselves to my butt and belly after I relaxed my no-sugar rule and cut back my swimming.

I should get all hard-bodied and buff and lean again, the way I was in Fall of '05, when you could bounce quarters off of my toned biceps and buns of steel.

My size 10 pants still fit but they are tight and my tummy bulges like a muffin over the top. Some of the cute short tight skirts I bought back in that season feel too young, too tight. I gave one to my stepsister who is in her twenties. Some of my bras are tight.

I should lose this extra padding so I will look sleek and lean and light and tight again.

Who knew that my psyche found it so sensual and good? Who knew my soul wants to lounge like an odalisque and eat chocolate and cheese--full fat Brie--and potatoes, potatoes, and cream--and rich butter cookies, and all good things, and not exercise and be fleshly and full like women approaching fifty in the olden days were, and be loved anyway?