Speaking of which.... I may not have enough energy to see this rant all the way through, but I'll try -- here goes.

I am overweight. By approximately 100 pounds, give or take, depending on which stupid scale I use, and depending on whose height-weight chart I consult. I choose to use the American Diabetes Association guidelines, firstly because I have a history of diabetes in my family, and secondly because they're some of the most reasonable guidelines out there -- the kind that take into account the fact that not all women are built reed-thin and waif-like.

I realize I'm sounding pretty vitriolic right now. It's not intentional, it's just the result of more than a decade of being, to one degree or another, fat. Sure, some of you are thinking: "she should just shut the hell up and eat right and get some exercise." And you are right.

But what you don't know is that I have, in fact, been doing this, on and off, for a few years.

Not all of us have a metabolism or a body chemistry that is conducive to being reasonably thin -- let alone waifish. I've got bad habits, I know I do. I fight them as much as I can. But there comes a point where I see a Biafra-chick wandering around, sucking down a Mr. Softee chocolate-dipped ice cream cone, when I just throw in the towel until I can gather up the personal momentum to try this Sysiphusian task one more time.

We -- the overweight -- are not lazy. I mean, there are exceptions, but for he most part, we are not lazy. And we sure as hell don't choose to be this way. So for those of you who are mean and nasty to folks like us, lay the heck off. We are not slobs, we are not careless, our hygiene is just as good as yours. At least mine is.

And before you think I'm going overboard on this body-image thing, I can guarantee you that I do not want to look like Kate Moss. When your upper arms are the same diameter as your forearms, you're having issues. Being that thin is dangerous, and frankly, it's also unattractive.

I can sense that many of you are now thinking of me as a hypocrite. Kinda sounds like I am, doesn't it? Well, many of you would be wrong. Because the ultimate aim I have in losing weight is not becoming thin, but becoming healthier. 'Cause the weight loss will follow if my aim is to get to a point where I'm comfortable with myself, and my feet aren't killing me at all hours of the day, and I can climb a couple of flights of stairs and not feel like I've just tried to conquer K2.

.... There's a reason I wrote this. I mean, it very likely sounds random and all, but it's not. You see, I was riding the subway home tonight, and on the train were a group of adolescent yahoos. [I choose not to use foul language in these columns, because it cheapens what I write and it draws a lot more attention to what I'm saying if I ever do decide to employ profanity.] These adolescent yahoos, not having anything better to do with their time or their shared diminished brain capacity, took to talking loudly about me behind my back. You know the kind of talk that the truly obnoxious use when they're pretending to whisper about you, but want you to hear every word they say because it gives them a sense of power or it gets their ya-yas off or something.

They said some pretty mean things. They said some pretty overt and explicit things, the kinds of things I can't mention here because of the bracketed pledge I made last paragraph. I didn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry -- I managed to keep it down till I was walking home, with no one around to watch me. For a while I thought it was because of the hideous quality of the things they said to me, but then I realized I was this upset because I couldn't get back at them.

Y'know, people really don't have any power over you. They're like magic -- magic affects you if you believe in it, if you let it affect you. But it's really, really hard not to let the things people say hit you where it hurts. And this rant is my way of venting some of the utterly violent feelings I have about the whole incident, but the rant lets me vent in a way that's positive and -- just maybe -- helpful to someone else out there.

Ree keeps telling me I'm pretty. Why can't I let her words hit me as deeply as the ones lobbed at me by the A-train Neanderthal crew? I suspect that's the subject for another rant. The Self-Esteem Shuffle, perhaps.

But anyway. I have to say I am mightily impressed by my beehive -- it'd take some serious mojo to get me in a get-up that's that girly, but I can't get mad 'cause again, I'm so damn cute! It's even cute the way I'm all irritated that I got the 60s Star Trek uniform and she got the cool DS9 outfit!

I'd have more to say, but I'm all spent. And I'm way over my count -- look at how long this column drags on and on and on and on and on .........