Carrie Fisher is my new hero

This morning I was looking at my Twitter page, catching up on all the goings on that I missed while I was asleep, and saw that one of my good friends had twittered: "Carrie Fisher should get mad more often" and he included a link to a blogpost in which Carrie responds, somewhat vehemently, to an anonymous comment she stumbled across on the web in which someone stated that she used to be hot, but now looks like Elton John.

Now, you have to wade through Carrie's sometimes confusing stream of consciousness writing style, but it's completely worth it. The widely held notion that a woman in her 50s should look exactly like she did in her 20s is, in my opinion, one of the things that defines the society we live in as "fucked up, yo".

I've struggled with my weight through most of my life, sure that what I weighed would define me as a person. The number on the scale would tell me if I was a good person or not, if I was worthy of love, if I could enjoy my lunch that day. This warped idea was reinforced every day by magazines, television shows, and society at large.

And it's bullshit. The number on the scale? It's just a number. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with my worth as a person, or as a woman. It's taken me too many years to realize that, wasted years. I wasn't enjoying life, I wasn't having fun - I was too busy worrying about the amount of dressing on my salad, or the fact that I didn't make it to the gym that day, to have any fun.

I don't do that to myself anymore. I go to the gym now because it makes me feel good. I watch what I eat because I have a family history of heart disease. But I enjoy my food, and I enjoy my life. And, like Carrie, if anyone has anything to say about that? They can blow me.