Not so hot

That little stunt I pulled the other day (you know, where I walked briskly) cost me forty-eight hours of nausea.

On one of those days, Yuan - friendly neighbourhood sage of unsolicited advice/opinions - decided to tell me that she’s noticed my body has changed.

Let me preface this by saying that Yuan’s personal motto seems to translate thusly: “If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em down with smug observations that will make them wish they hadn’t joined either.”

Oddly covetous of my conventional life, she’s taken to pushing my buttons: few but obvious to her.

Your tits are huge!

Was her first exclamation of the lunch hour, which I handled with as much decorum as someone who is trying not to barf up a sandwich can muster. I hate big tits! Doesn’t everyone? And then the final nail in that coffin:

Yes, I notice your body is changing. Your female parts are more…protruding.

So less pin-up girl (which seemed a fitting analogy last week) than Hottentot Venus, now indelibly burned into that part of the imagination that informs self-image, thanks very much Yuan. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t gained a single pound since I discovered I was pregnant – the poison has already been unleashed and is busily coursing through my veins, even now.

Having humoured some questionable ‘friends’ in my time, I believe that I’m well-tuned to the subtle differences between insensitive and malicious, and I’ve come to the conclusion that with Yuan, it’s an unhealthy mixture of the two.

The days of allowing petty individuals to feed me barbs wrapped in the soft-flour tortilla of ‘innocent observation’ are well behind me, though, and I think I’m putting ‘stop payment’ on our weekly lunch dates. At least until I’ve got this body-image/pregnancy thing under control.

Except now I’m wondering if a developing baby can subsist on breath mints and sparkling water. . .