Why Can't Oprah Love Me When I'm Fat?

My holiday wish came true. Oprah got fat again.

Is that mean? Well, hang on. Sometimes I am fat and sometimes I am not. Most Americans live in the not fat-fat-not fat zone with me.

I know the reasons why I get fat: eating and drinking and sitting around. And I know what makes me thin: going hungry and forcing myself to do boring things over and over and over. Naturally enough, I spend a little more time fat than not fat, each year. But you want to know something? I don't care.

If you take how much I don't care about my weight, and quadruple that, and then multiply that by a hundred--that is how much I don't care about Oprah Winfrey's weight. And I like her. I have always liked her. I have even worried about her, and I have wished her well and I have wished she would come to my town for a visit. But I don't care what size dress Oprah wears, and I don't care how much she weighs.

Considering how little I care about Oprah's weight, I sure hear a lot about it in a timely manner. For example, I know the instant she discovers a new miracle diet. This year it was acai berries. Haven't heard of them? Nobody has, until Oprah says they flush all the toxins out of you. By toxins, she means: fat. That's right. You can drink a berry tea and forget about exercise. Forget about how much money celebrities spend on spa treatments and surgery to "supplement" their diets. No, the key is the acai berry. As long as you drink that juice, you're going to flush out all the fat that is hiding in every nook and cranny of your long-suffering body. You're going to be taut, tan, even tall.

Acai berry! Acai berry! Shouted the Facebook ads. Every time I navigated to another page, the acai fucking berries followed. Pop-up: Look at the abs I got from acai!

I tried answering the drop-down menu questions: why I dislike this ad. Uh. Irrelevant. Because I don't diet. Boring. Ditto. Misleading. Because I don't believe you for a second. Offensive. Because why do you want me to lose weight, anyway? You don't even know me.

But now Oprah has thrown herself on the broken diet sofa to weep inconsolably: "I am embarrassed. I am mad at myself."

Let me be the first, or more likely the four millionth, to say, Oprah: I don't friggin' care. I like you, and I don't care what size you are. Two? Great. Twenty? Great.

If only my unconditional love were requited, Oprah. Alas, I see you do not love me as I am when I am fat. I see it in the way you insist that I join you every time you decide to mercilessly pummel your poor body into a new shape. I see it in the dozens of ads on which your name appears: Oprah. Lose weight. Acai.

Why can't you stick with one diet and exercise program, Oprah? And why do you make me watch each new regimen as you contort your personal life and relationships to accommodate it? Is it not easier to shovel ourselves into dresses two sizes too small? Is it not easier still for a woman of wealth such as yours, to simply buy a bigger dress until the donuts wear off? Or do what the simple folk do, Oprah: Let out the seams! Let out the seams!

There is something still wrong, in the heart of all that self-actualization and fresh starting, isn't there? Perhaps something innately human, that will not go away, regardless of the power of the flush.

So, Oprah, let me say: Welcome back to my size. Welcome to being a person. Please stop asking me to go on a diet with you, or run around outside in bad weather. Please stop giving those self-hating interviews, and learn to love me as fat as I am. Then you might, just might, learn to love yourself a little bit, too.