Wake up, I'm Fat!

Foreword
by Rosie O'Donnell

Tucking.

There. I said it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I tucked once. I'll never forget it. It was 1982, "An Evening at the Improv" hosted by Cicely Tyson, and there, on national television, you could see it. The unmistakable line of the top of my pants as my shirt discreetly disappeared below. I had tucked. Not only had I tucked, I garnished the entire experience with a belt. Shocking, but true.

For most people, tucking is a nonevent. But for those of us who tend to the round, it isn't so simple. To tuck or not to tuck? That is the question. It comes loaded with issues of self-perception and self-acceptance.

Camryn Manheim is a tucker—a proud and consistent tucker. To me, her tucking is emblematic of her journey to be defined and, most important, to define herself on her own terms. In her hands, tucking is a celebration.

Wake Up, I'm Fat! is the work of a loud and independent spirit that ultimately refused to be constrained by shame. The push-pull of weight as an armor or albatross, the internal deals and monologues, the yearning to be on the inside while eternally feeling on the outside are explored with a courageous honesty. We see her struggle to shed the layers of self-loathing and replace them with a sense of her own value. We see her slowly accept herself. The story here is of a heart, mind, and soul that learned they deserved to be held in equal measure to their external package—no matter who or what said otherwise. The achievement of that exquisite balance is exhilarating and inspiring. In short, a great read.

I watched Camryn win her first Emmy Award and, along with millions of women, cheered as she dedicated it to "all the fat girls" out there. When she asked me to write the foreword to this book, there was no way I could refuse. Camryn Manheim is a compassionate maverick. She built the bandwagon and she is pulling it. I, for one, am jumping on.

—Rosie O'Donnell

Author's Note

For most of my life I was waiting for my life to begin. When I was ten, all I wanted was to be thirteen . . . so I could finally be a teenager. When I was thirteen, I was just waiting to be sixteen . . . so I could drive. Then I was waiting to be eighteen . . . so I could vote. Then I had to wait three more years to be twenty-one . . . so I could drink. When I was twenty-one, I was waiting for college to be over, so my life could finally start. And then there was graduate school, and life certainly couldn't start there. And then I was twenty-eight, thinking now my life can finally start. But then another year passed and I was twenty-nine, waiting for a great apartment, then I was thirty and waiting for a great job, and then I was thirty-one and waiting for a great boyfriend so my life could finally start.

Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. All my life I was waiting for my life to begin, as if my life were somehow way up ahead of me, and one day I would just arrive there. I've wanted to write a book for ten years now, but I was waiting. Waiting to be thin, so I could write about what it was like to be fat and how I emerged the righteous champion: the conqueror of my fat!

But a few years ago I finally realized something. My life was not way up ahead of me. I was standing smack dab in the middle of it. In fact, I was standing on the corner of "Life" and "You better get going, Camryn," and the way I saw it, I had two choices: I could either cross that street or just keep waiting for a few more years of green lights to go by.

I no longer wanted to be a bystander, a spectator watching my life unfold. I wanted to be the writer, director, and star of my story. And so, in August 1993, I began work on my one-woman show, Wake Up, I'm Fat! Despite that chronic, nagging feeling that I had nothing particularly special to offer, I realized that there was one area in which I was an expert. I knew every nook and cranny of what it was like to grow up fat in America. And guess what, it's no fucking picnic. To make matters worse, I was cursed with a singular passion for acting. Not astronomy. Not veterinary medicine. Not haberdashery. No, I was in love with acting, a profession that is all too often based on how you look. It didn't matter what an agent or a casting director actually said when they rejected me, all I heard was "You're too fat."

This book, however, is not the whiny lamentation of a girl who was never asked to dance (well, maybe occasionally whiny). It is a celebration of ass-kicking. It is my enthusiastic rejection of the beauty myth and a call to arms in the fight for self-acceptance. This is my journey, from victim to victor.

The following anecdotes are true. I think. Over the years, after-dinner stories tend to bend and twist and become more colorful and dazzling than they originally may have been. A flourish here, a double entendre there, a wee embellishment for emphasis. Sometimes the truth is drab, redundant, and ludicrous and needs a little decoration or refinement. This has been my greatest challenge: to be precise without boring you to tears, to be honest without making enemies, and to be candid without getting sued. Wish me luck.