Looming Fat On The Horizon

Once upon a time, I ate whatever and wherever I wanted, without even a trickle of apprehension.  I stayed between 120 and 125 on the scale, and my tits never grew out of a size AA.  I was flat, but goodness, I was tiny.  And I mean tiny.  Oh, those routines of coming out of the changing rooms, cheerfully content with my size 2's and size 4's.

Then something happened, and I noticed a little flab one day.  No big deal, thought I.  My ass stuck further out the back but it never really got bigger.  My tits grew into a full A.  Okay, this is good.  I'll take the...lemme look at the scale...er....135?  Alright, I guess.  Wait, 140?  What the hell is happening?  Now I have nice respectable tits and a flabby belly....what the actual fuck?  Did they make size 6 smaller?  I know I'm not bigger, but...what's this flab?  Oh fuck.  Crunches.  I don't mind exercises, but...the carpet in my apartment was laid about the same time as Sputnik and it's itchy and frayed and filled with lingering, crawly things that bite.  So now if I want to fit into my clothes that somehow magically shrunk I have to find someplace to do these crunches, and every day, all day.  And start eating Panera's miserly portions.  And eating things like quinoa.  And broccoli.  All the time.  Which means I'll have to cook...which means I'll have to spend all my time cleaning.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Can nothing be simple?

I'll do it for you, new dress.  And I'll try not to resent you for it.

Bravely Default, thoughts.

It's the winter of 1992-93.  A girl sits alone in a quiet, sunlit bedroom, the morning's rays flickering down onto her carpeted floor.  She's home from school today - maybe her mom called her in sick, maybe there was a doctor's appointment.  But she's here now, and the cold winter morning still sits peacefully outside her window.  She sits down with some excitement in front of her SNES and little television and grabs the rented copy of Final Fantasy II, pushing it down into the console with a k-chunk.  The story comes to life on her screen, and there are many enemies to be fought and characters to be renamed before she gets to the end.  All she can hope is that her mother will let her keep it an extra day.

That's what video games mean to me, this snowy time of year.  Each season has its video game nostalgia for me, but this is one of my favorite memories of winter.  So needless to say, I was a little surprised when these memories came flickering back when I popped my brand new copy of Bravely Default into the brand new 3ds my partner got me.  The gameplay and character system are a lovely throwback to the days of Final Fantasy II and III (which we Americans later found were actually FF IV and VI), with the separate screen for party management and the turn-based battles.  I've actually heard some people say that it's a Final Fantasy game without the franchise name on it, which might be true.  It's got the later FF additions we came to love...the job system, the spell names.  But there's just...something...this game captures that few other RPG's have captured since childhood.  And I'm at a loss to describe exactly what it is.