In a World of Heidi Klums, Some Might Like It Stout

I just realized where my recent belief that I look like a short troll comes from, even though I am neither short (I am five-feet-six-inches) nor a troll (I'm Mennonite by ancestry, which is more like un-fun hippies than trolls).



A few months ago, the Palinode and I attended a dinner party. We were sharing travel stories before dinner, and one of the guests said that almost all the women in this one country she visited looked like Heidi Klum.

"Well, I'll make sure to avoid the place," I said.

It wasn't a very enlightened thing to say, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't feel like a toadstool in a willow grove if you stuck me in a country full of Heidi Klums.

"Actually," my friend said, "they would probably think that you looked exotic there."

"Exotic?"

"No, they would," she said.

"Right," I said. "They'd shoot a movie all about me called Some Like It Stout."

Everybody laughed, because I'm so funny, and then we ate a great dinner, and a good time was had by all, or so I thought, until I looked at that picture I took of myself up there and realized I wasn't a short troll.

It turns out that I have subconsciously been assuming that I am both shorter and fatter than I really am ever since that night, because, while everyone laughed at my joke, nobody disagreed with my describing myself as stout.

In my mind's eye, I have been viewing myself through a funhouse mirror:



THANKS, DINNER PARTY FRIENDS.

On the other hand, though, I'm feeling kind of hot now, so there's that. Rowr.