I don't feel bad about my neck yet, but I do feel bad about my belly roll

So I just got back from a visit with my friend Debbie (and her daughter Sarah) in Toulouse, and though we did have an excellent time, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the "foreignness" in my life (you know how you feel when traveling - 'vive la difference' - but then you have the comfort of knowing you are going back home, to the familiar?). Well my familiar is still pretty foreign! Anyway, I decided to take it easy and yesterday I went to the library and picked up a few books, including Nora Ephron's, I Feel Bad about My Neck. I'm not sure why I chose it; I guess I thought I would find it comforting, her being old and American like me, and today I began reading it. Notice how it's taken me two days to get into this: One day to retrieve the book from the library and one to commence reading. Things seem to take a lot longer for me to do over here and it's the tiny things that make me feel productive, for instance like getting the post or say, going to the library. Well, anyway back to this book, I'm enjoying it immensely. Even though she may have a personal trainer and have her hair done by a famous stylist, I could relate to at least something in every chapter (so far). One of the things I loved was her description of her favorite purse, a plastic, taxi-yellow bag with the Metrocard logo on it. While I never owned one, I have seen it and it made me feel nostalgic about NYC. What I really appreciated was her carefree, lighthanded depiction of the City with none of those glamorous, hip, New-York-is-the-greatest-city-in-the-world references. I HATE when I hear New Yorkers say this; it's meaningless - like my mother calling me beautiful (highly welcome but also heavily biased). It only really counts when someone else says New York is the greatest city in the world. Okay, getting to the title of this entry, and in the spirit of Nora Ephron's open disclosure, I haven't really stressed over the neck business yet but I have noticed shadows of portent (is that how you use the word? I need an editor!). What I do feel bad about are these cuddly rolls around my belly which never existed before but have recently developed over the last couple of years. Heretofore, I had always prided myself on having the coveted "flat stomach" and not only just when lying down. It seems this formerly firm, supple area which had always held itself in place, has irrevocably given way to something more like a Chinese shar-pei. But I'm okay with it.