First thing the sales guy did after I laid down the rules was turn to Sean and go, "What's your number?" And Sean said. "Oh, no, you negotiate with Gayle."

So, strike one for the sales guy. Could not divide and conquer us by implying THE MAN would not surprised at what I laid down.

Sales guy then had to confer with his manager and left us at his desk for several minutes. I have a vague recollection (this was 16 years ago) of Sean and I amusing ourselves doing bits about the other people there to look at cars. I am sure we did not give off the stressed or nervous energy they were hoping for.

Guy comes back. His first offer is fifty dollars a month more than I told him we could pay. I looked at him and said "I gave you our upper limit."

"Well, but what's another 50 bucks a month?"

"Something I can't afford."

He didn't know what to do with my open and unashamed admittal that I had a budget because my money was finite.

He went back to talk to the manager again.

It took two more rounds of "I told you what I can afford" before he finally came back 20 bucks under what I'd stated as my max.

the moderation frame in diet culture gives injunctions like: don’t be overly preoccupied with food and diet (cringe! get the dsm!); but don’t just eat whatever you feel like eating (the body isn’t that trustworthy)/we all know intervention in your instinctive diet and body’s processes is needed; have thorough nutritional knowledge but only trust The Credentialed Experts (many of whom are in fact untrustworthy). we’re expected to do quite a bit of work to maintain a certain nutritional state and a certain body status. but the state and status are culturally determined, along with their desirability–without the baseline assumption that there is only one right way to have a body, there is no point in the quest to attain it. and of course, i am deeply critical of norming the quest to obtain it, bc bodies can in fact be trusted to regulate eating, shape, and size largely on their own. we are intervening in processes that don’t need intervention, and the intervention itself is the point–to keep us distracted, self-hating, and buying.

the analogue in skincare and “anti-aging” is sth like: don’t go overboard (sad! bimbofication!), but obviously you can’t just :/ let your skin have wrinkles and spots :/ i think we can all agree that’s [a horror] to be avoided. and the knowledge these people have (superficial and memed as it is), even lay people, about skin and skincare ingredients? it’s a staggering investment that requires, and so like orthorexia and other EDs where we become encyclopedias of nutrition facts. and dermatologists are some of the worst peddlers of cosmetic skincare bullshit, like many nutrition and medical professionals (particularly if they have influencer status) in the area of food/body.

in both areas, too, it makes sense to be thoughtful–that we’re eating enough and eating in ways that support our own bodies; that we’re taking care with skin cancer risk. but what’s demanded of us as good citizens and consumers in skincare and diet cultures is, again, an anxious preoccupation that’s based in the assumption that the body can’t just be, can’t simply be what it is. it has to be controlled and normed and understood “scientifically” to that end. it’s all so very rational, right??