This happened twice, and now the telling of it makes a third, so it's important. I was waking up where we lived. An old, comfortably sagging and slightly dusty upstairs. Antique. Dark wood. Bannisters. Secrets. Ancient patterns in the rug. The era of ink-black manual typewriters. I walked to the end of the hall. To my left: an open space, a railing over which you could sense downstairs. To my right: a wall, then finally a door leading into the kitchen and everybody else being active this day. Straight ahead of me: an old, hazy, full-length mirror. I looked in and saw myself fat. The first time it was just a glimpse, and I wasn't sure it hadn't just been a notion. The second time I stopped and studied, knowing the mirror was telling me something true. I remember thinking it was funny how this turned around the idea of a fat person with a skinny person hidden inside. I mean, I was really fat in the mirror. I glanced in the kitchen. There was awareness, but no one was really watching me. I moved around a little. I built up energy, and tried a little leap--and my image in the mirror got a little thinner. I danced and pranced, and just as I was leaping away from the mirror's vision, I could see that my body was lithe and lean. I went off to my right, toward the kitchen, but my mirror image leapt up and off to its right--my left!