BelleBelly: An Effort To Blog All Things Belly

What defines a belly?

That is, what separates & distinguishes & elevates the concept from the more vulgar alternatives of the stomach, the gut, the spare-tire, the paunch, or worse the abdomen.

Something wonderful.

After all we have bellyshirts, bellybuttons, & bellydancing - not to mention jellybellys, beerbellies, & fun scandals involving porkbellies – and yet you’ll never hear someone interchange the concept for a semi-synonymous alternative. Any mention of “a stomachbutton”, “a paunchpiercing” or “a night of exotic gutdancing” signals either a weak attempt a poetry, a foreigner or some depraved form of aphasia.

A Few Beautiful Bellies


<---[pulp] fictional belly: a good woman knows how to grow a potbelly for her man.









the author's belly: currently at 43inchs around, compared to a waist that barely stretches 36inches when exhaling. --------------------->







<-----------Huddie Leadbetter: illustrating the natural progression from Leadbetter to Leadbest to Leadbelly









Anyway I’m not here to divine upon the word. Merely to celebrate it. And document it. As I head out on my roadtrip this summer I’m bringing a camera. And I hope to capture and blog as many unique and wonderful bellies as possible. Similarly I hope to capture the effects of exercise on my own prized belly: as it changes from beachball to beachfriendly. Be witness to the transformation!

Until then ciao.


**casus belli: no belly needs a justification; and accordingly neither does this post. But insofar as your curiosity is looking for an explanation, the idea for this was delivered headfirst from the boredom that is high school regents week. Somewhere in the middle of proctoring the Global History exam, looking at the long rows of shifty students, all madly bubbling multiple choice answers, I realized I hated my job. Hated it thoroughly for setting me up in the inherently adversarial semi-oppressive role of a test-administrator. It seemed nothing could be lower, fouler, and more at odds with the gorgeous summer day outside. Seconds after these thoughts left my head a young lady rose to hand in her exam. Long brown hair, sharp purposeful nose, an unusually straight spine - it seemed to me her whole being was proud to follow in the wake of her truly enormous watermelon-like belly. I stared in praise. Simultaneously a second very pregnant woman rose from the other side of the room. All of a sudden I had two wonderfully huge bellies walking toward me; it made sense; I loved my job; and I wanted to praise bellies.

***casus belli II: also obviously, I have been obsessed with my own belly for years now; so that whole pregnant girl thing was just a proximal cause.