MyFat.com

You know my favorite part of the State of the Union address was A) the part where W. said that Americans were the only ones liberating concentration camps at the end of WWII, and B) the part where he said it was now required for every American to join MySpace.com as part of his “No Employee Bored At Work” program. I, for one, support this new program and look forward to W’s next, Jesus, what does he have, 14 more years in office? Wow. I’m not anti-W. I’m not pro-W. As we’ve discussed before, I am a militant moderate. I’m just to the point now that I was with Clinton toward the end of that whole young (albeit admirably chunky) intern debacle. He’s good, he’s bad, WHO CARES? Can we just move on to beating down on someone else now? I’m bored.

Now about this MySpace thing…

Sydney made me do it. And I can’t say I have been altogether unhappy with it. I’ve found some people with whom I haven’t connected in a long time and I love that. Although I wish more people from my high school would stop having babies for 5 minutes and discover the internet. They’d better get moving. It’s law now. (“Strategery!” – W.) Anyway, some people have really cool home pages on MySpace. They put in colored backgrounds and songs and graphics and whatnot. Whereas I? Can’t figure out how to post to the message board. Seriously, I can’t believe I managed to get my photo up. Bless my heart, I’m pitiful. My parents’ college dollars at work.

I’ll tell you one thing I have discovered, though. Sometimes, “people” send you an “I want to be added to your friends” notice…. “people” who have ulterior motives…

For example, some guy, we’ll call him Dillhole, wanted to be added to my list. He seemed okay. I got all excited. Yay! Someone thinks I’m cool and wants to be my friend! Whereas in real life, Dillhole is in a band, and just wanted to get everyone on MySpace on his little message list so he could advertise his suck-tastic garage band “gigs.” I eliminated Dillhole from my friend list with extreme prejudice. Spamming, ulterior-motive having bastard. That’ll teach him! Just like I teach all those telemarketers when I hang up on them! No doubt they immediately stop and examine their lives and what they’re doing before storming right into their Indian teenage manager’s office and throw their headsets in his Cheeto crumb covered lap and say, “you know what? She’s right! Ms. Algagree (my to-date favorite telemarketer variation of my name) is right! I do suck!”

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, MySpace “friends.” So now whenever “people” send me a request to be added to my friend list, I check them out thoroughly first instead of just adding them willy-nilly.

And now, MORE to the point. This morning I received a request from someone calling herself “Flaunt.” I don’t know that I have any friends who would call him/herself that, so I was suspicious. I went to the page. This person appeared to have other friends. The photo told me nothing, so I clicked on “more photos,” expecting to see pics of a person I did actually know, and who would shortly be receiving a taunting message from me about that retarded name and weird photo.

Y’all, “Flaunt” is the name of a “trendy, plus size boutique” in Nashville. A plus size… clothin… boutique.

Now.

I’m not even going to pretend that I do not shop in plus size stores. I do. I have an as-yet-unused Christmas gift card to Lane Bryant in my kitchen drawer. It’s all true. I am still a plus sized girl. But what I couldn’t figure out is how they knew to market to me. I didn’t put my weight or clothing size in my profile. I didn’t mention anywhere that I was size XL (say it with me now, “for Xtra Lovely”). How did they know to send me this? Where did they get their informa……

My photo.

These bitches looked up all the Nashville females and then looked at their photos to see if they were fat. I have a decent photograph on my page. I didn’t realize I looked all, you know, like I needed to be marketed trendy, plus sized clothes. You know, when you’re overweight, especially if you’ve been that way for at least ten years, you just kind of get used to seeing yourself. It’s not that you can’t see that you need to drop some weight, but when you see photos of yourself, or worse, on video, it’s a little startling. I guess no one sees herself the way others see her. I just finished a play called “Spoon River Anthology” and I wore this outfit that I thought was kind of flattering. But then I saw the photos from the show and said, “good lord, is that I what I look like?” But you know, a lot of people say that, even the thin ones. It’s weird. Reality vs. perception. And not just when it comes to looks. I was recently involved in a discussion about astrology and learned that your sun sign general description, what you would think of as “your sign,” (Virgo, in my case) is the way you are inside, or the way you see yourself. Your moon sign, or rising sign, (Saggitarius in my case, a trait I share with Elvis) is the way others see you, or the way you present yourself to the world. Virgo and Sagg are two very different signs. Am I really two entirely different people? Neat and anal on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside? Thin and confident on the inside, chunky and second-guessing on the out? I always thought what you see is what you get with me, except for the weight. I am more than what I weigh. Wait, that’s not… I mean I am more as a person that my weight. Not that I weigh more than I’ve been… no… forget it.

So to make a long story even longer, I am not adding Flaunt to my friend list. Not because it’s for XL girls but because I don’t wear trendy clothes. Shout out to all my libarian and kindergarten teaching homies! Word! My denim jumper, wooden jewellry, sensible shoe wearing peeps! Woop!! Woop!!

T minus I don’t know I haven’t weighed in since last week and counting.

That’s me on the right. I got me some teeth.

 

The who? In the what what?

You know I don’t like to use Craig Kilbourn speak lightly, but I will make an exception this time and proclaim a hearty BOOYAH!!  Somehow, against all reason, I am down 1.2 pounds since Monday.  I cannot fathom how that happened since Monday night I snacked like a house a’fire and last night I ate a southern fried chicken salad from O’Charleys.  (seriously y’all, that stuff is like kryptonite.  I have no power in its presence.)  But the scale doesn’t lie, so again I say!  Booyah!

Also, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum (pirates (TM))!  For I have definite confirmation that Suck-It Sandra resigned her job as Chief Discourager and High Priestess of Assholery at the Brentwood location of LA Weight Loss.  I really <holding for applause>… no…. I really can’t take all the credit for this.  I must acknowledge and thank my fellow husky girls for their part in frustrating her and arguing with her and pointing out her crack-smokery to the point that she was driven out.  Truly, it was a team effort and a testament to the power of irritable dieters en masse.  And so, to you thin people out there, I say to you….  watch your backs.  You piss off one of us, you piss off ALL of us.

Did you see this article on the New York Times website?  Ooooooh, girl I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.  Not that I don’t love the french.  You know I do.  And not that I’m happy about obesity in general.  It sucks.  In any language.  But you know how they are, the french, with their “ooooooh, Americans are zooooo fat!  And we are zooooo zkinny!  We can just eat whateeeeever we want!”  How many people sent me stories about that book “French Women Don’t Get Fat“?  How many?  My mom wanted to run right out and buy it for me.  I told her not to bother because A)I already know why traditionally french people have been able to eat well and not gain weight.  It’s the same way americans used to be able to eat well and not gain weight.  I don’t need to know any “french secrets” because I already know how not to be fat.  I just, for whatever reason, have chosen to ignore those facts.  And B)French people are fat!  Why?  For the exact same reasons Americans are fat.  The poorer the region, the more people rely on fast food and cheap, crappy “food product” to feed their families.  TV is a big deal in France now.  Video games are selling like gang busters.  They’re no longer twenty years behind America in, well, everything.  But y’all, Y’ALL, you have to read this article.  Especially the very bottom where it talks about the perception of fat women changing, as it relates to attractiveness.  I’m telling you right now.  If this trend continues?   I am brushing up on my subjunctive and passe compose and moving to France Bel Grande.  Toute suite!

 

T minus 40 pounds and counting.

I owe you an explanation

Okay here’s the thing. I have been having some problems. With eating. Um…. a lot. I’ve been eating. As in, foods that are not on the diet. So, ah, well y’all I feel bad about it. Because everyone’s all supportive and I feel like you’re rooting for me to win and I’m not winning right now. I’ve fallen to the middle of the pack. But I’m wearing a fetching hot pink jersey and you can all still see me in here and I hope you’re still rooting for me and haven’t given up and instead of just going to get that hot dog and then coming back to your seat, just decided eh, what the hell, I’m just going home. I’ll catch her next home game. Cause I’m still here. I AM. And I was kind of afraid that everyone would be disappointed in me, so I feared good, honest reporting. But Sydney said that when Judgey McOhMyGodYourAssIsHugeEnstein applied to re-up his Martini Ministry membership, she exercised her option to blackball him from the club, and that I should keep writing and be honest and that it’s okay to fail sometimes. Oddly, that was the exact teaser for a very special episode of Moesha three years ago….

So I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that I have gained a little bit of weight back. I’m still in my new pants size, haven’t gained that much. But I am, well, having trouble with the stopping of the eating. Especially at night. I have no idea what it is about my apartment that compels me to eat, but am here to testify that it does. It’s very weird. I’ve gotten the naughty lunching under control, but I can not be trusted at night and am seriously considering installing some kind of shock device in my kitchen.

The good news is, I have not seen Suck-It Sandra in many, many moons at the LAWL, and I believe her to no longer be in their employ. Karma’s a bitch.

The better news is that I am reconciling with the diet and it has moved back in to my apartment. See, the thing is that during the holidays, I wanted to spend them with my family they way we always do and the Diet wanted to spend the holiday it’s own way and I just really didn’t want to do that because with the Diet, Christmas dinner consists of all this weird, low fat food and no desserts (it’s just not Christmas!) and then you have to go around the living room and open presents one at a time so everyone can ooh and aah about what you got and then Christmas day they want to take a walk and exercise and crap and Christmas day is all about eating leftovers and sleeping in the big chair by the fire! So. I put my foot down and said that as a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to spend some time apart anyway. So go do your own thing and after the holidays, call me. And I thought, of course, that I’d never hear from it again, because it was pretty hurt. I said some things I shouldn’t have, like calling it unflexible and set in its ways and that it liked other women better than me (you should see all the women who have lost more weight than me in a shorter period of time, thankyouverymuch, immortalized in guilt-inducing polaroids all over the diet center), and that I just was feeling smothered.

But last week, it called. I’ve been watching Sex and the City on Netflix and I am here to tell you that those women are T.H.I.N. Thiiiiiiin. Sarah Jessica Parker’s character said she’s a size two. A size? Two. TWO. Where does she keep her internal organs? Size two?!!? I can’t really say that I’m inspired by these women, but I will say that I hate Carrie Bradshaw, as she embodies everything stereotype, everything I hate about women, and it has made me thankful that although fat, I am not a neurotic man-stealer, impoverished and whiney about my $40,000 shoe collection, a wearer of fugly clothes, and that my interests and range of knowledge are wider reaching than sex and fashion. Does that sound condescending? Good. I have decided not to apologize for that. Anyway, if nothing else, the stupid show re-empowered me to be strong and to give love between a woman and her Diet another chance.

I’ve got some goods. I’ve got good hair. I can entertain the masses. I have the willpower to make myself meet with Nervous Little Trainer every week. And as Kim Coombs at Union University once said to me of my whitened, straightened smile, “Rachel, you got you some teeth!” (or as my cousin calls them, “gleaming fruits of capitalism”). And Jeff Lewis did address me as “skinny” at the Russian new year’s party. Which is not something that just every 219 pounder can say.

219? I weigh 219…. Jesus I outweigh some football players.

I’ve got work to do….

 

T minus 39 pounds and counting. In the right direction now. For real. I mean it.

Do you smell that?

Do you?  It’s like… what…. what is that….  oh.  Oh wait.  I know what that is.  That, mes amis, is the stench of failed dieter.  Actually, I take that back.  It’s the lingering waft of stalled dieter, which has the potential to intensify into stench of failed dieter.  Big, fat, failed dieter.  I need a pep talk.  Here’s the year in review.  Could help.  Or it could drive me to a moaning, rocking place in my utility room, far from prying eyes and questions about whether I’ve gotten all my water in or had a bowel movement.  (they’re fairly invasive with the questions, these people)

1. Okay, ah, I think Suck It Sandra no longer works for the LAWL.  So that’s good.
2. I should be within 30 pounds of my goal weight right now and I’m within 90.  So that’s bad.
3. I have to make a skirt for this play I’m in at the end of January and most costume patterns only go up to 20, which I now wear.  So I’m closer to normal than I have been since college.  So that’s good.
4. I see my mother’s extended family once a year on christmas eve and not one person noticed enough weight loss to comment on it.  So that’s bad.
5. I lost 2 pounds over the christmas weekend, so that’s good.
6. But that’s largely thanks to the heinous migraine I had Dec. 23 and 24.  So that was very, very bad.
7. I am officially a “regular” at the gym now.  Which means my trainer will complain to me about all these newbies-come-lately who are only going to take up space for a couple of months and then be gone.  I’m a gym-bitcher!  I have arrived!  So that’s good!
8. I haven’t had acid reflux all year.  So that’s very good.
9. I haven’t had heart fib all year, except when taking massive doses of caffeine for migraines.  So that’s very, very good.
10. I sleep pretty well now.  So that’s excellent.
11. I flew this year and didn’t have to buy an extra seat.  So that’s great.
12. I have had many lovely, encouraging emails from supporters who follow my fat ass online, without whom I can pretty much guarantee you I would not still be on this diet.  So that is better than I can even tell you.

I think the ayes have it.  It has been a better year than a bad one.  New job.  Wrote a little.  Lost a little bit of weight.  Joined a gym.  Learned how to make pot roast.  Started meditating (which is actually very helpful with the dieting thing.  I highly recommend it.)  Big plans for the future kids.  BIG plans.

If you are thinking about losing weight as one of your new year’s resolutions, you aren’t alone.  I read an article that said weight loss and quitting smoking are the top two resolutions made each year.  And also, I’m here to tell you that you can do it.  And probably much better than me.  It may be slow.  I guaran-damn-tee you it will be sometimes painful (if you have very much to lose).  But it’s do-able.  I feel your pain.  I’m here to help.

And also, I’m here to fellowship (read: complain) about it.  But helping too!  I’m trying to be part of the solution and not the problem!  I am!

So a big, fat XXL thank you to everyone who has encouraged me this year.  Or, you know, laughed at something I wrote.  It doesn’t really take much to please me.  I’m easy.  Spread it around.  Bow chicka wow wow.  I am BACK in the saddle, I am UP from my pre-Thanksgiving weight, but I feel a migraine coming on from the friggin’ clouds that won’t go the hell away so another two pounds may start the new year off right!!

 

T minus 40 pounds and counting.

Holy shit!  I’ve lost 40 pounds!  I’m still fat, but I’ve lost 40 pounds!!! 

Naughty Naughty, loud and bawdy, t-t-t-t tease me….

I’ve been cheating.  On my diet.  Like….  cheating.  A lot.  If this were a marriage, the diet would be threatening to leave me and go back to live with its mother and I would be on my knees, drunk and crying holding flowers and wearing a dirty wifebeater, promising it will never happen again baby, don’t leave me, I need you, don’t make me cheat again, baby why you make me hurt’chu?

The thing that’s so hard about dieting during the holidays is vendor gifts.  I mean, I’ve put up with enough shit this year from enough of these chodes that they’d better be offering up some tokens of esteem and gratitude during this yuletide.  But why is it that I am getting all the foodstuffs while the men in the office are getting non-edible, fun gifts from the SAME VENDORS?  What, chicks only want food?  Is that it?  One vendor sent James and Brad those big buttons from the Staples commercials that say “Easy” on them.  James put his up in the hall so now everyone who walks past it pushes it and I have to hear the automated voice say “that was easy” every fifteen minutes.  I’m going to kill James, by the way.  It’s my new year’s resolution.  Seriously.  That guy?  GETTIN’ it.

Heh, it’d be pretty funny if I had an “Easy” button on my door.  I’d put it right under my name plate.

I stayed away from two christmas parties this weekend.  I’d like to claim a steely discipline but you know the truth is that I’m a Virgo homebody and sometimes I just don’t wanna put on hosiery.  Sometimes I just want to chill and sit on my couch and watch “you’ll shoot your eye out!” and turn off all the lights and look at my christmas tree.  I slept on the couch Saturday night so I could do just that.  So I thought I’d be safe staying home, avoiding party food.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Sometimes I’m so naïve I want to pinch my own cheeks.

There were almonds in the house, you see.  And the thing about almonds is A) they’re fattening and B) you have no idea how many you’ve eaten until you’ve eaten a metric ton.  I’m allowed to eat some to fulfill my daily fat requirement, but get this, I’m allowed seven.  Seven almonds.  Again.  If I could eat seven of ANYTHING, I wouldn’t have a weight problem now would I, LA Weight Loss?   So I had to toss those.  And throw away half a jar of peanut butter.  I had to!  I was eating too much!  I suppose it says something for me that I can bring myself to throw stuff away and not dig through the trash for it later, but still.  I’m like a porn addict.  Only for certain foods instead of sex.  Peanut butter that’s really chunky.  Almonds that are unsalted (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  Goat cheese, yeah!  Do it, dairy products!!  You know what I like!!!

You know what I mean?  Who’s with me?   Oh.  Oh I see.  You have no addictions.  Nothing makes you want to snack unceasingly.  There’s not one single thing you can’t do in moderation.  Is that what I’m hearing?

Fine.  I’m off to try to get rid of the rest of the best goddamned cookies I’ve ever eaten.  Gift from a vendor.  Sittin’ here on my desk laughing at me.  Taunting me.  Whores.

It’s the mooooost difficult tiiiiime of the yeeeeear….

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Bitching and moaning about my fat-but-exponentially-improving ass.  I was going to send photos of myself for this year’s christmas cards but I’m still too fat so we’ll try again for next year.  When I will be dressed like this.  I am happy to report that when I went this weekend to buy my christmas tree, the guy who came over to untie and shave it up for me said, “how ‘bout I knock ten bucks off that for ya’?” and winked.  Yes, he was old.  No, I couldn’t have been the first person to whom he made that offer.  But I have a feeling that would not have happened a year ago when I was still XXXL, instead of my current, svelte XL.  Saturday night I took my mother to see Tuna Christmas at TPAC.  Don’t judge!  I know, it sounds hillbilly, and there were plenty of those there.  I actually saw a woman in sweatpants and a fur coat, my hand to God!  But I’m here to tell you the guys who do this show are hi-larious.  Or maybe it’s just that as an actor (however amateur) myself, I marvel at their skill.  Anyway, as we stood in the lobby waiting for the doors to open, we played “see that girl over there?  Is she fatter than me?”  OH yes.  People DO play that game.  And my mom would look and say, “why, lord no!”  Of course I’m always sure to pick people who I know damn well are much larger than myself.  But, you know, sometimes it’s hard to tell.  You never see yourself as others do.  I got a little too confident though.  As one woman struggled down the aisle and into her narrow seat in the theatre, I asked again, “Oo!  Oo!  How about that one!”  And mom said, “well, she is now.”  Wait, what?  What do you mean “now”?  You mean I used to be that big?  Cause y’all, wow.  She was… wow.  And mom said, “well, you were gettin’ pretty big there.”  Woo.  Caught it just in the nick of time, apparently.

And also, just a request, please don’t wear spandex jeans.  Anywhere.  Any weight.  Thanks.

The Criggers’ cookie painting party was this weekend.  If you recall from last year’s party, this is the one where I can’t just avoid the food table.  They have waiters walking around with trays of food and shoving them in your face every fifteen freaking seconds.  And I’m not made of stone.  Or willpower, as we’ve discovered.  I’m still working off my Thanksgiving weight, and I am not proud of that, as I had the lofty goal of showing up Suck-it Sandra at the LAWL by losing down to a certain weight by the end of the year.  I can say with almost 100% assurance of accuracy (and shame) that this goal will not be met.  However.  I think the important thing here is that it is the holiday season and I am still going to the gym.  And I am still watching what I eat.  And I have completely shed my “oh well I’ve blown it for the week might as well start again Monday” crapitude.  And that, my friends and supporters, is huge.  HUGE.  Do you hear me?  It’s big.  I mean, sure I bought a salad today, ate the accompanying sunflower seeds and one crouton, took one bite of salad and then threw the rest away because I couldn’t choke it down.  But I could have gone to McDonald’s for lunch instead.  Right?  Right.

Also this weekend was the Neuhoff christmas party which was, fortunately, so crowded that once I ate what was on my plate from round one, I was too lazy and claustrophobic to force my way back through the rabble to the food table for seconds.  Naughty?  Yes.  But only slightly.  It was more of a misdemeanor, as opposed to the food felonies of my past.  So I’ve drunk all the hot chocolate, I’m done with the parties, for the most part (read: I’m looking for ways to get out of the rest) and with Christmas and New Year’s Eve looming large in the future, I’m back in the gym and stocked up on the diet bars.

And starving my ass off, FYI.  Sunflower seeds just don’t fill you up like you’d hope they might.

 

T minus still-working-off-the-Thanksgiving-weight-so-give-me-a-break and counting.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

My mother just turned 65 and has suddenly decided that she is now officially old.  So naturally, she has turned her thoughts to death and can’t bear the thought of her husband and children having to go to Shoney’s for Thanksgiving dinner in her absence.  Which of course is completely irrational, as we would go to Cracker Barrel.  But to assuage her fears, this year I learned to prepare the entire holiday feast with the exception of the mashed potatoes and devilled eggs, which I already knew how to do, so that I can step in 20 years from now and make grandmama’s dressing.  Disaster averted and everyone was free to enjoy.

I am a Virgo and an ENFP (for your Myers-Briggs fans out there).  I like things neat.  Not OCD.  Just, you know, neat.  My mother is, well, not neat.  She cooks six things at a time and all of them in such a way that flour and gunk covers the entire kitchen.  Whereas if she were simply to slow down, cook two items at a time and measure ingredients over the sink, which incidently WOULD NOT KILL HER, there would be a lot less clean up and everything would still be done on time, especially considering that she made me prepare the dressing and sweet potato casserole a week ahead of time and freeze it.  I’m not sure why she thought it would save her so much time considering the fact that I was doing all the work, but she’s apparently teetering precariously on the brink of death so I humored her.  Anyway, everything was done on time, everyone was satisfactorily complimentary and a good time was generally had by all.  And the cooking process wasn’t really so bad, despite the fact that she has now told every female relative she can get on the phone that I am “peculiar” and “anal.”  Fortunately, those crafty French release the new Beaujolais juuuuust in time for Thanksgiving…

I ate so much that I had to undo the top button of my denim skirt when we went to see Harry Potter.  And I only ate one plate of leftovers.  What?  For me that’s good.  My mother informed me tonight that she only gained half a pound over the weekend.  I personally believe that to be a filthy lie but I can’t prove anything so.  I have not been in to weigh yet.  I’m thinking Wednesday. By then I should have a few sessions in the gym and be able to take off whatever I may have gained.  I’m crafty like that.  My mom credited her nominal weight gain to her diet group, saying that when you know you are going to be accountable, you tend to keep track of what you eat.  My father, who has always been thin, asked, “don’t people always keep track of what they eat?”  Shut up, Iron Dieter.  No, they don’t.  A devilled egg here, a few dumplings there… before you know it you’ve had Thanksgiving dinner before you ever get to Thanksgiving dinner.  Skinny guy.  Side note here: Can you believe 7th Heaven is still on the WB?  Who the hell is still watching that crap-ass show?

More on me: Now that I’ve finished my “novel,” I can get back to the serious bidness of dieting.  Until January.  I’m afraid I face Great Perils in the new year.  I’ll be rehearsing a show (Spoon River Anthology) in January and then I go right into rehearsal for Steve Martin’s The Underpants.  Think I get groped in that one.  Again.  As usual.  At least I’m giving my mother one show she can bring her Sunday School class to.  I believe I have fulfilled my obligation.

Alright, I’m off to meditate and pack my gym bag for tomorrow.  So I can go to the gym and exercise.  Because I am COMMITTED to this.  I am.  Until three weeks from today when I have to start freezing parts of the Christmas Eve dinner.

Genius, like fat, burns

Never underestimate how much lighter a clean colon can make you on the scales, people.  Little free tip for you there.  What, too much sharing?

Yesterday morning, (well, afternoon since I slept til 12, dear GOD I love not having children) I got up and was looking for something to wear when I found a suit hanging in my closet that I haven’t been able to wear in, oh, what year is this?  Anyway, it’s been a long time.  OH YOU KNOW what’s coming!  Hell yes I fit into it.  AND got into a pair of khaki pants I’ve had hanging around for a few years.  So now if I ever want to be a restaurant hostess or man a booth at a convention I’m all ready.  I spent a good twenty minutes trying on clothes and feeling all happy until I got down to the last two pair of pants that I still couldn’t quite get in to.  Haters.  Twelve more pounds and we are going to dance, tiny pants.

Did I tell you I’m writing a novel this month?  Just this month.  It’s National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org – you can do it too!  you can!!) and the premise is that you start November 1 and write a 50,000 word novel by November 30.  If you succeed you get the satisfaction that you did it and at your next dinner party you can legitimately refer to “my novel.”  If you don’t, eh, who cares?  Good a-law, mine sucks.  I’m on track to complete in by the end of the month but god forgive me.  Y’all I am butchering the english language, baking it in to pies and selling it to the public while singing about it on the Broadway stage, it’s so bad.  I’m just pulling the plot out of my ass as I go and keep changing genres. I think I’ve been through all of them now.  Except for lesbian fanfic, and it’s really just a matter of time before Buffy and Willow make an appearance.  I’m starting to get desperate.  My characters are so annoying I’m thinking of killing them off and I have 39,000 words to go.

The thing is that the forums, where you’re supposed to be able to go for support, are full of extremely pretentious writer types and people who think Laurie Notaro is hilarious and who all need a good slappin’ and they’re eternally meeting at coffee shops to write and talking about what junk foods they just have to have to write.  Seriously, there is an entire forum dedicated to food.  I think this must be where it’s handy for writers to smoke.  Because truly, I would enjoy a little more snacking than I am doing in this process.  I would like to be drinking more caffé mochas from Starbucks.  Speaking of which I became yesterday that which has always annoyed me.  A person with a laptop in a coffeeshop.  Seriously, when I take to wearing black turtlenecks and horn rimmed glasses and start talking about “my craft,” someone just stick an icepick in my brainstem and be done with it.  Anyway, Starbucks has all these lovely pastries and naughty things to eat.  And I would like it to be known that I did not eat any of them.  Oh I coveted, I lusted, I desired that which could never be mine again.  But I steeled myself and assuaged the pain with my work.  Because Art is for the skinny.

Also, if you’re looking for a really good french movie that is both painful and precious about a seven year old transsexual, rent “Ma Vie En Rose.”  And don’t ever be mean to little kids.

T minus 46 pounds and counting. 

Prepare yourselves for the sonic yawp you will hear when that first number becomes a 5.

The comedy stylings of Tyra Banks, y’all

Did you see this story?

 

Tyra Banks Goes Undercover As Obese Woman

 

LOS ANGELES – Tyra Banks has gone undercover as a 350-pound woman.

 

Banks wore the fat suit to experience what it’s like to be obese.

 

“It seemed like the last form of open discrimination that’s OK, and I decided to put on a 350-pound suit myself and live that life for a day and see what happens,” the 31-year-old former supermodel told AP Radio in a recent interview. “And it was one of the most heartbreaking days of my life.”

 

Banks said she was shocked at the reaction.

 

“I started walking down the street and within 10 seconds, a trio of people looked at me, snickered, looked me right in my eye and started pointing and laughing in my face,” the talk-show host said. “And I had no idea it was that blatant.”

 

The segment will air Monday on “The Tyra Banks Show.”

 

Banks, who had a sonogram on her show in September to prove that her breasts are real, is also planning a Nov. 18 segment on pursuing “a beautiful booty.”

 

She will reveal her own “dimpled butt” and receive endermology treatment on the set.

 

HAHAHAHAHA! Oh Tyra. You’re so brave. “And I had no idea it was that blatant.” It was blatantly a thin person in a fat suit. I believe I would have pointed and laughed myself. “Hey, are you Tyra Banks? I don’t care if that IS Prada’s new line. (whispered) It’s not very flattering.” I mean have you ever seen a thin actor in a fat suit who did not look like a thin actor in a fat suit? Remember that Weird Al video “Eat It”? You’re telling me that most people can’t tell latex from skin when they’re close up. They were laughing and pointing because you looked like a supermodel wearing a fat suit. I’m not saying Tyra is less than brilliant, but you know she just put on the fat suit and didn’t do her face. Tiny head, great big body. Just like my Aunt Faye. I don’t know, I’m not saying this couldn’t have been legit. I’m just saying that I topped out at 260, which is bad enough, and nobody, not even children or teenagers, ever stopped, pointed and laughed at me. Well, not to my face anyway. The thing that irks me about this story is that it sounds like Tyra is pitying fat people. And I don’t think anybody likes to feel pitied. Except for me when I’m sick. Bring on the pity!!

 

Wait, did I just tell you how much I weighed when I started? See, now I can do that and not have to crawl under my bed about it because today, diet fans, when I put on my favorite skirt, it fell off. And I don’t mean that it’s getting a little loose. I mean it fell off my body. Off. My body. To the floor. It was kind of a shame too because I only have about three articles of fat clothing that I really like, and this was one of them. And now I can’t wear it anymore. But see nothing else had been dry-cleaned (I’m going to a fundraiser tonight). I had to wear it today. So I safety pinned it to my shirt (I did!) and threw a sweater on over it and got my ass to the mall at lunch to buy a new one. Two sizes smaller. How the hell did that happen?! I put three rolls from Logan’s in my mouth on Sunday and swallowed. I went to a Halloween party Saturday night. Oh god. I have cancer. Do I have cancer? Wait, what are the symptoms of bird flu? And speaking of bird flu, I don’t want to die or anything, but I’ll bet that’s good for at least a good 20 pounds. I know. Highly dysfunctional. It may be time for an intervention. We can do it at my place. Bring snacks. And not the low fat kind either. No Snackwells. I mean it.

 

T minus still 44 pounds and counting. And also starting to show. Bout damn time.

Sean Preston, Get Mama Another Beer!

“I’m like Ma-gellan I’m soooo gellin’.” What the hell does that even mean?! I hate commercials. Almost as much as I love Cold Case. I don’t care how stupid Kathryn Morris’ hair is.

I’m sitting here watching 60 Minutes and they’re doing a story about companies that fire employees for living unhealthy lifestyles, like smoking. I am relieved to report that obese people are considered, by and large (no pun intended) a protected class and morbid obesity is a disability so you can’t fire for that. But for everything else there appears to be some question as to whether or not firing for lifestyle choices is legal, so allow me to apply the one piece of knowledge I have accumulated from my new job. It’s legal. Your boss can fire you because she doesn’t like your haircut. Or your singing voice. As long as she isn’t firing you for a protected class reason, your boss can fire you for any reason. I know. So shape up, America.

Below is a photo of me at a Halloween party this weekend. Mostly gay men, so you know most people dressed up. I have found that gay men are, by and large, great sports about going along with a theme. So one guy was dressed up as George Bush, with a rolled up dollar bill in his nose and white powder on his sweater. Heh. One guy dressed like William Wallace and sported a three foot schlong out of a pair of pantyhose. Awesome. There were vampires, cowboys, a nun who was, in fact, really pregnant, and one guy dressed as, as he called it, a “train wreck.” All he did was mix his designer labels, DKNY with Calvin Klein. The pregnant nun and I didn’t get it but all the guys appeared to.

As for me, I went as Britney Spears fifteen years in the future. Cause you know she’s on a downhill slide. I wore a pink t-shirt printed with “World’s Greatest Grandma,” which I bought as a joke last year and then realized I couldn’t get it on over my zaftig midsection so this party was, happily, it’s public debut. As you can see in the photo, my torso is about to completely consume my friend J. The problem with this costume, y’see, is that after I put it on (I’m wearing fishnets and pink fuzzy house slippers), I stepped in front of a full length mirror and realized that I looked less like Britney Spears in the future than I did Anna Nicole Smith about three years in the past. It’s a surprisingly fine line.

J. used to do some catering so there were some tasty treats, it’s true. And you know I’d like to say I didn’t go nuts but as I did not stop and record everything in my food diary as I took it in, I just don’t know for sure. But we are definitely still on track for Operation Suck-It, Sandra.