grand buffet

some topics deserve multiple blog entries. some don't deserve it but they get it because i have a problem with occasional obsessive thinking. today we are going to discuss a few things that have come up before, but continue to present themselves as real-life issues.

adult acne.
in this recent time of strain and strife, my face has exploded into a horrendous terrain of weepy boil-like visitors in various shades of red, pink and mauve. they won't stop. i treat them: i scrub, i astringe (not a word, but totally should be), i create the most hostile environment i possibly can. i am in physical pain. the burning the flaking the tightness. they go nowhere, and they invite friends over to stay. i am f'ing repulsive and i wonder how others can look at me and pay any attention at all to what i am saying. of course, this might be assuming a lot. most people probably just stare in that train wreck kind of way, thinking poor woman! i would never leave my house if i had that going on. well, for the record, if i didn't absolutely have to i wouldn't leave my home. except to sit in my yard and keep trying my "sunshine clears the skin" theory. good thing i grew my hair out. who knew it would come in so handy?

which way? that way!

which and that? what is the difference, when should you use them? i have resigned myself to never being able to remember and always potentially using them incorrectly. i think i will look up the answer on a grammar site and see what i can find. (pause to search) well i did look up the rule online and reading the distinction made my head tip slightly to the right and my eyes glazed over a bit. its 101 degrees outside, i went to bed at 630 am after enjoying a bottle of malibu, and i ate some gross chocolate thing that is making my stomach feel like it is resting on my kneecaps. i just don' t think i care about this issue today. i think i know how to use them correctly. i need not try to explain it to myself.

i know that i am going to get smacked on the head for this, but i can't help it. we have to talk about my food fetus again. the fold is now so severe that i can feel the top fold and the bottom fold of skin touching each other. i could lose my cell phone in a crevice like that. i will be careful to not lie down on top of my phone and then move quickly to a sitting position. any number of things could get pinned. for a few days it seemed as though this problem was going to be corrected, but alas, it appears to be worse than ever. how much tae bo basic training boot camp does a fat girl have to do? you know how sometimes you get into an elevator with an out-of-shape person and they are wheezing because their lungs just can't siphon enough blood from the heart to function correctly. that's me. today and yesterday and probably every day. i can blame allergies and smoking and humidity and the fact that the air is so heavy it knocks small children to the ground, but the reality is: i'm too fat to breathe correctly. and i have been randomly accidentally biting the insides of my cheeks while i eat or chew gum. that is a sure thing sign that i have fluffed up a bit.

so let's review...
large open wounds on the outside of my chunky face.
bite marks and swelling on the inside of my face.
fat rolls that started to swallow my thongs so i had to switch to boy cut briefs.
dry stringy hair that needs a color update desperately.
wheezing and gasping after a 10 yard jaunt.

tell me again why no one wants to have sex with me? i can't remember.

secrets again

post secret is good this week. it's always good, but it's especially intriguing this week. i may have to provide some commentary on a lot of different secrets. which to choose? one that i share? or one that is disturbingly outside of my experience? hmmmmmmmm.... i feel like i don't have any secrets today. everything i have ever done in my life was revealed to five of my closest friends last night as we played a game that was designed specifically to find out which of us is actually the most 'interesting'. that's not the word the game uses, but i prefer "interesting" to "perverted" or "naughty". those things are just judgments on a series of morally neutral behaviors and tendencies. anyway, i told a lot of fun stories and i heard a lot of fun stories and i learned some really disgusting terms that were not a part of any of my stories. and i learned that my friends are very interesting people.

one of my favorite post secrets this week reads: "i used to seek meaningful relationships, now i drink."

i laughed right out loud when i read it. not because it's funny, although it is a little bit. but because it totally makes sense. i understand that sentiment and sometimes it seems like a really good idea! like a natural conclusion. who hasn't thought at some point that meaningful relationships are a pipe dream? they come, they go, sometimes it was worth it, sometimes not. but doesn't it seem much more reasonable to dwell in casual oblivion with people who demand nothing and will never disappoint? it's possible, admit it.

one of the secrets this week is from a person who prints her/his colleagues personal emails and reads them. that's just courageous. and damn funny to anyone who doesn't work with this person. my colleagues would definitely be perplexed by some of the things that my friends and i write to each other via email. but since many of my closest friends are also my colleagues, none of them would be too surprised.

there is a card that claims its author will be dead by the time the card arrives in frank's mailbox. i could spend all day wondering if that is true. generally speaking, i would assume that it is not true. but given the anonymous nature of the project, i have to conclude that this isn't the same as some person going into a chat room, offering partially identifying information, then threatening to commit suicide. the post card artist couldn't be identified and "rescued". so maybe s/he is dead. i wonder if there are people who are still grieving the loss of a friend or family member who viewed the site today and pondered whether their loved one was the author. mostly though, i wonder what is the purpose of sending a card like that. it doesn't even tell us why. is this person dying of a terminal illness? were they suicidal? clairvoyant? kinda left us hangin', pal. at least give us a reason. most of the cards identify exactly why someone wants to die. right, wrong or indifferent, at least then each consumer can come to their own conclusion about the rationality of the sentiment.

remember when i had a sister...

i just remembered last night that i had a pretend sister for a while. i forgot about her briefly. i should find out if she wants to be my sister. except she's a banker. she would not be impressed with her sister's inability to... well, bank. just now i was washing my hands in a restroom and i looked up into the mirror. i reminded myself of a picture of my pretend sister. now i want to find her again. i want a sister! how fun would that be! especially one who looks a lot like me. then everywhere we go together people would say things to us like: "wow! you can really tell you two are related!" i've never had that. i want that. maybe she can help me understand how money works. and i could show her the ropes on how to be a total fuck-up. she needs me.

tatu

i think i need another tattoo. it's been almost 5 years, after all. i have only spent a little bit of time thinking about it, but i have an idea or two. i have been considering a lambda symbol but it is hard to find an example of that symbol that is pretty enough to display permanently. i also can't quite decide where i would put this tattoo. i have also long considered an arm band, but i just can't do that because i may need to expose my arms at a time when i need to appear professional in the presence of non-tattooed individuals. they just don't understand. so the arm band is out. as is the biceps tat that i have always believed would inspire me to keep nicely defined upper arms. but i have always avoided it for the above stated reason and because what if i am not inspired enough and i just have a warped tattoo flopping around on a squishy arm. yuck. so basically, all i know is that a tattoo seems like a good idea. beyond that, i got nothin'! any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. unless your suggestion is "don't get another tattoo". then just shut up.

are you for real?

just a few hours ago i feared a dry spell. silly me, i should have known that one short shift at the coffee shop would provide plenty of material. two girls came in tonight. i say girls because it is difficult to determine their ages. could be 16, may be a youthful 21. anyway, one of them did one of those things that has baffled me for years. what is the deal with the girls/women who switch to baby talk when they are asking for something. even if they are just trying to order coffee. it makes a dash of sense when one is asking for favors or making a lofty request... one may become slightly reserved or sheepish and the vocal inflection may idicate that. but ordering coffee? does she think that i might say no? anyway, so this child, i know this now for sure because i can hear nothing except the conversation between the two... very loud and dramatic. teenagers for sure. this child is standing in front of the counter and has a long conversation with her friend about borrowing a dollar. her voice is youthful but relatively normal. high, but not alarming. then she turns to me and says "um can i please get the small decaf?" (read this in your most exaggerated, annoying baby voice. imagine that you are playing a role on snl. imagine your most doll-faced, precious little classmate in high school has been told to use a baby voice for a theater audition. then exaggerate that.) what the fuck? i hate how much i have to fight the laughter while i do this job. i could hardly take her seriously. this was not her normal voice. i heard her normal voice. incidentally, i have not heard her voice since, as her little friend has not stopped complaining about her dad and telling stories about her cousins since they sat down. i might talk that much if the alternative was having to listen to Pouty McSqueakerson. jesus, that friend is loud. i feel like i am in a teen movie. i am the creepy lingering grown up in the corner making observations and pretending to not notice them. i wonder if that girl ever lets her friends talk. god i hope i wasn't like that. sara?

google image

as i completed my previous post, i had to google image search the words "boy cut" to find a picture. this was an effort to offer some visual support for my reader. this seems innocent enough, but there are a few people sitting behind me at the coffee shop and i suddenly realized that i was scrolling through pages of women in their underwear. if i saw someone doing that i would probably laugh right out loud at them and my first assumption would not have been that they were simply offering a suggestion for under-comfort to a friend or two. so i turned that screen off. then i thought of a fun (a relative term, i know) game to play. i am going to google search words that by definition have no image and see what i find. so far i have discovered that the greatest diversity of images i have seen on google thus far in my internet experience occurs when one enters the word "spirit" into image search. apparently there are a lot of attempts out there to capture the concept visually. check it out, it's fun.

ok. i know that the prior suggestion definitely falls short of almost everyone's standard for "fun". even mine. and my standards for entertainment have been recently reduced to coupon- clipping in the morning and beer-drinking any other time of day. my image search game is not "fun!". it's a lame attempt to do somethinganythinggoddamnitSOMEthing that will keep my mind locked on the world outside of itself. let's be honest, i should just re-enter the words "boy cut". that's kind of like shopping for underwear and everyone thinks that's fun, right!? i think i should just check my email...

wha??

maybe i need to lower my dosage of anti-depressants... nothing has pissed me off enough to make it into the blog!? can't think of a thing! perhaps i am losing my perceptive edge. it is quite possible that i am simply missing all that is going on around me, ignoring everything that i wouldn't trip over or get hit by. it is not possible that i just don't have any profoundly insignificant opinions. it must be a reduced attentiveness.

i've been doing a lot of reading lately. the removal of satellite television from one's life definitely opens up a lot of free time that would otherwise have been wasted away in an entranced stupor. this morning i finished The Death of Ivan Illyich. i hadn't read it since college so as i lay in my tiny library in my living room, i spotted it and decided that would be a good way to spend a few hours. at this point i would normally feel compelled to take a rambling journey through my thoughts and feelings about the novel, but i don't want to. that seems boring to me today. it may be the green tea herbal supplements, or it could be the variety of coffee drinks i have comsumed throughout the day, but i just can't seem to slow my mind down long enough to take on a topic like that. and i wouldn't want to be perceived as stupid or shallow just because i happen to be chemically and herbally enhanced today.

so instead let's talk about underwear and which styles are the cutest. i have long been a thong girl. but recently i have discovered the boy cut mini brief. also known as "hot pants" to certain elements of our social subcultures. how cute are these things? and comfortable too. i prefer them in black or white. no flowers. under any circumstances. incidentally, as one might guess from my previous post, hot pants do not look particularly flattering on my ever-expanding assthigh region, but i love them anyway. maybe by the time someone is in a position to see me in them, things will be looking a little better. for now, since i alone suffer the view, i love to wear them and will continue to do so. i wonder if i love them because they make me feel more like the american gladiator i always knew i was supposed to be.

hungry

so i think i had a dream last night that i had to go to an al-anon meeting. what a sucky dream. i am always happy to wake and realize that i do not have to attend a support group of any kind. if i were going to however, these days i think it would be an overeater’s anonymous group i would have to join. should we talk about how i have gained 9 pounds in two weeks because i think that i have to eat everything i see. well, almost everything... there are still no doritos or kraft mac & cheese dinners in my world, but everything that isn’t preserved in pine-sol is pretty much fair game. perhaps i will offer a list of my consumptions yesterday.
in the morning i had a chocolate chip cookie, because that is the champion’s breakfast.
later i had a cinnamon scone because it was there.
on my way out a monster cookie called my name and i replied, “why, sure!”
a boca burger with provolone rounded out the first half of the day. and i entered my evening feeling like the health nut that i am often wrongly accused of being.
there was a fruit bar in my life somewhere in the middle part of the day.
i walked past a cheese pizza early in the evening, so naturally i had to give that a taste. it was free for the taking after all, and i have no internal sensor for hunger or satiation, apparently.
half of a very illustrious brownie followed the pizza scraps. i was probably pretty full, but it was a brownie for god’s sake! i ate it.
i managed to not eat anything from about 7:30 until 9:15, but then i started up again. having already identified that i was NOT hungry and did not need any more sustenance for the day, i went to a restaurant with a friend who was legitimately hungry, and i ordered some fried mozzarella (something i haven’t eaten in months and don’t exactly enjoy, but that doesn’t seem to matter any more.) fried cheese, raspberry tea and a dash of water wrapped up my day. i may very well have eaten something else when i got home, but i was very tired and don't recall whether i did or not. all of my recent memories of myself in my kitchen include shoving something into my mouth, so i probably did.

i look pregnant. i am probably going to have a heart attack from rapid weight gain and when the emergency room personnel drag me in on the special extra-wide stretcher, they will say, careful with her, she’s with child! how confused they will be when the autopsy reveals not a fetus, but 19 pounds of snacks.

my frame does not well-accommodate a sudden 9 pound acquisition. i am a little top-heavy. i have to lean back in order to avoid being pulled forward and downward by my ample new midsection. i wonder how many things i will eat today that i actually hate. i think i have a problem. i do seem to be unable to stop myself. i am powerless over empty, nutritionless calories.

that’s the first step, huh? shit.