Confessions of a Failed Writer

2003-08-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Blah. Blah. I really have nothing to write about today. Didn't do too much. Watched Jane Eyre on TV with William Hurt. It didn't get very good reviews, but I loved it. I have a thing for films/books like Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. It's the guys. Mr. Darcy. Mr. Rochester. They're what "real men" are supposed to be like. They're the kind of guys women dream about. They're handsome, of course, but that's not really it. They have values. They're ethical and chivalrous, but that's not really it either. They're the strong and silent types. That's getting there a little bit. We've emasculated our men. I think that every women secretly wants her man to be strong and be able to take care of her. We don't want chauvanists. But we want to feel protected. I think what I really like about Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester is that they appear to be assholes on the surface. They're distant, cold and judgemental. But the women they fall in love with change all of that. Once they fall in love, the cold surfaces melt and their true passionate natures are revealed. Sure. Real life is like that. You can change them. Sure you can. And they're ice fishing in hell as we speak. Nah. You can't change men. That's what fiction is for.

It occured to me today that I've been with M for almost 8 years. That's a very long time. It's amazing that I'm not sick of him yet and that he still tolerates me. It's even more amazing that we started dating so young and have grown up together instead of grown apart. I'm very lucky to have someone who cares about me so much. I'm a difficult person to deal with.

Well, this is a boring blog entry. I'm just not feeling so creative today. I'll write more tomorrow and hopefully something interesting will happen.

2003-07-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Hot for Teacher
I've just come back from "paying the treadmill tax." Yuck. This is what I get for ignoring the gym for three weeks. I don't know why I do it. I feel better about myself when I exercise. My weight stays stable, and I can eat more of the good stuff I like without worrying about it. I feel strong and powerful. But then I feel sick for a day or two and decide not to go and then two days turns into three weeks. I had been up to 3 miles, running 2 1/2 at 5.5 miles an hour and walking the other .5, but now I'm back down to 2.5 running 2 at 4.5 and walking .5. It's back to the beginning. However, I have noticed that it's no longer my lungs and heart that gets tired, but my legs. That's a great feeling and it means that quitting smoking has really made a difference to my health in quite a short time period.

Well, it looks like I will be getting a job! I'll be teaching part time in the fall and may be applying for a full time position. Not sure about that. I think it will be a good thing to get back in the classroom. It will be nice to feel useful, to put my mind to use, to help people learn, to make money, to be able to tell people that I do something when they ask. When you don't have a job you really feel how obnoxious the American custom is of asking "What do you do?" People partly ask that as a conversation starter, but they partly ask it as a way to judge who you are as a person. It's been my choice not to work, but I can only imagine how that question feels to someone who simply can't find a job. I really want to say, "Oh, I give rim jobs for money," with a big old smile on my face.

Teaching is kind of a double edged sword for me. Part of me loves it. I love writing and I love reading and I love discussions. I almost always like my students. I've had very few students who I've really disliked and ironically they are rarely the troublemakers of a class. But part of me hates teaching, because I'm a perfectionist at it. I obsessively plan my lessons and I have trouble going with the flow in the classroom. Teaching adults is much easier for me than teaching teenagers because I'm not a discliplinarian, but it's hard for me in general when I sense that the class is bored or that only a few students are participating. I've also had trouble with the teaching of English in general. How do you really teach writing? I learned how to write by reading....a lot. I didn't even really learn grammar in the classroom (which is probably why I'm not good at it). I learned it intuitively from reading books. I liked English classes because I was good at them and they exposed me to new literature and let me express myself. But that's because I was already naturally good at those things to begin with. So sometimes I get confused about what I'm supposed to be doing in the classroom. Who am I helping? Who am I teaching? How do I teach the students who aren't naturally good at writing and reading and critical thinking? How do I engage the students who are good at these things already? Basically, I guess that I should "making" the students do what I naturally loved to do...read and write. A little bit is better than nothing. I guess I shouldn't beat myself up too hard. I've always gotten good student evaluations and recently had a student I taught two years ago write me e-mail to tell me how much she liked my class. And she didn't even ask for a recommendation! LOL.

I'm also going to make a conscious decision not to stress myself this time. Last time I taught I think I was too hard on my students. I pushed them too much, even though I graded very leniently. This time I plan to do a lot more in class reading and writing assignments to take the pressure off of class discussions. I think I'll also do more shorter writing assignments instead of fewer longer ones. Nothing is quite as painful as opening up a discussion where no one has anything to say....or worse...the same two people as always have everything to say. Okay. Only slightly worse is when a student offers up an interpretation that is so completely off base I have no comment whatsoever that is in any way positive or reassuring.

Blah. Blah. Blah. Okay. Gotta go shower! I am sweaty and gross!

2003-07-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

Oh Baby Baby
LOL. Yes, I remember the starving children in Africa comment. That really pissed me off! But bygones are bygones. Today I found out that my friend is pregnant. I'm very happy for her, but it made me start to think about all of my "issues" with pregnancy. Why not use my blog to explore my feelings?

1. Why does our culture treat pregnancy like it's something special? People get very excited when a pregnancy is announced, but is it really anything to get excited about? I mean, just about anybody can do it, right? You don't need any special training. It doesn't take any special skills. Just because you do get pregnant doesn't mean that you should be having a baby.

2.Isn't it kind of strange to tell people that you're pregnant? Basically, you're announcing to the world that you do indeed fuck. "Guess what! I fucked my husband!" I mean, I guess that everyone knows this, but I don't generally announce to friends and family every time M and I have sex. "Wow. M and I had great sex last night!" Yeah. Don't think that would go over too well. But because it's a baby, suddenly it's okay...even encouraged to brag about this.

3. Do we really need more of everyone in the world? I'm not talking about overpopulation. I'm just talking about selectivity. I see a lot of people walking around on a daily basis, and I just don't think most of them need to spreading their genetics around. Isn't pregnancy really just about selfishness? It's about our selfish need to evade death and the desire for our children to succeed where we failed.

Maybe I'm just bitter because my maternal urge hasn't kicked in. I keep waiting for it, but I still find cats and dogs much cuter than babies. Of course, I could just be one of those people who shouldn't have children. But if you don't have a kid, you're positively an outcast from society until your peers are in their fifties. And now my peers are starting to have kids. And I'm just not there yet. Not even close. I guess I don't understand the rush. Once you have a kid, your life is never your own for as long as you live. Even when they turn 18, they aren't really out of your life. I know they're cute when they're little, but they turn 13 mighty quick and then they hate you and blame you for all of their misery. What's the hurry?

2003-07-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Ah, David! You are reading my blog. How sweet of you. So I guess I shouldn't mention all the times that I don't answer the phone when you call. :) It's not that I don't want to talk to you. It's just that I don't want to talk to you then. I have to save up interesting conversation. My life is very boring. Okay...so a woman can be a tailor. But can a man be a seamstress? What's the difference between a seamstress and a tailor?

We went looking at cars today, and now I'm fascinated by the idea of getting a pickup truck. Jewish girls shouldn't really drive pickup trucks, but I did marry a shaygetz and all. The next thing you know I'll be throwing parties with ham biscuits. I'd just feel so damn badass in a pickup truck! Or I could paint it pink. I like the irony of that. A pink pickup with a license plate like "Princess" or "Pookie." I didn't want to go looking at cars. I told M that if he wants a new car, he should just freaking buy one already. They are all ridiculously expensive and it's such a guy purchase anyway. I will never be able to justify the expense. So just buy one! Bring it home all wrapped in a pretty bow. But isn't that the crux of our relationship. We're both so passive aggressive.
"I want a new car if YOU want a new car."
"Do YOU want a new car?"
"Only if YOU want a new car."
Then we can blame one another if something goes wrong three months later.

All right. Let's talk about having a crazy dysfunctional family. Yes, yes, I know what Tolstoy said and all, but my family really is the most unhappy in a completely unique way. Tonight my mother calls with that miserable "they're going to have to put me in the hospital again" voice and says that she had a really bad day and I'm going to have to help her tomorrow. Now, first of all...let's talk about the fact that she doesn't really ask if I'll help her. It's assumed that I will of course help her. I mean, I WILL help her. Of course I'll help her, but the voice is almost angry...like it's my fault that she's crazy and won't retire and health problems because she won't retire. Not that I feel GUILTY or anything and have horrible nightmares about my mother's death or anything. No. None of those. I ask her when I should be ready tomorrow and she says that she doesn't know. I ask multiple times. She says she doesn't know multiple times. So, I could need to be there at 6 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon. Then she tells me that I need to call my grandmother and tell her to stop calling my mother because she's calling her nonstop and my mother doesn't want to talk to her. She says that my grandmother keeps climbing up on chairs to throw out magazines and my mother just can't take this right now! She just can't take this right now! So, when I get off the phone with my mother I call my grandmother, who doesn't answer the phone. I leave a message. I call back fifteen minutes later and this time my grandmother, who is almost totally deaf, actually does answer and we have the typical phone conversation.
(Me) Hi. Hi Grandma,
(Her) Who is this?
(Me) It's me. It's me.
(Her) (Nasty psychotic voice) Who is this? WHO IS THIS?
(Me) It's ME! It's your granddaughter. (She only has one.)
(Her) Oh. (Like I was trying to pull a trick on her.) What do you YOU want?

I tell her that my mother is tired and not to call her, and then my grandmother starts in on her second favorite subject. Her first is how everyone is out to get her and she has no one to talk to and how she hates everybody but she is the best grandmother in the world and no one appreciates her. Her second favorite subject is that my father is a pig and she told my mother not to marry him but he could have given her shit on a stick and she would have loved it and my mother works herself to death and she didn't raise her daughter to work so hard and she's so worried about my mother and I need to help my mother more and my mother's partner is an awful bitch who takes advantage of my mother and by this time she's in tears and I want to vomit all of myself and all over her. Tonight I am just not having it and I tell her that I will not have the "poor mother" conversation, because after her last visit to the hospital I've just really lost all sympathy for her. That doesn't mean that I don't care and won't help, but I just have accepted the truth that my mother is never going to stop until she's dead in the grave, and I've accepted my anger over this as well. I am also tired of the emotional outbursts that I've been dealing with since I was little and I've recognized that it's really not normal for your mother to often hang up on you, refuse your phone calls and/or start screaming and crying hysterically at you in parking lots. I do have a good mother. I have a great mother, whom I love very much. However, I also have an emotionally sick mother who is not all there psychologically and never has been.

A normal person would have retired by now or at least slowed down and she refuses to. And frankly I think she's very selfish, for all of her martyr shit, because I need her and my child will eventually need her and she won't be there for us because she's slowly killing herself and cares more about getting jobs than spending time with her family and taking care of herself. But am I bitter? No. I'm not bitter at all. So my grandmother tries this trick. "No, I'm not going to say "poor mother." I just feel so sorry for her! She's so sick and tired.... and blah blah blah," and did you see how she did that? It's like when she says, "No. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty! It's just that you treat your grandmother so badly." Honestly, I really used to love her so much when I was a child. I don't know if it's age or what, but she's kind of a horrible person now. I really want to love her and want to want to spend time with her, but she makes it impossible for me to enjoy her company. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's bullshit. She likes to pretend that she's so unselfish and kind and sweet, and she's not. When she lets her guard down, you can see the nastiness and selfishness and insecurity. I could deal with it, if she was honest about it. It's the hypocritical bullshit I can't stand...that obnoxious saccharine face she puts on for the world and her blindness to her own faults.

She knows that I don't want to talk about my mother's health and how my father is an asshole. I can't do anything about either and talking about it only makes me miserable. But she says, "Well, who else can I talk about it with?" And maybe the answer is no one! But that doesn't make it right to foist it upon me...if she really is the unselfish, perfect grandmother that she says she is and not the hypocrite that she actually is. And when it's not that, it's how my mother is horrible (that day) or how the lady at the gym was mean to her and is out to get her and or how so and so has gotten so fat (and she likes to say this two feet away because she forgets that the rest of the world is not all deaf like she is). I know. I know. Have respect for your elders. I really do try! But she is so unpleasant, and I'm sure I'll feel horribly guilty for saying any of this later, because I know that she won't be here forever and she really was a great grandmother when I was a kid.

All right. I didn't mean for this to get so awfully ranty and long. Poor me. Yes, there are starving children in Africa. It's a blog though. It's my blog. I can't rant if I want to and say the things that I can't actually say in real life. And mom is scheduled for surgery on the 4th and is going crazy! It's relatively minor surgery for carpal tunnel that she might never have needed if she'd done something twelve years ago when she was first unable to feel her fingers. Yes. That's right. She hasn't been able to feel 3 of her fingers for twelve years. On top of the daily migraines. On top of the low blood pressure. On top of the hernia. On top of....on top of...on top of...Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

2003-07-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

We Like the Swedes
Yeah! We finished sewing the curtains. That was a total bitch and a half. I now understand why getting custom curtains made is so fricking expensive. It turns out that M is a much better tailor/seamstress than I am. By the way, a woman is a seamstress and a man is a tailor, right? Are they the same things? Can a woman be a tailor? Can a man be a seamstress? Deep thoughts, by me. They turned out great though, and our living room totally rocks now. Now we just have to finish every other room in this place and figure out how to get the humongous and heavy old living room couch out of the condo. No charity will take it, because our cat scratched the sides with his claws. It's just sitting in the dining room at the moment.

We go to California in two weeks for our friend's wedding. It will be the first time we've gotten on a place since the big boom almost two years ago. Kinda terrifying, but I think I'll be able to get through it with a valium. I am really looking forward to the trip. In addition to seeing our friend get married, we are staying for a week and driving from LA to SF up the coast in a convertible. Yeah, yeah...so cliche. I don't care! It's going to be really fun. Now that I no longer smoke, I can deal with the hippie dippie granola attitude. I'm not really a very "west coast" kind of person. The only place on that side of the country I think I could ever live in Las Vegas, and that's because it seems like everyone who lives there comes from somewhere else. I hate obnoxious in your face liberals only second to obnoxious in your face conservatives. That was one of the things I liked about NYC. No one gives a shit what you do, as long as you don't bother them. But no one bothers me here either.

All right. So, I'm just checking in. Not too much going on here. I'd like to convince M to go to IKEA tomorrow, but that's about an hour and a half drive and I just know he's not going to want to do it. But I read that IKEA has cheap laminate flooring and I still harbor fantasies that I'm going to do redo the kitchen cabinets. (Not going to happen.) I am pleased that the condo is slowly taking shape into a real "adult" home!

2003-07-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

A2BRUTE?
So this is about the time when I give up on my blog. Not just my blog. I actually remember a time before we had the internet! Diaries too. I have many partly filled diaries sitting around. But I WILL NOT GIVE UP! I'm making the committment to continue with my blog, just generally because I never finish anything. Let me just tell you about the 60 dollar sewing machine I bought yesterday from the fabric store. The ladies at the store were so nice and assured me that this machine was a great deal...just needed (something about a bobbin or bobbin case). I was very excited as I always am with new projects. I got it home, took it out of the box. M and I played around with it and immediately I realized that he was going to be better at sewing than I was. (God damnit. I hate that he's better than everything than me. Then he denies it to make me feel better.) Well, this put a damper on the sewing, especially when he realized that the bobbin case was indeed broken and I realized that I had no idea where to buy a new one. Much discussion then went on about whether or not to return the sewing machine, especially when the ladies at the fabric store were so nice to me. Nothing was decided and the sewing maching is now sitting on the dining room table. Eventually I think it will end up in the storebrary (what was the library until stuff we didn't know what to do with took over). I have major doubts that I will ever learn how to use the damn thing. But I'm not giving up on the fricking blog. I'm just not!

Wow. I actually do remember a time before the internet. The first time I used e-mail I was a freshman in college. I had a friend who went to another college very far away and he told me about this way that I could write letters to him over the computer. I really didn't know too much about computers, since I had opted for the word processor when given a choice between that or a computer. However, I had made the turtle do its requisite square around the screen when learning logo in some math class...so I kinda knew what was going on. I went to the school computer lab and got very excited, writing some incredibly long e-mail to my friend. Then, just as I was about to send the e-mail (Using PINE...remember sucky ass PINE?) my computer crashed and I lost the entire thing. Suffice it to say that I did not have a very positive view of e-mail.

The next year I transferred to another more tech heavy college where I promptly figured out that PINE had become a college dating service. Students surfed around it to see who was on. But I really didn't have any understanding of the internet, even then. I had a Mac and had access to ethernet, but didn't even know how to get my computer connected. Then, the next year I started dating M and he finally introduced me to the internet, which meant Happy Puppy and downloading games like MacBrickout, HappyWeed and Koji the Frog. I think that and e-mail were the only things for which I used the internet for several years. I'm not sure when the internet made the leap to where it is today. I'm not sure what I did with so much of my time without it. I am constantly online, whether checking my e-mail, browsing for things I might want to buy, doing research, reading articles or finding out local information like movie times and gym hours. It seems surreal that there was a time when I didn't have all of this information at my fingertips...but sometimes I really worry that the internet has actually hurt my life. It's supposed to bring the world to your fingertips, but for someone like me, someone who has always been insecure and a little people-shy, the internet just makes me even more antisocial. M and I have had this discussion several times. I'm hardly a luddite, but M makes his living writing computer code, so he's obviously biased. I guess I just wonder what my life would be like without computers. I really think that it would be drastically different.

And if you're wondering about the title (although I do not actually believe that anyone reads this blog but me...and my invisible friend Sally), it's what I want my next license plate to be. Another good one I saw on the road the other day: SAYLAVE. Hee Hee.

2003-07-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
This is going to be a short entry, because I am TIRED! We've been painting our living room all day in a diamond pattern. It's very cool, but we've been to Lowes three times and we started at 3PM and it's now almost 1AM. We got a hideous pink color for the diamonds by mistake (thought it was more brown), so we had to go back for "Moose Antler." I kid you not. Our walls are painted "China Doll" and "Moose Antler." I didn't know that moose antlers were such a pretty color, but I've decided that I want that job...naming all of the paint colors. What a fun job. Then we ran out of tape. Someone please explain why 3 rolls of painters tape cost 20 bucks! The diamonds are looking awesome though. The painting of the diamonds is very easy. It's the taping that's a huge pain in the ass. We're just waiting for the some of the diamonds to dry now so we can finish up. Our new couch comes tomorrow so we have to get the walls done tonight. So, that's it. No fun links today. No lame anecdotes. Just gonna go chill out for a minute, paint and fall asleep!

2003-07-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

Have Another Happy Pill
Ugh. I pulled another all-nighter last night. It's not really that I'm an insomniac. An insomniac can't seem to sleep at all. I can sleep perfectly fine any time I'm not supposed to sleep. I love 2PM naps. I hate to get up in the mornings. I just can't seem to sleep at night, when the rest of the normal world sleeps. There's all this pressure. M gets into bed, reads for a little bit, turns off the light and bam, he's zonked out. I lay there in the dark thinking about what's wrong in my life, what I need to do the next day, what I really wish I could change about myself, every past mistake and how I could have acted differently. and the eventual death of my parents and of M and how I'll react to being totally alone in the world. The next thing I know I'm bawling my eyes out and snuffling into my pillow while M sleeps peacefully beside me. When I was younger I had the same problem. If my parents fell asleep before I did, I'd have to imagine all of the people I knew who might be up late at night. I hated the feeling of being alone, like I was the only person awake in the world. Yeah, that's totally irrational. What can I say? When I'm up late I also have to check behind the shower curtains and in the coat closet to make sure a homocidal maniac hasn't been hanging out in there for a couple of hours just waiting to cut my throat. You can imagine my problems after I saw "The Ring." M says that perhaps I need to see someone about these issues, and I'm not really opposed to it, but I'm not kidding myself thinking that my neuroses are so special. It's a luxury that I'm able to have these neuroses. They're the product of having too much time on my hands to think.

What's kind of weird is that I know more people who've been on antidepressants than people who've never been on them. I'm on Wellbutrin now, although that's really for quitting smoking. I'd hoped it was going to be the magic happy pill that would make all of my problems go away, but it hasn't done that. I don't feel any differently since I started taking it. Sometimes I really don't believe that we need all of these antidepressants. We live in a world where being sad is somehow considered wrong. It's very "Brave New World", with all of us strung out on our government licensced Soma. Why is it wrong to be sad? Maybe some people are just naturally sad. Maybe your life is shitty and it's okay to feel sad. I do believe that there are some people who really do need the happy pills, but I think that 90% of people on them don't. When you think about all of the side effects they cause, the cure is worse than the disease. And is sadness really a disease? Did people 100, 200, 300 years ago get so sad or is depression rampant now because we all have the luxury of our neuroses? We've got the time to notice that we're sad and the money to do something about it. Maybe this is progress, or maybe not.

2003-07-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Out of My Element
It's been a movie weekend. Last night I saw Identity at the second run movie theater here. Anything with John Cusack is okay in my book, but the film was less than thrilling. Kind of lame at the end, and I guessed who the killer was halfway through. Today I watched Safe by Todd Haynes, after TIVOing it the other day. I really love that film. It's about this rich suburban housewife with a perfect, empty life who gradually becomes sicker and sicker from all of the chemicals in the air. Or are the chemicals really just a metaphor for the toxicity of her entire bland life that's slowly choking her to death? It's a very surreal film with the luminous Julianne Moore playing the lead. Not a film for everyone. I think it might bore a lot of people, but every time I see it, it never fails to suck me in.

M went out looking for cars today. It seems like our lives just run in the same cycles over and over again. Every few months we decide that we really want to get a new car and we're on the verge of buying something. Then we decide that the cars we have still work even though they're old and it "wouldn't be prudent" to spend all that money on something that depreciates the second you drive it off of the lot. That said, he's leaning between an SUV and a BMW. He said that he "didn't think a Taurus was him." But a BMW is? Every yuppie in town drives a BMW, Mercedes or some kind of gas guzzling SUV. I'd really like to wait on an SUV until the hybrids come out, although I must admit that I am extremely taken with the Honda Element...thus proving that Honda has done a really sucky job with targeting their audience. The car is touted as a dorm room on wheels, built for 20 year old surfers. I am neither 20 nor a surfer, but I love that the seats fold to the sides of the car and that I could spill coke on the floor and not have to worrry. Plus, the front looks like a smiley face. :) But the Elements are new this year. I'd rather wait and get one used.

Didn't do much else this weekend, except drag myself to the gym to run. I haven't been in two weeks, and my stamina was already down. When I quit smoking I decided to challenge myself to run a 5k. I was up to running 2 miles straight and then walking/running the last mile. But yesterday I had to take breaks during my two miles because I was so tired. Yuck. I was being punished for my laziness! I never realized how crappy the elliptical trainer is until I started running outside and on the treadmill. It's a much better workout. Then M and I went swimming at the pool. We brought our noodles.

Well, I'm feeling a little under the weather today. Got a stomach bug a few days ago that I can't seem to shake. So, I think I'll totter back to the couch and see what's on TIVO.

2003-07-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

Harry's Smoking Crack
Gack! I'm a big fan of Harry Knowles from Ain't It Cool News, largely because a few years ago he recommended Battle Royale, a little known (at least in America) film about a group of Japanese middle school students taken to an island and forced to kill each other. It's incredibly violent and really, really good. It's the kind of film that would never be made in America in about a billion years, not because it is so violent, but because the violence isn't exploitative. The film actually has a message. BUT...Harry blew it big time. He recommended a film called May a few months ago. In fact, I think he listed it as his number 2 film of the year. What kind of crack were you smoking, Harry? I was really excited to see this flick, especially since it didn't play in my city. We've got one art house movie theater and they never showed it, so I had to wait until it came out on video. For those of you who've never heard of May, it's basically about this charmingly crazy girl with a lazy eye who gradually reveals herself to be not so charming unless you think that homocidal maniacs are charming. Oh yeah...and she has a doll for a best friend and she really likes to sew. I'm not going to say that I didn't know where the film was headed, but I thought it was going to be a black comedy. No. Not a black comedy. Not really a horror film either. A horror film keeps you on the edge of your seat. It surprises you. There are no surprises in May. Just lots of gore. I also wasn't drawn into the characters at all, which made it doubly lame. It reminded me a little bit of this other Japanese film called Audition. I liked Audition better than May, because it did contain surprises and suspense, but the end of the film (involving acupuncture needles and amputation) made my stomach turn. I guess I'm a pussy, but I much prefer psychological horror to flat out blood and guts.

2003-07-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

John Fluevog Ate My Baby
I'm so bored. M is still working and it's seven o'clock on Friday night. I don't actually have any friends, since they've all moved or else I hate them. For some reason I get US Magazine. It's addressed to this man named William McCoy, but it's been coming to us for the last six months. What an unexpected treat. Kind of like the free Stuff magazine that's addressed to me. I think that this was just a clever ploy by M. "If it has her name on it, she'll never realize that I ordered it!" Honestly, am I even close to their target audience? Do I look like a 20 year old frat boy?

Anway, Can I just ask who in the hell cares about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, except maybe Dan Savage (who I soooo love)? I mean, don't we have better things to do with our lives than care about a Hollywood couple who's going to break up in less time than it takes my waxed eyebrows to grow back in?

For some reason, thinking about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher reminded me of when M and I were in Arby's the other day. First, let me say that this is a great benefit of leaving NYC. NYC has only ONE Arby's and it's a crappy one that's shared by a Baskins Robbins in the Village. They don't even serve the rice pilaf, which is my favorite side item. So, I'm sorry for all of you New Yorkers. You are deprived and you don't even know it. (BTW...admitting that I go to Arby's may sound like I'm a hypocrite, since I villainized fast food in my previous entry. And yes. That's true. I am indeed a hypocrite. I must have my quarter white platter at least once a week.) Anyway, so M and I were in Arby's and these two punk rock kids walked in the door. It's the middle of July in the south. It's freaking humid as hell. These kids were wearing black vinyl or leather or pleather or whatever in the hell it is that sticks to your skin and is very shiny. The girl had on six inch boots, tights, black lipstick, white white face powder and had her hair stuck up into green pigtails, and the boy had on a fashionably ripped t-shirt, a dog collar and sported some variation of a mohawk. I took a look at this delightfully scary punk rock couple and realized in that moment that I am indeed old. I thought to myself....Gee. It's really hot to be wearing that. Don't they know that all that black reflects the sun? Wow. I bet that took a long time to put that outfit together. I mean, I used to get really excited about getting a new pair of John Fluevog shoes and now I can't be bothered to put in my contacts. But the biggest thing I thought was....THIS IS ARBY'S! You two would make Sid Vicious turn over in his grave. There is absolutely nothing punk rock or goth or in any way subversive about Arby's. And I am not shocked by your appearance. I'm merely reflecting upon what an idiot I used to be before I realized that how cool you are has absolutely nothing to do with how you look or the clothes you put on your body....and that even Sid Vicious was never cool. He was obviously mentally kind of slow. Johnny Rotten was kind of cool though in a mean schoolyard bully kind of way.

The punk rock couple made me think of this link from www.losers.org. If you haven't ever seen this site before, you are in for a treat! It really makes up for my long story about Arby's. I promise.

2003-07-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

I Gave Her My Heart and She Gave Me a Pen
Okay. One more post! I got my first feedback comment. Thanks Dave! Actually, I feel kind of like somebody found my stash of sex toys under the bed....not that I actually have a stash of sex toys under the bed or anything. Luckily, my vanity as one of those obnoxious "I was editor of my high school literary magazine" writer types wins out over embarrassment and I will continue to blog. And here's a plug for Dave's blog. Wow. I think you should maybe dump that Katie girl, Dave. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving. Feel better soon!

2003-07-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

We Will Pump You Up
I just finished watching Pumping Iron. If you've never heard of this film, it's a documentary made in the late 1970s about the sport of bodybuilding. It features Arnold Schwarzeneggerand Lou Ferrigno before either became famous in the mainstream world. It was a really interesting movie, especially the before and after footage that was shown. I was surprised by how intelligent Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed to be. I guess I have a tendency to think of bodybuilders as being big idiots, but it really does take an amazing amount of discipline to sculpt your body like that. I actually recently read a very creepy book about female bodybuilding called Chemical Pink by Katie Arnoldi. If you like Chuck Palahniuk, you'll probably like this book also.

I can't personally say that I find bodybuilders attractive. I don't think the human body was meant to be that muscled, and I'm grossed out by all of those protuding veins. I've always liked big guys with a little bit of padding on them, kind of like cuddly bears. Okay. Maybe not quite that bearlike. LOL. On the other hand, several of my girlfriends have always loved that skinny rocker boy look. I can't go there either. I like big butts and I cannot lie. I'm not some little waif girl, and I need someone who makes me feel small and delicate.

Okay. I don't know how this entry moved into discussing my preferences toward the opposite sex. On the off chance that someone other that me will actually read this blog, I need to balance between writing about things only I would care about and topics that are actually interesting.

Here's an interesting discussion that M and I were having earlier while waiting in line at Starbucks. We were talking about the recent law suits against fast food companies. I'm actually kind of in favor of these law suits, not because I think they actually have a case, but because it brings attention to how pervasive horrible food choices are in our society. I don't think you can actually say that McDonalds fries are addictive, but I read both Fast Food Nation and Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World and wow, were they informative! Some smart fast food exec figured out that people will rarely go back for second helpings. So, for example, if you're at McDonalds and you order a medium fries, you'll eat that medium fries and be done with it. You won't go back and get a second order of fries because that would be gluttonous. BUT if for just a little bit of extra money you are offered one order that contains double the amount of fries, you'll feel like it's a value and you'll eat all of those fries. Basically, we eat what's put in front of us. Portions have grown huge and we've grown used to it. Food is everywhere! They sell candy in Office Max. You don't surround heroin users with heroin everywhere they go. In fact, we've severely limited tobacco advertisements, but the biggest health problem today in America is obesity and we do next to nothing to help solve the problem. I guess I'm coming from the perspective of someone who has struggled with her weight all of her life. I am aware of how bad so many food options are, but it certainly wasn't the food pyramid that helped me with this. Weight Watchers' points system was actually the best tool I've ever used to understand what I should and shouldn't eat. Now if I eat a McDonalds hamburger, I know that's 6 points. I know that I've got about 25 points for the whole day if I want to lose weight. I may still eat that hamburger, but at least I understand the effect it's going to have. I don't think that most people understand this at all. They know on some level that McDonalds hamburgers are probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but they don't know exactly how bad or good they are for you and how to incorporate moderation into their diet. I lost over 35 pounds using the points system while I was living in NYC. I've gained back about 13 pounds since I moved back to the suburbs. But I credit the points system for not gaining back all of the weight, and my weight has been stable for the last two years through watching what I eat and trying to exercise. Sometimes I'm better at this than other times.

Some would say that we just can't be moderate about anything, like this book called Mean Genes. It explains that many behaviors are built into us as humans. We eat whatever we can get our hands on because our ancestors feasted when they had food to prepare for the famine when they didn't.

I think I've gotten a little off topic, but my basic point is that I think chain restaurants need to provide better nutritional information to consumers. While I was annoyed by the social stigma against smokers while I was still smoking, it was that social stigma that helped (forced) me to quit smoking. If we were less tolerant of the crap that's peddled to us, corporations like McDonalds would be forced to provide us with healthier choices. And don't tell me that people don't want healthier choices, otherwise what's Subway been doing with their "less than 6 grams of fat" campaign for the last several years. We are a fast food nation, and that's not likely to change any time in the near future. But just because we all want our food fast doesn't mean that we don't or need healthier options.

Just my two cents.

2003-07-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

Addicted to Nyquil
I'm so pissed. I quit smoking two months ago using Wellbutrin/Zyban. It worked really well, but I read that you shouldn't take Nyquil with Zyban on some stupid newsgroup. This was no doctor. This was just some random person. Well, this wouldn't be a big deal except that I'm a total insomniac and rather addicted to Nyquil. Not addicted in a cold sweat vomiting kind of way. Addicted in a I'd really like to get to bed before 4 AM kind of way. Tonight I decided to look into this and discovered that there seems to be absolutely no reason why I can't take Nyquil with Wellbutrin. None that I know of anyway. If I go into a seizure before the end of this blog entry then I guess I'll get my answer.

This does give me a chance to promote a great link. The Vaults of Erowid lists practically every known drug, its effects and people's experiences. I actually wrote a drug report on there for a certain substance that I like to refer to as "P" for pleasant. (Yeah. Who knows what in the hell I ingested.) I've spent many hours browsing this site. It's got great info and it's really interesting to see how people are so horribly abusing their bodies in ways I would never even have the creativity to think about.

I wouldn't know about abusing one's body anymore, being free of the yummy cancer sticks and all. Speaking of, I did a search on Nyquil addiction and turned up this guy's site. It's really funny, and I'd like to stay up and read it, but I feel my Nyquil kicking in.

2003-07-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

Attack of the Killer Clearance
I stopped off at J.C. Pennys today to look at drapes. I need window treatments, because the living room drapes in our condo have dry rot. They've been there forever. But window treatments are very expensive and I don't know how to sew. I didn't get any drapes. I never do. I just wander around looking at the different fabrics and I can never find the prices. Inevitably a saleslady comes up to me and asks if she can help and I say, "No. Just looking." I can't bring myself to tell her that I need to know how much the drapes will cost. I just keep harboring my little fantasies that I'm actually going to buy a sewing machine and make my own curtains. This will never happen. I am the same person who finds a big hole in her skirt and wears it anyway.

On the way out of J.C. Pennys I was attacked by clearance clothes. They were calling to me. Buy me! Buy me! I'm so cheap and you're not feeling too fat today! I got a seven dollar skirt that was totally awesome. It's a Laura Ingalls Wilder skirt. Straight and long, with two big flounces at the bottom. It came with a fugly cowboy belt that I threw away. I guess no one else wants to look like Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I do. I loved the "Little House on the Prairie" books as a kid. I'd like to live in "Little House on the Prairie", except without the part where Mary goes blind. That was so sad. My favorite part was where Laura gets married and she and her new husband eat bread and butter for dinner. Laura makes a big production of describing this in the book. Since I'm a carb addict, I just fell in love with this idea. Who needs protein? Just give me a big ole hunk of bread and a slab of butter and I'm good to go.

Other things I love right now. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I'm not sure whether I really love the show, or just the fact that the title rhymes. I am total fag hag, so this show is perfect for me. But do none of these men have women in their lives? M wore a "flags of the world" t-shirt before he met me. The Crimson Petal and the White. I actually read this a while ago, but I saw it in the bookstore today and just wanted to give it a shout out. Hey, hey hey! (Did anyone else see the Star Dates with Re-Run?) If you like long, engrossing, detail oriented, sort of smutty novels, you will love this book. He also has another great book called Under the Skin, which is just fucking weird and completely different from Crimson Petal. Tan. Tan is the new black. (Why do people say things like that?) Black is the new black. Black is the old black. Black makes you look ten pounds thinner and matches with almost everything. It's never going away. But I am very into tan this season, since I bought a pair of tan shoes and a matching tan purse. It's refreshing. I don't think my staple shoes have ever been anything but black before. Last but not least, speaking of great writers (actually, I wasn't speaking about great writers...I was waxing pointlessly poetic on neutral colors), I must highly recommend George Saunders. My favorite is Civilwarland in Bad Decline. I'd like to say I found Saunders on my own, but I didn't. I was tipped off to him by a friend in my MFA program. Best recommendation I've had to date. He has this thing for theme parks. I guess you could say it's symbolic of the way America itself has become a theme park, a false shadow of the land it used to be....or some such bullshit. You could also say that he's incredibly funny and perverse, and an alltogether great read. Still, even Saunders doesn't compare to "Geek Love", but that's another blog.

2003-07-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

Love My Links
I'm getting very into this whole blogging thing. I have a tendency to get very excited about things and then forget all about them...kind of like that yoga mat sitting in my trunk. I hope I can make blogging a regular habit. It's very therapeutic. I feel so Anne Sexton.

I think I'm going to have to start incorporating links into my blog. Okay. Here's a link my friend David sent to me. www.silencethemusical.com I can't actually get it to work, but it looks hysterical. "It rubs the lotion on it's skin or else it gets the hose again." That's my link o' the day. I need to figure out why I can't hear the songs.

I just came back from giving medicine to my cat, leaky butt. Okay. Her actual name isn't leaky butt. That's just our affectionate nickname for her. Guess why! I'll give you three guesses and a big hint is that she shits all over the floor. I feel horribly guilty because I pawned her off on my parents. She has inflammatory bowel disease. Now we're trying prednisone again, with some antibiotics and predigested food. Yum. I actually hate going over to my parents house. I'm inevitably in tears by the time I leave. You know how when you're little you sometimes say, "I wish I was dead. Then they'd come to my funeral and be really sorry they were so mean to me!" I say things like, "I'm going to move to Seattle. Then they'll be really sorry they were so mean to me." Or, "I'm going to have a baby and then move to Seattle and then they'll never see their grandchild and they'll be really sorry they were so mean to me." M says that this is not a good enough reason to have a baby. Sigh.

Speaking of babies...that's a big topic for me, mostly because my maternal urge has not kicked in. I keep waiting for it, but I just think that babies are wet and sticky. They'd get fingerprints all over my glasses. Friends are starting to have babies and I am just not there yet. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be. I can't help but think of a baby like a parasite. It's just this thing that grows in your stomach for 9 months. Not unlike a tumor....and we zap that shit out with radiation. Plus, although babies are cute, they soon grow up to be 13 year olds. It is a known fact that all 13 year olds hate their parents and grow hair in funny places. And you inevitably lose control of your children and they blame you for all of their problems. I blame my parents for all of my problems. In fact, blaming my parents for all of my problems is a hobby of mine. It's a great standy for those rainy days when there are no good movies playing. The only positive I can really see in the long term is that your kids might take care of you when you're old and drooling on yourself. Then again, they might throw you in a home.

2003-07-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Phil is Evil
I'm trying to write an entry in the middle of the day while my husband is home working. He works from home because he started his own software company. We have our computers in the same room, and he likes to listen to music while he codes. Right now it's Phil Collins. Driving me absolutely crazy, but it's better than Bruce Hornsby, which is the alternative. I asked him to turn the music down a little and he gave me a dirty look, but I really find it impossible to think of anything interesting to say while music is on. Lots of writers write with music, but not me. My favorite time to write anything is in the middle of the night when it's dead quiet and there's no one around to bother me. Then a couple of hours can slip by without me noticing it. Honestly, I hate having him home during the day, but he does pay the bills. I'm sort of a big fuck up. I have two masters degrees and no real job, unless you could count occasionally teaching a class or two here and there a real job...which no one seems to.

A couple of years ago it didn't matter that I didn't want to work. It was the height of the internet boom and M was bringing home 800 dollars a day as a consultant. Granted, this was in NYC, but we still had lots of play money. He took me to Graceland for my birthday. He surprised me with a weekend trip to Disneyworld one February. I got fancy, schmancy engagement and wedding rings. I did do a little freelance copy work then, and I was in school, but after 9/11 we moved back to the south and things got a little bit tough. The economy was for shit and M couldn't find a high paying job here. This city is 5 years behind the times when it comes to technology. I was supposed to teach, but I couldn't get my act together. I don't know why. I had all kinds of issues related to 9/11. We lived about 4 blocks away and were there during the whole thing. But so were lots of other people and they got on with their lives. Like I said, I'm a big fuck up. I tried to apply for teaching jobs but they all wanted my references and it had been a while and people moved and I'd lost touch with my references. Yeah yeah yeah. Excuses, excuses. I just couldn't seem to go through with it.

Sometimes I get tired of being a big fuck up. If I had a job, we could have a nice house and a nice car right now. When M started his company I thought we'd soon be rolling in the dough, but it didn't happen that way. It's been about 2 years and things are just getting rolling. Some good weeks and some bad weeks. I never feel stable. I feel like what if I want a baby? I really can't blame any of this on anyone except myself. It's just that I knew what I wanted. I wanted to marry well and have a nice house and a kid or two. I used to have a real thing for bad boys and I gave that up for someone stable, someone who could take care of me. I don't seen anything wrong with that, because I was always upfront with M. I never would have married someone who couldn't provide for me. In return for financial comfort I was happy to take care of the house and chores and meals and create a great home. It's not that I would have married for money, but I wouldn't have just married for love.

It's kind of weird how I feel guilty for saying that. I don't admit that to many people. I wouldn't marry simply for love. But it's really just a matter of knowing yourself. For whatever reason, I am a big fuckup and I need someone there to take care of me. I want someone strong who tells me that things are going to be okay...and I believe him. I want someone who sticks up for me in public. I want someone who would literally fight for me, and win. Yeah, I want Superman, not a real person.

Well, we're about halfway through the Phil Collins album now, and I feel like I've gotten this off my chest. Meanwhile, I decided to give people the ability to write comments. Of course, that would mean that someone was actually reading this blog. I have no idea how anyone would even find it. There are a billion blogs out there. I figured it would be nice to know if anyone had seen my blog.

2003-07-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

Little Pussy
My mom is hysterical. She's a redheaded ballsy Jewish woman married to an insane man who kept a raccoon in our bathroom for six years. Yeah. That's another story. Over the years I've accumulated a number of funny stories about my mother that I've wanted to work into short stories in one way or another. Just that line is a great character sketch. "Redheaded ballsy Jewish woman married to an insane man who kept a raccoon in their bathroom for six years. It makes you ask questions. Well, what happened to the raccoon? Is it important that the woman is a redhead? That she's Jewish? How do you define 'ballsy?' That's a word that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I define ballsy as in, "Never let the bastards get you down." This is my mother's favorite saying, along with "Everyone's shit smells the same." She's the kind of woman who pulls her pants down when someone asks if she's a real redhead. She's the kind of woman you heard about on the news when Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. Remember the one who broke somebody's arm? Okay. She didn't actually do that. Break anybody's arm. But she would. Maybe unintentionally. She's that kind of woman. She'd pay for the medical bills and send them a fruit basket.

But my favorite story about my mother is the lesbian pussy story. This takes a little background info. I've got to get you up to speed on my life. I'd originally intended this blog to be fairly anonymous. I totally used to love the chicks suck guy (before he went all soft and gooey), and I was astounded by his ability to stay closeted. But I'm vain. I can't help it. I feel like my life is too fascinating to stay hidden. I'm a bad liar. See why I'm a failed fiction writer? All I ever wanted to write about was me, me, me! (Only child syndrome) Anyway. Back to the pussy.

Back in my junior year of high school I had a group of five close friends. Three of the five turned out to be gay. I say turned out because it was a gradual process. One was totally out of the closet. One was halfway out of the closet. One, the girl, didn't come out of the closet until she hooked up with her freshman roommate in college, but the signs were all there. She was extremely sporty. She was close friends with many cheerleaders. This wouldn't be too strange if I'd grown up in New York and been the daughter of some artsy professor living in the West Village. Or if I'd grown up in San Francisco and been Margaret Cho. But I didn't and I wasn't. I grew up in a midsize southern town famous for it's confederate statues the only child of a Jewish doctor and his caterer wife. That was weird enough. Diversity? Multiculturalism? Fuck that shit. I could count my black classmates on my fingers. I can almost guarantee that if there was a gay kid in my high school, I was friends with him or her.

Okay. That's well and good. After all, my mother's hairdresser was gay. All the nice Jewish ladies when to Maurice. He gave good gossip as well as the regulation football do. I was "artistic." It was no surprise I'd be drawn to "creative types." My mother had no problem with the "faigelehs," even when I inherited a collection of gay porn magazines she found under my bed. I came home to find my mother sitting in my room with a confused expression on her face. â€œI can understand naked pictures of men with women," she said. "I can even understand naked pictures of women with women. But I cannot understand this," she said, pointing to a layout of two hardy sailor boys spread out and fucking each other in the ass.

Well, of course David gave them to me! I thought they were funny. (And kind of hot too.) David and Brian let me in on all of the finer aspects of young gay culture in Richmond. This mostly involved going to the one of the two local gay bars that didn't card, watching yummy, unattainable guys dance without their shirts on and getting hit on by lesbians who were playing pool. The lesbians always played pool. Perhaps this is Freudian. I met several lovely lesbians hanging out with David and Brian. I liked the lesbians. They said that I had the three Hs. Big hair. Big hips. Big hooters. This got me thinking that maybe I was wasting my time with boys. I was really tired of trying to compete with the perky, blond cheerleaders. I'd had a mad crush on a total asswipe for four years who only seemed to be interested in me when I was pining for some other total asswipe. Even my father was an asswipe. I met this one lesbian who was particularly lovely. She was exactly the kind of lesbian I could go for. She too had the three Hs. She had freckles. She wrote poetry. Love poetry. To me.

(I'll just pause here to tell you that the logical conclusion of this entry is going to be a let down. I've built this story up to culminate in the extremely witty thing that my mother said to me. But really, my mother is not that witty. No one's real life mother is that witty, and no joke can sustain so many paragraphs between the set up and punchline. Let this be a reflection of reality. Art imitating life. We have great expectations and yet we're always let down. I wanted to be a famous writer. Now I'm exposing myself on a fricking blog. I married a man with a full head of hair. Now it's receding. C'est la vie.)

There was just one problem here. See, I wasn't a lesbian. I'm just not. Not even a little bi. It's a shame really. I think women are very beautiful in an aesthetic sense, but I'm not hot for them. The idea of personally licking pussy revolts me, although I'm not sure if that's a test since I've met several men who would not go where the grass is greener. Met them. Didn't say I dated them. Who would?

I really tried to be a lipstick lesbian. I even went to the town's one lesbian bar with David. But then I made David pretend he was my boyfriend. I was scared. I didn't even have erotic dreams about women. I went out on dates with my new potential girlfriend, but all we did was drink coffee, smoke clove cigarettes and talk about Emerson. She was like that. The kind of girl who likes to drink coffee, smoke clove cigarettes and talk about Emerson. I would make fun of that, but sadly, I was that kind of girl too. Then she invited me to go a gay and bisexual youth group meeting. Problem. I didn't drive. It was a school night. I was a bad liar. What do you expect? Hello! Jewish guilt.

"Where are you going?" asks my mom.

I try to explain. I'm exploring my sexual identity. You know. Kind of like Rocky Horror. Gay pride! We're free to be you and me. Let the sunshine in.

"You're seeing who?"

Just a girl. You sent me to Mount Holyoke for math camp! If I'm gay, it's your fault. You don't understand me. You never trust me. You can't stop me.

My mother takes a deep breath. You can tell that this is worse than when she found out I'd smoked pot. "You could die! You could be the one person to have an allergic reaction and die!"

"Darling," she says, stretching out the endearment like a pile of pig intestines. "If you want a little pussy, I'll buy you a cat."

2003-07-15T23:50:00.000-07:00

A Weighty Issue
My friendship with Susan is based on fat. Though we have completely different body shapes, Susan a voluptuous pear, me a zaftig apple, we’ve always shared the same insecurities about our bodies. During high school beach week we sat on the sand while our other girl friends skinny-dipped in the ocean. “How immature,” we said, and hid their clothes so they’d have to make a bare dash up to our hotel. But really I know that I wished I had the guts to go naked in the moonlight…if only I didn’t have a big belly I was ashamed of…if only my waist was a little smaller, my arms a little more toned. Though Susan never admitted those thoughts to me, I suspect she had them too about her generous hips and behind.

It’s hard to remember how many conversations Susan and I have had over the years that have revolved around food or the lack of it. How many diet resolutions have we made? How many Weight Watcher reports? Susan was my soft comfort zone. Whenever I felt bad that I just couldn’t ever seem to get skinny, I’d remind myself that Susan wasn’t skinny either and she was gorgeous. Guys loved her with her hourglass waist, double d cups, milky white skin and Pocahontas straight black hair. It was okay that I wasn’t thin because Susan was right there with me.

But what do you do when your “fat” friend loses it? Susan and I have both made some big changes in our lives the last two years. I left the big city and moved back to the comfortable life of suburbia. Susan left suburbia to move to the big city. That meant a lot less walking for me and a lot more walking for her. The biggest change that Susan made was a commitment to drop weight. This time she really did it. I’ve watched her whittle off close to forty pounds on her 5’8 body, while I’ve basically leveled off to a comfortably chubby plateau. Every time I see her she gets thinner and thinner, more and more beautiful. I’m really happy for her, except….

Except that I must be a terrible friend because I’m horribly jealous! I don’t want Susan to be skinny. I want my fat friend back! I want to be able to eat ice cream around her without judging myself or counting points. I want to go shopping, and I want both of us to be in the double digits. Susan keeps drifting ever southward to the magical land of size 8! I don’t want to feel like I’ve got to do my hair and makeup and choose the most slimming clothes in my closet every time I see her. But I do feel this way. Deep down I keep hoping that she’ll slip up and gain weight, because without our common connection of fat, I’m not sure the friendship can last. After all, we’ve lived in different cities for a long time. We have different friends, different lifestyles. The one thing we’ve always had in common is our fat. It’s not that I don’t want Susan to look and feel good about herself. I do. But we’ve always hated skinny girls. How do I react when my best friend is a skinny girl? What will we have to talk about now?

I could wind this entry up with some inspirational pep talk about how Susan has inspired me to lose weight, or how I’m getting past my jealousy because of the powerful bond of sisterhood that unites all women together, but that would be such a load of crap. I am jealous. I am still fat. I do believe that 99% of women are as petty and insecure as I am. Susan’s getting married in three months and she’s going to be full swing into weight loss at least until the honeymoon is over. I’m just going to have to deal with it if I want to keep our friendship, unless our friendship ends where the waistline begins.