Seven years ago on this day, I sat shaking, sweating, and dry-heaving in my parents bedroom with a decision to make:
Would I leave LA and move home with my parents to lose weight and inch my way out of the closet, or would I stay in LA (Burbank, oy!) and remain so fat that I couldn't breathe at night, wondering if I'd be alive each morning.
It had been that bad. I would gorge at night on ice cream, and weeze all night long, convinced I'd have a heart attack in my sleep, like my grandparents before me. It sounds like an easy choice now, but still, I lay in the corner of my mom's baby clothes collection that December 30, 2002 and throwing up into a paper bag, terrified and confused about what to do. I was 24, and felt so old, so at a crossroads, with a pit of flames, and snakes, and darkness on either side of the road. If I'd been a religious person, it might have scared me into suicide.
These baby clothes I was laying on, my mother had started buying them five years ago and hoarded them all over the house awaiting the day I'd bring home the right girl and start a family, but I knew that was never going to happen. Downstairs I heard my dad drinking the last of a full gallon of Chocolate milk. He'd started drinking it at 8 AM. He and I were so much alike that way. It had been what bonded us. The night before, we went to Jack in the Box together and each got two Jumbo Jacks. In the car, he told me about playing the accordion as a kid. I never knew he did that.
I had $15,000 in student loans to pay off and couldn't afford to just quit my job and move home unemployed. Besides, my brother had already done that in his twenties, and it was because he was an addict. I was no addict. I threw up again. I sat there and thought about what I had going for me in this very average existence:
1) a job
2) some sense of normalcy in my family of oddities
3) The predictability of what tomorrow would bring.
That predictability was more overeating, sure--but it had always been that way. It's how I was. It's how we were as a family.
I looked up at a picture of myself in my cap and gown on the wall. I remembered how going to college was such a big deal back then. No one in my family had ever finished college, much less moved away to college. It almost killed my mother. I watched her cry at my dorm and have a fit about leaving me across the country. I spent the first semester so scared of not knowing anyone that I would take hour long showers just to avoid talking to my roommate, but I stayed. And I finished. And when it was all said and done, my parents were so proud that they hung my graduation picture, stretched to poster size, into a beautiful gold frame on their wall, in two different places. I stayed. I fought. I kept moving forward.
As the year closes now, seven years later, I think of how hard it's all been and how rewarding going against the grain and up the mountain has been. And recently, I've been challenged with more life-altering changes, and I can only use my previous life as precedent for how I'll proceed.
And for you, the reader, the overweight, or the closeted, or the education-seeker or the heart-broken--as you wonder if what you want to do with your life is worth the risk, I'll offer this advice: Think of how you've conquered before. Think of your triumphs leading up to today, and allow that version of yourself to be your hero in 2010.
-----
Oh, and if that doesn't work, be the corny fag that I am and watch this video shot at my Alma Matter, Belmont University.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The 100 Pounds Diet
A New Year's tradition:
7AM:
16 oz Iced Coffee (Black)
16 oz Iced Green Tea (Plain)
1 Cup Raisin Bran or Kashi Go Lean Crunch
1 Cup Lactaid Non-Fat Calcium enriched milk
1 Medium Banana
16 oz Ice water
45 minutes weight lifting or bike riding or jogging
2 Min write: what is your mood and why?
10AM
1 orange or Tangelo or Minneola
1 Pre-packaged almonds or 1 pre-measured serving Red Hot Blues tortilla chips (15 chips)
16 oz Ice Water
2 Min: what are you grateful for?
1 PM
1 Turkey Sandwich with 1 slice of cheese, 1 serving best foods lite mayo, lots of vegetables
1 Red Delicious Apple, Pear, Mango or 1 serving red grapes
16 oz Ice Water
2 Min: What is your mood and why?
12 PM or 2 PM
45 minute walk
4 PM
1 Promax Power bar or Cliff Bar or Kashi chewy Trail Mix Bar
16 oz Ice Water
2 Min write: What are you resentful for?
7 PM
1 Lean Cuisine or chicken and vegetable salad
1 Yoplait Whips
8 oz Iced Water
2 Min: What scares you?
30 Minute walk
10 PM
1 tablespoon crunchy natural peanut butter
10PM-10:30 PM
Read or Write
10;30
Sleep
Cheat Lunch and Dinner Friday
Cheat Breakfast Sunday
3 Hours TV per week only
7AM:
16 oz Iced Coffee (Black)
16 oz Iced Green Tea (Plain)
1 Cup Raisin Bran or Kashi Go Lean Crunch
1 Cup Lactaid Non-Fat Calcium enriched milk
1 Medium Banana
16 oz Ice water
45 minutes weight lifting or bike riding or jogging
2 Min write: what is your mood and why?
10AM
1 orange or Tangelo or Minneola
1 Pre-packaged almonds or 1 pre-measured serving Red Hot Blues tortilla chips (15 chips)
16 oz Ice Water
2 Min: what are you grateful for?
1 PM
1 Turkey Sandwich with 1 slice of cheese, 1 serving best foods lite mayo, lots of vegetables
1 Red Delicious Apple, Pear, Mango or 1 serving red grapes
16 oz Ice Water
2 Min: What is your mood and why?
12 PM or 2 PM
45 minute walk
4 PM
1 Promax Power bar or Cliff Bar or Kashi chewy Trail Mix Bar
16 oz Ice Water
2 Min write: What are you resentful for?
7 PM
1 Lean Cuisine or chicken and vegetable salad
1 Yoplait Whips
8 oz Iced Water
2 Min: What scares you?
30 Minute walk
10 PM
1 tablespoon crunchy natural peanut butter
10PM-10:30 PM
Read or Write
10;30
Sleep
Cheat Lunch and Dinner Friday
Cheat Breakfast Sunday
3 Hours TV per week only
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Headed to Folsom
Chances are, when your family has driven you nuts this holiday and you can't take it anymore--I've already uploaded video of mine. Check the Facebook for those uploads--My blog has reached it's video max.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Lunge
The first lunge was something really special.
My trainer demonstrated, "You just walk forward, but bend your back leg down to the ground," he said. "And you know," he waved his finger at me, "the bigger step you take, the less you have to do."
I dropped down, with 201 pounds behind me, and I got down to the hard gym floor of the group exercise room--that part was fine. Getting up, I found was going to require something else. A forklift or a shovel probably.
"C'mon," Danny the Trainer encouraged. It was our first session, so he didn't know how to really piss me off with two, little, innocent words, that ended a sentence. "You can do it, Big Guy.
I hate those two words still. Big Guy. It screams of I don't remember your name, you fat fucking turd, but I need your business.
I put my hand on my front knee and I stood up, and I lunged with the other leg, and then I put my hand on the opposite knee and used that to stand up. I did two lunges.
"Great, but I need you to not use your hands," Danny said. "This is a glute toning exercise, and you need to work-"
"I'm going to throw up."
"Oh, jesus, go get some water!"
I didn't make it to the fountain. I threw up right there on the floor, but after that I did 10 more lunges.
He never forgot my name again, and now I do lunges with 30 pound weights in each hand.
What a tool ------->
My trainer demonstrated, "You just walk forward, but bend your back leg down to the ground," he said. "And you know," he waved his finger at me, "the bigger step you take, the less you have to do."
I dropped down, with 201 pounds behind me, and I got down to the hard gym floor of the group exercise room--that part was fine. Getting up, I found was going to require something else. A forklift or a shovel probably.
"C'mon," Danny the Trainer encouraged. It was our first session, so he didn't know how to really piss me off with two, little, innocent words, that ended a sentence. "You can do it, Big Guy.
I hate those two words still. Big Guy. It screams of I don't remember your name, you fat fucking turd, but I need your business.
I put my hand on my front knee and I stood up, and I lunged with the other leg, and then I put my hand on the opposite knee and used that to stand up. I did two lunges.
"Great, but I need you to not use your hands," Danny said. "This is a glute toning exercise, and you need to work-"
"I'm going to throw up."
"Oh, jesus, go get some water!"
I didn't make it to the fountain. I threw up right there on the floor, but after that I did 10 more lunges.
He never forgot my name again, and now I do lunges with 30 pound weights in each hand.
What a tool ------->
Friday, November 27, 2009
I don't have the Red and Green DNA
It doesn't matter how uptempo the holiday music is, the Holiday never makes me as happy as I'm supposed to be.
The studio techs tried to make that tiny little soundproof room that Ms. Aguilera belted "This Christmas" in happy and joyful back in that week of July the year she became a big star and recorded her holiday album in the same way that the actual music is supposed to make me feel now. I remember reading about it. She didn't feel like singing a record in the heat of a North Hollywood Summer until she walked in and saw the holly and smelled the cranberry incense that a union worker was asked to place quickly but neatly on the eggshell walls. Then, she just melted like a snowflake on an abandoned baby's face and she felt the spirit.
I never feel it. I always think I will feel so happy this time of year, and I look forward to it all year, the colors and the lights, you know? But when it happens I realize I don't have the red and green DNA of Rockefeller center specials. I sit home from work on Break like the rest of my lazy Angeleno neighbors and I look around at the hole in the carpet, the couch that doesn't even belong to me, left over by the good graces and guilt of an ex. I walk up and down the street with my dogs wondering who it was in my neighborhood that helped ruin the relationship with him, not really wanting to know at all. It must have been that one, no that one. Maybe it was a few.
Maybe it was me.
It had to be me. I was so miserable last Christmas, worse than this year, even. I just sighed, and boo'ed and Grinched. He probably just wanted to be around someone who made sleighbell sounds when they cum. I don't blame him. That'd be awesome.
I eat. I eat at parties because I feel uncomfortable talking about the weather that never changes. Sweet Potato Pie tastes like Turkey by the time we move into a conversation about Dancing With The Stars. I smile, "yes, Donny Osmond. He is a true talent."
And then I see the four fake trees I've put up in my house, the ones that were supposed to be shined off this year for the first time in a lifelong tradition, that now sort of belong to me--and I think of my mother and her holiday collection, not built out of joy, but of compulsive hoarding. Am I headed that direction? Will I be playing Michael Buble Christmas CD's and singing off-key and spilling sugar free, caffeine free Arnold Palmers onto the infant-sized holiday sweatshirts I collect for babies that haven't been born? And if the answer is yes, whats so wrong with that? At least I'd be a homeowner.
My mother calls me and tells me that my brother is upset with me, and that I cannot tell him she's told me. I snap and she flies into a fit and hangs up. I go numb. I am alone. I am finally what I always wanted, physically alone and spiritually empty. I can be me and owe no one a thing, just for tonight. Just for Thanksgiving. I heat up frozen Garlic Naan and breathe in my dogs face. We all smile.
I read books on my break and I love it. I finish Augusten Burrough's new holiday Book, You Better Not Cry, and I do cry, a lot because of this passage:
But.
When Santa is suddenly standing right in front of you, soot from your chimney staining his fine red suit and he is flushed and breathing hard and smells like frost and sweat and smoke and his jacket is linted with coarse reindeer hairs and there is reindeer shit on his boots and his eyes twinkle with preposterous joy, you simply cannot say "I don't believe in you," and turn your back on him.
Because he will grip you by the shoulders and wrench you around and he will bring his mouth and blow stars down your throat until you are so full of light.
And I cry because I am scared, because I know that I know he is right. That this pain will not last forever, and that I am so strong and so kind and so not alone and that it is all taking me where I need to be and I know that without pain there is no joy, and without an insane mother and a heartbreak and the heartburn from Nigel's mac and cheese there can be no stars.
The stars are here now, and they fill this screen and some Christmas soon, I will not be trying to avoid the stars, I will be handing them out.
-----------
The studio techs tried to make that tiny little soundproof room that Ms. Aguilera belted "This Christmas" in happy and joyful back in that week of July the year she became a big star and recorded her holiday album in the same way that the actual music is supposed to make me feel now. I remember reading about it. She didn't feel like singing a record in the heat of a North Hollywood Summer until she walked in and saw the holly and smelled the cranberry incense that a union worker was asked to place quickly but neatly on the eggshell walls. Then, she just melted like a snowflake on an abandoned baby's face and she felt the spirit.
I never feel it. I always think I will feel so happy this time of year, and I look forward to it all year, the colors and the lights, you know? But when it happens I realize I don't have the red and green DNA of Rockefeller center specials. I sit home from work on Break like the rest of my lazy Angeleno neighbors and I look around at the hole in the carpet, the couch that doesn't even belong to me, left over by the good graces and guilt of an ex. I walk up and down the street with my dogs wondering who it was in my neighborhood that helped ruin the relationship with him, not really wanting to know at all. It must have been that one, no that one. Maybe it was a few.
Maybe it was me.
It had to be me. I was so miserable last Christmas, worse than this year, even. I just sighed, and boo'ed and Grinched. He probably just wanted to be around someone who made sleighbell sounds when they cum. I don't blame him. That'd be awesome.
I eat. I eat at parties because I feel uncomfortable talking about the weather that never changes. Sweet Potato Pie tastes like Turkey by the time we move into a conversation about Dancing With The Stars. I smile, "yes, Donny Osmond. He is a true talent."
And then I see the four fake trees I've put up in my house, the ones that were supposed to be shined off this year for the first time in a lifelong tradition, that now sort of belong to me--and I think of my mother and her holiday collection, not built out of joy, but of compulsive hoarding. Am I headed that direction? Will I be playing Michael Buble Christmas CD's and singing off-key and spilling sugar free, caffeine free Arnold Palmers onto the infant-sized holiday sweatshirts I collect for babies that haven't been born? And if the answer is yes, whats so wrong with that? At least I'd be a homeowner.
My mother calls me and tells me that my brother is upset with me, and that I cannot tell him she's told me. I snap and she flies into a fit and hangs up. I go numb. I am alone. I am finally what I always wanted, physically alone and spiritually empty. I can be me and owe no one a thing, just for tonight. Just for Thanksgiving. I heat up frozen Garlic Naan and breathe in my dogs face. We all smile.
I read books on my break and I love it. I finish Augusten Burrough's new holiday Book, You Better Not Cry, and I do cry, a lot because of this passage:
But.
When Santa is suddenly standing right in front of you, soot from your chimney staining his fine red suit and he is flushed and breathing hard and smells like frost and sweat and smoke and his jacket is linted with coarse reindeer hairs and there is reindeer shit on his boots and his eyes twinkle with preposterous joy, you simply cannot say "I don't believe in you," and turn your back on him.
Because he will grip you by the shoulders and wrench you around and he will bring his mouth and blow stars down your throat until you are so full of light.
And I cry because I am scared, because I know that I know he is right. That this pain will not last forever, and that I am so strong and so kind and so not alone and that it is all taking me where I need to be and I know that without pain there is no joy, and without an insane mother and a heartbreak and the heartburn from Nigel's mac and cheese there can be no stars.
The stars are here now, and they fill this screen and some Christmas soon, I will not be trying to avoid the stars, I will be handing them out.
-----------
Monday, November 23, 2009
13
The elevator doesn’t even stop on the thirteenth floor in high-rise buildings because 13 is an unlucky number for most people and they avoid it at all costs. Yet for me, 13 is the number of months it took me to lose 100 pounds.
There is a 13th floor. And by the end of 2003, I had found it by taking the stairs.
There is a 13th floor. And by the end of 2003, I had found it by taking the stairs.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
August 2003
There came a moment when I looked down at the treadmill and it was no longer an option to be speed walking at 4.2 mph.
I had lost 75 pounds and was teetering at 199. I had just weighed in and couldn't believe the number. My heart pounded at how science worked. Less calories in, more calories out equaled weight loss. It wasn't just clever advertising by those makers of exercise and food in moderation. I was smiling. I had never done that in a 24 Hour Fitness.
I was wearing my funny t-shirt, "Somebody in Bakersfield Loves Me" that I bought the night I went to go see Gallagher on the way home to Folsom from Burbank with my mattress in the bed of my truck. I walked toward the locker room, and a guy that I had always seen in the gym asked me, "So, um...I see your shirt...and, um, who's the lucky person?" He giggled. I stood silent. 199 meant that people could see me.
I was supposed to lift weights on this day, but the visibility and the success of my shrinking person scared me. I went to the back of the gym and I got on a treadmill in a semi-private room. I tuned the belt to 3.5 mph and I walked on my one percent incline hill. Rob Thomas sang on the TV screen. The song was "Unwell" and I ignored it. I sped up to 4.2 for Baby Bash "Suga, How You Get So Fly?" and I had to ask myself the same question. Almost a year ago I had not been fly at all. The closest I had been to fly was Dumbo, soaring above the Frontier Wok ready to eat all the Pan fried Noodles I could find.
And then it happened, and when people ask me how I lost 100 pounds I can't tell the story without mentioning this moment. This new song came on called "Hey Yeahhhh" by Outkast, and I couldn't help but put the speed of the treadmill to 5 mph. I was running. My thighs itched, but I didn't care. I lost my breath, but I leant them some sugar, I am yo' neighbor! I wanted nothing more than to match the mid-tempo beat of a song about nothing with my galloping legs, and that made me celebrate in a way I hadn't celebrated since Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate" at a recent Mexican wedding I'd been invited to by Heather.
Outkast was the male version of the girl trio in Little Shop of Horrors and they made me run at 5.3 mph by the middle of the song. When he asked what's cooler than bein' cool, I answered back the second time. "Ice Cold!"
I was up to 5.6 mph when my shoelace came loose. I was shakin it like a Polaroid picture, and when it was time to get on the floor, I did, (I knew what to do-ooh-ohh) by stepping on my shoelace.
I fell off the treadmill and skinned my knee. People looked and they laughed and I died a little, but it was hilarious and I was still 199 pounds, and that's not nearly as embarrassing as being 275 and falling down, but it's close. Falling down sucks. On any other day, I'd have canceled my gym membership. But with "Hey Yeahhhh" I got right back up and joined all the Beyonce's and Lucy Lius.
And that was the day I discovered a weight loss anthem that I still rock to today. And I realized how important good music is to exercise, and thus how important it is to not dread the whole process, but to make it fun--because when you are loving yourself, (and exercise is loving yourself) just thinking about how much better it will be in two months or two years after you've just run 10 miles every day from now to then isn't enough. I would have failed if I hadn't found Outkast that day because I had been too focused on showing Rich I could become everything I wasn't.
You've got to have a reason to get up and dance during the process, because dancing is what gets people up when they fall down and the final two months of my 100 Pound Weight Loss had plenty of steep, nasty falls....
I had lost 75 pounds and was teetering at 199. I had just weighed in and couldn't believe the number. My heart pounded at how science worked. Less calories in, more calories out equaled weight loss. It wasn't just clever advertising by those makers of exercise and food in moderation. I was smiling. I had never done that in a 24 Hour Fitness.
I was wearing my funny t-shirt, "Somebody in Bakersfield Loves Me" that I bought the night I went to go see Gallagher on the way home to Folsom from Burbank with my mattress in the bed of my truck. I walked toward the locker room, and a guy that I had always seen in the gym asked me, "So, um...I see your shirt...and, um, who's the lucky person?" He giggled. I stood silent. 199 meant that people could see me.
I was supposed to lift weights on this day, but the visibility and the success of my shrinking person scared me. I went to the back of the gym and I got on a treadmill in a semi-private room. I tuned the belt to 3.5 mph and I walked on my one percent incline hill. Rob Thomas sang on the TV screen. The song was "Unwell" and I ignored it. I sped up to 4.2 for Baby Bash "Suga, How You Get So Fly?" and I had to ask myself the same question. Almost a year ago I had not been fly at all. The closest I had been to fly was Dumbo, soaring above the Frontier Wok ready to eat all the Pan fried Noodles I could find.
And then it happened, and when people ask me how I lost 100 pounds I can't tell the story without mentioning this moment. This new song came on called "Hey Yeahhhh" by Outkast, and I couldn't help but put the speed of the treadmill to 5 mph. I was running. My thighs itched, but I didn't care. I lost my breath, but I leant them some sugar, I am yo' neighbor! I wanted nothing more than to match the mid-tempo beat of a song about nothing with my galloping legs, and that made me celebrate in a way I hadn't celebrated since Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate" at a recent Mexican wedding I'd been invited to by Heather.
Outkast was the male version of the girl trio in Little Shop of Horrors and they made me run at 5.3 mph by the middle of the song. When he asked what's cooler than bein' cool, I answered back the second time. "Ice Cold!"
I was up to 5.6 mph when my shoelace came loose. I was shakin it like a Polaroid picture, and when it was time to get on the floor, I did, (I knew what to do-ooh-ohh) by stepping on my shoelace.
I fell off the treadmill and skinned my knee. People looked and they laughed and I died a little, but it was hilarious and I was still 199 pounds, and that's not nearly as embarrassing as being 275 and falling down, but it's close. Falling down sucks. On any other day, I'd have canceled my gym membership. But with "Hey Yeahhhh" I got right back up and joined all the Beyonce's and Lucy Lius.
And that was the day I discovered a weight loss anthem that I still rock to today. And I realized how important good music is to exercise, and thus how important it is to not dread the whole process, but to make it fun--because when you are loving yourself, (and exercise is loving yourself) just thinking about how much better it will be in two months or two years after you've just run 10 miles every day from now to then isn't enough. I would have failed if I hadn't found Outkast that day because I had been too focused on showing Rich I could become everything I wasn't.
You've got to have a reason to get up and dance during the process, because dancing is what gets people up when they fall down and the final two months of my 100 Pound Weight Loss had plenty of steep, nasty falls....
an excerpt from March 2003
I had lost about five pounds since moving in with my parents, and that just wasn't enough. I'd been home for almost a month, and everything I read said that by that time, I should have lost closer to fifteen to twenty pounds. I was obese after all, and the first six months should be a significant weight loss. I was eating really well but in the middle of the night, once everyone went to sleep (after I'd fought with both Mom and Dad during the waking hours about not buying circus animal cookies and regular coke), I'd wind my fat ass, in all four of it's lumpy parts down the spiraling staircase, like a cat who's owners leave a kiddie pool of Fancy Feast out overnight. And then I would waddle toward the fridge to build a circus sundae.
Circus Sundae:
7 Circus Animal cookies with sprinkles crushed
2 teaspoons (or three or four) Smuckers Hot Fudge microwaved for 45 seconds or until scalding
3 scoops butter pecan ice cream (the safeway brand)
7 more circus animal cookies (uncrushed)
1 or 2 more teaspoons Smuckers Hot Fudge
1 scoop Jif Peanut Butter
5 cherries
the juice from the cherry jar
After about 13 days straight of these sundaes, I realized it was time for me to go.
I packed up my clothes and my unemployment checks and rented an apartment in Midtown Sacramento, and that was the day I came to weight -loss Oz.
Circus Sundae:
7 Circus Animal cookies with sprinkles crushed
2 teaspoons (or three or four) Smuckers Hot Fudge microwaved for 45 seconds or until scalding
3 scoops butter pecan ice cream (the safeway brand)
7 more circus animal cookies (uncrushed)
1 or 2 more teaspoons Smuckers Hot Fudge
1 scoop Jif Peanut Butter
5 cherries
the juice from the cherry jar
After about 13 days straight of these sundaes, I realized it was time for me to go.
I packed up my clothes and my unemployment checks and rented an apartment in Midtown Sacramento, and that was the day I came to weight -loss Oz.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
WeHo Block Party
Hi special friends,
I am beginning the workshop readings of 100 Pounds, The memoir of a Really Fat Virgin next Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at WeHo Block Party (Formerly A Different Light Book Store). I'll be reading the first 20 minute chunk on Tuesday, then another bite in late January, and a final quick slice in early March so if you can't make it next week--Ill let you know about future readings. :)
My dear friend and hilarious comedian Sharon Houston is my very special guest and she'll be reading a 10 minute story to kick it all off. The room can only fit about 10, so please email me if I can save you a spot, and tell your friends. All the details are on the attached poster, designed by the great Ian O' Phelan. :)
100 Pounds Reading 8:30-9PM
Tuesday, Nov 17
8853 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Sean Hetherington
http://www.100poundsblog.com
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Buffet Tables
This week I have been working at a desk made of buffet tables. You know them as folding tables, used for multiple purposes, but I know them as feeding platforms during weddings, funerals, Christmas dinner and graduations. I was raised in a house full of them, always lining our walls like paintings during the mass-eating off seasons. And now that I am back to working in a career that is built for portable tables and limitless sugar and crispy salt chips of varying degree of spiciness, I have been hyper aware of my former life.
There was a time in a former life when I worked at a Buffet table as a TV producer, because on set they're the cheapest and most mobile way to set up a workstation...but in this case it really did hold a buffet. I'd get to the set of a show, Dog Eat Dog or Weakest Link or Meet My Folks, sit down and start making calls.
"Can she bring 13 stuffed penguin costumes," I'd ask in between bites of a rainbow-sprinkles glazed doughnut, "And can one of them be Salmon colored?"
An hour later, with a box of animal crackers next to me and my friend Erica, a chubby girl who wore tons of makeup, I'd promise myself only five more cookies, times five. That's twenty-five cookies over a conversation about petty cash. "Should we pay the Black Cheerleaders From Compton cash or have production cut them a check?"
"You can't call them that, it's racist." Erica said.
"No, we are using the Latino Cheerleaders From Compton in episode 104. I want that to be clear."
"Well, if you give them cash, they'll assume it's because you think they don't have checking accounts, so no."
"I don't care about that right now," I'd yell. "I have to make sure the script that we're making the Mom say during the elimination vote doesn't sound too hoity-toity." By then my Pizza had arrived. I liked Round Table Pizza's Meat Lovers Marvel. "There's too many 'However's' in this script. "
"You have Cheese in your hair, Sean."
There was a time in a former life when I worked at a Buffet table as a TV producer, because on set they're the cheapest and most mobile way to set up a workstation...but in this case it really did hold a buffet. I'd get to the set of a show, Dog Eat Dog or Weakest Link or Meet My Folks, sit down and start making calls.
"Can she bring 13 stuffed penguin costumes," I'd ask in between bites of a rainbow-sprinkles glazed doughnut, "And can one of them be Salmon colored?"
An hour later, with a box of animal crackers next to me and my friend Erica, a chubby girl who wore tons of makeup, I'd promise myself only five more cookies, times five. That's twenty-five cookies over a conversation about petty cash. "Should we pay the Black Cheerleaders From Compton cash or have production cut them a check?"
"You can't call them that, it's racist." Erica said.
"No, we are using the Latino Cheerleaders From Compton in episode 104. I want that to be clear."
"Well, if you give them cash, they'll assume it's because you think they don't have checking accounts, so no."
"I don't care about that right now," I'd yell. "I have to make sure the script that we're making the Mom say during the elimination vote doesn't sound too hoity-toity." By then my Pizza had arrived. I liked Round Table Pizza's Meat Lovers Marvel. "There's too many 'However's' in this script. "
"You have Cheese in your hair, Sean."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Writing that trails off
I am an Atheist, I think. And most days I feel guilty for that because I know how disappointing that must be for my grandmother, who is dead, and is probably looking down from heaven shaking her head that I don't recognize her seat next to Big White God. But she's probably also shaking her head at how much technology has progressed in the last 10 years since she died--that I can write about her and that people in Turkey and the United States Armed Forces in Germany can read about it, and that most of them are gay guys and straight girls who are dieting in some way.
My grandmother was big on praying with me, and though I never believed in God, the nightly ritual of hanging out in a dark room kindly talking to ghosts and asking them to take care of each individual human, pet, and He-Man toy I ever knew was a practice that I liked almost as much as hula-hooping to the Footloose soundtrack. My grandma taught me kindness, and mercy, and connection, and gratitude. She knew at as Jesus. I knew it as...well, I knew it as her.
In 1998, about three months after my 350 pound grandpa died of a stroke waiting for Grandma Ginnie to finish preparing his turkey sandwich with extra cheese and iceberg salad for dinner (also with cheese), my grandma got the news that she had terminal pancreatic cancer and would die within six months. Boo! I went back to college about a month later, but Grandma Ginnie moved in with Mom and Dad right away, and I got to spend a few weeks with her during the initial weeks of her diagnosis.
I had no mercy, no kindness, no compassion. Just anger and fear about why shitty things happen to good people. I didn't want to hug her. I didn't want to acknowledge what was happening. She got itchy from the infections in her digestive system caused by the cancer. She turned yellow. I made a lot of jokes about nothing, to anyone who'd listen. If there had been Facebook or Twitter then I would have posted an update every 6 seconds, from a cellular phone the size of a giraffes neck, just to avoid dealing.
I worked at a restaurant then that served gourmet pizzas. I ate a lot. I used to steal sausage and go sit on my spot on the top of Lexington Hills and pop cold pork balls in my mouth watching the moon--anything to not be in cancer house. I didn't know how to fix it and I felt like a failure, and I was afraid of being caught for being that big failure.
It wasn't until we weren't in the same room anymore that I was able to get to know my grandmother again and deal with what death really is. Back at college, I called her every couple of days and we'd talk until she was in too much pain to talk, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour. I learned about our history. I understood how she felt going through the end of her life. I saw what grace really is, in knowing it's almost over, and remaining positive.
On the day Grandma died I was in Nashville at school, and it was in September--the 21st I believe. My Dad put the phone to her ear. I spoke to her and listened to her breathe, unable to respond to me as I begged her to stay tough. That night she died, and Dad called to tell me that my last grandparent was gone, and I suddenly felt very alone--because I had no one to make-believe pray with.
I pretended she was still alive, though. I prayed every night, just to her. I talked to her on the street when I was alone. She helped me through finals by encouraging me to cheat off of my neighbors macroeconomics test.
I've gone off the path here from what inspired this message. On Christmas Eve that year, my Dad walked over with an envelope after I'd opened all my gifts. It was from my grandma, who knew she wouldn't be around, but wanted us to have something to open from her on Christmas.
The outside of the envelope had my name, and it was my grandma's writing. Instantly, she was alive. She had never died. She was just hiding in the other room like a new bicycle when I was five-years-old. I opened the envelope, and there was a check from her that had been filled out half-way by her, half way by my dad because she didn't have the strength to finish writing out her fucking checks. That's how sick she was. Then it was real. She was gone, and she would never be back--and this check and her writing that trailed off proved it.
And sometimes, even though you know it's over, or dead, or lost, you have a dream once in a while that it's still there. Or you see a picture that makes you wonder how it ever could have stopped, because you were so happy there on the Staten Island Ferry. And now you need proof to remind you that there came a point that it all stopped working properly, or broke, or burned into gaseous air that made it impossible to ever recover, and though the half-written check was the saddest thing I've ever seen, it's what let me let go and move on.
I thought about never cashing that check and saving the last shred of Grandma I had left.
Instead I used it to pay for the books in Microeconomics so I could graduate and make things better.
My grandmother was big on praying with me, and though I never believed in God, the nightly ritual of hanging out in a dark room kindly talking to ghosts and asking them to take care of each individual human, pet, and He-Man toy I ever knew was a practice that I liked almost as much as hula-hooping to the Footloose soundtrack. My grandma taught me kindness, and mercy, and connection, and gratitude. She knew at as Jesus. I knew it as...well, I knew it as her.
In 1998, about three months after my 350 pound grandpa died of a stroke waiting for Grandma Ginnie to finish preparing his turkey sandwich with extra cheese and iceberg salad for dinner (also with cheese), my grandma got the news that she had terminal pancreatic cancer and would die within six months. Boo! I went back to college about a month later, but Grandma Ginnie moved in with Mom and Dad right away, and I got to spend a few weeks with her during the initial weeks of her diagnosis.
I had no mercy, no kindness, no compassion. Just anger and fear about why shitty things happen to good people. I didn't want to hug her. I didn't want to acknowledge what was happening. She got itchy from the infections in her digestive system caused by the cancer. She turned yellow. I made a lot of jokes about nothing, to anyone who'd listen. If there had been Facebook or Twitter then I would have posted an update every 6 seconds, from a cellular phone the size of a giraffes neck, just to avoid dealing.
I worked at a restaurant then that served gourmet pizzas. I ate a lot. I used to steal sausage and go sit on my spot on the top of Lexington Hills and pop cold pork balls in my mouth watching the moon--anything to not be in cancer house. I didn't know how to fix it and I felt like a failure, and I was afraid of being caught for being that big failure.
It wasn't until we weren't in the same room anymore that I was able to get to know my grandmother again and deal with what death really is. Back at college, I called her every couple of days and we'd talk until she was in too much pain to talk, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour. I learned about our history. I understood how she felt going through the end of her life. I saw what grace really is, in knowing it's almost over, and remaining positive.
On the day Grandma died I was in Nashville at school, and it was in September--the 21st I believe. My Dad put the phone to her ear. I spoke to her and listened to her breathe, unable to respond to me as I begged her to stay tough. That night she died, and Dad called to tell me that my last grandparent was gone, and I suddenly felt very alone--because I had no one to make-believe pray with.
I pretended she was still alive, though. I prayed every night, just to her. I talked to her on the street when I was alone. She helped me through finals by encouraging me to cheat off of my neighbors macroeconomics test.
I've gone off the path here from what inspired this message. On Christmas Eve that year, my Dad walked over with an envelope after I'd opened all my gifts. It was from my grandma, who knew she wouldn't be around, but wanted us to have something to open from her on Christmas.
The outside of the envelope had my name, and it was my grandma's writing. Instantly, she was alive. She had never died. She was just hiding in the other room like a new bicycle when I was five-years-old. I opened the envelope, and there was a check from her that had been filled out half-way by her, half way by my dad because she didn't have the strength to finish writing out her fucking checks. That's how sick she was. Then it was real. She was gone, and she would never be back--and this check and her writing that trailed off proved it.
And sometimes, even though you know it's over, or dead, or lost, you have a dream once in a while that it's still there. Or you see a picture that makes you wonder how it ever could have stopped, because you were so happy there on the Staten Island Ferry. And now you need proof to remind you that there came a point that it all stopped working properly, or broke, or burned into gaseous air that made it impossible to ever recover, and though the half-written check was the saddest thing I've ever seen, it's what let me let go and move on.
I thought about never cashing that check and saving the last shred of Grandma I had left.
Instead I used it to pay for the books in Microeconomics so I could graduate and make things better.
Monday, October 19, 2009
My New Kindle...
I got one for my birthday! I'm such a European Yuppie! I want your recommendations. Funny memoirs, fast-paced fiction. Strong women characters, multi-dimensional gays move to the front of the line!
31
That I would be good even if I did nothing
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds
That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if I was not all knowing
That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when I was fuming
That I would be good even if I was clingy
That I would be good even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
Whether with or without you
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds
That I would be fine even even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer queen
That I would be grand if I was not all knowing
That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when I was fuming
That I would be good even if I was clingy
That I would be good even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
Whether with or without you
Friday, October 16, 2009
I Was Never, Ever Good Enough For Him Part 2
This is Part 2. Part 1 is here.
His name is Josh or John. I can't hear and his breath is so nasty that I don't want to ask him to repeat ANYTHING for clarity. We dance. I have 6 moves.
Crayyyy-zzzzzyyyy.
He's entranced by me. He's paying attention to me. The boys in junior high gym class never did. I am winning. Finally, someone is paying attention. Fuck, yeah they are! I'm 172 pounds and wearing stretchy pink fabric.
I got that sump-in what can he do?
I'm smiling. I'm drunk. I'm dancing. He leans in to kiss me with that moldy cheesebreath. His Jew-ish nose hits mine and I back away. I'll make out with him, sure. Fine. I'm only a week from having been a fucking child-abused heifer with a Skinemax addiction. I just need a second to fantasize about someone else, like Harrison Ford circa Empire Strikes Back or William Katt from Greatest American Hero. Then I can make out with anyone, maybe even a girl.
He squints his eyes and frowns noticing my pause. "You don't want to kiss me," he asks. "Really?"
"Huh?" I say, guilty, embarassed, guilty again. "No, I like you." I say. I lie.
I'm a SLAAAAAAAVVVE For You.
He grabs me my by stomach. Uh, what happens now. This is weird. Should I laugh? He looks like a vulture now. Angry, but smiling, about to eat a dead snake. There are fat deposits and loose skin from my weight loss that have not gone away. He feels them. I feel him feeling it. I cringe.
"I wouldn't wear a form fitting shirt to a club with a body like this."he says as he squeezes the rolls of my past.
"I just lost 100 pounds, so there's a little..."
"Dude, you are so out of my league anyway." He lifts up my shirt and flaps at my skin on the dance floor, and shakes his head. Gaysians everywhere look at me. I feel myself cry and I hope, like a rape victim that he'll feel bad and let go of me, and walk away, and find someone tougher than me. Tears and hiccups fill my face. It's probably because I'm drunk. It's probably because I'm guilty. I resisted someones affection. I leave, and I drive home to Sacramento, across the bay bridge totally drunk and defeated. It's the most unsafe thing I've ever done, allowing a boy to define my worth by comparing it to his own.
Jew-ish John/Josh lives in LA now. I see him sometimes at the grocery store and the gym and even at a bar once in a while. But mostly, I see him in the mirror, everyday since that night six years ago. And when I see him I don't think about his cheesebreath, I think about how he told me the truth about where I fit in the single world, the gay world, in his drunken, "how-dare-you-not-fuck-me" world, and I scramble to find some way to make everyone love me so that I can prove him wrong.
Yesterday I saw him at Trader Joes. I panicked. Is my shirt loose enough? Do I look fat? Can he tell I just went through a horrendous break up? Do I look like the used goods that I feel like? Am I just a walking fucking Lifetime movie or worse, am I Ruby? Do I look like RUBY? He cruised me and then asked me if he knew me from somewhere. I lied and said I didn't know. We chatted for a few minutes and laughed about croutons (I can make anyone laugh about carbs). Then he asked if he could have my number.
It would be so nice to right this wrong, to show him that I'm great--better, skinnier, more toned then that night at Badlands. That after my break-up I have a certain Whitney quality about me, that I'm fresh, that I'll slap you on the head with a cell phone if you spit on me. I would be so nice to feel sexy again, to feel like someone wanted me and just me and my jokes and my face and my calves, you know, the good parts. But it would also be nice to stop chasing the man that I was never, ever good enough for--and who smelled like moldy cow.
I smiled and said, "That's really nice. But, no thanks."
He didn't yell at me. I paid. I got in the elevator, and I heard the end of the megamix.
My loneliness ain't killin' me no more.
His name is Josh or John. I can't hear and his breath is so nasty that I don't want to ask him to repeat ANYTHING for clarity. We dance. I have 6 moves.
Crayyyy-zzzzzyyyy.
He's entranced by me. He's paying attention to me. The boys in junior high gym class never did. I am winning. Finally, someone is paying attention. Fuck, yeah they are! I'm 172 pounds and wearing stretchy pink fabric.
I got that sump-in what can he do?
I'm smiling. I'm drunk. I'm dancing. He leans in to kiss me with that moldy cheesebreath. His Jew-ish nose hits mine and I back away. I'll make out with him, sure. Fine. I'm only a week from having been a fucking child-abused heifer with a Skinemax addiction. I just need a second to fantasize about someone else, like Harrison Ford circa Empire Strikes Back or William Katt from Greatest American Hero. Then I can make out with anyone, maybe even a girl.
He squints his eyes and frowns noticing my pause. "You don't want to kiss me," he asks. "Really?"
"Huh?" I say, guilty, embarassed, guilty again. "No, I like you." I say. I lie.
I'm a SLAAAAAAAVVVE For You.
He grabs me my by stomach. Uh, what happens now. This is weird. Should I laugh? He looks like a vulture now. Angry, but smiling, about to eat a dead snake. There are fat deposits and loose skin from my weight loss that have not gone away. He feels them. I feel him feeling it. I cringe.
"I wouldn't wear a form fitting shirt to a club with a body like this."he says as he squeezes the rolls of my past.
"I just lost 100 pounds, so there's a little..."
"Dude, you are so out of my league anyway." He lifts up my shirt and flaps at my skin on the dance floor, and shakes his head. Gaysians everywhere look at me. I feel myself cry and I hope, like a rape victim that he'll feel bad and let go of me, and walk away, and find someone tougher than me. Tears and hiccups fill my face. It's probably because I'm drunk. It's probably because I'm guilty. I resisted someones affection. I leave, and I drive home to Sacramento, across the bay bridge totally drunk and defeated. It's the most unsafe thing I've ever done, allowing a boy to define my worth by comparing it to his own.
Jew-ish John/Josh lives in LA now. I see him sometimes at the grocery store and the gym and even at a bar once in a while. But mostly, I see him in the mirror, everyday since that night six years ago. And when I see him I don't think about his cheesebreath, I think about how he told me the truth about where I fit in the single world, the gay world, in his drunken, "how-dare-you-not-fuck-me" world, and I scramble to find some way to make everyone love me so that I can prove him wrong.
Yesterday I saw him at Trader Joes. I panicked. Is my shirt loose enough? Do I look fat? Can he tell I just went through a horrendous break up? Do I look like the used goods that I feel like? Am I just a walking fucking Lifetime movie or worse, am I Ruby? Do I look like RUBY? He cruised me and then asked me if he knew me from somewhere. I lied and said I didn't know. We chatted for a few minutes and laughed about croutons (I can make anyone laugh about carbs). Then he asked if he could have my number.
It would be so nice to right this wrong, to show him that I'm great--better, skinnier, more toned then that night at Badlands. That after my break-up I have a certain Whitney quality about me, that I'm fresh, that I'll slap you on the head with a cell phone if you spit on me. I would be so nice to feel sexy again, to feel like someone wanted me and just me and my jokes and my face and my calves, you know, the good parts. But it would also be nice to stop chasing the man that I was never, ever good enough for--and who smelled like moldy cow.
I smiled and said, "That's really nice. But, no thanks."
He didn't yell at me. I paid. I got in the elevator, and I heard the end of the megamix.
My loneliness ain't killin' me no more.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
I Was Never, Ever Good Enough For Him Part 1
I have officially reached my goal of losing 100 pounds, come out to my parents, given my first blow job and tonight I made my first dollar, 50 of them, actually as a comedian. And it is Tuesday, and the previous events have happened in the previous 10 days. It is December 16, 2003, I think, but I am drunk. It's the first time I've over-drank in 13 months,unless you count last Friday when I went to a hotel with a deaf Abercrombie and Fitch model visiting from San Diego and gave toothy head at the Holiday Inn Express Downtown Sacramento.
I learned quickly what Sign Language is for "Ouch!" It actually involves a smack on the head, and a drooly vocal rendition of the word, um, "OUCH!"
I am pulling into a parking space in San Francisco's hilly, flaming Castro District after being the MC at the San Jose Improv's private corporate Christmas party for Starbucks. On the car ride up to San Francisco, from San Jose, which was a drive from Sacramento earlier, I think about my set. I opened the show by asking a woman in the front row if she knew what it meant that I have a size 14 shoe. She smiled and looked away, then I put my crotch in her face and said it meant that I was gay. It was a weird bit, I admit. But I got paid. And that money is going to buy my drinks at this bar called Badlands. And I am going to look hot in this pink shirt, newly thin, and newly out. I hear music in the club as I show my ID.
Outrageous
(My sexy body)
Outrageous
(We On A World Tour)
I am so this song. I buy two drinks and scan the room over and over and over. Is anyone looking at me? I'm a working comic. Does anyone recognize me? Does my ass look hot? Can they all tell I'm a virgin, a 25 year old anal sex virgin? OMG. Is this the Megamix?
Tock, Tock, Toxic.
Oh, It is.
Vodka Soda. Vodka Cranberry. Sprite and Rum. $3 left. 1 Beer.
Done.
Dance.
My lon-li-ness is kill-in me.
I'm grabbed from behind. This could be hot. . Eh, not really my type. Big nose. Beady eyes. White. Skinny. Jew-ish. Not Jewish. Jew-ish. He asks me my name. "Steve," I say. Huh? Did I just lie about my name?
His breath smells like Blue Cheese Dressing. It's after midnight, so that's just unacceptable. What is he a Gremlin? But who am I to be picky? He'll be my second ever out-gay hook-up. You gotta build up!
I learned quickly what Sign Language is for "Ouch!" It actually involves a smack on the head, and a drooly vocal rendition of the word, um, "OUCH!"
I am pulling into a parking space in San Francisco's hilly, flaming Castro District after being the MC at the San Jose Improv's private corporate Christmas party for Starbucks. On the car ride up to San Francisco, from San Jose, which was a drive from Sacramento earlier, I think about my set. I opened the show by asking a woman in the front row if she knew what it meant that I have a size 14 shoe. She smiled and looked away, then I put my crotch in her face and said it meant that I was gay. It was a weird bit, I admit. But I got paid. And that money is going to buy my drinks at this bar called Badlands. And I am going to look hot in this pink shirt, newly thin, and newly out. I hear music in the club as I show my ID.
Outrageous
(My sexy body)
Outrageous
(We On A World Tour)
I am so this song. I buy two drinks and scan the room over and over and over. Is anyone looking at me? I'm a working comic. Does anyone recognize me? Does my ass look hot? Can they all tell I'm a virgin, a 25 year old anal sex virgin? OMG. Is this the Megamix?
Tock, Tock, Toxic.
Oh, It is.
Vodka Soda. Vodka Cranberry. Sprite and Rum. $3 left. 1 Beer.
Done.
Dance.
My lon-li-ness is kill-in me.
I'm grabbed from behind. This could be hot. . Eh, not really my type. Big nose. Beady eyes. White. Skinny. Jew-ish. Not Jewish. Jew-ish. He asks me my name. "Steve," I say. Huh? Did I just lie about my name?
His breath smells like Blue Cheese Dressing. It's after midnight, so that's just unacceptable. What is he a Gremlin? But who am I to be picky? He'll be my second ever out-gay hook-up. You gotta build up!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I Promise You...
...A new post this week. Thanks for the kind emails over the last few weeks asking for more. I feel very loved, lucky, and excited to turn the big 3-1!
XOXO,
Sean
XOXO,
Sean
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Ain't Gonna Look The Other Way (Part 2)
This is part 2. Part 1 is here.
I was 35 pounds away from healthy. But I was 65 pounds away from almost dead.
For that, I ordered pancakes. It was my treat.
I was staring at the street from the patio I was sitting on feeling very full of myself for my exercise, how I’d left LA, and would be returning for just a day and a half, having lost nearly 25% of my body weight. And it’s not that I’d quote that number to anyone, except Rich, if he happened to notice during our hug that I felt a fraction of my size (he was a mathematician, after all. I know he likes precise numbers).
Walking toward me as I sat was a girl about my age. She was dressed in a white sweat suit that seemed to be fitted by a tailor to her frame, a Self-Magazine type cover model girl, brought to us today by the good people at BeBe athletic Wear For Women. She wore a hat, so all I noticed were her freckles and that her hair was pulled back with a very basic rubber band. She probably had gotten up earlier than me to go running twice as far, and probably didn’t even like to listen to music while she did it, preferring to meditate in motion. This is how I thought people who did not have a weight problem experienced life—far less needy and far more disciplined than me.
If she had a boyfriend, I would find a reason to call her a bitch, under my breath.
Her boyfriend stumbled, sort of bowlegged toward a white plastic patio table. His sheer Sacramento King’s replica tank top was loose and it grazed my arm. This bitch sat with her back to me, so I got to stare at her boyfriend.
His tank top showcased his matching chain linked bicep tattoos. Oh wait, is that ink on his neck I saw, too? Oh Yes. It said “In memory of Baby Girl” across his larynx, though it appeared his tattoo artist hadn’t read Elements of Style, for “Baby Girl” was not identified with the correct capitalization. The real question now, was who is this Baby Girl, or was his tattoo in remembrance of all the baby girls of years past. It was hard to tell without spell check.
Inked up dudes with shaved head are very sexy in Sacramento. These are the guys who usually have trucks with decals for their own drywall business on the side of the driver’s seat. And some of these guys didn’t even inherit the business from their dads. They party hard at Irish pubs and pool halls on the edge of town and I had seen one in the gym a few days ago sticking a syringe in his butt. Maybe that’s why he walked bowlegged, or maybe it was because he was hung over, or maybe walking sort of like a lame horse was the irony I was missing at the time.
By the end of breakfast, I had figured out that this girl was probably some sort of lobbyist or engineer, because she bought breakfast for both of them, so she had to have a decent job and no dental hygienist or payroll specialist could afford Café Bernardo. Hell, I couldn’t either. This was just a special day, because I had gotten up so early and finished my run. Still, I was jealous of this girl, who had such a hot boyfriend but as my mother taught me from very young, when people had something I wanted, they were nothing more than lucky yuppies.
I saw a bruise on her arm, peaking under her Bebe t-shirt. It was think and purple, like a rotten plum. I was sort of staring at it when she looked over at me for a split second, or maybe it was a full second. Who knows that early in the morning after such an intense run on my own for the very first time? When I looked at the bruise she covered it by pulling her shirt down a little and turned away. The waiter asked her if she was done with her breakfast burrito. She hadn’t had more than two bites. “Oh yes, sorry,” she said . She pushed the plate toward him and leaned far back in her chair so he wouldn’t have to bring his hand to close to her.
I still had two pancakes left, but I was full. I could tell she wasn’t. Girlfriend looked sort of discontented. She sipped coffee quietly. He burped with his mouth open real loud, and she didn’t appear to be surprised by it. She signed the tab and they walked off, never speaking a word to each other during the meal.
I ate the rest of my pancakes for her.
I was 35 pounds away from healthy. But I was 65 pounds away from almost dead.
For that, I ordered pancakes. It was my treat.
I was staring at the street from the patio I was sitting on feeling very full of myself for my exercise, how I’d left LA, and would be returning for just a day and a half, having lost nearly 25% of my body weight. And it’s not that I’d quote that number to anyone, except Rich, if he happened to notice during our hug that I felt a fraction of my size (he was a mathematician, after all. I know he likes precise numbers).
Walking toward me as I sat was a girl about my age. She was dressed in a white sweat suit that seemed to be fitted by a tailor to her frame, a Self-Magazine type cover model girl, brought to us today by the good people at BeBe athletic Wear For Women. She wore a hat, so all I noticed were her freckles and that her hair was pulled back with a very basic rubber band. She probably had gotten up earlier than me to go running twice as far, and probably didn’t even like to listen to music while she did it, preferring to meditate in motion. This is how I thought people who did not have a weight problem experienced life—far less needy and far more disciplined than me.
If she had a boyfriend, I would find a reason to call her a bitch, under my breath.
Her boyfriend stumbled, sort of bowlegged toward a white plastic patio table. His sheer Sacramento King’s replica tank top was loose and it grazed my arm. This bitch sat with her back to me, so I got to stare at her boyfriend.
His tank top showcased his matching chain linked bicep tattoos. Oh wait, is that ink on his neck I saw, too? Oh Yes. It said “In memory of Baby Girl” across his larynx, though it appeared his tattoo artist hadn’t read Elements of Style, for “Baby Girl” was not identified with the correct capitalization. The real question now, was who is this Baby Girl, or was his tattoo in remembrance of all the baby girls of years past. It was hard to tell without spell check.
Inked up dudes with shaved head are very sexy in Sacramento. These are the guys who usually have trucks with decals for their own drywall business on the side of the driver’s seat. And some of these guys didn’t even inherit the business from their dads. They party hard at Irish pubs and pool halls on the edge of town and I had seen one in the gym a few days ago sticking a syringe in his butt. Maybe that’s why he walked bowlegged, or maybe it was because he was hung over, or maybe walking sort of like a lame horse was the irony I was missing at the time.
By the end of breakfast, I had figured out that this girl was probably some sort of lobbyist or engineer, because she bought breakfast for both of them, so she had to have a decent job and no dental hygienist or payroll specialist could afford Café Bernardo. Hell, I couldn’t either. This was just a special day, because I had gotten up so early and finished my run. Still, I was jealous of this girl, who had such a hot boyfriend but as my mother taught me from very young, when people had something I wanted, they were nothing more than lucky yuppies.
I saw a bruise on her arm, peaking under her Bebe t-shirt. It was think and purple, like a rotten plum. I was sort of staring at it when she looked over at me for a split second, or maybe it was a full second. Who knows that early in the morning after such an intense run on my own for the very first time? When I looked at the bruise she covered it by pulling her shirt down a little and turned away. The waiter asked her if she was done with her breakfast burrito. She hadn’t had more than two bites. “Oh yes, sorry,” she said . She pushed the plate toward him and leaned far back in her chair so he wouldn’t have to bring his hand to close to her.
I still had two pancakes left, but I was full. I could tell she wasn’t. Girlfriend looked sort of discontented. She sipped coffee quietly. He burped with his mouth open real loud, and she didn’t appear to be surprised by it. She signed the tab and they walked off, never speaking a word to each other during the meal.
I ate the rest of my pancakes for her.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Heaven Help My Heart
"Heaven Help My Heart"
Two smilin' faces, that's how it used to be
What once was forever is now a faded memory
The perfect illusion
For a while I guess it was
Without explanation
The bloom fell off the rose
[Chorus]
Heaven help my heart
'Cause it's a lot like me
I'm wonderin' when this all will end
And I'll find the love I need
I know it's out there somewhere
Somehow I still believe
I'm asking please
Heaven help my heart
This world can get crazy
These are troubled times
I'd walk through the fire
If love is what I'd find
It's out of my hands now
So I put my faith in you
And I say a little prayer
And hope that it comes true
[Repeat Chorus]
Two smilin' faces, that's how it used to be
What once was forever is now a faded memory
The perfect illusion
For a while I guess it was
Without explanation
The bloom fell off the rose
[Chorus]
Heaven help my heart
'Cause it's a lot like me
I'm wonderin' when this all will end
And I'll find the love I need
I know it's out there somewhere
Somehow I still believe
I'm asking please
Heaven help my heart
This world can get crazy
These are troubled times
I'd walk through the fire
If love is what I'd find
It's out of my hands now
So I put my faith in you
And I say a little prayer
And hope that it comes true
[Repeat Chorus]
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Aint Gonna Look The Other Way (Part 1)
By the first week of August in 2003 I was down to 210. I hadn’t weighed that little since 8th grade, and I remember it because my Dad was sort of proud back then about it. He knocked on my door one day while I was staring at WWF magazines full color spread on The Ultimate Warrior. “Hey, Kiddo,” he started. “The Doctor says you weight five pounds more than me! Can I wear your old jeans to work today? Mine are all dirty.”
I don’t remember being upset about this moment. I think I even helped him choose between the Stussy and the Mossimo brand, and he went with the Mossimo because they fit around the ankle better. In junior high school, I really enjoyed the connection we had over clothes and Melrose Place. Most of my girlfriends had a similar connection with their moms.
On the first Saturday of August, I went to LA for the first time since I’d left to lose weight. It was my friends Nick and Andrea’s wedding, but this had been the trip where I’d see Rich for the first time since he destroyed that lady bug and I destroyed that donut shop.
The day I left, I knew the plane would be leaving at 11 AM, so I got up at 7 AM and went for an hour run/walk on my own which I had never done before. Up until this day I had only run on the tread mill or in gym class by force or with Sheila (where you’ll remember she told me I ran like a girl). Though the decision to do this was moderately impulsive, I felt that if I worked out hard today, then maybe when I got off the airplane I would appear even thinner and it would somehow make Richs’ big brown eyes even bigger, and maybe they’d even turn blue like the Crystal Gayle song I’d boogied to in my toddlerhood, because I was so hot in my new size 36 khakis that he couldn’t stand it. So in reality, I am lying. It was quite a calculated decision, and not impulsive at all, this first ever outdoor run.
I made a playlist with my usual 6 songs on it that I would use on the elliptical for 20 minutes at the 24 Hour Shitiness, but the whole time on this run I only listened to Bootylicious on repeat, because I knew this trip was about proving my point. That Rich would in fact, not be ready for my jelly (weight loss). I got all the way from 18th and E to McKinley Park where I ran for about 2 laps. I had never run to McKinley Park alone, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Today was the dayI’d finally see Rich again Rich would finally see me again.
I only walked once, when my first generation Real Audio mp3 player ran out of its 45 minutes of battery. On the way home I stopped for breakfast at the swanky Café Bernardo for a sit down breakfast. It was 8 AM, and I was proud of myself for being the only person there because I was up early, and it was a Saturday, and I had already been running and that made me a normal person. I was more than normal. I was healthy, kind of. You know, like a bowl of guacamole.
Part 2
I don’t remember being upset about this moment. I think I even helped him choose between the Stussy and the Mossimo brand, and he went with the Mossimo because they fit around the ankle better. In junior high school, I really enjoyed the connection we had over clothes and Melrose Place. Most of my girlfriends had a similar connection with their moms.
On the first Saturday of August, I went to LA for the first time since I’d left to lose weight. It was my friends Nick and Andrea’s wedding, but this had been the trip where I’d see Rich for the first time since he destroyed that lady bug and I destroyed that donut shop.
The day I left, I knew the plane would be leaving at 11 AM, so I got up at 7 AM and went for an hour run/walk on my own which I had never done before. Up until this day I had only run on the tread mill or in gym class by force or with Sheila (where you’ll remember she told me I ran like a girl). Though the decision to do this was moderately impulsive, I felt that if I worked out hard today, then maybe when I got off the airplane I would appear even thinner and it would somehow make Richs’ big brown eyes even bigger, and maybe they’d even turn blue like the Crystal Gayle song I’d boogied to in my toddlerhood, because I was so hot in my new size 36 khakis that he couldn’t stand it. So in reality, I am lying. It was quite a calculated decision, and not impulsive at all, this first ever outdoor run.
I made a playlist with my usual 6 songs on it that I would use on the elliptical for 20 minutes at the 24 Hour Shitiness, but the whole time on this run I only listened to Bootylicious on repeat, because I knew this trip was about proving my point. That Rich would in fact, not be ready for my jelly (weight loss). I got all the way from 18th and E to McKinley Park where I ran for about 2 laps. I had never run to McKinley Park alone, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Today was the day
I only walked once, when my first generation Real Audio mp3 player ran out of its 45 minutes of battery. On the way home I stopped for breakfast at the swanky Café Bernardo for a sit down breakfast. It was 8 AM, and I was proud of myself for being the only person there because I was up early, and it was a Saturday, and I had already been running and that made me a normal person. I was more than normal. I was healthy, kind of. You know, like a bowl of guacamole.
Part 2
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Superhero or Scam Artist?
How Personal Trainers Convince You To Give Them Your Rent Money
By Sean Hetherington
Certified Personal Trainer
Since some bodybuilder and his acolytes invented the career of Personal Trainer back in the 1970’s, we’ve taken on all sorts of interesting titles, not the least of which is Superhero. While it can looks like we’re flying above your local bakery, hoping to pick you up like Superman did to Lois Lane, and whisk you to Paris where you’ll be thin, happy, married, rich, and in the good graces of God, we are simply, and mostly just out of work actors trying to make a buck by hanging out in our favorite place: The Gym.
How did Gwyneth and Mariah get such good trainers and mine is such a Vinnie and where the hell are my abs and wedding rings!
Here are the skills we lie about in order to get your business and that you blindly believe so as to not have to make that portion-controlled, balanced meal. Before you spend this week’s organic grocery budget on our “life-changing services,” be advised of our sexy Witch Doctory:
We can’t shapeshift
Our job is to count back from 10 and re-rack your weights. We cannot take on the dimensions of your freezer and know when you’re binging on those Skinny cows. But if you’re not losing weight after months of our workouts, we usually know that’s what’s going on and are not about to take the blame, Mister. We might even call you out on it, if we think you’re impressed by tough love, and by impressed I mean, interested in buying an extra ten sessions. An hour on a stationary cycle will not undo the calories of a Thanksgiving feast in July, so if you have an overeating issue, be realistic about what a trainer is capable of helping you with.
We’re not Ironman
We can’t remove the arm fat that’s ruining your life by implanting go-go gadget steel beams or by prescribing you more tricep pulls, push-ups, or dips. Spot training is not nearly as effective as regular cardio and a sensible diet. Problems aren’t erased by the dumbbell tinkering, but managed through the eating and the thinking, so consider a food diary and body image support groups like OA.
We don’t have x-ray vision
If something hurts, tell us. When you wince, we assume it’s good pain.
Pain is good? Well, no, fatigue is good, and that’s what builds muscle and burns calories.
There is nothing worse than losing a client because you’ve re-injured yourself. If you got in a car accident on the way home from that Milli Vanilli concert in ’89, and it still hurts sometimes when you lug your groceries up the stairs, tell us about it before we make you give us a piggy back ride on the treadmill.
We are not an Extra Terrestrial
We don’t take on your bigger feelings (intentionally), or directly feel your pain, and we don’t get thinner when you get thinner, so as invested as we are in your weight loss, it’s not our journey. A good trainer knows that and will not be calling you at home to make sure you feel beautiful after each of our workouts. Our greater goal is that you like us enough to refer us to friends, especially if those friends are Nora Ephron and/or Steven Spielberg.
We’re not Bruce Wayne
We haven’t made a fortune already to support our 5 AM volunteer vigilante work of your fitness. In fact, if you could move your session to around 1 o’ clock so we can catch up on sleep from bartending till late last night, that’d be fabulous. We have bills. When we’ve put on our bat suit upon seeing the shining spotlight of cottage cheese thighs in the twilight sky, please remember to bring a check or cash. Even Commissioner Gordon gave Batman a per diem. We like for you to pay in packages because it helps us design your exercise program for you in advance, based on how long you’ve invested in this program. Ask us for a deal on bulk buys. We love them.
We’re not dog whisperers
We can’t “glamour” you into liking this exercise. And we don’t like yelling at you, either. We want you to succeed and feel good. So when you get bitchy about how hard this is or how we’re trying to kill you, hoping we’ll bark back at you like a drill seargent—know that we’re totes uncomfy, Girl. We’re here to motivate you with positive vibes, cheering you on as Third Base Coach, in hopes that you get a hot body that gets you to third base more often. Remember we were certified to do this over a weekend and have no formal training as shrinks. We’re experts on drink breaks, not daddy issues.
We’re not vampires
We can’t speed walk to your bar and knock that fourth kick-ass margarita out of your hands and then lock lips in some taboo client/trainer forbidden love affair. That clichéd gym scene you saw in that dirty cable movie was a fantasy. Regularly, we see your nose hairs, smell your sweat and breath, and we know your hip size, down to the quarter inch which is not nearly as hot as it sounds. You notice they skip that scene in the triple X cinema and just talk about squats.
We are not 80’s pop R & B group Club Nouveau
But lean on us, anyway. Trainers can genuinely help, and a lot of us used to be overweight or underweight, so it’s personal. We know the muscle groups and we’re handy with a tape measure. We try to keep your hour with us fun and we have terrific resources for those folks who do all the things we can’t. Therapists, nutritionists, and chiropractors are all in our rolodex, and if we’ve told you that you don’t need one of those because we once rescued a litter of kittens from a burning house, then you’re being scammed, not saved.
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