“Seanny. My asthma’s getting bad. I need to go home. Are you going to be ok?”
“Fine," I said, angrily. I was terrified of hearing Nate and Renee have sex and I knew Ashley knew it. “Go.”
“Seanny-you’ll be ok.” She said. “Your friends are here for you.”
“It’s ok.” I said. “See you at Christmas.” I knew how to guilt from a very young age.
“Seanny.” She hugged me, and I didn’t hug back. I looked at Heather, who had finally passed out, Maggie was reading a bible study guide with a flashlight and nodding fast and smiling. My friends were not fucking here for me. They were all drunk and fucking each other, or they were sharing an inside joke with Jesus.
***
Nate and Renee giggled all night long between slurping sounds. I lay on my side wide awake, pissed, but my dick was hard listening to them, which made me think I had a medical problem. I decided two things were for sure.
First, I will leave tomorrow, and never come back to this town of freaks.
Second, I will not attend Nate and Renee's wedding because if they decide to get married, I would destroy them on their special day with a vengeful glee.
Yes, that's right. I would destroy them. I would fart in the cake. Or I would gore it like a Minotaur just before the reception (and eat whatever I got on myself). Or I would tell each of them separately that the other had herpes--just moments before they walked the aisle. I'd advise them to watch the way the other walks if they didn't believe me. You can see STD's in the way someone walks, I'd say.
Oh, and third (I thought if I said I had learned three things earlier you'd get bored), I decided that my angry fantasizing was not in vein. I thought of Reba’s video for “Does He Love You” where she makes her cheating lover's boat explode while he’s on it with his mistress, Linda Davis. He deserved it. Watch the video. You'll see. I lay there in that tent imitating her signature husband-murdering, lippy grin, and pictured Nate and Renee’s boat blowing up, then saving Nate from drowning with my hot, half-naked muscular body that I’d be building in Nashville, starting tomorrow.
Click on this and scroll to 3:25 to see what I mean, the crazy grin is at 4:07
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Does He Love You? (Part 2)
...my sickening, debilitating crush and his girlfriend, Renee and my best friend Ashley (who won first place for best eyes, female) were there also. My very conservative Christian friend Maggie came, and I loved her because she was one of a handful of other virgins left after high school. Her Republican dad was our mayor. They lived in the oldest house in Folsom, built by their ancestors, and more recently it was where a dead baby had been excavated and found in a shoebox, believed to have been buried around the turn of the Twentieth Century. No charges were filed against the mayor.
Nate and Renee and Ashley and I set up camp. I was useless at setting up a tent, and my worst enemy Mike Hassleback, the class jock who hated me for being fat and for beating him in the Student Council election for class representative during our junior year kept calling me “Reba fag” because I was wearing my autographed Reba 1995 tour jacket, and because I couldn’t figure out how to nail a stake.
Quit calling him that, Mike.” Margie said. “It’s not nice to accuse someone of something like that.”
“I don’t care if he’s got muscles,” Heather Gonzales told me. “He looks like Mask.” Then she walked right up to Mike and got in his face, “Hey Hassleback, where’s your mom, Cher, you fucking ugly fuck,” she opened her eyes just slightly, "You look like fucking MASK."
Heather and I talked all night. Well, she talked all night. She was wasted far after everyone went to sleep. She told me about her mother who drank more than she did, if I could imagine that. She told me she didn’t believe in sex before marriage but that she made Bo eat Chocolate ice cream so that when she blew him it was sweet. She told me she was sick of everyone thinking she was Korean for having light skin and sleepy looking eyes. She’s Mexican. I was starting to get tired, too when Ashley walked up hesitant.
Nate and Renee and Ashley and I set up camp. I was useless at setting up a tent, and my worst enemy Mike Hassleback, the class jock who hated me for being fat and for beating him in the Student Council election for class representative during our junior year kept calling me “Reba fag” because I was wearing my autographed Reba 1995 tour jacket, and because I couldn’t figure out how to nail a stake.
Quit calling him that, Mike.” Margie said. “It’s not nice to accuse someone of something like that.”
“I don’t care if he’s got muscles,” Heather Gonzales told me. “He looks like Mask.” Then she walked right up to Mike and got in his face, “Hey Hassleback, where’s your mom, Cher, you fucking ugly fuck,” she opened her eyes just slightly, "You look like fucking MASK."
Heather and I talked all night. Well, she talked all night. She was wasted far after everyone went to sleep. She told me about her mother who drank more than she did, if I could imagine that. She told me she didn’t believe in sex before marriage but that she made Bo eat Chocolate ice cream so that when she blew him it was sweet. She told me she was sick of everyone thinking she was Korean for having light skin and sleepy looking eyes. She’s Mexican. I was starting to get tired, too when Ashley walked up hesitant.
Does He Love You?
A follow-up to this entry...
Everyone was at the lake for my going-away camping trip, but all I wanted was one more night playing guitar with my best friend, Nate. I just needed one last chance to prove to him that I was the one, or one last chance to prove myself that I wasn't in love with him.
My friend Shayna, a beautiful Irish Girl with Redwood-colored hair and thick, natural freckles sat on a wooden bench next to her crutches. She was the first-runner up in high school for "best eyes female" but whenever you reminded her of that she rolled her eyes and moaned, "Oh, yeah," especially since breaking her leg and living with so much pain in her shoulders from walking on her crutches.
Her boyfriend Alex, the Chinese trust fund kid whom she constantly fought with, then made up with over a private sushi dinner at the restaurant next door to the Blockbuster Video, was with her but felt uncomfortable sleeping outside.
That was fun to watch.
Heather Gonzales was there in all of her crazy glory. The only Latina in Folsom, she had no regard for formality or social cues. She spoke loudly and with her eyes closed and she smoked almost as much as she drank. She came with her boyfriend, Bo who was 5'11" and 135 pounds. He was a mute and they were still virgins, though they'd been dating since 8th grade, almost six years ago.
Nate, the focus of...
Everyone was at the lake for my going-away camping trip, but all I wanted was one more night playing guitar with my best friend, Nate. I just needed one last chance to prove to him that I was the one, or one last chance to prove myself that I wasn't in love with him.
My friend Shayna, a beautiful Irish Girl with Redwood-colored hair and thick, natural freckles sat on a wooden bench next to her crutches. She was the first-runner up in high school for "best eyes female" but whenever you reminded her of that she rolled her eyes and moaned, "Oh, yeah," especially since breaking her leg and living with so much pain in her shoulders from walking on her crutches.
Her boyfriend Alex, the Chinese trust fund kid whom she constantly fought with, then made up with over a private sushi dinner at the restaurant next door to the Blockbuster Video, was with her but felt uncomfortable sleeping outside.
That was fun to watch.
Heather Gonzales was there in all of her crazy glory. The only Latina in Folsom, she had no regard for formality or social cues. She spoke loudly and with her eyes closed and she smoked almost as much as she drank. She came with her boyfriend, Bo who was 5'11" and 135 pounds. He was a mute and they were still virgins, though they'd been dating since 8th grade, almost six years ago.
Nate, the focus of...
Friday, August 28, 2009
Off to see the GLEEzard
We left early but not without meeting a fellow Gleek. Her picture is below.
We love us some Haley! She's 14 and watches Glee on her iPod. Ahh, the youth.
.jpg)
We love us some Haley! She's 14 and watches Glee on her iPod. Ahh, the youth.
.jpg)
The Roof
“You wanna come with me?” He asks, and he points to the roof. “We can do whatever we want, on the roof of the gym and no one can see us.”
When he says that last part, “and no one can see us” it is as though my heart and lungs and my brain are ripped out of my body and shot up out of my person, far above the roof, toward the moon, but moving to a place far, far dirtier. It’s a scrap yard in space where cockroaches and maggots eagerly await eating whatever is left of me, and laugh at the terror it causes me while they chew. In this scrap yard, insects have teeth and taste buds that prey on me. For a moment it feels freeing, to be outside of my skull, but then I realize that my organs went up into the orbit fast and hard so they can rocket back down and crash into me yet again, burying me deep into the seat of this couch at Starbucks leaving me with just a pulse and a mouth. I feel like a cloud of rancidity. I am a bubble of sickness. I will throw up my low fat apple bran muffin and decaf green tea if I don’t shit it all into my sweaty workout shorts first.
I remember a dream I used to have as a kid, where a healthy, young-looking clown with a red nose and white make up is my playmate in the house. He is dressed like a basketball player in matching tank top and shorts and he has a purple wig, so he is safe. He is a sad clown unless we are playing. He listens to The Cure when we play and it makes our games sadder than they should be, then they will be when I play these games as an adult. He is a playmate who only wants to play with me in the back of the house, where no one can see us because though he is imaginary in his mind, neither he or I actually trust the limits of an imagination.
Because in my dream, I fear that at any point, he may materialize into real matter and if anyone in the house could see him, it would destroy our family, kill us all before sealing my fate as broken—the kid who never had a chance. The fear in my dream is always of being caught, but it’s also in never answering my parents in the other room, who continue to call my name because I’m late for school, for family night at the movies, for dinner. Lots of times it’s for being late to dinner, and I can’t leave the clown. I’m stuck with him in this room trying to help him be happier, and I feel so guilty it wakes me up. And I am not even ten years old yet.
But this is all a recurring dream that I haven’t had in a decade or more until this man asks me to go up on the roof with him. He walks outside the door with his backpack half falling off his back. A syringe falls out and he looks down at it smiling a wicked grin. For less than a second I remember my dream and wonder how real it was then and how real this is now. I feel obligated to him and his backpack. He has set up a secret place for us, and he has picked me to make him feel happier than he is usually.
My car is being cited for having an expired meter in front of the gym, and I now have a reason not to go up on the roof. He can’t blame me for tending to my car instead of him. My ticket is for $35 and I don’t try to argue my way out of it because that would expose my imagination. My punishment feels like a bargain compared to my dreams.
When he says that last part, “and no one can see us” it is as though my heart and lungs and my brain are ripped out of my body and shot up out of my person, far above the roof, toward the moon, but moving to a place far, far dirtier. It’s a scrap yard in space where cockroaches and maggots eagerly await eating whatever is left of me, and laugh at the terror it causes me while they chew. In this scrap yard, insects have teeth and taste buds that prey on me. For a moment it feels freeing, to be outside of my skull, but then I realize that my organs went up into the orbit fast and hard so they can rocket back down and crash into me yet again, burying me deep into the seat of this couch at Starbucks leaving me with just a pulse and a mouth. I feel like a cloud of rancidity. I am a bubble of sickness. I will throw up my low fat apple bran muffin and decaf green tea if I don’t shit it all into my sweaty workout shorts first.
I remember a dream I used to have as a kid, where a healthy, young-looking clown with a red nose and white make up is my playmate in the house. He is dressed like a basketball player in matching tank top and shorts and he has a purple wig, so he is safe. He is a sad clown unless we are playing. He listens to The Cure when we play and it makes our games sadder than they should be, then they will be when I play these games as an adult. He is a playmate who only wants to play with me in the back of the house, where no one can see us because though he is imaginary in his mind, neither he or I actually trust the limits of an imagination.
Because in my dream, I fear that at any point, he may materialize into real matter and if anyone in the house could see him, it would destroy our family, kill us all before sealing my fate as broken—the kid who never had a chance. The fear in my dream is always of being caught, but it’s also in never answering my parents in the other room, who continue to call my name because I’m late for school, for family night at the movies, for dinner. Lots of times it’s for being late to dinner, and I can’t leave the clown. I’m stuck with him in this room trying to help him be happier, and I feel so guilty it wakes me up. And I am not even ten years old yet.
But this is all a recurring dream that I haven’t had in a decade or more until this man asks me to go up on the roof with him. He walks outside the door with his backpack half falling off his back. A syringe falls out and he looks down at it smiling a wicked grin. For less than a second I remember my dream and wonder how real it was then and how real this is now. I feel obligated to him and his backpack. He has set up a secret place for us, and he has picked me to make him feel happier than he is usually.
My car is being cited for having an expired meter in front of the gym, and I now have a reason not to go up on the roof. He can’t blame me for tending to my car instead of him. My ticket is for $35 and I don’t try to argue my way out of it because that would expose my imagination. My punishment feels like a bargain compared to my dreams.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Like Maggie Creek Road
I had never had to walk home from school before. Mom always picked me up from class. Fifteen minutes before instruction ended she was there waiting for me to make sure I wasn’t kidnapped by a candy-giver or a man who had “lost his dog.”
“They’re everywhere,” she had said. “Perverts love little boys.”
We moved to a new track home development in Folsom in 1987 and we were only the third house in the 200 lot development, but Mom had to go back to work to help pay for a more expensive mortgage so she could no longer be home to pick me up from school. I was in fourth grade now, and school was a little under a mile away from home, too close for the Folsom-Cordova School District to offer bus service and too far away to feel like anything less than a feat of athletics and bravery for a fat little boy who couldn’t outrun a child molester if his weak little hamhocks depended on it.
Once I left Theodore Judah Elementary School each day, I was looking at four or five blocks of agonizing steps forward until I was out of the older, boring residential zone that was soaked like a wet rag in weeping willows and evergreens along the sidewalks edges. It was totally unlike our open and empty construction zone where I often went to pretend to be Debbie Gibson in concert in the bathtub of a half-built home. You can never play-make believe where people are, which is why usually when I’m around humanity, I just eat.
Then I was on to East Bidwell Street, one of the two main roads in Folsom back then with a Handley’s Western Wear Store and a karate studio, each of which offered a discount for shopping at the other. The only thing that scared me more than what my mother had described to me as a man who would do anything to get me alone in a car with him, were cowboy hats and punching bags, so I usually walked through the alley a block ahead, toward a cheap grocery/pharmacy called Sprouse Reitz (no one in Folsom knew if it was pronounced Rites or Ritz). It was called the candy shop for short, because it had a selection of hardened fructose for fifteen cents. One of each candy, a Jolly Rancher, Atomic Fireball, or Orange slice cost under fifty cents, and if I rifled through the newsstand change slots, I could usually find a few quarters for extra food. I was always lucky that way, a fat kid’s version of a broken parking meter. And if I only had forty cents, a woman with fat arms and glasses who worked behind the counter smiled and threw a nickel or two in the register for me.
Three blocks later was a frozen yogurt shop called “The Eatery,” and though it was less than a quarter mile away from my front door, it often seemed like the halfway point on a hot day, and a safe place to shake off any “honing in” by a prospective rapist.
I’d been in “The Eatery” with my parents before and had a free sample in a mini plastic nibbler, the size of a peanut butter cup, and so almost daily, I’d stop in and ask a teenager behind the counter for a sample of mint chip, cookies and cream, and then vanilla bean, feigning interest in buying a very large order of soft serve yogurt for myself. “Mmm, that’s wonderful, but just not rich enough,” I’d opine, a 9 year old trying to sound like a university professor. “Might I try pistachio instead?” The yogurt scooper would just stare into space and shove yogurt at me. I liked to think of us as friends. Her name tag said Stacy but she never asked me my name. She seemed troubled.
A month after we moved in, a giant grocery store opened called Raleys and during the grand opening, a sign posted in the bakery said “Free birthday cookies served to kids under 10 daily between 3-7PM”
If there was a different unionized cake-maker in the bakery on back-to-back days, an evil plot I developed usually went down perfectly.
“Hi. Um, It’s my birthday,” I ‘d look around, feigning bashfulness. “May I have an oatmeal raisin cookie, please?”
The women were always excited to oblige (for the first week) and handed me a big warm gooey delight. After the first ten days or so that the store was open, they started putting out free cookie crumbles instead of birthday cookies, so I started bringing a Ziploc bag with me to school each day and would stash a handful (or three handfuls, elephant hoof-sized handfuls) of crumbles in a bag, take them to the eatery with any of the candies I hadn’t eaten on the way home already, and crush it all together in a cavity casserole that I squeezed through the openings of my Ziploc bag down my throat. It usually lasted until right before I reached the key under our new house’s welcome mat, which was still sticky from my candied hands the day before. Once inside, I’d lock all of the doors and make myself a bologna sandwich.
I was never abducted.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Somebody Should Leave
I remember the day I started to be fat.
It was at Florin Mall in 1987, March 31, actually that I stood next to my brother and my best friend, Dumaka--who was the fattest boy in all of the land (his boobs were bigger than Aretha Franklin's)in the window of a Circuit City watching Wrestlemania 3. It was epic. The Pontiac Silverdome had packed 93,173 fans to see Hulk Hogan defend the World Wrestling Federation Championship against Andre The Giant. 13:57 into the match, The Hulkster did the impossible. He slammed Andre's 512 pound frame into the mat, followed with a leg drop and then pinned him to retain the championship. I stared at the TV standing. I don't remember ever standing to watch TV after that.
On that day, I got 50 pounds fatter. That day I ate two big macs and a large fry on my own. I was 9. My dad said, "You can order whatever you want, Sean...but you don't have to prove to us that you can eat all of that."
Dumaka and I were obsessed with wrestling and KFC. Walking around with our friend Arturro, who was a mexican immigrant--we were a multi-racial fat camp. We were so PC. We were the cover of a Math Book. It was like, "If Arturro, Dumaka and Sean are rowing a boat up stream at 5 strokes per morning and the current is headed down at 10 mph, how long before the boat sinks?"
Answer: It will tip over when they try to get in the boat.
Wrestling followed me as an obsession for the next 16 years. Wrestling was around as the one consistent thing in my life when kids were outside playing soccer. WWF classic video tapes were my best friend when high school dances took all of my friends away for the night. And mexican luchadors still have my attention today.
My favorite wrestler of all time was Bret "Hitman" Hart. He was the real deal. He was good looking, wore pink, and had the coolest pinning combinations I'd ever seen. The way he pinned Rowdy Roddy Piper in Wrestlemania 8 still blows my mind. It was a reverse backflip tucked under from the turnbuckle. That's how he won his second Intercontinental Championship on April 3, 1992 in Indianapolis, IN. It was the third match of the night. I remember this night because I ate an entire box of Costco taquitos with mayo and Cholula sauce and puked on my Superfly Jimmy Snuka stuffed wrestling buddy.
It was at Florin Mall in 1987, March 31, actually that I stood next to my brother and my best friend, Dumaka--who was the fattest boy in all of the land (his boobs were bigger than Aretha Franklin's)in the window of a Circuit City watching Wrestlemania 3. It was epic. The Pontiac Silverdome had packed 93,173 fans to see Hulk Hogan defend the World Wrestling Federation Championship against Andre The Giant. 13:57 into the match, The Hulkster did the impossible. He slammed Andre's 512 pound frame into the mat, followed with a leg drop and then pinned him to retain the championship. I stared at the TV standing. I don't remember ever standing to watch TV after that.
On that day, I got 50 pounds fatter. That day I ate two big macs and a large fry on my own. I was 9. My dad said, "You can order whatever you want, Sean...but you don't have to prove to us that you can eat all of that."
Dumaka and I were obsessed with wrestling and KFC. Walking around with our friend Arturro, who was a mexican immigrant--we were a multi-racial fat camp. We were so PC. We were the cover of a Math Book. It was like, "If Arturro, Dumaka and Sean are rowing a boat up stream at 5 strokes per morning and the current is headed down at 10 mph, how long before the boat sinks?"
Answer: It will tip over when they try to get in the boat.
Wrestling followed me as an obsession for the next 16 years. Wrestling was around as the one consistent thing in my life when kids were outside playing soccer. WWF classic video tapes were my best friend when high school dances took all of my friends away for the night. And mexican luchadors still have my attention today.
My favorite wrestler of all time was Bret "Hitman" Hart. He was the real deal. He was good looking, wore pink, and had the coolest pinning combinations I'd ever seen. The way he pinned Rowdy Roddy Piper in Wrestlemania 8 still blows my mind. It was a reverse backflip tucked under from the turnbuckle. That's how he won his second Intercontinental Championship on April 3, 1992 in Indianapolis, IN. It was the third match of the night. I remember this night because I ate an entire box of Costco taquitos with mayo and Cholula sauce and puked on my Superfly Jimmy Snuka stuffed wrestling buddy.
Grandma
My heart is always broken.
As it begins to mend, little by little, the pieces binding together like magnets or a flock of birds, I get scared. I run the other direction, back toward the fence in the alley where the big black dogs and the pushers and the street piss and confusion live anonymously. I sit next to a dark and empty bench, where I know I will discover the contingency of sadness and toxcicity and I wait for them to take me back to where I know.
The birds disappear one by one, the magnets falling off and I sit alone as the light passes me by. Just a block away children play dodgeball in the street within a blazing New York York heatwave. Teenagers fall in love under the sunset of the Santa Monica Pier. Students graduate from college in a New England brick ampitheater. Paintings are stroked based on a mango-colored canyon. Passion is born.
Celebration thrives and I am numb. I wait for the blackness because that's all I deserve.
One bird keeps flying over my dark street. Not high, but she is flying and she is named Eula. Eula is now sitting on a trashcan painted with grafitti. She cocks her head to the side and she cannot see my pain. She doesn't feel my insecurity. She just sees her beautiful grandson.
We sat on her bench in Chico just 10 years ago playing Uno as we had since I was 5. I won every time. It was late at night and she made me silver dollar-shaped pancakes with the crispy sugary edges I loved.
She told me stories of singing with Danny Thomas in the 40's as a background vocalist on his radio show and about how she kicked a manager in the balls after he tried to seduce her while she was pregnant with my dad, ending her career on the radio.
She'd say how handsome I was, how there was something really special about me. She just knew it.
She'd remind me that communication would always lead me home. How talking it out would always make me feel better. How when people love you they sometimes do things you hate. How the greatest thing you can do is care for another person. How saying a prayer always makes you feel better. How crying gets the sad out of you. And how it was ok "not to care about snatch."
She had no education. She couldn't drive, and the highlight of her week was long john silvers on friday after getting her hair done.
Still, her eyes were made of God. And she always knew when she couldn't top the last piece of wisdom. That's when she'd go to bed and check on me an hour later as I lay under the window of her house in the mountains next to a birdfeeder, 10 of them, that we'd need to refill in the morning.
As I sit here in my darkness, hurting so much and wanting to love myself the way I know I should--I give my heart and soul to that beautiful wide-eyed bird next to me, and pray that tonight she tucks me in safely.
As it begins to mend, little by little, the pieces binding together like magnets or a flock of birds, I get scared. I run the other direction, back toward the fence in the alley where the big black dogs and the pushers and the street piss and confusion live anonymously. I sit next to a dark and empty bench, where I know I will discover the contingency of sadness and toxcicity and I wait for them to take me back to where I know.
The birds disappear one by one, the magnets falling off and I sit alone as the light passes me by. Just a block away children play dodgeball in the street within a blazing New York York heatwave. Teenagers fall in love under the sunset of the Santa Monica Pier. Students graduate from college in a New England brick ampitheater. Paintings are stroked based on a mango-colored canyon. Passion is born.
Celebration thrives and I am numb. I wait for the blackness because that's all I deserve.
One bird keeps flying over my dark street. Not high, but she is flying and she is named Eula. Eula is now sitting on a trashcan painted with grafitti. She cocks her head to the side and she cannot see my pain. She doesn't feel my insecurity. She just sees her beautiful grandson.
We sat on her bench in Chico just 10 years ago playing Uno as we had since I was 5. I won every time. It was late at night and she made me silver dollar-shaped pancakes with the crispy sugary edges I loved.
She told me stories of singing with Danny Thomas in the 40's as a background vocalist on his radio show and about how she kicked a manager in the balls after he tried to seduce her while she was pregnant with my dad, ending her career on the radio.
She'd say how handsome I was, how there was something really special about me. She just knew it.
She'd remind me that communication would always lead me home. How talking it out would always make me feel better. How when people love you they sometimes do things you hate. How the greatest thing you can do is care for another person. How saying a prayer always makes you feel better. How crying gets the sad out of you. And how it was ok "not to care about snatch."
She had no education. She couldn't drive, and the highlight of her week was long john silvers on friday after getting her hair done.
Still, her eyes were made of God. And she always knew when she couldn't top the last piece of wisdom. That's when she'd go to bed and check on me an hour later as I lay under the window of her house in the mountains next to a birdfeeder, 10 of them, that we'd need to refill in the morning.
As I sit here in my darkness, hurting so much and wanting to love myself the way I know I should--I give my heart and soul to that beautiful wide-eyed bird next to me, and pray that tonight she tucks me in safely.
From Marshall Pitchrock
My essay on Fresh Yarn...
I always played the pudgy dad or the husky war general in the high school musical. I guess there weren't many roles for a guy who could flawlessly pull off an impression of Natalie from The Facts of Life. Marshall Pitchrock always showed up ten minutes late to any audition, strolling in, his walk tight and pensive, like a duck who owned the cafetorium. He still would get cast as the leading man.
It was horrible how God always put him in my P.E. class. I walked with purpose in the locker room wearing my required Folsom High School "Home of the BULLDOGS" double XL jumpsuit holding a dodge ball in front of my erection for 6 years. I had no interest in sports or physical competition. I threw like a girl and caught like a girl, too. I couldn't catch a ball without squealing, and I couldn't throw one without mooing like a cow. The guys would imitate me all day throwing a hand forward and squealing as they remembered that morning's fitness test. They called it a SeanToss when they tossed a ball (18 inches) making the noise of a cat in heat. The only sport I liked was professional wrestling and that was because I got to watch grown-up Marshall Pitchrocks battle each other for gold belts.
There he was in the locker room, buttoning his jeans and brushing his rusty hair, still sweating from running the fastest mile in class, talking about dropping eight pounds to compete in a lower wrestling weight class: "No food. I just drink water and eat a spoonful of peanut butter before I go to bed. It takes three weeks, but it's worth it."
I could never do that. I'm a compulsive overeater, so I can't eat a spoonful of peanut butter without adding whipped cream, crushed bananas, Cholula sauce and hot fudge, if I have the patience to microwave the fudge before I start freebasing it. I hated being fat and I wanted so badly to come to school one day and strip off my pants to a petite waist singing, "THIS is LIVING!" but as soon as I got home I'd have a frozen burrito wrapped in a slice of bologna and melted pepper jack cheese. Clutch your pearls, Lynn Redgrave.
I always played the pudgy dad or the husky war general in the high school musical. I guess there weren't many roles for a guy who could flawlessly pull off an impression of Natalie from The Facts of Life. Marshall Pitchrock always showed up ten minutes late to any audition, strolling in, his walk tight and pensive, like a duck who owned the cafetorium. He still would get cast as the leading man.
It was horrible how God always put him in my P.E. class. I walked with purpose in the locker room wearing my required Folsom High School "Home of the BULLDOGS" double XL jumpsuit holding a dodge ball in front of my erection for 6 years. I had no interest in sports or physical competition. I threw like a girl and caught like a girl, too. I couldn't catch a ball without squealing, and I couldn't throw one without mooing like a cow. The guys would imitate me all day throwing a hand forward and squealing as they remembered that morning's fitness test. They called it a SeanToss when they tossed a ball (18 inches) making the noise of a cat in heat. The only sport I liked was professional wrestling and that was because I got to watch grown-up Marshall Pitchrocks battle each other for gold belts.
There he was in the locker room, buttoning his jeans and brushing his rusty hair, still sweating from running the fastest mile in class, talking about dropping eight pounds to compete in a lower wrestling weight class: "No food. I just drink water and eat a spoonful of peanut butter before I go to bed. It takes three weeks, but it's worth it."
I could never do that. I'm a compulsive overeater, so I can't eat a spoonful of peanut butter without adding whipped cream, crushed bananas, Cholula sauce and hot fudge, if I have the patience to microwave the fudge before I start freebasing it. I hated being fat and I wanted so badly to come to school one day and strip off my pants to a petite waist singing, "THIS is LIVING!" but as soon as I got home I'd have a frozen burrito wrapped in a slice of bologna and melted pepper jack cheese. Clutch your pearls, Lynn Redgrave.
The Eat-Off
I had this dream that our hometown would hold a restaurant eat-off where the fastest father/son combination on a burger scavenger hunt would win a trip to Wrestlemania. We totally would have won. I could eat two Big Macs in 12 minutes. With lettuce in my teeth and a timer in my hand, I nodded up the biggest smile I could muster, proud of the feat of beating my Big Mac record. Dad looked scared of the monster he’d created. "Son, you don't have to prove anything to me. I know you can eat."
By high school, conversations about what I ate never even came up around my parents. They had both gained considerable weight themselves, and we were one big, unhappy family, unless we were at the Rio buffett in Las Vegas.
Then I went off to college, and dad wasn’t there, but I kept the food dream alive, and on my own it seemed more shameful than ever. There were a new set of fast food restaurants I’d never seen. If I overslept and missed class I just had a free hour to hit up Chick-Fila. I hid my first crush on a guy and my Southern Baptist shame about it all behind a Cherry Limeade from Sonic. And finally at graduation, I got to take both of my parents to Luby’s so they could try the bread pudding that I discovered somewhere around the time I bounced out of the dorms the night my roommate caught me masturbating with a picture of the Ultimate Warrior taped above my bunk bed. They didn’t need to know about that last detail, though. The bread pudding was breath-taking.
By high school, conversations about what I ate never even came up around my parents. They had both gained considerable weight themselves, and we were one big, unhappy family, unless we were at the Rio buffett in Las Vegas.
Then I went off to college, and dad wasn’t there, but I kept the food dream alive, and on my own it seemed more shameful than ever. There were a new set of fast food restaurants I’d never seen. If I overslept and missed class I just had a free hour to hit up Chick-Fila. I hid my first crush on a guy and my Southern Baptist shame about it all behind a Cherry Limeade from Sonic. And finally at graduation, I got to take both of my parents to Luby’s so they could try the bread pudding that I discovered somewhere around the time I bounced out of the dorms the night my roommate caught me masturbating with a picture of the Ultimate Warrior taped above my bunk bed. They didn’t need to know about that last detail, though. The bread pudding was breath-taking.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Diva Spin Time
My New Spin Class is coming. We're in previews right now. Did i just say previews? I'm SO Angela Lansbury.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
My first day on American Gladiators
And I’m going to do all of this in Spandex, while my childhood idol, Hulk Hogan who hosts the show tries not to laugh at me, or maybe kick me in the head with his big boot.
But the problem that I keep having with all of this fear is that I really want to do this. When I was a kid, my parents took me to a doll and gun show so that I could get original Gladiator, Diamond’s autograph. After I complimented her watch and recognized that it was Gucci, she kissed my forehead and told me I had such a cute smile. I’d seen every episode of this show in its original airing, because it came on before WWF Superstars of Wrestling, both of which I’d watch in my bed with a box of Tostitos and a boner. In another body, with what my junior high school wrestling coach, Mr. Barboza called “better coordination and a more aggressive urge to win” being a contender on this show was my wildest dream as a kid. There was something about sliding down a zip line that seemed exclusive to me, and since I only wrestled for two days before faking a broken toe, that televised zip drop would show Mr. Barboza that I didn’t need his paltry wrestling team to make me a winner.
And although I’m sure I will lose on this show, the idea that I could actually be in the same little TV box that I watched this show on makes me hopeful just long enough to go online and look for a pair of Spanx to hide my loose skin, the battle scar reminder of all the hard work I did to lose this weight.
Since there is no overnight shipping on man-girdles, I have taken to enemas this morning, and I can’t get off the toilet. I’m late now but muster the strength to get in my car and drive to the LA Sports Arena, shivering more and more the closer I get to Figueroa and 10th in Downtown Los Angeles. Listening to “Eye of the Tiger” on the way is not helping any, because the banging drums and guitar riffs are making my heart beat faster. As I get out of the car a very young and beautiful production assistant with an earpiece and a name badge that says “Sandy, Day Runner” runs over to me. Without saying hello she blurts, “I need to sequester you” and grabs the Hulk Hogan stuffed doll out of my hand as I take it out of my car. “What is this?” She asks.
“I was hoping he might be able to sign the back of it. I’ve had it since I was 11.”
But the problem that I keep having with all of this fear is that I really want to do this. When I was a kid, my parents took me to a doll and gun show so that I could get original Gladiator, Diamond’s autograph. After I complimented her watch and recognized that it was Gucci, she kissed my forehead and told me I had such a cute smile. I’d seen every episode of this show in its original airing, because it came on before WWF Superstars of Wrestling, both of which I’d watch in my bed with a box of Tostitos and a boner. In another body, with what my junior high school wrestling coach, Mr. Barboza called “better coordination and a more aggressive urge to win” being a contender on this show was my wildest dream as a kid. There was something about sliding down a zip line that seemed exclusive to me, and since I only wrestled for two days before faking a broken toe, that televised zip drop would show Mr. Barboza that I didn’t need his paltry wrestling team to make me a winner.
And although I’m sure I will lose on this show, the idea that I could actually be in the same little TV box that I watched this show on makes me hopeful just long enough to go online and look for a pair of Spanx to hide my loose skin, the battle scar reminder of all the hard work I did to lose this weight.
Since there is no overnight shipping on man-girdles, I have taken to enemas this morning, and I can’t get off the toilet. I’m late now but muster the strength to get in my car and drive to the LA Sports Arena, shivering more and more the closer I get to Figueroa and 10th in Downtown Los Angeles. Listening to “Eye of the Tiger” on the way is not helping any, because the banging drums and guitar riffs are making my heart beat faster. As I get out of the car a very young and beautiful production assistant with an earpiece and a name badge that says “Sandy, Day Runner” runs over to me. Without saying hello she blurts, “I need to sequester you” and grabs the Hulk Hogan stuffed doll out of my hand as I take it out of my car. “What is this?” She asks.
“I was hoping he might be able to sign the back of it. I’ve had it since I was 11.”
Office Tour
I sound like my Dad in this one, making a video for the homeowners insurance company to avoid claims of fraud.
Sean, you stupid
“You’re actually pretty weak.” My personal trainer says to me. His name is Eric and he’s a blonde-haired, thin and toned marine biology student at Sacramento State University who is “just doing this to make some extra cash” he keeps telling me.
Eric wants to write me a food plan, but that comes after I decide if I’m going to buy some sessions from him. After every exercise, from a bench press to something called a rower, he tells me that if I’d tried to do this on my own I probably would have broken my back by now. I feel like I already have.
“You’ve clearly never been in a gym, which is why it’s imperative you buy training.” I don’t believe Eric knows what the word “imperative” means, and that saying it makes him uncomfortable. He says it in the rehearsed, from-a-book, please-don’t-call me-on-this sort of way that I spoke the line from Pippin, when I played King Charlemagne in our high school’s production. “Sometimes I don’t know if the fornicating I’m getting is worth the fornicating I’m getting.”
I’m not opposed to buying a trainer, but I’d prefer it be another fat person and probably a girl if that’s ok. Girls laugh at everything I say, especially if she’s black. Every time I meet a black woman and tell a joke they crack up saying, “Sean, you stupid.” Which I think is a compliment because it’s usually followed by a hug or a loving (but sometimes powerful) shove. I want that trainer and I’m not as afraid to take my shirt off to have my fat rolls pinched by a woman, a real woman. I don’t know why. I’m not as interested in impressing, or hiding myself from girls.
If I'm going to have a personal trainer, I want Queen Latifah.
Eric wants to write me a food plan, but that comes after I decide if I’m going to buy some sessions from him. After every exercise, from a bench press to something called a rower, he tells me that if I’d tried to do this on my own I probably would have broken my back by now. I feel like I already have.
“You’ve clearly never been in a gym, which is why it’s imperative you buy training.” I don’t believe Eric knows what the word “imperative” means, and that saying it makes him uncomfortable. He says it in the rehearsed, from-a-book, please-don’t-call me-on-this sort of way that I spoke the line from Pippin, when I played King Charlemagne in our high school’s production. “Sometimes I don’t know if the fornicating I’m getting is worth the fornicating I’m getting.”
I’m not opposed to buying a trainer, but I’d prefer it be another fat person and probably a girl if that’s ok. Girls laugh at everything I say, especially if she’s black. Every time I meet a black woman and tell a joke they crack up saying, “Sean, you stupid.” Which I think is a compliment because it’s usually followed by a hug or a loving (but sometimes powerful) shove. I want that trainer and I’m not as afraid to take my shirt off to have my fat rolls pinched by a woman, a real woman. I don’t know why. I’m not as interested in impressing, or hiding myself from girls.
If I'm going to have a personal trainer, I want Queen Latifah.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Me in Deep Dish!
http://marcharshbarger.blogspot.com/
Your support of the blog helped me make it on the Deep Dish! Check out my interview here! http://marcharshbarger.blogspot.com/2009/08/deeper-dish-with-sean-hetherington.html
Your support of the blog helped me make it on the Deep Dish! Check out my interview here! http://marcharshbarger.blogspot.com/2009/08/deeper-dish-with-sean-hetherington.html
Time to hit up Wal-Mart!
It's the Big Day.
I recommend the songs "Maggie Creek Road" (It's our new Fancy), "Pink Guitar," "Consider Me Gone," and an original co-written by Reba, "She's Turning 50 Today."
I recommend the songs "Maggie Creek Road" (It's our new Fancy), "Pink Guitar," "Consider Me Gone," and an original co-written by Reba, "She's Turning 50 Today."
Friday, August 14, 2009
Starstruck Entertainment
The most horrifying moment of the college moving-in trip was the day before Mom and Dad left Nashville. It was during our walk up and down world famous Music Row, a two street strip of record labels, management firms, and recording studios. Music Row is generally not a walking tourist attraction because it’s where business actually happens, but buses drive by and identify key points of interest. We were on an open air bus, kind of like a trolley when the tour guide spoke into the speaker, “And up ahead is Starstruck Studios, home of Reba McEntire’s offices.”
“Stop the bus, please.” Dad said and pulled on a wire overhead to signal that we were getting off.
“What are you doing,” I asked him.
“We’re going to find Reba.” Dad said and started walking toward 40 Music Square West.
“Dad, I don’t think Reba’s there and they probably don’t just let people in.” I said.
“Your dad’s a salesperson, Two. If anyone can get to Reba, it’s him.”
“But I don’t want to meet Reba, I mean not like this.”
He walked in the double doors. A wave of fear, embarrassment and mortification swept over me as he stepped toward a reception desk with a young, blonde woman answering phones through an earpiece.
“Excuse me.” Dad said. She held up her finger to signal that she was on another line.
When she was done she looked at him. “Hi there. So sorry. How can I help you.”
I had seen pictures of Starstruck’s interior in an issue of Country Weekly and in Reba’s music video for “The Fear of Being Alone.” It was gorgeous. Immaculate, even. I noticed that the beautiful Cherrywood finish on the staircases and desks accented the building to perfection. The air smelled fresh, like how I imagined Reba’s fabric softener would smell, and there were infinity pools everywhere. I looked up and saw an opaque glass door on the second floor. It had to be Reba’s office. It was grand.
“We’d like a tour, please.” Dad asked, as though he were ordering the shrimp cocktail.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. We don’t offer those.” She said kindly.
“Oh, well, my son knows her.” He argued diplomatically.
“Knows who?”
“Our son is friends with Miss Reba,” Mom said. “He won a contest, and talked to her on the phone. It’s actually why we’re here. I thought he should go to school closer to home, you know, where I could visit him more often. But he just had to be near Reba.” She moaned.
I felt my insides rotting from the inside out. My mother just outted me as a stalker. I turned and started to walk toward the door.
“Yes, that’s sweet.” She said earnestly. “But we don’t, um,” She struggled for the polite words. “We’re a business.” She held her finger up to signal a call coming in. “Starstruck Entertainment? Hold please.” She looked at Mom and said, “You’re welcome to take pictures of the front of the building. Outside, please.”
“Really? You can’t even call her?” Dad asked. “We don’t need to meet her, but my son-
“Yes, we do need to meet her!” mom said. “She took 15 minutes out of her day for our kid, we need to say thanks! And I had to buy him every CD she ever made, because tapes weren’t good enough anymore for him.”
“I’m sorry, I need to ask you to step outside.” She said. I was already waiting at the door.
“Chickenshit!” mom said. “Who does Reba think she is?” mom said as she stormed out.
As we started to walk toward the hotel and rounded the alley of Starstruck, a giant majestic garage opened and a Black SUV rolled toward the street. In the passenger seat sat a little boy I’d seen on TV, but for a moment I couldn’t place it, until I saw his mother’s outline from the driver’s seat. The eyes were covered by sunglasses but the hair was recognizable from space.
“It’s Reba!” I yelled.
“No shit?” Dad said, and ran toward the turning car. I’d never seen him run in my life. He chased the car for a full block. What would he do if she stopped? Why in the world is my dad chasing Reba McEntire the day before I start school?
“I almost had her!” he puffed. “I wanted to get you an autograph. Sorry kiddo.”
“It’s ok,” I said. “Let’s all go get something to eat.”
“Oooh, I found a place in my guide where Tammy Wynette gets her favorite grits!” mom said.
“Great! I said. “Taxi!” As embarrassed as I was by my parents, I knew celebrity hunting was the only way to keep their minds off tomorrow, when I’d finally be on my own.
“Stop the bus, please.” Dad said and pulled on a wire overhead to signal that we were getting off.
“What are you doing,” I asked him.
“We’re going to find Reba.” Dad said and started walking toward 40 Music Square West.
“Dad, I don’t think Reba’s there and they probably don’t just let people in.” I said.
“Your dad’s a salesperson, Two. If anyone can get to Reba, it’s him.”
“But I don’t want to meet Reba, I mean not like this.”
He walked in the double doors. A wave of fear, embarrassment and mortification swept over me as he stepped toward a reception desk with a young, blonde woman answering phones through an earpiece.
“Excuse me.” Dad said. She held up her finger to signal that she was on another line.
When she was done she looked at him. “Hi there. So sorry. How can I help you.”
I had seen pictures of Starstruck’s interior in an issue of Country Weekly and in Reba’s music video for “The Fear of Being Alone.” It was gorgeous. Immaculate, even. I noticed that the beautiful Cherrywood finish on the staircases and desks accented the building to perfection. The air smelled fresh, like how I imagined Reba’s fabric softener would smell, and there were infinity pools everywhere. I looked up and saw an opaque glass door on the second floor. It had to be Reba’s office. It was grand.
“We’d like a tour, please.” Dad asked, as though he were ordering the shrimp cocktail.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. We don’t offer those.” She said kindly.
“Oh, well, my son knows her.” He argued diplomatically.
“Knows who?”
“Our son is friends with Miss Reba,” Mom said. “He won a contest, and talked to her on the phone. It’s actually why we’re here. I thought he should go to school closer to home, you know, where I could visit him more often. But he just had to be near Reba.” She moaned.
I felt my insides rotting from the inside out. My mother just outted me as a stalker. I turned and started to walk toward the door.
“Yes, that’s sweet.” She said earnestly. “But we don’t, um,” She struggled for the polite words. “We’re a business.” She held her finger up to signal a call coming in. “Starstruck Entertainment? Hold please.” She looked at Mom and said, “You’re welcome to take pictures of the front of the building. Outside, please.”
“Really? You can’t even call her?” Dad asked. “We don’t need to meet her, but my son-
“Yes, we do need to meet her!” mom said. “She took 15 minutes out of her day for our kid, we need to say thanks! And I had to buy him every CD she ever made, because tapes weren’t good enough anymore for him.”
“I’m sorry, I need to ask you to step outside.” She said. I was already waiting at the door.
“Chickenshit!” mom said. “Who does Reba think she is?” mom said as she stormed out.
As we started to walk toward the hotel and rounded the alley of Starstruck, a giant majestic garage opened and a Black SUV rolled toward the street. In the passenger seat sat a little boy I’d seen on TV, but for a moment I couldn’t place it, until I saw his mother’s outline from the driver’s seat. The eyes were covered by sunglasses but the hair was recognizable from space.
“It’s Reba!” I yelled.
“No shit?” Dad said, and ran toward the turning car. I’d never seen him run in my life. He chased the car for a full block. What would he do if she stopped? Why in the world is my dad chasing Reba McEntire the day before I start school?
“I almost had her!” he puffed. “I wanted to get you an autograph. Sorry kiddo.”
“It’s ok,” I said. “Let’s all go get something to eat.”
“Oooh, I found a place in my guide where Tammy Wynette gets her favorite grits!” mom said.
“Great! I said. “Taxi!” As embarrassed as I was by my parents, I knew celebrity hunting was the only way to keep their minds off tomorrow, when I’d finally be on my own.
This person lost over 800 pounds
If you know Rosie O' Donnell, please ask her to watch my VLOG's. They're inspired by her VLOGS while she was on The View.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Just a Little Love
“So this is really about losing weight?” Mom asked me at Sizzler. “Or is there some,” she trailed off for a moment. “Some other thing going on.” She said it as though she knew I was some social deviant, Dr. Laura’s worst gay nightmare. The way she said "thing" implied that the nuisance of any possible secret I might be keeping from her would also disappoint, kill, and then mame her dead, ashamed body—sooner than I could skip around her Happy Holiday Barbie collection and vomit on her fake Jimmy Chu’s.
“Yeah, I’m tired of looking like this and not being able to breathe walking up and down the stairs.”
“I know what you mean,” she started. And I don’t remember what was said after that, except that it must have ended with a conversation about EKG’s, fake boobs, and what song she wanted played at her funeral. Dan Seals, "One Friend."
***
My first morning back home I decided to go to the small, inclined road I loved in Lexington Hills, one of the many planned communities within Folsom, where you could see the whole city. It was my spot. As a sixth grader, my teacher Mr Smith took us to this area and allowed us all to purchase, with our report card grades, a plot of land. I had picked this spot with my fake money grades and had never let it go. I brought Del Taco up here often and sat thinking about how one day I would be so famous and rich that I could be whoever I wanted. Gay, straight, fat, thin it didn’t matter. I would make everyone so proud of my accomplishment that it wouldn’t hurt anyone how I was or who I was, because who I was would be Sean Hetherington, the rich and the famous. I would play Reba CD’s in the car and I would wonder what it’d be like if she were my aunt, or maybe even my mom.
My plot of land that was mine and that I had loved had a house on top of it, and I had to park my car below my spot and walk up to a hill behind it. The walk was steep. My legs started to itch from the inside. My lower back was sweating. I was huffing. I was scared and embarrassed but no one could see me.
“Yeah, I’m tired of looking like this and not being able to breathe walking up and down the stairs.”
“I know what you mean,” she started. And I don’t remember what was said after that, except that it must have ended with a conversation about EKG’s, fake boobs, and what song she wanted played at her funeral. Dan Seals, "One Friend."
***
My first morning back home I decided to go to the small, inclined road I loved in Lexington Hills, one of the many planned communities within Folsom, where you could see the whole city. It was my spot. As a sixth grader, my teacher Mr Smith took us to this area and allowed us all to purchase, with our report card grades, a plot of land. I had picked this spot with my fake money grades and had never let it go. I brought Del Taco up here often and sat thinking about how one day I would be so famous and rich that I could be whoever I wanted. Gay, straight, fat, thin it didn’t matter. I would make everyone so proud of my accomplishment that it wouldn’t hurt anyone how I was or who I was, because who I was would be Sean Hetherington, the rich and the famous. I would play Reba CD’s in the car and I would wonder what it’d be like if she were my aunt, or maybe even my mom.
My plot of land that was mine and that I had loved had a house on top of it, and I had to park my car below my spot and walk up to a hill behind it. The walk was steep. My legs started to itch from the inside. My lower back was sweating. I was huffing. I was scared and embarrassed but no one could see me.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Love Will Find It's Way To You (The Sabrina Chapter)
I discovered at my Southern Baptist-funded college that faith in Jesus Christ was generally the common denominator among the obese, the country music fanaticism, and the strong aversion to sexuality. I lived in the only co-ed dorm on campus, but it wasn’t co-ed like my friend KC’s dorm at UC Brekeley. It wasn’t guys who lived across from girls, it was boys on one floor, girls two floors above separated by card-locked doors. Boys were required to check girls into their dorms via a sign in sheet a half block away and vice versa. Doors had to be cracked open at least, with all of our feet planted on the floor, so that on the half-hour, resident advisors who walked by our doors could hear us being Christ-like, whatever the fuck that means.
During my first night in the dorms, as my resident director, Dianne explained all of the rules to us then led us all in something called “prayer”, I looked around giggling hoping to meet the eyes of someone. After the first two minutes of asking God to bless our school year with honor and His values, I started to plead with my eyes for anyone to luck up and laugh or explain this to me or tell me when we were going to go see this buffet style cafeteria everyone was talking about.
No one. No one looked up. I scanned the room again and Dianne, the RD caught me. She actually used her hand to motion me to bow my head. I’d never prayed. Mom called Christians, “a bunch of Hypocrites” and only baptized us after her coworker asked how old we were when we’d been saved. She took me, at twelve and my brother at seventeen to Folsom’s Episcopal church and asked the minister to baptize us, because she’d forgotten to when we were kids. Frankly, I never felt deprived of religion as a kid. Vegetables, maybe. The Good Book? No.
All I knew, really about religion was that my home town was largely Mormon and that I went with my friends Josh and Brandon and their gaggle of siblings and parents to Temple once and my mom told me that no matter what, I should not drink their wine or water or eat their bread or crackers, because I was not Mormon. So when the water and bread was offered to me, I said to the family, “My mother says I should go use the bathroom during this portion of church and flush the toilets twelve times. Excuse me, please.”
And now, on this old, dirty Christian couch at belmont, I just wanted a bathroom break, but instead I’m being coached on prayer by my new resident adviser. This is not what Sinbad did on A Different World. Where the Hell am I?
In line by myself, my new roommate, Dave bumped into me and yipped, “oops, so sorry.”
“Hi.” I said hesitantly. It was becoming more clear to me from his Olivia Newton John Collection, nipple jewelry, and vocal solos in the mirror that Dave was gay, and that made me terribly uncomfortable, but he was the only person who knew every line to Reba’s It’s Your Call album.
“So, my friend Antoinette and I have tickets to see Wynonna at the Ryman auditorium tomorrow. They’re free if you want one.”
I placed pizza, free pepperoni pizza and meatloaf, cheese slices, and pasta salad on my plate. I went to the desert bar, the free desert bar and got a slice of cheesecake, a brownie and frozen yogurt with day old sprinkles and had to grab a second tray to carry it all as I thought about it...
During my first night in the dorms, as my resident director, Dianne explained all of the rules to us then led us all in something called “prayer”, I looked around giggling hoping to meet the eyes of someone. After the first two minutes of asking God to bless our school year with honor and His values, I started to plead with my eyes for anyone to luck up and laugh or explain this to me or tell me when we were going to go see this buffet style cafeteria everyone was talking about.
No one. No one looked up. I scanned the room again and Dianne, the RD caught me. She actually used her hand to motion me to bow my head. I’d never prayed. Mom called Christians, “a bunch of Hypocrites” and only baptized us after her coworker asked how old we were when we’d been saved. She took me, at twelve and my brother at seventeen to Folsom’s Episcopal church and asked the minister to baptize us, because she’d forgotten to when we were kids. Frankly, I never felt deprived of religion as a kid. Vegetables, maybe. The Good Book? No.
All I knew, really about religion was that my home town was largely Mormon and that I went with my friends Josh and Brandon and their gaggle of siblings and parents to Temple once and my mom told me that no matter what, I should not drink their wine or water or eat their bread or crackers, because I was not Mormon. So when the water and bread was offered to me, I said to the family, “My mother says I should go use the bathroom during this portion of church and flush the toilets twelve times. Excuse me, please.”
And now, on this old, dirty Christian couch at belmont, I just wanted a bathroom break, but instead I’m being coached on prayer by my new resident adviser. This is not what Sinbad did on A Different World. Where the Hell am I?
In line by myself, my new roommate, Dave bumped into me and yipped, “oops, so sorry.”
“Hi.” I said hesitantly. It was becoming more clear to me from his Olivia Newton John Collection, nipple jewelry, and vocal solos in the mirror that Dave was gay, and that made me terribly uncomfortable, but he was the only person who knew every line to Reba’s It’s Your Call album.
“So, my friend Antoinette and I have tickets to see Wynonna at the Ryman auditorium tomorrow. They’re free if you want one.”
I placed pizza, free pepperoni pizza and meatloaf, cheese slices, and pasta salad on my plate. I went to the desert bar, the free desert bar and got a slice of cheesecake, a brownie and frozen yogurt with day old sprinkles and had to grab a second tray to carry it all as I thought about it...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
My last birthday over 200 pounds
It’s 7:30 am and I’ve slept terribly as usual. My back is sore and for breakfast I’ve slaughtered four raspberry pop tarts microwaved for 22 seconds each, and gulped down three tall glasses of soy milk before heading to work at NBC Studios. My boss, Leslie is a very healthy 40 something who looks like Wendy Mallick from TV’s Just Shoot Me, married and successful with no kids, and my poor health seems to have become her pet project. That’s why she calls me “Seanny-Boy.” She recommends foods from soy. I decide to power up by drinking a half carton daily. Chocolate soy, but we walk together every day, and you’d never believe it but I’ve actually lost close to fifteen pounds just from these walks. I’m not proud of it, because I’m still hideous, but I’ve kept it off at least.
When I leave the house on my birthday, October 19, 2002. I’m headed to work in the truck my parents bought me as a college graduation present. I was the first person from my family to finish college, and as I look down at the pop tart fruit filling on my black t-shirt I shrug. I cover it with my autographed Reba McEntire tour jacket, which is also black and is also stained from food. Black isn’t such a slimming color when it’s accessorized by last night’s Orange Chicken from Frontier Wok.
When I step in to the office this morning, which is a large mobile bungalow off Bob Hope Drive, Leslie has a wrapped gift waiting on my desk with a card that reads “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEANN-Y BOY”. I open the box and it’s a book by Dr. Andrew Weil called, Eating Well for Optimum Health. She walks out of her office toward my cubical and I hear her voice before I see her grinning. “Seanny-boy, is that you?” She’s holding a cupcake with a candle in it. For the third time since puberty, I gulp back tears. I don't deserve this.
* * *
Leslie asks me to walk with her to the commissary for lunch. Usually I take a golf cart across the lot and pick up her order: One Chicken Quesadilla with light oil, add tomato. Leslie likes tomato because it has something called anti-oxidizers, or some bullshit that she says keeps her skin young. She gets light oil to cut the fat, whole wheat for fiber and chicken for protein. I usually get the turkey meatloaf with cheesy garlic bread and a smoothie, all for the fullness.
“I want today to be the first day of the rest of your healthy life.”
“Ok.” I answer. She’s the boss so when she talks about my health, I smile and agree and then I slurp down my beef juice.
“I mean it, Hetherington. You’re too cute for people not to see your cheekbones.” She says and strides toward the cafeteria gate. She wears aviator sunglasses, True Religion jeans, and a red silk cardigan. She’s wearing an NBC name badge that says “Dog Eat Dog, Line Producer” and flashes it to the security guard who has a similar frame as mine but darker skin. I see him check out Leslie’s ass as we walk through the double doors.
Lori walks too fast and as I trail behind her, my eye catches Enrique Iglesias, who is performing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. I watch him eating lunch, a chicken Caesar salad with no croutons. Lori seems to see me staring, but kisses me on the cheek anyway, and says “Lunch is on me today, as long as it’s not anything made by the loaf.”
She winks at me and I pick up a Club Sandwich, tilting my head slightly to her like a puppy who’s learning how to not piss on carpet. She half nods and walks toward the desert tray.
“And we’ll share a strawberry cheesecake, Seanny-boy. Do you guys have candles?” She asks the busboy who is also ignoring her and staring at Enrique and his girlfriend, Anna Khournikova.
When I leave the house on my birthday, October 19, 2002. I’m headed to work in the truck my parents bought me as a college graduation present. I was the first person from my family to finish college, and as I look down at the pop tart fruit filling on my black t-shirt I shrug. I cover it with my autographed Reba McEntire tour jacket, which is also black and is also stained from food. Black isn’t such a slimming color when it’s accessorized by last night’s Orange Chicken from Frontier Wok.
When I step in to the office this morning, which is a large mobile bungalow off Bob Hope Drive, Leslie has a wrapped gift waiting on my desk with a card that reads “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEANN-Y BOY”. I open the box and it’s a book by Dr. Andrew Weil called, Eating Well for Optimum Health. She walks out of her office toward my cubical and I hear her voice before I see her grinning. “Seanny-boy, is that you?” She’s holding a cupcake with a candle in it. For the third time since puberty, I gulp back tears. I don't deserve this.
* * *
Leslie asks me to walk with her to the commissary for lunch. Usually I take a golf cart across the lot and pick up her order: One Chicken Quesadilla with light oil, add tomato. Leslie likes tomato because it has something called anti-oxidizers, or some bullshit that she says keeps her skin young. She gets light oil to cut the fat, whole wheat for fiber and chicken for protein. I usually get the turkey meatloaf with cheesy garlic bread and a smoothie, all for the fullness.
“I want today to be the first day of the rest of your healthy life.”
“Ok.” I answer. She’s the boss so when she talks about my health, I smile and agree and then I slurp down my beef juice.
“I mean it, Hetherington. You’re too cute for people not to see your cheekbones.” She says and strides toward the cafeteria gate. She wears aviator sunglasses, True Religion jeans, and a red silk cardigan. She’s wearing an NBC name badge that says “Dog Eat Dog, Line Producer” and flashes it to the security guard who has a similar frame as mine but darker skin. I see him check out Leslie’s ass as we walk through the double doors.
Lori walks too fast and as I trail behind her, my eye catches Enrique Iglesias, who is performing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. I watch him eating lunch, a chicken Caesar salad with no croutons. Lori seems to see me staring, but kisses me on the cheek anyway, and says “Lunch is on me today, as long as it’s not anything made by the loaf.”
She winks at me and I pick up a Club Sandwich, tilting my head slightly to her like a puppy who’s learning how to not piss on carpet. She half nods and walks toward the desert tray.
“And we’ll share a strawberry cheesecake, Seanny-boy. Do you guys have candles?” She asks the busboy who is also ignoring her and staring at Enrique and his girlfriend, Anna Khournikova.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
My first day on a diet (an Excerpt from 100 Pounds)
An hour later, I’m making myself the dinner he recommended, broccoli with cheese whiz. It doesn’t seem healthy, really. And if my parents were here they’d ask me why I was putting fish food on top of rabbit food. But Dr. James says it’s what he feeds his 10 year-old son so he doesn’t end up in the same boat as his ex-wife, who I spy by searching her in Google and see is about as big as a lifeboat. I wonder if she looked like me once, just a really fat person who you don’t notice, as opposed to the morbidly obese woman in lavender Mumu standing next to her obviously pre-occupied husband. She seems tired as Dr. James receives an award for his work with the elderly at St. Joe’s hospital.
I didn’t like this broccoli cheese whiz dish, so I make asparagus with feta and cheddar. I like that, but I’ve had nothing that sticks to me and makes me feel even near to full. So I make instant rice. I add olive oil. No salty taste, so I add butter. More butter. I’ve used a half a stick of sweetened butter. And feta, cheddar, and some cheese whiz. I’m halfway through a full bag of rice before I add chili flakes and minced garlic. I’d stop before I’m full, but I don’t know what that feels like exactly. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel full from vegetables and rice. And what happens in two hours when I’m not full again? I should just keep eating until I can’t, so I don’t get hungry after 9. It’s 8:47. I’m full.
Its 9:35 and I’m sitting here shaking as I eat a slice of pumpkin pie just under half the total size of the whole pie, then a second piece that almost finishes the pie save a slice as big as a pinky toe. My fingers are wiggling back and forth while I pray they’ll cremate me instead of posthumously embarrassing me by trying to find a coffin big enough. I’m 22 now, the same age as Craig’s girlfriend, Michelle was. But maybe I’ll live until 33 like Chris Farley and John Belushi.
I get up to get more whipped cream as I think about the scale reading at the doctor. I was 275 pounds, 5’ 9” ¾. I’ve gained 15 pounds since college ended over two years ago. I squeeze the whipped cream around every corner of my last bite, so that like me, the food is safely surrounded in fat. I eat it and huff as I go upstairs to have my Xanex.
I still can’t sleep.
I’m hungry. I’m afraid of passing out walking down the stairs to get a fruit rollup so I turn on Cinemax and watch soft-core porn called Lady Chatterly Stories. I fall asleep masturbating.
I didn’t like this broccoli cheese whiz dish, so I make asparagus with feta and cheddar. I like that, but I’ve had nothing that sticks to me and makes me feel even near to full. So I make instant rice. I add olive oil. No salty taste, so I add butter. More butter. I’ve used a half a stick of sweetened butter. And feta, cheddar, and some cheese whiz. I’m halfway through a full bag of rice before I add chili flakes and minced garlic. I’d stop before I’m full, but I don’t know what that feels like exactly. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel full from vegetables and rice. And what happens in two hours when I’m not full again? I should just keep eating until I can’t, so I don’t get hungry after 9. It’s 8:47. I’m full.
Its 9:35 and I’m sitting here shaking as I eat a slice of pumpkin pie just under half the total size of the whole pie, then a second piece that almost finishes the pie save a slice as big as a pinky toe. My fingers are wiggling back and forth while I pray they’ll cremate me instead of posthumously embarrassing me by trying to find a coffin big enough. I’m 22 now, the same age as Craig’s girlfriend, Michelle was. But maybe I’ll live until 33 like Chris Farley and John Belushi.
I get up to get more whipped cream as I think about the scale reading at the doctor. I was 275 pounds, 5’ 9” ¾. I’ve gained 15 pounds since college ended over two years ago. I squeeze the whipped cream around every corner of my last bite, so that like me, the food is safely surrounded in fat. I eat it and huff as I go upstairs to have my Xanex.
I still can’t sleep.
I’m hungry. I’m afraid of passing out walking down the stairs to get a fruit rollup so I turn on Cinemax and watch soft-core porn called Lady Chatterly Stories. I fall asleep masturbating.
FAQ's
So my new blog has been up for about two weeks, and I’ve gotten some emails and Twitters from people who have questions. I thought I’d answer a few of them here. Oh, but I made some of the questions up, though, pretending Oprah is interviewing me. :)
You had another blog somewhere else, right?
Yes for years! It was really fun. It was called the downward spiral, and if you look hard enough online, you might find it.
Did you really lose 100 pounds?
Yes, and over the past six years I’ve kept it off. That’s what this book I’m writing is about, how my thinking on food and lethargy and body image changed—and how I became a man.
The entries seem to be out of order. What gives?
Yes, I’m not writing the book in order.
Why not?
I take it bird by bird. Some days I’m more inclined to talk about family, other days its food. I have a chapter outline on my bulletin board, and some days I’ll just pull a sentence from there and start writing until it’s a sub-chapter or a full one. Either way, I write about twenty pages per week since last March, and I try to post my favorite “little bites” here.
What makes these entries your favorite?
If I think other people might relate to it, or if it was a moment that really changed how I thought about food or myself, then it should be up here. If it helps someone else not spend so much time feeling shitty, I owe it to them to share. Sorry in advance for the grittiness, I know it's uncomfortable sometimes, but it really happened.
And if I think it’s super-funny to a prospective publisher than you’ll see it here, too. :)
Are you only writing a memoir?
No. Five days a week I write memoir. On weekends I write my novel, which I might start posting here, too in the fall. It’s about a subject I'm really passionate about and a character who I'm in love with and it's coming along nicely. I think you'll really like her. She's nine and she's trying to change the world one kid at a time. And for my morning pages when I wake up, I’m writing the sequel to 100 Pounds.
Wow. That’s a lot.
I love writing, and if I don’t write I get angry (ier).
The chapter titles for 100 Pounds have familiar names. How do I recognize them?
They are all the titles of hit songs by Reba McEntire. I love her and her music helped me out of my fatness and out of my various closets. I’m really obsessed with her. It’s weird to be a West Hollywood dude like me and not be obsessed with Britney or Janet, but I’m “fancy” like that.
What do you want from all this?
A career and a brand as a writer of fiction and non-fiction that is first RELATABLE, second FUNNY and third INSPIRING. And finally I want a tummy tuck (that’s what the sequel is about though, so shhh…)
You had another blog somewhere else, right?
Yes for years! It was really fun. It was called the downward spiral, and if you look hard enough online, you might find it.
Did you really lose 100 pounds?
Yes, and over the past six years I’ve kept it off. That’s what this book I’m writing is about, how my thinking on food and lethargy and body image changed—and how I became a man.
The entries seem to be out of order. What gives?
Yes, I’m not writing the book in order.
Why not?
I take it bird by bird. Some days I’m more inclined to talk about family, other days its food. I have a chapter outline on my bulletin board, and some days I’ll just pull a sentence from there and start writing until it’s a sub-chapter or a full one. Either way, I write about twenty pages per week since last March, and I try to post my favorite “little bites” here.
What makes these entries your favorite?
If I think other people might relate to it, or if it was a moment that really changed how I thought about food or myself, then it should be up here. If it helps someone else not spend so much time feeling shitty, I owe it to them to share. Sorry in advance for the grittiness, I know it's uncomfortable sometimes, but it really happened.
And if I think it’s super-funny to a prospective publisher than you’ll see it here, too. :)
Are you only writing a memoir?
No. Five days a week I write memoir. On weekends I write my novel, which I might start posting here, too in the fall. It’s about a subject I'm really passionate about and a character who I'm in love with and it's coming along nicely. I think you'll really like her. She's nine and she's trying to change the world one kid at a time. And for my morning pages when I wake up, I’m writing the sequel to 100 Pounds.
Wow. That’s a lot.
I love writing, and if I don’t write I get angry (ier).
The chapter titles for 100 Pounds have familiar names. How do I recognize them?
They are all the titles of hit songs by Reba McEntire. I love her and her music helped me out of my fatness and out of my various closets. I’m really obsessed with her. It’s weird to be a West Hollywood dude like me and not be obsessed with Britney or Janet, but I’m “fancy” like that.
What do you want from all this?
A career and a brand as a writer of fiction and non-fiction that is first RELATABLE, second FUNNY and third INSPIRING. And finally I want a tummy tuck (that’s what the sequel is about though, so shhh…)
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Cats are people, too
That’s all I’m getting. The rest of the re-orientation into the Twilight Zone that is Moving Back in With My Parents is focused on Cody the cat, who she recently diagnosed as depressed, because more and more cats are these days. Dr. Phil said so last week on Oprah. (About cats, Mom? "No, about people, but whatever, cat’s are people, too!" she had said without a shred of irony, sarcasm, or lucidity.) She insisted the vet help with a prescription. Mom is fifty-something, but she’s talking in her usual baby voice, kind of like Anna Nicole Smith but more like a crazy homeless sailor, played by Debbie Reynolds. She tells me that Cocoa is just too quiet and scared. “Well, just look,” she exclaims. “She’s hiding now as we speak!”
I see Cody from behind a fake plant under one of the limited edition framed Thomas Kincaid lithographs hanging on display in the garage.
"There’s a new person here,” Mom mumbles to me, explaining Cody’s antics and she says “new person” in a way that implies that Cody the cat was the last new person to be invited into the house, “That’s why she’s acting so weird toward you,” Mom says.
Weird in this house is relative.
Mom thinks I’m weird, too, I remember, because the last time I came home to visit, at Christmas in 2002, she noticed my diet had changed. "I'm sorry Cocoa Butt; your new brother doesn't want to play with you right now because he'd rather go to some crazy health food store called Trader Joe's,” she mimics with a bitterly high-fallutin’ accent. “To buy Soy Milk? What's that, Cody,” She leans into Cody’s ear to hear her thoughts, “I know. You can't milk a Soy." She had said, agreeing with her cat.
I notice a tear run down mom’s face now as I walk a box into the living room, and then she shivers a little and sits down on the sofa. She’s crying. I sit down next to her.
“Please don’t plop down on this couch” Mom says through tears, “It’ll break and we’ll have to buy a new one.”
I see Cody from behind a fake plant under one of the limited edition framed Thomas Kincaid lithographs hanging on display in the garage.
"There’s a new person here,” Mom mumbles to me, explaining Cody’s antics and she says “new person” in a way that implies that Cody the cat was the last new person to be invited into the house, “That’s why she’s acting so weird toward you,” Mom says.
Weird in this house is relative.
Mom thinks I’m weird, too, I remember, because the last time I came home to visit, at Christmas in 2002, she noticed my diet had changed. "I'm sorry Cocoa Butt; your new brother doesn't want to play with you right now because he'd rather go to some crazy health food store called Trader Joe's,” she mimics with a bitterly high-fallutin’ accent. “To buy Soy Milk? What's that, Cody,” She leans into Cody’s ear to hear her thoughts, “I know. You can't milk a Soy." She had said, agreeing with her cat.
I notice a tear run down mom’s face now as I walk a box into the living room, and then she shivers a little and sits down on the sofa. She’s crying. I sit down next to her.
“Please don’t plop down on this couch” Mom says through tears, “It’ll break and we’ll have to buy a new one.”
Little Rock (Final Part 3)
When we got to work, if Petey was unavailable, I would have to make Chad’s lunch, because the rashes on his legs made it almost impossible for him to walk, but every hour he somehow disappeared into the bathroom with our line producer for five minutes, locking all of the doors. When he came back he was happy and intense. A sort of bearded Sharon Stone he’d become as we pitched trash TV segment ideas to our boss, who also smoked indoors and called his own assistant either by his actual name (Eric) or “Faggotbreath” if he was in a bad mood.
We usually stayed well past ten-o-clock at night working, like a lot of TV people do. Our meals were always paid for by the network and they always got delivered to us, no questions asked. If it was CPK I usually ordered a Chicken Tequilla Fettucini and a loaf of Garlic Cheese Bread with three sides of Ranch. I never used the third Ranch, but Petey always wanted to share my ranch, and I hate sharing food. So I just started ordering him his own.
Our boss, who’s name had similar letters to the name Satan laughed as he told us we’d be working right up until December 24 that year but that we’d all get a bonus. In the past I’d gotten a hundred bucks here and there, but when the delivery of Razor Scooters came in, I was shocked. At my first big-time producing job, not only did we not get cash, but I didn’t even get a scooter. Satan knew I was watching my weight, so he gave me a gift certificate to Baskin Robbins, just to be a dick.
***
They called an ambulance to pick Chad up. He’d sort of passed out crying, and then laughing, and then crying over his crash. It turned out he needed stitches, so he spent a few hours in the hospital, where he was much safer than if he had walked out of the office alone without the cash from a bonus. Drug dealers don’t like to start the holidays off without their money.
On the way home that night I wondered how Chad came to be this crazy addict. Did our boss Satan just break him down over the years? Did he ever worry that drugs would kill him? Didn’t he want something better than just the Shingles and an assistant?
And How was I any different? What’s the difference between drug addiction and food addiction? I was powerless over ToGo’s the way he was powerless over those hourly coke breaks in the bathroom? Neither of us were living, really. So he couldn’t walk without being in pain. I couldn’t walk without being out of breath. He’d gotten Shingles from some crack whore, but I was set to be a lifelong virgin, too fat and too afraid to experience my body and another’s, without being consumed in shame over the possibilities.
We usually stayed well past ten-o-clock at night working, like a lot of TV people do. Our meals were always paid for by the network and they always got delivered to us, no questions asked. If it was CPK I usually ordered a Chicken Tequilla Fettucini and a loaf of Garlic Cheese Bread with three sides of Ranch. I never used the third Ranch, but Petey always wanted to share my ranch, and I hate sharing food. So I just started ordering him his own.
Our boss, who’s name had similar letters to the name Satan laughed as he told us we’d be working right up until December 24 that year but that we’d all get a bonus. In the past I’d gotten a hundred bucks here and there, but when the delivery of Razor Scooters came in, I was shocked. At my first big-time producing job, not only did we not get cash, but I didn’t even get a scooter. Satan knew I was watching my weight, so he gave me a gift certificate to Baskin Robbins, just to be a dick.
***
They called an ambulance to pick Chad up. He’d sort of passed out crying, and then laughing, and then crying over his crash. It turned out he needed stitches, so he spent a few hours in the hospital, where he was much safer than if he had walked out of the office alone without the cash from a bonus. Drug dealers don’t like to start the holidays off without their money.
On the way home that night I wondered how Chad came to be this crazy addict. Did our boss Satan just break him down over the years? Did he ever worry that drugs would kill him? Didn’t he want something better than just the Shingles and an assistant?
And How was I any different? What’s the difference between drug addiction and food addiction? I was powerless over ToGo’s the way he was powerless over those hourly coke breaks in the bathroom? Neither of us were living, really. So he couldn’t walk without being in pain. I couldn’t walk without being out of breath. He’d gotten Shingles from some crack whore, but I was set to be a lifelong virgin, too fat and too afraid to experience my body and another’s, without being consumed in shame over the possibilities.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Little Rock (Part 2)
Chad found out a few days before that he had tested positive for Shingles. He had Shingles running up and down his thighs and into his groin and his red-haired legs were covered in deep purple rashes. He had been smoking at his desk all day, angry that he had to work the day before Christmas Eve, scared that his drug dealer was going to kill him if he didn’t pay up soon, and excited about our holiday bonuses for producing a top rated network reality show. The smoke had been billowing into my workstation since ten AM and my Asthma was making it impossible to breathe. I kept leaving Sunset Gower Studios and going to Togo’s to get a large Orange Horchata and small pastrami sandwiches. My diet was going to shit. I had to get out of here.
I was twenty-four and had lost about thirty five pounds on my own, but between the junk food on set and my pot-smoking roommate who always had snacks around, I was surrounded by a horn-o-plenty of Good-N-Plenty’s at all hours of the day.
Chad would send our assistant, Petey downstairs with a stack of bills wrapped in green garbage bags to a waiting car on Bronson Avenue in the dirtiest part of Hollywood twice a week. Moments later, the phone would ring and a call that went something like this would ensue:
Chad: That’s all I got.
Dealer: (Something threatening)
Chad: I have a gun, too, motherfucker!
Dealer: (More tough guy banter)
Chad: I’m sorry, Man. Please don’t hurt me. I just need another day (or week or hour, depending on the urgency).
Dealer hangs up.
By the time Christmas Eve arrived, Chad had exhausted all of his payback time. The dealer was giving him until today to pay or something really bad was going to happen, because even Petey refused to go downstairs alone now. Chad had asked if he could give his dealer my number because his cell had been shut off, and I told him no. Absolutely not. I was already picking him up for work every morning at the North Hollywood subway station with an ice cold rag and a pack of Marlboro lights for him, which he never paid me back for. I wasn’t going to lose money and a limb now over his drug problem.
When we got to work, if Petey was unavailable, I would have to make Chad’s lunch, because the rashes on his legs made it almost impossible for him to...
I was twenty-four and had lost about thirty five pounds on my own, but between the junk food on set and my pot-smoking roommate who always had snacks around, I was surrounded by a horn-o-plenty of Good-N-Plenty’s at all hours of the day.
Chad would send our assistant, Petey downstairs with a stack of bills wrapped in green garbage bags to a waiting car on Bronson Avenue in the dirtiest part of Hollywood twice a week. Moments later, the phone would ring and a call that went something like this would ensue:
Chad: That’s all I got.
Dealer: (Something threatening)
Chad: I have a gun, too, motherfucker!
Dealer: (More tough guy banter)
Chad: I’m sorry, Man. Please don’t hurt me. I just need another day (or week or hour, depending on the urgency).
Dealer hangs up.
By the time Christmas Eve arrived, Chad had exhausted all of his payback time. The dealer was giving him until today to pay or something really bad was going to happen, because even Petey refused to go downstairs alone now. Chad had asked if he could give his dealer my number because his cell had been shut off, and I told him no. Absolutely not. I was already picking him up for work every morning at the North Hollywood subway station with an ice cold rag and a pack of Marlboro lights for him, which he never paid me back for. I wasn’t going to lose money and a limb now over his drug problem.
When we got to work, if Petey was unavailable, I would have to make Chad’s lunch, because the rashes on his legs made it almost impossible for him to...
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Chapter 9: Little Rock (part 1)
He was plowing toward me and I could see the spit lurking out of his mouth onto his red beard and streaming down his chubby chin, like an old wet bulldog. His usual copper cowlick seemed less unkempt, less "cool-kid-that doesn’t-care" and more like an intelligently-designed devils horn.
“All I got was this fucking Razor!” Chad, the segment producer cried as his keys jingled against his pasty, globular leg. He used his right leg to grab momentum and ride straight into my desk out of nowhere, Razor scooter first. He really was crying hard. It was horrifying to watch a grown man scream like a toddler but it was happening and it was happening at full speed into my very first cubicle. He knocked the plaque off the gray portable wall before the cube broke and fell itself. My very first office name plaque had said “Sean Hetherington, associate producer, NBC Studios” and it cracked in half.
If there wasn’t a coke addict on wheels (literally) slobbering toward my pastrami sandwich, I would have been furious. Instead I was petrified, a fat fawn headed for death by way of Mack Truck.
I didn’t know how to react and I had very limited time to decide what Reba would do, so I shoved my pastrami sandwich to the side so that Chad didn’t breathe on it as he crashed into my computer monitor, head on. I’d want to eat that later, to recover from this dangerously awkward moment.
Chad found out a few days before that he had tested positive for Shingles. He had Shingles running up and down his thighs and into his groin and his red-haired legs were covered in deep...
“All I got was this fucking Razor!” Chad, the segment producer cried as his keys jingled against his pasty, globular leg. He used his right leg to grab momentum and ride straight into my desk out of nowhere, Razor scooter first. He really was crying hard. It was horrifying to watch a grown man scream like a toddler but it was happening and it was happening at full speed into my very first cubicle. He knocked the plaque off the gray portable wall before the cube broke and fell itself. My very first office name plaque had said “Sean Hetherington, associate producer, NBC Studios” and it cracked in half.
If there wasn’t a coke addict on wheels (literally) slobbering toward my pastrami sandwich, I would have been furious. Instead I was petrified, a fat fawn headed for death by way of Mack Truck.
I didn’t know how to react and I had very limited time to decide what Reba would do, so I shoved my pastrami sandwich to the side so that Chad didn’t breathe on it as he crashed into my computer monitor, head on. I’d want to eat that later, to recover from this dangerously awkward moment.
Chad found out a few days before that he had tested positive for Shingles. He had Shingles running up and down his thighs and into his groin and his red-haired legs were covered in deep...
The Painter of Light
Yes, we have Thomas Kincaid lithographs all over the house. The garage is used for the overflow of them, but they’re in the rumpus room (that’s where we keep the pool table and the ceramic Santa), the kitchen, and the living room, too. And during my pre-teen years, I used to buy Mom China plates with his most famous illustrations on them, because they were only thirty dollars at the local Chatzchkie shop, The Vicar’s Cottage. Her birthday is in June and since Mother’s Day is a month before, I’d go pick out two in January that I knew she’d like, usually the ones with the most colorful lights and an animal in the distance. I’d pay four of my five dollar allowance toward the layaway every few weeks, and spend the other dollar on two jelly-filled donuts from the Chinese donut shop next door. By April I’d have purchased both plates, then hide them under my bed until gift-giving.
Those plates are in the glass china display in the dining room, now where no one is allowed in except for on Christmas Eve, but by then the plates are wrapped up and hidden away, replaced with Christmas-themed nutcrackers collected over the years from Wicks ‘N Sticks. “We keep them in the hutch for decoration because we don’t eat nuts,” Mom had told me when I asked if I could bring the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer nutcracker to show and tell in the third grade.
Mom’s favorite painting of Kincaide’s seems to be his most famous, called “The Christmas Cottage.” She loves Christmastime, and this photo seems to sum up the American Dream, through the eyes of the shattered, track-home living, middle-aged Folsom lady: cobblestone walkway, snow-covered evergreens, a white picket gate, all surrounding a custom built home on a big lot in Serenity, USA.
This painting is hung in the entryway, year round, right above where we keep the commemorative dish we got from McDonald’s of the claymation California Raisins. Inside the dish is where we keep next week’s lottery tickets.
Mom gave me one of her old framed Kincaide pictures, of the famous Folsom landmark, Sutter Street, to hang in my apartment in Burbank, when I moved there after college to work as an NBC page. I hung it in our dining room until my roommate told me it looked gay. Mom couldn’t believe it. “Gay,” she had asked. “I don’t think so. He’s the painter of light.”
Those plates are in the glass china display in the dining room, now where no one is allowed in except for on Christmas Eve, but by then the plates are wrapped up and hidden away, replaced with Christmas-themed nutcrackers collected over the years from Wicks ‘N Sticks. “We keep them in the hutch for decoration because we don’t eat nuts,” Mom had told me when I asked if I could bring the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer nutcracker to show and tell in the third grade.
Mom’s favorite painting of Kincaide’s seems to be his most famous, called “The Christmas Cottage.” She loves Christmastime, and this photo seems to sum up the American Dream, through the eyes of the shattered, track-home living, middle-aged Folsom lady: cobblestone walkway, snow-covered evergreens, a white picket gate, all surrounding a custom built home on a big lot in Serenity, USA.
This painting is hung in the entryway, year round, right above where we keep the commemorative dish we got from McDonald’s of the claymation California Raisins. Inside the dish is where we keep next week’s lottery tickets.
Mom gave me one of her old framed Kincaide pictures, of the famous Folsom landmark, Sutter Street, to hang in my apartment in Burbank, when I moved there after college to work as an NBC page. I hung it in our dining room until my roommate told me it looked gay. Mom couldn’t believe it. “Gay,” she had asked. “I don’t think so. He’s the painter of light.”
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Night Oprah and Sizzler Changed Everything
At Sizzler that night I ordered the Malibu Chicken, a two-piece fried chicken dish blanketed in ham and sealed in melted slices of Monterey Jack cheese food. I had a loaded baked potato plus the all-you-can-eat-salad-bar where I made a spaghetti and meatball taco (add shredded Cheddar cheese food). I’m 18 now, and my parents have stopped being in awe of how much I eat.
When I was nine years old I’d get two Big Macs and a large order of fries with a small Neapolitan milkshake. For a few years Dad would listen to me order, and then look at me in amazement. “You don’t have to prove anything to us. We know you can eat.” He’d plead, trying to talk me into something smaller, like a Happy Meal or two, and not just for my health, but to save money. I was eating like a pregnant woman and I still didn't know where babies came from.
“I know.” I’d snip back in a high, guilty voice. He’d shake his head and avoid eye contact with me while I ate and avoided eye contact with him,too. He would hand me a napkin when I said I was ready to go home. Dad was generally antsy whenever we went out to eat. He just wanted to be at home, in his chair, watching TV and napping with a crunchy snack close by. He was like a cat with a driver’s license and a job that way. After he ate, he’d run his fingers through his full head of gray hair, almost white against his dark rosy face and say, “Janice Anne, why’d ya make me eat so much?” That was how Dad said it was time to go home without sounding bossy to Mom, and that Melrose Place was about to start, and that he’d forgotten to set the VCR.
Later, he’d sit in front of the TV, with his own homemade Coca-Cola, banana, and Butter pecan ice cream malt that got bigger every day (along with his belly).
He’s sort of ignoring me again tonight at Sizzler, but that’s because my mom is talking. “Your dad and I were watching Oprah yesterday..."
When I was nine years old I’d get two Big Macs and a large order of fries with a small Neapolitan milkshake. For a few years Dad would listen to me order, and then look at me in amazement. “You don’t have to prove anything to us. We know you can eat.” He’d plead, trying to talk me into something smaller, like a Happy Meal or two, and not just for my health, but to save money. I was eating like a pregnant woman and I still didn't know where babies came from.
“I know.” I’d snip back in a high, guilty voice. He’d shake his head and avoid eye contact with me while I ate and avoided eye contact with him,too. He would hand me a napkin when I said I was ready to go home. Dad was generally antsy whenever we went out to eat. He just wanted to be at home, in his chair, watching TV and napping with a crunchy snack close by. He was like a cat with a driver’s license and a job that way. After he ate, he’d run his fingers through his full head of gray hair, almost white against his dark rosy face and say, “Janice Anne, why’d ya make me eat so much?” That was how Dad said it was time to go home without sounding bossy to Mom, and that Melrose Place was about to start, and that he’d forgotten to set the VCR.
Later, he’d sit in front of the TV, with his own homemade Coca-Cola, banana, and Butter pecan ice cream malt that got bigger every day (along with his belly).
He’s sort of ignoring me again tonight at Sizzler, but that’s because my mom is talking. “Your dad and I were watching Oprah yesterday..."
Sunday, August 2, 2009
My Fat Period
This is a small collection of pictures that are of me right about at my heaviest, 100 pounds ago. I was around 275 here. I'll post this same collage every so often. I have to. I look at these pictures and sometimes I say, "Yeah, that's me," with a shrug as though nothing has changed, as if I never counted a single caloric deficit.
I am still a total fatso in my mind, and I have permanent stretch marks and a little bit of loose skin on my outsides and that is the absolute bane of my existence. I hate it with such a hate that it doesn't make sense, a Northern Ireland versus Southern Ireland kind of hatrid. I call it my Fat Period, and I get it every 28 days (sometimes every 28 minutes).
"How ungrateful he is," this probably makes you think. "Does he know how lucky he is to not have to buy two seats on Southwest?"
After all of my efforts, why do I still feel so fat sometimes? I wish I could erase it all from my body and my memory and reprogram myself like Wolverine. Wolverine, now that's a guy with some abs.
But then I remember the difference between Me then and Me now. If this had never happened, I would not be able to do the one thing I am most proud of, the one thing that keeps me sane, the thing some skinny people can't even do. Wanna know what that is? It's simply just being able to look a person directly in the eye and tell the truth.
That's what being fat and then being this newer person has taught me, is that the secret to weight loss and sanity is learning how to tell the truth. When I start to get my Fat Period, I insert my "tamp-on of truth," and I post something here.
A surprise before dying
“So, I have a surprise for you.” Ashley said with a breathy grin.
I really hope its cake.
“Nate and I planned a camping trip for you at the lake the night before you leave. Everyone’s going. We can swim; hang out by the campfire, whatever you want.”
“Oh wow!” I overacted. “That sounds like so much fun!”
This is the worst surprise ever. I hate camping. We did it every weekend when I was a kid at Scotts Flat Lake in Grass Valley. It was terrible. I never got to sleep because I was always cold and I hated sleeping on the ground. I sleep on my stomach, and putting this much stomach on hard dirt ground is not good for my breathing. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack every night, the no-give of the hard ground congesting my diaphragm and lungs and making my Grape-Crush-breath diminish more and more until I expired. That’s what they said when they found Grandma, the morning after she died at sixty-five years old. “She just went to sleep and expired.”
My mom said it was because she put butter on her pizza, which is fine. I only put hot sauce on mine. That was my safety thought when I had heart attack dreams as a kid.
I really hope its cake.
“Nate and I planned a camping trip for you at the lake the night before you leave. Everyone’s going. We can swim; hang out by the campfire, whatever you want.”
“Oh wow!” I overacted. “That sounds like so much fun!”
This is the worst surprise ever. I hate camping. We did it every weekend when I was a kid at Scotts Flat Lake in Grass Valley. It was terrible. I never got to sleep because I was always cold and I hated sleeping on the ground. I sleep on my stomach, and putting this much stomach on hard dirt ground is not good for my breathing. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack every night, the no-give of the hard ground congesting my diaphragm and lungs and making my Grape-Crush-breath diminish more and more until I expired. That’s what they said when they found Grandma, the morning after she died at sixty-five years old. “She just went to sleep and expired.”
My mom said it was because she put butter on her pizza, which is fine. I only put hot sauce on mine. That was my safety thought when I had heart attack dreams as a kid.
If We Drive There
“I suppose if we drive there it beats the purpose, right?” Mom said in the last week of April during the summer I moved to college.
She’d gotten a postcard in the mail from 24 Hour Fitness offering $7 a month memberships for family of current members at their newest location in Folsom. The gym was a third of a mile from our house, and the postcard highlighted the 24 hour availability, the convenient location, and the huge bargain for new members.
She pulled into a parking space. “Oh, son of a bitch,” She started. “I forgot to buy stuffing mix to make dinner tonight. We need to go to the store first.” She started to back out of her parking space, and then stopped. “Unless Taco Bell is ok?” she asked. “I mean, we are going to work out.”
I was my mom’s partner in crime when it came to anything that involved spicy melted cheese, now, and especially for under a dollar, and especially if that dollar belonged to her.
“Cool.” I said. I would have said more, but I had already started to put together my order in my mind. Two Meximelts. Two Crunchy Soft Taco Supremes. One Mexican Pizza. One Nacho Bell Grande (to share with Mom).
She’d gotten a postcard in the mail from 24 Hour Fitness offering $7 a month memberships for family of current members at their newest location in Folsom. The gym was a third of a mile from our house, and the postcard highlighted the 24 hour availability, the convenient location, and the huge bargain for new members.
She pulled into a parking space. “Oh, son of a bitch,” She started. “I forgot to buy stuffing mix to make dinner tonight. We need to go to the store first.” She started to back out of her parking space, and then stopped. “Unless Taco Bell is ok?” she asked. “I mean, we are going to work out.”
I was my mom’s partner in crime when it came to anything that involved spicy melted cheese, now, and especially for under a dollar, and especially if that dollar belonged to her.
“Cool.” I said. I would have said more, but I had already started to put together my order in my mind. Two Meximelts. Two Crunchy Soft Taco Supremes. One Mexican Pizza. One Nacho Bell Grande (to share with Mom).
Muffin
“Muffin! Muffin!” I squealed in a prepubescent snicker so nasty, so angry, so viciously that I sounded like Earthquake, the worst bad guy from the World Wrestling Federation’s most recent Pay Per View special, Summerslam 1990. All of the boys on my side of the lunch table were laughing wildly, and I’d never been on this side of the table. I’d never been allowed at the table; since I was known at Folsom Junior High School mostly for being a chunky, smelly boy, who came to school without brushing my teeth and running the opposite direction of baseballs, footballs, tennis balls, dodge balls, even cotton balls.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)