Category: Life

If none of you saw the especially funny Bernie Mac Wednesday night, don’t worry. I taped it, and I’m going to shoot a little video when my new camera gets here, so that y’all can appreciate the hilarity that is Bernie.

Friday Five:

1. What was your first job? I was a carhop/ waitress at the Hi-Hat III Drive-In, in Lisbon. It sucked, and I only stayed there until I could get a better job – ie, I got my driver’s license and got hired at McDonald’s (it’s a sad statement when McDonald’s is a step up, isn’t it?). My boss only paid "student minimum wage", which was two dollars and something an hour, if I recall correctly, and I think there was some kind of rule that you only made that much if you made under a certain amount in tips. Of course, I got tips. If I wasn’t wearing pants with pockets, I’d keep my tips in a cup on the counter, and my boss would think nothing of counting my tips to be sure I was reporting the amount of tips I got correctly. I’m not in the slightest bit sad to see that the restaurant finally went out of business, and if my former boss is living somewhere in abject poverty? Well, all the better.

2. How old were you when you had your first kiss? Sixteen, with my first boyfriend. The World’s Worst Kisser. You know those guys who come at you with their mouths wide open and jam their tongues down your throat? That was him. Amazing I wasn’t turned off of kissing forever.

3. What was your first car? What happened to it? The first car I drove on a regular basis was a blue Chevette. I had to share that car with my brother Randy, who’d use it until there was just the tiniest, slightest bit of gas in the tank, and leave it for me to fill up. The first car that was mine, all mine, was a brown Chevette my father bought when I was 17, and I tore that thing up. I’m amazed it lasted as long as it did. It finally bit the dust when I was 19 and pregnant with the spud. It’d been dying for a long time, but one day I couldn’t shift any higher than second gear, and since the ex and I had just bought a new (used) car, we drove the Chevette to the junkyard, where we got $50 for it. I’m still most comfortable in small cars (how’d I end up in a Jeep, you’ve gotta wonder), and I wish they still made Chevettes.

4. What was your first concert? Strictly speaking, it would have to be Shaun Cassidy – Debbie and our cousin Kim looooooved Shaun, and it wasn’t a bad concert. Shaun came out in overalls and acted as though he was part of the stage crew, and when he adjusted the microphone to his height, Debbie started screaming "That’s him! That’s him!", and sure enough, she was right. My first "real" concert, though, was Judas Priest and Great White, which Debbie and I attended with Randy and his girlfriend. I had no idea who Judas Priest and Great White were, but I was very excited about going to see them, nonetheless. Suddenly, I’m thinking I’m wrong. It was Judas Priest, wasn’t it, Deb?

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Not doing much. As usual. Maybe I’ll get my desk cleaned off, but I’m not counting on it. Maybe I’ll get caught up on everything I taped last night. Hopefully I’ll talk Fred into watching Swingers with me at some point.

 

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Many thanks to Heather and Aimee, who went wayyy above and beyond the call of duty yesterday. Man, I spent half the day laughing my ass off, y’all. And thanks to Himself, who gave me a buttload of books for my birthday (which I won’t list, because they’re upstairs and I’m downstairs and I’m a lazy bitchypoo). Thanks also to everyone who emailed to tell me how they were celebrating my birthday, from carrying a yellow bag to work instead of their usual black bag, to calling their significant other "Ya fuckin’ idiot" – that one was very, very popular, big surprise.

So, I was sitting in the computer room talking on the phone to my mother yesterday, and someone pulled up in front of our house and TOOK A PICTURE of the front of the house and drove off. That fucking freaks me out. I HOPE IT WASN’T ANY OF MY READERS. Mostly because if you tried to break into my house and do nasty, dirty things to me, you’d run into our half-insane Rottweiller, James, who’s been trained to attack the crotch of anyone he doesn’t know.

You’ve been warned.

Actually, after she drove off, she slowed down and may have taken a picture of a house halfway down the cul-de-sac, so maybe she was just taking pictures of random houses. It’s still creepy, though.

Say’s recent entry about her trip to Wal-Mart made me think of the time I was there a few months ago. I ended up in line behind a husband and wife who had a HUGE cart of stuff. The cashier finished ringing up everything, and the husband looked at the total and said "Oh my god! What did you BUY?!", and he and the poor cashier spent the next TEN MINUTES looking at the receipt and matching it to EVERY fucking thing in the cart. I wanted to scream "IF YOU WERE THAT FUCKING INTERESTED IN HOW MUCH EVERYTHING COST, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION WHEN SHE WAS RINGING IT ALL UP!" The cashier kept giving me "I’m SO sorry about this!" looks, and I would have gone to another line, but it was a busy day where there were ten people in every line.

I’m currently reading Gut Feelings by Carnie Wilson (oh, shaddup), and here’s a tidbit you probably didn’t know about Carnie: she was a big pothead and admits to still occasionally smoking. Say it ain’t so, Carnie! The scandal!

Speaking of Carnie Wilson, back when Wilson Phillips was big, with Hold On and Release Me, I used to deliver newspapers in the early morning (it sucked, and I never made any kind of money, and I don’t have any idea why I bothered), and four fucking mornings in a row, the DJ working the early morning shift at the radio station I used to listen to while delivering papers would play Release Me and then say "Hold On, Release Me, I wish they’d make up their minds! HawHawHaw!"

Y’all are saying "Wilson who? Hold On? Isn’t that that Top-40s crap from the early ’90s?", aren’t you?

I think I’m going to go lay on the couch and watch some more Friends and feel old. See you tomorrow!

 

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Oh… is it my birthday? Why, I had completely forgotten…

Luckily, I had Jolene and Moses and Lis and Shannon and Earl Grey Tea (you know you’re special when a TEA celebrates your birthday) and someone who’s a little Out of (her) Mind and my fellow Goddesses and about ten zillion e-cards to remind me. Oh, and let’s not forget the wrapped present from Athena, which I opened this morning, and was THRILLED to find The Best of Friends. Athena knows the way to my heart, yes indeedy. I also opened the wrapped present from reader Laura in PA, who sent me this Sherman’s Lagoon book (LOVE me some Sherman’s Lagoon. I bet you didn’t know that about me.) I opened both the wrapped packages this morning instead of when I got them, because the rule is that I have to wait until the actual day to open presents, if they’re wrapped. Well, that’s the rule I made up for myself, anyway.

My birthday is kickin’ ass, and the day’s not half over yet!

I was awakened early this morning by the Governor of Alabama, who’s been harrassing me about wanting to change the name of the state to RobynBama, despite my insistence that he’s a nutball. I had to put my foot down, because really – if they’re going to eventually rename the country the United States of Robyn, I don’t want just a state named after me. That would be silly.

The weather gods are behaving today – it’s close to 50 right now, and I expect it’ll get even warmer. Maybe winter’s over? (Ha!)

Of course, it’s a state-wide holiday, and the people who deliver the mail are thrilled to have the day off (especially MY mailman, as you can imagine). As I told Moira the other day, the banks don’t actually shut down on my birthday, but they do spend the day printing money with my picture on it – there’s usually a brawl or two when people feel they aren’t getting as many RobDollars as they want. But y’know how it is. There’s only so much Bitchypoo to go around!

I bet y’all are wishing like hell that the day was over and I’d go back to normal, aren’t you? 🙂

Okay, that’s it for today. I’m going to go lay on the couch and watch me some Friends, and try to convince Miz Poo to snuggle with me. Thanks, y’all, for all your birthday wishes and e-cards, and everything else. You’ve helped to make my day especially special!

 

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How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday
(which is tomorrow, so get crackin’)

(This idea totally stolen from Mopie)

1. Rename your journal “Bitchypoo” (just for the day).

2. Call your child – or husband, if you don’t have a child – “Spud” all day long. Or call your favorite pet (doesn’t have to be a cat) Miz Poo for the day. Follow your pet around and croon "Mizzzz Poooooo" until it gets annoyed and runs away with it’s ears laid back.

3. During a semi-important meeting or phone call say “I don’t know. What does Robyn think of that?”

4. Wear something yellow (that being my favorite color).

5. When your husband/ significant other/ cat farts for the 53rd time in 10 minutes, narrow your eyes at him/ her/ it and say “You’repissin’meoff.”

6. Change your computer wallpaper to a picture of me, unless it would frighten other family members.

7. Call your significant other "Ya fuckin’ idiot" out of the blue, for no particular reason.

8. Postpone cleaning the house for another week.

9. Eat a whoopie pie.

10. Take a bath using Lush bath melts or bath fizzies, and spend the rest of the day making people smell you.

And don’t forget to email me and tell me what you did!

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Here we see all the cats except Miz Poo snoozing on the bed. Those cats just love the hell out of the bed in our bedroom, I’m not sure why. They spent all day long Sunday just snoozing and rolling around. Thank god the cat fur doesn’t show up on this bedspread – I don’t even want to think about how much there is.

Tubby and Spanky hanging out in the study. Doesn’t it look like we interrupted a drug deal?

Man. Dave Thomas (of Wendy’s, not Dave Thomas the actor) died. That really kinda sucks.

I’m headed off to Target here in a few minutes – I have a long list of stuff I need to pick up, from kitty litter to a new cordless phone for the upstairs (how did people walk around while talking on the phone before cordless phones were invented? Longer cords, I guess).

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I just got back from Target. The bastards were out of the phone I wanted, so that was no good. I want one like the one I have on my desk, because it has caller id built into the phone itself. You know what freaks me out? When the phone rings, Fred will just PICK UP THE PHONE AND ANSWER IT. Isn’t that freaky? I could never imagine just answering it like that, instead of checking out the caller id first. And if it’s anyone other than my parents, my sister, or my friend Liz (or Fred from work, during the week), I don’t answer it. Why would I answer it if it’s not for me?

Speaking of phones, I was sitting in the Wendy’s driveup this afternoon in the middle of giving my lunch order when the cellphone rang. It was Fred – no one else calls me on the cellphone – using his deductive powers for evil once again. The man somehow just KNOWS the least convenient time to call me – when I’m in the bathroom, when I’m in the checkout line at Wal-Mart, when I’m in the driveup at Wendy’s – and calls then. I don’t know how he does it. Some kind of husbandly intuition, I s’pose.

Speaking of phones, my friend Liz keeps calling and emailing to ask if I’ve gotten "anything" from her today. I suspect she’s sending me flowers for my birthday, because I sent her flowers for hers. She’s 10 days older than I am, and she wanted a certain baseball cap – something about some Arizona baseball team; I don’t retain anything regarding sports, thank you – and they let me know that the order was backordered, and I wanted her to get something on her birthday from me, so I sent flowers. I love sending flowers. I’m a flower-sending fool.

At Target, I purchased a 31-pound container of Tidy Cat (or was it Fresh Step?) – we have 5 cats, you know, so we go through the litter like you wouldn’t believe, even though a certain little bastard makes it a point to poo BY the litter box instead of IN it. The tiny, skinny little cashier tried to lift the container over the scanner and almost fell over, so I had to help.

Me strong. ::grunt::

Someone out there sent me a copy of The Man who Cast Two Shadows, which was on my wish list. Thank you, and if you’d email me, I’d like to thank you properly.

Okay, that’s it for today. Tomorrow? My birthday! Can you stand the excitement, can you?!

 

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So, we watched two movies this weekend. Actually, I watched two movies this weekend – Fred and the spud have a tradition of watching of watching movies every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel these days. The first movie I watched was on Saturday – with Fred and the spud – was The Fast and the Furious. Fred was SO looking forward to seeing it, because he loves Vin Diesel.

What a piece of crap. I ended up reading through most of it, only looking up once or twice, most especially when Vin took his shirt off.

The other movie, which Fred and I watched on Saturday night, was The Glass House. I figured we’d watch about ten minutes of it, get bored, and turn it off. Leelee Sobieski kind of annoys me sometimes and I didn’t expect to like the movie, but it surprised me. It was really pretty good, and had me on the edge of my seat several times. Stellan Skarsgard and Diane Lane were both believably creepy. Two thumbs up!

Fred and I were watching the beginning of the movie – Fred was reading a book and glanced up from time to time at first, and then ended up putting the book down. Anyway, after the funeral – I don’t think I’m giving away any plot points with that – Fred glanced up and misunderstood what he saw.

"She’s not with HIM," I said in response. "She’s HER friend!" And then –

Before I go on, let me break here for a moment and ask – do you ever mean to type one thing and type another? I’ll be responding to email, or writing an entry, and though I’ll intend to type "will", my fingers will go off on their own and decide to type "while" or "wary", or some other word – maybe "can’t". In other words, what ends up there is a word that I didn’t intend to type, wasn’t even thinking of typing, but it got typed anyway. (Probably dozens of you out there who’ve gotten emails from me are thinking to yourselves "Oh THAT’S why her email didn’t make any sense! – not only do I tend to type the wrong word, I also often don’t go back and re-read what I’ve typed before I send the mail).

And that’s what my brain did. I said, "She’s not with HIM. She’s HER friend!" Pause. And I opened my mouth to affectionately say "You dumbass!"

I often call my husband a dumbass, and don’t email me and tell me how I don’t deserve such a wonderful guy when I abuse him like that, because he knows it’s a term of affection. When it’s aimed toward him, anyway.

Only, of SAYING "You dumbass!", my mouth went off on it’s own, and what came out was "Ya fuckin’ idiot!"

As soon as it came out of my mouth, my jaw dropped open.

"Oh my GOD!" I said, both horrified and laughing.

I have NEVER called my husband a fucking idiot. Because he’s not. (Except when he leaves his clothes laying on top of every piece of furniture in our bedroom. And even then I don’t call him an idiot to his face. That would be rude, and I think we can agree that I’m all about the politeness.)

I apologized more than once, but I think he was secretly glad it happened, because it gave him something to give me a hard time about all weekend long.

The fucking idiot.

Hee! Oh, I slay me!

Since I’m giving Fred a hard time today, I’ll mention a little story that happened last weekend. We were taking down the Christmas cards – well, Fred was – and he yanked one end of the ribbon (that the cards were hanging on) out of the wall, and the tack that had been holding it in place went flying over into the living room.

"That’s okay," he said to the spud, "Your Mom will find it. Maybe with her ass." And then he giggled.

The next morning, he came in the room and woke me up.

"Have you been sitting on the couch and cross-stitching?" he asked.

I thought about it. "No, I always sit on the love seat. Why?"

And he held up a needle. Which he’d found in the couch cushion.

With his ass.

I heard the whip-like sound of the Karmic Boomerang on that one.

Man. I cleaned out the cd holder between the front seats in my Jeep this afternoon, and there must have been 300 pieces of chewed gum wrapped up in wrappers in there. I’m one gum-chewing fool. It was nasty. My directions to Atlanta for the 3Day were still in there. There were 7 half-full Diet Coke bottles in the floor of the back seat.

A clean freak I am not.

How are those Bitchypoo Altars o’ Worship coming? Two days! Mmm… birthday cake! (See? I almost typed "Bitchy cake" there! My fingers have a mind of their own!)

Oh – I almost forgot! I finally got the Virtual Tour of the new house put up. To see it, find the link on the sidebar.

 

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Friday Five:

1. You’ve just won a complete collection of movies starring one actor – what actor would you pick? Meg Ryan, probably. (As a side note, when we were watching Moulin Rouge, Fred pointed out how much Nicole Kidman looks like Meg Ryan, and it’s true! For the rest of the movie, I couldn’t see Nicole Kidman without seeing her striking resemblance to Meg Ryan)

2. What was the last movie you saw in a theater? I think it was America’s Sweethearts, when my Mom was here in August – she, the spud and I went to see it. I rarely go out to see movies, obviously. Perhaps once the spud’s back in school and there are no out-of-school kids to pack the theaters, I’ll see about going to see the occasional matinee during the week.

3. What was the last video or DVD that you bought? Moulin Rouge, two days before Christmas, because Fred loved it that much.

4. What movie could you watch over and over again and not get sick of? When Harry Met Sally.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Waiting for it to be Monday, so I can weigh in, take pictures, and take measurements. My 12-week Body for Life challenge is almost over. Weee!

It’s that time of year again, y’all. That’s right, time to nominate entries for Diarist Awards. Remember as you read through these – I’m sure I read more entries than these that deserve to be nominated, but it has to occur to me to add them to my "Diarist Awards" bookmarks folder, and very often life intervenes and I forget. So this list is never by any means a complete one.

Love LOVE this entry by Elizabeth, in Abeyance. I can completely relate, especially given that I just a week ago was able to fit into a pair of 18/20 pants, which is a size I haven’t seen in forever and a day.

Jessamyn‘s entry about her relationship with her body, about feeling uncomfortable with herself, is yet another one I can relate to – and I think that most women can.

Renee‘s entry written from her husband’s point of view was awesome.

Nicole‘s rant about book snobs had me saying "AMEN SISTER!" I always feel like a lowbrow idiot for reading the best-sellers and mystery novels, but fuck those book snobs. And fuck Jonathan Franzen as well.

Okay, that’s it for this time around. I was apparently very sparing with the control-b this quarter – maybe because of the whole Thanksgiving/ Christmas rush, I don’t know.

If you have a journal, go nominate someone – you have until the 15th!

Have a good weekend, y’all. 5 more days until my birthday! Woohoo!

 

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Man, I’ve been meaning to say this for the past few days, but congratulations to Melissa and Jessamyn, who both got engaged over the holidays. Congratulations, you two – I can’t wait to hear every detail of the wedding preparations and the wedding itself!

Why, that’s almost as exciting as the fact that my birthday’s in less than a week!

Heh.

Why on earth can’t I find anyone on Kazaa who has Tori’s Silent All These Years?

See? I listen to cool stuff, not just Olivia Newton-John.

Oh, shaddup.

I got gift certificates to Land’s End from my parents and my grandmother for my birthday, and I have no idea what I want to use them for. A sweater? A nightgown? Slippers? No, not slippers, the ones I bought last year are just fine. The best thing about gift certificates is not what you can buy with them, but the anticipation of buying stuff with them… If that makes any sense.

Well. I guess I won’t buy a nightgown, because Land’s Fucking End has decided to no longer offer their long-sleeved nightgowns, and the sleeves on the short-sleeved ones show the annoying flabby spot directly above my elbow WHICH I HATE, and even though no one but Fred and the spud see me in my nightgown, I can see that floopy flabby spot when I look down and I don’t like it.

Damnit.

Survivor‘s tonight! Woohoo! And I read in next week’s TV Guide that next week is the last show. Can that be so? Damn! What the hell am I going to watch on Thursday nights?

Oh yeah – Friends! Duh. Have y’all seen the commercials making it look like Rachel and Joey are going to get together? Those two would make some fine-looking babies…

Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with the Friday Five, and my Diarist Award suggestions.

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One more week until the

Biggest!

Event!

Of the year!

My birthday!!!

("Damn, Robyn sure is impressed with herself, isn’t she?")

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So yeah, the site has a whole new look and organization – that’s what I spent all that time off last week doing, going through every single entry and checking links and fixing stuff, and excitingly thrilling stuff like that. I had a lot of fun creating my 404 page (GOD I love that picture of the spud – she was mad because I was taking her picture instead of getting her out of the crib) and my OldLink page. When I was checking the links in my entries, I linked anything that was no longer around to the OldLink page, so that’s what that’s all about.

If you’re on the notify list, you probably didn’t realize the site has a whole new look – check out the front page.

Being a big ol’ copycat (well, except she didn’t KNOW she was being a copycat), Lis redesigned her site as well, and it looks great. God, I love the scaredy mug. You’ve gotta check out the photo gallery and the thrift gallery and the – oh, just check it all out! But don’t forget to come back…

Also being a copycat was Jolene, who gets special points for putting me right there in her personal "Top Five" category.

There were other redesigns, I’m sure – I guess the idea of a new year makes people want to start with a fresh new look – but I’m woefully behind in my journal reading and haven’t gotten around to seeing them yet.

Another thing I did when I wasn’t toiling away on reorganizing the site was read – I read a book a day most days last week. I also came to the conclusion that I don’t care for Faye or Jonathan Kellerman anymore. I used to love them both to death, but I was so bored with Stalker that it was all I could do to finish it, and when I tried reading Dr. Death, directly after I finished Stalker, I got about 30 pages in before I put the book down and had a serious discussion with myself.

"Self," I said sternly. "Life is TOO FUCKING SHORT to waste time reading books that bore the shit out of you!" And so I took Dr. Death, and I took The Forgotten and Flesh and Blood, and I put them downstairs on top of the pile of books I’m sending my sister, and if she finds them as brain-numbing as I did, she can pass them on to some other poor sucker and so on until they land in the lap of someone who’ll love and appreciate them. It’s a little sad saying goodbye to the Kellermans, because I’ve read every one of their books until now, and I don’t know whether I’ve outgrown them or they’re truly gotten suckier, but damn. I just couldn’t take it anymore. When you’re looking at your bookcase of books you haven’t read yet, and your eyes lights upon one of them, and you get kind of a sinking feeling in your stomach at the thought of reading it, you should probably just take it off the shelf, don’tchathink?

Currently, I’m reading A Painted House, and enjoying it a great deal. I also highly recommend Compromising Positions, which I had never read and bought because the book clubs were hyping the fact that Susan Isaacs just wrote a sequel to it, which I’ll probably read after A Painted House.

The week before Christmas, I went out and rented Moulin Rouge on dvd, because, well, I wanted to see it. I had to drag Fred to the couch kicking and screaming – well, practically – and he ended up liking it even more than I did. In fact, we had to watch the Elephant Love Medley three or four times, and then the next day, on the way home from his mom’s, we stopped at Wal-Mart so he could buy it. And it was two days before Christmas and Fred hates crowds, so you know he liked it an awful lot.

Oh, here’s a funny story. When Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman were in her room, and he started saying the words to "Your Song", I turned to Fred and said excitedly "That’s "Your Song"!" He listened and shrugged.

"Are you sure? I don’t recognize it…"

"Your Song! Your Song! You MUST know it!" I said.

He shook his head. "Nope, doesn’t sound familiar."

‘Round these parts, when a song comes on that one of us likes, we have the tendency to say "Oh, it’s your song!" And he thought I was referring to a song he liked, rather than the title of the song.

Hee!

Okay, I guess you had to be there.

I was blown away by both Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor’s voices – I had no idea they could sing so well. Of course, my favorite song is "Come What May", because it’s such a pretty song, but all the music in the movie was awesome. That Satine sure had some lung power for someone suffering from the Consumption, didn’t she?

Speaking of music, not only did I spend last week reorganizing the site and reading, but I also spent many hours on Kazaa downloading and listening to mp3s. I was particularly frustrated by the fact that no one seemed to have Olivia Newton-John’s "Changes" (you just shut up. There’s no shame in loving Livvy), but I found it this morning. Whew!

I believe I’ll go snooze on the couch and burn my current favorite candle until Fred gets home. See y’all tomorrow, same bitchy time, same bitchy place.

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That’s right, y’all, it’s January 1st, and if you’ve been reading for the past year, you know what that means.

It’s the month of my birth. Oh, yes. 8 big, bright days until I turn (gulp!) 34! You may begin building your altar of Bitchypoo worship now, so you’ll be done by the Big Day.

Did everyone celebrate New Year’s Eve safely? I hope so. Myself, I sent Fred off to bed around 10 and read until 11:30, and was sound asleep by the time midnight rolled around.

Party animals, we are.

To kick off the new year, I have pictures to share.

After I got all the other Christmas cards hung up in the kitchen and living room, I got an entire assload more of them, so I hung them in the hallway between the foyer and kitchen. In all, I received 115 cards, and considering that I sent out almost 200, that’s pretty damn good, in my opinion.

Miz Poo, bathing in the sun.

I spent more than two hours yesterday cleaning the upstairs – y’see, when you haven’t done any real cleaning in something like a month, it takes a lot longer to clean than if you did it on a regular basis – and taking pictures for the virtual tour of the new house. I’m hoping to get pictures of the downstairs done tomorrow, and the virtual tour done either this weekend or sometime next week.

Everything I do, I do it for youuuuuuu.

If you don’t read the diet journal, you missed this in yesterday’s entry, so I’m going to cut and paste so that you won’t miss out.

Before I go, I have to share with you a perfect illustration of how much Fred has changed since undergoing the whole eating-right-and-exercising thing. I was flipping channels, because of COURSE there was nothing good on, and I happened across American Beauty, which was in it’s last half hour. I left it there, because it was the best thing I’d seen so far in my channel-flipping.

Soon enough, the scene where Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari were making out came on, and Kevin undid Mena’s blouse, and she laid there in all her perfectly-toned, unsaggy-breasted glory, and I glanced over at Fred, whose eyes were glued to the screen, his mouth hanging open, and I mentally rolled my eyes and thought Men!

Fred turned to me. “She’s got some pretty good lines on those abs!” he said.

Mena Suvari was laying there half-nekkid, and Fred was checking out her abs.

My husband, the perv.

Time for…

Friday Five:

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year? Training for and completing one day of the 3Day. I’m not done with the 3Day, oh no – I’m going to go back in 2003 and kick it’s ass.

2. What was your biggest disappointment? Twisting my ankle after finishing only one day of the 3Day, after I spent so many months training to do all three days.

3. Will you be making any New Year’s resolutions? Well, of course. Not that I really kept up last year’s resolutions, but it’s always a fun exercise. My resolutions for this year are: 1. To floss every day. 2. To use facial moisturizer every day in hopes of staving off those lines that are beginning to form on my forehead (and also to build a time machine, so I can go back and kick Young Robyn’s ass for not using facial moisturizer all along). 3. To answer email in a timely fashion (this one’s just begging to be broken)

4. Where do you wish you were celebrating? Someplace warm. Hawaii, the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, any of those will do. In a perfect world, I’ll win $45 gazillion in the lottery this year, and bring all my favorite people along with me next New Year’s Eve. Imagine the blow-out we could have!

5. What do you plan to do for New Year’s Eve? What I planned and what I did were the exact same thing – to read until 11 or so, and probably be asleep before midnight. Y’all know you’re jealous of my exciting life!

 

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As 2001 comes to a close, all I can think is, What if I hadn’t given up after two days? What if I’d stuck to it like Fred did? I could have lost 100 pounds or more by now…

How was I supposed to know that this time it was for real, for him? That he wouldn’t give up after a day or two like he always did – we always did?

Now he looks incredible, and I’m a fat fucking blob. I think I’ve gained weight, even, but I’m too afraid to get on the scale, because deep down, I don’t want to know the truth, not really.

Sometimes I see how he looks and feels, and I yearn to feel like that, to be able to walk upstairs and not gasp for breath for ten minutes afterward, to be able to shop at normal stores, to wear sizes that aren’t the absolute hugest sizes out there. To wear something pretty instead of oversized t-shirts and stretchy pants. But at the same time I resent and am jealous of him. It seems so easy for him, and I’ve heard his earnest "It is easy, Bessie. You just have to think differently" ten thousand times, and I don’t get it, I don’t understand, I don’t know how to make that happen. How is it that so many people online can draw so much motivation from him, and yet it all goes right the fuck over my head?

All he can talk about is exercising and eating right, and this weight-lifting program or that one, and every time he starts talking about how he thinks he’ll try lifting weights this way, or that he ran longer than he ever has before, I feel like he’s going somewhere I can’t be, and he’s leaving me behind, and I start to withdraw. I know that’s not good, I know it’s not good for our relationship – or our friendship – but I’m helpless to stop. I feel sometimes like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, and one day he’s going to look at me and realize how much better he can do, that he deserves a woman who can keep up with him, who won’t sit, a lump of fat, on the couch and read or watch TV, who can actually walk as fast as he can, and he’s going to push me over the cliff and walk away without looking back.

I can’t bring myself to eat junk food in front of him, and so I’ve started hiding Little Debbies and candy bars from him – he never looks in the back of my desk drawer, and so that’s where I keep it all. And I eat and eat and eat while he’s off exercising or taking a bath or gone to sleep, and I feel so fucking guilty, like I’m cheating on him or something.

I’ve started and stopped at least ten diets since last June, and when I talk about starting, he gets so excited and offers to help, and then when I go off my diet after a few days, though he’d never admit it, he’s disappointed as hell, and I just can’t stand seeing that accepting, loving, disappointed look on his face. How can he keep believing that I can ever do what he’s done? And yet, every time I start talking about it, he’s completely there, totally believing that I’ll do it, that this will be the time, that in a year I’ll look like a completely different person.

We went to his parents’ house on Christmas Eve, and his sister and stepsister made a fuss over him, about how good he looks, and their eyes just slid past me like I don’t exist.

I feel like I don’t.

I’m so tired of feeling like this, both physically and emotionally, I just can’t take it anymore. This is it – I have to do this, I have to lose the weight, for myself more than anything. I’m tired of being fat and tired. I have to do it for real this time, I have no choice. There’s no turning back – my life and my marriage depend on it.

I’m going to start January 2nd.

This was written for the December collab. December’s topic was the “sliding doors” premise – inspired by SecraTerri’s September 19th entry. I chose to write this entry as though I had given up on losing weight after only a few days, instead of sticking to it. Which I didn’t, as my 120+ pound weight loss (so far) shows. To clarify: this entry was written as though I had NOT spent the last 18 months working out and eating right. Which I did. —– ]]>