That's My Bix!

Last night, I told Esteban about the whole Unclebob thing and I think he’s getting a little jealous. Also, he was disturbed that I’m calling him the Burgermeister. He wanted you all to know that he’s not the Burgermeister. Then he gave me this whole performance anxiety about the diary, talking about page hits, unique users, and stuff.

He is SO the Burgermeister.

We watched “The Emperor’s New Groove” last night. Then Esteban called me a DVD whore, which I am, I guess. Since our DVD player purchase, I have gained “Gladiator”, “Amadeus” and “LA Confidential” in DVD form. And that’s not counting “Bring It On”, which I purchased before we had a player. But I wear the badge of “DVD Whore” with honor, thank you very much, if it means more highly-defined Russell Crowe on our television screen.

I think I talk about Russell Crowe too much. People are going to start thinking that there’s a thing between us. And I wouldn’t want that whole Meg Ryan thing going on again. He was very hunted by the stalkerazzi over that shenanigans. Russell’s very sensitive. He’s an innocent soul trapped in a big hunk of salty goodness.

Hmmmmm.

What was I talking about again?

Oh yes, “Emperor’s New Groove”, which is about David Spade being turned into a llama and then John Goodman befriends him. And I say David Spade and John Goodman, because apparently the animators decided that they liked the actors so much they’d just use their body styles to create all the characters. So for the John Goodman guy, they made him a large gentle giant with a heart of gold and gave him a tan. For the David Spade Emperor, they drew a little uptight skinny runty guy a black wig and “Shake and Bake” tan. Big stretch, huh? Eartha Kitt looked like Eartha Kitt, without the tan. She even got turned into a kitty cat at the end which is most certainly a shout-out to her stint as Cat Woman on “Batman”. Her sidekick guy was voiced by the guy who was Puddy on Seinfeld. And you know what? He was Puddy from Seinfeld, in cartoon form. So tell me this: why the heck didn’t they just put a lot of bronzer on all the actors and just film a regular movie? I mean, the Genie from Alladin didn’t look like Robin Williams. Was he hairy? No. Was he short and swarthy? No. He had Robin’s weird nose and that was about it. However, I’m very thrilled with any excuse to have Eartha Kitt do her weird wiggy thing, so I shouldn’t complain.

I’m the only adult I know who not only owns ToyStory and Little Mermaid, but I have the Aladdin and the Little Mermaid soundtrack living permanently in my car’s CD player. Esteban and I saw ToyStory at the movie theatre three times. We saw The Lion King three times. At the theatre.

My husband and I are like 12-year-olds who like to have sex. And The Mouse is our cocaine dealer.

And it pissed me off to no end that the Disney Store doesn’t make Ariel “Princess” t-shirts in 3X. ‘Cause then I’d be the coolest 30-year-old seventh grader on the block.

Wait. I already am.

And it bothers me that I’ve so bought into the whole Disney coolness that Eisner is trying to shove down our throats. Because the world is not like that. Sometimes the guy’s villiage gets blown over for a swimming pool and the adorable but spunky poor kid just ends up bitter and alone, regretting his honest ways. Simba would have eaten that meerkat and warthog without even a second thought.

Today, my friend Fern took me to Tony Roma’s rib joint for lunch. Feeling oddly lulled by the bucolic scenes on the drive over, I had ribs for lunch.

Folks, ribs are best eaten naked. In the bathtub. Definately not for lunch when one is wearing a white shirt and when one needs to go back to work afterwards. One might look as though one gave Chef Boy-Ar-Dee a blow job.

I’m not saying *I* looked like that, mind you. Just saying that one might.

Man, this is one subpar entry today. Maybe I’ve jumped the shark.

Damned Burgermeister and his performance anxiety.

Ok, first a clarification, Monitor remembers Alice having her own bathroom off her bedroom by the laundry room. And then I recalled an episode which had Mr. Brady brushing his teeth while talking with Carol, who was reading in bed. Thus, a third bathroom in the Brady household. I shall doubt Mike’s credibility as an architect no longer.

A new sign of aging noticed today. Actually, I have been noticing this over the last few months. I am developing Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve been losing the ability to spell. Homonyms are constantly being swapped (“won” instead of “one”, “hear” instead of “here”). And it’s not typos or feeble fingers, as I type all day at work. I think I disrupted the Brocha’s Area of my brain somewhere along the line. See, all those times hitting the headboard with my head… I knew it would catch up to me. And the brain cells I lost during my high school years. This is all the fault of the boyfriend I had when I was 17. He is singularly responsible for billions of my brain cells lost. It’s a wonder I can function whatsoever. So when you see things mispelled in this here diary, please say a silent prayer for my disabled synapses and hope that I don’t wander into traffic someday.

Also, not two seconds ago, someone came by and said “We have a meeting?” and I looked all flustered and said “Meeting?” and they said “It is 8 o’clock, isn’t it?”, so I gathered up my stuff and wandered back to the VP’s office. And guess what. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Nope. Not at all. And I blushed and made a lame excuse about getting old and then wandered back to my desk. But you know what? I seriously thought I had forgotten a meeting and I was just FAKING it. Now my rosacea’s all flared up and I can feel a pustule forming, I just know it. I’m going to be a W.C. Field’s-looking, disoriented freak, I tell you!

The new issue of “Grogan’s” hits the newstands within days. If you like Fantasy Football, or even if you don’t, feel free to pick up an issue for your reading enjoyment. And when I say enjoyment, I mean “sex” because it’s filled with sex and lusty women. Well, one lusty woman, at least. Ok, it’s really a lusty man named Frank. And actually, he doesn’t feel all that lusty, but with modern medicine being what it is, he’s feeling quite optimistic. But it’s a good read nonetheless. And it’s got my article in it about breaking gender stereotypes. Me and Gloria Steinem, baby. We’re like sistahs.

And here’s a hip tip for you: elsewhere in the issue, there is an interview with a resident of Green Bay named Lola. I can’t ethically reveal who Lola is, but let me tell you one thing: occaisionally I like to dance the marenge with yellow feathers in my hair and a dress cut down to there. That’s all you’re getting.

My, doesn’t that bring up the mental picture?

Planning continues for Birthday Spectacular’ party to bring Birthweek 30 to a close. It’s this Saturday at Esteban’s parent’s house. I guess it will be a bigger thang than I originally realized. They’re renting tables. Tables! Such extravagance. I’m not sure about the chair situation. I’m not involved…. I just invite.

And speaking of invitations, if you are interested in hanging out Saturday with the Weetabix cast and crew in scenic Green Bay, Wisconsin, send me an email and I’ll get you directions. No stalkers, though, please. Esteban would not be amused.

I recently discovered that a feather duster is considered a sex toy by some people. A sex toy.

Personally, I can think of nothing that would turn me on more than having a man dust my house. Really.

Whoooo. I get steamy just thinking about it.

UNCLEBOB favorited me!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god.

What a day this has been already and it is not even 10 AM.

I feel like I’ve been touched by greatness. Like those women who, when they met Elvis, fainted. I’d always suspected it was because the Kahng had peanut-butter-and-bacon-sandwich breath, but now I know. Because Unclebob….

I can’t even finish that sentence. I’m just too overwhelmed!

I think I have the vapors. I don’t know what the vapors are, exactly. I’ve never had them before. Maybe it’s an “30 and Over” thing.

Esteban was not as excited as I was, however. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he was awakened this morning by me jumping on the bed yelling “Unclebob! Unclebob!”. He’s pretty accustomed to me shrieking the names of other men in the bedroom, but usually it’s “Russell Crowe!” or sometimes even “Dan Rather”. Rarely an uncle, so I think he was confused.

Anyway, WOOHOO! Unclebob!

And the other cool thing this morning is that I got a lovely birthday email from Monitor who has assured me that being thirty kicks ass.

So far, she is so right.

I should turn 30 every year. In fact, I think I will.

Sorry for the whacked diary entry today. Unclebob has me all a-flutter.

Today at work they are working on the big space next to our department. Actually, they’ve been doing this for over a month, hammering, pounding, sawing, bumping, grinding, pole-dancing and what have you. And you KNOW how much I hate drilling. It makes me insane. Voices, the voices! Kill the dentist! KILL the dentist!…Um,…anyway….we’ve got loads of construction workers about six feet away from my desk. And the radio. Do you realize what kind of things construction workers like to listen to on the radio? Let’s just say this… much to my chagrin, Esteban enjoys listening to Jim Rome. And let’s also get this out of the way: I am astonished that Jim Rome has a JOB, much less a broadcasting license. The man talks like a frat boy given an AM radio talk show. And he revels in saying “AAAAAASSSSS” just like that. AAAAAAASSSSS. And now Esteban has begun imitating him because imitation is the sincerest form of dorkiness. So not only do I have to put up with Esteban saying AAAAAASSSSSS like Jim Rome, or Romey as the Rome-followers call him… like he was a drinking buddy or something…. but I also have to deal with Esteban trying to listen to the Rome Show on the rare occaisions when we are both home during the week. I say ‘trying’ because I have laid the smack down on Jim Rome. There is a moratorium on slack-jawed, egotistical bastards at the Weetabix household. One per home, please. No, I didn’t mean that. Esteban does not have a slack jaw. He had braces for six months.

Anyway, the construction workers LIKE Jim Rome. And we get to listen to him at work at MIND-ALTERING VOLUMES. Because they have to be able to hear every gutteral tone of ‘AAAAASSSSSS’ over the sounds of drilling, hammering, and sawing.

Grrrrr.

But that’s not the really bothersome thing today. Today, it is roughly 85 degrees and we had some mofo thunderstorms and rain last night. When you live near water, that translates to some heavy humidity. And due to the fact that the construction workers are traipsing in and out of the area, the pathetic climate control in our area cannot keep up with the heat.

Thus, I am currently working in the Amazon jungle of Tech Support. And it smells like a strange combination of the banana that my coworker is eating, and armpit.

That and the construction workers have been asked to turn off Jim Rome and they are now whistling “The Battle of New Orleans”, which, in case you are not total white trash and were not subjected to honky tonk music in your youth, goes something like this “Well In 1814 we took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans. Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go. They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em on down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.”

I am not making this up.

Someone shoot me in the head with a squirrel gun, please.

Editing this to add that tomorrow’s my birthday and Unclebob has not yet “favorited” me yet. Nor sent me an email.

Do you think he’s saving it for tomorrow for a surprise?

It could happen.

I was emailing Tess about reclaiming the “Fat Girl” and the word “Fat” and I thought I’d do an entry about it. I realize that I’ve alluded to being fat in previous entries, but here’s the whole shebang. An obligatory entry from a female diarist about her relationship with food, if you will.

I’ve thought of myself as overweight my whole life. When I was five, I remember my step-father poking me in the stomach and telling me that I needed to diet. I proceeded to gain weight from that point on. When I was 12, I remember that my aunt was talking about having a picture of me when I was “skinny” and I remember being clueless and desparately wanting to see the picture. When could that have happened that I didn’t notice being skinny? I thought. Then I finally saw the picture. My sixth birthday party. And I remember that day very well because my step-father didn’t want me to eat the cake because he put me on a diet. And I remember taking my birthday cake at the birthday party and going out to the garage to eat it, where he couldn’t see me.

Skip forward several years. I tried a big diet plan, lost 30 pounds, got anorexic (yes, people who weigh more than 200 pounds CAN be anorexic… it means that you’re not eating enough because you think your body is unnacceptable). I remember decreasing my food intake further and further. One day I ate four pieces of wheat toast and an apple. The morning after that, I fainted in the shower and crashed naked and wet through a glass shower door. Ok, that was enough of THAT shit.

For awhile, I was trying to conquer my whole obsession with food. I read a couple of books on the subject and they all said “Try to eat like you did when you were a child”. Um. Ok. But I don’t think I really want my wicked former Step-Father at my house threatening to beat the shit out of me if I don’t eat everything on my plate, ok?

So I think what they were trying to say is “Eat like a child would, a child who is not being threatened by a short-dicked, overly agressive scary stupid man.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I tried this for a couple of years. The principle is that if you want to eat something, you eat it. If you’re not hungry, you don’t eat. Even if it’s dinner time, even if you’re at a wedding or Christmas at the in-laws or what have you. And you carry little baggies of food around with you, in case you should get hungry when you are at a place where you can’t eat. And I did this. And I gained 60 pounds.

So I stopped doing that and went on a diet and lost 20 pounds and then gained 40 pounds (for those English majors out there, that leaves me 80 pounds heavier than when I started). Because everyone knows that diets don’t work and have a 99.98% failure rate. Just look at Oprah. Girl’s got a private chef, a private trainer and the thighs just don’t want to give up their winter storage, even though it’s 95 degrees outside.

And then I realized something. I was a happy kid and everyone ELSE started telling me that how I looked was unacceptable. And I wasn’t unnacceptable. They were. They were unacceptable in how they treated me. Fuckers.

And so now I’ve unconsciously started eating like a child. For instance, the whole McDonald’s incident is a sign of that. I went to Taco Hell yesterday for lunch and then I ate seven Oreos for dinner with a glass of milk. Now, normally, I’d WANT to eat the Oreos but my mother’s voice in my head would say “That is NOT a proper meal for dinner. Eat something reasonable!” so I’d go and eat a regular thing, like a piece of lasagne or whatever. And then I wouldn’t be satisfied, so I’d make a peanut butter & banana sandwich and a glass of milk. And then I’d still want the Oreos, so then I’d have the Oreos as a snack and feel like shyte because I’d eaten way too much and that was pretty much just a binge, so then I might eat a few more Oreos to try to feel better.

But it’s just food. Once it’s out of your mouth and down your gullet, it’s done. It’s like the biggest waste of emotion there is. It’s a ripoff. So why give it that much power? Just eat the goddamn Oreos and be done with it.

So last night, as I was lying in bed, I recapped what I had eaten that day (still can’t break myself of that habit). Bowl of healthy cereal, two tacos and a mexican pizza, and Oreos and a glass of milk. And I wasn’t hungry at all. It didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t actually eaten a real dinner until I did the inventory. And I didn’t miss it, either.

I am so bloody sick with this cultural ideal of the skinny beautiful chick. There are beautiful fat chicks too. Enough people don’t realize this. For instance, Star Jones is beautiful. So is my hairdresser, Staci. Gorgeous.

So stop seeing fat girls and just see them as girls, ok? That’s your assignment for the week.

And the next time you look in the mirror and think “Oh God I am so fat!” add “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” which sounds really stupid, but it works. And maybe eventually you’ll stop automatically thinking that when you look in the mirror. Life is too short to go around hating how you look. It’s just how you look. Just like there’s thin people, there’s also fat people and people with green hair, blue eyes, birthmarks on their butts, and scary amounts of back hair.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This is not to say that I’m all Fat!So? or Fat Activist. You certainly won’t be seeing my bod on the beach wearing a thong bikini. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, I’m not living with the “ashamed to be seen” mindset that so many girls have.

It’s just how you look. Eventually, we’re all going to have grey hair, wrinkly skin, hunched Quasimodo backs and hair coming out of our ears. And then all we’re going to really have is to look back at when we were young and wish we would have done a little less hiding and self-hate and more living and being young. It’s like that graduation speech which was falsely attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. You’re going to look back and not believe that you looked so good.

You know, I think this is the Birthweek talking.

Edited to add that I almost deleted this entry because I felt like it was whiny, but then Amandabean left a loverly poignant message in the guestbook and I changed my mind and I’m keeping it up. If you’d like to see a 19-year-old Weetabix’s perspective on the subject, you can check it out here.

By the way, if you list amandabean as one of your favorite diarists, she’s offered to show you her breasts. Just letting you know.