Butterbabe

Artomatic 411

2011-04-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

I was part of a performance at Artomatic 411 this weekend. It was called Two Rebeccas: Endless Waiting. I'm posting highlights for peeps who have interest and for everyone who couldn't make it.

Into: Tribute to John Swaile.

John was a friend. A lovely man, a great poet and very cool. I read his poem, Nothing as Wonderful; Becca (Rebecca V. Wood) read her poem, Before the Viewing.

Nothing as Wonderful
by John Swaile

There's nothing as wonderful as waking up to the sound of rain,
or lying down next to a boy or girl who loves you.

That's what this poem is about.

Love and life and everything that comes in between.
And while there's nothing as wonderful as waking up,
or playing an instrument,
or reading a book,
or going outside and watching the sunset while sitting next to a boy or girl who loves you,
don't waste time or breath.

Do what you love to do now,
because later, there's nothing.
And as wonderful as waking up may be,
maybe it's better to make love,
or eat,
or listen to Charlie Parker
while sitting next to a boy or girl who loves you.

Don't expect to touch the sky with both hands,
and don't expect answers.
Just remember that's there's nothing as wonderful
as waking up next to a boy or girl who loves you.

Next, was a section about an ex I had (I call him "Morgan" in the essay) and about a poem Becca wrote that reminded me of him. I'm posting her poem, but not the ex essay. There are reasons.

The Ugly Man with no Pants
by Rebecca V. Wood

Your face is a mud-rutted vacant lot, strewn with old beer cans, broken glass,
Fast-food wrappers, and someone's discarded roadkill hair-weave,
Ripe for an onslaught of do-gooding earth children willing to take a chance
On stray bullets and lead dust strafing their tomato plants.

I have explained to my mother that after thirty-five, the dating pool
Is largely made up of two-and-three-time losers, assorted damaged goods,
And something even worse; The suspiciously mint-condition
Middle-aged single, all of whom are -furthermore -
Probably thinking the same thing about you.

And c'mon; Can you really make an air-tight case to the contrary?
I mean, are you really sure that you just accidentally married a bad man
And stayed with him for thirty-four years?
Are the bad genes really all on his side?
I've met Grandpa and Grandma remember, and God help us if they're our good half.

The more you fuck up, the more rules you come up with
That the rest of us have to follow, that will make our lives one long
Better Homes and Gardens photo-spread;
Don't wear earth tones, the make you look washed-out,
Don't make tea in luke-warm tap water, it won't brew,
Don't use check-cashing stores, they rip you off,
Don't heat things up in plastic containers, they give you cancer,
And for God's sake, never, ever put anything in the microwave
Not specifically labeled "micro-wave safe",
Or you'll be out a dollar's worth of soup & plastic,
And have to commit hari-kari for the shame and horror of it all!

Don't dream big or get excited about things,
Or you'll bring on disaster,
Never date more than two years above or below your age,
Avoid the broken ones, and under no circumstances admit that you
Are one of them.

Don't make mistakes, or your life will instantly transform
Into a permanent and irreversible Greek Tragedy; Don't ask me how, but things
Willl somehow get worse.
Commit suicide slowly through inaction,
Because anything you want to do is wrong, and you should aim to be
A meek and tidy, well-maintained mental patient
That I can be less ashamed of, oh my God, could anyone who sees me
As just a piece of ass be worse than this?

Come here and give me some hep-C and a cour-date, baby!
I need to do something to earn the punishment for once.
I need for somebody to see me.

Next, I did a tribute to Becca and her colorful stories. I am redacting some identifying names.

Wood Pussies
be Rebeca Golden

Ever hear the term "wood pussy?" It sounds like a masturbation aid popular amongst the Amish. Or maybe a good name for an all-lady death metal band. Woods and pussies are not similar. None of the Woods I know or have heard tell of are pussies in the anti-woman, boys locker room sense of the word. Nor are they skunks -- that's a real wood pussy, in fact. My friend, Rebecca Vivienne Wood (aka, Becca), comes from a long line of crazy, backwoods thieves, pimps and natural born killers. She's not a pussy. She's a badass bitch. And so are all her dead relatives, and one or two of the live ones.
Becca tells a lot of stories. The relative who poisoned himself trying to strip batteries for the component metals. The horse thief murdered by a nephew. I think. Details are muddy and it happened in Michigan in the 19th century. Something to do with horses and the Civil War and a whole town who despised the dead profiteer so deeply that no arrest followed the killing, nor did any trial. There might've been a parade, cakes baked in honor of the perpetrator. Maybe horses could be had on the cheap, maybe they cooked and ate the horse trader. It's muddy. It happened in Michigan.
In Germany, in the late 60s or thereabouts, Becca's dad threw men across German bars for sport. Papa Wood, 6-foot-8, shoes roughly the size of the lower peninsula, kicked ass but forgot to take names. He has other things on his mind. A German girlfriend, an American girlfriend, the conception of Rebecca Vivenne Wood in a quaint hotel. I imagine lederhosen were involved. The Ricola jingle as the sexy soundtrack. Alps in the background and legs in the air.
And then: Michigan. Always Michigan. Ann Arbor, where two completely disastrous people came together to raise their young and study the most dangerous trade of all: Library Science! Poor college students with a baby and a love of books and book accessories. Mrs. Becca's Dad, the former Debbie Jean Mitchell, told jokes to beat the band, despite the fact that her own childhood home, a pretty postcard place by Lake Michigan, contained an alcoholic railroad man and a woman who alternated between schizophrenia and Pentecostalism like some women do between white shoes and not-white, before and after Labor Day.
Debbie Jean is not anyone's lover. She's a mother who lives in Boring Green in a house with cats and books and quilts and cloth and family treasures hidden or discarded, to go to or to be taken from rightful and wrongful heirs.
Sometimes, Livvy visits. The second wood pussy in the Mitchell pile. She's a tall drink of strong water, Livvy Wood. Sweet-faced, whiskey-voiced, tough-talking, shit-kicking, take-no-prisoners -- she is a New Yorker and fuck you very much for noticing. She lives with a sweet guy, who Debbie Jean swears will help pick a nice nursing home. Nice, competent, perhaps not one of the places where they tie you to the furniture, or maybe one that does! So long as he gets a good price, eh? Nothing to good for Mrs. Wood, I say.
Wood pussies are a tough bunch. Born or made. Becca grew and prospered and studied and marched. Becca in the band, a horn strapped to her chest, stomping proudly down the field for the honor of Boring Green. Becca by the lake in Cleveland. Becca in Tampico. She saw la vigin there. She learned to eat the spices and habla the es-pag-nowl. She taught me to say a few things.
"Donde esta el bano, cabron?"
"Vaya a la chingata, cabron!"
"Necessitos sus fluidos seminales para que hacer flan."
"Yo tengo papel hygenico por mi culo muy merdioso."
"Mi esposo tiennes una pistola, cabron"

And I taught myself to say "Mi amiga Rebecca m'enseno esta espression." I leave "cabron" off the end of that one for the sake of plausible deniability.
There was one time involving mi culo and merda. I don't like to speak of it. I had the flu. I thought I might die. There was....leakage. Becca tended me and cleaned up and took me to a hospital. I thought I was having a stroke. I had the flu. She fed my cats when I broke my back. She put up with me when Morgan and I were off and on and on and off and on and finally, totally off. She helped me scrape cat shit out of carpet and elderly food out of the meat drawer of the world's scariest fridge -- not mine, I swear. We were cleaning a house for cash one broke-ass summer. I will say that when meat is 5 years old, even in the freezer, the time comes where you either throw it out or buy it shoes and send it to kindergarten. We went with the trash for that elderly roast. In the same house, after stumbling on (oh, wait -- it's not stumbling when the stuff is in the open, on every surface, rug and coffee table) a porn cache that would put the actual Internet to shame.
Becca helped me think of titles and plots to the films missing between two seminal classics: Big Black Gang Bang 2 and Big Black Gang Bang 16. It turns out, there's a twist ending! A tiny white woman gets fucked! In all of them. Of "I Fucked the Black Basketball Team," she said "I pity the dumb bitch who opted for the White Basketball Team." And I concurred.
There are dark times between Michigan and here, times in shelters, times spent with men who preferred to sleep with lizards. I don't like to imagine these times, because I hate seeing Becca sad. Her face falls like a cake if you stomp hard by the oven. Her bright blue eyes puff and swell. I am made of hugs and it still isn't enough.
Wood pussies aren't just for the Amish. They aren't coming to a scummy rock club near you. Woods aren't pussies. They are badass bitches -- even the men. Even the Woods by marriage, as the former Allie Hall , Becca's stepmother, can tell you. She ran over an uppity ex-boyfriend in a 600-pound wheelchair. She has chunks of people like you in her poo. I'm guessing -- I don't check it or anything. She made a social worker cry once. She is not to be messed with.
And neither is her stepdaughter. Despite the slings and arrows of outrageous motherfucking fortune, Rebecca V. Wood is not taking any crap from anyone. Not today. At least not today. She will claw and fight and stand her ground. She is a tough, battle-hardened warrior rockstar in a dress and high-heeled boots. Woodpussies aren't roadkill. Woodpussies are killer road warriors. Is this a love letter? Is it a poem? Is it a song? I like to think it's a comic book legend. Because I love you, woodpussy. Also? I will sell the movie rights.

Then, Becca read some poems inspired by her childhood memories:

Go Tell your Mommy she Wants You
by Rebecca V. Wood

Some nights the mother that I've forgetten, or never had
Seeps into my dreams, whispering lullabies,
Telling me things I never knew I knew, and for a few seconds,
I am safe and welcome here;
Who's a happy girl?
Who's a happy girl?

The woman I came out of is burning my old gradeschool art
While my uterus gives up the fight to keep refurbishing it'self
For a guest who never comes.
I said once at age five that I would run away when I grew up,
And she laughed, as do mothers who's story ends better.

In the world outside my skin, I look like somebody's mother,
Because I'm old and not too mean;
The girl with the pierced eyebrows at the busstop
Who's on the phone trying to talk her boyfriend
Into not lying in wait back at her trailer when she gets back
From the welfare department,
And the cat who abandoned her own kittens,
And comes crying to me to cuddle her
The way her own mother didn't.

I saved it all up for forty years,;
Nurtured nothing, not even myself,
Couldn't even keep a potted plant alive until after 35,
To have these little crumbs to give strangers I'll know
For minutes or hours,
Pets that aren't even mine.

I'm starting to see that the whole world wants its mommy,
And nobody knows where she's gone;
She's shooting up behind a dumpster
In the alley of our souls, while we
Try to piece her together from fragmented photos
Cut out of a magazine;
We are making her up
As we go along.

Reconciliation
by Rebecca V. Wood

Reconciliation

Don’t you remember, we lived in the palace,

Someday you’d be as beautiful as me.

If you wore your best dress and were very quiet,

I’d let you watch when the ladies came for tea.

How can I help what that awful huntsman told you?

Why did you have to run away and live here

In these stunted deviants’ miniature sty?

How can you refuse such a lonely old woman,

Bringing round a present to brighten up my day.

Just take a bite of the pretty red apple, all wrapped in tissue

Before I’m on my way.

I’ll make a coffin from the finest crystal

Just like Comrade Lenin’s, unfrosted by your breath,

So that the crowds can see my mirror image

Dream-self as white and immaculate as death.

Finally, we wrapped up with our parody of Toledo Alive. Toledo Alive is a hideous promo song for Toledo, popular on local TV in the 80s. It is, as Becca says "damning with faint praise." It looks alive....we thought we saw its chest move, that kind of thing. Becca wrote 98% of this. I came up with the line about poking it with a stick.

Toledo................Alive?

When they cut our life-support,
Nobody went to court;
Alive! Though the DNR was signed!

Tried the fogging-mirror trick,
Poked it with a long, sharp stick;
Alive...if the term's broad ly defined!

Alive!
No-one knows quite why,
Alive!
'Cause it just won't die,
Mike Bell wears assless chaps
And tries to plug our funding gaps!

Alive!
And despite our plight,
Alive!
At least we're not Detroit,
We'll let our gardens grow,
Tell Davis Besse we won't glow.

Alive Toledo,
We think it's still alive.
We're rocking Miserable City;
It only looks dead!

Snowpcalypse Now

2011-02-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

Frigging snowpocalypse ATE MY CAR. It's true. Dammit.

Actual Linkage

2011-02-01T01:47:00.001-08:00

Here's the Groupon thing. I used to remember HTML and how to actually insert links

Group-Off

2011-01-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

Groupon denied me! the story appears here:

If you're feeling kind (or, you know, not) please stop by and like me/comment. If you want to read my book in the states, you should totally say so here. It's much-read in publishing.

Limbo

2011-01-11T03:56:00.000-08:00

I could go in any of a number of directions.

Okay, so all movement is subject to a lot of hoop jumping and appeals to potential bosses or mentors. My track record with these things is not encouraging.

I am 38. I live in an apartment. I have three jobs or so -- only one of which is reliable. I'd like not to be doing this when I'm 50.

School? I consider it. Fully funded programs, etc. But then there are application fees and GRE fees and fees upon fees and no guarantees, even with the book and the other writing.

Teaching? I'm not a good fit for Teach for America. I got rejected by a program I had planned to opt out of. I can't afford a master's degree or a certification program.

Newspaper? Tell me where there is one hiring. Or one that wants someone with a public track record of quirkiness.

When your retirement plan is "maybe I'll inherit money", there's something wrong.

Maybe I should just drink all the time and not think about this. I need to learn to make my own booze.

Hamsters!

2010-12-09T20:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I never get to write about anything other than 1) weight stuff 2) poverty and 3) local Toledo stuff for the local Toledo weekly that I slum it up with sometimes.

Here's something I wrote that's not going anywhere else. I think hamsters are damned important. Also, er, "urban".

“What’s the difference between a hamster and gerbil?” my boyfriend asked as I changed lanes doing about 80 miles an hour. We’d been talking about my latest obsession, the Kia Soul commercial where “urban” hamsters head-bob in unison to The Choice is Yours by the Black Sheep.

“Gerbils have a longer tail,” I said. “Also, they’d probably buy American.”

Ironically, this conversation about a Korean automaker and its spokesrodents happened on the Southfield Freeway near Detroit. As I zoomed by Ford’s world headquarters, a shiny glass building that dominates the highway, I pondered urban hamsters in baggy pants and hoodies. Hamsters who live on Hamsterdam Avenue and drive shiny new Kia Souls while their (strangely nude) non-Kia cohorts drive things like washing machines and cardboard boxes.

These anthropomorphic rapping rodents have a seriously macho quality. The female hamsters in the ad wear old-school cheerleader skirts. They have no tops to speak of. The urban paradise of the Kia hamster features everything a dude could possibly want: woman-free time with the boyz in the Kia, the all-male barbershop for relaxation, and topless cheerleaders at the roadside, waiting in lush anticipation for the first hoodied-ham-stud in a Kia Soul to pull over and open the shiny green passenger side door. As a feminist, I should find all of this kind of insulting. Instead, I envision my own suburban Kia fantasy.

The man and woman hamster ride silently. No music – sadly, not a bit of Black Sheep to lighten the mood in their pristine silver Soul. The Hamstress (despite having no facial expression of any kind) seems distressed. She fishes around in the I-used-to-be-a-plastic-bag recycled tote and seems relieved to discover that she has indeed remembered the Hamayonaise.

I can’t stop talking about this Kia commercial. I’ve also watched it online at least ten times. I find myself finishing thoughts with “Do, da, dippity,” imitating the cadence and accent of the Black Sheep frontman, despite the fact that I am the whitest woman on earth; I carried a Bermuda bag to school every single day for at least six months in the fifth grade.

Why are these hamsters so fascinating? Part of it is the animation and the catchy song. Created by David & Goliath, the Los Angeles ad agency also responsible for the Bacardi & Cola campaign, the ad is an intricately detailed mini masterpiece of cutting-edge computer animation and smart ideas. According to D&G’s chairman, David Angelo, the hamsters represent sameness, going around in circles, and only the Kia Soul can save us from the sad ubiquity of workaday middle class existence. The shiny green hamster car would deliver Emma Bovary to a young lover (exactly five minutes after she drops the kids at soccer practice, one presumes).

Not only have the ads tapped some sort of angsty, bourgeois zeitgeist, they’ve sold a lot of cars. According to a Kia dealer quoted in Fortune, “"Demand has definitely exceeded expectations. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we've sold out.” Fortune also found that 80% of Kia dealers nationwide had sold out on the Soul.

As successful as this ad is and as much as I personally enjoy it, I wonder about the urbanness of those dancing hamsters. They live near Hamsterdam Avenue. They frequent a barbershop, where the neighborhood’s elderstatesrodents gather to gossip and soak up the culture. In their baggy pants and hoodies, these cunning urban rodents are clearly stand-ins for African Americans.

Are African Americans cool enough to sell Kias, but still somehow too threatening for ads? I wonder, though I like to think – because I pretty much watch this commercial on a loop and have talked it up to everyone who’ll listen to me for more than 30 seconds – that the hamsters are just cuter and cleverer than any human beings (regardless of race) could ever hope to be. Also, African Americans couldn’t drive a toaster or washing machine, and these bad “choices” kind of make the ad.

I will not apologize for loving the Kia hamsters. I will not buy a Soul, either; I’m driving my six-year-old (mostly) paid-for Saturn Ion til it explodes in a shower of bolts at the side of the road, just like Elwood’s police car in the Blues Brothers. I’m not in the market for a car, but I think the hamsters could sell me almost anything else. Like, for example, a Black Sheep song from 1991.

Money Shot? NOT!!!

2010-12-06T23:25:00.001-08:00

I have an essay on Salon's front page! Totally thrilled. Of course, the art....is not my favorite. I've been lucky with that kind of thing. I especially love the paper doll illustration from the first thing I wrote for them and the teddy for my Nerve sex thing. Of course, the cover art on the book....wellllll.....yeah. Not my favorite thing in the world.

So the kid's eating ice cream, not getting the wrong kind of facial.

But, more to the point: YAY!

Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio

2010-07-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

There's never anything a single person can do alone. And I'm not single, really, just geographically inconvenient to my sweetie, who lives in Michigan and who I won't see tll next week. I'm at Starbucks working, but thought I'd treat myself to a midnight movie. No dice. The new movie company in Toledo, Rave Motion Pictures, now declines to show movies after 11 pm. So I could go to a bar or a Waffle House. I think I'll go home and watch a movie on the tube, snuggle my cats and rest up. I've got a killer week ahead between the three jobs I'm juggling, my writing, and social and family obligations.

Tomorrow, I'll help my (sort of) stepdad move a stack of 40-pound pavers into the backyard so he can anchor his new cantilevered umbrella over the patio furniture. There's leftover ribs in it for me (in the job, not, I hope, in the furniture).

All this underscores a need to move. Not to Michigan, though my sweetie would love that. I miss Boston. I miss movies that start at 1 am and having a million things to do any night of the week. I miss the ocean and the Cape. I miss all of it. No idea if I'll ever live there again, or anywhere other than here.

Still, despite being nearly as good a pilot as he was a singer, John Denver got it right when he covered that shitty song about my town. It's like noplace at all, and I want to be someplace....someplace lovely.

Julianne: Ben Folds Project

2010-01-22T11:16:00.001-08:00

"I don't miss Julianne"
From "Julianne", Ben Folds Five

The thing is, I do. Julie, one of the best friends I've ever know, lives in Canada now. We met online through the quiz tournament community, becoming friends and then quiz teammates at various masters' events. For the last fifteen years, Julie and I have had many adventures in a variety of crappy old cars, chugging along I-75 at 80 miles an hour.

I miss her. Then again, we've never lived in the same town, so I can't say what it'd be like to see her all the time. I doubt I'd get sick of her. We could hang at the bookstore or have coffee in my tiny apartment. We could watch Metalocalpyse with Rick (her husband, and another dear friend, though Ben Folds has yet to write him into a song). Julie has comfortable furniture and loves to cook, making her the perfect hostess.

So I do miss Julie (formerly Julie Ann -- a first/middle combination she always despised and correct via a maiden name swap out). I miss her a lot.

"She'd make a reason for the things that I did and give me credit for the things I never did." Ben got that right, though he doesn't know Julie. For a genius and a thinker and a PhD biologist, she's by far the most optimistic person I know, especially where other people and their variouos bad behaviors are concerned. When the optimism falters, she happily offers to unleash her lab wasps on thine enemies. I love that in a pal.

Disclaimer: Unlike the Julianne in Ben's song, Julie looks nothing like Axl Rose. Nor does sohe go home with strange musicians and sleep in her clothes. Strange invertebrates? Most definitely, but that's another story.

The way he makes me feel

2009-11-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

My relationship status has changed, and not just on Facebook. His name is Mike. He's the bee's knees. He makes me laugh all the time. He's smart and kind and a little evil (as am I...muahahahaha!). He has amazing upper body strength. This may have something to do with the chair. He has cerebral palsy. Yes, folks, his junk works fine, thanks for wondering!

Telling Mike's story would take a whole book, and that's a book Mike needs to write himself. A guy who's met Ronald Reagan, William Shatner, Soupy Sales and various Detroit Lions, and who had Kwame Kilpatric as his schoolyard bully has more than a few amazing stories to tell. That Kwame! Playing the race card since 1979. At least he didn't kill the class flirt.

Mike met my mom and didn't run (er, roll) screaming for the door. He thinks I'm amazing, which is a lot to live up to.

I'll give it my all.

Real men eat quiche

2009-10-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

I had a birthday party. I am old now. 37. So my friends came over and we did karaoke OnDemand. Also, I made many delicious foods. I made mini quiches. Never tried it before, but everyone scrafed them, especially the dudes.

My friend Mike came all the way from beautiful downtown Melvindale to hang out with me. He ate quiche. He went to the drag bar with me. He's the man! He came to the drag show because he likes me. He ate quiche because quiche is delicious. He likes me....I dunno why. I want to believe all the sweet things he says about me, but I've got a lifetime of negative reinforcement to work through.

Monni sang "Baby Got Back". My new work friend Kristin has an awesome voice. Also, four dozen cookies seem to have vanished into my pals. It's mysterious. I made sugar cookies and decorated them. Halloween. Nummy.

Happy birthday to me. Happy Sweetest Day to Mike (who is a sweetie). Happy! For now.

Screwing Up

2009-10-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I screw up. I forget things. I can be careless. I screw up without malice. It's not like I'm some weird modern saint, but I can't remember actually forming a plan to hurt someone. I've said things when I'm angry that I regret, and a few that I don't. But I never set out to ruin someone's day.

What do you do if you inadvertently hurt someone? What do you do when they lay it all out, and you apologize, and they are vague about whether or not they accept? If I apologize, I mean it. I just don't know what else I need to do.

This is really vague, purposely so. The situation I'm dealing with involves someone I love, who's been angry at me for a while, and who vacillates between acting like we're friends and acting like I'm a shitty person who should just go away and die in hole someplace. And when I go away (not to die, but to live my life of tutoring and family obligations, and cleaning houses, and writing and trying to have friends and date), she gets angry at me for not paying attention to what's going on in her life.

Nothing I do works in this situation. I don't think I'm a rotten person. I don't want to buy my friend off. Given the level of anger, I wonder what I owe myself? I like me a bit. I don't know that avoidance is a bad idea, either.

Why can't we all just get along? Oy.

Lighting up the Night

2009-09-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

My friend Dan had huge blue eyes and said "fuck" an awful lot. He name dropped the top-notch Atlanta country club where he'd managed the dining room. He got into fights in Boston, defending his restaurant from marauding teenage idiots.

"They thought they'd teach the little faggot a lesson, but I was one tough little faggot," Dan told me.

Dan made lobster bisque so light and creamy and beautiful it almost convinced me I like lobster. He brought chocolate pots de creme to me and my mother, and we shared a bottle of Tokaj with him. I met Dan covering the local Stonewall Democrats for my old paper, and soon began inviting him along whenever I reviewed restaurants. Dan trained as a chef in Italy. He had marvelous taste and a twisted sense of humor.

Dan catered a Christmas party for my mother. He came both as caterer and guest, and had all of us in stitches with stories of weird times in the hospital. Dan had cancer, but had been in remission for years.

"Some young tech could not believe my nipple rings," he told us. "So I had to show him the tattoo on my ass. Red devil. Gets 'em every time."

Two weeks later, my mother and Dan were in rooms in different wings of the same hospital. My mother was recovering from a planned double knee replacement. Dan's lymphoma returned. He called my mother's room from his, told us both that he loved us, and died a couple of weeks later.

Dan deserved more than fifty years. Dan had so much kindness and wit and talent and love in him. I miss him every time I pass the farmers market where he sold exquisite homemade cookies and handmade red wine syrup. One of the last kind things Dan did for me was to walk me through the process of applying for disability. Dan knew the program because of earlier, devastating bouts with lymphoma. When I called him for help, I weighed nearly 600 pounds and was immobilized by sciatica. The advice Dan gave me led me to health insurance, surgery and a healthy, worthwhile life. I truly believe that, without his grace and good sense, I might not be alive today.

I owe him. On October 17th, I hope to repay a few of his many kindnesses to me during our all too brief friendship. I will Light up the Night for Dan Holmes.

Anyone who'd like to sponsor me can e-mail me through the blog. I'm not really in it for the donations, but the charity would probably appreciate it.

Ben Folds Project:Philosophy

2009-09-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

I'm crazy, but I get the job done.

A couple of years ago,my therapist left Catholic Charities, and I made her a CD that organized my magical mental health in song form. I drew a human brain on the CD using Sharpies. I drew the brain in rainbow colors and loaded it with songs. I started off with the Johnny Cash version of "Hurt", moved along through such sad girl classics as "Save me" (Aimee Mann) and "Because of You" (Kelly Clarkson). The disc gets less depressing with songs like "In Between Days" (Ben Folds' cover, naturally) beforing ending with "Proud" (yes, the song from The Biggest Loser, a show I kind of despise for reasons I won't get into here).

"You made a mix tape for your shrink!" My friend Paul could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard at the idea.

I like to think I take a creative approach to mental illness. Over the years, I've made my shrink cookies, crocheted her a hat and scarf, and passed along Hungarian recipes. She's helped me to realize that I can't change other people. Sometimes, I can't fathom changing myself, but I keep trying, at least where it matters the most.

A few years ago, I'd cry for hours if the cat got out. I once wept uncontrollably because I couldn't find my keys. Which were in my car's ignition. I don't do those things anymore.

I don't know that I always see the forrest for the trees. I'm trying to imagine the mortar, block and glass that'll be my city when I'm done. When will I be done? Are we ever really finished? Don't ask me. I'm crazy. But I get the job done.*

*Litter box cleaning not included.

Ben Folds Project: Jackson Cannery

2009-09-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a new project. I love Ben Folds. Why? Because he's a genius. His sense of humor, the brilliance of his piano playing, the plaintive keen/whiteboy whine in his voice....I don't know if Ben Folds is perfect as a musician, but he's the perfect musician for me.

I'm going to use his songs as jumping off points for blog posts. Some of the posts will have almost nothing to do with the songs. Some of the posts might describe the things I associate with the songs. No rules, just Ben and me.

#1: Jackson Cannery
(Track 1, Ben Folds Five, 1995)

Stop the Bus....Don't want to be lonely

I do lonely well. Better than I do almost anything else, or, at least, I do it more often than I do other things or other moods. I go to bars alone. I don't drink. I might meet acquaintances. I dance by myself. I watch pretty people mime intercourse and simultaneously envy and disdain them. I leave, alone. To my apartment, alone. To bed. Alone.

I go to the bookstore. I put on makeup. Maybe someone will talk to me. Maybe a man. Maybe I'll run into friends. It's happened. I talk to the barristas in the bookstore cafe. I know their names and college majors. I bring them cookies at Christmas. I've lived in Toledo for ten years. I've been invited to exactly two Christmas parties.

Odd that I love Chirstmas. I bake and give gingerbread men to friends. No one ever gives me cookies. My friends don't bake. Or host parties. They work. They date. They have children. I press my face against the glass and watch couples looking at wedding magazines. I see young mothers choosing picture books. Goth kids in little clusters, talking and laughing. I drink coffee by myself. I go home alone.

Weekends, I scramble. I call and text and e-mail. I chat. No one has time. No one wants to have coffee or see a movie or come to my place so I can make them a lovely dinner. No one feels like singing or dancing or talking. I go to the bookstore. I go to the grocery at 10 pm on a Saturday night. I think the place will be empty, but it's full of couples. Old, toothless men in wifebeaters with the wives I hope they're not actually beating. Yuppies giggling over the bottle of pinot grigio they're buying. A black woman in a sleeveless sundress, hair dyed platinum. She has to weigh 250 pounds, but there's a guy walking by her cart, carrying her purse. I buy ingredients to make risotto. I scale the recipe for one and go home alone.

Stop the bus. Stop it. Don't. Ben's right. Seconds pass slowly. Days go flying by. Just....stop.

Late

2009-09-11T01:40:00.000-07:00

Late at night, when I can't sleep, I sometimes read his blog. The one with the halitosis. The one with the twin bed and the artsy, smoky roommates. Him. And I wonder how it is that a man who had breath like an unflushed toilet, a man who expressed fear of soup and who had never eaten a strawberry before I fed one to him, I wonder how a man like that can have a girlfriend when I'm alone.

And I look at pictures of the other one. The one who called me a whore because he was terrified I'd write about him. The last guy who kissed me. I wonder if he's the last guy ever. I really hope not.

What have I learned? Tall isn't a good personal quality. Nice isn't enough. I need to remember to brush my tongue.

It's something, no?

Tiny dogs, Huge house

2009-09-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today, A. and I cleaned a giant McMansion --no, a McEstate -- on 40 acres in the middle of nowhere. Huge house. 8000 square feet. Every floor in the place was made of wood or marble or stone tile. The basement entertainment lounge had a fireplace, a full kitchen, a bar, a skeeball table, a pool table, a ping pong table and many presents from the asses of the family's collection of tiny, yappy dogs. And larger dogs. And cats. I cleaned a spot of something biological off a window ledge. A. told me the owner told her it was doggie-rhea. I want to bleach my entire body.

That said, the house had a central vac system and the owners had a wheelie mop bucket. This made cleaning the place not so bad. A long, exhausting job, but not impossible. The owner's 24-year-old son (hottttttttt) came into the basement just after A. told me about the 'rhea. I'd used one of my own rags wiping the spot. I said something about mailing it to her ex as a tea bag. Then, as Hottt Sonnnn was walking in, I made one of those comments that echo and expand and you wish you could unsay them.

"You ex'll love it. He lives for tea bagging." Hottt Sonnnn seemed like he didn't mind. Later, upstairs in the dining room (lovely tray ceiling, Broyhill knock-off furniture, three mouldering, hair-shrouded dog beds), he introduced one of the dogs.

"I think something's licking my ankle," I said.

"That's Buddy. He's a mini-pinscher."

The dog looked like a Doberman. Only tiny. I said another one of those echo-y things.

"I want to breed a pack of them and train them to hunt midgets." Hott Sonnn laughed. I laughed. Little People of America sent an angry letter of protest to the mailbox in my head. Joking! But sometimes, I have these bad thoughts.

The family who own the McEstate (40 acres, no mule) consist entirely of 6-foot blondes, including the 22-year-old daughter. They were all so shiny and tan and blonde and perfect that I wanted to have a weird orgy with all of them. Hottt Sonnnn eats ice cream in the tub. I know this because I found an empty carton of Haagen-Daazs Dulce de Leche in the soap niche along with a spoon. I imagined myself in his parents' enormous spa tub, licking caramel ice cream off his chest.

And then we cleaned the rest of the house. The lady of the house came home in the middle of the cleaning, unaware that cleaning and spackling (an impromptu project for her husband) would be taking place. She screamed at Hottt Dad, scattered dogs around the dining room like so many yappy, shitting throw cushions, then went out to have a nice, angry smoke by the pool.

Hotttt Sonnn paid in full, didn't dispute our price, and complimented the work, and said something about having us back the next time the Hottts throw a party.

I can't wait. I'm buying Haagen Daasz and a loofah.

Death, Birth, Phlegm

2009-08-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

My friend John had a heart attack a week ago today. I met him through a dating website, and our single date involved looking over crochet patterns and drinking coffee. He told me about his family. He hugged me goodbye because "Hugs are good." He reminded me of a polar bear. Not the real kind who would totally eat you but are probably starving to death because of global warming and Al Gore. The kind from Coke commercials. I could imagine John enjoying a Coke and sharing his treat with cute seal pups.

John had already found the love of his life, though. He and Carmela were back together, probably before my Starbucks cup hit the trash can as I waved goodbye after the coffee date and wandered toward my car. I forgave this lapse -- I didn't enjoy feeling like a backup plan, but John's kindness and gruff sense of humor eventually won me over. He ran a local open mic where I did the first readings from Butterbabe. He gave me advice about my last boyfriend ("Dump him. "Dump him. DUMP HIM"). I called him to check up from time to time. We always had funny conversations and I'd hang up the phone feeling a bit lighter and more cheerful than when we'd started.

John struggled with Type 2 diabetes his entire adult life. He spent most of the fall and winter last year having toes chopped off and recovering in a nursing home. He had a demented roommate who'd sit in his wheelchair in a hospital gown, spindly legs bare, knees wide apart. Carmela stayed with him as much as she could. I came by with a copy of the book, and for more boyfriend advice ("Seriously -- dump him. He's a douche.").

I last saw John at Artomatic 411, a sort of grand fleamarket of the arts that ran for three weekends in May and June. In a warehouse downtown, local painters and sculptors and writers and musicians and filmmakers put on a show. John looked so much better than he had in the nursing home. He'd lost weight, become engaged to Carmela and was making plans to finish his social work degree.

John had a heart attack a week ago today. I know I told you that, but I still don't believe it, and I feel like if I say it, I'll convince myself. I'd rather not believe it, but it's immutable and sad and terribly real now. John died a week ago today. He lived 47 years, all of them in Toledo. He wrote lovely, gritty, clever, poems that evoke this rusty little town by the Maumee and Michigan. He made the place softly forlorn, shaved the edges so that the city's oddball charm stood out, glowing softly like sodium lights in a steady rain.

Becca and I went to the visitation. We hugged Carmela and beautiful Caroline, the brilliant young woman John mentored and loved like a little sister or daughter. We met his mother. We left.

Becca's birthday was Saturday. She's 43 now. We had delicious food and a party in the park. There were gifts and songs and piggyback rides. I can't believe I can carry a 180-pound woman, but I used to carry a good 250 more pounds than I do now just in my own body weight, so I guess it makes sense.

And now I have a head cold and the phlegm keeps coming.

Better things are coming. Better days ahead. They have to be. My birthday is in six weeks. At least I've had another year.

Hitler!

2009-08-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Hitler! He ruined that mustache for everyone.

I saw Inglorious Basterds. Enjoyed it, but also came at it from a fairly unique perspective. The movie centers on the titular group of soldiers, Jews who fight a guerilla campaign and kill Nazis in occupied France. My father, a Jew who fought in WWII, was sort of a bastard, too. Note the correct spelling there.

My father died in 1996. We never managed to come up with a functional relationship. During his last days in the hospital, he went from gesturing inarticulately into the silence of a morphine coma. I never managed to forgive him and he never managed to express any feeling for me apart from a sort of bemused contempt. We didn't understand each other. He never told me about the war.

Every dark-haired young man in uniform, all eight original Basterds, reminded me of my father. In wartime photos, my father looks like the actors in the Tarnatino movie.

Inglorius. Kind of a bastard. My dad. I'm pretty sure he never scalped any Germans, as they didn't store many of those in New Guinea or Australia. And I still haven't a clue about who he really was.

I'd like to blame Hitler for this, too.

He's got Bite

2009-08-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I did laundry for my mother and hung out with her and her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Mike, has an African grey parrot named Crocky. Crocky is cute but unpredictable. He sometimes tries to attack my toes. I asked Mike if Crocky enjoys the taste of human flesh when he bites you.

"Crocky bites you because he wants to bite you," Mike said.

Weirdly zen and pithy, I thought. I'm keeping my toes to myself.

Swimmingly

2009-08-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have a scholarship to the Y. In Toledo, the Jewish Community Center and its giant outdoor pool are part of the Y.

I had a white bikini once. At six. The first and last I'd ever wear. I wore it to the JCC, where I swam in the shallow end with my mother. I grew up swimming at the J. I'd see how long I could stay under water. I'd climb the ladder to the high dive. Sometimes, I'd chicken out and climb back down, but most of the time, I'd leap. I ate malteds from the snack bar. I got lobster red sunburns and golden brown tans. I read books on the chaises longues.

Two years ago, after losing a couple hundred pounds, I returned to the pool at the JCC. I could finally get out of a pool using a ladder, and that meant I could swim laps in the deep end. The first time, I kept the line of my backstroke using a pine tree as a guide. I'd look at the tree to orient myself so that I wouldn't go off center and hit the lane dividers. I swam my first mile that summer, though my left shoulder started to give in the middle of the last full lap.

I got my scholarship letter last week, and am now a member of the Y again. Given the recession, I had to give up membership for about six months. I managed a few swims this summer using a cache of guest passes I managed to assemble from friends and strangers (thank you, Craig's List benefactress). I decided that if I got the scholarship, I'd swim thirty times before the pool closes in the fall.

Three swims down. Twenty seven to go. I almost think I can do it.

The Old Cat and the Litter Box

2009-08-18T14:41:00.001-07:00

I spent ten hours cleaning last week. I cleaned for my mother and for a one-time client. My own apartment smells like urine.

Don't look at me -- I generally make it from the living room to the toilet without incident. My ancient, wizened tabby, Spenser, has taken to peeing outside the box. While some would commend him for his maverick ways, I cannot. I've had Spenser for fourteen years. I got him in East Lansing, where I spent a miserable couple of years flunking out of grad school. I came away from MSU with one good thing: a 12-pound silver tabby who loved me to pieces.

Spenser would curl up around my head whenever I was sick. He'd groom my hair and stay with me. When I weighed nearly 600 pounds and took a hard fall on a wood floor, he laid down next to me and wouldn't leave me til I'd righted myself (nearly an hour later).

Now that he's old and weighs about six pounds because his kidneys are failing (slowly), Spenser has become a crusty oldster with a limited sense of humor. He hates the kids and their music. He wants you to stay off his lawn. He has an autographed picture of Wilford Brimley and moons over cheesecake shots of the late Estelle Getty dressed as Sophia Petrillo on the Golden Girls.

My old man pees everywhere and on everything. He pees on my rugs. He peed on a pillow, soaking the sham I'd sewn and embroidered by hand. He pees behind the bathtub if I forget to close the bathroom door. He can't sleep with me. If I leave the bedroom door open, he pees on anything he can find on the floor. Like my clothes or bedsheets I kick off in my sleep. This means that my other cat, Siouxsie, can't sleep with me, either, despite her own fastidiousness about the box. She meows piteously outside my door every morning.

Spenser needs to go on one last visit to the vet. I don't want to take him. I have no idea how putting him to sleep will make me feel. Also, putting him to sleep will cost money I don't really have. I studied up on it online; do-it-yourself home pet euthanasia is a very bad idea. It's like the last twenty minutes of Blood Simple, only your cat is Dan Hedaya. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that to any pet, let alone my sweet boy who still licks my face between trips to the corner to whiz under the radiator.

So. What to do? I'm thinking I could by him a copy of Final Exit. That could work.

More on cleaning...

2009-08-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

The Salon essay conveyed a certain tone well, I thought. There were details that didn't make the final cut. I don't resent cleaning clients. I've had a few terrible ones. The regular and even the good one-of clients just aren't interesting enough to make the essay cut.

One story that missed the essay: I cleaned two week old vomit out of a bathtub once. My client had never cleaned the house in eight years of living there. There wasn't dust. There was actual grime. The bedroom was decorated in a Texas flag motif. I told my agent, Joanne.

"Puke in the tub and Texas crap? I don't know what's worse," she said. Joanne has a Long Island accent. She's not a fan of redneck chic.

Ironically, I was cleaning while texting last minute edits to my Salon editor. The house was gigantic and owned by Mormons. I didn't know there were that many paintings of Jesus in the world, let alone in one private home. Not paintings, really. Kinkade/painter-of-light schlock prints. I also didn't know Jesus was a Viking, but the shiny blonde hair and blue eyes in all that artwork told a different tale. I had to fight for my price. At the end of six and a half hours (mainly because they wanted all the woodwork cleaned -- not a standard service), the visiting grandmother who was paying tried to get me to take $50.

I told her that for six hours, I'd need $120. I rounded down, trying to be nice about it. She offered $100, which I took. She looked at me like I'd woofed up a hairball on the rug before opening a red leather wallet and peeling off a bill from the giant stack of hundreds inside.

My regulars know the drill. They know that cleaning people are there to dust, vacuum, mop, and to clean kitchens and baths. We aren't there to pick up children's toys, laundry from the floor or anything that comes out of pets. When I arrive, the regulars' houses are clutter-free and ready for cleaning. I'm thorough. I move furniture (I should say that I shove it over using my body weight -- I can't really lift anything all that heavy). I take all the tchotchkes off of shelves before I dust. I change linens and throw the old sheets into the washer. I've brought baked goods to regulars. They're decent and solid and not the stuff of essay writing.

So! I wanted to thank the Salon peeps again. You really made my day with all the comments. Even the weird ones (UK health system, bad driving guy) were good for a laugh.

One clarification...

2009-08-17T09:01:00.001-07:00

Someone on Salon accused me of SSDI fraud because I am physically able to clean houses.

It's a strange thing, given how my weight limited me, how physically painful some aspects of weighing over 500 pounds were, but I was awarded disability primarily because of depression. I take medication for it and see a therapist (which I pay for out-of-pocket because that practice doesn't accept Medicaid). My first depression diagnosis came when I was nine years old. I like to think that if I could find a job that offered a living wage and insurance, I could do it. I worry that the more severe depression would come back, despite the medical interventions I accept, and leave me without a job, insurance or any form of on-going income.

Cleaning houses is, at least, something I can schedule myself. SSI also allows additional income, though they will deduct from your cash assistance if you make more than a certain amount. I never have.

More about my private, glamourous writing life. If we had national health care, if I didn't need to rely on my status for insurance, I'd try to have a job, even a bad one. Maybe because I'm not strong enough to ignore the judgement some people throw my way for living on the guv'mint tit.

Toilet!

2009-08-17T08:34:00.001-07:00

My Salon piece is out.

Never thought I'd see so many letters -- mostly positive. The readers have been so kind and supportive. I'd kiss al of them on the mouth, but I don't know where they've been. Kidding! Of course. As usual.

Ironically, I was cleaning a giant McMansion for Mormons while texting my editor at Salon about that essay. I was a gift from Evil Mormon Grandma who had come from the home planet to help with the birth of live young. I cleaned for seven hours. Grandma (black haired, botoxed, wearing jaunty capri pants and a lot of mauve lipstick) tried to pay me $50 for this. She purposely misunderstood my pricing structure. I told her I could clean for $50 - $70 if I just did a few common areas and we set a time limit. They wanted the whole 3,000-square foot house cleaned. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths, a basement, plus blinds, woodwork and the doors. Seven hours later, I reminded her that I charge $20 an hour. She offered $100, which I accepted. It really wasn't enough. It should have been $40 more. I felt bad for a second -- no idea why -- until she opened a wallet stuffed with hundred dollar bills and fished one out for me.

Before dusting the many Kinkade-esque portraits of him in that house, I had no idea Jesus was a Viking. There were many busts of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. I felt a little let down at not seeing any magic Mormon underwear. The boys' bedroom featured large prints of ancient Mormons fighting Indians. Good times!

This weekend, I relaxed with much swimming and ethnic festing and a zoo concert at the outdoor amphitheatre. I feel almost able to take on my own apartment, which is full of bad things that come out of old, sick cats.

Nervy!

2009-05-25T01:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been so lax in blogging. I've been busy teaching college students to write, one awkward tutoring session at a time and submitting essays. I had one in Nerve last week.

Okay, brace yourselves: it's about my deflowering.

Hope it amuses/horrifies/uplifts. Or something like that.

I've also tried more dating. I think I hate men now. Or myself. But really, men.

No news

2009-03-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a slow month in Toledo, Ohio, my hometown. The children? Average, mostly. Also, I have it on good authority that there are men in lipstick shoving things into their urethras. In my neighborhood, if not in my apartment.

If you love me, buy my book Write to Oprah about it. Buy my book and send it to Oprah. Mama needs a pony.

In other news, I went to Chicago and had a really cool first date at what turned out to be a Latina tranny hooker bar. I saw naked boobies there. Naked boobies not envisioned by nature. I also rode the ferris wheel at Navy Pier and had catfish at Wishbone. I would live at Wishbone if I lived in Chicago.

They'd let me install a cot in the mens' room, right?

Blade of Glory

2009-02-22T05:10:00.000-08:00

My hometown paper, the Toledo Blade, ran an interview with be about the book. There's a really nice picture -- I look borderline thinnish. The reporter did a lovely job. I'm always amazed when people like me, even after all this time and all the work I've done towards being a fine, funny and likable person.

The reporter did say I went to Boston College. I did not! I went to Boston University. Go terriers. I don't know where to, but go...someplace.

Anyway, here's the awesome Blade story.

It'll be linked to the right as well. Along with, of course, the link to the book at Amazon UK. I've heard it runs about $20 including the shipping. If you buy a copy, feel free to find me at Borders Toledo. I'm there a lot and will happily sign the book for you. I will allow you to buy me coffee, too, should you desire that special privilege. If you want to make sure I'll be around to sign the book, feel free to e-mail me through the blog.

More UK Press

2009-02-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

I didn't have lapband surgery -- I had gastric bypass. And I'm not quite as direct about a link between my father being cranky and me being fat. But there's a new story about the book in syndication in the UK.

You can read it here.

Reading!

2009-02-13T21:35:00.000-08:00

The reading at People Called Women was awesome. Lots of people came (most called women, and a few guys). I read a funny chunk o'book about buying new clothes and about drag clubs. People laughed a whole lot. I felt very good about it. Angelle -- who took the pic of me in the Times of London -- came a took even more pix. Lyhnn and Esther, my dear pals and former employers -- turned out. Becca read a lovely poem about me. And people ate the cookies I made (some of which were naughty conversation hearts).

I want to welcome all the lovely people who showed to my blog. I've sent them e-mail about it. Many of them asked about buying the book. While we're thrilled with the UK response, we do want to tell them that they'll buy it in the States soon. But til then, I've posted a link to the book at Amazon.uk and include it here as well:

Butterbabe!

I am going to sleep. Tomorrow, I must buy new tires. Damn. But also: Yay! Book readings!

Times! Two!

2009-02-08T21:23:00.000-08:00

The Times of London ran an excerpt of the book.

It's not the piece I thought they'd run. It's in the health section. I kind of hoped they'd run something from a later part of the book, but the publishers wanted something in close to publication.

Anyway, here's the link:

Times Piece

Publication Day

2009-02-05T09:53:00.001-08:00

I still don't know what to make of the actual publication. I'm very hopeful and the book will receive a lot of attention the the UK press. Tonight, mini-celebration with my mother and a family friend.

Everyone who helped me through all of this, thank you. The book is for all of you.

Count down and a Reading

2009-01-31T21:04:00.000-08:00

I'll be reading from Butterbabe at People Called Women on February 13th. I hope to have awesome news by then. Maybe lots of people will queue up and buy my book? I love English people. Especially the ones who buy the book. And the ones who review it positively. And anyone who gives me money to write more stuff. All of those. Also, Daniel Craig and Jude Law and the hot guy who played Titus Pulo on Rome.

The reading starts at 7. The address is 3153 W. Central Avenue, Toledo, OH. The bookstore is cozy and lovely and the staff have been kind and welcoming. They have a great selection of books, especially books by women, and also sell nice ceramic things, jewelry and the odd piece of candy. I hope to have cookies for all my new readers. Valentine hearts as befits the occasion.

The reading is free. If I have copies of the book, you may be able to obtain one.

2009-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

I was four years old. Happy. Cute. Tiny. Hard to remember, except for the joy. I remember smiling and the sunlight and the crunch of leaves in my tiny hands. Bliss!

Too-precious Ruby? You betcha.

2008-12-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

I hate Ruby, and I haven’t even met her. As I write this, Ruby Gettinger’s eponymous weight loss reality series has yet to debut on cable’s Style Network. I have yet to watch as the 480-pound star dwindles down to 380 pounds through hard work alone. I haven’t seen the show, but I’ve read the soft-focus human interest stories.

One story pats Gettinger on the head for eschewing gastric bypass. Surgery wouldn’t teach her any cute life lessons, or help her have a special touchy-feely journey of inspiration. Gettinger also told the LA Times that she’d choose to be fat.

“I always say I'd rather be big. Because I feel like I'm a better person because of it because I don't judge people. And I'm not mean. I like the person I am. That may sound ironic to somebody, but if you were able to sit on the side and see how mean people can be, you'd understand why I never want to be those kind of people,” Gettinger said to the Times.

If I had to choose, I’d rather not be big. If choosing had anything to do with it, and existed as something other than a beautiful fantasy, I’d choose a thin childhood full of slumber parties and requited schoolyard crushes. I’d choose high school dates and a strapless prom dress, size 6. I’d choose all the stupid, fumbling sexual experiences that mark normal college life, a career in my twenties, a husband, a couple of kids and sad resignation to the inevitable size 10 mom jeans.

Like Gettinger, I once weighed 480 pounds. I weighed far more than that, actually. When I chose gastric bypass surgery three years ago, depriving myself of all sorts of adorable lessons and the early death I would’ve faced had my only weight loss tools been diet and exercise, I weighed 571 pounds. Sadly, this failed to beatify me. I make catty remarks. I dislike a lot of people. I am not, nor have I ever been, jolly.

Television rarely depicts people like me. Sure, you see the pathetic residents of obesity warehousing facilities hamming it up on the Discovery Channel. The Learning Channel gives us 800-pound people at their lurid best, lying on gurneys, weeping as they ride to the hospital in the backs of cargo vans. We see the bloated, tear-stained faces. Sometimes, we see redemption in the form of huge weight loss, achieved via surgery or starvation. We never see the fat person as a real person. Certainly not as a self-aware smart person.

I hate Ruby because the show may convince other super morbidly obese people that surgery is somehow cheating. Weight loss surgery certainly isn’t the best solution for every fat person, but it can and has saved lives, including my own. I worry that people will use the show to bully loved ones out of surgery, or as a proof that people with hundreds of pounds to lose just need some celery sticks and a walk around the block to regain their health.

Gettlinger had a team of doctors, trainers, nutritionists and other professionals to personally tend her. Her situation has little to do with the reality many super morbidly obese people face. Ineligible for insurance, unemployable, immobile and often depressed, they don’t have the resources Ruby Gettinger enjoys, simply because she allowed a camera crew to follow her on the magic journey.

Unlike Ruby, I’m mean and petty. I know that when I see the show, I’ll probably make unkind comments about the star, her wardrobe choices, and the many offences she commits against the English language (a Savannah paper quotes her as using “humidified” as a word in place of “humiliated”, e.g.). But I like myself just fine.

When I weighed nearly 600 pounds, friends actually encouraged me to contact cable TV producers. They reasoned that I might get surgery out of it, or, at very least, a little cash. I decided that I liked having dignity better, mainly because having it at my size was a constant, harrowing struggle. I decided that I wanted to write my own story – literally and figuratively – not have it constructed by reality television producers eager to package me into some dumb, weepy, salable thing.

I hate Ruby. The show, not the woman. Given her circumstances, I can’t help but empathize with her. When I weighed 500 pounds, I felt pain nearly every waking moment. My joints and back ached constantly, and the ugly comments, rude laughter and even the innocent questions of small children broke my heart nearly every day of my life. I wouldn’t wish that existence on anyone, and if Ruby Gettinger needed to sign up for reality TV exploitation to free herself from the weight, I have to respect that choice. I only hope her new fans will extend people like me, those who opted for surgery, those who aren’t cuddly or folksy or poignantly sad, the same courtesy.

Pawning Obama

2008-11-04T01:25:00.000-08:00

I walked two miles to see Barrack Obama speak. I stood in line with hundreds of other Toledoans, all of us trying to chug our bottled water or turn on cell phones (so they wouldn’t seem like weapons) or remove metal items from our pockets. I saw a thin man with grey hair holding a sign about not voting for baby killing Muslims. I gave him the finger for a solid two minutes before making my way to the metal detectors.

The Seagate Center held two thousand of us, all hopeful, or at least intrigued by the idea of Change we can Believe In. Ohio politicians took the stage, one after another, to tell us about clean coal, solar panels (locally made!) and the black hole of evil that is the George W. Bush administration. The crowd booed and cheered in all the right places.

A tall, thin man, resplendent in a three-piece suit, made his way to the podium. Because he was black, the audience stood and cheered before realizing the man was not, in fact, Obama, but a campaign staffer intent on adjusting the podium mike. The nervous laughter of a thousand suburban white people filled the cavernous hall, a space not unlike a high school gym, before a local auto worker took the stage to perform the final introduction.

“I’ve been laid off fourteen weeks so far this year,” he told us. “I just want my four children to have coats this winter.” He made some less depressing, more crowd pleasing exhortations, and we all leapt to our feet to chant “O-Bam-Ah, O-Bam-Ah” as the candidate finally made his way across the stage, smiling broadly and waving.

Barrack Obama expressed concern about the state of the economy (“in the crapper,” my mother, the amateur economist, had put it just hours before).

“Your 401-K might be a 101-K,” the great man quipped. “The question isn’t ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago’, but ‘Are you better off than you were four weeks ago’,” he solemnly intoned, shaking his head presidentially.

I feel his pain, or, rather, the pain of other similar middle class people. My college friends have prospered, and they worry about investments. The last guy who dumped me (“I can’t do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing,” he told me as we snuggled together in bed) drove three hours to Columbus so he could rescue his money from Charles Schwab. I have no 401-K. I have no mortgage and am lucky to have rent money about half the time. As a self employed person who struggled with disability my entire adult life, I had -$200 in the bank as Barrack Obama stood before me, promising to help me send my (non-existent) children to college.

Walking home from the speech, I passed a pawn shop, doubled back, and sold the gold necklace I’d put on that morning on the off chance that I might appear in news photos or in television footage of the crowd. The pawnbroker counted a fifty and a hundred into my palm, and I deposited most of the money, bringing my total net worth up to an awe-inspiring -$87.

As I passed homeless shelters and free stores run by churches, I thought about the speech, the man, and the words he’d spoken. One thought had pierced the thick bubble of my self-pitying bemusement. Obama told us that we could aspire, as our grandparents had, as his grandparents had, to greater things. Just as the man denied his rights by a poll tax had dreamed of his son or grandson running for congress, for the senate, for the presidency itself.

Somehow, the hope a politician offered up seemed real to me, useful. My feet ached, and I touched my throat, surprised momentarily by the absence of the necklace. I shrugged, shook my head, and walked slowly toward home.

Tranny Hooker

2008-11-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

I'll work for bottom surgery.

Halloween, Toledo, the drag bar. I served a lovely roast chicken dinner for five. We had homemade apple dumplings for dessert. Then, drag bar.

I had planned on going as Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray. Decided ratting my hair was too much work. Opted for a red corset, garters and 5 o'clock shadow. Lots of cleavage. Lots of dancing. Vodka.

Sadly, don't think I'll go back for a while. The bar ignores Ohio's smoking ban, and my throat is killing me today.

Men

2008-10-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

I never dated before the age of 35. I used to weigh nearly 600 pounds and didn't want to sleep with creepy fetish dudes. So. I never dated in high school. Nor in college. I had my first date in December with a man who has nine toes, who lives with his mother and who brought with him a purse that he made himself. Suffice it to say, he went back to his girlfriend and nothing came of it.

I've also dated a guy who swapped tags on items so he could trick Sears into giving him store credits, a homeless S&M dude who wore a truss to the movies, and at least one man I'm pretty sure is gay. I negotiate dating poorly. I'm pretty sure I'll die alone, surrounded be cats. I know the cats will eat me. I cut my finger a couple weeks ago and Spenser, my ancient, incontinent tabby, licked the blood off the floor. I know cats like the taste of me. And the man thing isn't working.

I wonder if it's easier for people who've done this since high school? Of maybe it's even more brutal and depressing. If I'd dated for twenty years and still didn't have a boyfriend, I'd probably feel pretty bad about that. The guy I liked the most of all seems to have moved in with someone else. He still wants to talk to me because I'm good entertainment. So I'm learning that dating sucks and that a lot of men -- in my admittedly limited experience -- make terrible friends as well as terrible lovers.

Maybe I need to move? Or maybe I just need more cats.

Sushi

2008-10-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've never had sushi. I'd never done a lot of things, till the surgery and the giant weight loss. My male friend took me to a local sushi/Japanese food place. I tried a bit of the raw stuff. Not bad, but not great either. Mainly kind of moist. I liked the rolls. Yum! Also, the udon soup I had as a main was lovely -- lots of fresh veggies, delicious broth and chicken. Plus noodles. Not bad at all.

Of course, my friend's instruction with the fish ("Cram it in!") took a bit of the sparkle off the occasion. But hey, it's only food, even if I did have to cross a bridge over a giant koi pond to obtain it. And it's way, way better than tabby steak.

Cat Meat

2008-10-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm on the road with my friend Becca (yes, we've heard the Becca and ReBecca joke and it's always stupid). We had dinner at this place called Jack's that I'm pretty sure serves cat meat. Tabby steak is best served rare. I want it meowing when it hits my plate, by gum.

We're in Athens where we saw Jonathan Richman. Who decided to torture the audience by killing the AC. 300 people, 200 square feet, zero ventilation. Death. Then we had Mexican food at Casa Nuevo (awesome!). I drank some local lemon ginger wine, was drunk for ten minutes, and flipped off a campaign poster of Sarah Palin while screaming "Suck it, Bitch!"

Red wine goes with tabby, right?

February 5, 2009!

2008-10-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

Butterbabe comes out on February 5, 2009. So far, the blessed event will occur solely in the UK. I have hopes of a US sale. Many excellent publishers are reading the book, so we'll see what happens.

If you're not familiar with my little tale of woe (and joy and childhood and a dogs uterus that one time) this should give you an idea of what you're in for in three short months:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article609697.ece

I wish this looked more professional. Sadly, I'm a writer, not an HTML person. I know HTML is super easy and I'm sure I'll pick it up sooner or later, but it's neither sooner nor later so here we are.

The process of writing a book held surprises for me at virtually every turn. Writing the first draft was surprisingly simple. Revising the manuscript eight or nine times was not. We've just finished the first UK proof. While I think I'm finished reading the book, I probably am not. I've read my own book a good eight times now. I like it. You will, too, I hope. But you can just read it the once, and I think that'll make it a more enjoyable experience.

Welcome to my book blog. If you have any writing or publishing questions, I'll try to answer them, time permitting.