The Fat and The Fury

Okay, so this piece was originally written for my Oprah-Drunk book:  How to Detox in an Oprah-less World.  It deals with the weight issues all of us broads have.  It also deals with my father, the man who constantly drives me just a little bit crazier day after day.  I’ve been looking for a place for some of these to live and I’m very happy to have found a group of wonderful readers here.  Enjoy this piece, while Wifesy and I go and look for apartments today.  It goes with this article and a nice pinot noir, if you really want me to pair things up for you.  Or coffee, it goes with coffee too, and sh*t it may be early in the morning for some of you.  With love, Sweet Mother.

 

Post Script:  A proposal – I’m going to be rolling out my blogroll very soon.  I am so grateful to my regulars on here.  As such, my blogroll will be called the “Reggies” list – short for the Regulars.  It is a list of great people who have been here from the beginning and of course, I know your blog well and have read it.  (You know who you are.)  Reggies are the consistent people.  Consistent bloggers and consistent readers.  Since, being “regular” also has a second connotation – the Japanese say, “the colon is the key to overall health” – ANY reggies category blogger who takes a picture of him or herself or their dog next to a product that aids in colon health – think fiber rich bread, metamucil, prunes, etc, WILL GET AN ENTIRE ORIGINAL POST WRITTEN BY ME, ABOUT YOU.  You can put these photos in the comments section or you can email them to me at sweetmotherlover@gmail.com.  And if no one plays, no one plays, but, if you DO play…some traffic and a sparkly post written about you and your blog.  Could be fun.  Are you up to the challenge?

 

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HI, MY NAME IS REBECCA AND I’M AN OPRAH-DRUNK.

During every recovery program, it’s important to hear the story of your fearless leader.  It’s important to know that your role model has been there.  That’s why the Big Book in AA opens with Bill’s Story.  Bill, a crazy drunk who played the stocks and drove his wife to hell and back with his gin benders.  Eventually he finds salvation and sobriety, not to mention co-founding the modern AA.  So, here we are mid-swig of an Oprah-Detox, naked and shaking at Camp Becky and I realize that the moment has arrived for me to fully reveal myself.  That means it’s time.  Time for my biggest issue to come into the light.  Only through sharing can we truly heal.

There is supposed to be a reason why a person can’t get their weight under control.  Someone died or touched you inappropriately, you’ve been neglected, or misled, or totally ignored, or misunderstood.  Oprah says she’s hungry for balance.  Her thyroid has her out of whack.  All she does is work, work, work.  So, the pounds came back with a vengeance.  What’s my problem then?  No one has ever touched me.  Well, not in that creepy way, at least.  So, what am I hungry for?  I suppose, I’m hungry for a pencil skirt.  They are hot – pencil skirts.  I want to look like Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Secretary” or Jennifer Beals as Bette Porter, or Reese Witherspoon in “Election” – smart, but sexy.  Attractive and together.  Buttoned up, but in a way that makes you want to unbutton.  Yes!  But, with my giant ass, I will never wear one.  If I were to put on a pencil skirt right now it would look as if a baby had somehow slid down my body from his Baby Bjorn sack and now he’s trapped sideways and wrapped around my ass like a baby-slug.  I can’t even imagine the “jaws of life” it would require to release that baby from my ass and the humiliation I would feel once the rescue workers cut away my skirt only to reveal that there is no baby.  That all of THAT IS, in fact, just my ass.

Let’s talk “Monster’s Ball” for a second.  There’s a pivotal scene where Leticia (Halle Berry) is making love to creepy Billy Bob Thorton and she’s crying about her dead son.  She just keeps saying over and over again, “He’s fat.  He’s so fat.  Why?  Why’s he so fat?!” as Billy Bob gyrates his creepy and pasty frame into her.  Maybe this is sex therapy, but whatever it is, I don’t like it.  It’s obvious why the kid was fat.  His father went to the electric chair.  His mother barely talks to him except for slapping the shit out of him for being a fat cow and now, while his fat spirit hovers over the room, his unbelievable mother is making sex therapy with one of the corrections officers who killed his father.  Wtf?!  Let him have a Snickers!  Now my weight issues are much more murky than the cut and dry reasons that led Tyrell to hiding packs of candy bars under his bed sheets.  So, why do I have a weighty ass?  Why do black men call out to me as if I’m a walking video ho when I’m just trying to get soy milk from the store?  My ass bridges a racial divide simply by being herself.  She’s like Eminem and Nelson Mandela combined – both provocative and peace-making!  And while I celebrate her ability to cross culture boundaries, at times, Ms. Booty just plain annoys me.  So, I wonder, how did I get here and like any good child of the modern age, I blame my parents.

We all have a fury valve.  A release switch that gets triggered when your insides just might overheat.  My fury valve leads to eating a bag of blue, olive oil potato chips while sipping on an intoxicating frothy beverage or two.  My frustrated and exasperated valve is constantly being tripped.  It’s been going off my whole life.  Quite frankly, it’s a family affair.  My father releases his fury valve by yelling and then hammering a nail into something.  My mother releases hers by drinking margaritas and sitting there.  My brother releases his by moving across the country and avoiding things all together.  No one approach is better, but the triggers are the same.  There was the time I finally had a good job and bought my father a pair of Nike sneakers for jogging.  He complained about them.  He said, “These are too expensive.  The shoes I’m wearing are perfectly good for jogging.  They have rubber soles.”  He was wearing moccasins!  MOCCASINS!  He is NOT native american.  In response, I retreated to the kitchen and finished off a plate of brie.

There was the time I bought my father a new dvd player.  My father tends to buy brands no one has ever heard of.  I believe his old dvd player was the NOWERKS brand.  You had to point the thing due east, sit it on top of a pile of books, stick a pen into the disc slot, and then maybe, maybe it would work.  So, I bought my father a SONY.  I thought I was doing a good deed.  But, like the saying goes, “no good deed goes without tripping your fury valve.”  My dad sat on the couch with my grandmother and watched my brother and I set up the player.  In the meantime, my mother sipped margaritas and my father commented in an extremely panicked staccato.

Dad:    “YOU’RE / GOING/ TO/ MESS/ UP/ MY/ WHOLE/ SYSTEM!”

 
My brother and I pretend not to hear him.

 
Dad:    “WHY/ CAN’T/ YOU/ JUST/ LEAVE/ WELL/ ENOUGH/ ALONE!”

 
Me:    “We’ve got it under control.”

 
Dad:    “THAT/ DOESN’T/ GO/ THERE. YOU’RE/ GOING/ TO/ CAUSE/ AN/ OUTAGE!”

 
Me:    “Dad, would you just not yell at me.  I can do this if you would just give me some space.”

 
Dad:    “I’M/ NOT/ YELLING!”

 
And at this point I want to jam a Paxil down his throat.

 
My brother and mother chime in, “Actually, yes, you were yelling.”

 
Dad:    “EVERYONE/ IN/ MY/ FAMILY/ YELLS. THAT’S/ HOW/ WE/ COMMUNICATE.”

 
Me:    “Well, grandma’s sitting right there.  SO/ BREAK/ THE/ CYCLE!”

 

I'm not the Maytag guy, but I can handle this!

 

 

And with that my brother and I turn on the brand new, name brand, working, dvd player and I retreat to the kitchen to finish off a pack of chocolate macaroons and a nice glass of shiraz.  It’s a vicious cycle.

 
Again, this doesn’t compare to Oprah.  She was raped by a cousin and then molested by a friend of her uncle’s.  How big of a release valve would you need for that?  Jesus.  So, what she has a quasi-lesbo, best friendship, and a beard of a beau that she may or may not have paid 250 million to keep silent about their split.  That’s a lot to handle.  So, she eats and she works.  Leave her alone.  Adolescent sexual abuse entitles you to as many Frito-Lay binges as you want.  But, I know, I know, maybe that’s not healthy.  You know what is healthy?  Being the world’s first black and female BILLIONAIRE!  That’s what’s healthy.  Now, of course, if I were a billionaire, I’d handle the weight thing quite differently.  I’d pay a person to be my personal, “Oh, No You Don’t!” chaperone.  All they would have to do is follow me around and knock the bag of avocado oil, potato chips right out of my hands.  (Have you had these friggin‘ things?  They’re like a spiritual experience.)  I go for the second glass of wine or the second helping of buttery mashed potatoes with rice on cornbread with a side of noodles and you tackle me from across the room.  It’s that simple.  Why not?!  They do it for alcoholics!  Alcoholics who are famous have boozy chaperones.  I’ve seen many comedians with this kind of paid confidante.  They look like a secret service agent and they go with you from gig to crappy gig and they make sure you don’t drink a thing.  It’s like a paid friend, only better because they actually care about what happens to you.  Everyone should get a chaperone like this for at least a moment in their lives.

 
Here’s the truth, if you don’t REALLY enjoy your food, I don’t trust you.  If you’re eating the best turkey sandwich of your life, it better sound like you’re fucking that turkey sandwich.  I want that level of enjoyment.  I want sex noises that come from food pleasure.  There’s something about those skinny, perfectly preened, no-body-fat, people who make me squint my eyes and think, “Ok, you look perfect, so something has to be wrong.  Are there bodies in your basement?  I think we should check for carcasses in your cellar.”  That’s why we love Oprah.  She’s just like us – fat, at times and skinny, at times.  Who else could suck down an entire bag of Doritos, complete their day with a fabulous, life-affirming, night conversation with their best friend and still get up in the morning to help us all live our best lives?  Only Oprah is capable.  BUT, NOW SHE IS GONE.  What are we all supposed to do now?  WHO IN THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO SOB WITH ABOUT OUR FAT?  If you are like me, than you saw yourself in Oprah’s jelly rolls and cream pie thighs.  She was your fat reflection.  Oprah was where you scurried to for your fat commiseration.  Now what?  I mean, come on.  Oprah was perfect.  Oprah was a woman who once wheeled out a little, red, children’s wagon filled with her excess fat and displayed these obscene plastic bags to her studio audience.  “Can you believe I was carrying this around?” Oprah preens.  “Oh, we understand.  We understand!”  Who will be our champion now?
Well, as you can see, this issue is very personal for me.  So, I’ve come up with some ways to deal with your fat without -gasp- Oprah.  Keep in mind, these are not country-club-remedies like the food assailant who attacks you when you slip off your diet.  I created that strictly for the Housewives of Atlanta.  I can assure you that remedy is expensive.  (Would you want to deal with those bitches without a hefty price tag?)  These tips are more like every day fixes to make sure you stay on the straight and narrow.  Our only hope is that we can keep you from being buried in a piano case or getting so obese that your skin starts to graft to your couch.  We understand that this is a difficult quest during these Oprah-less times, but -damn it- by hook or by crook, we WILL succeed together!

 
Oprah-Free Ways to Deal with Your Fat:

 
Perpetual Pregnancy
Get pregnant.  Now and forever.  If you have one baby approximately every one to two years between now and your death at around 80 or 90 years old, you should be able to pop out around 25 or so babies.  The idea is to have people say, “Oh, have you gained a little weight?” and you can answer in all truthfulness, “Oh, no.  I’m pregnant.”  Or “Oh, no.  This is baby weight.”  If you tire of having babies or if you reach menopause, buy one of those fake pregnancy suits at a costume store and tell people that you are still pregnant.  The benefit of this ruse is that no one ever sees your muffin top or judges that third chin you’ve been sporting.  You are never forced to wear uncomfortable jeans or slutty shoes.  You can remain in any pant with an elastic waistband for all of eternity and you can enjoy as many Dunkin’ Donut stops as you like.  (Please note: alcohol drinking is much more difficult if you choose this plan.  We suggest implanting a Camelback, water container into your pregnancy suit and feeding the straw up through your bra strap.)

 

Yes, Virginia, now you too can become a Sumo
With Oprah gone, there is no club for the zaftig girl.  Who will look curvy like we do, hold her head up high, and win award after award?  The mold has been broken!  Or has it?  Enter the female Sumo.  That’s right the ancient Japanese art of fighting fatties.  Well, now they’re taking women.  So, sign up!  Enjoy the company of a group of ladies who skip breakfast and then enjoy a large lunch, wash it down with a beer, take a nap afterwards, a little roll around on the mat with another fat broad in the afternoon, and then a heavy dinner.  Now, that’s living!  Think of the carefree calories.  Think of the prestige.  Sure you can never touch a male dojo.  Sure, your female fingertips will desecrate all that the Japanese, male, Sumos hold dear, but who cares!  You have fans.  You can eat.  Your fellow, lady, Sumos – they understand you!  Just like Oprah once did!  You cry at night and you crack open a beer and it’s all part of the dang job description.  Don’t want to wear the Sumo diaper?  Well, that may be the one drawback.  Never fear, Becky is here for you.  If Sumo fashion is not your thing, why not try the shot put?  You’ll be the hottest broad in all of Eastern Europe.  That I can guarantee you.

 

If none of the above fits your future vision of yourself, then I have one more option for you…

 

Move to Antarctica
In Antarctica, fat may just save your life or keep you from freezing while you perform your own breast cancer surgery.  In Antarctica, no one wears “skinny jeans” with a spaghetti strap tank top.  Hypothermia suits are all the rage in this winter wonderland.  If you happen to trip the light fucktastic with one of Antarctica’s 1,000 winter residents, he will be thrilled that you’re packing a little extra to keep him warm under the duvet.  You’ll be sought after.  People will refer to you as, “The only woman in Antarctica who can keep a man warm when naked.”  Men will travel from far away research stations just to get a chance at your sleeping bag and no one will think twice if you have a second, chocolate chip, muffin.

 

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