TheAmericanMale

Two Nations. 4-19-11

Fat and Sloppies are an ungraceful bunch.   Because we choose inactivity, nose to the grindstone work ethic, and tasty diet over exercise and eating right, our thighs rub and our backs are out of whack.  The physics of carrying an unwieldy blubber packet doesn’t allow us to walk a straight line either.

I thought about this as I spent ten minutes watching an obese woman pathetically try to enter the hotel pool.  I noticed her uniquely shaped round cellulite body as she approached the pool deliberating on an entrance strategy.  I quietly ruminated that she isn’t the typical wealthy looking hotel client. It was heartbreaking to watch her because I imagined I might be watching my future.

She wanted to swim, but couldn’t figure out how to get into the pool.  The pool stair system in this foreign hotel was made only for thin, graceful people.  This fat woman couldn’t use the stairs.  She had to lay down on the ground and try to roll into the pool.

She tried every way to lower herself into the pool.  She couldn’t even climb down the stairs because her arms were too weak and her body was too heavy.  She held onto the metal railing trying to lower herself face first, that didn’t work.  Then she tried to lower herself butt first, but that didn’t work.  She kept slowly turning around like a dog chasing its tail.  Still she couldn’t get in.

I wanted to offer help but what was I to do?  Others watching this drama had concerned looks on their faces.  I was engrossed in real life Fat and Sloppy theater watching this woman attempting to get into the pool.  My daughter jarred me from this trance when she asked me, “Daddy, what is that lady doing?”  Almost everyone on the pool deck had watched this spectacle.

Finally, with a splat noise that fat makes when it hits wet ground, I look over and see the woman plopped down on the ground. She decided she would roll into the pool.

Once she was safely in the pool, I looked up at the other people at the pool and noticed that the thin ones walk normally and the fat and sloppy ones all had something wrong with their walk.  I’ll be verifying my theory in the next days, but I already know I’m correct; and I’ve discovered that two nations inhabit America.  One nation wants to be thin again and the other will become Fat and Sloppy as they enter middle age.

My Navel 4-18-11

When I was thin, I used to keep my navel clean.  Lint from my t-shirts accumulates over time and gets stuck in there. I gave up cleaning my navel years ago when I joined the fat and sloppy nation. I remember the frustration of not being able to get that junk out of there. I hoped my inability to clean my navel would prod me to stop eating so much. It didn’t help, and I got used to not cleaning my navel.

It had been years since I thought about my navel and that I was once thin enough to clean it; until yesterday.

I’m on vacation with my family and I have been swimming with my daughter every day for a week. After we got out of the pool, I was laying on the chase lounge and my daughter looks over at my stomach and says “Daddy, what’s that in your belly button?”  I hadn’t seen inside my navel in years.  It was stuffed with junk.

I told my daughter what it was and she immediately volunteered to clean it herself.  She wanted to dig her finger in there and clean it out like a nostril.  My navel isn’t like a nostril, its way bigger, and it has to be cleaned gently and carefully.  Not only am I fat and sloppy, I’m also a delicate flower.  I tell her “I’ll get it.”  Still, she insists, and I tell her “no” again.  I have to quickly find a way to clean it before I lose this great viewing angle.  This will require a potentially embarrassing public naval cleaning; something I have never done before.  But since I’m married and fat already, I’m going for it.

The only cleaning implement I had handy was hotel room key card.  I was making some cleaning progress with the edge of the card when (and this is where the embarrassing part comes in) I look up, and the beautiful 23 year old bikini clad waitress is standing over me.  She announces that our lunch is ready.

I ate my grilled chicken and french fries quickly.  I couldn’t wait to get back to my room to clean my navel.  There were no tweezers around, so I used the hook from my nail clippers and began dislodging years of accumulated, forgotten, hardened lint.  It took a while, but finally I got it all.

Haircut 4-3-11

I got my haircut last night.  I used to go to a salon to have my hair cut, but with the economy the way it is, I now go to a barbershop.   Barbershop or Salon it doesn’t matter, my head hairs are slowly disappearing and reappearing on other, unappreciated, parts of my body.

My barber, Rick, is a nice guy.   Rick cuts my hair in a forward direction to make it look like I have thicker and more hair than I really do.  I appreciate that even though I still see a lot of head skin between my loyal remaining head hairs. Getting my haircut from Rick allows me to experience a feeling that I rarely have anymore, vanity.

The other day I was playing with my daughter and she said “Daddy, you have a hair in your ear.”  It was in my ear all right; growing in my ear.  I got my tweezers and plucked it out.  It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last ear hair.

Maybe it’s because I see fewer head hairs that I am noticing hairs growing in strange unwanted places. I don’t see the evolutionary use or need for me or any middle aged American man to grow hair on stupid places.   My ass doesn’t need any more hair, but yet more hair grows… why?   My neck, shoulders, ears, knuckles, nostrils and eyebrows are now places of vigorous hair growth.  My head is jealous and I’m confused.

Imagining that no one will notice I’m getting old if I remove those crazy hairs, I’m on constant pluck patrol for these unwanted stowaways.  They are removed as soon as I see them.  I remove them and then humiliate them by flicking them into the sink and washing them down the drain.  I satisfy myself that I will never see those hairs again.  Yeah, right.

Freezing 3-27-11

Being fat and sloppy is often the main topic of conversation with my friends; even when we are at a restaurant.  Listening to my friends talk about diet, one would believe them to be diet and weight loss experts.  No one couldn’t tell by looking at them though.  I eagerly listen to their diet theories with rapt attention, drinking in the wisdom of my buddies. 

Most of the diet talk centers on eliminating carbs and sugars from the diet.  They tell me that magical thinning that happens when we eliminate those items.  These things even I have heard about before.  Last Saturday night, I spent an hour in a car with three slob friends listening to their best current strategies for losing weight. 

Turns out that my friends, while not eating sugary, fried and high calorie foods, are at the cutting edge of the science of calorie loss, and stay up to date on scientific literature about the best weight loss theories.  They inform me that the best diet is cold water.  Not drinking it; but taking long showers in it.  I know real men take cold showers and Navy Seals do too, but I’m not stupid.  They can’t convince me to do that. 

Losing weight can be done in only 10 minutes a day twice a week they insist.  They presented a compelling case that the energy required while shivering in freezing water will cause me to lose weight.  This is what my buddies say and I believe them. 

Since I told them I wouldn’t take cold showers, they recomended I stand in a swimming pool and let the pounds roll off me.  That advice struck me as reasonable.  So, I’ll ask my neighbor if I can stand in his unheated pool for 10 minutes a couple times a week.  

I can picture myself in the pool, shivering and losing weight.  How easy!  I then imagine total strangers coming up to me and ask me how is it that I look so good.  I’ll beam with pride and smile.   I won’t tell them anything, I’ll keep my little secret to myself. 

Before I get started, I have to ask my friends how to get the courage to jump into and sit in someone’s freezing pool for 10 minutes.

Premeals and a Food Baby 3-25-11

I ate two dinners last night. I was with my wife’s family celebrating her cousin’s birthday. She has a great extended family. They are warm, stick together like family should and they like to celebrate at restaurants. 

My gripe is that unless we are at a buffet, (and we do find ourselves at buffets often) it takes an hour for her family to decide what to eat.  It shouldn’t be that complicated; I often wake up having dreamt of what I’m going to eat.  Top that off with their predelection for restaurants that have the slowest order time to table delivery ratio, and it can take two hours to get a piece of food into my craw.

Being fat in general, uncomfortable with being fat at a cramped table, and having limited social skills; sitting at a table without food for a long time doesn’t work for me.  So, I went outside and made some business calls (I should have ordered take out delivery sent to this slow serve restaurant). On my way out, I spoke to the waitress and pre-ordered my meal. I told her to bring my meal at the same time as the other meals.  By the way, I had sworn an oath to eat in moderation just that morning.   

I returned to the table after 20 minutes outside and my dinner was sitting at the table. The problem was that no one else had their meal, they had just finished ordering.   Imagine how rude I must have looked to everyone. I step outside for 20 minutes and my dinner is already there. 

Feeling like her family was looking at me like an anti-social idiot, I immediately told my wife that I would not touch my dinner and was waiting for the others to be served. My commitment to decency lasted no more than a minute. My wife told me it was OK to eat. I started with the broccoli, telling myself “I will only eat the broccoli, but not the other items.”  Then, the ahi tuna steak and mashed potatoes called my name.  Within minutes my plate was cleaned. Feeling shame doesn’t dampen my appetite. I thought it would, but it doesn’t.

Somehow, everyone else’s food was delivered shortly after that.  The site of new food set my appitite blazing again, so I started eyeballing my wife’s dinner.  She ate a few bites and didn’t like it.  She saw me stalking her food and offered it to me.  Great, I’ll eat that.  I called the waitress over and had her spend no less than five minutes frosting my pasta with grated parmesan cheese.  I cleaned my wife’s plate just like I did mine before. 

As we were leaving the party, my wife’s attractive young 30 something cousin leaned into me, looked at my gut, and said that she was planning to throw a shower for my food baby.  Which she said, based on my figure, would arrive any day.

First Ache 3-15-11

I can’t tell you how many times old people ( I don’t consider myself old) have told me about the aches and pains that come with age.  Those complaints and aches were for others, not for me.  In my mind I’m still an athlete and don’t get aches.  So it was a big “what the hell happened here?” moment when my right elbow started giving me big trouble.  I couldn’t tell you any reason why it hurt.  This strange discomfort came from nowhere.   

Granted, my elbow was tender and sore and might have healed if I left it alone, I didn’t leave it alone.  My neighbor, who’s a really nice guy, wanted to play tennis with me.  I shouldn’t have played and I even thought it might not be good for me to play, but I played a vigorous 45 minutes of tennis on a nearby court.  I wasn’t going to let some mystery ache boss me around, so I played like a pro.  I stopped playing at the 43 minute mark as my arm was swollen and my hand wasn’t working properly.  When I came home, my wife congratulated me for exploring the deepest reaches of idiocy.  I still have to work and earn a living for my family and I can’t do it from the hospital.

So with my arm on fire and my hand not responding to simple brain commands, I may have entered a new phase of mid life.  Good for me.

Reinjuring Myself. 3-11-11

I just destroyed my elbow trying to break open a large twist lollipop; the kind you get at Disneyland.  This delicious grape lollipop is too hard to risk breaking my teeth on, so I crack it apart with my hands before throwing  it in my mouth.  I’ve broken down plenty of these in the last few weeks and I’m good at it.

Problem is, I just destroyed my elbow while trying to save my teeth.  The elbow has been bothering me for a week now and was starting to get better until I just fought with, and lost my battle with the lollipop.   On the scales of epicurean pleasure, the throbbing pain in my elbow and my rapidly swelling arm isn’t worth the candy I just shoved in my mouth.  I now own this bit of wisdom.

I stopped working out after I wrote on how great I was beginning to feel a few weeks back, so the elbow injury wasn’t from working out.   If my wife knew that I injured my elbow by breaking candy into small easily scarfable pieces, she would break my other elbow.

It is funny how much candy eating goes on without her knowing about it.  None the less, the wife would still break me like a lollipop if she knew how much candy I was eating.

A Joy 3-10-11

I consider myself a world class candy connoisseur.  As such and as a member of the Fat and Sloppy Nation I’m duty bound to sample the new candies that come on the market.  This is something I do for humanity – I like to think.  Happy times come when I wander around and find a new type of candy.  It makes me feel like Columbus discovering America.

I have two type of candy favorites.  They are the colorful and jelly type.  A week back, while at a convention in Las Vegas, I found a new candy and have fallen in love with it in my mouth.  It is called Joys.  Joys is a candy bar with a red semi-solid jello filling covered with a thin layer of dark chocolate. The center has a fruity sort of raspberry taste and a perfect not too hard, not too soft consistency; its just right.  It comes dressed in a yellow wrapper.

I find true happiness when I eat them. For a brief few seconds, when its me and this raspberry covered chocolate bar, all my other senses step aside in honor of my mouth. Only the mouth exists. Worries disappear, time stops, the eighty-five bucks I just spent on nearly 100 candy bars doesn’t matter; I am transported to taste bud paradise.

I felt greedy, but I bought every Joy the store put out for public purchase.  I had to hide my stash from my family.  They don’t want me eating so much candy (what do they know?) and want to prevent me from enjoying my Joys.  I have been eating five of these candy bars a day.  I could eat more, but I don’t.  I like to consider myself a person with good self control.

On a side note, but possibly related to the Joy story, I almost fell off my chair onto the floor yesterday while I was tieing my shoe at work.  I couldn’t reach over my stomach and I lost my balance trying to reach for my shoe.

Another Reason to Exercise 2-24-11

Yesterday as I was coming back from my workout at the local college, I got involved in an argument.  I usually stay out of arguments because I’m so busy, but today I had to get into one.

There are American Veterans that go to the local college who want the other students to know that they are students and were speaking to and greeting people.  On my way to my workout, I saw them and smiled.  I appreciate their service and I support them.

On the way back, I saw that a couple had come to their table to argue with them and call them names.  I stood by for a moment listening to them verbally abuse the Veterans.  The Veterans were quiet and respectful of this very disrespectful couple, but they weren’t defending themselves.

I got so angry at these abusers and their lies.  I couldn’t take it.  I felt that if I didn’t defend these Veterans I was a nothing.  I started countering the lies and vilification that these degenerates were spewing at our Veterans.  I was able to demolish their lies because I know American history and they had no response to me.

The problem is that I was shaking so badly during my defense of the Veterans.  I’m so out of shape and I thought I might get into a fight.  I thought those America haters might attack me.  I’m not in shape to fight these days and that bothers me.

I used to be in such good shape.  Seven years ago, I trained in Jiu Jitsu for three years.   That is the same stuff that UFC fighters use.  Before that, I beat a four time Mr. Natural Universe title holder in a dip competition.  The guy was like Superman and I beat him; and I have a witness (my brother).   Since then, I have let myself slip so far from what I was, that I appear to have lost all confidence in myself.

Will this encounter spur me to get back in shape?  Knowing myself, no.  I’m too busy with work.

2-17-11 Women and a Man Taking a Dump.

Maybe because I’ve been working out for the last few days, I took a dump this morning.  Even a morning dump is a welcome development in my middle aged stressed out life.  Unfortunately, that private and somewhat special event wasn’t private this time.

As what felt like a glass studded tree stump slowly and painfully emerge from my rectum, I was robbed of my man moment when my wife flitted into the bathroom to happily list her days activities for me.   I didn’t request a listing of her daily activities and told her to leave the room.

What I find hard to understand isn’t that my anal sphincter quickly recovers from this trauma, or that my wife feels that I’m not entitled to any privacy,  but how my wife always wants to talk to me when I should be unavailable to her.  Is it her or all women who don’t understand?  I consistently have to banish her from my presence when I’m unloading my packed colon, how many times do we have to go through this exercise?  Is there something in the wife constitution that makes her want to be near me during this special man time?

My turd dramas don’t concern her and she happily tells me all the little things she has scheduled today.   After I finally got rid of her and looked forward to finishing up what I like to call “my quiet moments,” my daughter walks in holding her nose.  Now she has some questions for me.  I couldn’t order her away as I did my wife, and I answered her questions.

She told me to put down my magazine to hear what she had to say.  Maybe this is where little girls learn that they can speak to men in the middle of the quintessential man activity.