Fat Chance: Lament of a Transplanted Single

Before moving here, I never had to worry about what my friends thought of me. They knew me. Sometimes for 10 or 20 years--a few of them longer than that. And I was in relationships usually. Serial monogamist. So I didn't have to worry about the impression I made, or if I was going to get laid anytime soon, or whether there was someone to confide in, play with...now, it's all new. New State, new city, new people, and SINGLE, though not NEWLY SINGLE. Aside from a five month relationship, I've been single for what? 4 or 5 years? Add to this paradigm, the difficulties of being a small percentage of the population in several Identity markers, and being older, and it's a recipe for angst. Dating was never something I did much of, because I was always either in a relationship or leaving one to go into another.

I'm still puzzled by the dynamics of dating. Women will tell you things that aren't true--either because they think it's what you want to hear, or because they're not self-actualized enough to know what the truth is. And then they punish you later for behaving according to the information they gave. (like having a profile that portrays them as ready and open to finding love, going on 4 dates, saying point-blank they are attracted to you, postponing going out in favor of a kissfest in front of the fireplace, and then suddenly disappearing, only to pop back up with a Dear Jane note that they are simply not ready to date or have a relationship, like they thought). Or the shorter variation of that: they will behave as though they like you and they are enjoying a rapport with you and then just evaporate, like you were someone they just chatted with at a bus stop.

I had to start looking at how * I* responded to women in order to get some insight about why THEY respond in certain ways to me. I wanted to understand what they might be thinking. The edification wasn't always complete. But this is what happens for me. When I meet women. I might not be attracted physically, or not attracted personality- wise, or there's some other deal breaker. Or any combination of the three. Or,  rarely, I will meet a woman I am actually attracted to. Like a little giddy-crush-type attracted. Like being distracted by their lips when they talk, and wondering what it would be like to kiss them, sort of attracted. This is something new for me since moving here. i just can't recall the last time I met someone in my previous life I was actually chemically attracted to--strongly. Attractions were always predicated on concessions. "Ok, not attracted to her voice, but she has a nice smile" or "hate the way she's so butch, but she's sweet." or "She's got a drinking problem, but she makes me laugh." Stuff like that. When I say really attracted to, I mean, voice, lips, eyes, diction, hair, dress, personality, ethics, worldview, etc--the whole nine.

But when that happens, then the stressors begin--does she like me too? is she attracted to me? if she seems to like me, is she just pretending? Is she losing interest because I talk about writing too much? Because I have too much to say about too many things? Because she can sense my need for sex and intimacy and, ultimately a partner? Or is it just because I'm fat? I say fat, because that's how it feels. I am "overweight." But to me, it's fat. I don't have Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  When I look in the mirror I don't plunge into a depression and stick my finger down my throat or carve FAT in my arm with a pickle fork. I can appreciate when I look good aside from the weight. Sometimes I might say, "Oh, I'm having a good face day." And a few times, after checking my appearance in the mirror before a date, I'd say. "Okay. I'd date me." And I know if I ever could get the extra tonnage off, I'd be the first one to parade around in my underwear, or have no qualms about getting naked with a hottie, while the lights were still on in the room.

But fat is ugly. I don't like it on me, and I'm not attracted to it on others. Though, I must digress here and qualify that with this: I am also not attracted to skinny women. I like curves, softness. I don't want to feel like I need to wear a Michelin Man suit to keep from being impaled by a hip bone. And I could still be attracted to an overweight woman--and HAVE, more than once. I guess it's just about how she carries it and dresses, and whether she has other qualities that intrigue or attract me.  But I am disgusted by my own naked reflection, and that's not going to change until the reflection does.

I hear some people saying, "You should love yourself as you are, you're beautiful on the inside." bullshit. No one will ever see how beautiful you are on the inside until they can get past the outside. That's just how it works. it's a rare person who does not see or respond to the attraction-factor. it's hard-wired into the human brain. An evolutionary fact. Those who can be attracted to anyone might have an advantage when it comes to finding dates and partners, but then again, i wonder if that's actually a DEFECT...and besides, if I am with someone who can be attracted to anyone they like on "The inside", no matter what they look like, how does that make me feel special? "I love being with you Jae...or that crack whore over there. Either one, doesn't matter."

So, while I was too dense to appreciate the body I had when I was younger, I care that I don't have the body I want now --because I think that maybe that woman I've just met and enjoyed coffee or a glass of wine with is thinking "She's nice enough, but I'm not attracted to fat girls." 

And then I get mad and feel persecuted on some esoteric level because it took so many years for me to even be able to WALK again. (One previous girlfriend during one of those particularly trying disability binges even said she was embarrassed to be seen with me on those forearm crutches. I guess if you're going to be a Jerry's Kid, you better be really cute, and a KID. Her comment has never left my head, and I can still recall the profound anger and pain it caused me to be rejected for being disabled). 

So--the fat-thing-- It's not like I just sit in front of the TV 24/7 eating Twinkies and Chic-o-sticks. (though I love TV, Twinkies and Chic-o-sticks. One of my favorite meals is also biscuits and gravy, but I've had that once in the last two years.) I have done everything within my power to get all this extra weight off, to include dieting, food science, portion control, drinking gallons of water, and consuming any number of other supplements and pills and potions. But since I couldn't exercise for so many years due to injury andpain, I just could not lose weight. period. And even though I have a great deal of mobility and don't LOOK like I have limitations, I still do. Eating less never works for me. I just stay at one weight. (Overeating, though, will make me gain. Yay). I have one of those metabolisms that doesn't respond to starving or eating less.

 Looking back at my weight in the Army and when I was younger, I can see that the problem for me is, I don't get enough exercise as I did during those times--or enough of the right exercise. Because, while I can do way more than I used to, I can only do certain things without risking re-injury.  And I hate that with the red hot burning passion of a thousand suns. 

I went on a full-fledged exercise binge when I discovered i could play racquetball again. And then I started working out everyday on the Gazelle and lifting light hand weights, too. Then POP! Blew a disc. Cervical disc rupture. Herniated Disco --and it took 8 weeks of special treatments, pain meds, and being in bed 99% of the time, to heal that. And I had to do it all by myself with no one to help me. 

So, now, I do a lot of walking. I'm thrilled that I can walk 2 or 3 miles at a time, when not so many years ago, I couldn't walk 2 or 3 yards. Preferable to the Crutches, and the scooter before that, and the wheelchair before that, I assure you. Yet, all this walking doesn't seem to change my weight.

The upshot is, no one knows or cares about your physiological history or your challenges in the past, when they meet you for the first time. They only see the packaging. And while I try to make the package as attractive as possible, there's only so much I can do with this extra blubber and the effects of aging. I quit smoking tobacco and now use electronic (vapor) cigs; I use Apple Cider vinegar on my skin because it gives it a vibrant and healthy glow; I use a Derma-Wand device on it too--it's a home face-lift type thing; I take mega-vitamins and supplements in a shake everyday. I tan, I use coconut oil as a lotion, because it's natural and beneficial in many ways to skin and system; I wear makeup when I go out in public and always fix my hair, and wear nice jewelry. I always try to dress attractively too--especially if I'm meeting anyone for the first time.  As the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And while I don't consider myself a sow's ear, I still only have so much to work with. 

What I want--crave--is to find someone who will not only be attracted to me, but to whom I will also be attracted, and that we will enjoy a harmonious lifetime commitment filled with love and laughter and hope and purpose. 

And the voice in my head grunts, FAT chance.

Fat Chance: Lament of a Transplanted Single

Paraplegic Dumped From Wheelchair

To say that this is reprehensible would be understating. I hope that officer and every other person in the room gets fired, and brought up on charges, and goes to jail where someone can shank them in the spine so that they will be paralyzed and then I hope someone dumps them from THEIR chair.

Paraplegic Dumped From Wheelchair

Petting the Hounds of Hell

from my memoir, "The Misadventures of No One Famous"

There was that short period in my life in 1998, when I actually believed all would be well. I had a great job that I loved, it paid well, and it seemed it was only a matter of time before I got back on my financial feet. I began to feel good about myself again. Deeply spiritual. Like I had just returned from a sabbatical in an ashram with the Dalai Lama, and was blessed and sanctified by my victory over previous hardships.

Then my paycheck bounced. Then another, and another, and the NSF charges began to pile up since I wrote checks for bills on that amount I expected to be there. I confronted my boss with the admonition that I would need to be compensated immediately or I could not continue to work. The conversation deteriorated from there, turned into an altercation, and a refusal to pay, and I threatened to leave and take the extra computer with me as collateral until he paid me. That's when he called the police.

The officers arrived, a report was filed, and I was escorted to my car-- without a paycheck, and without the computer. I entertained the idea of sugar in his gas tank, or a well-placed banana peel, but thought myself above that sort of pettiness. I was out of sugar and bananas.

Many weeks later, my ex-boss finally sent a check, painfully short of what was actually owed, and wrote a little legal statement on the back stating that endorsement of that check meant that it was payment in full. By that time, my financial status was so bad, I didn't have a choice. I had to take what he offered, even though he owed me over a thousand dollars. So I signed my name to the back of the check, all the while sending really nasty black energy in his direction.

Jobless and in financial hot-water, I took my disabled self to the first job I could find. Delivering pizza. Problem was, the original job description was that I would deliver only. It developed into being on my feet 8-10 hours, carrying large trays of very heavy dough, enormous cans of sauce, mopping, sweeping... all the sorts of things "normal" people can do.

I told the manager on duty that I couldn't do those things, wasn't supposed to do them, but got no sympathy. That conversation ended in sophomoric chastisement in front of several customers. I knew it was only a matter of time before my back gave out. And when that actually happened, I headed for the door with a slipping disc, bent over like a great-grandmother with osteoporosis.

I was practically bedridden for the next two weeks, as the bills continued to pile up. My water was turned off, my electricity was about to be, and I knew I had to find other work, regardless of how long I could keep it.

I started a job at Blockbuster, but soon discovered that 4 to 8 hours on my feet was just as bad as short hours lifting things. I started missing work, and finally went down with another slipped disc and had to turn in my notice. I also had to turn in my notice to the landlord since I was two months behind and saw no end in sight.

A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and the guest room of an old friend were all that saved me from living in my van. I moved almost all my things to storage in January, '99, while applying for increases in my VA disability and compensation from Social Security.

I still owed the landlord for that month's rent, and wasn't able to sell that furniture to pay him--which is still in the living room of my ex-house. And Tyler (my ex--the one who ripped my heart to shreds) is moving into that house since they raised the rent where she was...odd...like some sort of personal insult...

So this morning, after a long night of anxiety dreams, I pulled myself out of bed and started a strong pot of coffee... Checked the mail...My thoughts kept wandering back and forth between these things:

• what's the going price for cocaine?
• how many people do I have to kill to join a gang?
• how exactly does one contact the devil in order to sell one's soul?
  
• Does he carry a "sell" phone?
• what should be said in my suicide note?
  

This delightful frame of mind is brought to you by the Sherwood Municipal Court, Hot Check Division: "We're just doing our jobs." These fine people now hold a warrant for my arrest. Talk about adding insult to injury, salt to a wound...

Funny, they managed to put out a warrant for me, but that check from my ex Boss-From-Hell never was covered, even though I filed an affidavit on him. I continue to feel he's responsible for much of this Misfortune Circus that is my life. If he hadn't written me those hot paychecks and thrown me into financial devastation, which meant I had to leave the job-- well, none of this would have happened.

And if I had never joined the Army, none of the past eleven years of crap would have happened, and I would be able to find other work, no matter how physical it was. But my choices are limited.

So there was every possibility I'd end up getting arrested and going to jail--all because I couldn't whip out my checkbook and pay for this fine.

I kept trying to see the point of it-- the larger spiritual picture...I just continued to feel like the Biblical figure, JOB. Funny, that name looks an awful lot like something I wish I had. They should have added an "e" to the end of it. Hey, I even have boils again. Didn't "JOBe" have to deal with that, too? (I would ask the POWERS THAT BE please not to kill my family). That story strikes me as bogus anyway. A Loving God? God kills a man's family in order to test HIS faith....mmm. I must remember to ask Reverend Sid to explain that one.

So what have I learned?

I've learned that it's not a good idea to save the unused canned biscuits for later baking. They come out flat and firm like hardtack. (I only opened them because all I had was a can of 10, and I was hungry. I couldn't very well eat 10 Texas-sized biscuits, even if I am hungry most of the time lately).

So I've learned that now, God. I understand. Now, call off your Hounds.

Petting the Hounds of Hell

It Only Hurts When I Think About it

(From "The Misadventures of No One Famous" my memoir)

I flipped through the TV channels and found nothing of interest, read some, put the book down and stared at the dust on my alarm clock, and then started thinking about living in my van. How it would be. Would I be able to maintain the fiction that it's a romantic idea once I was actually there, and the temperature drops to freezing? Would my cigarette lighter work so that I could plug the power inverter into it for a space heater? Could I live on ready-to-eat foods? Would I be able to find a place to shower and go to the bathroom when I needed to?

And I won't be able to leave the van for very long because Giz and Bingo would be there and it's cold, and I can't leave them without heat. So I won't be able to sit in warm coffee-shops and bookstores and libraries and movie houses. I will be making my pain, their pain, and I would not let them suffer more than me. It wouldn't be fair.

I hate the fact that I have to depend on anyone else to survive. I want to depend only on me. But I'm undependable. I hate that I can't pick up something heavy and walk across the room without excruciating pain afterward, or during. I hate the way one disability leads to another. . . if my back is out, I have to walk on crutches, then I get a catch in my spine just outside my shoulder blade, and carpal tunnel in my wrists, then I can't write or use my hands without pain, then I can't use the crutches, so then I can't walk. Then I have to lie down a lot, and I smoke and drink to have something to do with my hands, and to numb the pain and to feel like I'm indulging in some guilty pleasure. And when I eat, I know all those calories are just going to turn to fat.

I hate, then, that I'm fat and can't lose weight because I can't exercise. I don't look good in any of my clothes and can't buy new clothes because I can't work and earn the money. I hate that I can't play racquetball or softball or volleyball anymore. I hate that I have to watch other people do that. And I can't dance, so going out becomes a form of self-torture and self-loathing. Then I hate how I feel about myself and I get depressed. And I long to be thin and nice- looking, but I know I never will be.

I hate that I can't have sex when my back is out, even though I might need it-- Need it to feel human, to escape from the confines of my disabilities. And when I can have sex, I can't stop thinking about how I'm fat and ugly, and that no one could possibly be attracted to me. And then I can't enjoy the sex, and I don't get what I need. Then I'm angry and bitter and I push everyone away from me with my rage and caustic words. Then I just hate the Army and the V.A. and that drill sergeant who got me hurt, and I hate that they've taken away my life. Why wouldn't I want to kill myself? It's just finishing a job, isn't it?

Sometimes the subject will come up--the "suicide gesture" as the hospital form said-- When I talk to Terra. about it, she can't hear it. She tells me to stop, it's disturbing. She's more traumatized than I am about it. The only thing I find disturbing is that it doesn't disturb me. Like it was someone else. Or a dream. Or someone else's dream.

I wasn't just depressed when I did it. I was angry. I wanted it all to stop. I didn't have the strength to face another day of starting over. And there was this other part to it. When I got that denial of my claim that day on the 16th of December, 1999, it was like they were saying, "You don't exist. Your pain isn't real. You aren't real." Maybe I thought that if I could bleed, I was real, and that would be proof enough.

Life blood.

The blood of life.

Alive.

If I bled, I was alive.

Isn't it ironic that you have to try to die before you know you're really alive? And then what did that prove?

I was alive, but still pathetic?

It Only Hurts When I Think About it

The Pony Depress

(From "The Misadventures of No One Famous" my memoir)

Sometimes the post office forgets to cancel the stamps on outgoing mail.
The result is free postage, as far as I'm concerned. I've been hoarding those little jewels for months; just like I do those pennies that I drop in that change-sorting contraption I bought at Target. I've molested that stash plenty of times, and now it was the stamp I needed.

I tried to peel the stamp from the orphaned envelope, but tore it at the only place where the glue actually did what glue was supposed to do. "Shit."

I slammed around in the desk drawer for scissors, and liberated the stamp by simply cutting it out of the envelope. I rubbed a withered glue stick on it and pasted it to the envelope I was sending to the Veteran's Administration. It was still another copy of the addendum I sent to them three times before. I sent it every time they asked for more information, having overlooked the fact that my 10 page letter was not a synopsis for my next novel, but actual details about my claim.

I licked one side of the envelope, feeling an odd sensation on the burned portion of my tongue where I had been a bit overzealous with my first sip of coffee that morning. Years of coffee consumption have left my taste-buds a little retarded. I can no longer tell the difference between a Pop-Tart and a sprouted wheat bagel. It would be nice if my hips and stomach did the same, and just cataloged everything "fat free." Anyway, I licked the other side and got a paper-cut on my tongue.

I grabbed my forearm crutches and stood up awkwardly, my tongue bleeding out onto my lip and down my chin. I nestled the envelope between my teeth, and had to quell the urge to bite through the paper, tear it to shreds like a lonely puppy left at home all day.

Hobbling out of the tiny guestroom, crammed with all the worldly goods I could fit into it, I made my way to the door. Halfway down the rickety front steps, I caught the rubber base of one crutch in the crack between the boards, and had to fight to keep my balance. I would not allow myself to do something as theatrical as fall down the steps and lie there in the dirt until my erstwhile roommates-cum-sugar-mamas returned from work.

I wriggled my forearm out of the bent metal cuff, and pulled on the crutch. It came free without much effort, and my excess exertion was rewarded when I managed to knock myself in the head with the top of the crutch. I stood there with my eyes closed for a long moment, waiting for the line of blood to tickle its way down my forehead and pool above my right eyebrow, thankfully not merging with the blood oozing from my paper-cut tongue into a river of crimson disbelief. So that's what eyebrows were for. . .

I didn't bother to touch the wound, I just continued gingerly down the steps and along the driveway toward the mailbox, numb with self-resolve.

When I reached the box and opened its drawbridge-door, a bee flew out and stung me on the chin. I swiped him to the dirt and ground him into it with the rubber tip of my crutch. Taking the envelope from my teeth, I thought about how I'd like to be a bee on the wall when it arrived at the Department of Veteran's Affairs with the bloody imprint of teeth on it. Perhaps it would help my case.

Barely making it to the bathroom, my bladder aching and threatening to inflict still more humiliation, I tried to pull my pants down and deal with the crutches at the same time, and promptly knocked my last roll of toilet paper in the toilet (it wanted to go home). I made do with a paper towel and paused in the bathroom only long enough to apply more antibiotic on the boils I'd developed on my chin.

By the time I made my way back to my old brown desk chair, I needed a cigarette. I know I should quit, but it's one of the few creature comforts I have left. Every time I quit smoking, something bad happens and makes me want a cigarette, so I figure if I continue to smoke, things are bound to improve.

I set flame to the blessed cheroot and inhaled, allowing the cigarette to dangle from my mouth like I was James Dean while I logged on to get my e-mail.

I watched the junk mail fill my box with promises of work-at-home riches, zero-percent Master Cards, and sales on peripherals I could never dream of buying. I reached up to pull the evil fire-stick from my lips, discovering too late that it was sort of glued there by whatever magic that's created by spit and dry paper. This caused my fingers to slide down the length of it, where I summarily burned both of them. I yelped, the action tearing skin from my lips as my mouth came open. This released the cigarette, which then fell to my lap and nearly caught a certain intimate clump of bush on fire.

It was going to be another one of those days where I should have just rolled back over into Narnia, and forgot about waking up.

The Pony Depress