Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The Weight Loss Blog, Part 4

My body, being less a temple and more a dilapidated storefront church with a curious presence of chicken feathers, is out to get me via criks in my neck, aches in my elbows and thickening nasal hair cutting off my airflow. Its ultimate goal can only be to keep me from engaging in regular exercise and walking around in my drawers with the body of a god. My brain, which is part of my body but likes to think it isn’t, is complicit. Rather than a vigorous workout yesterday it said, “Wash a load of clothes, that counts.”

Dumpy, lumpy betrayer that is flesh, just you wait till I evolve to the next plane of existence and be all non-corporeally and twinkly cloudish and look back on feet and tacos with quaint amusement. I did, however, get some vegetables in me yesterday for lunch and dinner, offsetting the slice of poundcake my mouth inhaled.

And I moved the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Heavy, damp towels. Feel the burn, lads!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

2011 Fall (of Rome) Television Season

Dear Networks: No more sitcoms based off blogs, tweets or that one commercial you saw. We would rather watch old episodes of Marlon Perkins’ “Wild Kingdom” if you have to show anything at all. We would not mind if showing nothing at all is your decision.

No more sitcoms I’m supposed to watch ‘cause they’re brash, crass and irreverent as opposed to actually being funny.

No more “procedural” shows where the dead body/morgue scene budget exceeds what the key grip and sound guys make in a year.

No more variations on MacGuyver (hello “Royal Pains”) or the A-Team (hello “Leverage”) or the X-Files (hello “Fringe”) or the X-Men (good riddance “Heroes”, hello “Alphas”) or ER (hello “Hawthorne”, “Gray’s Anatomy”, etc.) or the crime procedural du jour (Hello CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, NCIS, NCIS LA, Law & Order Infinity, Rizzoli & Isles –threw up in my mouth a little— etc, etc, etc), or dramas featuring insanely attractive white people agonizing the horrid vagaries of suburban life.

No more talk shows where that’s just it: talk. No “The View, The Chat, The Talk, The Buzz, The Rumble, The Dish, The Deal, The Spill, The Come, The Swallow.” For the love of god, please? A bunch of women sitting around gabbing about nothing… is like a bunch of men sitting around talking about sports, and surely you wouldn’t do that to us? What? Oh.

Never mind.

I suppose another venue for David Hasselhoff is equally unavoidable.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Just So All 3 Of You Know

...there are links on this page to purchase my book. It is cheaply priced but not cheaply written and I will give you my mother's peach cobbler recipe if you are not satisfied with the time spent. I will include links from time to time on other books your brain needs (like Minister Faust's, which is below, and a new one I'm close to having ready), but wanted you, Dear Indulging Genius, to know in case you're not given to scrolling willy nilly about a web page.

I'm now off to find alternate reality Clarence 001 and punch him in the nuts on GP ("general principle" for those of you without street cred). He's either got it better than I do (punch in the nuts) or worse (punch in the nuts).

Then It Hit Me

When I was a kid (and even now, though it’s largely suppressed) I experienced déjà vu so much and so concretely I began calling the episodes “time slips”. I recall telling Ma several times during these confusing moments, “I’ve been here before.”

As I got older the slips never seemed to broadcast pleasure, no winning lotteries, brilliant decisions, just lingering dread and unease, so like intelligence, curiousity and joi de vivre I’ve trained myself to “peg it down a notch” in order to prevent every waking morning finding me screaming into the wind. If “Gilligan’s Island” were an accurate fable the Professor would have killed those other idiots and used their hides for sails, which wouldn’t have been cool, you see? So it’s been “down periscope” for a while, which might make me sound like an insufferable pig but keep in mind that I'm not that smart to begin with.

Till a science program on the brain woke me up.

Time’s a funny thing. If you’re physically here right now, how do you get to 10 minutes from now? Is there an unseen animator sketching out moment to moment? Continuity in that time/space continuum thing. And if you’re there 10 minutes from now then you’re already here and there simultaneously, which means there’s likely a way to communicate with yourself. Time slips. Which means future selves are pricks for not sharing vital information. The universal consciousness might reach a state of Nirvana if minds all over the globe communicated best options. If time, space and thought are not the separated things we think them to be then isn’t it time for some fundamental shifts in daily realities? Prayer is all about one reality shooting its crap into another. Alternate universes are definitely real, just ask Jesus, Allah, Buddha or Vishnu. Countless alternate Clarences don’t have the same hang ups as this one has. (Granted that there are also countless alternate Clarences dating Courtney Love, being chased by dragons – by the by, the premise for my upcoming niece-inspired young adult novel titled “RealitY”—so I hereby acknowledge balance.) But are the ones that are waking up next to Rosario Dawson, who’s learned to cook marvelous French toast by the way, simply that much better at dumping their toxic waste into other realities' back yards, and hence are waking up next to Rosario Dawson? If we got the entire world to pray a single thought, could we flush our ills to Earth 7742?

Bloody hell, are we Earth 7742? Damn.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Weight Loss Blog, Part the Third

A couple weeks back me, the Wife and the sis-in-law walked about 4 miles. Not a lot of attractive ladies out so no need to pull the gut in too often. On the way back stopped in a diner and accidentally had chicken strips and fries.

The journey continues. I will, however, point out that I am wearing clothing that last month sat on my pile of "Clothes I Used to Wear But Stopped Because Nobody Wants to See That". Muffin tops, my friends, are for chai tea or hot chocolate, not public viewing.

So for all 3 people reading this, Keep The Dream Alive! You got into those jeans once or else you wouldn't have bought them. You'll be in them again.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Waiting For A God Who Cares

Rage: what type of hatred and mental defect does it take for a person to kill a 3 year old by suffocating her with a trash bag? Speak of God and mercy all you want but today that's not something I want to hear. I need to picture that child's struggling and die my own death. Otherwise I am not human.

Rage: who lets a 3 year old roam unsupervised? Three year olds have the discretion of a moth and the decision-making abilities of a parent who would allow a 3 year old outdoors unattended.

Rage: a beautiful white woman is again missing on vacation and the nation holds its collective breath waiting for the next juicy tidbit to roll across television screens as if this is the midseason finale of CSI. Because she is a beautiful white woman she drives ratings up and assures ad revenue. Because she is a beautiful white woman we prey upon her bones.

The man who killed the 3 year old is in police custody, has confessed, and I hope ceases to exist in all ways, shapes and forms. Very few tangible clues have turned up about the missing woman but I hope she's not suffering wherever she is.

"I'm looking out over rooftops and I'm hoping it ain't true that the same God watched out for them watches out for me and you. The angels laid them away..." -- lyrics by Josh Ritter, "Folk Bloodbath"

Waiting for a god who cares. Not anymore.