Questioning the existence and ethnicity of god

Forgive me Kris Kristofferson, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last workout, I have eaten when I wasn't hungry and my couch and ass have become reacquainted. This has been a terrible week. One that, if I'm honest with myself, would probably have been made more tolerable by going to the gym. But........ if I'm honest with you all, that thought did not occur to me until just this moment. A young man that my daughter was friends with and dated in high school passed away suddenly. Having to tell her was one of the hardest things I've ever done. She is in the Army and stationed in Georgia but was able to come home for the visitation. Getting the house cleaned up enough so that it would be somewhat acceptable was the second hardest thing I've ever done. (hey I admitted in blog number one that my weight wasn't the only thing that had gotten out of control, just cause it's funny doesn't mean it's not true) She's coming back for Thanksgiving and no one is allowed to touch anything between now and then. I also got my period. Now when I started doing comedy I said I wouldn't do menstruation material, but when Satan takes control of your soul you tend to break promises you've made, even to yourself. Promises like cleaning the house or staying on your diet or trying to figure out who your six year olds dad really is. I wasn't about to let myself get discouraged. Three years ago I beat a decades old addiction to drugs and alcohol, I wasn't about to wave the white flag to sloth and procrastination. I was watching Oprah Friday when I decided enough was enough. The weatherman said that the temperatures were going to drop and I had twenty-four tulip bulbs that had been sitting in my kitchen for a month. Now my kitchen is dirty, but not dirty enough to grow flowers in, so after Oprah I took the bulbs and a small plastic spade (not David) out for the horticultural endeavor that I was certain would turn everything around. It was dark, but I was not daunted. The ground was hard as hell and now I was daunted. I got two bulbs in the ground before saying fuck it and returning to the couch almost completely demoralized. I wasn't fully demoralized until the next morning when I woke up with an itchy red rash and blisters all over my right arm. Now I had a case of the same thing earlier this year after working in my yard (Yes, Einstein, I know that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results) My previous case was horrible and I still have scars, mental and physical, so this morning after taking the kids to school I went to the walk in clinic. My arm was already infected and cellulitis had set in~I left with prednisone, antibiotics and a bill for $120. The worst part is that when those two tulips, which now cost $60 each, come up in the spring, I'm gonna be pissed off all over again. In closing, let me just say this~I have not decided if I believe in a power greater than myself that some call god, but if he does exist I'm pretty sure he's a hip black dude who is doing everything he can to keep me from takin any inches off this big ghetto booty of mine.

Seasoned well and cooked on the grill

I pulled up in front of the gym trying to decide if I really wanted to do this weight loss contest or this weight loss anything. I began making a list of reasons to go inside. Getting on the scale in the privacy of my own kitchen was one thing, but getting on a scale in front of Chad and his band of rogue exercisers was another. OK voice of sanity lay em on me ~ 1. Lane Bryant was running out of things I could wear and soon I'd have to figure out what kind of shoes go well with the offerings at Peoria Tent and Awning 2. If someone were to tell me to haul ass I'd have to make two trips 3. I've gotten so fat that black guys aren't even flirting with me any more BOOM ~ I'm outta my car and on my way inside. I'm directed to a lounge to fill out a form that states that if all this healthy shit kills me the gym is in no way responsible. As I'm signing away their liability I look around at the other people who are there to compete and realize that none of them are as fat as I am. "Ha! How are they gonna lose enough weight to beat me out of the $500 prize?", I think with renewed hope. "Using the same will power and good habits that kept them from getting as out of shape and fat as you," replies the sane voice. FU voice, it was rhectorical. It's my turn and I go into the cubicle of shame. There's Chad and two of his fitness friends (one of whom was black and did not flirt with me~told ya). The scale reads 259 and I try to talk them into counting the weight that I've lost in the past week toward the competition. I hope I have more luck exercising than I had bullshitting, ugh. At this point they hand me a gizmo to calculate my percentage of body fat. Thank heavens cause I thought I was only going to be humiliated in ONE way. Click, click, click and your number is.......Seriously people I'm 45 years old and 46% fat, now if I was a bottle of wine or seasoned well and cooked on the grill this would be fabulous and I would be delicious; since I'm not either of those things I think it means that it's time to make some changes.

Friends lost and questions answered

I showed up at the gym pretty psyched for my first workout. I headed to the locker room which was obviously designed by a sadist who stumbled across a great deal on mirrors. I believe in my heart of hearts that gym's should have "before" and "after" locker rooms and that the former should be void of any reflective material. The jabba the hut in the mirror looked way less ready for a workout than the psyched woman that had been bullshitting me from inside my brain on the way into the gym. We all headed out to the exercise room and confidently mounted the elliptical machine. We dismounted said machine exactly three minutes later trying not to cry. I figured I'd get on the treadmill next, after all , it's just walking, right?? Yes, I was right, it was just walking, for the first fifteen minutes anyway. After that I believe it's called punishment. One of the voices in my head (you'll probably meet them all by the time we're through with this) started trying to convince me to bail on this whole undertaking. "Look," she said to me, "that guy over there is staring at you." "He wants to make sure and get out of here before you need mouth to mouth," countered the sane voice. (None of us can stand her) "Are you just going to abandon your friends Fanny, Sara and Ben and Jerry?" crazy voice asked. "You've kept them in business long enough, it's time for them to stand on their own." came the answer. "OK, but what about this~you're a stand up comedian with a great deal of material about being fat. What are you gonna do, just throw all of it away????" To which the sane voice answered, "Even you have to admit that she could lose a good seventy-five pounds before that even becomes an issue!" Boom~I'm off to my happy place. This time it was a lying in a hammock on a tropical island with Kris Kristofferson as he sang "Help Me Make It Through The Night" when suddenly I realize that I've made it through thirty minutes on the treadmill. I don't know which voice won the debate, but as I entered the shower area I got the answer to a question that I'd been pondering for years~NO, I am not the only woman left in America with pubic hair.

Hanging Chad

The day after I joined I was to meet with a fitness instructor, my appointment was with Chad. When he asked me what my fitness goals were I chose not to share with him that I wanted to lose the amount of weight that it would take to look hot in a coffin. Instead I picked the much more reasonable response, "I want to lose a hundred pounds by the weekend." (It was only Tuesday, WTF) He suggested two and a half pounds a week. At ths rate I'm gonna live forever. We walked down to the gym where he put me on the eliptical (which I think means torture in Portugese) machine and then proceeded to have a conversation with me while I was expected to "keep steppin". Now Chad's IQ was coming into question. We finished with the eliptical, skipped the treadmill when I told him that I knew how that worked and moved on to the recumbent bike. Once again he put me on and expected some movement from me while he continued the conversation. Well I think he did, I was back and forth to my "happy place". At least I was sitting down. I was brought back from the NBA after party that was going on in my head in time to hear him ask how my diet was. Seriously Chad, where's your stick or seeing eye dog. I'm pretty sure that you can look at me and guess that I don't eat anything that grows naturally except for Bessie and Wilber, but I'll go along. "It could be better," I replied. When we ended our meeting I had three goals: 1. To eat a cleaner diet 2. To do 45 minutes of cardio 5 days a week and 3. To hang Chad.

Crunching The Numbers

Last Monday I stepped on the scale. Now I should have known this was going to be traumatic based on the fact that I had trouble getting up off the couch to get to the scale, but I didn't realize how bad. When the lights stopped flashing, the number that was left made me want to kill myself. What stopped me????? Not wanting to look like this when I die. The scales report was not the only number that was going through my head~My blood sugar is 150, I have 10 rooms in this house that need to be cleaned, I have 4 kids and 2 grandkids that need for me to be a healthier, happier woman, my IQ feels like it has dropped below 100, I have 0 men in my bed and according to my scale I weigh 270 pounds! I crunched the numbers and decided that I needed to come up with a plan. My plan is to lose enough weight that I could commit suicide and not be mortified about the way I looked when I died.

My first step was going for a tour at a local gym and thought it would work just fine. The only real down side that I could see was that you had to go up a flight of stair to leave~AFTER YOUR WORKOUT. But no place is perfect so I signed up for a year's membership and made an appointment to meet with a fitness trainer the next day. I also found out that they will be having a six week weight loss competition that starts next week which I plan to win. The prize includes five hundred dollars which would be great for a new wardrobe, but truth be told, I have clothes for just about every size on my way down to casket ready. When I told my friend Bettina that I had signed up and was turning over a new leaf she was thrilled. She also mentioned that the gym is a GREAT place for picking up men, but I've seen myself after about ten minutes at the gym and I'm pretty sure that if a guy picks me up there it's gonna be cause he's driving an ambulance.