
Have I accomplished anything today? Not yet, not unless you count airing the house while I sat outside reading Lydia Syson’s Doctor of Love and eating chocolate biscuits to celebrate my forthcoming future mega-healthy eating plan. To the right you can see part of the outfit I wore to church yesterday. My favorite colour a la moment is red, but I LOVE red stockings. I waited years to find these and then I paid a lot for them. (They cost more then the rest of the outfit put together, though admitedly the shoes were second hand and I made the skirt from fabric I found at the market.) Red stockings bring to mind Louis XIV (one of my favorite dead-Frenchmen). He wore them for several paintings so I like to think of him parading about with red legs tout les temps, only his legs were covered with silk and mine with spun plastic…minor details. What you can’t see is how fat I am. They say photos add ten pounds. I subtracted ten pounds and then started crying because in my mind I’m not even remotely this fat. I know there are many people in the world who’d die to be only as fat as me, but for me, I’m too fat! If Madonna had my body the rest of the photos could be used as blackmail material! They look that awful and not just because I’m wearing an orange shirt.

I know…what was I thinking? I wore my hip length red rain coat for most of the day except for when I was in Nursery with the toddlers (they don’t care if I expose my fat arms – and I had to expose my arms because the coat is too tight to cross my arms or pick up little people). I should have worn a different shirt, but the red one was obscenely tight…the blue and pink ones in the wash…the green one too warm…the white one too long…it had to be the orange one. It’s just as well I didn’t know how stupid I looked ’till after I got home. The next time I ask the Goblin, “Does this look alright?” After he says…”It’s fine…hurry up we’re going to be late.” I’ll go and change into something else!
So today I decided I must make an effort to go walking every day (I was too tired to walk today and not because of the effort of lifting cookies). I must also eat healthy which means no cookies for at least a few weeks until I visit my friend Debbie Webbie. She’s had a really awful week and she may need me to bring over some cookies and I wouldn’t want to disapoint her (that would be cruel). The reason I didn’t go walking today was that I was exhausted from walking yesterday. Truly, I was exhausted…I’m still fighting off a cold. Truly!
After waving the Goblin off to work I should have gone back to bed, but I stayed up reading blogs and the news. By the time I was ready to go back to bed it was one o’clock and I had to go to the store to get the Goblin some dinner (I just happened to pass down the cookie aisle). So I came home and sat outside reading Love Doctor until it started to get cold and then went back inside to read some more news.
I needed to read the news like I need another donut, but today I did gather several gems which made me laugh. This morning it was reported that hopefuls for the next series of America’s Next Top Model not only camped outside all night hoping for an audition with Tyra Banks, but at some point a car backfired and one of them yelled bomb and another yelled fire and the “models” all stampeded leaving shoes everywhere…several fainting from hunger… If you’re ever depressed (though not if you’re depressed about being fat) I recommend watching multiple episodes of America’s Next Top Model. If you watch it as a comedy, it’s very funny. The only person who gains anything from the show is Tyra Banks who appears in more outfit changes then all the other girls combined. My favorite episode was where the “models” were made to walk down this “runway” which consisted of floating unstable
squares in a pool…they were all dolled up in these long dresses and they were all seriously trying to parade over this booby-trapped runway to music…they all ended up falling into the pool…and then Tyra Banks gave them all a lecture about how disapointed she was and how real models have to be able to perform no matter what (or whatever she said as if models can walk on water). The serious looks on their faces and then all the tears afterwards…it was hilarious!
The next article of interest was about these scientists who’ve discovered (surprise surprise) that a high IQ is linked with longevity. So people who are more intelligent tend to live longer. This shouldn’t surprise anyone whose heard of The Darwin Awards! You can only win a Darwin Award by permantently removing yourself from the gene pool, usually in a spectacularly stupid manner. It’s difficult to believe that anyone whose won a Darwin Award had a high IQ. I personally hope to live ’till I’m 100, but after all my near death misses (the time I nearly slid off the side walk in front of a moving bus comes to mind) I suspect my not so high IQ will probably ensure that I don’t. Thankfully I believe in Heaven so if I get hit by a bus staring at the sky while crossing the road the prospect of never having another toothache will make death almost bearable unless I end up in Hell. Since it would be my corner of Hell I’d probably end up sharing space with Horace Walpole. I find it hard to believe he ever said a single pleasant word about anyone. He took cynism to a new height! If he wasn’t available I’d probably end up stuck with the Frenchman le Duc de Saint-Simon. He was vile…heartless. His deliberate lies about LouisXIV and his family are still believed and taught as fact. What he did to le Duc du Main was evil.

He found it exquisitely pleasurable; it was his finest hour to watch Main (Louis XIV’s eldest bastard son) be stripped of his legitimacy and honour. Historically, for a Frenchman, to lose one’s honour was worse than losing one’s head! Hopefully, if I get hit by a bus I’ll avoid Hell or anything like unto it and if I’m wrong and neither Hell nor Heaven exists I shall at least be avoiding further teeth trials and that has to count for something.
In the mean time I’ll utilize the IQ that I do have to remain out of the path of moving vehicles. That time I nearly slid off the side walk…that wasn’t my fault. I was in London and it was raining and my friend Julie was going to have fish and chips for dinner or die. The side walk (or pavement as they call it in England) on the Strand was covered in some sort of oil that I didn’t see…I swear I nearly had a heart attack as I slipped like lighting towards the busy street…and then I miraculously just stopped before reaching the edge as the large red bus flew by and I took a deep breath before carefuly sliding the other way to saftey. Death has to wait; I have stories to write, books to read and cookies and donuts to eat (in-between my mega-healthy eating plan of course).
Note to self: Don’t ask the Goblin to take your picture if none of your shirts fit…the camera will add twenty pounds and ruin a pleasant afternoon you could have spent reading the news or eating cookies!
My dear… pictures are the worst things one can possibly do to themselves. I have become a bit obsessed with this (Elise says I’m becoming vain) because I want to get a good picture of me and I have a heck of a time doing it. If you notice most any of my blog photos of myself are of the head (and even then I pull my chin out slightly) the reason for this would be that I can’t stand the way camera’s take my body and mutilate and torture it!
My posterity is going to have this distorted idea that I resemble a pear when I don’t feel pearish in the slightest.
So my advice… don’t cry over the pictures, just delete them if you don’t like them and take a hundred more. When you’ve found the one or two that you do like (cause seriously that’s all anyone ever finds) delete the rest and use these two all year.
Camera’s are evil and they do evil things to the body. And if you really think about it, if Madonna looks that skinny in a photo she must be nearly anorexic!
loves
charity
Esperity, you are so lovely in every way! And there’s NO way you could ever look like a pear. Your posterity will be dang lucky to look like you though they’ll probably look like your dad. Can they blame you for that? The passing of genes must be one of the most random bizarre happenings. One of my great grandmothers was a stunning beauty. Even after nine kids she was gorgeous (she was Danish/Norwegian). Did I take after her? No. Her second son (who was very handsome) married a woman who had a mother who looked just like me.
I should have deleted those awful pictures, but I wanted a picture of my red tights. I need to figure out how to use the remote control for the camera so I can take 100 pictures of myself to find a decent shot (not even the Goblin wants to hang about taking that many shots me) though to be fair he usually takes about 30 or forty in a go but he was hungry and grumpy. We got home from church and I said, “Honey, after you’ve eaten could you take a picture of my red tights?” I can’t quite repeat his response because it was more animal growl than words…think animal in the muppets. So I gave up the picture idea and went to my work room and a few minutes later the snarling hungry Goblin appeared in the doorway holding the camera. “Let’s go take some pictures!” I said, “We can do it later…” “I don’t want to do it later I’m hungry I want to rest I don’t want to take pictures later…” “OK!” So we went outside and he directed me against the wall of the conservatory away from the sun and I scowling in irritation tried to move towards the side of the house (I didn’t want the drying linen and garbage cans in the shot) he growled some more until I made it clear I didn’t want my picture taken with Lincolnshire county Council rubbish recepticals and he ungraciously allowed me to stand next to the house. So you see…after I looked at the twenty vile shots I couldn’t ask him take any more…and for a few minutes there I blamed him because I didn’t want to see my face looking fat…I just wanted a picture of my red tights. Apparently he didn’t hear that part (he was probably wondering why he got married!) Poor Goblin…he’s too cute. After an hour I was laughing at myself and the pictures so I hope it doesn’t read as a pity fest. I went out for long pleasant walk yesterday and one not so long today so at least I’ve burned some calories and when I looked in the mirror today I look so much slimmer than the photos on Sunday I felt quite cheered!
I do understand being dissatisfied about the way you look- I’m usually growled at by my friends when I complain of not being able to gain weight, but they really shouldn’t growl at me. they should be happy because they have hips and boobs and pretty curves. So, instead of looking at those pictures and telling yourself you look fat, look at them and think ‘Man my legs look hot in my awsome red stockings!’
Thank you Emily! You’re right, I forget that some people would love to put fat on. I do like my legs and I LOVE my red stockings. Thank you for reminding me that there is always the other side of the coin; that I should be grateful for my fat…or at least some of it.
i like your sense of humour (it’s very close to mine) and i also find your figure sexy (sorry for my candidness) not everybody finds catwalk models appealing.yes, you look good in red stockings.i agree with emily about curves. that’s what distinguishes a woman from a man, and that can only be a good thing.p.s. at least you look healthy and not some emaciated ethiopian. work on saving up for natural fibres though, they breathe better. remember, its not about the weight that you are, but rather how proportionate your shape is. keep the gut under control and you’ll be just fine, also males are more forgiving and less critical than females, they just want a girlfriend!
@gary callaghan
Your candidness falls into a “much appreciated” column. Thank you! 🙂
I shall be sure to point out your comment to my husband; it’s good for his ego to know he’s not the only man who’d throw a hat in my direction.
I sum up my humor as a love of the weird and bizarre; I suspect this is one of the positive gains of being raised by my parents. When I was 12 my mother (in all seriousness) suggested I shave my head and wear a wig because I always looked like I never brushed my hair. If I’d taken her advice it would have been my wig the dog chewed on under the chair instead of the hairbrush. That would have made Junior High (two years of hell with my own hair) real fun! Some people just miss all the hilarious detail in life…and that’s just sad!