Deliberate Stupidity.

Some life advice said by Eleanor Roosevelt goes something like, "Do something that scares you every day." For the naturally cautious, it's an admirable sentiment. I've been about as diligent keeping to it as those people who write in their myspace profiles, live every day like its your last -- dance like no-one is watching. My short attention span and few opportunities to scare myself in safe, controllable nibbles tend to limit the resolution to the very occasional, metaphysical risk-taking.

If ego balances upon the pillars of one's conceits, mine is a birdhouse on a single post. I need to be smart. Smarter than you. If you're smarter, I'll assure myself I'm wiser. The average of my IQ and EQ beats yours. Equally, I can't look the fool. Dignity, or my personal version of it, is paramount.

That's why I don't dance. I fell in love with "Footloose" for about six months when 8 or 9. Not once was I inspired to dance.

My dancing isn't funny, not as a William Hung blithe dork parody, or even squirmy funny like David Brent. My dancing is painful to watch because I'm not enjoying it, and I'm painfully aware I'm painful awful. If I wanted to do something scary every day, I'd dance. It'd be as hard as it would be pointless.

I think the middle ground for a naturally safe person like myself (ie, coward) is to alter the words Mrs Roosevelt a little. For those of us without family wealth, unfamous and without a reputation to protect. "Do something stupid every day." Or even better, "Risk embarrassment every day." If the purpose of taking deliberate risk is to pick away at a general state of inhibition, then do something stupid is a good start. Then move up to something embarrassing. Then something scary.

I think the subtext of "something scary" for a fatty like me, most frightening is embarrassment. If I can take that first step and allow myself to look stupid every day, I become better liked. My constant intellectual flexing is like a guy with 20 inch biceps running around the room, challenging everybody to arm wrestle. Nobody likes that guy.

So maybe I start to enjoy being stupid. More people like me. More people like me, I feel free to do more stupid, embarrassing things. By now I'm not scared of looking stupid. Pretty soon I'm not scared of embarrassment. Maybe one day I won't be afraid to get on the dance floor, bust a move. Probably not.

An Embarrassment Throwback.

I don't deal well with social gatherings. I feel like a bad comedian must on stage. I want to make an immediate impression, dazzle these attractive, much cooler than I strangers with the wit and beauty of me. Consequently, I try too hard. Yesterday, I tried really hard and bombed harder.

I've learned how to imitate the behavior of the better liked humans. I can fake the social butterfly trait, to presume that I'm likable. I can make conversation, and when a question about me is thrust, I can deftly pivot the answer to divert the conversation point about someone else. The great thing about the universal human self obsession, once someone gets rolling talking about themselves, the question asked about you that went unanswered is always forgotten. There's a reason research has shown the word in any language which gives the most pleasure is one's own name, a photo of oneself the image that's most fascinating, and why flattery is so damn effective.

Those who love parties also love attention. They love having photos taken and when compliment is offered, it feels nice. For a fatty (or ex-fatty), those very normal reactions are re-wired to the opposite. Fat people generally abhor attention, hide from photo-ops, and compliments are all sarcasm.

Yes, I fake it good now. I smile like I mean it, look girls in their mascara circled eyes, allow myself to laugh when someone actually says something funny. But the performance has it's strains. Like a computer running too many programs at once, my CPU and RAM get overloaded, my OS is more likely to freeze. I was speaking to a girl, late twenties, black with a Oprah late 1990s affro -- not so attractive she was intimidating, not so ugly I was completely comfortable. My lifeline mate -- the guy in the group I know I'm sit near, hang onto or I'll drown -- he's urinating, leaving me with this girl. The obligatory, what do you do for a living question comes up. I pivot neatly, and within 30 seconds of asking me, she's talking about herself.

The problem occurs here. She works in a property management department of a large corporation. She helps coordinate and lower costs of the buildings they rent. I want to ask her what idiot, sheltered Mormon-types ask prostitutes: "That's so boring I want to cry on your behalf. Here, take some of my mental disease. Go forth and lose your job, make yourself an interesting life -- for God's sake!!!" When she finished telling me about her daily routine, (which I've prompted by a series of lame, generic prompts), I'm at a complete dead end. I can't find a single, redeeming, complimentary thing to say about her job. It's an awkwardness the food poisoning curdling the belly. I feel bad for the girl. My empathy for the pointlessness of her existence kills me. I want not to believe that. I want something about her to be interesting. So I ask her, if you weren't working, what would you do. She wants to travel. Work on films. Open a restaurant. Something.. anything. "Nothing," she says. I don't get what she means at first. "I mean nothing. I would do absolutely nothing."

Now, when I'm more advanced with my social performance art, I'll remember to re-pivot. Make a completely non-related comment to push the conversation away from the socially awkward rocks. But I freeze. My programming fails. I'm five beers down, too.

My brain resets to truth. I say I wish that jobs didn't define us. I wish we could defined others by the indefinable qualities by which we define ourselves. I wish we could talk without fear.

If I'd actually said that, I would have been granted a black belt in total wankery. But what I actually said was a far greater disgrace.

Have you met that guy in a bar who tries so say something profound? He's slurring and fumbling for words to express a bad poetry pronouncement, actually uses the word existential, and when the words trip over completely -- he stares into empty space with abject imbecility. A beat later, he realises the grave of embarrassment he's dug himself into. The girl he's talking to knows. If he's been loud enough, the polite ones are pretending not to notice.

And of course, the only way out is to keep digging. There's a nugget of truth down there somewhere. There's a intelligent point here!

No there isn't. You're social version of a Darwin Awards winner. You are a complete fucking retard.

That was me last night.

Does God have a large penis?

Does God have a penis at all?

Apart from the angels in Dogma given an absence of genitalia, I can't think of anything official on the subject. I'm sure it's been debated secretly inside the Vatican at various points, but I'd doubt the Catholic Church's PR agency would permit the consensus describing the penis of God to leak out.

Best way to answer if God has a penis is to decide whether God is male or female. God isn't a woman. Like all literary creations, God is what he was originally written. Just because popular obsession, extension and extrapolation of the story has exceeded the absurd, doesn't change that God was originally written as male.

Was God's penis circumcised?

It's hard to say. The argument for uncut relies on the argument God actually exists. If God existed before all creation, then who was around to circumcise him. Who was God's moil? However, if God is the sum of his author's description, then he's likely to be circumcised. Anthropologically speaking, humans circumcised to prevent disease. Jungle rot of the cock, or something. The question is, was Adam created foreskin intact? If Adam was modeled from God, then the state of his penis would provide conclusive evidence. But if we follow the story, and all men are descendant of Adam and Eve, and we're born with foreskins, don't you think God would have programmed no foreskins into our DNA? Unless the act of the foreskinectomy has an inherent importance (as the Jewish believe).

If circumcised, then God would have self-moiled. Like Superman, not even the arch angels have the power to injure God. Something must have happened to that divine remainder. If God could create females from a Adam's rib, create man from earth dust, what got created with God's spare foreskin?

So God creates some moil scissors powerful and sharp enough to cut through God flesh, finds a quiet, private spot, and snips. i already asked what happened to the foreskin. What happened to those scissors? i imagine those scissors would be useful to have. If they're powerful enough to cut through God's pleasure wand, then some miscreant could stab God in the heart with them, too.

I digress... Does God have a large penis?

The author, when describing the character of God, wrote him as the ultimate father figure. The question then becomes what's the perfect penis size of the perfect father? The ultimate purpose for the penis is to launch sperm into the uterus. It's the only reason it's got length, otherwise we'd have urine running down our legs like girls. To be a father, sperm must meet egg. To that end, any penis fellated to erection that can enter a vagina can successfully impregnate. However, some vaginas are small. Sometimes a girl is born with the female version of micropenis. Girls are also born without a vagina opening at all. That's called vaginal agenisis, but let's forget that (I know I'm trying to after reading that link). Given there's an opening there, it's physically possible that the smallest micropenis could enter the most cavernous porn slut DVDA pussy. It might go in very far, but once inside, the swimmers will head upstream. On the other hand, the monster cock black dude python isn't going to fit inside girls with microvagina. If the purpose of a penis -- for a male to become a father -- is the bare necessity of insertion and impregnation, therefore the ideal penis designed to impregnate all females must be small.

Conclusion: God has a small penis.


PS. No fat jokes today. And yes, morbidly obese men with micropenis can't get women pregnant without science. When there's that much padding on pubis, little dicks become "innies".

Everybody's Famous!

I'm sitting on a couch at Bimbo Deluxe, pushing my brain through the ringer, hoping to squeeze on drop of mana from a brain which today has the verve of a dust bunny. I'm trying to write on this couch, flanked at right angles (mercifully facing away) by two more couches. Two couples take either couch within the space of a minute. As though I'm in a Bjork music video nightmare, these two couple take out cameras, huddle, and make the thing go flash. When you see them on MySpace or Fabebook, I'm the amoeba in the background on a mac.

I imagine when a young girlie posts those first photos of herself on MySpace, Bebo (or whatever), she imagines all the cool guys and girls around the world who will be looking at her, wondering what she's really like as a person. They call them social media now, but really, social media websites share more in common with the hotted-up V8 cars that used to drive circuits around my old home town of Moe. A MySpace page is the new vehicle kids use to show off, be the centre of attention. Like with cars, there's still a dick measuring contest. The number of friends replaced engine block cubic inches. There's still eye souring festoonments, bad music that supposedly tells you everything about me, cranked loud, and public conversations between idiots.

Then there's the photo gallery. Photos with friends tell people you have friends. It's important to tell the world there's people that like you -- enough to spend 5 seconds posing with you. Lots of photos with lots of people = lots of friends. Lots of photos with lots of attractive, cool friends = my friends are good looking, therefore I am cooler, better looking by association.

There's two reasons someone like me doesn't collect friends or post photos. One, I'm not a teenager anymore. Anybody my age with a often used MySpace profile is like that pathetic old guy at a club, wearing fashion he's fifteen years too old for, hoping to pick off a drunk 18 year old from the herd. Same goes for Facebook, really, when you think about it. Conversations on either are about as sophisticated at drunk pub blather, the music too loud to follow a topic further than two sentences, way too busy looking at tits.

Two: I don't photograph well. I tried online dating for a while. I now have great respect for the lighting and angles of those glamour photographers who do mid-morning TV advertorials. How do they take any photos of all those fat house fraus and for them to come out half decent? I must have taken a hundred shots, experimented with as many lighting sources and positions, until my numerous chins went away.

Online dating photo tips: beware of the photo shot from above, subject looking up. And ask how long ago the photo was taken. Watch Super Size Me. A girl can get down a lot of happy meals in a month.

It's not discrimination if...

it's justified.

Vilify a black guy for his skin:
a) is it changeable? No.
b) could it have been avoided? No.
c) is it harming him or anyone else? No.
d) is it actually bad? No.

Vilify a fat guy for his fat:
a) is it changeable? Yes.
b) could it have been avoided? Yes.
c) is it harming him or anyone else? Yes.
d) is it actually bad? Yes.

Should you say something? Maybe.

Loved ones want to protect those they love. The family of the grossly obese will cocoon their dangerously overweight son, tend to him. Support is promised if ever action is taken, but in the eternal meantime, they tend to him. And even should those loved ones speak the horrible truth, and say to this fat man he must change, those words carry no threat -- for no matter what, his loved ones will tend to him.

It's the opinions of strangers that matter; an acquaintance not a lifelong friend. One unloving truth spoken earnestly will carry the endorsements of years of unkind eyes, and can excoriate the tenuous veil of denial that perpetrates such hopeless flagellation.

Bad Habits are People.

I recently worked for a largish company, almost corporation sized. I did an OK job there, and for my first year I worked ridiculously hard. My bosses worked hard. The company did well.

Then there was a change of management. They seemed to be obviously quite unintelligent people, incurious, and definitely not hard workers in the coal miner sense of the term. What I'd later learn was they were smart, just not in a way I had been experienced with. Their intelligence was the ability to control their own job. They'd delegate all work to get done by others then presented back in form they could perform a 2 minute spit and polish and presented as their own. They define to their own managers what good job performance looks like, and make sure these are results that could be achieved without them bothering to turn up. Those targets are presented to their own managers in a format they could present to their managers. These targets are sold as almost impossible. If we come close, we've all done an amazing job. The CEO then tells the board the same, these targets are impossibly ambitious. If we get there, we've done an amazing job.

It's not hard to guess what happens. At the end of the financial year, beyond all expectations, the company has exceeded the targets. The management hits the town for strippers and mutual fellacio.

The other intelligence these managers have is to sniff out anybody who might threaten contamination of their safe biodome of bullshit. If it's a entry level employee, when the bullshit perpetrators are promoted ahead of them, they'll leave by natural attrition. Same goes for the lower management. As long as everybody plays along, stays on message, then nobody asks questions. Sometimes a competent manager is mistakenly recruited. When the competent manager attempts to effect change but finds all management content to believe the bullshit which has fattened them for years without effort, why would they listen? Either the competent manager leaves or learns to go along.

Meanwhile, back on the company floor, things are a complete mess. Nothing changes. And the dysfunction which has always existed will always exist. Waste continues, man hours paid to a zillion employees who serve no practical purpose, and opportunities are wasted because nobody is allowed to chase them.

I think back and all the difficulties and excuses I made to not lose weight was self fulfilling bullshit. Arguements of the fattened establishment.

Real change requires removal of bullshit. And usually the source of bullshit is people. If you surround yourself with nothing but the truth, sooner or later things must change

Heatwave in Melbourne.

It's been above 30 degrees in Melbourne for over a week now. If you've been paying attention there have been an absence of the morbidly obese on the streets. As wombats free to their burrows in daytime, we fat fuckers find some climate control and stay there. When I was truly fat, sick, and broke I could still afford a kickass air conditioner.

Do some walking on a treadmill in a sauna, carrying a backload of bricks, wearing your winter clothes: get back to me how long you last.

Are You Lookin' At Me?

Imagine being born with a growth on your forehead shaped like a plum. This plum is larger than usual, but the bloody purple is a spot on match. The growth is like those found on a Papua New Guinean kid Ray Martin and a filthy rich plastic surgeon will fly in and repair to equalise their karma. Imagine walking down the white halls of your local shopping centre, through the food court. Every head would turn, eye widen with shock/revolt, then socialisation would assert and they'd look away. A whole crowd, looking at you, suddenly averted to the air conditioning ducts in the ceiling. Only the kids would continue staring. They haven't yet learned what's polite. Some may even point and tug at Mommy's sleeve, get her to look, too.

If someone is looking at you, it'd be a safe assumption they're not thinking you've got a cute arse.

Now imagine after a whole childhood, teens and young adulthood -- your entire life so far -- with the awful blood plum bulge on your forehead. Then one day it's surgically removed. There's a scar, but when everything's healed, it's no worse than being stitched up after a bad bicycle head-plant accident.

Without the scar, when you visit the shopping centre heads don't turn as much. Little shit kids don't point at tug at Mommy anymore. But some people still turn and look at you. Mostly members of the opposite sex. How long do you think it would take you to alter your instinctive reaction to be flattered instead of shamed?

Fatness is a deformity you can't hide. There is nothing redeeming or excusable about it. And when I lost most of the weight I was still unsettled when anybody looked at me, even when they weren't thinking anything bad, or when the occasional female was possibly attracted. Dealing with the bar/club scene was especially excruciating -- but that's for another day.

A Crackpipe Hit Away from Enlightenment.

My girlfriend was on the 86 tram yesterday, from Latrobe Uni toward the city. The Australian version of a crackhead jumped on the tram, sat across from Rebecca. He was young and white, and as Bek describes him, outwardly normal despite the tell-tale sweat glaze and the glass crackpipe he cradled in a pouch made by his hand. Huddled against the wall to conceal what he's doing, the little crackie flames the ice crystals in the crackpipe bulb from underneath with a cigarette lighter. The crackie eyeballs Bek, a challenge to himself whether he's got the nerve to pharmaceutically masturbate in public, whether she's got the balls to say anything.

Today she does, and asks if he can stop. The crackie smiles happily and puts the crackpipe away.

I can only imagine what smoking ice feels like. I think the universal consensus has come down on the opinion that it provides the mind escape from the daily despair of living in this world. I watched a TED lecture last night by neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor. Watch it after you're done reading this. The pertinent bit I took away was learning how the two hemispheres of the brain think differently. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke, which periodically disconnected the left hemisphere. When allowed to operate alone, her experience existing with only that right hemisphere was the same rapture, ecstasy, erasure of past burdens and future pressures, and oneness with the wonder of the universe is exactly how I imagine the ultimate drug trip. When she described the left brain reasserting itself, a left brain dominated person was far more literal, grounded in the past obligations and future necessities.

When you watch the video, you'll see Bolte Taylor speak of the experience like a tele-evangelist method acting the rapture of God. Except she's not acting.

It occurred to me that a workaholic business executive is left brain biased. A tripping crackhead exists in his right brain.

The late Joseph Campbell spoke extensively on the mythological precedents of enlightenment, bliss and happiness. He was and is the pre-eminent self help guru for skeptical, intellectual wankers like myself. One of his examples was the Buddha, and the three temptations he overcame to achieve enlightenment. Jesus had his; Buddha's were: lust, fear and social duty.

Think on this. A hardcore druggie gets three things when he's an addict: no more erections, he'll do anything to get high, and he doesn't give a shit. To paraphrase Palahniuk, to allow that which does not matter truly slide. And while they are high, the experience seems very similar to the right brain rapture described by Jill Bolte Taylor.

Obviously, a crackhead is not granted any special wisdom or insight when the drugs allow the right brain to rule. But wouldn't it be nice if I could care less about the things that don't really matter.

Fat Guys and the Women Who Love Them.

Heard of Killer Groupies? They're like rock groupies, except they chase death row inmates. All your favorite David E. Kelly law firm teevee shows eventually have episodes with a killer groupie character. Every week on Boston Legal there's a fresh murder and new murderer. Unfortunately killers aren't the easy freaks they once were. Another murderer? Yawn....

But the hot MILF that's written a death row mass murderer a hundred letters, visits between bars three times a week, her flavour of freak is fresh. They'll hire a B actor, maybe even Jennifer Coolidge, the original MILF. Denny Crane will make red-faced, corset-bellied moves, yet Killer Groupie Freak MILF will remain true. And when the firm springs the killer from jail, Denny Crane will watch the couple walk out the law firm doors hand in hand, the trademarked Mike Post "insert emotion here" chords will rise, and were affirmed true love has no definition.

Then, about two episodes later, Stifler's Mom shows up at Denny's door covered in blood. "I killed him!" she trembles. The Killer Groupie Freak MILF just got freakier. Denny Crane invites her inside, offers her some single malt, inappropriate attempts to bone her, then calls James Spader (who calls the cops). The next two episodes go through the motions of her inevitable acquittal. The only unknown: whether Denny Crane finally bones Stifler's Mom.

The story is watchable because freaks have become so commonplace. Freaks are the fodder of viral emails and online newspaper colour pieces. Our mass-media society has insatiable hunger for the shocking because everything else has been seen a million times. A good freak story helps everyone feel normal in comparison, superior to someone, no matter how fucked up our day, how miserable our jobs and spouses.

So, when there's a story about 500kg Mexican guy whose lost 200kg, whose tarpaulin covered vehicle procession along to a date with his girlfriend becomes wedged under a bridge, we read, go Holy Shit!, and pass it along. Hell, I showed my fatty lovin girlfriend the story. She said, "Baby... no offense, but if you get that fat, you're dumped."

Fair enough, too. Check it out.

Obviously our first reaction was to the number: 500kg. Various Simpsons quotes followed. "I wash myself with a rag on a stick!" Then we both wonder what kind of woman would date a 300 kilo man. What the fuck must be wrong with that chick??

A fair question, too

I don't swallow the urban legend of the chubby chaser. Hot chicks who gets wood over grossly obese men, take it from an obese man, such women are a myth. I'd know. I'm not an ugly guy, despite my circumference. At my fattest I was visual ebola.

The concept of the chubby chaser was invented by the screenwriter of Porky's to get the token fat guy some action. More evidence, there's a thousand BBW porn sites (Big Busty Women), but next to no fay guy sites (and those there are, are gay sex). Yes, some men like some cushion for the pushin'. Not so with hetero women. From personal experience I can attest that any young, extraordinarily fat guy who secures female companionship has worked very hard and somehow proven his non-physical qualities amount to more than his physical deficiencies. In spite of, not because of.

So, what mental disease must this mythical Mexican lady have? Don't ask me. It seems death row inmates get more pussy. Maybe the secret for fat guys to getting laid is found on death row. Kill a family or two.

Just don't eat them. That's gross.

The Straight Rent Boy.

The comparison of the daily performance of my well paying job with forced male prostitution is melodramatic. I don't literally need to hold onto a rail and bite down.

Do you ever feel like your job is the wrong sexual orientation? Like every time to log into your work computer of a morning, going down the wrong rabbit hole?

Every day I continue to be a salesman, (even the ethical, respected sort) I feel the numbers being removed from the roulette wheel. Unless I get out soon I'll be just another commuter with a busted arsehole, living the Australian dream.

About Cheating on my Girlfriend.

Your Worship, please add to the record the following conditions of my current relationship: open and honest communication, continuing physical and emotional attraction, good sex, mutual respect, my love of her family, not a moment of boredom when together.

Judge: "What's your fucking problem?"

I agree, I'm not the unluckiest guy.

But my penis keeps gently rapping. Maybe once a year I'll meet a girl that makes my mind explore the what-if. What would happen if I cheated?

This year it's girl who works in the internet lounge I spend a lot of time. I'll call her M. She's younger, but the age difference is within single digits. She's quite the looker, with a body that makes my inner caveman beat his bongos. If I wasn't attached, it wouldn't take much to date her: I'd convince her to let me cook her dinner. That next weekend we'd spend one afternoon wandering somewhere picturesque. We'd talk for hours, compare our existentialism. Providing I never actually use the word existentialism, we might end up drinking wine and... you know.

In my head I've got the plot mapped.

The question is, why what-if? Maybe I'm a pig man with the urges common to all pig men. Does my penis control my actions?

Keep in mind, I haven't cheated. And I can't see how I would. My rumination is, why does this urge exist to when I'm so content?

Ego? With a new notch on the belt, is my ego's pussy jones (temporarily) satisfied?
Biology? Does the fact my deoxyribonucleic acid must replicate compel me to ejaculate into more, more and more fertile females?
Libido? I agree, I could do with more sex. What man in between year 2 and 3 of a relationship couldn't?

M and I don't have much in common. But there's something there. We connect despite smalltalk limitations. There's something genuine beyond the politeness. We anticipate our minutes a week, but it's clumsy and very careful, because we also know nothing can go further. She works here -- I patronise here: that's it.

In different circumstances I could imagine a year, or even two, during which I would be genuinely enriched with her as a lover, friend, and confidant. And to have that amazing body, naked...

Why I want to cheat isn't the interesting question, really. It's why I don't cheat.

My taste in women is somewhat peculiar. I'm attracted to females I'd admire, with whom I could spend a lot of time, go on adventures with, make memories. Sure, my head gets turned by the random, spectacular piece of arse, women with curves that'd shame Frank Gehry, whose brassiere technologies defy the laws of gravity and structural engineering. But then I eavesdrop on the vegetable scraps which pass for their opinions. I recoil, and perv safely out of earshot.

But M isn't one of those. So what holds me back?

Of course, I don't want to hurt my girlfriend. But there's more to it. I'm smart enough to cheat on my girlfriend without her ever knowing.

I know M deserves better. She has a good soul. I consider M an intimate friend I'll never actually get to know. I've lived years in my mind with her as my friend. In that hypothetical life, if we weren't attracted to each other, I'd want her to have a guy to give more than this current version of me. Anything less would be selfish.

Morality has evolved from romantic fairy tales. Fate will reward us with "the one". There will come along one girl, worth more than the others, as though the value of a person can be dismembered, weighed, and tallied like cuts of meat at a butcher. What if I find more than one true love? Does that devalue the one? What about a third?

As a fat man, it's much harder to pass on a pretty girl. Heard the joke about the Ethiopian and the Happy Meal? I have an ex-fatty, ex-friend who compulsively cheats. When he was fat, he was alone. So now he's not fat, he can't live without a steady girlfriend. Yet he can't stop chasing skirt.

But maybe my urges come from a place higher than my crotch. As a fat man desperately unhappy for the vast majority of my years, it's impossibly difficult for me to ignore any opportunity for a happiness -- even at the expense of another. It seems so wasteful.

I wish I could have parallel lives, co-existing versions me living in parallel dimensions. If I could, I'd devote one to M. There would be happiness in that place. My self that exists in this parallel life would stay with my current girlfriend. I'd stay happy here, too.

I love M. Differently to the way I love my girlfriend, not as much, and differently to the way I've loved other girls. Lives with Caroline, Sheridan, and Jennifer would all have completely different cities, houses, characters and endings.

Now I think about it, I don't love Jennifer at all anymore. Or Caroline. Those two loves lost, withered on the vine. It's a shame.

Don't buy Weight Watchers Food.

I'm pushing my trolley though the dairy aisle of my local Fitzroy Safeway and I'll spy the image of a truly delectable chocolate pudding, dripping with fudgy sauce. It's labelled: Weight Watchers. I think, maybe I'm allowed to have this. Weight Watchers has invented a chocolate pudding calorie and guilt free! What a joyous day!

But I'm diligent. As much as I'd love to believe I could eat that gorgeous picture on the box, I should check the Nutritional panel.

I howl the lament of the disciplined fat man: FUCK YOU WEIGHT WATCHERS!!

Fuck You Weight Watchers for making me hope.

If you don't already know it, Weight Watchers cookies, cakes, ice cream, whatever: it all has lots of sugar.

Sure, it's got almost no fat, but neither does nearly every non-chocolate sweet in the candy aisle. You can snort your weight in Wizz Fizz and not imibe a gram of fat.

Unless you're burning it off, your body will convert and deposit those unused sugar calories straight into you fat arse. Not to mention refined sugars enhance rather than decrease appetite. Not to mention these weight watchers cakes, cookies and puddings use refined white flour, which spikes the blood sugar faster and harder than glucose sugar, a double dose of carbohydrates will spike your appetite and have you running to the fridge where you will skol a 600ml carton of custard.

mmmm..... drinkable custard. How I've missed you.

Fuck you Weight Watchers.

The Biggest Loser and The Uncertainty Principle.

Assuming that someday a living person other myself reads this, I'd assume there would be interest in my thoughts on the TV reality fat camp show, The Biggest Loser.

There's a scientific principle which goes like this: The mere act of observation changes that which is observed.

In Quantum Physics, it's lumped under the Uncertainty Principle.

However, the only thing uncertainty about The Biggest Loser is, without cash prizes, without Gladiator reject personal trainers hollering 2c philosophies direct from a camp counsellor manual, full time dietitians, a pantry stripped of potato chips, and three steadicams furiously auto-focusing on the every tribulation of their endlessly undulating fat arses, these same Losers would be still be at home on the couch masturbating to Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver, fluffing souffle.

Big Brother has more integrity. At least it's honest enough to admit its only purpose is "I'm on TV!", childish attention seeking, self-service. Today's media saturated version of "If a tree falls in the forest and no-one is there to notice, did it really fall?" has become, "If I do something great but it's not on TV, will anybody applaud me?"

It's not brave or honest to expose what is blatant. If you are OK with wearing nothing but a lycra bra (or board shorts) in front of national TV audience, then your body isn't the shame which should be concealed.

Good thing is, most Fatties have better self circumspect.

Take a poll of Fatties and ask their favorite film, I'll bet cash money The Shawshank Redemption would be top 5 (at least). Themes of false imprisonment, interminable abuse and final redemption fit perfectly with the Fatty psychology. (And weirdly, elite football players, too).

Remember the line from the film, "Salvation lies within". That lesson is for us, Fatties. Short of a concentration camp internment (or winning a Biggest Loser audition), nobody crowbars you off the couch except you. And remember Brooks? You know, the old librarian with the pet crow? Released from prison, but he's been inside too long, can't live on the outside, and hangs himself. He was institutionalized.

Please, fellow Fatties, don't get institutionalized.

Sex and Fitness.

Chimpanzees might have better short term memory than humans. At Kyoto University a few chimps were walked by hand from their cages to touch screen monitors. The screen flashed numbers 1 to 9 on the screen in random locations for a split-second, then blanked out. Both college student and chimp subjects tapped the blanks in the order where they remembered the numbers. When given nearly a whole second to look, the humans and chimps performed about the same. When the time to see the numbers was reduced to less than half a second, the chimp was the champ.

Humans, though, excel at pattern recognition. To human eyes a pattern is pleasing. Disorder is not. When disorder can be reordered into a correct pattern, the urge to restore a pattern is often compulsive. Change the test, replace the numbers with random images of fruits and flowers, we'd easily group the images of a pineapple and a strawberry together, put the pansies with the daisies. We feel pleasure doing this. Commuters happily complete Sudoku puzzles for hours.

In the case of birds and bees, boys and girls, the idea that couples group based on matching beauty levels isn't new. It's been chump for whole sitcom episodes (usually the best friend relief character chasing a 9 when he's only a 5). Next time you're out and about, watch for couples. The athletic football player type doesn't date the muso pierced tattood punk chick. Perfect parted hair Charlie church doesn't go shopping with boob tube Sally. Gordon Gecko doesn't hold hands with trailer trash Ellie-May. And fit doesn't go with fat.

At this moment I'm coupled. But during my single man regressions, when I see hot beef with hot cheese, I envy the gym rippled dude in the ripped t-shirt for the inflata-blond he totes. They belong together. Their proportions, exact manifestations of health magazine physical fitness and beauty, measurements like Fibonacci Numbers in reverse, starting at the chest, going down.

Of course, I want to fuck those fake tits. Or, at least, get a closer look. It's not an evolved urge. Urges aren't supposed to be.

But she's with Gym Dude because the pattern matches. In the mirror (above the bed), they match. Walking from fashion boutique to boutique, his body matches hers as correctly as shoes match belt. To prove her superior hotness to all those other bitches, one elbow she'll carry Gym Dude, Louis Vuitton on the other.

But that's not Gym Dude's only function. A sparking conversationalist I may be, but talk doesn't satisfy a lady. A fit guy makes for better sex.

If Gym Dude can perform 200 push ups on his knuckles, he can also keep going and going and going in positions that would exhaust us lesser, fatter men. You know the positions. I don't need to describe them. The ones which make your arms tired, elbows trembling with muscle fatigue. Or cramp a butt-cheek.

It's also no secret I'm not a flexible man. Twisting the limbs of a fat man likely as using a marshmallow as a garbage tie. Yoga is ridiculous. I won't take my lady to the Astral Plane with a Tantric Sex orgasm anytime soon.

My girlfriend and I make an odd couple. She's tall and lithe. I'm short and fat. I'm also a sparkling conversationalist.

The Exertion of Sitting.

Hi! My name is Stephen and I am fat.


We humans revile the fat man. That's OK. You can't help it. Neither can I. Fat people disgust me, too. Probably more.

Don't feel bad. You keep away from the ridiculously obese for the same reason you'd stay away from the bubonic plague. Your genes tell you fat = disease. Stay away. Don't catch it.

It's wet and cold today although the forecast is for heat and sweat. That's great for me. I once had a friend named Troy who owned an Alaskan Malamute. Malamutes are hardy animals with insulation of thick, fireplace-rug fur. These dogs pull sleds through the Arctic and happily sleep in the open during blizzards. Troy named her Snowy. She almost died every Melbourne summertime, until it did against the bullbar of a Toyota Landcruiser. My friend was too lazy to walk her, so it walked itself.

I'm in The Westin lobby in Melbourne, climate controlled, where the chairs are the ideal ergonomic inclines for laptop computers on the lap. The lighting is soft honey and acoustics are smooth calf skin leather. The invisible vortices of the air circulation is a marvel of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. My Chicken Marsala fueled fart would be more likely to reach the retired millionaire reading the Financial Review one metre away in a thunderstorm.

I come here a lot. The Westin has free wi-fi and $6 lattes. Once or twice a week I'll equalise my karma with this multinational hotel chain by overpaying for a coffee. The unrushed contentment of my betters prove money does buy happiness. The younger betters sally forth to airports or business appointments, war-painted in pinstripes.

Sometimes I'll see someone semi-famous. Two weeks ago it was Megan Gale. She'll be Wonder Woman, soon. Today Australian Davis Cup tennis captain John Fitzgerald wanders by. He sees me recognise him. My belly fat dome bulges my creased slate grey cotton tee.

Comfort is a big thing for me. Sitting position, especially. I'll explain. When a fatty-fat sits, everthing pushes up. Thighs spread sideways, stretching the legs of my jeans. My arse flattens sideways, pushes upwards, filling every cubic centimetre of usually loose hanging denim in the seat of my jeans. The pressure from overfilled jeans pushes up my belt, cinched under my gut overhang. The belt is onto its last notch. It acts as underwire does for a push-up bra. Lifts and accentuates. My pushed-up gut pushes up my man boobs.

Gratefully, today, my tits are concealed by a jacket. The jacket doesn't hide the belly.

I'm so self conscious of my bio-dome belly that I subconsciously pilates b-line buried stomach muscles. I also take shorter, smaller breathes. Regular breathing swells the belly extra inches. That, I can't allow. The hour turns, as I sit, I become hypoxic. My heart rate increases to deliver less oxygen, faster. My blood pressure rises. My short, shallow breathing becomes laboured. My chest tightens. My brain pounds with the beat of my arteries.

I heave. Once. Twice. The brain pressure pounding is so loud now. I'm having a sleep aponea attack, wide awake.

I worry about having a stroke, a heart attack, long term hypoxic brain damage.

Sitting down is too tiring. I'll wind-up my laptop power cord now and pay the $6 I owe the Westin Hotel Group. John Fitzgerald is nearly fifty years old. He and I don't share genes.

My jeans are a size 40. It used to be a lot worse.