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.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, March 28, 2008
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".
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".
Thursday, March 20, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, March 17, 2008
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
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
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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.
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.
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