I sit in a small restaurant, picking away at my fetucini alfredo and looking outside, watching the summer rain fall. It always seems to rain on days like these. I'm having one of my down days. All I want to do is sit and ponder silently, the last thing I want to do is talk to anyone.
As I sip my drink and push a sprig of parsley around my plate, hoping that the rain will stop, an older woman comes in. She sits down at a small table near mine, and smiles at me warmly. I nod absently and go back to staring out the window, willing the rain to stop so I can return home to my cats and my beloved DVD player. However, the rain continues to pour, and the waiter comes to my table with a dessert menu. Ah, what the hell. I order a piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee.
"It's my birthday today..." says the old woman shyly. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, attempting a smile.
"Happy birthday..."
"My sons used to take me out to dinner every year." There's a hint of sadness in her voice, but I'm too dense to pick up on that at the time. "That's nice..." I finish off my dessert, signal for the check, and make a quick exit, leaving the woman to her own thoughts, staring sadly down at her garden salad.
Looking back on that day, I feel sad and ashamed. That woman didn't care about her dinner, she just wanted someone to talk to, anyone. She seemed so small, sad, and alone...abandoned. Were her sons in Afganistan, or Lebanon? Or did they just stop caring once they "made it big"? Maybe they now cared more about their work than their family, and their mother was sweeped under the carpet, completely forgotten. Or maybe they were a few of the unlucky souls who made up the statistics.
I pray that someone was more compassionate than me, that someone listened to her and kept her company. I pray that she doesn't remain forgotten forever, that when her time finally comes to leave the world of the living, that she is surrounded by the ones she loves.
It's unlikely that she will ever see this message, but I will still appologize here...I'm sorry for my ignorance, my selfishness, and my insensitivity. I'm sorry that I wasn't the sympathetic ear you needed, or a shoulder to lean on.
Friday, August 25, 2006
I'm fat because I'm stressed!
When did it become the norm for people to blame their screw-ups on everyone but themselves? Worse yet, when did everyone decide this behavior was acceptable? Every night when I sit down to enjoy an episode of The Nature of Things (who the hell am I kidding? You all know I’m only watching The Simpsons and every sitcom I can find), I see a commercial for the latest wonder-drug, Relacore . Now there have been weight-loss pills on the market for years, but never before have I seen one of these companies try to delude women into thinking that they’re overweight because they’re stressed! Just about every woman over the age of 18 already blames everything on stress, from the hair in her shower drain, to the bad productivity reports at work. It drives me insane! Now every blimp I have the misfortune to strike up a conversation with will be saying, “Things have been so stressful lately, it’s no wonder I packed on ten pounds this month!” Of course that’s what it is, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that you’ve been surviving on whatever greasy crap you can get people to deliver in 30 minutes or less!
I have probably just succeeded in alienating 75% of my readership because of that blimp comment, but it’s really hard to give a flying fuck when I consider the fact that most of these people play the part of the victim as skillfully as Beethoven plays the piano. Besides, I’m a blimp too. You don’t see me blaming my blubber on a glandular problem or whatever other bullshit people come up with. There may be some level of truth to these claims, but 98% of the time, medical conditions are nothing more than a contributing factor. A small contributing factor. The main reason blimps are blimps is because we wolf down the fatty poison corporate jack offs pass off as food like pigs in a trough.
What annoys me the most are these people who whine about being fat, but don’t do anything about it. It’s as if they just expect to miraculously lose weight overnight. Oftentimes these are the same kind of people who think the world owes them something, so they shouldn’t have to do anything they don’t want to. Like work for instance.
I suppose I’ve rambled on long enough, this post gets more obnoxious with every word. The bottom line is this: If you’re unhappy with yourself, get off your plus-sized ass and do something about it! Cut back on the fatty crap, and get on the treadmill! If you’re comfortable the way you are, then I applaud you. Live the way you want, just be prepared to deal with the consequences if the way you live happens to be really unhealthy.
I have probably just succeeded in alienating 75% of my readership because of that blimp comment, but it’s really hard to give a flying fuck when I consider the fact that most of these people play the part of the victim as skillfully as Beethoven plays the piano. Besides, I’m a blimp too. You don’t see me blaming my blubber on a glandular problem or whatever other bullshit people come up with. There may be some level of truth to these claims, but 98% of the time, medical conditions are nothing more than a contributing factor. A small contributing factor. The main reason blimps are blimps is because we wolf down the fatty poison corporate jack offs pass off as food like pigs in a trough.
What annoys me the most are these people who whine about being fat, but don’t do anything about it. It’s as if they just expect to miraculously lose weight overnight. Oftentimes these are the same kind of people who think the world owes them something, so they shouldn’t have to do anything they don’t want to. Like work for instance.
I suppose I’ve rambled on long enough, this post gets more obnoxious with every word. The bottom line is this: If you’re unhappy with yourself, get off your plus-sized ass and do something about it! Cut back on the fatty crap, and get on the treadmill! If you’re comfortable the way you are, then I applaud you. Live the way you want, just be prepared to deal with the consequences if the way you live happens to be really unhealthy.
Monday, August 14, 2006
An Introduction
"A cynical, blunt, antisocial bitch..."
Those seem to be the words most commonly used to describe yours truly. Does that anger the entity that is The Cynic? Hardly. The fact of the matter is, just about all of that is true. Technically I'm not a bitch; while I am just about as hairy, I am in fact a human female, not a dog. That leads me to the first of many "Idiot facts" likely to be posted here. . .
Idiot fact #001: Webster's dictionary defines the word bitch as "the female of the dog or some other carnivorous mammals."
Those seem to be the words most commonly used to describe yours truly. Does that anger the entity that is The Cynic? Hardly. The fact of the matter is, just about all of that is true. Technically I'm not a bitch; while I am just about as hairy, I am in fact a human female, not a dog. That leads me to the first of many "Idiot facts" likely to be posted here. . .
Idiot fact #001: Webster's dictionary defines the word bitch as "the female of the dog or some other carnivorous mammals."
*glances at the quotation" That's awkwardly worded...but you get the idea. But I digress!
Why, you might ask, is this cynical recluse creating a blog? Is it to whine about how people suck, the world sucks, and her life sucks? The short answer would be no. My opinion of how much the afore-mentioned topics suck varies from day to day depending on how much sleep I've gotten. No, what I seek to do is merely to state opinions and observations. Should a general theme of "everything sucks" become evident, then I shall gladly retract any false statements I made here, and then create a new orifice in the back of my head with an unregistered handgun, because lets face it, if everything really inherently sucked, would life be worth living?
While comments are welcome and encouraged, I must warn those who use "l33t" and "net speak" that should you choose to sully my little home on the web with that trash, you are likely to be met with biting sarcasm and insults of the highest calibre. I cannot emphasise enough how much I HATE net-speak....but let us leave that for another day, shall we?
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