bye

The writing demons have been exorcised. Thanks for reading.

Winter Olympics

Whew! The Winter Olympics are finally over and not a minute too soon! I’ve been spending the last 2 weeks trying out my latest weight-loss theory: That a person actually expends a significant number of calories simply by watching certain Olympic events. So, after spending much time watching numerous Olympic sports, and performing before and after weigh-ins, I have devised a list of the Winter Olympic sports in the order of caloric burn, going from Most Calories Burned by Watching to Least Calories Burned by Watching:

1) Short Track – Not only do you have to skate really really hard, but you have to do it in a pack of other people without falling down! REALLY HARD! I was out of breath just watching this one.

Really, really hard to do!

2) Speed Skating – Fast skating but you only have to stay out of one other person’s way. Again, out of breath.

3) Cross Country – This looks pretty hard to me. And they have to go a long way - mostly uphill! I’m exhausted just writing about it!

4) Figure Skating – Don’t let some guy tell you that figure skating “isn’t really a sport.” Hey, just being able to stand up straight on ice skates is pretty hard – so there.

5) Ice Dancing – See #4.
(Side note: The outfits are TOO GAUDY!! Someone really should tell them)

They all seem to love hot pink - but why??

6) Biathlon – OK, it’s got cross country skiing (see #3), but they get to rest for the shooting part (wussies).

7) All other skiing events (Downhill, Super G, Aerials, Snowboarding, Ski jumping, etc): Look. you’re on skis going DOWNHILL. How hard is that?

8) All Sledding Events (Bobsleigh, Luge, Skeleton). We’ve all been sledding – NOT A SPORT, in my opinion. The only real exercise involved in sledding is dragging your sled back uphill and I never ONCE saw any of the teams doing that. Again: Wussies.

Kids do this for fun, so why is it a sport?

9) Curling – Looks like the Senior Olympics to me. Not much effort here.

10) Hockey – Two words: Team Sport. I don’t watch ‘em. Ever. Therefore, zero calories burned.

There you have it, my friends. Don't forget to tune in 2 years from now for the Summer Olympics, which are real sweatfests!

Remember, the more you sweat the harder you're watching!

cheney's got a gun

It's this kind of stuff that makes my day.

cartoon channel

Am I the only person who thinks that people killing each other over cartoons is pretty funny? Every time I hear the words "Cartoon Violence" I just get this picture in my head of Bugs Bunny & Elmer Fudd fighting.

And now, to retaliate, some shops are refusing to sell Danish products. What the hell do the Danish produce anyway besides Cheese Danish?

Just wondering

A couple of little pieces

Note: Taking my cue from James Frey, parts of the following story are true, parts are fictional. You decide.

Saturday morning.
I struggle up through the layers of my hazy, alcohol-soaked brain and open my eyes to the darkness. I slowly evaluate my surroundings – Bedroom. Dark. Dizzy. I am. Still drunk.
I don’t so much fall back asleep as pass out.

Morning. Head hurts.
My recollection of the previous night is spotty, but the wine…I do remember the wine. Merlot. Can’t believe I was actually drinking f***ing Merlot! Damn, no wonder I feel so bad. Wait, there was a white wine in there somewhere. God, I HAVE to quit mixing my drinks.

And for some reason there is a knot on the back of my head and a bruise on my arm. What the…?

Back to sleep.

Later.
Phone ringing, ringing, ringing.

“Yeah?”
“Wow, are you OK?” asks my boyfriend Ken.
“Uh. Dunno.”
“You really kicked ass last night!”
“Huh?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Uh, I guess not.”
“A bunch of Ninjas crashed the party and you totally took them on and kicked all their assess! It was totally Crouching Tiger !”
A vague memory of hanging in midair while in a perfect martial arts-style pose flickers in my memory. Cool. I always wanted to do that.
I hope I hadn’t hurt anyone TOO badly.

Suddenly, a dreadful, coherent thought pierced my brain: Last night I was wearing a BRAND NEW JACKET.
To hell with the condition of the Ninjas, what about my new jacket??? Dammit!

“Honey, where’s my new jacket?”
“What jacket?”
“The one I was wearing last night. You know, my new short denim jacket. It was brand new! And I looked hot in it!”
“Oh yeah, you got some wine on it. But golly, babe, you really rocked the house! Everyone’s still talking about it!”

I slammed the phone down and leaped, I mean crawled, out of bed. I began pawing through the layers of debris littering my bedroom floor - books, empty wine bottles, crack vials, martial arts supplies – until I located my clothes from the previous night. And there it was – my new jacket, still intact (miraculously, considering all the kick-ass Ninja activity I was apparently involved in), but with a large purple wine stain marring the left sleeve. Shit! Ruined by Merlot again.

I crawled back into bed.

I vow to never drink again.

For the ten millionth time.

This post is dedicated to Ninjas

protect yourselves!

protect yourselves!
Originally uploaded by kpalmer45.

Please note the correct way to protect yourselves from any and all undesirable Republican karma generated tonight during the State of the Union Address.

I, personally, will be watching Animal Cops.

The FP/SP Theory

You may have noticed that my weight plays a major role in my life. I'm always thinking about how exactly I ended up gaining this much weight and how to lose it - kind of like the people in the ad who walk around with their scale chained to their leg - I'm always thinking about it. I exercise and lose, and then I eat and gain it all back. Yo-yo dieting has been my life. The so-called experts want to scare you into belieiving that if you yo-yo diet for many years - as I have - that you'll eventually end up permanently fat and unable to lose weight. Which, of course, is bullshit - as any dedicated yo-yo dieter will tell you who has gained and lost the same 20 or 50 pounds over and over again. They also say that fat people have to figure out why they think they don't deserve to be thin. Come on, who doesn't think they deserve to be thinner? I would think that if anybody thought they deserved to be thinner, it would be us fat folks.

Here's what I think. I have a better theory about why we just can't keep the weight off: Dual Personalities.

You see, there are essentially two people living inside of a yo-do dieter's brain: The skinny personality (SP), and the fat personality (FP). When we're the fat person (FP), we remember our old skinnier selves wistfully. We tell ourselves "Oh, if only I could be that person again, everything would be so much better," or "If I could just wear a skirt that didn't make my ass look like a couple of cats fighting in a sack, my life would be Capital-G Great!" So we diet and exercise for weeks and months until we finally lose that 20 or 30 or 50 pounds and we're our normal, thinner selves again. And that's when the skinny personality (SP) takes over. See, while FP remembers everything about SP, SP seems to have no memory whatsoever of FP. SP thinks she can do whatever she wants to do. SP is just plain arrogant. SP makes a feeble stab at working out for awhile, but she eventually just stops. SP also thinks she can eat chips and ice cream again - like every single day. SP does not want to believe that FP is just waiting to come out and take over the personality again because SP doesn't really remember FP. FP is just some vague memory which could possibly not be her at all, but some other person altogether. But eventualy FP does emerge again - stronger and sometimes even fatter, but always remorseful. Why oh why couldn't have SP just hung in there and stuck with the program?

Why does she always screw things up?

I think the trick is to do what any good psychoanalyst with a dissociative patient would do - merge the personalities. If you could merge FP's memories into SP's body, then I believe our nation's weight problem could be solved. Just think, you could be a normal weight person about to stuff a few cookies in your mouth and suddenly, there it is: The memory of your former FP's chaffed thighs rubbing together. Horrified, you stuff the cookies back into the bag and quickly drop to the floor and squeeze out a few dozen sit-ups, just for good measure. That would be great, wouldn't it? You know, with that kind of negative reinforcement, no one in their right mind would ever go back to being fat!

Now, I know most people can't afford the months and years of therapy required to merge their personalities into one lean, mean, fat-burning machine so let me just say that my new book, Psychoanalysis for Dummies, will be published soon. I felt especially qualified to write such a book because 1) I know a lot of psycho-babble bullshit and 2) I write stuff all the time. And just because my own personalities haven't been successfully merged into one, doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talkin' about.

I'm working on it, folks.
(cue inspiring background music)

I've got my new (in)stability ball and a DVD on how to use it that truly makes a complete fool out of me on a regular basis (and there's nothing like an overweight woman trying to stay in a plank position on top of a big rubber ball to bring a smile to my otherwise-sullen teenage son's face - and that's worth every penny, believe me). I've got my super duper diet. I've already lost a few pounds, and I HAVE A GOAL:

To be an SP again (please, I'm begging now) with a FP's memories.
(inspiring music fades)

Will I make it? Will I be able to successfully merge my FP with my SP? Stay tuned. If I succeed, you will be the first to know. If I fail, we'll pretend that we never had this conversation - agreed?

And no, I will not be offering refunds on the book.