Neil and I are debating whether or not I resemble a beached whale. He says no. I say yes. I say this because it's a pain in the ass to stand up from a reclining position. I still fail to understand how I've managed to gain thirty pounds for the purpose of nourishing a three-pound baby. I don't have any particular problem with this, other than the difficulty of getting out of bed. Oh, and the discomfort of trying to sit with my normal slumped, slouched, lazy-assed posture. That's not comfortable at all.
But still! Thirty pounds, and I can't figure out what in the hell most of it is for. Honestly, I think my kid just thinks it's funny for her mom to feel like a beached whale.
Not a BIG whale, mind you. Maybe an orca whale.
[Neil: "You are NOT a whale!"]
See, I don't actually LOOK like a whale. When I lived in Santa Fe, I put on nearly this much weight (the freshman fifteen and the birth-control ten), and didn't look discernibly different from my normal scrawny self. I've looked pretty much the same since I was about sixteen. At the moment, I've got a big old tummy, and the rest of me looks mostly normal. I'm not particularly self-conscious about my looks, and certainly not about my weight. It's normal. I am, however, a bit irritated at the beached-whale feeling of having to ROLL off the couch in order to stand up effectively and without grunting.
[Neil: "You're not beached. You can move!"]
[It should be mentioned that since Neil and I met, seven and a half years ago, he's put on just enough weight to keep himself from looking like a fucking Holocaust survivor. Seriously, the boy looked like he'd beat up a baby puppy in order to chew on its Milk-bone. Like he'd forgotten how to chew, it had been so long since his last meal. Like a member of the Donner party. You ever see Auschwitz footage? Yeah. Neil also refuses to believe he looked like he was starving. But he did. And I feel like a beached whale. So there...]
Heh!
A little story...
My friend and room-mate, D., got together with this girl shortly after I moved in. The girl was relatively pretty, with LONG reddish-blonde hair, and a nice smile. I wouldn't have called her a friend, because we didn't know each other at all, really. And frankly, there were certain signals she gave off in her demeanor that kind of gave me a clue that she couldn't be trusted completely. But I ignored them. I give people the benefit of the doubt. Besides, D. was totally taken with her.
Now, this dear girl told D. a long story about this guy who lived in Japan who was harassing her. I guess they'd dated, or something, and the Japan boy refused to believe that it was over between them. He sent her numerous emails and messages proclaiming his love for her. D. was very upset. He and his friends rallied around the girl, promising her that everything would be okay, and that an ass-kicking would occur if, indeed, an ass-kicking was necessary.
But now, it seems that the girl was lying about the whole thing. She'd never broken it off with the Japan boy; or at least, she'd never informed HIM that she'd broken it off with him. Or so it seems.
She told D. one day that she couldn't spend any time with him because she was very sick with the flu. She was coughing and feverish, she said, and couldn't keep food down. D. was a little upset, because he hadn't seen her for at least a week -- she was always busy. But his main concern was for her health. Except, it turned out that she wasn't sick at all. Or, at least not sick enough for her to resist inviting some OTHER dude over to her house, who proclaimed himself her boyfriend. Seemed she also had time to go to a circus, or a museum, or some business like that, a day or two after she'd broken her date with D. Guess she must have recuperated from the "flu" rather quickly.
Well, D. found out, and was understandably pissed. You find out that your girlfriend's got another boyfriend, and has been lying in order to AVOID you, that's kind of a shitty revelation, you know? I wasn't appreciably concerned about the break-up of D. and the girl, but I was infuriated that somebody would hurt my friend like that. D.'s a nice guy. And a smart guy. He's not the sort who deserves to be taken for a sucker.
[Now, I'm not saying I'm lily-white or anything. I've cheated a couple of times, and I've hidden certain truths from people who probably had the right to them. But I have never in my life lied about being sick in order to avoid spending time with a boyfriend. Once, I claimed fatigue in order to avoid spending time with my grandparents, when, in truth, I was kind of hungover from a birthday celebration the night before. A couple of times, I've said I was too busy to hang out with a friend, when the truth was that I needed some solitary mental health time... But shit... Telling your BOYFRIEND that you're sick so that you can hang out with another guy? THAT is just kinda warped...]
Well, whatever. There are slutty, obnoxious, girls in the world, and what can you really do? There are also slutty, obnoxious guys, and I've never found a cure for them. How many guys have I dated, or kinda-dated, only to find out they had significant others they hadn't mentioned? Blah.
But D. was still pretty hurt. And then -- THEN! -- the girl decided to post a livejournal entry about what a great life she was leading -- and that she was beginning to come down with the flu.
So, I couldn't resist...
I left her a comment to the effect of, "you're a slutty obnoxious girl." Actually, I wasn't quite that nice. I told her that maybe she ought to go out as a hooker on Halloween; it seemed much more suiting than a cat costume. I'm incredibly good at being very, very mean to people.
Neil asked me: "why does it matter?" He was implying, I suppose, that it was over and done with, and none of it had anything to do with me. This was true, of course.
But there were a couple of reasons why I had to be rude and nasty to the slutty, obnoxious girl.
First, D. is a friend of mine. And you don't fuck with my friends. And you especially don't fuck with my friends and then act like nothing is wrong. If you've got no heart, and you're gonna treat other people like crap, it should come back to you one way or another. Second, I enjoy a little bit of meanness sometimes. I don't indulge in it nearly as much as I used to, and I rarely engage in fights anymore. But when I'm moved to do so, it feels awfully good. I don't get all pissed and weepy; I get sarcastic. And it's fun. And generally, I'm pretty fucking good at it. Third... it's about damned time some of these west coast folks see how, exactly, east coasters regard their real friends. Not just: "hey man, sorry your girlfriend was a cheating whore." As they say, a friend is somebody who will help you bury a body if you need to. I'm not really up for body-burying today if it's not necessary, but I can surely tell somebody she ought to go as a hooker on Halloween.
D. laughed his ass off.
I think it just might have lightened his heart on the whole stupid situation.
And sure, the slutty girl will be pissed, and maybe she'll email me and be a cuntrag to me. Oh well. That doesn't much matter. That wasn't the point.
I wonder what I should be for Halloween...
~Helena*