Ok, yes, I feel huge, but that's not really what I'm getting at.
It's been 2.5-months since I last posted. With a post titled "Day 1." That would make today Day 75... or somewhere thereabouts.
It's not. If anything, it's some negative number. Day -20... or something. Because I've been moving decidedly backwards. I've hovered in very familiar territory over the past 75 days... Let's call it the Triple Crown (Triple Crown... ha... where's my jockey?), because it's composed of three 100s. Yes, dear readers, I've made nice with the 300-club again. I've been volleying between 300-320 for 10-weeks. No joke. I wouldn't joke about that. I remember certain optimism from early 2010, absolutely certain that I would never hit 300 again. My bad.
I am still unemployed. The number of resumes/applications I have sent off into the void for consideration is hovering nearer and nearer a triple digit. Flat-out rejections number in the teens, I suppose. I've been on three interviews, two of which rejected me and one never sent out anything even resembling a response (a Catholic school... way to be responsible, folks).
A lack of purpose and/or direction in my professional life makes it intensely difficult to maintain purpose and/or direction in my personal life. I imagine it's the same for many folks. The "why bother?" attitude permeates everything. I've stopped applying to positions that I see as a 'reach' for my skills and experiences, because writing cover letters is time-consuming and I'd rather spend that 10-minutes stuffing as many granola bars down my throat as humanly possible. And, frankly, it's the more rewarding activity of the two. The granola bars make me feel like a million bucks for the two minutes the chocolate lingers on my taste buds. The cover letters are 8.5x11 sheets of endlessly repetitive despair that lead to infinite depression in the case of the non-response, and a moment of acute pain (followed by bingeing) when a rejection letter actually comes.
I've been thinking about coming back to this blog for a while, now. I hate being that fat blogger who disappears for a while, then comes back with her tail between her legs, a hang-dog look, and 20 more pounds on her ass than when she last visited. It's like I fear that the Internet is going to smack my nose with a rolled up newspaper.
So, even though I hate being that blogger, here I am. I actually started this post with the intention of writing about TV. Television was my only respite from the place where I live when I was a kid/teen/young adult... and it is very much becoming so again. Of course, I am a fan of The Biggest Loser and Losing It With Jillian and the like... I've even given Dance Your Ass Off more than a passing glance (I'm not proud). But, the recent influx of fat-people-are-people-too! shows like Drop Dead Diva and HUGE are quite high on my list of escapist love.
HUGE is especially fantastic. Things I like:
- The fat kids at fat camp are ACTUALLY fat. Not like those 195-pound 8th-graders who used to go on the Oprah show bawling about how awful it was being SO FAT as a teenager. Then, Oprah would feel so bad for them that they got free tickets from the richest woman in the country to go to fat camp and get un-fat. I used to scream at the TV, "SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU AREN'T FAT!!!!" The HUGE kids... they really are. I wanted to go to fat camp, but we didn't even have enough money for me to get a basketball hoop; I tried to raise the most money in some charity event to win one and wound up coming in second. To a chiropractor. Who could've afforded to buy his own damn hoop. Asshole.
- Nicky Blonsky (the lead, the chick from Hairspray) is fat like me, which you almost never, EVER see on TV. Everyone else is that apple with toothpicks kind of fat that I've always envied (arms and legs skinny enough not to be ashamed of them... just a big belly and/or butt). No one realizes the benefits of skinny wrists and ankles, unless you don't have them.
- The skinny preppy kids at the neighboring tennis camp are ACTUALLY assholes. They didn't run into the fat kids frolicking around the borders of the two camps and suddenly have epiphanies that, hey, they may be fat, but look how awesome and funny they are! Let's be friends! Hell, no. They were cruel and vile and awful and I suspect they will continue to be. As they should.
- The portrayal of the ups and downs of being a fat teen, even one who is in a 'safe' environment surrounded by nothing but other fat teens, is spot on. The writers deserve major props for that. It's not easy to put that much truth and honesty and real-life-ness into a show and have it still be valid as entertainment.
All that being said, I highly recommend HUGE to those of you who get the ABC Family channel.
Meanwhile, I'll be over here, arguing with myself about the merits of going to Zumba on a day when I've eaten crap which will only cause side stitches and cramps.
