the fatling

The Fatling & Adoring Husband In: Baby & the City

The following discussion is a brainstorming session on how we can work our hypothetical baby into a video project based on HBO’s Sex & the City:

The Fatling: (In affected baby voice) And I had to wonder…

Adoring Husband: When does a pway date become a pway mawwaige?

The Fatling: Of course, it’ll be a problem if we have a boy baby.

Adoring Husband: Yeah, he’ll have to play Aidan or some shit.

The Fatling: No, he could be Mr. Big…Mr. Binky!

Adoring Husband: (Sighs) Who are we kidding?  He’s going to be Steve.

The End…?!?!

TheFatling’s #CBR4 Review #4: Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce

Trickster’s Choice is an excellent YA fantasy book, and I recommend it very highly.

The story is the first of Tamora Pierce’s Trickster duo and follows sixteen-year-old Aly, whose mother is a famous knight and King’s Champion, while her father is a thief-turned King’s Spymaster.  Though her father has trained her in the art of spycraft, he refuses to allow Aly to join him as an agent due to the dangers inherent to a life of espionage.

Following a spat with her mother, Aly sails away from her home of Pirate’s Swoop in Tortall, but is captured, enslaved, and sold to a noble family in the Copper Isles, a neighboring nation whose native, dark-skinned population (raka) was overthrown by light-skinned intruders (luarin) nearly three centuries ago.  Aly learns that tensions still run high among the two factions, and is herself drawn into the conflict by the Copper Isles’ trickster god, Kyprioth.

Kyprioth offers Aly a wager—keep the children of the family she serves alive through the summer, and he will transport her back to her home and family.  The family in question is headed by Duke Mequen and Duchess Winnamine.  They have two young children and share custody of Mequen’s daughters from his first marriage to (now deceased) Duchess Sarugani, a member of the dwindling raka nobility.

Those girls, the beautiful Lady Saraiyu and clever Lady Dovesary, come from both raka and luarin royal lines, as Aly discovers on the family’s journey into exile.  They have fallen into disfavor with the Copper Isles’ mad king, Oron, and retreat to the distant raka stronghold of Tanair in hopes of surviving his baseless wrath.  Aly finds assistance in her task from the household’s raka servants, who are part of a burgeoning movement to see Lady Saraiyu installed on the throne, as well as Nawat, a young man, who until very recently was a crow.

Obviously, Pierce has created a world where swashbuckling and magic coexist, and the story is tense, surprising, and full of humor.  Nawat, in particular, has several lines that made me laugh out loud, and his fumbling, very crow-like attempts to woo Aly are endearing.  The tension between the raka and luarin is very well-done, with no dumbing down of the seriousness of conquest, oppression, and racism for younger readers.  Pierce respects her audience, and delivers a fantastic tale.  I’m really looking forward to reading the follow-up, Trickster’s Queen, and Pierce’s other books set in Tortall.

Running Out of Fat Puns…But Still Not Going Running

Why hello, Fanlings!  Fancy running into you here—not “running,” per se, per the title, but, you know, inhabiting similar cyberspace.

It’s been a super week here at Fatling HQ.  Pauncho Villa was very famous on the internet on Tuesday, which was excellent, and I am booking standup gigs like I might not be a total loser after all.  Also, I saw and got to briefly hang out with two babies!  My cup runneth over!

Most exciting of all is that it’s been about 8 weeks since I had a cigarette, not including the one-and-a-half cheat I had, but I feel like that’s pretty negligible in the long run, provided I don’t make a regular thing out of it.  I’m back in the “cigarettes make me ill” stage, and managed to not smoke even when hanging out on the back patio of my favorite bar with a very heavy smoking pal.  I’m trying to take it one day at a time, and I’ll occasionally just have the impulse to smoke, but I’ve gotten very good at waiting out these random cravings.

I’m thinking that I will try to start integrating some exercise back into my schedule next week, which hopefully won’t be too ambitious.  I’ve been doing lots of at-home cooking, even making my own ice cream (aka pie substitute)!  Which is a really big change from the Whole Foods hot bar/pizza/burrito/burger cycle we were on for a while, but a welcome one.  I make a lot of stir frys that tend to look like greenish-brown mush, but taste perfectly fine, and doing some carb-replacement strategies like using spaghetti squash in lieu of pasta and not keeping chips in the house.

Still, I’m not really “dieting” or counting calories, and to be honest, I don’t really want to.  I like eating, and I like eating things that are tasty.  I also like veggies, so incorporating them into my diet while eliminating simple carbohydrate feels more like a problem-solving game than a diet.  I don’t like dieting—nobody does.  And for some reason, this year in particular, I’ve just really come to embrace the essence of Fatling-ness.  I’m not super-skinny, but I am super cute.  If I’m stuck at this size forever, that’s mostly okay, though kind of irritating, because (I repeat) I am so uninterested in buying more clothes.  I worked at the Dress Barn for a year and bought new shit and now I’m done for a few years.  I cannot work up any kind of enthusiasm for clothes shopping.  There.  I said it.

Anyway, as I was writing this, as if the internet knew what I was saying, I read this article, which depicts a plus-size model alongside an anorexic model, and I felt pretty okay identifying with the plus-sized one.  Which is weird, considering that when I started this blog, I was all following weird anorexia thinspiration blogs and trying (failing) to be more disordered about my eating.  So here’s to not being crazy and to eating good foods and to not smoking and to procrastinating on doing housework by writing random blog posts. Woo!

In Order to Create a More Perfect Fatling

Holy shit, Fanlings, I am so bored right now.  I don’t think I’d be so aware of my boredom if not for the fact that last night, I whimsically decided to try not to eat any processed foods/foods that come in a plastic bag today.  It’s going well, but ironically, the only work-supplied snacks I’ve had do come in plastic bags, but since they are baby carrots, I am letting them off the hook.

Incidentally, I am in the process of stealing 4 bags of said baby carrots and taking them home so I can cook a stir-fry for dinner without going to the store.  I am super proud of my resourcefulness.  And hungry for stir-fry.

It’s strange to be suddenly not shoving something delicious into my craw everytime I realize I’m bored, since that’s more or less how I operated during the month of December.  It’s not terribly strange to not be drunk (secretly, I think it is kind of cool), which is why I’m laying off the booze for a bit.  Well, that, and I’m hoping to lose some bloatage and shrink my stomach.  Not my belly (pictured in my avatar window), which is the source of all my Fatling power, just my stomach.  I think it definitely got a little stretched out and cranky over the holidays, and I was on a pretty solid healthy eating kick before Fatbrother #2 came to visit me and I threw caution and the food pyramid to the wind.

I’m also considering implementing some core strengthening exercises into my life, in the hopes that my back won’t hurt as often and my balance and agility will improve.  I don’t have a strict “resolution” to lose weight this year, because I think I’ve finally learned my lesson and realized that not smoking requires, like, 100% of my resolution-related willpower.  So I’m giving myself the option to be less of a lazy slob, but I’m not going to sweat it, especially if being a lazy slob this year is what it takes to remain smoke-free.

Expecto Fatronum

Happy Harry Potter Day, Fanlings!  My, but it is the end of an era, is it not?  Single adult women everywhere will have to find a new age-inappropriate obsession.  I suggest they get into the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  That way they can still get dressed up for a midnight movie, but their chances of getting laid increase exponentially.  WHAM!  The Fatling: Helping thirty-something virgins get laid since right now!

I really don’t have a whole lot to say, I was simply reminded once again that Tumblr is a thing and I am on it.  I am following some weird shit, people.  Por example, I am following Hairy Pits Club, which exclusively features women who don’t shave their armpits.  I think I was thinking maybe they’d follow me back because feminism or something, but now it just serves as a reminder of how my life could be much worse.

It’s possible that I may pick up this exploring the Old West thing again, but then again, maybe not.  I’m going to go eat some pie, get drunk and go see the final Harry Potter movie, and then we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Fatling out!

Fat Fat Fat Fat Girl

Jesus, I really ought to call this thing my Tumblweed for as often as I opt to update it.  The entire interface has changed since the last time I logged in.  What commitment issues?

What’s shaking, Fanlings?  The Fatling is putting her cankles up after a loooong day of work and housecleaning.  The Fatfather and Fatbro III are coming to visit next week and there’s still a LOT that needs doing.  I did conquer the mountain of crap on my coffee table and the mountain of dishes in the sink.  It’s a start, but Adoring Husband has rehearsals for some William Shakespeare joint every night, and I’m working more than I had been for the awesome snack room job as I have been promoted to a permanent position.  So, fuck yeah, Fatling!  Way to be a productive member of society.  To think it was only eight months ago that I nearly named this blog “Infirmary for the Brainsick” as a forum for me to whine about how depressed and unemployed I am.  I would much rather read a blog about an employed person whining about how fat she is.

Speaking of which, the fat stops here!  This is the plan, anyway.  The Fatling has embarked upon The Couch to 5K Training Plan, not because The Fatling plans to run a 5K or anything, just because The Fatling has never, ever learned how to run.  It’s very challenging and frustrating and I’m no good at it so far, but practice makes able to run for three minutes without stopping, right?

I’ve also been standing up for a portion of my workday, and it makes me really, really happy.  Sitting down for hours made me feel like crap, so now I can stand up until I get tired and switch back when I get sick of sitting down.  I’ve also stopped working on the couch, because seriously, WTF Fatling?  You have a permanent-style job now, with flexible hours and benefits.  Quit acting like a frat boy.

The Fatling is super, super hungry as she writes this.  This weekend, I fell off the clean living wagon by smoking a bunch of cigarettes, eating pizza twice and a massive burrito once.  I also drank a lot of beer.  So the two pounds I lost last week came back for a visit this morning, so I’ve been hitting the food very lightly today.  I sauteed eggplant and some other veggies for dinner, which turned out okay, but Adoring Husband wasn’t a huge fan.  It was my first attempt at eggplant, so maybe next time will turn out a bit better.  I did season the dish with basil from The Fatling’s own windowsill herb garden.  It’s been kind of touch and go in terms of figuring out how much water and sunlight the plants need, but I’m getting the hang, I think.

That is not the point!  The point is that I’m starving, and am weighing the pros and cons of making some popcorn.  If I had a brown bag, I could pop some in the microwave, but I don’t, so oil would be my only option.  I could, of course, eat a little more of the vegetables, which I will probably do.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this extra-special glimpse into the Fatling’s diet.  In case you’re wondering, for breakfast, I had coffee.  For lunch, I had an open-face turkey sandwich, celery sticks and arugula.  For my snack, I had some delicious ginger snaps and a plum.  But that’s all wearing off now, so I better snarf something before I pass out.

The Fatling Gets Fatter

Greetings, Fanlings.  The Fatling has returned from her travels to Southwest Ohio, a land eternally blanketed in a layer of shredded cheddar cheese. 

I ate a lot of food on my trip.  A LOT.  I ate like it was my job, which, since I was on vacation, I guess it sort of was.  But this mastication has taken its toll.  Even my super-duper Fatling fatty jeans are too tight now.  This is extremely uncomfortable, as you can well imagine if you have ever succeeded in wearing pants that are too small for you.  Yowch.

I imagine a few days of calorie restriction and lots of water should help me shed most of the new pounds—I ate a lot of salt, like probably a hillock, all told—I am still left with the task of taking off the old pounds, the ones borne of sitting around on my ass stuffing my snackhole with Corn Pops and pizza.

This is going to be tough, for as we all know, The Fatling is LAZY with a capital EVERYTHING.  I am, however, writing this standing up, as a prominent blogger Adoring Husband likes has suggested that one do one’s work standing up, rather than sitting down and letting one’s cellulite pool unattractively around the hips.

So I’m giving that a try, since my first choice, the treadmill desk, is cost-and space-prohibitive at this time.  Still, even without the benefit of expensive, aspirational office/exercise equipment, precedent suggests that The Fatling was significantly lighter and trimmer when she was forced to spend 40 hours a week on her feet as a retail wage slave, so surely this standing up thing will have some good effect.

The Fatling is also looking at implementing some stringent and exciting productivity-inducing measures, which should mean more consistent blogulation in this space, so I will keep you posted on all that.

There’s probably much more to tell you (i.e. a detailed breakdown of all my meals on vacation, hilarious/depressing anecdotes from the Catholic wedding I went to this weekend, an update on books I read and television I watched), but I have a productivity goal to achieve before I trek over to the office with the amazing snack room for a meeting, so it will all have to wait.

CONFIDENTIAL TO HER FATNESS: Listen, we will hang out for a long time when I am back in July and I don’t have Adoring Husband’s hideously unattractive family monopolizing my time.  We will eat Indian food and drink wine and hang out with the Chief, which, if you don’t know who that moniker refers to, I take back everything I said just now.

Seething Fatling

The Fatling is jumping back onto the non-smoking wagon, so The Fatling is flying into a fucking rage at the slightest provocation.  Just to be clear, by “the slightest provocation,” I mean reading about another person’s success on the internet, taking too long to complete a crossword puzzle, or any other damn thing that has happened to me today.

Not to mention the fact that every single thing I’ve seen or thought about today has prompted me to think, “Oh, man, I can’t WAIT to have a cigarette!”  They say that when you’re quitting, you should avoid activities or situations that you associate with smoking, which, for me, is everything from morning til night.  Actually, this morning, I was dreaming about smoking.  In my dream, I was hanging out at this bar I frequent, and every cigarette I smoked, I thought, “This is my last cigarette.”  But then I would find another cigarette.

Anyway.  Eventually, I woke up and analyzed this goddamn dream, reasoning that it’s just representative of every single other time I’ve quit smoking—quitting, immediately identifying an opportunity to have a cigarette, promptly un-quitting.  And I’m tired of this cycle, I don’t want to do it anymore, but I genuinely don’t feel like I can succeed at this or, for that matter, anything else.  Hence the rage.

Now, I’m wondering if maybe this is the time.  Is this the time I knuckle under and am a badass and succeed?  I hope so.  I just saw a photo on Facebook of this guy I know who’s got cancer and is undergoing chemo.  While his emaciation and general pallor were a real wake-up call (although, in my fucked-up brain, I did consider that cancer might finally give me the sticking-out pelvic bones I’ve always wanted), the comments on his Facebook page really put me over the top.

In my past life, I was in theatre school, which is how I know this cancer-having guy.  I’m not really in touch with most of the people I went to college with, but if I got cancer and the theatre folk got wind of it, there’d be all this overly flowery power of positive thinking Shakespearean prose all over my Facebook page, and I just don’t think I could handle that.  On the other hand, since I’m not really in touch with these people, or anyone, such a rage-filled misanthrope is The Fatling, that no one would notice and I would feel slighted by the absence of goodwill I don’t even want.  Also, any sort of life-threatening illness would necessitate lots of tearful conversations with The Fatling family and in-laws, and oh, Jesus, what a shitstorm of godbag hot air that would be.  They’d be all, “Make up with God, Fatling, please, for your soul!”  And I’d be all, “Um, why should I make up with someone who doesn’t exist?”  And lo, there would be copious waling and gnashing of teeth.

So presumably, the rage will subside somewhat in the coming days, or at least get buried in diabetic coma-inducing levels of refined sugar as I attempt to fill the gaping hole left in my identity by my lack of smoking, and The Fatling will return to normal levels of cantankerousness.  Fun fact: cantankerousness is an actual word.

I imagine my new non-smoking status will free up lots of time and nervous energy, so expect a rash of Fatling Frontier posts in the next couple of days.

Let me know if you have a cigarette I can borrow.  Not really.  Fuck.

The Fatling Rides Again

Fanlings!  Have you missed me? Probably not, but let’s just pretend like you did, mmmmkay?

There are still a number of things I’d like to write about on here, so don’t fret, I’m not leaving this blog to the realm of cobwebs and mothballs just yet.

But before we get to that, let’s have some fun with the Fatling’s mailbag!  I’ve only ever received one message, and it’s a doozy!

Women in stand up are often considered to pale in comparison to men in stand up. To segregate “best stand up” award according to gender would further this conception. I thought that the women outperformed the man at the Trump roast, so let that fall where it may.

If there were better female stand up specials in 2010, they would have been nominated. Cummings’ stand up was funny. It was nominated.

And PLEASE stop showing feminist colors by complaining about its title. It was funny. She’s a dirty stand up.

That’s from Tumblr user backseatdialect, who says he’s “21. Male. Late night conversationalist.” He seems to be responding to my earlier post about having a separate female category for “Best Standup Special” at the Comedy Awards.

Last thing’s first, I don’t know how anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Fatling could complain about showing my “feminist colors.” Bitch, those are the only colors I have! I enjoy the fact that this “late night conversationalist” is offended by my dislike of “Money Shot” as the title of a standup special.  I probably wouldn’t dislike it so much if Whitney Cummings’ dirty comedy was in any way a subversion of her pornographic references, but it’s not, and I simply don’t care for it.

More troubling, however, is this young chap’s assertion that “the women outperformed the men at the Trump roast.” Really, backseatdialect?  Do you mean to tell me Whitney Cummings and Lisa Lampanelli, professional comedians, outperformed such comedic legends as Larry King, Snoop Dogg and The Situation?!  Whatever is the world coming to?  Thank god Comedy Central chose to roast a non-comedian and invite numerous non-comedians to roast him, otherwise there might have been an opportunity for another female comic or two, and they might have embarrassed themselves by not being as funny as The Situation.

Which brings me to my final point.  Yes, people everywhere think female comedians “pale” in comparison to male comedians.  This attitude is reinforced by a lack of opportunity for women in the industry.  No one thinks less of Meryl Streep because she didn’t go head to head against Ben Kingsley to win her Oscar for Sophie’s Choice.  In order for women to achieve parity in the comedic world, there needs to be incentive for producers and performers alike.  Creating a gender specific award category would encourage producers to fund more comedy specials for women and seeing those specials would encourage more women to commit to a career in comedy.  It’s not that there weren’t enough funny female comics with specials; there just weren’t enough female comics with specials, period.

But, hey, what’s my opinion against the glorious statement of fact by a 21-year-old dude who fucking LOVES Whitney Cummings?  Comedy Central would be the first to tell you: bitches ain’t shit. And, hey, judging from this, it must be true!