My Time

Spent Saturday ringing in the 80th birthday of my Grandmother with family and friends. The party itself was great, lots of food, retro candy bars, pink lemonade, sweet-ass cupcakes and entirely way too many songs sung by my aunts and uncles. Yep, you heard me right, during the speechifying portion of the party, several of the children sang their tributes to my Grandma and it was…well, kind of a freak show.

It’s not to say they can’t sing, because some of them totally can, but, wow…watching these grown-ass men and women duke it out for their solo in the spotlight was beyond unsavory. Fearful that one of his siblings might be getting more attention than himself, one of my uncles actually started juggling in the middle of the after-party at my Grandma’s house. Juggling! He even brought his own juggling clown bowling pins and shit. Like I said…total freak show.

Anyway, at that same after-party I struck up a conversation with one of my singing aunts (who is usually my favorite of the freak show faction of the family) and told her how great she looked. “Have you lost weight?” I asked. “Yes, almost 25 pounds!” She purred back. I pressed her further for details — which wasn’t hard, considering how much this aunt likes to talk, especially about herself — and she explained that she too was on Project X.

Hearing this, I got very excited and told her that Mrs. Yeti and I were trying really hard to stick to the tenets of Project X ourselves. Hearing this, my Aunt stopped cold, quickly scanned my body from head to toe and said: “Well, when it’s your time, you’ll stick to the diet.” She then leaned in real close, put a hand on each of my shoulders and said: “But, hey, you’re good as you are right now too.”

Silence. I just stood there for a stunned beat, staring at my aunt. Did that big old pot just call my kettle ass fat? I mean, wow, if she’s this nice when I compliment her, just imagine what she’d be like if I said something mean. Of course, I knew her heart was in the right place and that she didn’t mean to sound like a smug, little, newly-thin bitch, but, unfortunately, that’s exactly what she sounded like. And, instead of thinking of some pithy comeback all I did was grumble silently to myself, for like, fifteen minutes straight, while she spouted off all the great things that have happened to her since she lost the weight. Seriously, she was giving me recipes and shit. It was brutal.

Luckily I was pulled away to the living room at that point by Mrs. Yeti (good save, sweetie!) so, I never got the chance to punch my aunt in her newly flat gut or lay her low with some snappy, withering comeback. But, trust me, I’m working on it, and the next time we meet in the field of battle, dear Auntie, I won’t be so easily defeated.

In the meantime, back to Project X. One week to go till the reunion and whether it’s “my time” or not, I’m gonna lose me some more weight…if for no other reason than to shove it down my Aunt’s warbling gullet. Ah, ain’t family grand?

The Magic Drawer

I don’t know if it’s Project X — yes, my fat ass is still trying to stay faithful to the diet that never ends! — or the change in the weather or whatever, but, lately, I’ve been feeling strangely hopeful and upbeat about all kinds of shit that used to totally bum me out.

I still don’t have a steady job — however, the two amazingly-cool freelance gigs I scored have helped — I’m like, dozens of pounds away from my ideal weight, and I just sent a check for $415.00 (plus almost $45.00 more for traffic school) to the courthouse in San Diego for a speeding ticket I got at Easter. So, not exactly a banner month in these parts, but, for some reason, I’m totally 100% cool with it. Actually, the online traffic school really, really sucked and took for-freaking-ever! But, other than that, I’m oddly cool with the hand I’ve been dealt of late.

And better yet, I’m also strangely inspired by it. I don’t wanna get all writerly on you, but, we wordsmiths (oops, there I go!) can have some long-ass dry spells. But not lately, man. For the past week or so, I’ve been almost insanely inspired to write. I feel all giddy again like I did when I first started writing scripts. It’s crazy!

Lawrence Kasdan once said that every writer has a giant locked drawer in their heads, and that everything they ever wanted to write and share with the world or just create for themselves was in that drawer in its completed form. And every once in a while, if you were lucky, you’d get to actually open that drawer and peek inside. And when that happened, well, you’d better have a pen handy and you’d better write fast, because you never know when that drawer could close back up on you. In other words, if your magic drawer is open, you best get writing. So, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Oh, I’m also kind of obsessed with movies about writers lately too. I finally watched my new Criterion Collection DVD of Jules et Jim last week and it was gorgeous, even on standard DVD! I’m sorry, but, could that cast and soundtrack be any more gorgeous? Wow! I’m also about halfway through my second viewing of Young Adult, and I’m finding that I love it even more than I did when I first saw it, so, suck it haters! Speaking of haters, next up is my other favorite crazy writer movie, the classic, love-it-or-hate-it Wonder Boys. I can’t wait!

Anyway, I don’t know what caused my magic drawer to open (and stay open!) but, it’s been kinda awesome. And, on top of all that coolness, my cargo shorts are falling off my ass way more than they usually do — seriously, I had to actually tighten my belt the other day! — so, I guess I’m still losing weight too. Which is all great and wonderful, but, now that I’ve written all this shit down, I think I need to go knock on some serious wood before the universe’s checks and balance department turns on me again. So, see ya next time!

The upside of relapse

Urgh…I don’t know what I was thinking weighing myself the day after a long weekend of cheating on my gal, Project X, but, I did it anyway, and the results were less than stellar. Let’s just say I need to get back in this diet’s good graces and fast.

But first, I simply had to enjoy some classic Mother’s Day fare for brunch — Greta and I made French Toast, bacon, orange juice and watermelon and it was delicious — and I had my first-ever protein-style Double Double at In-N-Out for dinner. Hey, if Mrs. Yeti wants burgers for dinner on her big day, who am I to deny her? For the uninitiated, protein-style means that they wrap your burger (or cheeseburger, or…gasp, double cheeseburger!) in lettuce leaves instead of a bun. And, lemme tell ya, it was FANTASTIC. Like a little double cheeseburger salad… amazing!

So, yes, I did totally relapse this weekend, but, like my horoscope said on Sunday: “Take it easy, don’t stress”. Yes, they give you a horoscope reading when you use the cow scale at the laundry mat. Lucky lotto numbers too. I guess I should start writing those down, I mean, who knows?

Anyway, back to the grind. Hope you all had a great Mother’s Day. We watched really awesomely-bad-good movies all day — a triple feature of Joyful Noise, New Year’s Eve and The Vow, which was way better than the ads made it look. Seriously, we both got a little weepy more than once — and just hung out on the couch while Greta ran around banging pots and pans and shit. It was crazy and loud, and altogether wonderful…Happy Mother’s Day, Mrs. Yeti. I love you.

Putting the “die” in diet…

Yikes, this week flew by. Where were we? Oh yeah, when last we talked, Mrs. Yeti and I were suffering through some major DT’s and drinking lots of hot liquids. Fun! Well, as much I’d like to say that Project X got better last week, it actually got ten times harder…for me, at least. Sorry, I guess I just got sick of eating the same shit all the time…

Oh yeah, and we did cheat a little too. Last Friday night Mrs. Yeti and I had a very rare date night out and went to see a pre-release screening of Dark Shadows followed by a Q&A with the screenwriter. The movie was cool and the discussion afterwards was even better, but, the fact that that was our first night out sans-Greta since January, well, that’s just plain crazy. Wow.

Anyway, being out alone made us totally hungry and we decided that since it was a date night we could eat whatever the hell we wanted. So, we cheated and went to In-N-Out burgers for what I have to say was one of the most spectacular fast food experiences of my life. Seriously, I wanted to stay in that moment forever…it was amazing.

And surprisingly, neither of us felt like hell the next day, so, we just jumped right back onto the Project X bandwagon and kept on trucking. And except for devouring a piece of fried chicken that my brother (our designated babysitter that night) had left behind in our fridge, I was pretty good. Actually, devour is a nice word for what I did to that deep-fried chicken tit. Yikes…I was not myself, amigos.

Anyway, after the fast food blowout and the poor, defiled chicken breast, I was really good for the rest of the weekend. So good, in fact, that when I hauled my fat ass to the cow scale at the laundry mat to weigh myself, I had actually lost a whopping 8.5 pounds! In seven days! Insanity! Seriously, I haven’t lost that much weight in years.

So, you’d think that would make the following week even easier to navigate, but, you’d be wrong. Last week sucked. It was long, I didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and pretty much every lame thing you can think of came to pass. Urgh…I felt like there was a little cartoon raincloud over my head all week, pouring down on me while the rest of the world was all happy and shiny and shit. It was no fun. And, honestly, it made Project X almost unbearable.

But, despite it all, we both stuck with it. Mrs Yeti lost a few mores pounds and I think is holding steady at six pounds lost so far, which is great! and I will find out how much more weight I lost (or, more likely, didn’t lose) tomorrow when I hit the cow scale again. Wish me luck!

Slogging through it…

Surprisingly, the last two days on Project X haven’t been nearly as bad as the first. Actually, I don’t know why I was surprised, because everyone I know who has done this diet swears that it gets easier to, pun intended, stomach, as time goes by. But, like I said last time, I don’t trust the wisdom of the newly-skinny — I can’t prove anything yet, but, I seriously think losing a pant size or two in a short period of time changes the wiring in your brain! — so, I was prepared to suffer.

However, aside from a truly terrible bought of bread and donut/sugar withdrawal on Tuesday afternoon — I actually sniffed Greta’s popsicle before giving it to her, and lemme tell ya, that frozen lime smelled like heaven! — and a very sluggish morning on Wednesday, things were OK. You know, as OK as they can be in a world without ice cream.

Actually, ice cream isn’t even on the list of things I’ve been craving. Mostly, I think I just crave the freedom to grab a bite of whatever amazingly-tasty kid food it is that Greta is eating at the moment. But, hey, I’m in this for the long haul, or until I go crazy and gnaw my own arm off, so, I will abstain from fruit leathers and Peeps for the moment.

Oh yeah, I also make a pretty amazing berry smoothie this morning with yogurt and agave nectar. Yes, I said agave nectar with a straight face. So, I guess it’s official now, this diet is turning me into even more of a girl…

Project X

This past weekend, Mrs. Yeti and I decided to embark on a secret weight loss regime that I’m going to call Project X. I know I could cut out the middle man and call it what it really is, but, honestly, I hate it when people blog about weight loss and all that. I know it’s lame, but there’s a kind of “I found it!” zealotry that overtakes people who lose a lot of weight, and having been a big dude most of my adult life, well, I’ve heard more than my share of “I found it!” testimonials over the years.

Nothing against those happy, newly-skinny folks out there — I mean, seriously, good on you for losing the weight! — but when it’s followed by the inevitable head-to-toe body scan that just about screams: “So, when are you gonna find it, fatty?” Well, that’s when I wanna start force-feeding those skinny bitches donuts and shit.

Even worse are the folks who preach the almighty diet on Facebook. Seriously, if I read one more status update about how many miles someone jogged that morning or how many inches they lost at their last weigh-in, well, shit, I might just have to un-friend the bloody lot of them. Grrr…Yeti hate!

Anyway, now that I got all my grumpy-old-fat-man ranting out of the way, I am going to do exactly what I most hate and blog about the ultra top-secret diet that Mrs. Yeti and I are trying out this week. I won’t say too much now, as I am extremely superstitious (not to mention, only halfway through the first day at the time of this writing) but, so far, things have been a little rough.

The morning was OK, and the early-afternoon a little less so, and then came the total witching hour. This happened at around 6-7:00PM-ish, which, due to my crazy writer hours is about halfway through my day. I guess for normal people that would be the post-lunch slump.

Anyway, that period sucked. No, more than sucked. It was fucking brutal and I was a straight-up crazy man. Seriously, I thought I was gonna start seeing visions or something. I couldn’t focus on anything, writing made me hungry, watching TV made me crazy hungry (Taco Bell ads never looked so good!) and preparing food for Greta made me feel like a rabid vampire. I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and instead of just licking my fingers afterwards as I normally would, I stood at the sink salivating over that deliciousness and then quickly washed my hands. Yep, I actually washed peanut butter and jelly off my hands for the first time in my life. Urgh, even writing about it makes me sad. Such a waste…

Things got better after dinner and we had some fun family dance time around the Wii before bedtime, so, that was good too. But, wow, that witching hour break down is kinda haunting me. I mean, that was only day one! Just imagine how insane my hungry-ass will be by the weekend. Oy, it’s gonna be a long week…