10086 Sunset Boulevard

From Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog

My betrothed, a most wicked man, betrayed me near as bad as Tereus did Procne. His woman of choice commited, though, that villainy which women do best, and tempted him away. Presently it is not legal, where I live, to have either of them killed for this treachery — what shall I do to avenge the wrong they both have done to me, and to my virtue? Their joy at my grief does pain me so.

-Cor Fracta Est

Ma Cher Coeur Brisee

Thoughe y love a goode revenge tragedie as much as the nexte guye, y muste counsel yow to a bettre path. Yow sholde maken pece and kepe faithe, not wyth thyne betrothede nor wyth this womanlie Diomede, but rathir with yowrselfe. For vengence aperteneth and longeth al oonly to juges. Remembre yow that pacience is a greet vertu of perfeccioun, and remembre that ther are tymes ordained unto al thynges by the first moevere — of the ookes, and of the hard stones, and of man and womman seen we also, in youthe as well as age, alle shal be dumped , a kyng as shall a page - som dumped on dates, som dumped by telephone, some dumped in compaignie, som dumped allone - ther helpeth noght, al goth that ilke weye.

And thus, take two pintes of hagen dasz dulce de leche, a ful seson of buffie the vampyre slayre, and calle me in the morninge.

Le Vostre G

Over a year has passed since Dan and I broke up. When he did the deed, as if the deed itself was not bad enough, he promptly got on the phone with friends to tell them how mentally unstable I was - it horrified me at the time, to know that phone calls and emails were going off to mutual acquaintances informing them of my mental instability. “I had to dump her, the bitch was crazy”. Although replacing one crazy bitch with another, before letting the first one move out might have tipped his friends off as to who was a wee bit off kilter.

Apparently it’s not unusual for men to use the insanity plea when dumping their partner, or planning to cheat on her. In the book The Script one of the main warning signs that there is trouble coming, is his concern for his partner’s mental well being - he may not even realize he’s doing it, but he’s starting to build a case so that she comes off as the one at fault.

When Dan and I first got together he felt I needed to get professional help and I could not have agreed with him more. Dan had “rescued” me from a bad situation and I wasn’t recovering well. He was going to get me to a doctor, get me that much needed help, but there were always more important things to spend money on. Like beer.

I remember one of the first phone conversations with Dan after being informed that someone else was now taking up my side of the bed: “I talked to Morty today”. Morty was a good friend of Dan’s and had become my friend too “I was telling him about you and your anger and we both agree - you need one on one counseling and you need to be on meds”. Well, there it was, our friend Morty was backing him up and I can’t tell you how much their professional opinion meant to me.

I spent years in a relationship ignoring the warning signs, staying when I should have donned my Nikes and fled and then I spent the last year trying to salvage at least a friendship, with someone who continued to prove to me that he would betray my trust every time I foolishly allowed him to do so. A man who humiliated me and then proceeded to do a nice character assassination for an encore. With that information, I think you could say their assessment was correct. Certifiably correct.

“So, this is a suicide dream?”

“No, I wake up and it starts running through my mind, so it’s not a dream and it’s not really a suicide.”

“You’re fantasizing about killing yourself, how can it not be a suicide?”

“I’m fantasizing about putting myself in a situation where I may not be able to save myself, there’s a difference.”

“You’re splitting hairs.”

“No, not really. I just keep swimming to the horizon, I swim until I’m too exhausted to swim any more. I’m so tired, I just let the water take me under. I want to surrender, let go of living, but whenever I reach that point in my mind, I choke on the water and come up gasping for air. I somehow I find the strength to make it back to the shore.”

“I think that’s a good sign, it shows that you still want to live.”

“No, it’s just survival kicking in, because when I make it to the shore, I’m back where I started, only exhausted and defeated, looking out at the horizon again. I can’t swim back to the shore next time.”

“Then continue swimming toward the horizon.”

“I’ve tried, but that’s always when the shark appears.”

“This conversation is exhausting.”

“Life is exhausting.”

“Have you tried treading water, just staying where you are and seeing what happens?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“The sea becomes tumultuous and I have to start swimming again.”

“So you can’t go back, you can’t move forward and you can’t stay where you are?”

“That about sums it up.”

I had planned to say a little something about American Idol this morning, but there’s only one thing that stands out in my mind from last night’s show and it isn’t little. I know it’s not considered nice to discuss such things, but I’ve never seen a derriere quite as expansive as Mandisa’s and I don’t think packing it into a pair of tight jeans is fair to the viewing public. Her butt is too big to squeeze into one pair of jeans and she needs to try and tone it down, not stagger us with the sheer expanse and enormity of that part of her anatomy. My senses were assaulted. The camera needs to stay on the woman’s face and not treat us to the sweeping wide angle from behind.

While I was trying to concentrate on the mostly lackluster performances from the remaining contestants, I found my mind wandering. How many airline seats would she have to book for her posterior? Can she actually fit into the ladies room on an airplane? And then there’s the commode itself. Don’t go there. Can she get into compact cars and were those jeans made especially for her, or are do they now consider “super size” jeans standard?

Yes, yes, I know, she has a fantastic voice and a shining spirit and those are the things that count. All I’m saying is keep away from the tight pants Mandisa. Please.

I’m down a pound, but still twelve pounds away from my original goal of 142 by months end. I now have to reset my goal so I’m aiming for May 29th, based on my current weight loss schedule. Yes, I’m disappointed that I’m not there yet, but giving up and going back is not an option. Onward and downward.

I usually take pictures of myself at arm’s length, but I can’t get my whole body into the photo that way. Once I throw a tripod into the mix, things don’t go so well, so for now you have a “self portrait” taken yesterday with the help of a mirror. It’s not a clear likeness, but should serve to prove that I am not 300 pounds and telling tales about losing weight. There will be more pictures by the next weigh-in and more about cameras and control issues later.

One of my regular readers suggested in an email that I might be putting the pounds back on, since there have been no new pictures of me this year. The nerve! Well, in all fairness they have a point about lack of photographic evidence and I have been avoiding my camera lately, but not because I’ve been packing on the pounds.

I love digital cameras. They have opened up a whole new world, but when turning those mega pixels on one’s self, there’s just nowhere to hide. They can show you things about the body that you can’t see with the naked eye. That gets less appealing as one gets older. Photographing one’s self is not for the squeamish.

Why am I bothering you with this on a Friday afternoon? Because I have plenty of culinary temptations to deal with this weekend and it might help me say “no” to dessert if I have to start coughing up current photos of myself. I’ll probably be sorry, but it’s time to get tough and to prove that I’m not telling tall tales about the weight loss. So Monday I will have a picture. I’m not saying I’ll have it Monday morning, just sometime on Monday.

It was fun while it lasted, but with the departure of Isaac Hayes from South Park, Matt and Trey decided to kill off Chef - over and over again. In a recent episode entitled “Return of Chef” he gets struck by lightning, falls of a bridge, is impaled on the way down and then he gets attacked by a lion and eaten by bears. They pretty much did everything to him, but behead him. But then nobody likes beheadings. For more on South Park’s Chef killing frenzy you can check out The Great South Park Chef Roast over at The Deadbolt.

Kevin Covais got the boot on American Idol on Wednesday night. Not much to add, the show is dragging.

Simon’s getting fed up with Paula and I don’t blame him. Last month he told her:

“Shut-up, Paula, you’re really annoying me now. You are. It’s like being with some precocious child.”

I think Simon wants Paula off the show and he’s going about it by making her look crazy in a way reminiscent of the 1944 movie Gaslight. Ingrid Bergman’s character is reduced to a gibbering wreck by the attempts of her husband to drive her insane. Her character’s name? Paula Anton.

Paula is blaming Simon when she comes out with things like “one had pizza, the other one had salad” during the judging segments of American Idol.

Asked about her strange behavior on the show Paula told In Touch Weekly:

“If they say, ‘Paula is going crazy,’ the reason is Simon is whispering things in my ear, like, ‘What’s the price of beans?’ Things that make no sense at all.”

“Simon gave me advice and said on ‘The X Factor’ (his British TV series), he always refers to a fortune cookie,” Abdul explained.

“He says the moth who finds the melon finds the cornflake always finds the melon and one of you didn’t pick the right fortune.”

What’s the deal Paula? You’ve never heard of the famous Chinese fortune cookie moth, melon and cornflake story?

Tell me I didn’t watch it again last night. Oh God! I did. The only performance that I remember this morning was Chris Daughtry’s version of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”. It was dark and moody and original, or so it seemed. Plenty of talk out there in cyber space about Chris’s originality, but it appears that he was just delivering the song as it was performed by the group Live. I thought the guy had himself a hit single, but that version of the song has already been done. I’m reluctant to provide links to music sites, with all the pop-ups, so you can either find your own link to Live’s “I Walk the Line” or take your chances and go here, scroll down to number 19 and listen to a clip for yourself.

So American Idol was a waste of time last night, I didn’t even get my Hicks Fix. They dressed him up like Pee Wee Herman. Someone should slap Kellie Pickler. Why? Just for the heck of it, that’s why. I bet Ryan is going to do it, I think she might have tempted him last night. Right around the time that her little blank head focused in on one of the signs the audience was waving. “Oh look!” she twanged “there’s a pickle!” Come on Ryan, you can do it - no one would blame you.

It’s not even fun trying to spot the moment when Paula’s happy pills kick in anymore. And Simon, for pity’s sake don’t touch your boobs, at least not while the camera is on you!

“I feel silenced.”

“How so?”

“I can’t write the end of the story, all that has gone on since December. It has to remain confidential.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“Because the end of the story would make such good reading.”

“Have you thought about just being grateful that you know the truth? Stop concentrating so much on an ending, after all you’re not dead yet, are you?”

“You’re smart for someone so young.”

“Does that mean you’ll sleep with me?”

“No, I told you, you’re too young for me.”

“Come on, I’m not that young and you’re not that old, besides don’t older women need a younger man around to keep up with their sexual appetite? I hear it’s very trendy.”

“Trendy? What have you been reading?”

“The point is, you’d have something a else to write about.”

“Well, you do have a point. ”

“Yes?”

“Too bad you’re 400 miles away.”