Author Archives: rrw2674

I’m fat and I know it. The Florida edition!

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Last week I was on vacation and I went into the Banana Republic factory outlet store down where my parents live.  The goal was to get some new boxers.  I searched the store, looking for the boxer display, but couldn’t find it.  Finally, after picking out a couple of new shirts to wear, I noticed it up at the center of the store.  I looked for the extra large boxers, I’ve bought other boxers but these were the ones that fit the best, and I noticed that it was the last size.  What am I going to do if I get fatter?  Is this discrimination?  Banana Republic doesn’t like fat people?  Also, on the flight down I went to latch my belt buckle and it almost didn’t fit.  It seems that I’m on the verge of being very fat!  Thing is, I know there are people that are fatter than me, lots of people.  So is the world just discriminating against us fatties more than it used to?   The only way I know how to fix this is try to lose weight, so that’s what I’m going to do.  I’m not going to delve into it all here because I’m even bored of the talk.

Other than that my vacation in Florida was a blast.  The weather was perfect.  The beach more beautiful than I ever remember it being when I lived down there.  I was also reunited with my golf cart, Zelda, oh how I miss her.  That golf cart and I have many memories.  We were in Mardi Gras parades together.  She’s taken me home from the bar safely many times.  She even took me home not to safely a few times, you’ll have to wait for the book for those stories.  She’s been a search vehicle.  I’ve gotten groceries with her, gone to concerts. I could write a book about just me and the golf cart!

I’m back in Massachusetts now.  I hosted a stand up comedy night last night and am getting ready to go back to work this morning, if I can motivate.  Hope you all are well.  Here are a few pictures from last week!

Augusten Burroughs at The Woodstock Writers Festival

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On Saturday evening I was lucky enough to get some time off and make a trip down to Woodstock, NY where I got to see one of my all time favorite authors.  Augusten Burroughs has been one of the most prolific memoirists of my time and I’ve read them all.  His subject matters are often dark but he always seems to find a way to find the humor without losing the tone.  When I found out he was going to be speaking I snatched up two VIP tickets and found a friend to take with me.

We left Massachusetts at about 4pm and made the 90 minute drive down to Woodstock.  It was a beautiful drive down the NY Thruway and then down the windy but green and plush Route 212.  I’m psychotic about being early to everything, afraid the worst is going to happen.  We were there by 5:30pm and our meet and greet wasn’t until 7:30pm.  We parked the car and started looking for places to eat.   We found the Bear Cafe, just a few steps away from where we parked.  We entered the all ready packed restaurant, sat at the bar and started to peruse the menu.  I decided that I wanted to something that didn’t make me feel heavy and yucky.  That I was about to meet one of my heroes had me all ready nervous.  I ordered a caesar salad with chicken.  My friend orders a flat bread pizza that included ramps and goat cheese.  I ordered a vodka cranberry, she ordered a beer.  We toasted and reveled in the fact that, for the night, we felt like normal human beings.  Dinner was wonderful, the garlicky ramps were delicious.  My salad was exactly what I expected it to be.  We still had an hour to kill but at that point there was a wait for seats at the bar so we paid our bill and left the restaurant.

Rain was starting to pour down, we could hear thunder and lightening in the distance.  We walked over to the theatre, the land surrounding it was lush, green,  and had a beautiful rocky stream.  After a few moments of enjoying the scenery the rain started to come down harder.  My friend and I needed to use the rest room.  We walked into the lobby of the theatre, there was only one employee standing in there.  We asked him where the bathroom was and he pointed us down a spiral wooden stair case.  It was a dank basement, with not very good signage.  I found the men’s room and went in to do my business, leaving my friend to fend for herself.  When I finished I walked outside the bathroom and waited by the staircase.  A few moments later she came out.  She had a devilish grin on her face.

“I’m pretty sure I just walked in on Augusten Burroughs in his dressing room.”  She was nervous, giddy.

“So glad I brought the cool kid.” I said and we both laughed.  She didn’t know what he actually looked like so I pulled up a picture on my phone and showed it to her.  We spent the next half an hour talking with a lovely women from the Midwest, who was actually there for the whole festival.  Then, at about 7:20pm, a car pulled up and out of the car walked Augusten Burroughs.  He walked right past us, I nudged my friend to let her know that was him.  She looked puzzled.  We both spent the next few minutes making up stories.  Well he probably just went out to dinner?  Maybe he had to go back to his hotel and get something?

At 7:30 we were led down the spiral stairs again to a small room with the rest of the VIP ticket holders.  I felt slightly out of place, clearly these people had been at the workshop for the past two and a half days and had created a bond.  My friend and I just had each other.  We both quickly grabbed a glass of wine, to calm our nerves.  Augusten was on the other side of the room making small talk with some of the other guests.  Out of no where a line started to form with people asking  him to sign his new book, that we purchased upstairs.  We got in the line and started inching our way towards him.  My friend and I chugged our wine, we didn’t want to be holding a glass of wine when we met him.  I approached first and started making small talk.  We both went to the same community college and grew up in the same area of Massachusetts.  We talked about theatre and people that we new from the Northampton area.  He signed my book and I introduced him to my friend.  As we walked away I could feel the nervous energy releasing with my breath.  The room we were in was packed, and stuffy so we decided to go upstairs.

By 8:30pm we were in our second row chairs, waiting for Mr. Burroughs to appear on stage.  We both read a few pages of his new book  THIS IS HOW, Proven aid in overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude, & More.  For Young and Old Alike.  The book doesn’t come out until May 8th.  I’m glad we got an advanced copy of it.  He appeared on stage with author, Johnathan Van Meter.

The next hour and a half were spent talking mainly about his new book and his tumultuous life.  He dispensed a lot of great advice.  One of the best quotes of the evening was ‘It’s not your past that is haunting you, it’s you that’s haunting your past.’  He talked about drinking, molestation, suicide, anorexia etc.  Basically the theme of the evening was that you can get through anything as long as you continue to have forward motion.

The trip home was filled with rain, dark wet highways and reminiscing about the experience.  So glad I got to be there and I’ve made a note that I want to go back and explore the town of Woodstock closer one day.

Making butter in a jar!

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So remember many weeks ago when it was Easter?  Or at least it feel like many weeks ago.  I’ve been busy making my stand up debut, making video’s, etc.  Anyway, my friend was going to make Irish Soda Bread but I couldn’t find any buttermilk in the store.  She looked up substitutes for butter milk and found that you can make buttermilk with heavy cream and a jar!  Duh, I should have thought of that.

So I bought some heavy cream and we brought it home.  We didn’t have jars but we had little plastic containers.  We put a pint of heavy cream in the container and just started shaking it.  I wish I had videotaped us shaking it because it was hysterical.  It took a long time, actually we almost gave up.  I imagine that if we had jars it would have been much different.  But eventually the cream separated and gave us butter and then butter milk!

Her Irish Soda Bread came out amazing and we had fresh butter to use as well!

Stand up at Rumpy’s Tavern

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Ok, secretly I’ve always had a dream.  I think it might stem from spending nights at the Comedy Club’s in NYC when I was younger.  I worked at a talent agency and most of my nights would have me going to comedy after I got out of work.  I’ve always wanted to try to do it.  Well, last night was that night.  I wrote and performed my first ever stand up routine. And I didn’t suck!!!!  I’ll let you decide that though.  I had a friend tape it.  I wish the lighting was better, or that I had stayed in my light but you can at least hear me.  Now I have to start writing more material for next week!

I’m fat and I know it. I don’t work out.

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I got on the scale this morning and it read the heaviest I’ve ever been, in my entire life.  I must do something about it now.  I refuse to buy new clothes, unless they are smaller.

So here is a question I’ve been thinking about lately.  I’ve been saying phrases like this to my friends ‘Man I’ve gotten really fat’.  And their typical response is, ‘Ron you are not fat, you look great’.  Now I know they are lying, or at least telling me what I want to hear.  I can’t blame them for that but my real question is, should I really be mad at the people that have called me fat?  Or have told me I’m chubby?  How about my parents friend last time I was home saying ‘Have you gained a lot of weight?’ I’m confused because I really can’t decide what’s worse, the people lying to me to so I’ll feel better, or the people who are honest.  My gut reaction when someone is honest to me is that they are being rude, but are they really?  Now there is a difference between the random person calling someone fat to hurt them and a parents friend speaking out of concern.  So I guess the answer really is, it all depends on the tone.

Why am I fat?  Well folks, we don’t have enough time today to figure that one out.  But it is bizarre that someone with as much education about food is being held hostage by it.  It’s also not about food, just look at what is staring me in the face right now.  Please note this bag will be appearing in the office break room this morning.

It’s about not wanting to take the time to make it happen.  For example, almost a year ago I moved into a condo which is about a mile from my work.  I’ve maybe walked to work 3 or 4 times since then.  It’s a five minute walk to the bar that I go to, at least 3 times a week.  I might have walked there 3 times.

I find myself making excuses why I can’t walk.  Last year I saw a bear on the property at work.  Now I’m convinced a bear is going to attack me, maul me, tear my limbs apart.  I won’t walk with my dog because I see a fox at least 2 or 3 times a week, I’m afraid the fox will snatch Zoe up and eat her for lunch.  When we lived in Florida, I wouldn’t walk because I was afraid to snakes.  I literally had nightmares for the first year I lived there about snakes being everywhere.

I don’t know if these are true fears or just excuses, probably excuses.  My biggest fear is that I will probably not be able to breathe once I get up the hill that is right outside my door.  There is a huge hill that starts my walk to work.  Or maybe it’s that someone will see me and laugh at the state I’m in.  But, you see, I love making people laugh.  So if they want to laugh at me why the hell do I care?  I often tell friends, the biggest complement you can give me is to laugh at my jokes.  It’s true.

So here is my new thing.  I’m not going to stress myself out with having to work out everyday.  I’m just going to make one change.  For the next week I’m going to walk as much as I can.  I will walk to the bar (I did last night), I will walk to work etc.  I will keep my car parked at home as much as possible.  I will not only be doing something good for myself but I’ll be saving money.  So if you see me walking down the street just ignore me.  Don’t stop and say ‘great job’ or ‘man you’re sweating like a pig you need a ride?’  Just leave me alone to work through this or get out of your car and walk with me.