"Your butt is wiiiiide; well mine is too ..."

Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007, 9:16 p.m.

Of course, as soon as I finish my corrective training, I get slapped in the ass with a bit of good old-fashioned embarrassment.

I know this may be difficult to believe, but sometimes I get a little bit self-conscious. Not that often, really. When I've had about eight drinks and I'm singing (read: slurring) Bob Dylan songs on a karaoke stage, I'm fine with the world's perception of Who I Am. When I'm interviewing "important" persons for the newspaper, I really couldn't care less if I stutter a bit or snort when I laugh, as my family could tell you I am more likely than not to do on a regular basis. If I'm out at a restaurant, I have NO PROBLEM dabbing a bit of whipped topping on my upper lip and, when my fellow diner turns toward me, loudly insisting, "I swear I only kissed him!" And in any public place whatsoever, I generally don't give a rat's ass if I happen to be wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that says "SUCK MY BACK."

Unfortunately, somehow it gets to me a bit when, upon arriving in the morning for my daily Mandatory Physical Fitness Session of Gayness and Pain (as, I believe, we are still calling it), I am informed that we are instead having a mandatory weigh-in.

Unless I am feeling anorexically skinny (that would be never, in case you were wondering), I absolutely hate standing on a scale in front of anybody else. In the instance that Anybody Else happens to be equipped with a clipboard, a chart, a disapproving frown and a Y chromosone, the hate turns into innard-melting self-consciousness.

My last several weigh-ins have gone all right, I suppose, but here's the thing: last night was a half-a-pizza night. Yes, last night my new roommate and I (more about her shortly) bought two frozen stuffed-crust pizzas ($5.98! Who could resist? WHO, I ask you!), cooked them both, and each ate half of one. (To clarify, we cooked both of the pizzas because there were Toppings Issues, not because we were each planning to eat an entire pie. Holy fuck, what do you think we are, coming out of hibernation?)

Needless to say, the scale reflected half-a-pizza night accordingly. It also showed me that no matter how on-target you think your bathroom scale is, you are wrong, and in my case, in for a nasty surprise.

I'm not going to give you the number because it is icky, but I will say that there is no way I have gained ten pounds of muscle. I can't even blame the extra pounds on boobaliciousness, because -- well, let's leave that alone. The girls are not what they once were, is what I'm trying to say. They're actually regressing to their childhood, if I'm seeing the trend correctly. So sad.

Anyway. Half-a-pizza night + scale + annoyed, frowny male with clipboard = not my particular cup of self-esteem tea.

Okay, so remember how, lately, the Army has been bending me over to shove its surprisingly large dick of bureaucratic callousness up the ungreased ass of my career?

Yeah, it's still doing that. I've been told that there is still a glimmer of hope for me to get a waiver at the last possible moment so that I can get out of here without the second deployment in three years under my belt, but as we all know, anything could happen. If any of you reading this are high-ranking government officials who are interested in abolishing stop-loss and laying some kind of smackdown on the higher-ups of mine who are attempting to ensure my peon status for all eternity, please don't be shy to step forward.

For everyone else: please pray to whatever you believe in (atheists, just go ahead and cross your fingers) that this situation will be resolved without too much pain, stress and/or violence. In return, I will send you lots of happy thoughts, and maybe also a little bit of fairy dust so you can finally fly out the window like you always wanted to.

Canadians: wait for my signal.

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but in addition to having no fitting segue, I also had to acquire a new roommate recently.

My previous roommate, Jentastic, was released from the Army's clutches right before Christmas and headed back home to go to cooking school, leaving me to find another body to pay half the rent, cook me delicious meals, and remind me every now and then that I am a stellar roommate. After I was done mourning the loss of my designated grocery-buyer and her crazy cat, I headed over to the internet and made myself a want ad here.

In an effort to keep this entry from reaching Homeric lengths, I'll skip over the parts where some of those people made me want to hunt them down and teach them how to use words effectively (as well as, now that I think of it, the Shift key) and not to say things like "hi im lookin 4 place 2 crash til my bf gets a jobb" and move right on down to the moment of relief in which I Found Someone.

"Someone" is a very sweet girl. She is 20 years old, originally from Louisiana, blonde and fun. She is not in the military (my first civilian cohabitant in four and a half years) but she is dating a soldier, and her boyfriend is also living with us -- something that I was not originally aware would be happening, but hey, whatever. She is on time with the rent, and she works at a local restaurant, which means discounts on meals, which can never be bad. She is fairly messy, but cleans things when I remind her to. She's easygoing, doesn't yell or play loud, horrible music when I'm sleeping. She always remembers to lock the door, and she came with a new crazy cat, who is actually a crazy kitten, who is probably going to need to be sedated right quick.

The only thing I could say about my new roomie, as a person, that would not cast her in a semi-flattering light, is that she has moments wherein she makes Jessica Simpson look like Albert Einstein.

You might think I'm exaggerating a little bit, but unless you have ever had a person look at you with wide eyes and incredulously say, "Taco Bell is bad for you?" and then proceed to Google the phrase "is taco bell bad for you" ... you may want to think again.

I have resisted writing about these treasured instances for a few weeks because of the fact that she really doesn't deserve to be made fun of in an online diary, but good GOD, I could not help it. I needed the world to share in my bewilderment that she did not remember the difference between a prime minister and the pope, or that during the part of "Catch Me If You Can" where Leonardo DiCaprio finds out his dad's dead, asks "Why is he crying so much? His dad was pretty old, right?"

I will stop now. Hopefully I have gotten this out of my system, because poking fun at nice people is a good way to secure a place in hell, or at least a place in the checkout line behind a guy who had chili for lunch.

Welcome to the next part of this mabillion-word entry! Soon I will shut up, but first, pictures! This past weekend was one of athletic-ish activities with my friend in Jacksonville, her kids and her friends, whom I have been seeing quite a lot of lately due to the fact that they are fun and Husband is far away in Fort Blargh. We played Frisbee-golf, which I proudly suck at, and then went bowling, at which I am delighted to say I suck even more. I really am not good at many sports -- if they'd had a Sitting Around On Your Ass team in high school, I would have made the varsity squad -- however, the fact that I am bad at sports does not keep me from playing. It does, every now and again, make me stop playing in the middle of the game so I can just run around and take pictures of the Frisbee-golf course. I am such a winner.

This is a Frisbee-golf "hole" from underneath. Notice how my Frisbee is not occupying it. That was a common sight.

Spanish moss on a tree. You might think that a strand of Spanish moss would make a charming little boa, but it becomes less charming when the parasites in the moss begin eating your skin.

Man, I miss snow. Stupid brown leaves.

My friend's son, as he attempts to make a decision between actually throwing the Frisbee or just running off with it.

My huge balls.
(Notice that I have, once again, broken out the Sparkly Shirt. It doesn't count if you wear it around people who haven't seen it before; am I right?)

Whoever first decided to put a bar inside a bowling alley needs some kind of medal.

Lastly, my friend has given me permission to show you this tiny video of her four-year-old son, singing his version of Akon's overplayed hit, "Smack That":

I hope after seeing that, none of you will ever be the same again.

Now please excuse me, for I have a half-pizza to finish before I start my diet.