Weight

There's a heaviness about me. It's there in my physical being but I feel it is weighing down my soul as well. I have been trying to lose weight for the better part of 8 years. I always fail, I always plummet right back to where I started; sometimes I gain more than I started with. I don't think it is a matter of what I shove in my mouth or what I decide to eat. It's more a matter of what I decide to do with myself in my day to day life and how I choose to move through it. You see, fat people are invisible in a way. Not in any kind of poor me way, but in one way; one very specific way. People don't expect all that much from fat people. We can't control what we put in our fucking mouths so why should we be able to control any other aspect of our lives? I feel people look at me and feel sorry for me. They see me as a person in a constant struggle with his own inner urges. You can't expect a person with such overwhelming inner urges to control any OTHER aspect of his life, can you? People won't expect much from me. Flash forward to that wonderful, healthy person I am told I have locked deep inside me. Filled with confidence, can do anything, can stand in the spotlight, can have people look at him and lust over him and envy him and want to be his friend and want to know him and to talk to him and hang out with him and introduce themselves to him at parties and want him want him want him. Am I ready for that? Am I ready to be and most importantly do I WANT to be that person? You see for me, it's not so much about putting down the French fries and driving past the McDonald's drive thru, it's about what the fuck I'm going to do once I BECOME that healthy person. Once I'm one of the Visible Ones. What will people see? What can I show them? If I don't have that glaring fault distracting people from all my other faults, what will they see? Will they expect me to become something I am not? Will they ask the dreaded question "What are you waiting for?" Why haven't you made more of yourself? Why would a young fit handsome man like you let ANYTHING hold him back from making all of his dreams come true? WHY DON'T YOU HAVE IT ALL?? they will shout. Why are you still holding onto a job you despise and going nowhere when you could do SO MUCH. I mean, you lost all that pesky weight, didn't you? Those pesky 100 pounds you had hanging around that absolutely refused to let go of your now manly and athletic frame? And really, what do you have to feel bad about now that you are not overweight. Are you afraid that maybe now the weight is gone you might have to shed your problems with self esteem and GOD FORBID like yourself? See yourself as everything you know deep down you can be? Look yourself deep in the eyes in the mirror and say "You turned out okay?" And the worst and most horrifying question that childless, rootless thirtysomethings are faced with constantly "Now what?" Where to next, sir? You can go anywhere and do anything. What would you like to do? Who would you like to be?? Am I ready to answer all of those questions? Am I alone here? Am I truly alone in feeling this way? I feel like I kicked over a psychological rock in my head and started a fucking avalanche. I'm fat because it's EASIER than being thin. And I don't like myself. Deep down, I truly feel like I don't deserve the type of happiness that I feel accompanies normal-weight people. More than anything, I'm scared to death of how I will be seen and treated differently.

CONCERTINA

Recently, the BF and I went to a Tori Amos concert.  It occurred to me that I have seen her in concert FIVE TIMES.  I was a completely different person every single time I saw her.  She has been one constant in my life all the way through.  I only have one friend that has been in my life every time I went to see her in concert.

 

My sister Tammy took me to this one for my birthday.  My 19th birthday!!  I owe it to her for introducing me to Tori in the first place.  No matter how far she and I drift apart either geographically (she lives in New Hampshire) or politically (she's a raging republican) we will always share this.  We held hands and got teary-eyed during Silent All These Years.  That song will always remind me of her.  I was living at home and hadn't even met Mike, been drunk, smoked pot or smoked a cigarette.  I was barely out of the closet.  But, I guess, crying at Tori Amos concerts isn't the straightest of activities.

 

Minneapolis, MN - State Theater - July 14, 1994 

 

UNDER THE PINK TOUR

 

Space Dog

Leather

Icicle

Precious Things

American Pie/Smells Like Teen Spirit

God

Silent All These Years

The Waitress

Bells for Her

Me and a Gun

Winter

 

Encore 1:

Cornflake Girl

A Case of You

 

Encore 2:

Upside Down

Baker Baker

 

At the time of this concert I was living on my own in a studio apartment near Loring Park in Minneapolis.  I went with my friend Mara and her new girlfriend Tina.  We had pretty decent seats.  I worked at AT&T and paid $375/mo for my apartment.  I was a huge pothead and smoked regularly.  This was the day of the Hennepin Avenue block party where the Smashing Pumpkins played a FREE concert.  This was my favorite concert.

 

July 17, 1998 at Northrup Auditorium

PLUGGED 98 TOUR

Precious Things
Spark
Cornflake Girl
Sugar
iieee
Playboy Mommy
Crucify
Marianne
Upside Down
Doughnut Song
Cruel
Liquid Diamonds
The Waitress

1st Encore:
God
Raspberry Swirl

2nd Encore:
Landslide

Weird. This was after 9/11. A little more than a month after. I worked at American Express but not for much longer. Being on the 26^th floor of the tallest building in Minneapolis made me nervous. The job also outsourced to India not too long after. I soon started a disastrous job at Qwest that I would get canned from; the first of THREE jobs in a row that would can me. George W. Bush was president and no one could believe it. I went to this one with my best friend Sarabellem. We thought this concert was great. I remember she was especially pleased to hear "Rattlesnakes".

October 21, 2001 at the Orpheum Theatre

STRANGE LITTLE TOUR

'97 Bonnie & Clyde
Little Amsterdam
Sugar
Take To the Sky
Putting The Damage On
Leather
Beauty Queen
Horses
I Don't Like Mondays
Winter
Concertina
Crucify
Rattlesnakes
Me and a Gun
Cooling

1st Encore:
Purple People
Upside Down

2nd Encore:
Space Dog
Famous Blue Raincoat
1000 Oceans

Wow. At the time of this concert I was working at Allianz and living in Lauderdale. In March, the same day the stupid war started, I would be canned and begin 8 months of unemployment that would nearly destroy me. Sarabellem and I went to this one as well. We were less than pleased for some reason. Neither of us liked the inclusion of "Hotel" and "I Can't See New York". Shortly after being canned, Sarabellem stopped talking to me and we went through a "Friendship Makeover" as we term it now. It was necessary. I needed to have everyone turn their back on me and rely only on myself for awhile to prove that I could get myself through tough times with no one's help. I also did a lot of writing once my cable was shut off. I learned a lot.

Saturday, November 30, 2002 at the Northrop Auditorium.

SCARLET'S WALK TOUR

Wampum Prayer
a sorta fairytale
Take To the Sky
Pancake
Cornflake Girl
Honey
Juarez
Crucify
Wednesday

Band leaves

China
Famous Blue Raincoat
Josephine

Band returns

Your Cloud
Girl
Sweet Sangria
Lust
Hotel
I Can't See New York
Spring Haze

1st Encore
Taxi Ride
Etienne

2nd Encore
Strange
Tear In Your Hand

This brings us right up to last Wednesday, when I went to the concert below with the man I love. What a ride, what a journey. I don't think way back in 94 that I would ever believe where I am today. It is absolutely mind-boggling. At this concert I had a strange, bittersweet feeling watching her and watching the much younger audience around me. Among all the lesbians and patchouli I think I figured out that maybe I need to pass the torch on. Who knows. Maybe I'll see her again, but if I don't I won't mind.

Wednesday, November 7^th at Northrup Auditorium

AMERICAN DOLL POSSE TOUR

Act I – Isabel

Yo George

Sweet Dreams

In the Springtime of His Voodoo

Devils and Gods

Almost Rosey

Tombigbee

Scarlet's Walk

Interlude

Professional Widow

Act II – Tori

Big Wheel

Space Dog

Pancake

Cornflake Girl

Doughnut Song

Siren

T & Bö

Graveyard

Jackie's Strength

Silent All These Years

Band Returns

Putting The Damage On

Black Dove (January)

Code Red

1st Encore:

Precious Things

2nd Encore

Hey Jupiter

 

 

Kajagoogoo

I've been having some pretty severe issues lately with social anxiety. I think Wikipedia might be the coolest thing ever. I really wonder what the difference is between Social Anxiety Disorder and garden variety shyness so I checked it out online. I had this feeling that it was closely related to low self esteem and it definitely is. When I'm in a social situation and I clam up it's because there's this nasty voice in my head telling me that this person doesn't want to hear what I have to say and that they couldn't possibly care about me. Moreover, I have been burned too many times in my life not to be pretty guarded around new people. I judge them pretty harshly in my head and more often than not dismiss them as a certain type that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with anyway. This beats them to the inevitable rejection, you see. Social Anxiety folks tend to isolate themselves which actually makes the situation worse. Ding ding ding!!! I lived by myself with a few cats in two 1 bedroom apartments in a row. I used to make all kinds of excuses not to leave the last one. My neighborhood wasn't safe, it was too cold, it was too hot, etc, etc. We also tend to have been ridiculed, rejected and humiliated by our peers at an early age more than non SAD folks. Again, right on the money. I don't remember EVER fitting in. I was nearly drowned in the swimming pool in 8^th grade, punched, kicked, called "Faggot" more times than I can count. Junior High was a general nightmare for me, one that I couldn't wake up from. I dealt with it by isolating myself and reading. I went to only one dance in my entire school career and I was dragged to it.

Now onto the issue at hand: My BF is a very social person. He loves being the center of attention. He loves going out and meeting new people. And I love him for it. It's one of the many things I admire about him, that confidence, because it is something that I lack. I worry sometimes that he will get fed up with my shyness and kick me to the curb and find a less defective model; someone he can go to birthday parties with that won't huddle in the corner wishing he was dead or make rude comments about the people all around us to beat them to the punch. I always had it in my mind that getting into a relationship would mean that all my personal problems would be solved. Boy was I in for the shock of my life when I found out that it actually MAGNIFIES all of your personal shit because now there is someone around to notice everything.

Here's the central question: Is there something BETTER about being a social butterfly? Does it mean you are a better person? It takes all types to make up this crazy world. Where do the shy people fit in? The BF can be out at the club partying it up while I'm at home writing a masterpiece screenplay. Is one activity more valid than the other because one is social and one is done in isolation? Is this something I absolutely need to work on? Right now we have a system worked out where if he wants to stay out he just calls me when he's done and I come and pick him up. That way he has a safe way home and I don't have to put on fake smiles, deal with awkward silences and make nice with strangers. Everyone wins. Or am I fooling myself?