Daymares, Nightdreams, and other Musings: An End To Fat Days

Dear World,

I will henceforth no longer have Fat Days. Any word with synonyms like abdominous, blubbery, chubby, corpulent, double-chinned, dumpy, fleshy, gross, jowly, obese, paunchy, potbellied, or pudgy has no place as a descriptor in my life. However, we all have days where we feel a little less svelte that normal, maybe a little softer around the edges. So, from this point forth I am formally replacing Fat Days with Voluptuous Days. I feel much more positively towards synonyms like bosomy, buxom, curvaceous, epicurean, indulgent, juicy, luscious, luxurious, red-hot, sexy, shapely, sonsie, sybaritic, toothsome, and well-endowed. So from now on when I wake up on one of those days where my jeans just don't want to button, my top is harboring a bit extra muffin, and I just can't seem to get over the idea that I may be harboring the beginnings of jowls and a double chin, I will label it a Voluptuous Day, and act accordingly, by channeling my inner Christina Hendricks.

Sincerely,

Claire

If mother nature didn't like curves she would have made the world flat. <3

Okay, yeah, so the last one is my roomie and I, having a voluptuous moment in my case - looking adorable and svelte as always in her case. But seriously, how could you NOT want to look like Christina Hendricks? 

10 steps to a clean shower.

1. Gather supplies: 

• Bleach- check
• Old toothbrush- check
• Rubber gloves- lacking, but who really needs to protect their skin from harmful chemicals...that's what the toothbrush is for. 
• Grimy bathtub, yellow tile suggesting it was probably built in the 80s, amount of mold suggesting it hasn't been cleaned since - check
• Old, bleach friendly clothes-check

2. Practice morale building: remind self how much happier self will be with a clean, mold free shower. 

3. Jump in with both feet, pour liberal amounts of bleach in bowl, dip toothbrush, begin scrubbing. 

4. Realize after about a square foot of cleaned tile that this is not really that much fun, right arm is already getting sore from scrubbing and bleach fumes are beginning to cause dull headache. Resolve to take breaks after every quarter of wall cleaned.

5. REFRAME situation: Pretend you have a symbiotic relationship with a friendly giant, a giant with very poor dental hygiene, and you're helping him out, you don't want a giant friend with moldy teeth...

6. Scratch the friendly part. You have a not-so-symbiotic relationship with a giant that will eat your sad bleach covered self and use your fibula as a toothpick and your feet as bookends if you don't finish cleaning this shower... and the last thing you want at this point is to add guts or grime to your almost half clean grout. 

7. Scratch the giant concept all together, you're almost done... one more tile.... one more tile...almost done...

8. Finish scrubbing last tile, breathe deep sigh of relief, choke a little bit on inhale full of bleach fumes, step out of tub and feel very grateful that you have a white bathmat since your feet are probably bleach soaked at this point. 

9. Sit down in front of television... 5 minutes later realized the bleach is probably still soaking into your skin and now your couch. 

10. Drag yourself back up stairs into your now clean shower. Celebrate not being grossed out by shower by shaving legs and hence not being grossed out by shower OR legs and no longer being covered in bleach. 

Hell Awareness Week.

In the week before Halloween my University had a special awareness week.
You expect to find the Alcohol, Drug, and Crosswalk Safety Awareness Weeks.
I'll be honest, I seriously didn't see Hell Awareness Week coming. 

The nice gentleman behind the booth declined my offer to be in the picture. He did however give me his presentation. Apparently during the week before Halloween, when students are ignorantly celebrating witchcraft, demonism, and general evil, they wanted to remind campus of what we should REALLY be afraid of: Hell. I smiled and nodded along and had an inner debate between running away and being polite and listening to his point since I was amused enough to take a picture of their booth. And then he asked if I wanted to win a goodie basket (See those cute pumpkin buckets filled with goodies? Who doesn't want to win a goodie basket, ESPECIALLY one in honor of Hell Awareness Week, surely that Hell Bucket contains some Magical Heaven Candy right?). Maybe it was a trick, playing on my greed, gluttony, lust, or likely all three but it worked. All I had to do was answer two little questions, and I could be entered in a drawing to win a Hell Bucket. I didn't even have to believe in Hell to be eligible (I asked)! 

Question 1: If you died right now, do you think you would go to Heaven or Hell?

Answer 1: Well, as we discussed, I don't believe in Hell per say, so, um... is this question even answerable? I suppose if I have to choose one then I would prefer the first... but only if my friends can come too. 

Response 1: Well, Hell does exist, it's in the Bible, and that's why we're set up here is to educate people about how to live their lives.

Response to Response 1: That's nice of you, I'm afraid I just have a different set of beliefs and a less-than-literal interpretation of the Bible, can we go to the second question now?

Question 2: What do you think is required to avoid going to Hell?

Answer 2: Well, again, as we discusses, I don't believe in Hell, so I'm not sure how to answer this question. By not believing in it?

Response 2: Hell is real, and there are actions you can take to avoid ending up there. 

Response to Response 2: I appreciate your concern, however I don't personally believe that a loving God would sentence people to eternal suffering. I also don't believe that you have to have a "Big Brother is watching" sentiment in order to be a good person. However, I fully respect your right to believe whatever you like, and I so appreciate you respecting mine as well. Do I got to sign up for the Hell Bucket now? 

He gave me the sheet to write down my name and phone number, and asked if I would like calls to remind me of their weekly bible study meetings (you don't have to be Christian to attend! He assured me). I declined the reminder, although I will totally accept a phone call to let me know I won a Hell Bucket! He laughed, reminded me again he would be happy to chat about my "beliefs", which he had clearly decided were neo-paganistic in nature, and we parted ways. 

Not two hours later I received a phone call to tell me that I'd won a "goodie basket". It took me about 3 seconds to translate that to "Hell Bucket" and get really excited. 

Okay, so the food was a bit shit. No Heaven candy in sight. However I learned two things from this experience. 

1. God obviously prefers my beliefs about Hell, and hence decided to help me win the drawing (okay, so  it's just as likely that my competition was rather lacking as most people probably didn't want to talk to the Hell Awareness people, but I like the first version of events)

2.  Corn Nuts: Hot Sauce and Limon Chips (Which I didn't even know existed) are kind of AMAZING!