Heather Flails her arms about wildly, but looks beautiful and pregnant nonethless
Last night I drove down to Austin to meet Heather B. Armstrong a.k.a Dooce. It was a treat…
When I first started working at Texas Instruments I HATED my job. I sat in one of those cubicle that only goes about 3 feet how and makes you feel exposed like you are a kid urinating at a trough with your pants around your ankles and everyone can see your buttocks – except now you are an adult and this is totally unacceptable.
Texas Instruments was a thirsty tick that was sucking the lifeblood out of me and I couldn’t help but surf the net for a little bit of an escape from my suicidal reality – and that is how I stumbled upon Dooce.
Immediately I was taken aback by this woman who was writing some of the most hilarious and sometimes bawdy tales of her life. See this excerpt here that was written before her daughter was born and after I had already been reading religiously for a while:
I’m a Slave 4 U(nemployment)
I’ve cleaned every surface in this apartment: every tile, every crevice, every hidden corner littered with dust bunnies the size and attitude of Texas. Alas, I’ve nothing left to clean.
I always said that I’d strip this place bare once I had the free time to do so, much like I’d strip the sleeves from Britney’s trembling shoulders if ever given the chance to hit her, baby, one more time. Two weeks into unemployment and that mission is accomplished (the cleaning mission, not the Britney mission, you pervert). Now what the hell do I do?
As you can see the language is often “colorful”, but the writing is downright creative and sometimes so hilarious that I would sputter and snort in my cubicle. I was supposed to be helping someone figure out how to double-click but instead I was finding a way to cope with that fact that my life sucked – Heather/Dooce helped me realize that I wasn’t the only one with some serious issues and that sometimes you need to get help with those issues.
As the years went by I got to watch as Heather went through depression and pregnancy and how Mormonism has affected her life. I have read about her political views and ideas on same-sex marriage and although often times I find myself disagreeing with her it has never changed the fact that I have loved her like a sister – a far away online only sister, but a sister nonetheless.
Heather got up and read an excerpt from her new book – it was a story that we had read on her website about how it took seven months after giving birth vaginally with her first child before she was able to have sex again or what she called “Reconvening the Procedure”.
I suppose I could look for a job; that’s what any ambitious worker-bee would do. If I were any ambitious worker-bee I would put my shoulder to the wheel, as the Mormons might say, and find me some effing gainful employment. After all, I’m a healthy blonde college graduate with seriously long legs. Finding a job shouldn’t be that hard.
What I love most about Heather is not the hilarious side, but the softer side. I love her monthly newsletters to her daugher Leta and the times when she stops and takes a moment to express her love for her husband Jon, like she did in this paragraph:
So it feels really good to have all these emotions toward Jon that I don’t normally experience because of our proximity. I miss everything about him, even the incessant talking and bear feet. It’s a longing that is somehow invigorating, and once where I would have been annoyed that we’d talked six times already on the phone I find myself getting a text message and hoping it’s from him. I ache to get back to the hotel room from whatever I’m doing so that I can call and hear his voice. Which I am about to do right this second, call and see if he slept well, ask if I can interrupt SpongeBob to say hello to Leta, and then stop and savor this feeling of missing the weight of his body on the bed next to me.
The way she expresses her love for her family is so genuine and intimate that it makes me, as a single dude, hope and pray to God that someday I will find a love like that.
I plan to insert a picture here later that I got with Jon and Heather. I was elated to get a picture with both of them and I hope Jon doesn’t mind me using his photo at the top of this post. I was standing right behind him when he took it and so this was the angle that I had during the hour that she spoke.
Authors Note: Profanity is used in this review, but only when quoting word for word from this book. I would have used niceties like “The F word or the S word, but I think we are all adults here and I wanted to give you the facts instead of putting perfume on a turd.
I listen to 106.1 Kiss FM in the morning and I heard Big Al Mac, one of the morning personalities, confess, “Yes, I am currently reading Skinny Bitch.”
I sort of chuckled and put it out of my mind. Then last night I went to Borders and saw the book prominently displayed on one of their stands. I scooped it up and made my way to their coffee bar, purchased a caramel latte and proceeded to read.
From the first chapter the authors of Skinny Bitch are telling you that you to “Give it Up”. You need to give up beer, cigarettes, caffeine, coffee and sugar. The Skinny Bitches go on a diatribe of not only why you should stop these bad habits: bad breath, extra pounds, makes you ugly, they also give you the reasons why they make you fat and ugly and immediately start dropping chemical names like butylated hydroxyamisole and butylated hydroxytoluene. Then they say things like “Coffee is for pussies” and “you need to exercise, you lazy sh~t”.
Wow Rory and Kim, I know you used to be models but are the vulgarities necessary to sell your books? Maybe so.
The two women continue to discuss everything from animal cruelty to pooping in the remaining chapters: Carbs: The Truth, Sugar is the Devil, The Dead, Rotting, Decomposing Flesh Diet (Atkins), The Dairy Disaster, You Are What you Eat, The Myths and Lies About Protein, Pooping, Have No Faith: Governmental Agencies Don’t Give A Shit About Your Health, Don’t Be A Pussy, Let’s Eat, and the final chapter is called Use Your Head.
This book is actually only about 140 pages of actual reading, the rest is recipes, food, a month’s worth of menus, websites and other helpful information to start your vegan lifestyle.
Here are the things you need to give up to be a Skinny Bitch:
- All Meat Products
- All Dairy – no cheese, eggs, milk, yogurt, nada, zero, zilche
- Caffeine
- Processed Foods like white flour, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white rice, white bread, etc.
What can you eat?
Vegetables, preferably organic because if they aren’t certified organic then they are probably genetically modified or full of pesticides.
- Tofu
- Soy
- Whole Grains
- Nuts
- Organic Fruit
- Fresh Squeezed Juices
- Water
- Beans
After reading the book I am actually surprised that I am on board with some of their suggestions. They mentioned chicken pens full of cockroaches and chickens that have their beaks seared off and their feet that have grown around their wire mesh cages. If that wasn’t enough to keep me from wanting to eat chicken and eggs, they talked about hormones pumped into these poor birds as well as the inhumane butchering processes – and that was just the chicken!
Pigs are butchered by boiling them after their throats have been slit, but sometimes they are still alive when they are dropped into hot water to remove their hair. They are then drowned by a revolving arm. Not to mention that pigs are pretty much fed whatever is rotten. Even Ben and Jerry’s, the ice cream vendor, feeds some of its waste to pigs because it is too toxic to put into the dump. Then these pigs are butchered and fed to us. I’m not ignorant when I’m eating my bacon, but after hearing about some of the cruelty that goes on at these slaughtering houses I must say that I will pause before getting bacon and eggs at IHOP.
The Skinny Bitches continue to list the horrors that happen to our food on every level. Cows get milked by machines and sores and puss develop on their udders and of course that puss goes into the milk along with all the hormones they injected into the cows so that it will produce 100 pounds of milk per day. The milk is pasteurized to rid it of all these impurities, but it still contains lots of chemicals that the FDA deems perfectly fit for human consumption.
The authors of this book did their homework. The data, even if you only believed 25% of what they say is compelling. I have a gallon of milk in the fridge and I couldn’t bring myself to eat my Fiber One with it this morning. Instead I had oatmeal with a banana and cinnamon sweetened with honey.
Other tips for becoming skinny:
- Don’t drink any diet drinks or artificial sweeteners (including Splenda/Sucralose)
- Exercise
- Drink water, but don’t over do it or else the water will leech your body of necessary nutrients
- Fast – do a juice fast or raw food fast and then eventually do a no-food fast
There are no new ideas presented in this book for losing weight other than the becoming a vegetarian part. I’ve heard most of this information before, but I’ve never been slapped across the face with it boot camp style. Apparently riddling your book with phrases like, “Yeah, eating onions and garlic makes your breath smell like someone took a sh~t down your throat” will sell diet books because we’ve heard the information presented every which way possible and so yeah, these girls did give us something new in the way of profanity.
Lastly, the book does provide the reader with countless resources for finding Vegan foods.
Some of the website provided:
veggieworld.com
goodbaker.com
eatraw.com
treehuggintreats.com
rosecitychocolates.com
playfood.org
vegandreams.com
goveg.com
veganoutreach.org
Truthfully, I can’t imagine my life filled with organic cereals and soy milk, but I think I can at least limit my intake by 75% of these foods and better my health. I think what is important is making healthy decisions that not only impact your health, but the world we live in. I think this is a message you can convey in a smart and fun way without telling people they are lazy-shi~ts, but hey, it creates a buzz and gets people talking and so I can’t say that I don’t admire Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin for their achievements.
I just finished my latest Wilbur Smith novel – River God.
At the end of the book there is an author’s note that this book was based on a true account of the slave Taita that lived in Egypt during 1780 b.c. No other author has ever moved me to such depths or taught me so much. When I finish reading something by WIlbur Smith I feel like I have learned in a few hours what some people never learn or understand in a lifetime.
What I learned most in this book is how to be a servant and to find true happiness in the selfless service of others. When we love people we serve them without restraint or regard for self. Our motives are pure when we seek only the happiness of others.
I hope to be more like the slave Taita who although he was treated so cruelly by his masters never lost his ability to find compassion and love even for his greatest enemies.
I’m currently enthralled in another Wilbur Smith novel called “Warlock”. An epic tale of Pharoahs and Egypt, I can’t help but think of one of the best children’s stories from the Bible and after doing some research it appears that Smith’s fictional stories are often more fact than fiction.
In the book there is one scene where the Warlock “Taita” turns his staff into a cobra and forces some priests to leave the building. At other times this man prays to the Egyptian god’s Horus, Seth and Lostris. It’s fascinating to think that at one time there were cultures that actually cultivated the supernatural forces around them, often times they were dark forces, but they believed in them and that gave them power nonetheless.
What I’ve found most interesting about Smith’s stories is his constant use of religion, faith, God and gods thoughout his novels. His protagonists are normally strong believers in one form of religion or another and that faith, whatever it may be, is passionate and devout. The prayers are constant, the offering of thanks incessant, the love immeasurable. It fascinates and shames me.
In every decision, big or small, i do not consult God for his advice. I do not seek his blessing and guidance for every path I choose. Instead I trust in myself and only when I think it truly necessary do I call on the Lord for help or assistance and even then it is with only a half-measure of faith that I truly expect him to come to my aid.
What if I was like one of Smith’s characters whose total focus, every thought, deed, or word was first passed through a filter of faith? What if I sought the will of the Lord and sat and prayed for hours until I received an answer?
We are an arrogant culture that quickly dismisses the spiritual and the supernatural. We are full of our own self-confidence and independence and we deny our need for a deity. Instead we make our own way and when our world falls apart then we turn to God and ask Why? We shake our first and we place blame and we curse because we know what was right and it was God that failed us, not ourselves.
It might be a fools quest to chase a life that is greater than what the world around me is trying to sell me. I hope to achieve something great with my life even if that greatness is only noticed in Heaven.
In the future I’m going to make a concerted effort to seek God’s wisdom and his counsel. I’ve been going on 10 years now dealing with the same issues in my life and trying to handle them on my own. I’m tired and ready to ask for help.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places… EPH 6:12