Thursday, July 21, 2005
I guess I'm supposed to protect people here, on these pages. I'm supposed to spruce them up or tone them down or make them magical. I'm not supposed to talk about who I've slept with or what they said to me before.
But by "slept" I mean pillows with heads resting on them and maybe some embarrassing snores or a wandering foot. My sexual exploits are far less interesting than my I'm a boy and you're a girl so let's go to sleep in the same bed so as to create a flurry of unnecessary and awkward tension exploits.
I was on a beach, and I wasn't even that fat anymore the first night it happened. I had my shirt on, while everyone else didn't. I still had sixty pounds to lose and for some reason, the last sixty are the ugliest. I was on a beach and I was on my back in the sand. On your back, that's when you're at you're skinniest. I know, because you research that kind of thing--the most flattering positions. When there's a girl around, even if she's twenty-whatever and you're only seventeen, it's most important to lay on the sand and let your fat hide behind your back.
We ate at some touristy crab house that could only exist on the beach, mostly because it couldn't be taken seriously elsewhere. A place where fishing nets hung from the ceiling are meant to prove the establishment's authenticity in the seafood world. As if these nets are taken down and out to the ocean every night to catch the next day's dinner service.
This girl in her twenties, she orders the crab even though she's a vegetarian. She eats sea animals, is what she tells the group. Eats them because they're in abundance and because they're ugly creatures. She says something like that.
I order low-carb, but something with the least amount of blood. I don't want her to see me eating meat that's medium rare. She'll start talking about the machine that shot a bolt through my dinner's head or how they're fed ground up bones of their ancestor's or something else she saw in a PETA brochure.
But I'm losing weight eating this! I'm shrinking before your very eyes. Does that not impress you? I've lost a hundred pounds since I met you… don't you find me attractive by now?
My friend Ryan and his girlfriend, they ordered whatever they wanted.
When we were done eating and waiting for the check, the waiter appeared with a camera and asked us to smile. He took a picture of the four of us sitting at our dirty table, our bellies stuffed and bloated. Then he offered to sell us the photo slipped into dandy plastic key chains. That they do this to every party is reason enough to stay far, far away from a restaurant like that.
Still, I wanted to buy one. I wanted to remember this crummy restaurant and the four of us sitting in it. I wanted to see a picture of myself, skinnier than I'd ever been, sitting across from this vegetarian girl in her twenties that I'd spent so long pursuing. I wanted to see a picture that looked like two happy couples, double-dating.
But by "slept" I mean pillows with heads resting on them and maybe some embarrassing snores or a wandering foot. My sexual exploits are far less interesting than my I'm a boy and you're a girl so let's go to sleep in the same bed so as to create a flurry of unnecessary and awkward tension exploits.
I was on a beach, and I wasn't even that fat anymore the first night it happened. I had my shirt on, while everyone else didn't. I still had sixty pounds to lose and for some reason, the last sixty are the ugliest. I was on a beach and I was on my back in the sand. On your back, that's when you're at you're skinniest. I know, because you research that kind of thing--the most flattering positions. When there's a girl around, even if she's twenty-whatever and you're only seventeen, it's most important to lay on the sand and let your fat hide behind your back.
We ate at some touristy crab house that could only exist on the beach, mostly because it couldn't be taken seriously elsewhere. A place where fishing nets hung from the ceiling are meant to prove the establishment's authenticity in the seafood world. As if these nets are taken down and out to the ocean every night to catch the next day's dinner service.
This girl in her twenties, she orders the crab even though she's a vegetarian. She eats sea animals, is what she tells the group. Eats them because they're in abundance and because they're ugly creatures. She says something like that.
I order low-carb, but something with the least amount of blood. I don't want her to see me eating meat that's medium rare. She'll start talking about the machine that shot a bolt through my dinner's head or how they're fed ground up bones of their ancestor's or something else she saw in a PETA brochure.
But I'm losing weight eating this! I'm shrinking before your very eyes. Does that not impress you? I've lost a hundred pounds since I met you… don't you find me attractive by now?
My friend Ryan and his girlfriend, they ordered whatever they wanted.
When we were done eating and waiting for the check, the waiter appeared with a camera and asked us to smile. He took a picture of the four of us sitting at our dirty table, our bellies stuffed and bloated. Then he offered to sell us the photo slipped into dandy plastic key chains. That they do this to every party is reason enough to stay far, far away from a restaurant like that.
Still, I wanted to buy one. I wanted to remember this crummy restaurant and the four of us sitting in it. I wanted to see a picture of myself, skinnier than I'd ever been, sitting across from this vegetarian girl in her twenties that I'd spent so long pursuing. I wanted to see a picture that looked like two happy couples, double-dating.
So that's the first five hundred words of a chapter I'm writing. This is why I deleted those four chapters. This is what I want my book to be, more or less.
Update: Hmm... on second read... I have tensing issues. I hate tensing issues. I think I have a tensing disease. Most of this is past tense, dialogue is present tense. I should really make it all present tense. Easy changes, really.
Should be like this...
Update: Hmm... on second read... I have tensing issues. I hate tensing issues. I think I have a tensing disease. Most of this is past tense, dialogue is present tense. I should really make it all present tense. Easy changes, really.
Should be like this...
Still, I want to buy one. I want to remember this crummy restaurant and the four of us sitting in it. I want to see a picture of myself, skinnier than I've ever been, sitting across...