Part III: What Happens a Cappella? The BIG Diet: Postscript (Six Months Later, The Fallout) (Chapter 63)
Happy Birthday, Samantha.
Three-nine and counting down to the big four-O – then the downside of
life.
Here I am, back to 180 pounds.
I don’t remember much of the past few months, except that I’ve been on a
feeding frenzy, a whirl of food going by and my grabbing what I could before I
die –
Three months to get the weight off, six months to put it back.
Now I lay on the sofa, patting my belly – what else there is to eat, or
is that what I really want?
What can I do to fill this void, which is no longer in my stomach,
perhaps it never was?
I know: MAKE A LIST!
LIST OF OPTIONS
*Have another baby (It’s not too late!)
*Leave Sheldon (DITTO!)
*Have an affair (Too complicated?)
*Re-establish relationship with Nicole
(Might be too late)
*Go into therapy (Far, far, far away from
here)
*Have a nervous breakdown
*Smoke some weed and drop some acid for old
times’ sake
*Look for first love Snake Bodine (Hire a
detective)
*Get a REAL job (But WHAT??? Overqualified
for low-paying jobs, inept with hands other than painting, not qualified for
the plum jobs)
*Start a business
*Talk Shel into moving into a bigger and
better house
*Do volunteer work at the Hospice or the
soup kitchen
*Join a health spa and get a massage
*Get a face lift and full body liposuction
(Fuck the risks!)
*Buy a cat (really kick up Sheldon’s
allergies!)
*Buy a great big English sheepdog (REALLY
piss Sheldon off)
*Have an affair with Sheldon’s best friend
*Have an affair with Sheldon’s best friend
while Sheldon’s in the next room
*Seduce my ex-husband, just for the hell of
it
*Join an organization, like the Garden Club
or Amnesty International
*Write a self-help article or book on
finding one’s inner Queen Bee
*Look up old boyfriend Evan for wild sex
and foot massage
*Write an obsessive fan letter to a male
celebrity (Possibilities: Nick Nolte, Garrison Keillor, Gene Wilder, Robert
Duvall, Richard Gere)
*Apply for six weeks at an artist’s colony
(Somehow related to “have an affair”? Hmmmmmmmmmm....)
*Buy 10 pairs of sexy shoes on Sheldon’s
Gold Visa
*Go to graduate school
*Go to graduate school 2,000 miles away
from Sheldon
*Go to graduate school 2,000 miles away
from Sheldon and have an affair there
*Go to graduate school 2,000 miles away
from Sheldon, have an affair there, and get knocked up
*Go to graduate 2,000 miles away from
Sheldon, have an affair there, get knocked up, and go into therapy
*Shoot self
*Shoot Mona
*Initiate lesbian affair with
Mona (The grand slam to Sheldon!)
Now that last one’s a viable option. I could kill two birds with one
stone‒ make love to a woman ‒ I wonder what it’s like to make love to a woman? ‒
and psych out old “You’re-Responsible-For-Your-Own-Actions” Sheldon Weiss.
One minor flaw. Sheldon fired Mona three months ago.
Oh, well.
As I reread these journal entries – obsessively, of course – I realize I have mentioned Nicole, the reason for this doomed diet in the first place, only sporadically.
As I obsess about weight, sex, and food, Nicole has run away with her
sleazy boyfriend and joined a cult.
How could I have failed her so miserably?