You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl (12 page)

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Authors: Celia Rivenbark

BOOK: You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl
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I Dreamed A Dream That My Lashes Were Long
I
get a little cheesed every time I think about Susan Boyle, the Scottish singing sensation. I’m not mad at her, of course. What bugs me is how everybody was so surprised that a matronly chick in a dowdy lace dress could sing pretty.
Not since Gomer Pyle’s singing genius was discovered while changing a tire in Mayberry have so many been so shocked that a homely person could make beautiful music.
But, really, why?
Why were so many people so surprised that a plump middle-aged woman of daffy disposition could have real talent? Beauty and talent don’t always, or even often, go together. (See Simpson, comma, Jessica; bless her heart.)
With her bushy brows arching toward heaven, Susan
Boyle sang her lumpy ass off and a British talent-show judge proclaimed that it was the surprise of his life.
Why is that?
Say what you will about Mick Jagger, whom I adore, but he ain’t purty. He’s a wormy looking little fella with tragic features but, sha-zam, is he talented! And, to most, a sexy senior. Cause he’s a boy.
The way the Brits carried on so about Susan Boyle’s bold decision to commit the offense of SWU (Singing While Unattractive) was tiresome, but it would’ve been even worse if she’d made her debut on
American Idol
, I suppose.
Randy: “Dang, that was good! Holler at cha! Little pitchy and you’re no looker and it was the wrong song choice, but it was good! Dawg.”
Paula: “Oh my goodness, you just came out there and really, well, the angels and the ozone and everything just really brought together a thing that is, well, just such a thing that is just so beautiful in a sort of symbiotic eternity. And you can’t help how you look.”
Kara: “Can anybody please just pronounce my name right? Please? My name? Anybody? Oh, and you on stage? Yeah, I really think that you should know that I prefer my contestants to be hot eighteen-year-old guys so, uh, yeah, well, this was kind of a time-waster for me.”
Simon: “Look, the elephant in the room is, well, it’s bloody
her
. The bottom line is this woman is painfully, undeniably,
and unalterably unattractive, and we live in a shallow culture that simply can’t support a woman who chooses to wear such a ghastly Kmart frock to perform in a nationally televised performance where I’m forced to look at her.”
It’s regrettable that women have to worry so much about appearance. Even Ellen DeGeneres, who replaced poor Paula, freeing her to pursue other projects, is obsessed with her looks, otherwise why would she agree to be the newest spokesmodel for CoverGirl cosmetics? (BTW, “pursuing other projects” is Hollywood-speak for rehab followed by another painful reality show.)
It’s a little curious. Ellen never seemed to care about conventional stuff like foundation and powder. She was the comedic version of Susan Boyle, talented without fretting about the whole looks thing.
But turns out she was a little worried about it and now, suddenly, she’s everywhere, on magazines, the sides of buses, on TV, yakking about CoverGirl’s new Simply Ageless Foundation.
I usually pay big bucks for department store foundation so this was pretty tempting, the notion that I could use something to give me a flawless face that was available at CVS and cost less than a medium pizza. Ellen told me it was so, and she wouldn’t lie, would she? Besides, who among us doesn’t want to look like a fifty-year-old lesbian?
If this cheap drugstore foundation was responsible for
Ellen’s glowing skin, then that was good enough for me. Not to mention Susan Boyle, but only if she wants to gussy up a bit. She could still sing the paint off the walls.
I don’t have a great set of pipes going for me so I cling to the little things. Which is why I couldn’t wait to get Simply Ageless home. It was so cute in its little purple compact with a swirl of white antiaging goo mixed right in.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the damn thing open. After about fifteen minutes, I finally pried the bottom section open and a cute little white applicator sponge rolled out. OK … but how to get the foundation part open?
The CoverGirl Web site was there to help. At first, I felt pretty stupid being unable to open a simple compact but then I saw “How to Open Simply Ageless” as a clickable link at the Web site so I figured there were hundreds, if not thousands, of middle-aged women out there frustrated as hell in their pursuit to look like Ellen DeGeneres.
There were three steps, mostly involving twisting counter-clockwise, clockwise, rotating bottoms and tops, and quoting Chaucer while balancing plates on a stick and scratching your ass.
I was kidding about the Chaucer part. ’Nother words: I just couldn’t get the damn thing open. I imagine Susan Boyle would’ve given the whole project about six seconds before hollering “Bollocks!” and gone out to shear the sheep or rethatch the roof or whatever people do in Scotland
when they’re not singing on the telly or carping about the weather.
After a few more minutes of wrestling with the compact, I broke down and called the toll-free CoverGirl help line, where a perky sounding beauty consultant said she’d be happy to help once I described my dilemma.
“You have to turn it counter-clockwise on the clear part while grasping the bottom purple part.”
“Do I have to do the Chaucer part now?”
“Excuse me?”
“Kidding. Please continue. I tried all that stuff and nothing happened.”
There was a brief pause and the phone had that dead-air sound that made me think she’d put me on hold so she could laugh out loud at the hick in North Carolina who couldn’t open the stupid compact.
Finally, she came back on the line, perky as ever.
“Ma’am, maybe you could ask someone who is stronger than you in the household to open it for you?”
WTF?????
“I’m not some weakling,” I sputtered. “Just because I don’t have Ellen’s guns and I really need that Olay regenerative serum doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course you’re not weak,” the consultant said, clearly thinking that I was, too.
“Take it back.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look, I really want to use this product today. I’ve got a meeting and I need to look sixteen years younger by two o’clock.”
“OK,” she said, brightly. I could just picture her making big circles in the air beside her temple while she talked to me. “Perhaps you could gently rap the compact on a countertop. Some people find that helpful.”
“What if I
just take a freakin’ hammer to it?
”
Suddenly, she sounded serious, not at all perky and more than a little frightened.
“Ma’am, we at CoverGirl most certainly do not advise that you do that.”
Empowered, I decided to be an even bigger bitch.
“What if I put it in the driveway and roll over it repeatedly with my car?”
Silence.
“Fire all of my guns at once and explode into space?”
“Ma’am, that’s from
Born to Be Wild
.”
I had underestimated my foe. She clearly had a grip on late ’60s Steppenwolf, so how bad could she be? Maybe I did need a stronger member of the household to help me.
Just as quickly, she told me that she’d mail me a coupon for a new compact or the CoverGirl product of my choice (their waterproof mascara is the best ever). But now, she needed to go. I’m guessing there was a large-pore emergency brewing on the West Coast.
I think Susan Boyle had it right all along. I’m sick of trying to shave the years off with all these little pots of goo that clutter my vanity. Think of the very name of that piece of furniture: vanity. Why shouldn’t it be something more evolved? Like my self-assured or my self-esteem? While Susan has gotten a tiny makeover, she’s still her haggis-enjoying self and I could learn a lot from that.
It’s doubtful Susan Boyle has even thought about her eyelash sitchy-ation. Long lashes are a big deal these days, at least to Latisse spokesmodel Brooke Shields.
I probably won’t buy Latisse because it’s prescription only and that just seems like a lot of trouble. Besides, the endless warnings of possible side effects that should include unrelenting hotness and maybe X-ray vision but really include discolored eyelids and itchiness make it less tempting.
Latisse, a pretty name that’ll probably show up in kindergartens across this great land in about five years, is manufactured by the same company that gave us Botox. (Another product which Authentic Woman Susan Boyle knows nothing about.)
Latisse started out as a glaucoma remedy but got renamed and repackaged ($120 for a month’s worth) after its magical lash-lengthening properties were discovered by accident.
I repeat: When did we become so obsessed with our eyelashes? Maybelline has a new vibrating mascara. Is it a sex toy or a lash lengthener? You be the judge.
Pulse Perfection mascara looks cool, but I’m plenty
apprehensive about sticking a rod that vibrates at “7,000 times per stroke” that close to my eyeball. What if my hand slips during the application? Would it jackhammer my brain? I’d hate to lobotomize myself in the lame, insane pursuit of beauty. What would I do? Just sit at my self-esteem every day staring vacantly at the mirror and wondering why I sat there in the first place.
Let’s stop the madness! Eyelashes are designed to keep crud out of your eyes (medical definition), or to be batted seductively at the object of one’s affections (my definition), or to be pulled out one by one in an obsessive-compulsive manner (Sylvia Plath’s definition).
I believe that clears everything up. Dawgs.
Marriage in Three Acts
The front desk clerk warned us about the minibar in our room as soon as we checked into our Vegas hotel for the week.
“I have to tell you something,” he said in a tone as serious as if Wayne Newton had just up and died in the Dale Chihuly-glass-flowered lobby of the Bellagio. “The minibar is hypersensitive and it will charge you sometimes if it detects even the slightest motion when you approach it.”
Because duh-hubby and I share an irrational disdain for overpriced snack foods, we gave the desktop minibar a wide berth once we got in our gorgeous lake-view room. Yeah, we paid the extry $30 for the view because it was our twentieth anniversary, and we read in the hotel brochure that if you have a lake-view room, you can see the water fountains
shoot up in time to music on your TV every twenty minutes. It is sooooo worth it.
Brushing by the minibar to play with the electronically controlled drapes because I am, at heart, a Clampett, Duh fairly screamed at me.
“You’re getting too close to the mini bar! Didn’t you hear what the desk clerk said? Do you want to spend nine bucks for a pack of peanut M&Ms? DO YOU????”
Hmmm. Maybe renewing our vows wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Duh was so paranoid about the minibar that, watching him dart by it, I was reminded of Tom Cruise in
Mission Impossible
when he did back flips and even caught his own sweat droplets to keep from setting off the laser alarms. But seriously? Army-crawling on the carpet just to avoid setting off insanely overpriced Fiji Water? This was not the romantic scene I envisioned when I made the reservations.
Our first trip to Vegas was an eye-opener, and not just because of those wicked cool electric drapes. For starters, it’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s desolate mountains, hundreds of miles of cactus-studded desert and then-bam!it’s GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! and ALL-U-CAN-EAT CRAB LEGS!
Cruising across town in our complimentary white stretch limo enroute to the Graceland Wedding Chapel to renew our vows before Elvis, we were momentarily delayed as a heatstroke victim was loaded into an ambulance. A walleyed tourist drinking rum punch from a life-size plastic guitar
with a straw attached stopped to take pictures. Second weirdest sight: an attractive woman limping into a casino wearing a full leg cast
and
high heels.
It was early May but already the temperature hovered around a hundred by the time we got to the Graceland chapel, where a sign out front announced “WHERE JON BON JOVI AND BILLY RAY CYRUS GOT MARRIED,” although, it should be noted, not to each other. I don’t think. In the early-afternoon heat, we were wilting faster than our $7 airplane salads, so we scurried inside.
Fortunately, inside Graceland the air-conditioning was cranked up good. We had to wait for a minute while the young woman at the reception desk finished hot-gluing some silk flowers onto a rental veil. We were getting remarried at 2:30 P.M., to duplicate exactly our wedding twenty years ago. What can I tell y’all? I’m romantic as shit.
I was getting a little nervous that Elvis was going to be late but, at 2:20 exactly, he walked in, looking very much alive, and mumbled some Elvis-style pleasantries.
He led us into the chapel and, never once breaking character, grabbed a microphone and sang
Can’t Help Falling in Love With You
. Then he threw the mic down and sprinted from his pulpit to walk me down the aisle. He then tossed me off to Duh and jumped back in the pulpit. I was blown away: Elvis was wedding singer, preacherman, and father of the bride, all in one.
Elvis read the vows, which included several wonderfully
cheesy song references. Duh vowed to
Love Me Tender
and I promised to never send him to
Heartbreak Hotel
.
After it was over, Elvis presented us with our marriage certificate
and
a replica of his and Priscilla’s, which I thought was a little egotistical but it didn’t cost any more so it was OK. We posed for pictures, me, Duh, and Elvis, as though the three of us had just been married. I clutched my complimentary three-rose bouquet and Duh wore a red rose boutonniere that also came with our “Viva Las Vegas” package.
Before he could leave the building, I just had to tell Elvis that I truly loved his black, sparkly jumpsuit.
“Had to smash up a Trans Am or two to make this one, darlin’,” he said. I knew right away that he said that about eighty times a day, but it didn’t matter. Elvis’s sidekick and photographer collected the money. Elvis is too classy to take it himself and merely ducked out a side door when I tried to tip him, which I thought was just so very Elvis.
The limo took us back to the Bellagio where we got gussied up for Cirque du Soleil’s
Love
show. For those of you who don’t speak French, Cirque du Soleil is French for “Buford, you’re ’bout to see some weird shit!”
Our twentieth anniversary evening ended exactly as it had twenty years before, with me watching SportsCenter while Duh dozed peacefully, and me waking him up to show him basketball highlights.
“Which is why we work,” he has said on more than one occasion.
Amen to that, and to twenty more … .
We also work because Duh is nothing like Richard Batista. Who he, you ask?
Dr. Batista is the doctor you may have read about who must have skipped bioethics class the week they discussed whether or not it was cool to donate a kidney to your dying wife and then try to take it back when she dumped you.
Although I can sympathize with the whole man-spurned angle (wifey reportedly took up with her karate instructor after getting all healthy and whole again), it’s tacky beyond words to ask the mother of your children to please return the kidney you gave her like it’s your favorite piece of Corning-ware and your so-called best friend is just bound and determined to keep “forgetting” to return it even though she’s had it since her aunt died last August and you really need it back to make a proper funeral tetrazzini. Oh, sorry. Where was I?
Yes, Dr. Batista. Well, I do sympathize with him because it’s a wretched thought that your very own kidney, that which hath filtered countless kegs of beer through undergrad and medical school, now enables your ex to toss back Mai Tais with her new boyfriend after a few hours of breaking bricks with their foreheads or whatever.
Here’s the thing, though, Doc. Sure, you’ve got a nasty scar to remind you of what you used to have, but trust me, getting that kidney back won’t make you feel any better. I mean not for more than a week or two, anyway. Those two weeks, you’d probably be on top of the world, but seriously, no longer than that.
Lawyers got involved and the doc decided he didn’t want the kidney back so much as he wanted its value, which he decided was $1.5 million. Which kinda makes those home parties where you get a few twenties for your old gold necklaces look like chump change, right?
The real problem with this is that it turns out, you can’t put a price tag on a vital organ. Which is why they call it organ
donation
not organ selling. When you go to renew your driver’s license and they ask you if you’re an organ donor, they don’t mean there’s a guy out back with a couple of reasonably clean knives who can give you some serious cash if you want to get rid of an organ today. (“What’s it gonna take to get you to give up that pancreas to-
day
, lil lady?”)
Donating body parts is at the tippy-top of things to do to get into heaven. I don’t care what else you’ve done wrong; you give somebody a kidney, those pearly gates will swing wide. (Which is why Tiger Woods might want to think about letting go of a lung or something before too long.)
Dr. Batista’s wife is lucky she doesn’t have my kidney ’cause I’d camp outside that karate studio going, “Karate? Are you
kidding me? I don’t think
our
kidney can take that. And lay off those sugary sodas, would you?”
In the third act of our marriage play, allow me to vent just a moment about a couple that may love each other a little too much.
Please tell me that I’m not the only person who thinks Pat and Gina Neely, the nauseatingly in love stars of Food Network’s
Down Home with the Neelys
, need to get a room. With a velvet swing, mirrors, and plenty of oils that aren’t Crisco.
Pat and Gina Neely host a cooking show but they baby talk, kiss, and cuddle so much that it’s a wonder anything gets cooked.
And, yes, I could turn it off but then I’d miss the only soft porn I get all week—plus I’m incapable of turning off a show that promises a recipe for macaroni and cheese topped with strips of bacon and crushed potato chips. In-cape-uh-bull.
So the food is fabulously, decadently Southern, but the banter? Well, this is only a slight exaggeration:
Pat: “Today, Gina and I are gonna make some barbecued ribs that’ll set your mouth on fire!”
Gina: “
You
set my mouth on fire, baby, oooh, ooooooh.”
Pat: “Oh, girl, when you talk like that, I can’t remember whether I put the vanilla extract in the sweet potatoes or not.”
Gina: “Baby, I’m the only sweet you need. Come over here and gimme some sugar!”
(Camera nervously lingers on a pan of mashed rutabagas languishing by the sink while sounds of
“Mmmmm, oooh, baby” come from somewhere near the Mixmaster stand.)
Pat: “We’re back! And it’s time to stuff that duck!”
Gina: “You the only duck I wanna stuff!”
Pat: “Baby, I don’t even know what that means but it sounds like it might be hot!”
Gina: “Mmmmm, Pat, come over here and watch me lick this spoon.”
Pat: “Girl, I wish I
was
that spoon.”
Gina (
to camera
): “My husband is so baaaaaad, isn’t he ladies? You know I like to keep my man happy and one way I do that is with my crème brulee.”
Pat: “Was that French? Cause, baby, you know I like French. French toast. French fries. French kisses! Mmmm, put that turkey dressing pan down, girl, and get over here!”
Gina: “Down, boy! We have to keep our minds on what’s cooking.”
Pat: “I’d hit that.”
Gina: “What?”
Pat: “Oh, sorry. I was just daydreaming ’bout the time I first saw you back in middle school and you were so fine and my best friend, Rodney, asked me what I thought of you … .”
Gina: “Pat! That’s enough sessy talk for one day. This butternut squash isn’t going to sauté itself, now is it?”
Pat: “I’d like you to butter my nuts … .”
(
Hasty commercial break
)
Gina (
visibly disheveled
): “And we’re back and, whoa! Who’s that at the door? Why it’s Pat’s noseybutt mama. Again.”
NBM: “Y’all cuttin’ the fool up in here
again?
(
to Pat
): “I told you this triflin’ heifer was gonna be the death of you … .”
Gina: “Why you old …”
Pat (
separating the two
): “Join us next time when Mama shows Gina how to clean the oven by sticking her head in it with the gas on. Mama, you sure that’s safe?”
NBM: “Oh, yes, honey. It’s the
only
way.”
 
Everybody always says that marriage is such hard work but I don’t believe that. All you need to get along through any disagreement is this Marriage-Saving Blueberry Pie, courtesy of my friend Jana. One bite and all will be forgiven.
 
I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU DID, JUST GIMME SOME MORE OF THAT PIE, PIE
Crust:
1 and one-half cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
Pinch salt
1 stick butter
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan and add the other ingredients. Blend with a fork and press evenly onto the bottom and sides of a greased 9-inch pie pan. Bake 8 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool completely.
 
Cream Cheese Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3
cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
 
Combine cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add eggs and beat well again. Pour into pie shell and bake at 325 degrees until filling is set, about 30 minutes. Remove and let cool completely.
While that’s cooling, mix up this divine and simple
 
Blueberry Glaze
2 cups blueberries
½ cup water
1/3
cup sugar
 
Combine in saucepan; bring to boil; reduce heat; simmer, covered 5 minutes, stirring once. Remove from heat and add 1
½
tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water.
This will thicken things up nicely. Bring back to boil and cook 1 more minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; let cool until tepid. Spoon blueberry glaze on top of cheese pie. Chill at least 1 hour. Enjoy!

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