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March 20, 2006
afternoons and coffee spoons
so there i was at 1:30 a.m. on a friday night/saturday morning in a crowded bar in marrietta for an alleged birthday celebration with shirt lifted - chest bared for all the world to see. and i did so in one fluid motion - and un-self consciously and stone cold sober. not a single drop of jagermeister (pronounced with a hard j) had touched my lips. in fact i was glad to do it. it was a nice visual aid to my fellow bar patrons - a recreation of an incident that may or may not have happened atop a balcony in new orleans. but in the days that followed i began to wonder how much longer i would be able to get away with a stunt like that and still have a shred of dignity left.
it has always been my philosophy that one should be prepared - if the situation requires - to be naked at a moments notice. without any shame or paunchiness. and there was a time during the salad days of my youth where i never would have given such a disrobing a second thought - and i did so often chiseled and gleaming and oily as though i'd just been hewn from alabaster or muenster cheese with that orange stuff around the edges (that sunless tanning cream does it every time) for you see friends, i had a metabolism that simply would not quit. and then it sort of did.
at the age of 25 i weighed in at a slight 155lbs and i maintained this with a scant 15 minutes of jazzercise a day but over the course of the next four years somehow i managed to swell to 170 pounds by the time i graduated from college. granted much of that weight gain was due to a strict weight lifting regimen. to say that i was huge would be an understatement. it was this glorious narcissism that led to me being voted 15th best body on campus. and when i say that i had the 15th best body on campus i don't mean to imply that there was ever an actual vote. because there wasn't. rather, i just arbitrarily decided that upon that ranking for myself because no one else really seemed to care one way or the other.
and because no one cared i decided to punish them by refusing to remove my shirt. ever. i even wore a poncho to and from the shower stall. in hindsight this was probably foolish behavior on my part. first and foremost because everyone looks ridiculous in a poncho and secondly i wasted many opportunities to look great naked.
and so here i am well into my thirties and my weight continues to spiral out of control. after spending the better part of 3 years hunched in an office cube, i now hover between 185 and 195lbs depending on how many family sized pot pies i eat for dinner at a sitting. and yes, i carry it well enough i suppose - but i can feel the shift is near. that moment when i will have to avert my own eyes as i pass by the mirror on my way into the shower. and i wonder how did this happen? to me of all people. it really isn't very fair. but instead of focusing on all of that perhaps i should shed my clothes and run free while i still can. because five years from now if i lift my shirt in a bar i hardly think anyone will be snapping photographs - rather they will be escorting me from the premises in handcuffs - my chubby wrists resting comfortably on the rolls of backfat.
if it comes to that i suppose i will survive. unless of course i lose my chin. if that ever happens...well, i don't even want to think about that.
| By young_christopher | 5:26 PM