T-U-B-B-Y, I Ain't Got No Alibi

This seems to be the week of the pointless autobiographical post over here at This Blog. Well, so be it. The blogosphere has enough pompous pontificators without me, I reckon. So here's another pointless autobiographical post:

I can ignore the facts no longer. I have turned into quite the little butterball.

I suspected that there might be something amiss when my wife started sleeping on the couch. I told myself that it was just because she's been working late. And I did detect a bit of a paunch this summer. But what really forced me to face the truth is that my pants don't fit. At all.

The whole situation is complicated by the fact that I am perhaps the world's worst dresser. I mean, I haven't won a contest or anything, but I've got to be at least in the top five. I buy most of my clothes (apart from underwear and socks) at the Goodwill, and I get about half of those at the dollar-a-pound sale.

I then wash them vigorously several times in very hot water with lots of soap, and I'm good to go.

I've been doing this most my life and it works pretty well. I was the youngest, so I only ever wore hand-me-downs and it never bothered me. Thank god my sister was a tomboy, though, or I would have gotten beat up quite a lot.

My parents probably wouldn't have accepted "But it's a dress," as an excuse to not wear perfectly good clothes. "Perfectly good" was their favorite phrase. Food was often described as being "perfectly good," even when it clearly wasn't. "Brussel Sprout Surpise" was never "perfectly good." Surprise! It's Brussels sprouts!

The best clothes came from my cousins. Once a year or so, they would bring by a plastic garbage bag full of clothes. Score! It was from one of these bags that I acquired my H.A.S.H. jeans, which were so freakin' cool the cucumbers were jealous.

I think this is part of the attraction to the dollar-a-pound bin. Bringing home clothes in a plastic garbage bag has the thrill of adventure and possibility.

So, I've carried the habit into my adult life. It's served me well; although better when I lived in the West than in the East, where people actually wear coats and ties or even suits. Suits! (My first day out here I thought someone in department must've died and that everyone was going to a memorial service.) But I don't fuss too much; I still prefer the bargain bin. It saves me both money and time. I just grab a bunch of clothes, and if it turns out I don't want something--well, I only paid 67 cents for it.

Ok, but it turns out that this only works if you're thin. If you're tubby, you run into two problems: the most critical one is that only other skinny guys seem to give their clothes to Goodwill. What's up with that? The other is, if you're a little tubby and you're wearing too-tight clothes from the dollar-a-pound bin, you look like a crazy person. Or worse, an aging indie rocker. It's sad but true.

Now, I am looking at our last grocery list:

Kale
Apples
Soy milk
Brown rice
Onions
Leeks
Watercress
Soap
Edamame
Stamps
Clementines
Lentils

How the hell did I get fat? The kale??? Too much watercress???? Well, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that "the gym" has become entirely notional. The gym is a place whose theoretical existence I do not deny. And very little more. Also, it's cold so I've been driving instead of walking.

Also, I eat pizza from the canteen more days out of the week than I should. Shhh...don't tell.

So for the New Year, I am going to stop being so tubby. Because I don't want to look like a crazy person. And I really don't want to have to start going to actual stores and trying shit on just to clothe myself.

So come back to bed, honey. I did some sit-ups.