June 2005 Archives

Tomorrow I have to make an appointment to get the cat neutered. Then it's War of the Worlds, baby!

Ribcage may come two days late this week. I don't know. For explanation, see above!

That's all for now!

I need to scream.

Speaking of Florida. Is there anything that doesn't require a down-payment anymore? How in the hell do "normal" kids move out of their parent's house?

Apartment Fees
application fee
reservation fee
non-refundable deposit
first month's rent
non-refundable pet deposit x2

Electric deposit.

Long distance phone deposit.

Cable installation, cablebox deposit, cable modem deposit.

Car- down payment, tax, tag and title and who knows what. INSURANCE.

Actually, I'm chipping this stuff down. Looking at an apartment with electric and water included. It's a hundred dollars overpriced, but I'll use more than that in electricity, I'm sure. They'll waive the application fee, a hundred of the deposit and half the first month's rent, then ten dollars off a month--all because Elise is seasonal at Disney.

And screw the phone company... I'll go the Vonage route.

Tuesday, we move to the new house up here.

Wednesday, my father's book is locked and going to the galleys. I don't know what I'll do with myself. Hopefully, get back to work on my own book in between notarizing and faxing lease agreements and such.

Ribcage may come late this week... still not sure if cable will be installed in the new house in time.

Claustrophobia on Cocoa Beach

The next few months should be very interesting for Emily and Jonathon. This week's story officially begins a plot-line that I've been kicking around for some time. That's all I'll say though.

My family is moving on Tuesday, which means that I have to re-edit and approve Simon and Schuster's edits on my father's entire 275 page book and pack in the next six days! Hooray!

So I went ahead and did just that. Only I did it twice.

Once, a before picture from when I weighed 240 pounds. I had already lost 60ish pounds by that time, mind you.

And the second photo is a current one.

Currently... the before picture is a 3.2 out of 10. The after... a 9.1.

So you see, my experiment worked.

Oh, and I hate this house and it's prehistoric wiring. Oh, that doesn't much matter anymore.

I should say that I just had to turn around because Sedna was chewing on a hole in my closet door. Chewing on shards of wood. Was it ever loud too! Sounded like something wooden was collapsing, I swear.

I haven't been updating, yes. Jeremy's whole world flew in to see him play the lead in a local play. The play was great. He was great. We all fight for the bathroom with spears. Nine people and one bathroom in this house, yes, Lord of the Flies comes to mind. But I guess that doesn't much matter anymore.

We're moving out of this house next week! If you wonder where I went to, it's probably just that my computer is in a box somewhere. This month is insane, you know?

I had a secret and that secret was all-ecompassing if you remember. Now that secret is going to be printed on the title page... so I guess it's not that big of a secret anymore. That I've been working on my father's book for the last month. Basically, I take two thousand pages of my father's notes and write the first forty pages of text before the recipes according to them. Then my father writes 125 recipes and I edit them for grammar and spelling and nonsense. I'm in the third and final revision with Simon and Schuster right now actually. Everything is peachy. June 29th the book is locked and I can get right back to my own book. Except that we're moving. And then... well...

You know, I've got some gall! I stayed unemployed for an entire year, convinced Elise to move up here and swore I would make my writing into a paying gig at only twenty years old. And you know, it actually happened with my father's book. E and I now have the money to move back to Florida. It's not much money, but it's more than I'd make in a year of bussing tables.

So now we're probably moving twice in a row. First with my family, down the street. Then with the cat, down to Florida. There is much sad debate over where my dog will be staying. I haven't made a decision on that yet. This new house my parents just got has a fenced in backyard. My new house will be an apartment.

My parents' new house, it's almost twice as big as the one we're in now, but the same price! Two stories. Three bathrooms instead of one! Central fucking air conditioning instead of loud wall units that hardly work. Central vacuum outlets, even! The house is one giant vacuum, waiting for you to plug a hose into it! I wonder if that means I can steal my mother's vacuum and bring it with Elise and I to Florida. Gosh, I'd hate to have to buy a vacuum. You just never picture yourself having to purchase a vacuum. Anyway, yes... this new house is amazing. The living room is four of our current ones. There is an eight person hot tub, even! The stove in the kitchen is the kind of stove you see on MTV Cribs... this slick, brand new gas stove where half of it is actually a real, indoor grill. Not some George Foreman indoor grill, but an indoor grill with flames coming up from under it.

So I'd say that E and I should stay and enjoy this new house for a little bit, but the basement is but a workshop. Unlivable. We'll be living in the den until further notice. The den, however, is probably bigger than this basement and has fifteen foot ceilings like a gigantic loft apartment, but it has no door and the living room is right there and we'll never get sleep with my brother having people over until five in the morning. Not to mention, my parents deserve to HAVE their den.

So it's next month for Florida. A few people have asked me why now? It has to be now. I'm twenty years old, living with Elise, have been with Elise for one year come Wednesday and I now have a formidable amount of money in the bank. That money isn't going to last forever, so what better to spend it on than getting out on my own?

I will probably have to pick up my old job bussing tables. My life coming full circle! Well, except for my own place, car, furniture... except for Elise.

There is a new Ribcage story up, right now. Boy is that refreshing. So that's what those other six days of the week besides Wednesday are for! Writing a story that you then post on Wednesday, instead of not writing a story and freaking out on Wednesday.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. This week's story is titled, Ms./Mrs./Mizz E. C. Page and isn't that delightfully confusing?

This story got nothing but rave reviews from Anthony. Upon reading it, he declared, "That was a great story about bullshit!"

See, that's not what you say about a story about respect!

Frank Veronsky is doing the cover of my father's new book. He'll also be taking a portrait of the family. Another free family portrait by a famous photographer! Who else can say that their family portrait was taken by a man that's photographed Shakira, Scott Stapp, Christopher Reeves, Nelly, Lewis Black, Tara Reid, the Crank Yankers puppets and Dean Cain. Notice how Dean Cain is mentioned after the Crank Yankers Puppets.

Anyway, cool stuff.

That said, there is a new story over at Ribcage now!

Elise said that I should write about something that I've never touched on before. Umm, I think I've met that criteria quite well.

Plus, damn I've been meaning to bring that seahorse back.

Photographed six hundred times.

It felt like the scene in Lost in Translation, with the photographer asking me to hold a strawberry up to my face. No, not like I'm going to eat it, but like I'm presenting the strawberry. And smile. And aim your cheekbones this way. And drape your leg over this chair.

Sounds sexual, I know.

Regan found her way into a few shots. Here's to hoping that it's one that's used, but the odds of that are slim. That shutter was going off continuous for three hours straight. Luck of the draw, I guess. I'm just praying that they don't use the strawberry photos. I'm just going to go back to sleep now.

They ask me, "What was it like being overweight in school?" and they don't want me to respond with, "It was terrible!" They want me to say, "Being overweight in school was terrible!" Everything I say to cameras is in the form of soundbites. I think I finally know how to make them happy. I think it's because Food Network kicks my ass with the filming of the show. Everything else is a cakewalk.

Food Network started this show, Food Network's Next Big Star. I thought it was fantastic, because they're running these people through the ringer, the same ringer I was thrown into. The show seems like they're pushing harder to make a good reality show--but they're not! So many little things that these people had to grasp for the first time, I was laughing my ass off! They at least had the span of filming to grasp it... I was thrown in with only a quick run-through. One guy was having the hardest time talking as he chopped vegetables and it made my day. One guy said to cook chicken all the way through because of salmonella, which sounds helpful but I knew that Food Network wouldn't like that. They don't like you to say anything negative or gross in the kitchen. Anyway, it's a good show, if only because I've lived it!

Fox's Hell's Kitchen is a better show. Probably the best thing on television right now but I don't want to get into it. How could you not love a show where a chef is looking for somebody to run his new restaurant and when one of the contestants brings him an overcooked dish, he shoves it food first into the guy's chest and says, "Go fuck yourself."

Today's filming was for that German television show Taff. I had no idea what to expect but I was almost certain that the crew would speak little in the way of English. I was mostly wrong. They were German, but they spoke English and were extremely nice people. Film crews are always warming, especially the interviewers. The interviewers are the nicest people you'll ever meet. But that's because they're about to ask you fucked up questions on camera. Cameramen are always sarcastic. That's the dynamic, I suppose. And for some reason, I always feel like the cameraman is sleeping with the interviewer. That's another dynamic. I guess a two person film crew like we had today becomes a relationship after so long because they always have to be on the same page. Still, they disappeared into their vehicle for like thirty minutes earlier, so maybe my hunches are correct.

We were supposed to film in Wild Oats beautiful produce section, but of course the film crew's itinerary was completely different. They didn't want to show us purchasing healthy fresh foods, they wanted to see us shopping like we used to. Buying all the junky crap we could find and then talking to the camera about how disgusting that was. Meanwhile, Wild Oats doesn't sell junky crap, so they had to go to a different store and then stock bags of junk food on Wild Oats' shelves for us to grab. So now we feel really bad. Not only did we not show off how beautiful their store was, after they made sure the produce section was in perfect order, but we placed junk-food that they would never sell on their shelves and showed that off instead! Still, they never show the name of the store and even if they did... there are no Wild Oats' in Germany.

Speaking of Germany, that made the shoot a little easier as well. Nobody I know, nobody in America will ever see what we filmed today. Hours and hours of filming today. I don't even know if my father's book is for sale in Germany. I'm not even sure why we need the German exposure! But who knows... Maybe we're the next Hasselhoff!

Speaking of things America will never see, tomorrow morning a magazine photographer from the UK will be here to take a shot of the entire family outside my house. Two foreign shoots in two days! Crazy. Crazy that I have to wake up early two days in a row. I'm a bastard, yes. But it's been a few days since I had a good night's sleep. Won't be so bad, though. At least they won't be asking questions.

I'm starting to resent the questions. The fishing for drama. They say to my mother, "We're just going to ask you one quick question now." Then they hit her with like five questions, each more horrible than the first.

"When did you first realize that you were a fat family?"
"How did it feel going out in public as a fat family?"
"How did you feel about the fact that your kids followed in your footsteps and ended up so big?"

I had to sit next to my mother as they asked the questions. I had to watch her answer the question. I would look at the interviewer and she was all smiles. I wanted to stand up and walk out of the shot.

These are great people. Really, really great people. I just hate their job. I don't hate going on television, I just hate that the only way to get ratings is to focus on the negative, always.

They did have my parents do one really funny thing. They had them climb into my father's old fat pants, one person in each leg and then pull them up and button them. And they fit... and there was still room, so I jokingly pretended like I was stepping in. I hope that makes it into the show. We'll see. We'll also see how our German voiceover actors sound! That should be hilarious. Maybe I'll make a song out of the German translation of my interview.

Sweet-Tart-Like Baby Pacifiers by Candy Crate... 5lb bag

Who asked for this? Babies? They're a choking hazard, so that's going to limit their market for pacifier shaped tiny tarts considerably. As far as I can tell, their entire market is teens that are hocked up on E. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they taste exactly like Sweet-Tarts, which is to say... like rock hard sugar doused in citric acid. So it would be safe to say that the only thing original that they're here to offer is their pacifier shape. In that, they have failed. I'm seeing little stoplights. In fact, they could double-market these things toward the stoplight-loving market, which I am almost sure is almost as large as the pacifier-loving market. The good news is, each five pound bag comes with three thousand candies and three free cavities.

Giant Gummi Brains by Candy Tech

No need for review... Francisco Ferreiro already has me covered with his customer review on Amazon.com...

I caught my six-month old son with one of these "gummi brains" last night. He had a wild look in his eye as he held the brain against his mouth with both hands, slowly ripping and tearing away at its red gummi flesh. I stood before him shocked at this public display of pure animalistic id, before he could continue to gorge upon the brain I grabbed the first thing I could find, a small wooden spoon, and whacked the brain away from out of his hands. Undaunted he crawled towards the brain, desperate to suck out more of its sweet juice. I kicked it away. His attention turned to me. He crawled toward me, and looked at me with that look, oh God, that wild look of despair. I hit him with the spoon again but he kept coming. I hit him again, oh God I hit him again. Finally....he stopped. Beaten, he crawled back toward the hallway in search of that woman he calls "mother." Alone in the room with the brain I was overcome by an urge like no other I've felt before. I peeked at the gummi brain. A small red brain lying on the black and white tiles of my kitchen. I reached toward it with my small wooden spoon and quickly flicked it toward me. Peering at it, I found myself nibbling at it before I had time to think. And then I devoured it, sweet jesus, I devoured it. I devoured that brain like ive never eaten before in my life. Overwhelmed by a feeling of intense guilt I passed out on the kitchen floor, the brain inside me. Inside me forever. THREE STARS.

SUPER artificially flavored MELON CANDY by Uwajimaya

Uwajimaya, makers of such popular Japanese candies as ChocoBaby and Grill-A-Corn, which I hope and believe isn't candy at all come out with this vague treat that I can only describe as, vague. Amazon.com has thankfully cleared things up with this description... "Each melon candy is a melon hard candy." Ahh... okay, so I shouldn't give a shit.

Then it said that it also comes in cola flavor, which was perplexing as the name of the candy is Super Melon Candy, but a quick search pulled up this, "It's So Wonderful Candy."

Penis Gummies

I wasn't going to put this on here... I mean, for the sake of the children. But then I read the Amazon customer reviews.

TASTES LIKE REAL PENISES... YUMMMMMMMMMMMMM, May 19, 2005 Reviewer: Musical Schlong Face "I Am Circumsized" (Happyland, USA) I love this because it has an authentic penis flavor. Mmm mmmm Penilicious!!!!!!!!

Large Candy Pebbles

My teachers tried to tell me that rocks were not candy, but see how they were wrong?!

EDO: The Original Candy Dough

My teachers tried to tell me that Play-Dough wasn't candy, but see how they were wrong?! "This edible dough candy molds just like the kids favorite playdough with the added bonus of being 100% edible!" Also great for absorbing bacteria on hands, desks, the ground and anywhere else your kid plays with it before eating.

All right, that's all for now! I've learned a valuable lesson today and that is that Amazon.com needs to clean up their damn candy section! I mean, besides gummi private parts, I passed over banana flavored condoms and this candy-necklace-esque g-string.

very young girls sneak fucking

Why that brings me up, I do not know. What that guy was looking for exactly, I don't quite understand. Sneak fucking is a new term to me.

This book by a one Wendy McClure has thrown somewhat of a large wrench into my creative cogs. You see, I'm Not the New Me, is seemingly brave and seemingly hilarious. I say "seemingly" because I haven't quite read it yet. But I did purchase it! And we all know that upon purchasing, the book-skimming fairies give you some of the book's powers straight off.

Anyhow, this book... which I thought was a memoir of a woman that lost a ton of weight and became this online inspiration to the masses... iti's written so damn well. The woman's a poet, a poet with a dirty mouth... so her prose can be quite brilliant at times. I say, from what I've skimmed through. Upon further inspection, I don't believe she is this great big success story, but instead became an unintentional inspiration to the masses.

Either way, she makes me want to be even more honest with my book. More adult. Heck, maybe the next go-around with a publisher, they won't suggest the Young Adult imprint. I want to say FUCK and I still want teens to read it! Whether I actually have a need and or will say fuck, I don't know... but it would be nice to know that that option is on the table.

It would be nice to remove most all of my diet speak and sell this thing as a bonafide memoir... minus the word memoir of course. It would be nice to remove the four or so chapters that hinge on diet talk at the moment. I'll put them up at christianstella.com or something so that people can still read them. Because they still might help a few people.

But I have this quivering fat kid gone skinny and famous story that need not be bogged down by the specifics of ketones and low-carb dieting.

Of course, I will still have choice words for my old friend corn syrup. I have no intention of removing my thoughts on food products and the like. Just the boring diet stuff. My diet-book bug has been relieved recently. I am free and clear and under control.

I am ready for a little bit of an overhaul. And I have Wendy McClure to thank. Her book could suck wind, who knows. But the idea of her book and the first few pages have been inspiration enough.

Well, we haven't been on television in a long time. The whole family, I mean. Elise hasn't been around for any big television shoots, you know.

And now we're filming a whole bunch of material for that German news-magazine show Taff in Wild Oats Market... you know, where Elise works.

She's off that day, but she'll be with us as a whole camera crew invades the store to film my family grocery shopping. In front of her co-workers. In front of her managers. (With permission, of course.) But still, this stuff always makes a scene.

I've got one of my all-natural peanut butter and sugar-free jelly on gluten-free brown rice waffle sandwiches and I'm watching poker. So, yeah... life is good.

I met two writing deadlines today. One was probably the most important in my life and the other was my Ribcage story. The fact that I even equate Ribcage to the first deadline, the secret deadline... that's passion, baby. One isn't making a dime and the other... well, then. One last, big, secret deadline to go on this thing. Two weeks and I'm home free. Two weeks and it's back to work on my book. Wish I could say more, maybe in time. Maybe never.

I have this new passion for my book, you know. Damn if that isn't completely off topic from this post, though. I'll have to explain that some other time. I'm really in no position to put any creative focus on my book at the moment anyway.

This post is really about piss.

But this post started with Tom Everett Scott playing No Limit Hold 'Em with Jesus, so let's start there. Where I originally started.

I've just finished my waffle-thing and I'm lounging back and I'm just waiting to see if Tom Everett Scott will ever buy into a damn hand, and then Elise is screaming.

Must be a house centipede. Maybe a spider. She screams because of bugs all the time, you know. She's going to want me to move the bed aside and chop a house centipede in half with the broom like last time. It must be that.

But the poker game!

So I open the basement door and call down to her. I'm asking her if it's a bug, because I want to be prepared for what I'm going to have to kill.

I was going to have to kill the cat.

Elise says, "You've got to shut your computer down! You have to turn your computer off." And then, "I heard a pop."

None of this makes sense. Either does the smell of burning wires. It took me a whole minute to get down there and there are wires burning. It's clear to smell.

The power strip that everything that is my computer is plugged into is smoking. The red on/off switch is going beserk. Shocks are sparking under the red plastic of the thing. And there's this crackling sound. More pops.

Remember when I said that I wanted to write an essay entitled, My Cat Pees on Computer Cables? Well, maybe I was just waiting for a day like today. Some heart-pounding ending. Because today he peed for all the cookies, I tell you. He peed right on that damn power strip.

If his spray had been just an inch over, he'd be peeing right into the plugs for my computer tower, my monitor. My computer would've blown up. Surely it would have. It would've snapped, crackled and popped the way the power strip had.

Thank God for small favors. Thankfully he decided to pee on that red on/off switch. Maybe in my essay, I'll examine the allure of such a red, glowing switch. Why, in the world of cats... a red, glowing switch is just screaming to be sprayed. Who knows.

I do know that this shocking disaster of a power strip was thankfully plugged into an extension cord that was plugged into a socket a safe distance away and with a tug, all was at an end.

Do you know what it's like to see the thing your entire creative life is plugged into just sparking and smoking and not knowing what the fuck you can do to stop it? That at any moment your expecting computer fireworks and tons of data lost?

I need a backup hard-drive and I need it yesterday. All of my writing backups are all a few weeks out of date. Much of my musical bullshit and Elise's art isn't backed up at all. I will have to buy a spindle of CDrs tomorrow. I am now paranoid.

Mostly paranoid by the fact that, though this catastrophe was averted... that still won't stop the stupid cat from peeing on my computer cords. And it's getting ever-increasingly worse as well! He did it twice today! Yes, once even before he peed for all the cookies. I would say that he's done it a dozen times in the past month.

What the hell is wrong with this cat? He was awesome for a good four months. Never peeing anywhere, save twice in the laundry room, but that was understandable because the laundry room is the off-limits oasis that he can only sneak into.

Better to have loved and lost or never at all bullshit right here.

Added to the long list of errands to run tomorrow is now the purchasing of a new power strip. Then the cleaning of all the rubber parts of my computer cords with a damp cloth. Then, the reassembly of my computer.

Then he'll just pee again. I have to create some kind of cat-proof cord system now. Sit the powerstrip between two nails on the wall or something, because this can never happen again. That smoke, that crackling... if we weren't home, surely a fire was to come.

That cat's balls, which are so small we never even knew he was a he, have to go. It's sad but true. So if anyone has any cat neutering stories, do tell. Did your cat pee on computer cables when he had balls and did he stop peeing on computer cables after his balls were removed?

I'll be going now. Signing off from Jeremy's computer.

World Poker Tour is still paused in the other room. Time to see if Tom Everett Scott ever plays a fucking hand.

There is a new story over at Ribcage tonight.

Stolen Hearts of the Guerilla Gardener

All of the stories within it are true. Only one of them happened to us, of course. Yes, that did happen to us. No, not the part at the end with the car, but the bullshit part. The guerilla gardener part. Yes.

People are assholes, I swear. Can't leave pretty flowers in the ground.