the letter B

this just in:


Bloated Blog Babe Bemoans Boldly Burgeoning Buttocks


or how about:


Bedridden Blogger Blames Bulging Belly


The bedridden part technically isn't true. (I could get up - if only I wanted to). But it certainly conveys my melodramatic bent at the moment, so I'm going with it. I feel very Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, a movie I have to admit I've never seen all the way through. I know the formula though. Hand on feverish (or not) brow, lip quivering and bosom (all six of them by now) heaving - now that's melodrama.

I spent a fair amount of Friday laying around and doing not a heck of a lot. One of the things I've been attempting to do the last few days is to get caught up with my blog reading, since I was falling further behind by the day. As I've surfed, I've noticed a trend. There are quite a lot of us complaining (either in posts or comments) about how bloated, overfed and disgusted we are by this stage of the festivities. A common theme is a fridge full of leftover "holiday" food that no one wants to eat anymore and a belly that would not look out of place on a woman being told by her OB to start pushing.


Of course the reason this rings such a bell with me is because I am the Bloated Blogger. I've got the bellyache from hell and the only reason I can come up with for it is that for the last couple of weeks I've consumed anything in front of me that hasn't been nailed firmly down. Holiday buffets at work. Chocolate. Champagne. Christmas dinner. Chocolate. Chili. Key lime pie. Chardonnay. Tamales by the ton. Falling down gingerbread houses. Pfefferneuse. Peppermint anything.

If you put a picture of me on a board next to a picture of a garbage scow, three out of five people couldn't tell the difference. And the other two would be laughing too hard to express an opinion.

Thursday night, as the final straw, we went to dinner at the birthday boy's restaurant of choice - a Mongolian BBQ. To make it even better, we realized as we got there that, except for leftover candy and chips, none of us had really eaten all day. So we got there starving and inhaled.


Can I just tell you that this was a mistake? I woke up in the middle of the night convinced I was having some major cardiac event because I was miserable. My belly was killing me, I felt like I couldn't breathe, I couldn't find a comfortable position to save my soul. I flopped around for hours. Nothing worked.


In the morning I said to the Film Geek

I think I'm having a heart attack.

He said

We're going to the hospital right now

I said

(Oh, come on, people. You all know what I said)

I said

Like hell. If I fall down I want to go to the ER in the next town over. Shave my legs before you call the paramedics and tidy up the kitchen while you're at it. Offer each of them a beer to drive me to the next hospital over. Offer the whole six pack if it comes to that. Under NO circumstances do ANY of my coworkers see me naked. Got it?


I have mentioned that I'm a hypochondriac, right? Oh, yes, I am indeed. And while the FG knows and expects it, heart pain isn't normally something I would screw around with. So we argued for a while and he called me a pig headed something or other I can't recall and then I went and laid down. Melodrama aside, I really didn't feel well.

Then my paranoia really set in. It was just like my father. He had a massive heart attack in his sleep a few years ago and died instantly. Out of nowhere, as the whole family said. Well, except that he smoked four packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day for forty years. And had high blood pressure. And type II diabetes. And was overweight. And felt that a meal without beef wasn't a meal. And never exercised a day in his life. And internalized all his stress.

I'm a lifelong non-smoker with low blood pressure and no diabetes. I exercise, although probably not enough. My BMI is in normal range, though barely. (Or at least it was before this holiday season). I do not care for meat in the slightest. And god knows I don't internalize anything.

See? Exactly the same. (Lovely insight into how my brain works, wouldn't you say?)

By bedtime I still felt rotten, but at least I knew I had company. I was writing this post and trying to come up with a word that rhymed with self-induced anorexia when my insides rumbled and what should escape but a huge

buuuurrrrppppp. (and it felt good).

Is it January yet?