The first step of the long surrender.....

I was chatting with Dances with Glue, one of my more regular customers, on Tuesday night about this, that, and the other. She gets her name due to her fondness for handicrafts and that sort of thing. Practically everything she was wearing had been handmade or altered or had something garish sewn into to it, from the crocheted coin purse with "attractive" frog on it to the wooly cigarette case adorned with sunny flowers. Yes because putting them in to a wooly "sock" makes them less deadly. Honestly birthday gifts from her must just be a delightful surprise, delightful like diarrhea.

mirror mirror on the wall

who's the grumpiest of them all....

We were just shooting the breeze whilst we waited for the kitchen to bodge together her tagliatelle. And when it comes to pasta they always bodge it together. It's as if they must leave it under the hot lamps for a minute or two before they send it, just so that it develops a nice thick skin. We were discussing all manner of nonsense from the state of the world to her difficulty in acquiring cheap fuzzy felt when she turned the conversation to my not smoking. We had enjoyed numerous conversations in the past about the best places to go for a smoke when in town and the rights of smokers in general. Obviously she knew I had quit.

"So how's it going then, cracked up yet?", she inquired with her usual forwardness.

"No, I feel fine. Eating a lot of fruit and nuts and that sort of thing."

"You've been eating a lot of something that's for sure" says she and pokes me with her pinky.

Obviously I was taken aback at her impertinent remark and assault on my pudgy person. I was at a loss for a good comeback. I did consider asking about her boyfriend who had recently done one but didn't. Familiarity does indeed breed contempt, and a waiter poked with a sharp little pinky is a waiter who will hold your pasta under the hot lamps until it has a skin thicker than a rhino. I was annoyed for the rest of the night. Mainly because it's true.

You see your average French waiter is tall, model tall with Bowie-esque cheekbones and has the ability to stare down at his own feet without having to both suck and push in his tum tum. This was particularly the case at the fancy Cafe Marly at the Louvre. Crikey they were better dressed than I was on the morning of my wedding, and none of them bore a haunting look of impending doom. Still I've always thought the staff shouldn't look better than the guests. The only way for that to happen with these guys is if a bus run of lovelies from the planet of beautiful people show up.

I was considering this and Dances with Glue's fickle fat pointing finger whilst staring at myself in the mirror on Tuesday night. Believe me this isn't something I do often. I normally throw a shirt over the looking glass to shield myself from the horror it reflects. This has been a tactic that has served me, if not the general public, well over the years as I've grown from a waif like teenager to a bald 36 year old with a spread more generous than your average deli counter. Little Miss Manuel enjoyed the view though, shit I think I went a bit gay for them too....for a bit.

Like watching a good car crash or Kerry Katona on a daytime TV show it was hard for me to take my eyes off the grotesque reflection. How it had happened was not in question, a fondness for pies, cakes and all the wonders of the pig. Why it happened was not in question, greed and the folly of youth. Ah I think back with fondness to the halcyon carefree days of last year when I could eat, drink, and smoke what I wanted without worrying about whether it was likely to keep me up all night with indigestion. Those days are over. How am I gonna shift it and return this once wondrous body (Ha! LMM) to it's former svelte like condition, now that is a question.

Eventually I gave up trying to suck my paunch back inside my body whilst trying to imagine what I might look like after some intensive dieting and climbed into bed with two mini twister lollies and a half bag of minstrels. As I lay in the dark developing strategies to lose weight without having to give up any of my favourite foods and eating habits or having to exercise I got a nasty case of heartburn. Christ the world is out to get me. I tossed and turned and beat my chest and in the end I had to get up again.

So as I sat on my bed in the dark with the light from the modem flickering off my hairy legs trying to belch the pain away I realised that this was only the beginning, the first step of the long surrender. Soon I will be one of those men who has to pop twenty pills in the morning just to keep his bowels under control and I'll have to takes swigs from a bottle of Milk of Magnesia after every meal as I complain about, "my guts." All my food will be boiled or steamed and be devoid of all flavour. And butter will be treated like my own personal kryptonite. I'll wanna order a rare steak with chips and LMM will suggest the "heart healthy" fish that comes with nothing but derision and dirty looks from the waiter.

Fuck I cant be arsed with getting old and having to change my ways. If anybody needs me I'll be eating butter straight from the tub and throwing hand grenades at the pretty thin people.

Or of course I could not overreact and maybe I should just not let Dances with Glue back in again........