Week 97:  up 2 pounds (-62.0 pounds total!)  Aw nuts!  Fear not, Hot Man Dieteers…this is just a rough spot.   A really rough spot.  But I believe I can do this, I believe I can bust past this, so I hope you all believe I can, too.  It’s hard, super mega uber hard…but I CAN do it…right?… 

Ahhh, my chitlins…good morning to you all!  In spite of today’s showing, I’m happy as a clam, a clam I say, for I am off on another weekend getaway with the RLHM (Real Life Hot Man) in but a few short hours.  It can’t come soon enough!  Talk about chomping at the bit…I’m all a-tither and RED TO GO!!  But first, we must Hot this place up…

I’m a day late (It’s May?  When the hell did it become MAY?!?!) but not at all a dollar short, for you kids have sent me some serious Hotness to pass onto the masses.  Word.  The best part?  We’ve got three pieces of Mancandy to delight the tongue in as many different ways.  Diversity is the name of this game, so I’m pretty sure at least one (if not all) will tickle you in all the right places. 

First off we have a request from ”NoTORious” in NYC.  He sent this request via comment a few weeks back (a perfectly reasonable way to hit up Her Hotness for some Hotness - use it, people, use it!) - “Can you get some James Franco up on this piece? Us gays love him. Or at least this gay does!  Holla!”  How can you argue with such logic?  Especially considering the talent this guy brings to the table.  Forget Spider-Man (dudes gotta pay the bills somehow, right?) and rent any or all of the following: Freaks and Geeks (SUCH a good tv show that NEVER should have been cancelled), Milk, Pineapple Express and James Dean.  Yessirree…this one is far, far too Mantastic to hog…gays AND gals, eat your heart out.  Consider yourself Manspired.  Franco - keep it up!

Next off is a gent whose name came up kinda out of the blue during my bone-crushing (soul-crushing?) workout last night with my Secret Weapon.  Ne-Yo has been on my short list for almost a year now, ever since I fell in love with “Because of You” and especially ever since I was racked with guilt over featuring his R & B dance phenom counterpart, one girlfriend bashing Chris Brown, first.  For shame, Her Hotness, for shame!!  Ne-Yo rocks, he’s a fantastic dancer, got one helluva voice, is a natty dresser and, gasp, loves women.  Like, looooovvvveeesssss women.  No lady slapping here.  Word.  That crap is bunk.  And totally un-Manspiring.  It’s just bullshit, right Ne-Yo?  You feel me?  Seriously, you wanna feel me…

Anyhoo, Ne-Yo appears this month in dedication to my abdominal muscles, as they currently remain in ICU.  (ICU in this case meaning “In Complete and Utter” AGONY!!!!!!!!!!!  My Secret Weapon is trying to kill me, ya’ll!  She’s trying to kill me!!!)

Rounding out today’s trifecta is a request from my good friend N. in Fountain Valley.  How good a friend is she?  Well, she introduced me to my RLHM for starters.  Love her!  But I digress.  Her request is Rivers Cuomo, lead singer of Weezer and the ultimate in geek Hotties (geek is her word, not mine…but hell, let’s call a spade a spade and this spade says the description is very apropos).  Her Hotness is a huge Weezer fan, it reminds me of my college years (I am now dating myself and Mr. Cuomo - eeck!), completely puts me back in my friend Anna’s car on the streets of Hotlanta, thinking that Rivers does look a bit like Buddy Holly and wishing that I looked like Mary Tyler Moore…and so even though I cannot, CANNOT, get past the beginner drum level of “Say It Ain’t So” on that blasted Rock Guitar Band Hero whatever video game that all these kids have these days, I will always have a soft spot for Weezer.  And Rivers.  Because he is indeed Hot.  Geek Hot.  Which is a really cool kind of Hot.  I like it.  It works.

Okay kids, I’m off like a prom dress.  Have a Mantastic weekend!!  I look forward to our next meeting with breathless Manticipation.  Our topic - SEX!!!!!!!  Wooo hooo!!!  See ya’ll next week.

Week 98:  up 1 pound (-61.0 pounds total!)  Aw nuts!  Nuts! 

Hola people!  Good day, good day, good day.  Friday.  O’ happy, happy day.

So…I totally have something really important to discuss with you guys, an entry that’s been brewing in me mind lo these past few weeks.  It’s been percolating, I’ve been musing, words are coming together like so many puzzle pieces.  I’ve made a discovery.  I’ve come to a realization.  The thing I thought I was here to become has instead morphed into the thing I’ve become even though I totally thought I was here to become something else, you know?  And the thing I’ve become is this totally random, pleasant discovery that life often offers, like when a weekend trip to Santa Barbara with your RLHM (Real Life Hot Man) get abruptly cancelled and you’re all disappointed and he’s all frustrated and you’re both tired but hey, looka there, instead you end up staying home and having one of the best weekends of your still very young and exciting relationship, you know?  Anyhoo, I’ve still got this Big Thing to tell ya’ll and I’m really looking forward to busting it out but I don’t want to ruin it by trying to write it today, this morning, right now, un uh, no way Jose, not when I’m on the tail end of a sleeping bender that would put insomniacs the world over in a jealous rage, nope, not gonna do it.  No.  After this week of too few nights with too little sleep (oh Cinco de Mayo, why, WHY must you fall on a weekday?!?!) I crashed out last evening like a mo fo, I made sweet, sweet love to Egyptian cotton, I stand before you with pillow markings still etched deep into my face and arms, my left ear still smarting from its unfortunate position under my comatose noggin, the tv still harping at me from across the room.  (Though now it is Meredith and Matt instead of Tina and Alec…yes, you’re right…I barely saw this side of 10 o’clock…whatever…)

And so ALL of this is to say that today shant be the day that you find out what it is that I’ve become whilst on the path of trying to become something else.  No.  Today is gonna be the day that I totally pull out this Big Thing and use it as a dangling carrot to get you kids to come back next week.  Yup.  Today is the day that you find out that today is a major cocktease.   

Today is also a good day to tell you this funny story - bought a Hot Man Diet tee for a good friend’s birthday present.  (Buy yours now!  http://www.cafepress.com/HotManDiet)  Ordered another one for myself at the same time since mine is showing it’s age a bit.  Bought a yellow one.  Size large.  Guess what?  TOO BIG!!  That’s right!  The sucker is too damn big.  Unless the tee is super fitted the tee size for Talent and Ambition and the rest of my upper torso is medium.  Word.  Good word.  Medium.  Yes!

I hope there are no hard feelings, kids.  I’ve become hyper-aware of how important sleep is to a healthy lifestyle.  The chances of me making good choices are SO MUCH stronger when I’m working on some solid zzzz’s…right now I need all the help I can get!  I’m still Manstracted!  Yikes!

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again (this time with feeling) - see y’all next week!!!!

Have a Mantastic weekend!

Hot Manspiration of the Week:  There were two holidays this week, kids.  Didya know that?  Two holidays.  Drinko, er, Cinco de Mayo was the first.  Woo hoo - margaritas, chips and salsa, good times, good times, muy bien, muy bien, muy bien!  And then…the day after Cinco de Mayo came a most important holiday, indeed…a day for us to give thanks to the heavens above…for all the charm…for all the talent…for all the benevolence…for all the humility…for all the humor…for all the heart stopping, pulse pounding, knees weakening major effing Hotness, Hotness, Hotness…for being one third of my Manspiration Dream Team, my Original Trifecta of Hotness…thank you, God, for George Clooney, born on the 6th of May, 1961…thank you for this dashing gent, this paragon of Manjoyment…thank you for letting us know that such a man can exist, for he must exist, otherwise how do we resist?!?!?!?  His is Manspiration so strong that it can take Manstraction (my current kryptonite), kick it in the balls and send it soaring into the ether…this is what I need, now more than ever…George…Clooney…George Clooney…holy crap…so freaking Hot…

Oh NO She DIDN’T!!!!

Oh no she didn’t come up in this piece up here today without the the entry she PROMISED last week, oh hells no!  Oh no she didn’t spend all that time blathering on and on about some revelation, some thing that she became while she thought she was supposed to become something else, only to oversleep this morning - OVERSLEEP?!?! - rendering her incapable of producing anything of quality.  She did not come up in this piece up here today and instead write one of those lame apology entries, the kind where she attempts to use humor and wit to sidestep the fact that oh hells no she is not gonna make everyone wait ONE MORE WEEK for that long brewing, forever stewing entry.  Oh.  Hells.  No!  Especially since this week, this week, FINALLY this week she has some good news to report weight-wise.  Oh no she didn’t forfeit her chance to shout from the mountaintops:

Week 99:  down 2 pounds (-63.0 pounds total!)

Oh hells no!!  Oh hells no!!  Not when it’s been, I dunno, almost 8 WEEKS since she last lost weight!  Not when she’s finally, FINALLY, put an end to the bleeding, got back on track, worked out like a mo fo, handled the hooch like a lady on a mission and, most importantly, got this Hot mess under CONTROL.  Finally.  Finally.  FINALLY!

And now what?  What?!  Is she gonna completely round out this circle of lameness by forgetting to provide a Hot Manspiration of the Week?  Is she gonna ignore the Hotness?  Or is she gonna offer some sort of pathetic consolation prize by shoving some Hot pic of that little cutie pie she keeps seeing in commercials on tv, the only dude Hot enough to make her even CONSIDER seeing that new Star Trek movie, that dude whose name she does not know but whose lips she cannot forget…you know the dude…

And so this is what we’re left with.  Another week to wait and watch and worry and wonder.  Another week…

Oh no she didn’t!!!

Week 101: up 2 pounds (-61.0 pounds total!)

Okay…deep breath…

Hi kids.  How ya doing?  Have a nice Memorial Day?  Me, too.  I went to a Dodger game and cooked out and oh my god I’m a hot mess ya’ll like a hot raging melting ball of fire mess over here losing my mind all my faculties good sense out the window not right not right not right hot mothertrucking mess somebody please what the what the what the?!?!??!?!? 

…deep breath…VERY deep breath…

There.  Kids, are you still with me?  Are you still here?  After all I’ve put you through, are you still hanging in there?  Well daggummit, I believe you are.  I am glad you are, so very, very glad for each and every one of you.  Especially now, because mama has been going through some stuff lately, some real low down dirty stuff, and I feel the need to be real for a second.  Like, really real.  Like, this is what happens when you stop being Hot and start being real.  That kind of real.  You ready?

I know I promised ya’ll a Major Revelation a few weeks back, a promise I know I have yet to deliver.  I still will, and when I do you will love it, I promise you.  As Martha would say, “It’s a Good Thing.”  It is.  But it is not right for today.  Not for today when I’ve stopped being Hot and started being real.

My life right now is very Dickensian.  I am having both the best of times (Real Life Hot Man good and only getting better, woo hoo!) and the worst of times (up 2 pounds?!?!  Has Her Hotness left the building?!) and this emotional see-saw is wearing me out.  The weekends I spend with my boyfriend, my “do you REALLY have to live an HOUR away?!” boyfriend, are all goodness and light - I am funny and carefree and energetic and full of life, I feel happy and calm and content.  But my weeks, my weeks are potboilers, my job leaves me listless and bitter, bitter that at 35 I am SO FAR off my path professionally that all hope feels gone, I can’t find time to write, I don’t even think about finding time to act, apart from the still quality time I spend with my Secret Weapon I am lucky to work in a hot second of cardio, my days are full, full, full and yet far from fulfilling, just busy, busy, busy, busy with crap, and worst of all, WORST OF ALL, the Pill is making me fat!!!!

Is it okay for me to be this honest?  C’mon, we’ve known each other how long?  Can I be real here for a second?  Because the mothertrucking birth control pill is making me fat!!!!  Otherwise why, how, why do I just want to eat, eat, eat?!?!  When did my mind warp so much to believe that an appropriate follow up to a foot long Italian sub was a Twix bar?  Huh?!?!  This is me, ME, the girl who managed to lose upwards of 50 pounds while still partying like a rock star.  This is Her Hotness!!  If I look back to when this steady climb upwards started there is only one obvious answer - the Pill!!!  Oh, I suppose one could also argue that I’m just gaining my “happy to be in a relationship” weight, but eff that!  I refuse to assign such lowness to my RLHM.  And please, so help me God please DO NOT tell me that “maybe my body is just adjusting”or “it’s time to step it up” or “gotta be accountable for every last morsel” because I will smash your face in.  And then I will eat it.  Not because I want to.  Only because the pill is making me fat!!!!!

So that’s it.  That’s me.  I’ve come to no conclusions, I’ve got no tidy ending for ya’ll save but two things:  1) Will Ferrell, who makes me howl with laughter and who delights me to no end and whose movies I look forward to with a rabid fan-nity unseen since my NKOTB years, and 2) this quote from Samuel Beckett that may just be the light at the end of this theater geek’s tunnel - “Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.”

Here goes.