2009 was a long year, and I went through quite a bit. Here are ten things that have stuck with me.
10. Men don’t make passes at boys that wear glasses.
7. Once you move away, it’s never the same.
6. Magicians never give away the trick.
3. In Mike Lawson Ro-Sham-Bo, Paper beats Computer every time.
1. No matter what anyone tells you, insulin is important.
In the spirit of the end-of-the-year top ten lists, I’ve compiled a few top tens for WhatSomeWouldCallLies.com. Here’s the first. The Top Ten Most Commented Blog Posts of 2009.
10. This is the one with my 12 of 12 from February 2009. (7 comments) – When I post 12 photos from the 12th day of the month, it seems to generate quite a few comments.
9. This is the one about Carl Karcher’s daughter. (7 comments) – A funny story about the time I met a fast-food mogul’s daughter on a plane.
8. This is the one about doctors. (8 comments) – Needed some friendly advice about choosing a doctor.
7. This is the one with my 12 of 12 from May 2009. (9 comments) – Another 12 of 12 post.
6. This is the one where I recover everything. (9 comments) – The resolution to some stupid hosting issues.
5. This is the one where I get a Zippo lighter. (10 comments) – I was so excited to get a free Zippo…but I have absolutely no use for it.
4. This is the one with a 12 of 12 for October 2009. (11 comments) – The 12 of 12 posts are pretty popular with the comments.
3. This is the one that you can steal. (11 comments) – I couldn’t figure out if I should tuck in my shirt or not, so I posted 2 pictures and asked for advice. Wouldn’t that make an amazing new website?
2. This is the one where I start over. (12 comments) – This was an angry post when I thought that I lost my entire archive of blog posts. I blogged about and tweeted about how much I hated my hosting company, and was contacted by a customer service person to resolve everything (and to shut up the negative google hits).
1. This is the one about possible Twitter avatars. (16 comments) – When you ask for advice, they give it. In this post I made a few new Twitter avatar options and asked for input. The record should show that I no longer use the avatar that I made for this post, and reverted back to the old one. 
P.S. Follow me on Twitter.
I’m finished with my Christmas shopping. This past weekend I went with my Sister and we finished buying for my parents. For each of my parents we included one package that is kind of a funny gift…but still something that they’ll use once or twice.
My Dad’s funny-but-useful gift is a branding iron for his steaks. Now when he’s out back grilling he can brand his initials onto the slabs of meat.
And for my mom, we got a Snuggie (also known as a Freedom Blanket or a Slanket). And where we were shopping they had a buy-one-get-one-free offer…that was impossible to refuse. So:
I’m always wrapping myself up in a blanket while watching TV. So it made sense to get the comfy brown one for myself. Now I have sleeves.
After the recent Grammy Nominations, I’ve heard a bit of criticism about Beyonce’s Single Ladies getting nominated. The primary criticism is that her song Get Me Bodied from the album B’Day is too similar to Single Ladies. If you don’t know the song, here’s Get Me Bodied:
And here’s Single Ladies:
There’s definitely a similarity. It’s all hand claps and “post-breakup sass” as Entertainment Weekly said. And Allmusic said that Single Ladies is a “dire ‘Get Me Bodied’ retreated.”
And Frank DeCaro said that the two songs are so similar that Beyonce doesn’t deserve a Grammy for Single Ladies. Which I don’t agree with. I guess that DeCaro’s opinion is that Single Ladies is a second chance. But I don’t care how many tries it took her, Single Ladies stands on its own. It’s catchy. The theme of female empowerment (which Beyonce does so well…to the left, to the left) has people comparing this song to Aretha’s RESEPECT and Gaynor’s I Will Survive. And the music video…hello? That choreography is responsible for the first huge “dance craze” of the internet.
Rolling Stone called this song the #1 song of 2008, and MTV called it #2. Who cares about Get Bodied. This song deserves a Grammy.
I just came across this piece of art at work, and it was too interesting not to scan and ask y’all what it means:
I enjoyed writing that confession yesterday about the shame involved with my musical preferences, that I thought I’d write another confession.
I had an “eating” disorder.
I put quotations around “eating” because it didn’t necessarily have anything to do with food. What I’m talking about is Diabulimia; Diabulimia is a disorder in which people with Type 1 diabetes deliberately give themselves less insulin than they need, for the purpose of weight loss.
It’s been a couple of years since this was the case, and it wasn’t entirely intentional. There were a few factors I can blame for the extreme weight loss. First, I was diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic, and my doctors tried to control my blood glucose levels using oral medications and diet and exercise. This “mistake” let me live a life where I was exercising a bunch, but still producing no insulin, and I lost a bunch of weight.
Another factor that I can “blame” is my lack of medical insurance. When I moved to Arizona, I started paying cash for all of my doctor’s visits and medicine, or simply doing without if the cash wasn’t there.
And the last factor, and probably the strongest one that led me toward Diabulimia: the desire to be thin. I made bad choices. I’m a logical person, and deep down somewhere inside of my newly thin body, I knew that skipping insulin could have some really grave effects on my long-term health, but those fears were pushed aside…achieving thinness overrides the logic of medical complications.
Look at this Before/After shot I took in November 2007:
Yikes!
I’m taking care of myself now. And I’ve put on a few pounds. But I’m not back to where I used to be. I’ll be honest, I still sometimes think to myself damn, I’m getting big again. And then I have to talk myself into shooting up with insulin. It would be easy to stop taking insulin for a bit just to drop a few pounds. But the complications are scary:
Being fat and alive is better than being skinny and dead, right? My goal is to become as healthy as possible, while sticking to my doctor’s plan. I’ll be writing my New Year’s resolutions soon, and I’m sure the words “insulin” and “blood glucose testing” and “exercise” will be making apperances.
Another confession done.
Wikipedia Link: Diabulimia
I was about 11 years old when the movie Aladdin came out. And around that time my dad used to take us to the Tower Records on Beach Boulevard in Anaheim every few weeks and allow us to spend a few bucks on cassette singles.
My sister picked out November Rain by Guns N’ Roses, and I picked out The Whole New World from the Aladdin soundtrack.
And my sister started making fun of me.
To be honest, I could have picked out anything and my sister, who was 15 at the time, probably would have found something to mock…but for some reason that ridicule stuck with me.
“Why do I want something from a musical, and not Nirvana’s Nevermind?”
Since then, my taste in music hasn’t changed too much. I like musicals.
For some reason, however, I’m still kind of embarrassed of enjoying this “genre.” See…I even quotation mark it to denote that it’s not a true genre.
When I’m listening to the Wicked soundtrack in the car, it’s usually played a little lower than the normal radio. What if someone pulls up next to me and hears?
I caught the young receptionist listening to Glee Cast Radio on Pandora the other day, and we bonded over our love of all things…well, dramatic. We both like the music of musicals, and will do what we can to obtain the latest versions of our favorite shows when they are revived on Broadway. This weekend she plans on having a Disney movie marathon at her house. And it felt good to find something that was like me.
So, this is a declaration. I like musicals. Fuck you.
