Does This Stress Make Me Look Fat? (Chapter Ten: Hobby Whores)

More from Anthony Rhody’s book serial: “Does This Stress Make Me Look Fat?”

I still have aspirations.

Plus, I like saying “ass-pirations.”

One of them is to start a club for procrastinators…

One of these days.

Also, someday I hope to build an orphanage for children whose parents are dead inside.

I’d like to come up with a new invention – as opposed to an old invention.

Here’s one: self-driving baby strollers – for babies that can be trusted to go from one place to another by themselves, without getting into trouble, such as stopping off at the liquor store or panhandling.

Have always wished I could play the piano.

I have “pianist envy.”

I did play the fluke for a short time but that was just an unlikely chance occurrence.

So, obviously I have hobbies.

Wishful thinking is a hobby, right?

Told my brother on the phone the other day, “You need a hobby.”

He said, “I have hobbies.”

Because I’m always trying to help, I said, “Attempting suicide is not a hobby.”

I still consider myself a writer and I would be a successful one except that the Writer’s Guild of America has been plotting against me.

Joan Didion once said:

“I write to discover what I think.”

These days, people text to discover how long they can go without thinking.

I’m going to start something I call The Bamboo Network, where you just sit and watch bamboo grow all day.

It’ll be incredibly relaxing.

And no pandas around to eat all the bamboo!

Stupid pandas…

Once, during a thunder and lightning storm, my roommates and I were doing laundry.

Just as we got the giant load of dry, staticky clothes upstairs to fold, the lights went out.

We were able to fold the clothes anyway by the light of the sparks of static electricity flying and popping between us.

It was awesome.

Quite painful but awesome.

After New Years Day I like to go out and draw chalk outlines around dead Christmas trees discarded at the curb.

It seems as though I have not been getting the memos from the Council of Political Correctness for some time now. I am always using terms and phrases that have been deemed offensive or not sensitive enough.

I blame my Spam filter. I want to fall in line, I really do.

Actually, my favorite hobby is to call the politically correct out on their silly
zealotry.

Like, I once saw a sign in the window of a social services agency not far from here that said:

THIS IS A HATE-FREE ZONE.
WE WILL NOT PUT UP WITH
INTOLERANCE OF ANY KIND!

I stepped inside and told the receptionist I was saddened and that I thought their sign was insensitive to people who were never taught intolerance and then she started crying and then I started pretending to cry and then we hugged and then I left before things started to get weird.

According to the politically correct it is no longer acceptable to use the word…

“Disoriented.”

They say it is racist, and demand that we now use the term “disAsianated” instead.

Also, it’s no longer okay to say “fire retardant”; and it’s now “cave person” not “caveman” – goddamit!

I just saw a reference somewhere to the “LGBTQA” and honestly don’t know what the “A” stands for.

I can think of a couple possibilities; both words start with “a-s”.

Whatever it stands for I am relieved that those people are now included in whatever it is they needed to be included in.

I’m glad that the A’s pleaded long and hard enough to finally be heard and hope against hope that their plight of exclusion is now over.

No, seriously…

And now, onto the W’s and the X’s, for Christ’s sake.

Yes, Black Levis Matter!

So do khakis, dress pants, cotton slacks and chinos.

Everybody needs pants.

Non-Asian people who insist on eating with chopsticks when there are forks within reach, crack me up.

If you think eating with chopsticks is hard, try eating with Chapsticks.

I try to keep in mind: If a hideous mark or a scar appears on the skin by itself, it’s called a blemish or a lesion.

If it’s put on there with ink, on purpose, by a person it is called a tattoo.

To review:

Lesions bad; tattoos good.

Speaking of which – I think all tattoos should be in braille.

That way, blind people can enjoy them too.

I don’t like layer cakes.

I find layer cakes are disturbing on so many levels; So are parking garages.

One time, I came to in a parking garage in the dead of night, with a horrible hang-over, not even knowing what level I was on or how to get out.

It wasn’t that I had parked my car there. I don’t drive!

It was so creepy it made the hair on the back of my tongue stand up.

Because of global warming the 6° of Kevin Bacon idea has now become – like – 8° of Kevin Bacon.

Still not hot enough to fry bacon.

After some nimrods decided that corporations are people, I saw a sign at a protest rally that said:

“Hey, corporations, if you’re going to rape the Earth, could you at least wear a condom?!”

Everyone told me I did a good job on it.

I find politics very sexy – especially things like “bound delegates” vs. “unbound delegates; and this “internal polling” I’m always hearing about.

Sounds dangerous and fun.

And who is this Jerry Mandering guy?

He seems very unpopular.

I don’t even want to know what a “4-pollster bed” is.

Probably comes into play in some sort of kinky Republican version of an orgy.

Then there’s something called “margarine of error.”

I’m guessing it has something to do with that soy product, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better.

Author: Anthony Rhody

My name is Anthony Rhody. I was born in a small midwestern town when I was very young. I am a recovering Catholic and lapsed homosexual. Henceforth I spend a lot less time on my knees. I was a film major at Columbia in Chicago after my career in high school ended in scandal and must-deserved notoriety, plus a diploma. After two years of life in a seventeen-story dorm I was told I should go to the west coast (true story). Since then I have been a screenwriter primarily and a playwright on rare occasion. When I realized a couple years ago I had too many notes on humor and funny schtick to ever use in screenplays I decided to try to see how many of them I could throw together as a book of humor. "Does This Stress Make Me Look Fat?" is that book, not a medical journal on over-eating. I don't have any children and as far as I know, no sexual partners. I have lived in San Francisco since before there was a homeless problem - sorry, before so many folks were home free.