Since I am the Tattooed Vegetarian I feel compelled to tell you that the Intercontinental Buffet does not have a vast offering for the non-meat-eating minorities amongst us. If you are one of those people who says they're vegetarian but eat fish and chicken every week, then you're all set. Loads of seafood. Though I occassionally eat our little sea creature friends, I didn't last night. This is probably because I'm not completely down with the entire notion of the "buffet." It's just way too much food. It's like an invitation to get too full and too drunk. But what can you do? I always feel like a jackass eating salad at a buffet. It kind of defeats the purpose of buffet style dining if you have four plates of salad*. Instead I ate about 3/4 of a pound of cheese for dinner and drank many flagons of the free-flow Bordeaux in order to feel less guilty about wasting a $60 ticket on cheese (and a big blog of Tiramisu.
*Plus I learned a valuable lesson about this many years ago. In my younger, less experienced days, I bought a bag of salad and some Paul Newman Ginger Miso salad dressing (which is the most delicious non-homemade dressing I've ever had). I brought it home and made myself a big salad. I ate it, enjoyed the hell out of it and decided to have more. Next thing I knew, the bag o' salad was gone and I was satisfied. Later that evening, I went and had a few beers down at the local pub. While I was there I got to chatting with a woman I worked with. Well one thing led to another and we walked back to my place. Things were starting to get interesting when the beer/salad combo dropped. I politely excused myself and walked across the hall to the bathroom. It wasn't pretty nor was it quiet. This happened FOUR times over the next hour. Strangely it didn't work out with me and the young lady.
We managed to drag our asses home and I promptly fell asleep on the couch. An undefinite amount of time passed when Reyna suggested we move upstairs to bed. I complied. This morning my stomach feels like I washed down a cinder block with a gallon of battery acid. I think I can safely say that I've never felt fatter than I do right now.
And that's what I really want to discuss here. When we lived in Vegas, I was doing my best to maintain my only slightly out of shape figure. But we moved, and I left my bicycle hanging in the garage of the house. After ten months I've watched my waistline expand to grandpa proportions. Is there anything worse than running into someone you haven't seen in awhile and having them go, "Wow! You've gained some weight!" Actually there is. Here's three very specific things that are worse:
- Wearing a belt. There was a time in my life where I collected odd belts. I have two favorites. One is a USA tooled belt. The buckle depicts an angry skeleton draped in a rebel flag brandishing a rifle. Beside the skeleton the buckle reads, "I'll give up my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands." The other belt is tooled with crosses and reads Jesus Saves around the leather. It has a huge brass BORN AGAIN buckle. It was a gift from a friend (shout out to Harp!) Before you close your browser and never return to this page, know that I wear them ironically. Or should I say I wore them ironically. They still fit, that isn't the problem. The problem is when I sit down, the buckles cut into my ever-growing stomach. This makes activities like riding in the car for six hours between HCM and Vung Tao; or sitting in front of a computer dying a slow death for 10 hours a day downright unbearable. I've been relegated to wearing a cloth belt becaue it's the most comfortable. Very depressing.
- A few years ago I had a conversation with a buddy who has a paunch similar to mine. He was telling me that the worst part about getting fat was bending over and feeling the band of your underwear slowly fold over. At the time I had no idea what he was talking about. He was right, and the feeling is exactly as he described. I'm not sure if it's because he told me about it beforehand or not, but it is a disgusting feeling. Even my underwear can't handle my newfound girth. It feels like you're underwear is saying, "Oooooooooh, you're fat." as it slowly flips into it's new position. You can almost hear the fabric sigh. When it happened for the first time, I thought of my friend, and then panicked.
- I remember having a conversation with my brother, who travelled a simliar path about ten years before me. He said, "the other day I looked at myself in the mirror and said 'I am no longer a catch.'" He's still a super swell guy, but the ladies don't come a-runnin' like they used to. I know exactly how he feels. There isn't anyone on the street looking at me and thinking, "Oh yeah, that's coming home with me." I should use my Jesus Saves belt as a rosary, get down on my knees and thank the baby Jesus that Reyna hasn't run away from me screaming like the woman in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
In order to combat my ever-expanding waistline I've launched my own Gut-B-Gone campaign. I bought a pair of running shoes on Tuesday and went for a run that night. It nearly killed me. How embarrassing to feel near death by running for one minute, walking for two inutes for a total of 20 minutes. But I did it. And I'll do it again tonight. Baby steps, right? The running is also in preparation for the arrival of my new bicycle. I broke down and spent entirely too much money on the bike I've always wanted*. It should be here any day now. Between those two activities, I'm getting my ass in shape. If I can just manage to steer away from eating a wheel of cheese and two bottles of wine for dinner at night, I should be fine.
*Well almost the bike I've always wanted. I've dreamed for years about owning a Cervelo, but you can't realistically get them here. To have one, I'd have to fly to a shop that sells them, buy it and carry it back with me. I swore I'd never own a fucking Trek back in the Lance Armstrong** TdF era, but that's the only brand that the only bike shop in Vietnam carries. Besides, Cervelos have basically doubled in price since 2007 (the year I started lusting after an R3). They've become the new Trek. You make do with what you can find. I can remember when the Trek 5900 was THE bike if you could afford it. Lance's bike on 4 TdF wins before Trek launched the Madone line. If you had $5K you could have the same bike. Now the top of the line Trek retails for $12,000 (the answer is no, this is not the bike I ordered). You can buy a Toyota for that.
**Can we all agree that there's no way ANYONE could win seven straight Tours de France without cheating? Can we agree that, to a man, every single one of his old teammates has been busted for doping since leaving the team? (except for his best pal Freddie Hincapie, but he was never really a huge star). I recently rewatched the footage of Armstrong dusting Ulrich on the Galibier in the 2002 Tour (you know the one where Lance looks at Ulrich and says something like "you ready to go?" and just takes off? That one). Jan Ulrich was one of the strongest riders of that generation, and he got busted for doping the following year. No one that isn't cheating could just ride away from a guy like that. Let's just look back at the last few winners of the Tour shall we?
2011 - Cadel Evans - Still racing. Took him twelve tries to win the TdF
2010 - Alberto Contador - banned for doping stripped of title
2009 - Carlos Sastre - retired after first TdF win. Raced in the tour 12 times before winning.
2008 - Alberto Contador - currently banned
2007 - Alberto Contador - currently banned
2006 - Floyd Landis - Disgraced for doping. Excommunicated for whistleblowing on LA
1999-2005 - Lance Armstrong - Supposedly clean. Raced in 11 Tours and won 7.
1998 - Marco Platani - Banned for doping
1997 - Jan Ulrich - Banned for doping
1996 - Bjarne Riis - Admitted doping
Is there anything that sticks out as odd on this list? You bet there is. Two crusty old guys have won without getting caught after ten or more tries. Everyone else who has won in the last 20 years has either been eventually caught or admitted it later. All except for Lance, that is. I understand that his story is very inspirational, but the truth really should come out. I think I want it to come out because I think he's a dick. It's taken me ten years, but I finally decided that just because Lance Armstrong is a dick, I shouldn't hold that against Trek. He made that company. Or should I? But I digress...
I'm giving myself a year to get back to my graduate school fighting weight of 160lbs. I guess I'd better get busy. I'm sure you will hear more about this in the future. Consider yourself warned.
Oh, and yes --the light that won't go out is still going strong.
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