Maintaining my weight during the holiday season is always a losing battle. No matter how hard I try I can’t help stuffing treats in my mouth. My partner of three years has little willpower when it comes to food as well, but he never gains a pound. He only works out twice a week for 20 minutes and has never worn a pant size over 32. Meanwhile I’m digging through my fat clothes in preparation for the inevitable extra 10 pounds I’ll gain thanks to all the holiday parties. I love my partner dearly but I can’t help but feel jealous and, frankly, a little resentful. I don’t like feeling this way because it’s not his fault I received the fatty gene, but I just can’t help myself. What can I do to squash these feelings?

Sincerely,
Jiggly and Jealous

Dear JJ,

I so relate. I ate 3/8 of a Krispy Kreme donut this morning and gained so much weight old pictures of me got fatter. Significant other, meanwhile, filled a mixing bowl with Oreos, poured cream over them and called it cereal and then complained that he needed to buy new belts because he was tired of punching holes in the ones he has to make them smaller. I know resentment ruins relationships, so I don’t let it get to me; I have a plan. I am committed enough to my man to do what I have to do: sabotage.

Everyone’s metabolism has a limit. I don’t care how naturally slim he is, you can pork him up. I suggest insisting on preparing meals from now on. One tablespoon of melted lard per half cup of leafy green vegetables should do the trick (and don’t turn your nose up at this – if you’re a native Southerner, you ought to know that greens cooked with fat are uh-MA-zing).

As we all know, fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat, so you need to be sure to also cover the carbohydrate base. I have two words for you: corn syrup. Pour it in every beverage he drinks, drizzle it over his pork chops. Hell, drip it in his mouth at night while he sleeps. And be sure to derail those workouts and encourage as much ass-sitting as possible. Buy him boxed sets of really involved DVD collections, get him addicted to a video game, break his knee caps. Listen, this is your relationship we’re talking about; you have to be willing to make sacrifices.

After all that hard work, you can sit back and enjoy that you no longer have to be alone in your neurotic weight worries, and you can replace your resentment with mild disgust in his love handles.

You’re welcome!

I know our community can sometimes be a little superficial so I am really in the dark over my predicament. See, I’ve been dating a really sweet man for about 8 months. This will be our first holiday season to spend together. Early on he told me he doesn’t really think much of the holidays and he wants to keep gift giving to a minimum, a $50 cap to be exact. Um, I don’t want to sound selfish, but I mean really, what could you give for 50 bucks? Let me be real when I say I was totally willing to spend three times that amount on him. How do I tell him he needs to get real and up his bucks?

Signed,
Ready to dole out the dough

Dearest dough boy,

Hmm, sounds like a test to me.

Obviously, you should go whole hog. Willing to spend three times that, eh? I say spend five times that… No, wait, ten times. Fifteen! Get a second mortgage! Lavish him with diamonds! Prove your love with expensive gifts(aka, the only way to show love). I’m positive that’s what he really wants because I’m positive that’s what everyone really wants deep down – lots and lots of overpriced, material crap.

If we have somehow fallen into an alternate universe and he really does get you a $50… wh… what can you get for $50? Geez. You’re right… But if he really only spends that, you might have just figured out your relationship isn’t meant to be. I mean come on… you’re writing in to a magazine because you want your boyfriend to be more materialistic, so it must be important to you. Maybe you’re a bit of a stuff-obsessed consumerist, but if that’s who you are, own it!

I have a co-worker who seems like a really nice guy, but I am beginning to think that he is a pathological liar. At first it started off as “jokes” like: “I brought bagels, I got a great deal because they were three days old.” But oddly they were still warm. My personal favorite was when he told us his boyfriend was blonde and didn’t age. Well guess what? His boyfriend has brown hair and looks about 50. Today he came in and told this long elaborate story about how he was kidnapped during pride and held hostage by three men and forced to eat apple cinnamon oatmeal all weekend. Then they just let him go. Please help. I don’t know if he is ill or is just trying to be funny.

Signed,
Crazed and Confused

Dear Craisin,

Am…am I your coworker? Is this about me? Listen, I don’t have time for another intervention.

Obvs, the best idea here is story topping. Every time he comes in with one of these tales, just one up him. Apple cinnamon oatmeal, eh? Tell him they made you eat frittata and cottage cheese with Craisins. I mention Craisins because clearly, your friend is Craisin, i.e, in the act of being crazy, to wit: my boyfriend was craisin’ last night! He wouldn’t let me have any of his frittata and he said Carson shouldn’t have been voted off Dancing with the Stars when we all know those Daisy Dukes were just wrong. What was Carson thinking when he picked that outfit? He was craisin’ (so many applications!)

Otherwise, I think meeting his every story with a raised-eyebrow silent stare is appropriate, followed by turning and walking slowly out of the room, possibly staring at him over your shoulder with one eyebrow raised and judgey face on the entire time. On second thought that might make you look crazier than him (you craisin’!) but it will probably keep you busy at work. I mean, what else are you doing there? Working? You craisin’ if you think I believe that.

Halloween is coming up and all my friends are dressing in drag as they have been for the last ten years. I have always been able to avoid dressing up with them because I used to work for a very conservative company. I don’t work for that company anymore, but I still don’t want to dress in drag. Several of them have told me that since this is the 10th year, they will be highly offended if I don’t do it. One even said our friendship, as we know it, will be over. How do I smooth this over without dressing like a woman?

Signed,
Don’t Want to be a drag

Dear Don’t Drag it Out,

I go to pride every year with my two best friends. For the most part we have a great time and I love them dearly. However, it seems that they always rely on me to be the “adult.” This means taking care of them if they get drunk, wiping away tears if they get dumped and calming them down if they feel duped. This year I don’t want to be the “adult,” I want to be the fool. I know they will be annoyed, but one of them must step up this year and take care of me. How do you think I should approach the subject?

Signed,
Tired of Being Mama Bear

Dear Overbearing (see what I did there?),

At the risk of sounding like a total bitch, are you sure they want you to take care of them? I have a friend who does this any time she comes out – assumes the mother hen role. All right, so I might have had most of a bottle of Jameson and be unable to find my shoe, credit card, diaphragm, boyfriend, or the rest of the bottle of Jameson, but I really don’t need any help with that stuff. But mother hen starts clucking about finding it before someone uses it/sleeps with it/throws it away and then I have to leave my revelry to play drunken scavenger hunt. Which I hate even more than hung-over scavenger hunt–point is, your friends might not really want you drying their tears any more than you want to dry them.

My suggestion: go as the wind blows you, baby. Or blow as the wind goes you (that just means “be flexible,” you perv). Want to have a few drinks? Do it! Want to create a scene about that guy that broke up with you via text six years ago that you haven’t quite gotten over (or maybe you have but you can’t think of anything else to be dramatic about)? Now is the time. This is the place, friend. Go for it.

I can’t promise you your friends will assume your role and hold your proverbial hair back…but you don’t need them to. You can be the fool and still be responsible.

Or, hire a giant transvestite you find wandering around at Pride to chaperone you guys with a mother’s love and a bouncer’s firm grip/ability to stop you from drinking any more. Ta da.

I am throwing a little party at my house to celebrate my new “all-American” décor. I am going to serve a menu with all sorts of gourmet American-style grub. I have a recipe for BBQ that literally blows your socks off. I have been testing a few apple crisp recipes, but can’t seem to find one that I love. Do you have one up your sleeve you would be willing to share?

Signed,
Adam With an Apple

Dear Adam Appleseed,

I happen to have an EXCELLENT apple crisp recipe! Every time I make it, it turns out awesome and I never even remember making it. That’s how simple it is. It’s like I just wake up with apple crisp!
I will pretend I am on a cooking show and type up the directions as I make it, so it’ll be like we’re experiencing this together. Aw.

1. Take two shots of rum while peeling and coring apples for quality check purposes.

2. Take one more shot of rum for good measure while slicing peeled, cored apples. Sprinkle rum on apples. Clean the rum you sprinkled on the floor off the floor. Pour generous dollop of rum in your diet soda of choice.

3. Look for your mixer for about an hour. You know you have one, we both do. Find it in the first place you looked, where you checked at least six other times. Why was it behind a springform pan?? You’ve never even used that thing! Why do we have it? Have a shot.

4. Pour one even cup of rum. Sip to relax from mixerer fandango. Henceforth, this is your sippin rum.

7. Cream butter and sugar and maybe some rum until it gets fruffy. Fruh-ffy. Where is my sippin rum? FLUFFY is what I meant to say. Cream it til it’s creamy, which I assume is the point of creaming things.

3. Put the apples in some kind of dish or pan or hell who cares. Douse with rum. Attempt to flambé.

6. Put out flambé-related fire. Find sippin rum. Sip.

9. Sprinkle sugar on apples. Take that sugar and butter you mixed up and dip some leftover apples in it cause I don’t remember what it was actually for.

0. Crumble up oatmeal with some cimmanininin, butter, salt (did I mention salt earlier? I meant to). Soak raisins in your sippin rum. (You may still sip from it, I give you permission. The raisins make it sweetisherer). Sprinkle…how many times have I says sprinkle, so many times, that’s how many! …Spread? Scatter? Scatter! Scatter that crumbled oast-meal stuff on the apples and put it in an oven, perhaps your neighbor’s.

C. Relax for an hour. Remember raisins, attempt to fish them out of sippin rum, drop on floor, sigh, eat a couple, throw them away.

*. Wake up with head on counter. Call a few friends to see if they’re doin anything exciting…they aren’t…ugh, people are so lame, who is asleep at…3 a.m. Hm, that can’t be right…

4. Turn oven on.

9. Call that awesome bakery in Virginia-Highland and arrange to have an apple crisp delivered in the morning. Er, maybe late morning. Noonish…sometime after 4 p.m.

I am addicted to Facebook.   That being said, I NEVER post depressing updates.  If my dog died, I lost my job and Lady Gaga told me I was fat I would still have a positive or entertaining status update.  I have a person on my Facebook page who I notice posts the most depressing updates.  He is a good-looking person who people want to be around.  I think it just makes him look like a loser when he makes these Debbie-Downer posts.   If I read, “I’m so lonely,” or “why doesn’t anyone call me,” again I’m going to blow my weave.  Do you think this is depression or a cry for some “daddy” attention?

Socially Yours,
Anti-Loserface.com

Dear Facebook Foe:

Oh, for the love of all things good and glittery, tell them to buck up (or shut the buck up, whichever is more your personal style, bb). I don’t think it’s depression, I do think it’s a cry for attention, and I don’t think you need to be supportive. Tell them to grow up and handle their problems in a more mature way than plastering them on Facebook, like bottling them up deep inside, or, if that doesn’t work, bottling them up in a bottle of booze.

Of course, you’re going to lose a few friends this way. I say this from personal experience. Shockingly, I sometimes have a hard time keeping my mouth shut, so I devised a new method of dealing with Facebook bullshittery. I now distract myself from maudlin (slash political) Facebook posts thusly: “Oh well, I don’t think I agree with what they’ve posted and maybe I should just mention that I thi…HERE COME DE HOTSTEPPA, murder-uh” See what I did there? With the gift of song (early 90s hip hop, to be exact), I saved myself from losing a friend, albeit a friend who posts (and probably gets drunk and talks) about their own problems exclusively, to the point that we can’t get back to a more interesting topic of conversation. Like me, and my problems, which are altogether different and deserve to be talked about at great length.

Un-friend Your Heart,
Mary Makers-McMark