by Wendy
My other site usually gets twice as much traffic as Pound because of the 1974 recipe cards. But yesterday Pound got far more visits than Candyboots.com thanks to Jemima J hate (and also nods from Pamie and Bookslut and Big Fat Blog).
Well, okay, I guess some of you are coming for the Googlesmacking tutorial, too.
by Wendy
Limping in Lipstick Bernadette’s a paraplegic who dreams of a glamorous world beyond the ceiling she stares at all day. If only someone would move the TV, she thinks. But who knew all she needed was a makeover to give her sciatic nerve some nerve? Girl, who needs physical therapy when you got SPINE?! A story that will make the spastic gimp inside you thump her helmet against the wall and screech with joy. Oh, wait–most paraplegics aren’t retarded? Whatever.
Rock Her World Claudia is an inner-city crack whore who sleeps in an appliance box in a filth-strewn viaduct. One day she has a lucid moment and finds the open end of the box and can crawl out! “Oh my God, that job sucked,” she says. She brushes herself off and buys some strappy sandals with a wad of cash that–I don’t know–a nice old bag lady gives her in like a plot twist or something.
Taliban Annie Tahmeena wishes people could see how fabulous she is under her burqua, but she lets those pesky warlords tell her what to do. All she needs is the sass to tell them off! But first she has to take a good look deep inside. Isn’t she really just flogging herself sometimes? Soon she and her best girlfriends are kicking up their exposed heels and tossing back Cosmos at Immolation, their very own nightclub! Oh, wait–things are still crappy in Afghanistan? Whatever.
Mommy and Daddy Aren’t Divorced Anymore! A truly heartwarming children’s book.
by Wendy
So the book Jemima J is about Jemima Jones, who, at 5’7″ and 217 pounds (p. 136), is the fattest woman in Kilburn, England, and maybe the rest of London, too. Possibly also the only fat woman there. Apparently.
Her massive fat is a result of hiding candy bars in her desk (p. 3), making poor choices at the salad bar (p. 17), and an insufferably generic childhood pathology (pp. 2, 112). Her considerable girth makes it difficult for her to sit in ordinary chairs (p. 5), completely rules out wearing bootcut jeans (p, 57), has been known to increase at a rate of two to three pounds overnight (p. 64), and has pretty much prevented any kind of sexual enjoyment whatsoever in her life (p. 18). As a result of her immense size, her leisure activties are usually limited to sitting in her room and cutting out pictures of supermodels from magazines (p. 2), and wallowing in self-pity (pp. 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 14-17, 19, 21, 22, 31, 38, 40-47, 51, 58-62, et. al).
Yeah, not only does her weight keep her from telling jokes (p. 23), applying flattering makeup (p. 15), or, really, ever experiencing more than a split second of unadulterated happiness (pp. 1-371), it also pretty much keeps anything remotely interesting from happening in the first third of the book, where pretty much every twenty pages or so, an opportunity for a meet-cute encounter with her dull love interest, Ben, totally fails to happen because old fat-ass Jemima keeps having to stop somewhere to stuff her face. Poor Jemima!
Oh, and then it gets worse.
by Wendy
Today you can find Fat Fiction by me at Zulkey.com. It was a brilliant assignment and there are all kinds of nasty fat stereotypes for your downloading pleasure. I was tempted to submit verbatim passages from Jemima J. I mean, I know plagiarism is wrong, but I am fat and lazy.
by Wendy
January: My reality-show recap assignment at TWoP is to write about the drunken pixellated-bare-ass antics of people I went to high school with. The nickname “Man Boobatos” catches on more than I’d anticipated.
February: Aforementioned high school classmates invite me to the show’s final episode party and apparently neglect to kick my ass. (As for the rest of that post: I never did get to see the piece about Pound that was supposedly in this Swedish magazine and any info is welcome.)
March is when my whole freaking life changes after I put up the Weight Watchers recipe cards. They get a lot of attention within just a few days, and it continues for a few more months. After about ten days I have to move my site to a new hosting company and after another week have to get a mirror site set up because of all the motherfucking traffic.
Also, there’s a war or something.
April: I launch Pound’s sister site Candyboots and put the Weight Watchers recipe cards there. I also drink a lot this month, if you must know.
May: I finally move to a bigger apartment and I get to be on the radio.
June: I don’t do much in June except write my first column for BUST and also meet Pinky. HI PINKY!!!!
July is when I patiently explain the difference between online diarists and bloggers to all you people, and then I drink lots of cheap beer in Andersonville and then August is kind of a blur, but that’s when that whole New York Times thing went down, right? Yeah, it’s a blur.
In September Michael comes to town for our friend Amy’s wedding and we have a fine time and take lots of naps, and then later that month I begin my long-overdue campaign of Jemima J. hate which continues into October.
And then in November I meet some bad-ass bitches and um, Clifford, and then I do some other stuff in December, but really you should just scroll down this page to see whatever the hell that was.
My God. I don’t know what to tell you about next year. I mean, I have lots of things to say about what could happen in 2004, but they haven’t happened yet, and I hope they happen, and if I’m posting less frequently here in the blog and then not at all in the journal it’s been because I’m working my ass off on this other stuff, and now I’m getting all vague and goofy and I’ll shut up. The plans for next year also include a collaborative blog to be launched sometime in the spring, and I hope to get the Disturbing Children’s Book gallery up on Candyboots before 2004 is over. And of course I plan to laugh, love, and walk on a beach somewhere in soft focus at sunset being OH GOSH JUST THE BEST THAT I CAN BE.
Happy New Year and thanks for reading, kids.
by Wendy
I’ve moved the reader testimonies here. There are plenty more where these came from, and maybe I’ll add to the page later.
But I feel I ought to let Pinky report how she got rid of her copy of Jemima J.
I put it in the book drop at the library and hoped that no one would find my fingerprints on it and somehow mail it back to me. Thus far (it’s been quite a long time) my plan has worked. Whew.
Thanks to everyone for sharing the hate this past week.
