Thursday
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10/26 /05
Couches and Belly Buttons: A Cautionary Tale.
The Belly Button Thief
The years that I affectionately remember as the 90s were, for me at least, a decade filled with guilty pleasures. Bacon cheeseburgers, pizza and beer were the cornerstone staples of my diet, and I was good for at least one, and sometimes two, boxes of Newports a day. Even better, when I wasn't staying out with friends until the wee hours there was plenty of slug time on the Couch playing Nofriendo and wallowing in the bone-jarring idiocy of network sit-coms. Ahh, good times... good times...
In any case, as is the way of things, the 90s was also a decade during which I wooed and won my Lovely Bride, who was then good enough to bear us two fine sons; sons who proved, of course, to be my final undoing health-wise. I was after all, a quasi-at-home-dad from the beginning; although I spent my nights and weekends in the ever-so-fulfilling trenches of food service management, I spent my days watching over the lads from my perch of choice: Couch. As time went on I quit work to finish school; much of the studying for which I did while sitting on Couch. And as the boys have grown there has been plenty of reading, snuggling and homework checking on the comfy expanse that is Couch.
The practical upshot of all this is that it was just this last February that I turned 40 and I realized that my belly button now spent most of its time hiding from me. Sure, I could move stuff around if I really felt the need to have a look at it, but what my belly button's coy behavior really meant was that over time I had become, in a nutshell, a big, wheezing bag of cheese. On a Couch.
So, to bring this little cautionary tale full circle, I've since spent the ensuing six or seven months on the long road back. During that time I overhauled my diet, I'm as active as possible throughout each day, and I'm in the gym five times a week; all of which means that I have, to date, lost 60 pounds and dropped to a respectable 185. It also means that I feel better than I have since I was a kid and that I'm not all hot and wheezy all the time. What's more, I don't always feel like I may have to stop what I'm doing at any given moment to lie down on the floor and take a nap.
The only down side to all this is that I was kind of sad when Couch and I had to break up, but I think it's better for both of us. And we are still friends.
In the end it's not a terrible road back really, but it's still a trip all you younger at-home-dads really don't want to have to make. So hey, get off Couch and push that stroller around the block a few times.
Oh yeah, and it's kind of nice that my belly button keeps me company again.
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10/26 /05
Couches and Belly Buttons: A Cautionary Tale.
The Belly Button Thief
(Half a year off the fags, and here's the result.)
I do believe, when young and naïve,or so the story goes.You would feel a bit thick,if you fell for the trick,where a grandparent stole your nose.
Why would family,your own kith and kin,take pleasure in causing such grief,with tales of Banshees, and Bogeymen,and the Belly-Button thief?
Scary tales or Fairy tales,the end result’s the same.A million kids will wet their beds,they don’t know it’s just a game.
But by far the most frightening,Of all these creatures,There’s one makes my blood run much colder.The Belly-Button thief doesn’t bother with kids,He waits until we are older.
I speak as a victim, of a recent assault.He came for me, just this passed year.Slowly, with stealth,No regard for my health,To make my wee navel, disappear.
He didn’t come in the middle of the night,As you’d think would be the norm.This rancid ghoul has wily tools,And comes in a more sinister form.
He hides in maxi bags of crisps,And even bacon fries.Dry-roasted and ready salted nuts,And chocolates, (surprise, surprise!)
And as your midrift escalates,To heights it never knew,Your belly’s horizon,(which the button relies on.)obscures the poor wee thing from view.
There is, I’m told, a remedy,Though as yet I’ve not bothered to try it.A nasty form of exorcism,Known as exercise and diet.
For now, I’m happy to stay as I am.Mr. BBT, you’re off the hook.And as for seeing my belly-button?I’ll use a mirror, if I really want to look.
-- Danny Reynolds
Dalton in Furness, England
2005
I do believe, when young and naïve,or so the story goes.You would feel a bit thick,if you fell for the trick,where a grandparent stole your nose.
Why would family,your own kith and kin,take pleasure in causing such grief,with tales of Banshees, and Bogeymen,and the Belly-Button thief?
Scary tales or Fairy tales,the end result’s the same.A million kids will wet their beds,they don’t know it’s just a game.
But by far the most frightening,Of all these creatures,There’s one makes my blood run much colder.The Belly-Button thief doesn’t bother with kids,He waits until we are older.
I speak as a victim, of a recent assault.He came for me, just this passed year.Slowly, with stealth,No regard for my health,To make my wee navel, disappear.
He didn’t come in the middle of the night,As you’d think would be the norm.This rancid ghoul has wily tools,And comes in a more sinister form.
He hides in maxi bags of crisps,And even bacon fries.Dry-roasted and ready salted nuts,And chocolates, (surprise, surprise!)
And as your midrift escalates,To heights it never knew,Your belly’s horizon,(which the button relies on.)obscures the poor wee thing from view.
There is, I’m told, a remedy,Though as yet I’ve not bothered to try it.A nasty form of exorcism,Known as exercise and diet.
For now, I’m happy to stay as I am.Mr. BBT, you’re off the hook.And as for seeing my belly-button?I’ll use a mirror, if I really want to look.
-- Danny Reynolds
Dalton in Furness, England
2005
The years that I affectionately remember as the 90s were, for me at least, a decade filled with guilty pleasures. Bacon cheeseburgers, pizza and beer were the cornerstone staples of my diet, and I was good for at least one, and sometimes two, boxes of Newports a day. Even better, when I wasn't staying out with friends until the wee hours there was plenty of slug time on the Couch playing Nofriendo and wallowing in the bone-jarring idiocy of network sit-coms. Ahh, good times... good times...
In any case, as is the way of things, the 90s was also a decade during which I wooed and won my Lovely Bride, who was then good enough to bear us two fine sons; sons who proved, of course, to be my final undoing health-wise. I was after all, a quasi-at-home-dad from the beginning; although I spent my nights and weekends in the ever-so-fulfilling trenches of food service management, I spent my days watching over the lads from my perch of choice: Couch. As time went on I quit work to finish school; much of the studying for which I did while sitting on Couch. And as the boys have grown there has been plenty of reading, snuggling and homework checking on the comfy expanse that is Couch.
The practical upshot of all this is that it was just this last February that I turned 40 and I realized that my belly button now spent most of its time hiding from me. Sure, I could move stuff around if I really felt the need to have a look at it, but what my belly button's coy behavior really meant was that over time I had become, in a nutshell, a big, wheezing bag of cheese. On a Couch.
So, to bring this little cautionary tale full circle, I've since spent the ensuing six or seven months on the long road back. During that time I overhauled my diet, I'm as active as possible throughout each day, and I'm in the gym five times a week; all of which means that I have, to date, lost 60 pounds and dropped to a respectable 185. It also means that I feel better than I have since I was a kid and that I'm not all hot and wheezy all the time. What's more, I don't always feel like I may have to stop what I'm doing at any given moment to lie down on the floor and take a nap.
The only down side to all this is that I was kind of sad when Couch and I had to break up, but I think it's better for both of us. And we are still friends.
In the end it's not a terrible road back really, but it's still a trip all you younger at-home-dads really don't want to have to make. So hey, get off Couch and push that stroller around the block a few times.
Oh yeah, and it's kind of nice that my belly button keeps me company again.
(Thanks to Danny Reynolds... and there's
