Now that the month is up I thought I would revisit the results of BareAss 2008!

For those of you new to this blog, during the holiday season of 2007, I started White Girl With a Fat Ass and proclaimed that I would post my bare ass on this site and my goal was to raise $5231.  During 2008 I:

• Raised $2660 for Feeding America, the Nation’s Largest Foodbank.
• Came in third place in the Former Phat Fcuk show at the People’s Improv Theater
• Over 20,000 hits
• Lost 30 lbs
• Staying true to my word, on 1.19.09  Francine took the tasteful heiney shot.
• I posted my Bare Ass on this blog where it remained up from 1.23 until 2.23 and raised my total to $2715.

Thank you to all that have been part of this journey!  Okay, I held up my end of the deal. So if you never donated to Bare Ass 2008! and now feel like a complete tool  please CLICK HERE to donate and help me reach my original goal of $5231 raised for Feeding America to help those in need.

Or, if you are kicking yourself because you never got a gander at the bodacious booty.  I promise to re-post the picture the day that I reach my original goal of $5231 raised for Feeding America the Nation’s Largest Foodbank.

People have been asking me a lot what now?  What is in store for 2009?  Two months and ticking already! I don’t know.  I am taking a break and will be back in early March.  The wheels are turning and I will let you know soon.

If you have angst about Valentine’s day this is the BEST VDAY POST ever, supplied by my friend at Sassafrass Junction where Sass truly does meet Frass.  I have always had weird, fun, sometimes romantic and often strange Valentines.  This year I am going on a first date, that was ironically inadvertently scheduled for Valentine’s day.  I’m predicting this year will definitely fall into the weird, and thinking optimistically, maybe even fun category.

However, I think this year I received the best Valentine’s Day gift ever.  I had mentioned frequently at work that for Valentine’s day I was going to go to an eatery that I like near me and purchase for myself a Red Velvet Cupcake.  Yesterday when I got back from lunch, my new favorite person Sakinah, surprised me with one.  She had even gone to the real Crumbs where the place near me gets their cupcakes so it was the EXACT cupcake that I had been craving.  It was so much better as a gift then a ‘poor me’ purchase.  And going to SPIN class that night, I experienced something I never had previously in cupcake consumption.  NO GUILT.  I thoroughly enjoyed every crumb of that Crumbs cupcake.  And instead of irrationally using this mid-day sugar bomb as an excuse to skip SPIN class, I used it as a reason to push myself to go.

I had my cupcake and ate it too!

If you are still undecided on where to take your significant other for Valentine’s day, even though I curse you and your perfect love,  check out EATIST to read all about various eating adventures around the city.  Maybe you’ll get some inspiration!

I have gained some of  the weight I lost during BareAss 2008! back. You won’t ever see me pointing fingers at Oprah.   I know that I have gained,  but I have not weighed myself because….  I don’t want to.  Because a part of me no longer wants that to be the data point I design my life around.   The other part of me spends  a lot of time thinking about an upcoming doctor’s appointment I have because I know they are going to weigh me in.  That is the worst process.

My least favorite part is when they put the heavy block weight on 100 and then move it all the way to the end.  Then figuring it out, move it to 150 and start over.  Pushing it higher, and higher.  And the doctor’s scale is always so much higher.  Even after you take out the wearing jeans, drank alot of water, flourescent lights actually make your skin weigh more, excuses.  What a stupid thing to waste time and energy fretting over.

It was a long January, there was a lot of alcohol and gym skipping due to the cold but most of all bad habits became habits for a reason.  Because they are habitual.  I achieved a tentative sense of peace with my body when I posted my tasteful heiney shot for Bare Ass 2008!  But life creeps back in.  So this week, I tried one simple thing.  After dinner, I said to myself, ‘What if you just didn’t eat anything else?’

Sounds simple right?  Dear God in heaven it is not.

I had a teacher once who talked a lot about misplaced emotion.  And women who substitute hunger for their real emotions.  “I’m angry, I’m hungry.  I’m sad, I’m hungry.  I’m lonely, I’m hungry.”  Rationally, I understand this.  But physically, when I sit there at night.  I am HUNGRY.

Last night, physically drained from a long cold week.  Teeth and head throbbing from a trip to the dentist.  I collapsed in front of the TV and denied myself the comfort of grazing while numbing my brain with the flickering drama of ficticious people who enjoy the benefits of scripted lives.  I sat alone with my hunger.  And it was so physical, it might as well have been sitting next to me on the futon.

Sort of like that fuzzy orange Hunger Muppet on the Weight Watchers commercials.  Who I believe to be far too cute to represent hunger.  Before anyone warns me not to starve myself and all that,  let me assure you this is not what I am describing.  I ate well, healthy, all day.  But at night, faced with nothing but my own regurgitated thoughts and next day to-do’s, this far-meaner- than-the-Weight-Watchers-Muppet  arrives.  And needles at me.

As I sat last night, with Mean Muppet Hunger, I thought to myself “What is it I am hungry for exactly?”  I have never honestly asked myself that before. Here is what I came up with:

• Chicken pot pie
• Ice cream with warm fudge
• Turkey sandwichwith spicy mayo
• a long hug where you press into each other instead of pointing your bottom slightly away
• Popcorn with real butter
• Nachos
• A real apology
• A yes, instead of no
• Pizza with fresh basil and hand cut mozzarella
• A squeeze of the hand that tells you wordlessly you are in on it together
• Family
• Mashed potatoes with sour cream, and those fake bacon pieces
• A hand on the small of my back guiding me into place
• Cold sesame noodles
• Spicy Tuna rolls
• My own voice pounding forth releasing its fury
• A conversation that lasts til dawn
• Cheese-Its
• Newman’s Ginger-Os dunked in milk
• Her approval and encouragement
• His illness to stay gone
• A call to hang out
• The words to come more easily
• Pie
• The promise that was made to be filled
• Fresh bagels and cream cheese
• Wine and cheese
• dark chocolate covered pretzels
• Answers
• The Truth
• A guarantee
• And a really well made grilled cheese sandwich.

Because what is even scarier than the fact that all this hunger is mixed up together inside of me, is that a really well made grilled cheese sandwich is an immediate thing I can satisfy myself with.  Except for the fact that after I eat it, I am not satisfied.

And now a new Meaner-than-the-Weight-Watchers-Muppet has joined Hungry on the couch.

Have you met Guilty?

Help Americans who are facing real hunger by CLICKING HERE TO DONATE to Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest) Comment below.  Tell me what you are really hungry for?

I love Groundhog Day.

For three simple reasons,

1. I’ve never been dumped right before Groundhog  Day.
2. One of the greatest movies of all time.
3. It’s nice to see a cute and chubby creature with its own holiday.  Gives a WGWaFA hope for her own.

I especially enjoy a creature that is not only smart enough to predict the coming of Spring, but has a strong enough sense of self-preservation to hide from Bloomberg.

So set your clock radio to I’ve Got You Babe and have a happy Groundhog Day!