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For Sale: E-books and Paperbacks by Jennifer Semple Siegel

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Are You EVER Going to be Thin? (and other stories) ,  2nd edition __________________________ “Kindle and Fire”: A Short Story __________________ Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment (Kindle) Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment (Paperback) _______________________ The Trash Can of L.A.: A Reality Play (Kindle) The Trash Can of L.A.: A Reality Play (Paperback) ______________________________ Jennifer ’ s Profile Jennifer Semple Siegel’s Amazon Page and Bookstore ______________________________

Dear Aunt.Sexy, I Need Urgent Advice About My Future...

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Allegorie der Musik Lorenzo Lippi, 1606-1665 Wikipedia ___________________  Dear Aunt.Sexy (I blush at such a flagrant use of this s**y word and am puzzled by that strange dot between the words in this salutation), I need urgent advice about my future. I am a 17th century composer of serious musical scores, a young lady on the cusp of breaking out into a major musical career. I should very much like to continue on this path, but Father says I must marry soon, as I am 16, soon to be considered unmarriageable. As each day passes without a young man calling, Father grows more desperate for my future. My problem: I do not wish to marry – ever ! I merely want to remain in my room, writing scores, and occasionally attending concerts with my family. However, Father says I must find a well-off husband to support me. I have already sold several of my scores to famous musical houses, but under a male pseudonym, so I know that I would be able to support myself as a ...

What Happens When the Fat Lady Sings: Prologue--"My Other" (Chapter 2)

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My Other The acceptance letter and the invitation to the family reunion arrive on the same day, an unseasonably hot day in late April. My past and my proposed future stuffed into the mailbox, a tiny dark space, pulling me in different directions. I’ve been dreading this invitation, knowing it would be arriving soon. Now that the card, a sentimental thing with a collage of mothers, fathers, and children, is in my hand, I’m almost relieved that the waiting is over, and, yet, those echoes draw me in... WHO: The Mallorys, Bacons, O’Flahertys, etc. WHO: Danny O’Flaherty! WHAT: Family Reunion. WHAT: Command performance. Be there. WHEN: June 20, 1990, from 10:30 a.m. to ???? WHEN: From the beginning of your existence to ???? WHERE: The Lake. WHERE: Wherever you go, wherever you live. COST: A favorite dish, plus $25.00 per couple, $7.50 per child, to help defray the cost of renting The Northwest Quadrant of the Winnehaha Pavilion. COST: More than you’ll EVER be able to afford. RSVP: Sally Mill...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Postscript (Six Months Later)

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Happy birthday, Samantha. Three-nine and counting down to the big four-O--then the down side of life. Here I am, back to 180 pounds. I don’t remember much of the past few months, except that I’ve been on a feeding frenzy, a whirl of food going by and my grabbing what I could before I die-- Three months to get the weight off, six months to put it back. Now I lay on the sofa, patting my belly--what else there is to eat, or is that what I really want? What can I do to fill this void, which is obviously not in my stomach anymore? Or was it ever really in my belly? As I reread these journal entries--obsessively, of course--I realize I have mentioned Nicole, the reason for this doomed diet in the first place, only sporadically. As I obsess about weight, sex, and food, Nicole has run away with her sleazy boyfriend and joined a cult. How could I have failed her so miserably? ____________________________ Source: “The Big Diet,” by Jennifer Semple Sieg...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #13

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Tonight’s the night. My first real meal in three months. I can hardly wait. I’ve lost exactly 40 pounds and four dress sizes. I should be walking on air right now, but something’s missing.... Diane announced to the class that Brian won’t be returning. We’ll be getting another therapist for the last three months of the program. Such a shock! I called him up to see what’s going on. He seemed kind of waffly. He said, “Sammy, it’s just for the best.” When I asked him what that meant, he answered, “What do you think?” I hate when someone answers a question with a question. “Maybe we’ll be in touch some day, but not now.” I get the hint. Either Shel threatened him, or Brian had time to think things over. I think Sheldon got to him, but there’s no point in confronting either guy. Brian would just beat around the bush, and Shel would lie. * * * * * Well, this is it. The big moment. Solid food. Shel takes me to the Starboard Restaurant, a popular seaf...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #12

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Today, Brian and I meet at the hospital dining hall for our lunch date. I wear my new dress, a size 14! A gorgeous garment, a flowing aqua mid-calf dress, 100% cotton; it hides all my flaws. I bring a vanilla shake and a bottle of imitation rum extract. I am worried about what Brian will be eating, but, bless him, he brings a shake too. “Sammy, I lost my weight on this diet,” he says, touching my hand. “So I’d never eat in front of you. Especially now, when you’re so close.” He buys me a diet cream soda and a diet chocolate for himself. “I’d die for chocolate.” He stirs his chocolate shake into his soda. “For 12 weeks, I drank nothing but chocolate in chocolate. I didn’t mind at all.” “I miss food,” I say. “I want real food, lots of it. Once I’m off this diet, I’m never going to stop eating. I’m going to eat around the clock until I drop dead from overeating.” “You’ll be okay.” But I’m not really in control. I want food, and I want to make lo...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #11

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . End in sight! Only two more weeks until I can eat again. Poached chicken breast sounds pretty good right now....I’m counting the days. I could walk on water right now. I told Brian about the dinner party. He said, “It’s really difficult, isn’t it?” Then he suggested our having lunch together next week, after the meeting. Yes! Wonder what he plans to eat? He’s so cryptic, sometimes, but that’s what I love about him. And he’s such a strong, silent type. I had a dream about raspberry torte: we had a backyard pool, filled with raspberry torte, heavy on the whipped cream. Ah, the whipped cream.... I’m swimming through the whipped cream, breathing in its vanilla bouquet–I have no difficulty filling my lungs with the frothy substance, and I’m thinking, “Hot damn, I can swim in here forever and ever and never gain an ounce. Who ever heard of a fat lung?” I’m in about 10 different ecstasies; I suck in the raspberry and pound cake bouquet as well, and I...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #10

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The Dinner Party , 1911, Jules Alexandre Grun _________________________________ First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . I feel so light and so thin, though the scale says 164. I think Brian has noticed, but I’m not 100% sure. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I catch him staring at me, but he always looks away like he’s flustered. I did ask him about the dream, and he said he really didn’t know what it meant--he doesn’t work with dreams. He smiled, and said, “It seems to me you have a terrific sense of humor.” To me, that’s the highest compliment a man can pay a woman. I’m definitely walking on air. Shel and I went to a dinner party this week. I didn’t want to go. I tried to get out of the deal, but Shel said, “Hey, you can’t drop out of life just because you’ve stopped eating normal food.” He is right, of course, but I would have preferred another venue for my coming out. I really didn’t want the host, a stuffed-shirt colleague of Shel’s, and the other guests--more shrink...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #9

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Brian seems a little distant this week. Maybe he’s still ill. He does look a bit pale. I hung around after the meeting, hoping to have that talk with him, but he said that his wife--a little twinge of jealousy here--was picking him up any minute. Something about his car being in the garage. Maybe I’m being a little bit too pushy. Last night, I had the strangest dream. I was eating Pork Lo Mein out of a take-out carton, and Heidi, Aunt Sal’s dachshund, was sitting on my lap, looking up at me with those big brown eyes. You’ve got to understand: she’s the world’s most stupid dog--she once ate a pound of peanut clusters and became so engorged that her sides bulged out like two saddle bags. For three days, she wandered around the house, puking and shitting on the floors, rugs, beds, and pillows. Even after that horrendous experience, this animal still eats anything and everything, and in any quantity. But not in my dream. In my dream, after I have...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #8

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . I’m finally past the halfway point. In five weeks, I’ll eat real food again–granted, I’ll be limited to poached chicken, but, hey, at least it’ll be chewable. Yet, the thought of ingesting solid food scares me, but I’ll think about it later.... I didn’t tell Diane about the fainting episode last week; I don’t need that busybody yanking me from the program just because of a minor dizzy spell. I’ll just have to take extra potassium pills. Thank God my blood work this week didn’t show anything unusual. Yesterday, Shel told me to pick up some milk on the way home from school. Jerk. He knows I’m avoiding places having to do with food. He said, “You can’t avoid grocery stores forever. You might as well start getting used to food shopping because I’m not going to do it forever. Besides, you’ve got to take responsibility for your neuroses.” Spoken like a true Gestalt shrink. I’m too tired to argue with Shel, so I decide to just do it. I should go to 7...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #7

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . I’m so embarrassed. I really, really hate these milk shakes; I’d just as soon give up eating, starve to death, than drink another one of those ghastly things. The thought of that cold slippery stuff sliding down my throat.... Anyway, yesterday I skipped a shake. Bad move. Later, I passed out in class. One minute, I’m lecturing on Fritz Perls and the “Here and Now,” and the next thing I know, my head feels woozy and legs like rubber. I just fold up and drop to the floor, sick on my stomach and all sweaty. I’m glad I didn’t lose consciousness because someone would have called an ambulance. My life would have been ruined--no more diet, no more Brian. Nicole and my promise to her. Instead, I told a student to call Shel; I lay on the floor until he came. I knew that I needed to drink a shake and take a potassium pill, but I didn’t want my students to know about the diet. I don’t know why I should care what they think, but I do. “Not one ounce of co...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week 6

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Brian. Brian. Brian. What a wonderful name. I swear he’s coming on to me. Happens every time I start to lose weight. Men see me differently. When he checked my chart and saw that I have lost over 20 pounds since last month, he looked into my eyes with those big liquid, brown eyes and said, “Terrific job, Sam.” I don’t usually like when people call me Sam, but Brian has such a sexy way of saying it. There’s something beguiling about Brian--my heart does a flip whenever he walks into the room.... But I’m being silly. I’m an old married woman. This diet would be more tolerable if I could just eat one small meal a day. I feel so depressed when I come home from school, and I know I can’t eat anything. A gap in my life: there’s something social about eating, breaking bread, and I miss that. My marriage suffers because Shel and I don’t eat together. I run my concoction through the blender and retreat to the living room, and Shel hides in the kitchen....

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week # 5

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . I’m getting restless with the group therapy sessions. When Brian–-he’s the cute therapist–-tells us to close our eyes and think about running on a warm, sandy beach, grains of wet sand stuck between our toes, all I can think about is a large, ripe banana, a brilliant yellow banana, just before it gets those brown spots. I don’t even like bananas that much. But now they’re all I can think about. I even buy a bottle of imitation banana extract and dump two caps into my shakes, but it isn’t the same; it’s not the taste I crave–-it’s the texture, the stringy, pulpy texture, the cool banana squishing between my teeth. I call Diane, the nurse, and ask permission to dump a banana into the blender–-just this once–-and, of course, she says “No, that would compromise the diet.” She’s right: I might lose control if I eat that banana, so I obey. I drink five diet sodas instead; by the end of the day, my body feels waterlogged. Shel wants to make love, but...

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week #4

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Lost five pounds this week. Not bad. Shel’s beginning to get on my nerves, though. He’s after me all the time, bugging me about food and making love. He’s tired of fixing his own meals, but we had agreed that during these 12 weeks, I would not have to cook. We both felt that the temptation would be too much. Now he wants to renege.... As for sex, who has the energy? ____________________________ Source: “The Big Diet,” by Jennifer Semple Siegel, Are You EVER Going to Be Thin? (and other stories) , 2004. Available on Amazon . © Jennifer Semple Siegel, 2004. This work may not be reprinted or reposted without permission from the author.

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)–Week 3

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . I’m a little blue today. Lost only one pound this week. Sometimes, life just isn’t fair. Also, the 70-calorie shakes do taste like shit, even mixed with diet soda; they should have put us on these ghastly shakes from the beginning. The others tasted so good, too good. Still not hungry, though. I sincerely believe I could drink shakes for the rest of my life and just forget about this food business. The behaviorist is kind of cute. He must be at least five years younger than me, has brown eyes, and shiny brown hair. Nice bod. Wonder if he’s married? ____________________________ Source: “The Big Diet,” by Jennifer Semple Siegel, Are You EVER Going to Be Thin? (and other stories) , 2004. Available on Amazon . © Jennifer Semple Siegel, 2004. This work may not be reprinted or reposted without permission from the author.

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)–Week 2

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . Weigh-in day. I lost 11 and 1/4 pounds; I feel as light as a feather! I have dropped at least two sizes, maybe a size and a half. I’m not too sure about the Monday sessions, though. All we talked about was food, and how we could deal with the lack of solid food, but I can honestly say that I’m no longer interested in food. Maybe I could live on these shakes for the rest of my life. When I think about that last binge, I want to throw up. Disgusting! ____________________________ Source: “The Big Diet,” by Jennifer Semple Siegel, Are You EVER Going to Be Thin? (and other stories) , 2004. Available on Amazon . © Jennifer Semple Siegel, 2004. This work may not be reprinted or reposted without permission from the author.

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--Week 1

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First time on “The BIG Diet”? Start here . I could live with this diet for a while. When you put the shake mix through the blender, it gets all nice and frothy and creamy. But next week, we get bumped to the 70-calorie version, which, I hear, tastes horrible. I’ll think about that next week. Nicole continues to make fantastic progress, her drug rehab nearly complete. She has gained 25 pounds, up to 110, and says she no longer craves crack cocaine. I hope Nicole appreciates my efforts on her behalf, but when I told her about this diet, she said, “Don’t do it for me, Ma. Do it for you.” I can’t figure her out. ____________________________ Source: “The Big Diet,” by Jennifer Semple Siegel, Are You EVER Going to Be Thin? (and other stories) , 2004. Available on Amazon . © Jennifer Semple Siegel, 2004. This work may not be reprinted or reposted without permission from the author.

The BIG Diet (Or What Happens When You Deprive Yourself of Luscious Delights)--The Last Supper

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Eve of deprivation. The Last Supper. This meal, my last one until D-Day, a shooting of the whole artillery of fireworks on the 11th hour on the 4th of July. I know full well it will be a long time until the next 4th of July. It’s just one of those things that has got to be done, although I don’t even like some of the foods I ate tonight. I must have ingested over 3,000 calories in a period of four hours, but who’s counting? The next 12 weeks: nothing but milk shakes, and three months of slow refeeding.... ____________________________ Source: “The Big Diet,” by Jennifer Semple Siegel, Are You EVER Going to Be Thin? (and other stories) , 2004. Available on Amazon . © Jennifer Semple Siegel, 2004. This work may not be reprinted or reposted without permission from the author.

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment