The one in which Spencer faces his fears....

It's all about facing your fears. I refuse to be held back and not doing things that I was once made fun of because I was "fat. With the 10 year anniversary of having the gastric bypass rapidly approaching and being 14 pounds away  from the goal weight I sat when I had it. I've gotten this "refreshed" view on obtaining that goal.

5 weeks ago I started doing the Couch to 5K program. I've always hated running. That hatred stems from being "that fat kid in gym class" being ridiculed (or to use a more current term Bullied) because I was slow and couldn't keep up with everyone else. I've always had this fear about "working out" in public because of these deep rooted fears from my childhood and then into my college years.

Well, yesterday after some prodding from 2 really good friends I joined a gym! This is huge y'all. I went today for the first time to run on the treadmill with one of those friends. The good news is, I didn't fall of the treadmill (almost but caught myself). The other good news is NO ONE MADE FUN OF ME!

So, with that I will start facing more of my fears. What will be next? My fear of commitment and abandonment? I dunno. Stay tuned. More will be revealed.

The Blog that Spencer bitches....

I know this is gonna make me seem like a jackass, but I don't care. It's me being me. Exposing yet another layer of me.

When I make plans with you and we decide on a specific time, I will be there at said time and you showing up 45 minutes past that time acting like it's not big deal is like a slap in the face to me. Especially when you invited me. I do not buy into that whole "running on gay time" that is an even bigger slap in the face to me. So when you finally decide to show up, expect me to be pissed off.

I know that a lot of it has to do with my "fear of abandonment" which leads into my "fear of commitment". So the fact that I have committed to meeting you and then you are late make it even worse for me.

There it's out there. I've said it.

What are your thoughts? Am I really a jackass because someone doesn't have their shit together and "runs on gay time"? 

I don't put myself out there for a reason....

in every aspect, whether it comes to feelings about "that" to going on an audtion. I have anxiety about it. Why? Because I have a HUGE fear of rejection.

It all roots from my be still seeing myself as the way I was 10 years. You'd think that almost a decade and over 265 lbs later this would not be the case, well  IT'S NOT, IT'S A BITCH. (Mikie that was for you). 

Long story short most of you know what I'm talking about when I say "that", if you don't ask and if want to tell you I will. What has manifested this fear of rejection is the audition I went on yesterday. Well I didn't get cast and I am more upset about it than I should be. I didn't even get a callback. So, what was me sticking my foot back in the pool of auditioning has turned into me pulling that foot out and running away again. Will I get over it? And go back do it again? Only time will tell.

This pretty much sums up my feelings about it all.....

Life is like....

A sliding glass door, you never know which side is open...and then you run into the screen. Just a quick hand count, how many of you thought I was going to say chocolate?  Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Because it's true you can be going along just fine and dandy and them BAM you run into the fucking screen. That's pretty much where I've been the past. Running into the screen on a daily basis. With just about everything. I said yesterday in a post that Acceptance is the key. It's so true it's not funny.

Today, I've accepted it. Reached out for help with what I needed help, got what I needed help with.  The rest of it I had to turn over to Elaine and let her have it. A lot of stuff went into that box, a few people, a few situations and a LOT OF FEELINGS.

In other news, as most of you know I dipped my big toe back in the acting pool with a role in Drama Queens that closed at the end of March. I didn't know how it was going to be :"acting" again. I thought I had moved on past the "being an actor" thing. Well, I had so much fun. As a good friend said, once you get back out there that urge will come back. She was so right. It's back and I'm ready to dip my foot in the pool again. I've scheduled an Audition for Oklahoma City Rep's production of Larry Kramer's THE NORMAL HEART! If you don't know this show, you should! It is an amazing in your face piece of theatre about the early day of the AIDS epidemic in NYC.

So there we are. Watch out for those screen doors, they will get you every time.

Acceptance was the answer....

It's been a while, since the "blog heard 'round the world". I needed to take a break from it and come up with another angle. So here we are, me talking about ME and what's going on with ME. Lord I sound like an actor or an alcoholic. You choose. 

Todays topic shall be acceptance.

 "And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment."

It's been said to me that your high power will always give you something you need to practice. Well, in the past few weeks she has been making acceptance that theme. From my "lay off" to my "love life" and everything in between. Funny thing is I didn't realize this until this morning when I was doing my meditation. Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake.

So here we are, me "accepting" the situation and realizing am powerless over everything...except my itunes. I can control what music I want to listen to.

I really got scared....well excited and scared.

I just realized that yesterday was my ½ birthday, and a good friends birthday! It was also 9 years to the day that I checked into Southcrest Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma tipping the scales at 525 lbs. I had the gastric bypass and changed my life.

Just a little back story, almost a year before I had gone to the doctor for a check up and he said that if I didn’t do something with my weight I would be dead by the time I was 30. I was 26. This scared the shit out of me, so I tried one more diet. This was nothing new to me. I had been dieting since I was in the 5th grade, the first time I went to Weight Watchers with my mom, that was also the same summer I did “fat camp” which was an outpatient “treatment” for the fat kids. That was also when I started Diet Coke. Every fad diet that came out I did. Some of the highlights include a six week stint at an inpatient rehab center in Tulsa, Oklahoma which was a real eye-opener (more to come on that topic in upcoming entries). My ALL TIME FAVORITE was my Senior year at college when I was on both Pondomin and Redux at the same time. I like to call those few months “Chasing the Phen-Phen Dragon”. I seriously didn’t sleep but maybe an hour a night.

With these diets, I would loose a few pound and then plateau out. So I would get frustrated and stop, except for “chasing the phen-phen dragon” that I stayed on because I liked the rush. I continued those medications until my Doctor said “No More, this stuff isn’t as good for you as we thought”. So I came off of it. And that was really the last diet I remembered. I REALLY put on the weight in those next few years.  I had given up. Nothing worked. So, I just dealt with it and ate all of my feelings of being who I was, where I lived that I would never be able to accomplish what I wanted to in life, because I was morbidly obese.

So, by the time I was 26 I was seriously wearing a size 54 waist and at least a 6X shirt, and let me tell you that shit is expensive and not pretty. I joked that they might as well have everything in Red and White Stripes with the Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Bailey Circus logo on the ass, because it was as big as circus tent. By this time I the only things I was doing was going to work and then home, I couldn’t do anything else, going out in public was causing panic attacks. One day, in the middle of the Oklahoma heat I was walking across the parking lot work and had to stop three times before I got to the door, because I was out of breathe. By the time I reached the building I was dripping wet. On one of my breaks I called my doctor to make an appointment for a check up and to see what we could do.

I will say, at this point Carnie Wilson had just had the gastric by-pass, and being the loyal Wilson Phillips fan and HUGE (literally) Carnie Wilson lover, my interest in the procedure had been sparked. I talked to my doctor wasn’t to receptive about this at all. He wanted to try one diet, an all natural diet over the counter thing. Which he just so happened to sell. So, I did. For several months I pumped my body full of these “vitamins”, they didn’t work. The only thing they did was make my urine smell REALLY BAD. After about three months of this, he finally agreed to writing a letter of “medical necessity” , which was something my insurance company required before they would approve it. 

The letter was filed and we played the “waiting game”, let me tell you that was the LONGEST 9 months of my life. I jumped through all of their hoops and played their games and by the time I finally got the approval in February of 2002 I was TIRED. Tired of fighting, tired of not being able to live. So, to get the approval letter in the mail was having all of my prayers answered. Once I got it, I immediately called the surgeon I had been referred to in Tulsa to schedule my appointment. It should be noted that by this time, the surgeon had a waiting list of 4 months, so the first opening he had was June 4. I said, I’ll take it!

The next four months were spent having all of the evaluations, the trip to the shrink was my favorite. I remember her saying “I want you to remember these next few things, because I’m going to ask you at the end of your session,  red, balloon and dog”. She never asked me at the end of the session. It kind of makes me crazy to this day that she never did, and I still remember it.

When June 4th finally rolled around, I was so excited and scared. I was terrified of going under general anesthesia, but so ready to get on with life and everything that I had missed out on over the last few years. I remember crying out of fear as the wheeled me down the hallway to the operating room, and then being put to ease that the surgical techs in the operating room were listening to The Steve Miller Band. One of my all time favorites.

The recovery was rough, and I don’t think I would have made it had it not been for my mother. She stayed with me the four days that I was in hospital, and then next week and half at home recovering. I started calling her Nurse Ratched. She, followed the doctor’s instructions. I will never forget the first time I got to have solid foods, she was SO nervous  as to what my reaction was going to be to it. She watched me like a hawk. Making sure that I ate what I was supposed to, when I was supposed to.

So, here I am. 9 years later and  250 lbs lighter. My goal, that I had set for myself was to be ½ the man I used to be. I’m almost there. I consider myself SO lucky that I lost the weight and it had stayed off. Because, yes I’ve gotten a little lax with the diet and exercise. I have about 10 lbs that I gain and loose. I’ll take it.

The good times, the bad times I've seen them all and my dear....

I'm Still Here! Just trying to figure some stuff out.


Here are some clips to occupy your time while I figure it out.

Not a fan of the lyric changes, but love the movie and Shirley. 


I didn't know this one existed...


Love Polly Bergen



Yvonne DeCarlo, makes the lyrics "First you're another sloe eyed vamp / Then someone's mother, then you're camp" so much more poignant.



and then of course. The mother of them all. The one where she DOESN'T GO UP ON THE LYRICS.