You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl.

Rivenbark, Celia.

For my sister, Stephanie Rivenbark, and my sisters-in-law, Linda and Judy Whisnant.

1.

Taking the Cla.s.s Out of Yoga.

Happy, happy, joy, joy! There is staggeringly good news on the health-and-fitness front at last.

Are you sitting down? I mean, if you're like me, you're almost always sitting down, which isn't such a bad thing, as you're about to learn.

Turns out, a twelve-year-long study in Denmark has concluded that women who have skinny thighs have twice the risk for heart disease as us normal women.

Can I get a "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah," my fluffy sisteren?

In your face, you supermodels with your spaghetti stems. Somebody please pa.s.s the pork fat and let me get on with the very serious business of avoiding a heart attack. I am all about being heart-healthy.

The study followed twenty-eight hundred Denmarkese (yeah, I know, but the real name makes me hawngry) and discovered that the portion of the population with thighs smaller than 23.6 inches in circ.u.mference had twice the risk of heart disease.

OK, to be honest, I thought that 23.6 inches sounded like a lot of inches when I first read that. I mean, that's like almost two feet of inches if my math memory is correct. So I got out the old tape measure and y'all guess what?

My thighs, which are actually kind of thighnormous, are exactly 23.5 inches. Too much information? Suckit, I'm fit by Denmarkanian standards!

The study doesn't explain why thicker thighs make a healthier heart but who the h.e.l.l cares and, yes, I want fries with that Communion wafer.

There's some speculation that it's because thinner people (hereinafter referred to as "the d.a.m.ned") have less muscle ma.s.s to "initiate the metabolic breakdown of lipids and glucose." I mean that's the first thing I thought when I read about it. Sorta. If you remove the part about metabolic breakdown of lipids and glucose.

This news came with caveats, of course. Caveat is a Latin word which means "dead person" or "funny neckerchief," I forget which. Anyway, the big caveat is that people who have thighs quite a bit bigger than the delightful and healthful 23.6 inches in circ.u.mference (in other words, anyone who has ever eaten a turkey leg at Disney World and wondered why they have to be so d.a.m.n small) aren't healthier by nature. They have gone and gotten themselves a bad case of an "overhealthy heart" I guess.

Scientifically speaking, the study finds that a woman who is barely over five feet tall and weighs 135 pounds is half as likely to have heart disease as, say, Heidi Klum.

Now before all you supermodels get your Versaces in a wad and accuse me of wanting you to have heart problems, let me hasten to say that nothing could be further from the truth.

Scurvy maybe, pellagra possibly, but not heart trouble. It also should be noted that Denmark is frequently the winner in the annual poll of the "World's Happiest Countries." Small wonder. I'd be happy, too, if I lived in a country where big thighs were considered healthy and desirable.

This breaking news from Denmark came out just about the same time as a Time magazine cover story on "The Myth of Exercise" in which a very learned scholar wrote that, while it's good for you, exercise won't make you lose weight. In fact-and this part cracks me up-exercise can actually lead to weight gain because of the notion that you're ent.i.tled to wolf down a platter of nachos the size of a hubcap at On the Border after a half hour workout on the Sp.a.w.n of Satan, I mean, elliptical machine.

Your chickens have come home to roost, you diet-obsessed hand-wringers. And I want mine fried with a side of tater salad, extra mayo for my heart, natch.

Ever since I read about the study of the proud Denmarki people, and the Time exercise story, I've been thinking about cutting out my weekly yoga at the art museum, but I like it too much. Except for the parts where the middle-school cla.s.ses taking tours past the Mary Ca.s.satts and so forth point and laugh at us when our a.s.ses are in the air for Downward-Facing Hag or whatever you should call a roomful of mostly middle-aged but undeniably enlightened womenfolk in loose clothes.

What if all this yoga makes my thighs get smaller? Still, I'd hate to give it up because yoga really does give me a certain peace and clarity of spirit.

OK, I made that up. It just feels good to be somewhere for a whole hour without anybody being able to find me and ask me to do some s.h.i.t for them.

I'm fairly certain that's why it was invented many decades ago by Yogi Berra, a famous baseball player who was excellent at avoiding real work.

I never saw myself as a yoga-type person but then I read Eat, Pray, Love, whose author, the glowy, flowy Elizabeth Gilbert, described how her deep and intense voyage of self-discovery, which included dumping her perfectly nice husband and visiting several different continents, led her to realize that she could eat nine pizzas at one sitting in Italy and still feel good about it if she was headed to India to do some yoga.

I think there was a little more to the book than that, but that was my favorite part.

Yoga just sounds so cool. Our teacher, a young woman fairly bursting with good health, meets us where we are, so to speak.

"You can rest when you need to," she said on the first day of cla.s.s, seeming to look at me for a long time-perhaps because I was the only one who had never had so much as a smidgen of yoga before. She knew this because I announced it, repeatedly, so she'd set the bar pretty low.

I was delighted that she understood, and so I did rest. For an hour. Just lay there on the purple yoga mat my friend Christy Kramer got on a yard sale for fitty cent and loaned me when I told her I didn't want to invest a whole lot of money into this yoga stuff until I was sure I'd like it.

Sure, some of the other women looked puzzled when I lay down and stayed down, but what can I tell you? It was the first time in for-freakin'-ever that I'd had some me-time, phone off, panties granny, and it felt wonderful.

Laying there while the others practiced some serious deep breathing and challenging poses like Old p.u.s.s.y in the Sky or some such, I understood why everybody loves yoga. I went to sleep.

And was awakened an hour later by the instructor gently kneading my thigh. My perfect, enormous thigh.

"Uhhh, trying to sleep here," I mumbled, but she just smiled one of those real peaceful yoga-induced smiles. "We want to keep the muscles as relaxed as possible."

Was she high? If I was any more relaxed, I'd be in an urn on somebody's mantle. I was deliciously relaxed and now understood why people who take naps in the middle of the day always feel so refreshed. At this rate, I'd be one of those irritating people who has a license plate holder that reads: MY OTHER CAR IS A YOGA MAT! OK, maybe not.

After that, she announced that we would take some deep breaths and thank our sun G.o.ds or something like that. It involved putting your hands in front of you and making a praying gesture for about two seconds, which, let me tell you, my muscles paid for the next day! I practically couldn't get outta bed!

Yoga is going to be a much better fit for me than, say, Pilates, which, because I was raised Southern Baptist, I misp.r.o.nounced for a really long time until my unchurched, heathen friend told me it had nothing to do with Pontius Pilate.

"It's p.r.o.nounced puh-lot-eez," she said with clear irritation. She is one of those snooty types who talks a lot about how all the hypocrites are in church and she believes that G.o.d is everywhere around her.

Not meaning to be cruel, I hope for His sake this wasn't true the day she seriously cut one in yoga cla.s.s.

That's the dirty little secret about yoga. All the pooting that goes on. Sure, you can try to sneak it out in low gear, so to speak, but everybody still knows. So while you're in your Loving Warrior Stance when you should be breathing deeply and feeling the life force gum up your chakras or whatever, you're just worried to death that the whole cla.s.s is going to hear you fart out loud.

I'm not sure how Elizabeth Gilbert dealt with that because there's no way you could eat nine pizzas for lunch and then go to yoga, even if it was a few days later. You'd still be floating up in the air like that idiot balloon boy.

I think I'll keep doing yoga for a while, staying away from the new "yogilates" cla.s.s I've heard about which combines yoga and Pilates with a foamy cappuccino concoction from the sound of it. After all, even though I'm not making real progress in the meditative closing moments when I'm supposed to be open to the universe and, instead, routinely make my grocery list in my head and worry about how unfair it is for me to need gum grafts at the same exact time that my kid needs orthodontia and where the h.e.l.l is all that money going to come from ... .

The instructor says that all of this openness to the will of the universe takes time. One doesn't just leap into meditation. It can takes years of practice, even Elizabeth Gilbert said that. But, in the meantime, while I'm waiting for that to kick in, I'll continue to eat pizza.

Just for the sake of my heart, you know.

2.

When Underwear Jokes Bomb, the Terrorists Win Does it mean I have to turn in my liberal card if I admit that I actually like the notion of profiling terrorists at the airport?

Here's the thing. I want to be against profiling, really I do, but I just can't get past the fact that as much as I want to be fair and logical and open-minded, all that high-minded c.r.a.p is overshadowed by my fervent desire for my a.s.s not to be blown out of the sky.

So, after much soul searching (OK, actually not that much; I've taken longer to toast a Pop Tart if we're being frank here), I have decided that the TSA should go for it.

TSA, for those of you who don't follow the news like I do (while cooking dinner, drinking box wine, and screaming at my kid every ten seconds to finish her d.a.m.n science project), stands for the Transportation Something Administration. These are the folks who are charged with keeping us safe in the sky and stuff.

Bottom line: I've decided the TSA should profile suspicious characters. h.e.l.l, even nonsuspicious ones. If someone acts just a little odd (furtive glances, shifty eyes, annoying under-breath chanting of "death to American pig sc.u.m," etc.), then the TSA should profile the h.e.l.l out of them. I don't care if they just have a hairstyle you don't like, go for it, TSA!

Ever since that creep flew into Detroit with junk in his trunk, planning to blow everyone to bits on Christmas day, I've changed my whole way of thinking about profiling.

TSA, if you see somebody suspicious, I don't care if you strip search 'em and force 'em to sit for hours in a detention room the size of a Triscuit. I repeat: I don't want my a.s.s blown out of the sky. Or yours, either. I'm bighearted that way.

But what of the trampling of individual rights, you ask? Hey, like Gandhi or somebody said, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And if those eggs happen to be stamped U.S. CONSt.i.tUTION, well, that was written way before air travel so it's not terribly relevant.

Face it: The founding fathers might have even embraced some profiling but those were simpler times. When teeth were made out of oak trees and everybody kept p.o.o.p in a pot beneath their bed. Frankly, it was all a little weird.

The TSA needs to step it up, though, and I'll tell you why. If you'll recall, the terrorist dude paid cash, bought a one-way ticket, and didn't have any luggage.

These are things that most security officials and, well, people who breathe in and out many times in the course of a day, would aptly call "red flags." Wouldn't it have been positively Smurfy if someone had noticed the terrorist bought a one-way ticket, paid for it with cash, and didn't have any luggage? Wheel, meet asleep person.

The TSA needs an overhaul, and this should worry all of us. While crazy people with no luggage and exploding underwear board with abandon, my eighty-nine-year-old friend-think cla.s.sic Rockwellian grandpa wearing a cute ball cap covered in collectible battleship pins-was frisked like a wh.o.r.e in church (OK, wrong metaphor but you get the idea) while trying to get to 'Bama for his grandson's wedding. What up with that?

I was flying on bidness a few months ago and standing right behind a female soldier wearing full-camouflage uniform as we waited to go through the metal detector. As she stepped through, the alarm went off and a TSA worker had to wand her. It happened four or five more times until I finally pointed out that she was wearing a banana clip in her hair that was probably causing the ruckus. She removed it, the alarm stopped beeping, and no fewer than three TSA workers grinned happily at me and said, "Hey, thanks!"

I hate to overstate the obvious but when y'all are depending on me for airport security, there is a huge problem. I just happen to know about banana clips. (And I'm wondering: Where did she find that thing, since I haven't seen one of those since Full House?) I know what you and the other members of my yoga cla.s.s are thinking: But, Sistermaiden (that's my new yoga name), you must realize that profiling is a very flawed system of protection.

True that. After all, terrorists could easily switch gears and recruit blond, blue-eyed sympathizers to put explosives in their underpants and fly all over the world. It's not that hard to disguise yourself. Remember how Philip Kiriakis got an entire face transplant on Days of Our Lives a few seasons ago? I can't believe terrorists didn't see that story arc and learn a little something from it. And who among us can honestly remember what Carrot Top used to look like? Or poor Mickey Rourke, brilliant in The Wrestler but still kinda goofy, what with that Chihuahua on his arm at the awards shows and all.

So, yes, I guess it's possible that as soon as you start profiling for only dudes rockin' the smelly/swarthy vibe with noticeable bulges in their bottoms, the terrorists will just switch gears.

Hey, I know that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in this world are kind, decent folk who only want to work hard, worship peacefully, and raise happy, healthy families. Everybody knows that. But look at it this way: You're walking down the street and you see a tiger on one side and a dog on the other. OK, it can be Mickey Rourke's Chihuahua for the sake of ill.u.s.tration. Which side do you want to walk on?

I'll give you a hint: It ain't the tiger's.

One of the worst things to come out of all this was the inevitable onslaught of bomb-in-underwear jokes, which should only be attempted by truly funny people. Bomb jokes aren't for amateurs. Consider the fact that a German family lost out on their whole vacation after the dingbat daddy, all boisterous in antic.i.p.ation of a holiday with his wife and daughter, cracked wise at the Stuttgart airport.

"Hey! I got explosives in my underwear!" he said. While everyone shifted uncomfortably in line, don't you know his wife was mortified and his daughter was rolling her eyes and texting her friends about how lame her dad was? It reminded me of the time-OK, the many times-duh-hubby, the Princess, and I have vacationed only to have Duh be the one in the tour group at the antebellum home/s.p.a.ce museum/ petting zoo to ask questions of the guide. While the Princess and I visibly cringe, Duh will pepper the guide with all sorts of inane questions. ("Yes, but who was the third man on the moon? We'll wait while you look that up.") German guy wasn't so much harmful as clueless of correct comic timing. You can't, just days after the plane incident, say stuff like, "Yep, I'm a little bit worried about servicing all those virgins once I get where I'm going but, Allah be praised, I'm sure there will be a way. Hahahahahaha! Did I mention that my underpants are explosive?"

This is a great example of why humor should only be attempted by professionals. This guy, perhaps overly giddy at the notion of a much-needed week-long vacay away from the sausage factory or making my next car, went too far. And he has the unpleasant body cavity search by Lars to prove it.

Still, he gets points for trying to wring something funny out of current events, even when they're decidedly unfunny. Any story involving the word "underpants" has the potential for comic gold. Any story. Trust me. This is what we in the Professional Humor Business call "a sure thing."

There are just some news headlines that seem ripe for fun-making. Take the time Obama invited the Cambridge cop and the professor to the White House for a beer in hopes that they could make up. While others thought this was a unique approach to opening a much-needed dialogue about race relations and, yes, profiling, my first thought was: "Oh, h.e.l.ls yes! I'm gonna ask Obama to help me patch things up with the carpool b.i.t.c.h who always gets out of her car and disappears to chat while we all have to drive around her stupid van." If the leader of the free world has time for this sort of thing, I am so in!

The other thing about the German would-be jokester is that he didn't understand when to quit. You can't keep telling the same joke over and over. Unless you're Larry the Cable Guy. No, I was right the first time. You really can't.

Dave Barry, a little-known comic who, I believe, lives on a bed of plantain peels in a Miami alley, once noted that humor has to be a series of punch lines. You can't just have one joke in your a.r.s.enal. That said, you also should be careful to always leave 'em wanting more. Jon Stewart? Yes, please. Carlos Mencia? Not so much.

The problem with our German friend is that his timing was off. Way off. It's the same reason it's OK now to joke about Michael Jackson but right after he sailed away on a puffy cloud of injectibles? No flippin' way. Only now is it acceptable to joke about those wacky Jacksons. And while I'm glad the chirren have found a stable home with Michael's mom, I have to wonder if it wouldn't be better if they were in the care of someone a little younger-say, Methuselah.

The important thing to remember is that in humor, timing is everything. The German guy could've tried out his best Michael Jackson material instead of the underwear-bomb joking and nothing would've happened except the Germans, who love 'em some Thriller, might've been p.i.s.sed.

All of these are weighty matters that are best left to the deep thinkers among us. Yeah, that's right: Dane Cook.

3.

Movie To-Do List: Cook Like Julia, Adopt Really Big Kid I went to see The Blind Side with duh-hubby and the Princess a while back. For those of you who haven't seen it, Blind Side is a fuzzy-wuzzy inducing movie in which Sandra Bullock plays a tough-talkin' Southern belle married to a Taco Bell mogul. One day, she discovers a homeless high school boy walking alone in the freezing rain and immediately stuffs him into her fancy imported car and takes him to her house, where he will spend the next few weeks sleeping beneath an Yves Delorme comforter on her couch. Which strikes me as weird, since her crib looks like it would have at least a dozen spare bedrooms. Let's just say that gorditas have been very, very good to this family. She works a little, too, as all good tough-talkin' Southern belles do, and naturally it's as an interior decorator. This makes it possible for the movie to include a few shrieking phone calls to some off-camera and impeccably gay a.s.sistant to show that, yes, she is quite tough-talkin'. It's easy to see how she'd fall for her husband. When I think Taco Bell, I think interior design, don't you? Aye Chihuahua!

No matter. She is the cla.s.sic Southern woman who will move mountains for those she loves, including and especially her new black son. She spends the crucial first few weeks together with him teaching him how to coordinate his Aber-crombie with his Fitch. Along the way, the kid becomes a football star at the fancy private high school her kids attend, which isn't a real surprise because this kid is frikkin' huge.

All I can think is thank G.o.d Almighty that kid's birth mama supposedly smoked lots of crack or he would've come out weighing, like, forty pounds when he was born.

The movie was pretty good but I had a hard time concentrating because there was another bright screen just a Twizzler's breath away. A woman I'll call t.u.r.dette was sitting beside me and spent the whole movie compulsively texting on her Dingleberry, which had a screen bright enough to land a jumbo jet on a rainy runway.

It was so annoying that I almost missed the best scene, where Sandra Bullock chews up her bigoted lunch buddies at the club and spits 'em out like Sanka at Starbucks.

Even t.u.r.dette paused momentarily from her texting to watch, but then she went right back to it.

I shouldn't be surprised. The movie theater is the last bastion of lawlessness in polite society.

Where else can you just toss your used food and drinks on the floor? I mean besides the opera, of course.

Movie theaters have always had a slightly seedy vibe and not just because the back row is always reserved for b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs. Which I tried to explain to my mother as she headed up the steps toward the top row when I took her to see something forgettable starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, who, she made a point of saying, "looks like she'd be the kind of daughter who would treat her mother very nicely."

"You can't sit there! That's where the kids sit. It'll be noisy and, uh, gross."

"I bet Catherine Zeta-Jones would let her mother sit anywhere she'd like," she huffed.

"But this is the illicit s.e.x row! Everybody knows that. Children have been conceived back here. Remember that girl in the Princess's home-ec cla.s.s? The one who named her son Avatar? You think that was just a coincidence?"

"You don't know what you're talking about," she snapped. "I've got a bad back. I have to stand up every ten minutes. Do you really want me to do that in the middle of the theater?"

Point taken. We sat in the back row and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when a bunch of older folk showed up and filled in the rest of the row. Throughout the movie, it was like everyone had little national anthems playing in their heads as they periodically popped out of their seats and just stood there for a minute or two cracking and stretching before sitting back down.