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5. Weight gain
If I want to lose weight at this point, I have to eat absolutely nothing. I'm not exaggerating. Nothing! Recently I tried to take off this four pounds that I can't seem to get rid of, so I had 1,200 calories a day and worked out daily and I gained a pound and a half. I even cut out red wine, which is not easy for me because I enjoy my glass or two of wine at dinner, but I cut it out and still I gained weight. Can someone explain this to me? I'm thinking of drinking alcoholically, because if I'm going to keep gaining weight no matter what I do, then I might as well be hammered and not give a shit about my appearance. If I'm going to be bloated, I might as well be loaded. (Oh, and by the way, cutting out the wine did nothing to alleviate my hot flashes either, which is one of the useless pieces of advice I found online.) I used to be able to eat anything and stay thin. And then when I hit thirty that kind of ended, but I was still able to take it off when I had to. Now I gain weight eating carrots. Whatever. I don't want to make myself crazy, but truth be told, I'm making myself crazy.

6. Trouble focusing
I can't remember a goddamn thing anymore, and you know what, it's made absolutely no difference in my life. There isn't much worth remembering anyway. And if I repeat myself because I don't remember that I said it before, too bad. You'll just have to listen again. My kids roll their eyes, like anything that they have to say could be half as interesting as what I'm saying for the second or seventh time.

6. Trouble focusing
I can't remember a goddamn thing anymore, and you know what, it's made absolutely no difference in my life. There isn't much worth remembering anyway. And if I repeat myself because I don't remember that I said it before, too bad. You'll just have to listen again. My kids roll their eyes, like anything that they have to say could be half as interesting as what I'm saying for the second or seventh time.

7. Less hair on head, more on face
What is that? Less hair on head, more on face! That's almost as annoying as vaginal dryness. Actually, I think hair reassignment is worse than the dry vagina, because nobody sees your vagina in public on a regular basis, at least not mine, but your face and head are on constant display! I've seen these women with their whiskers and comb overs on the streets of New York. I always thought they were mentally ill. How horrible of me. Someday I will be them. When is it going to happen? Is it slow? A whisker here, a five o'clock shadow there? Or does it happen all at once so that by July, I'm going to look like Rob Reiner?
I don't know. There's not much I can do about any of it anyway. I guess I just have to accept the fact that I'm going to end up a bald, fat, sweaty, irritable woman with a dry vagina and a full beard, who never sleeps and has memory loss so I won't even be able to remember how hot I used to look! The only comfort I take in all this is that I'll be dead soon anyway. Hopefully heart murmurs are genetic.

Why Susie Essman enjoys being a broad  

Susie Essman has played the sassy Susie Greene for all seven seasons of the critically acclaimed HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm . She has been a veteran of the world of stand-up comedy for 25 years and has appeared in her own half-hour HBO comedy special and made numerous appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The View and Crank Yankers . She also has acted in numerous films, most recently co-starring with John Travolta as the voice of Mittens the Cat in the Disney animated movie Bolt. To learn more about her work and her book, check out  SusieEssman.com .
Excerpted from What Would Susie Say? by Susie Essman. Copyright ?? 2009 by Esswoman Productions, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc, NY.

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