Hell is for childrennnn...

As always, Halloween is the one event of my entire year that really really really matters. Aside from my birthday...which matters, a lot more than it should at this age, obviously. I can't help it, I am a child trapped in this giant body and all I wanna do is celebrate the days in my life where I get to dress like an idiot and/or have a bunch of unexplained sugary items and wear tiny hats.

So naturally I did all three of those things this Halloween and it was GREAT! Probably one of the best ever except for the fact that it was on a Sunday which sucks because no one will go out to a bar on a Sunday night, it turns out. And no bands play. And...Sam's closes early, which I also forgot about. So Sundays suck, but I didn't let it ruin my fun.

On Thursday we did our Customer SER-CUS at work and that was a shitload of fun but also a lot of work and it's not easy running around all day in 30 layers of tulle trying to entertain adults in a banking call center. We got first place though, WOO HOO! I dunno what we won, I guess we'll find out this week. Hopefully not food! Here's some pictures of the circus!

I made this sign. And the arrow. I did a lot of crafts this month. (Heaven.)

I made this sign too! That's the nerd my friend at work is secretly in love with but she won't tell him. SCANDALOUS!

Hey, I made THIS sign too! People thought it was pretty funny. That's because it was.

Here's our circus crew! (L to R) My boss The Ringleader, Chris the Strongman, Mo the Bearded Lady, Me as Sprinkles the Clown, The Mormom as our Stuntman, Dee as our Fortune Teller and the new dude as some weird Carnie/Tattoo Man Hybrid. I told that dude to wear a mullet and an old rock t-shirt ala Joe Dirt and look like a Carnie and

this is what he showed up in.

THIN ICE, new dude! Plus, he looks like Rick Astley.

Me and muh girlz. Kinda looks like my boss is trying to tickle my tits with that whip, but I assure you, she is not. Unfortunately.

I wore the same costume on Halloween night because you don't spend like 30 bucks on tulle and only wear it once...it's like, the law or some shit. Plus, the thought of having to find another fat costume was like...fuck that noise. It worked out pretty good because most kids do actually like clowns if you don't paint your face up like some scary asshole or cruise around in a windowless van. Also, I can kinda make balloon animals! Well, lemme clarify...I can make like, a sword, and a dog...and a flower. But a flower takes 2 balloons and fucking forever, so that wasn't even an option.

So ya know, we live in Las Vegas, which is mostly in a major recession and most people are really poor and used to not getting what they want and shit so if you say "well, do you want a sword or a dog?" they don't say "I want a UNICORN!" and expect to get it, ya know? But this one damn kid was like deadset on getting a dumbass rat. A RAT. Of all things. I was like "well, I don't really know how to make rats...how bout a gray dog?" (because they are obviously the same thing.) and she's all "no thank you, I would like a rat, thank you." It was a weird mix of perfect manners and like total fascist asshole behavior and her mom was just like staring off into space like she was thanking Jesus just to have two minutes away from her mild-mannered Stalin child.

So fine, I'll try the rat. Who know? Maybe somewhere deep within the gray matter of my brain is some stellar rat-making visionary just waiting to be awoken?? Ah, but no. It ended up being just like a really short dog with a real long tail. I tried to play it off. TA-DA LOOK AT THAT RAT TAIL, MAN! She only stares at me. A ghostly stare. I can tell...this child isn't pleased. "I'm sorry, but rats do not have long noses." I look over at mom who is literally standing out in the middle of the road at this point still staring straight up into the sky either still praying to her God for this extended balloon-making session or waiting patiently for the spaceship to come pick her crazy ass back up. Kindly do not leave your red-eyed demon spawn here when you go, lady! And here, take this rat-dog with you. She ended up taking a red sword. And the rat, because I wouldn't let her leave without it. Who knows what kinda weird ass Eve's Bayou swamp curse she bestowed upon it? I'm poor enough, okay??

The rest of the night went along swimmingly! Swords and dogs all around! Happy kids and lots of babies to hold and letting older kids picks prizes from my BAG O' TRICKS which was mostly filled with Dollar Store fare such as toilet bowl tablets, mouse traps, whoopee cushions and pregnancy tests. Good times, my friends. I ate a brownie and some meatballs and sadly bid Halloween 2010 adieu. :(

Oh well, only 363 more days to go!

Although my costume did come out looking slightly like a Gay Pride Float, pretty much everyone loved it and it was a lot of fun! And I can't believe I found rainbow tights that actually fit! Also, GAY RIGHTS NOW!!

Lady Gaga pose.

An added plus to all the bright colors was that babies were like OBSESSED with my costume. Ryder fell in love with my squeaky horn which soon become a weird mix of body glitter, baby saliva and gnawed up Ritz crackers. Super hot, I know.

Some random victims of my Bag O' Tricks! A plastic banana, Bean-O and a gummy hand.

I found a clown out trick-or-treating and had to sucker her in for a picture!

I'm here (sometimes), I'm queer (sometimes), get used to it.

Status: Still not dead.

Suffice it to say you may never TRULY know how big your waist is until one day when you have to make your own rainbow-colored-tutu for the clown costume you decided to go with for Halloween. Holy Jesus, is that thing ever huge. Many hours and many yards of brightly colored tulle later, and all I can say about the technicolor monstrosity that is literally eating up my closet is that at least there's no chance anyone else will show up with the same costume.

Once again I went way overboard on Halloween. We decided to do this whole circus theme for the department at work, and while I'm WAY over-excited for the whole thing, I can't tell if my enthusiasm is GOOD because it gives me lots of shit to do which means my hands are busy with hot glue guns and glittery things and not idly stuffing fun-sized snacks into my mouth or BAD because it leaves me no time to cook, clean, eat right or have real meals. I will call it a toss-up since I'm maintaining my fatness, but at least I'm not gaining, which is pretty good for my all-time favorite holiday and handy excuse to binge eat Heath bars.

I'll post some pictures later of my whole rainbow clown get-up. Imagine a float in the Gay Pride Parade on LSD, basically. Only fatter.

In other news, my therapist has cancer and that is a fucking bummer! I had to skip two weeks of therapy because of my crappy new schedule at work and then I get this letter in the mail telling me she'll be out of the office for at least 3 months due to ongoing radiology treatments. That sucks, man. Aside from my own selfish reasons of being like I NEED YOU THERE TO HELP ME AND FORCE HUG ME EVERY TUESDAY, LADY, there's also the sense of sadness that comes from actually caring because she's such an oddly nice person that I feel genuinely bad that she has to go through this. Whoa, look at me, caring about other people and shit. It's like a whole new Tricia. Only fatter.

I hope she'll get through it and get back in there to deal with my selfishness soon. I sure don't wanna have to look for another therapist, but seeing as how I took the very last Prozac today, I guess I got no choice. I hope the new one's not an asshole because he/she's gonna have freakishly long but really skinny and nice shoes to fill, ya know?

Sorry I'm not around much. I never wanted to become one of those blogger people who comes back like every couple months and leaves some shitty update just to disappear again, but mostly I just don't have things to write about. Most days just seem okay. I feel like some fraud being part of this whole dieting blog community knowing damn well I don't diet or blog very often, but it's still nice to have here for when I feel like I wanna talk. So if you're still here, thanks for hanging in there and maybe one day it'll be better.

Up with hope, down with dope, etc.

Hey buddy, where's the fire?

I saw this secret on Post Secret today and it pretty much sums up how I've been feeling lately. Some days I don't even feel like trying. I feel like my life's already over. I feel like at this point even if I do lose the weight and get to some sort of "healthy" point, I'll still be plagued by all the irreversible damage that's been done already. I know that things can get BETTER, but the all-or-nothing perfectionist in me doesn't want to do it at all if I know I can't get it back to the perfect body. There's still all the loose skin, all the plaque in the arteries, all the damage to my organs caused by diabetes and 30+ years of abuse so even if I was perfect every day from here on out, my body would always be flawed, at best.

Why can't being alive be enough for me? When I'm laying in bed some nights and I get a weird feeling in my chest and my mind starts to wander about what it will be like to never be able to see my friends again, to never laugh again, to never talk to my brother again? I get sad and anxious. I know I don't want to die. So why can't I make the most of what's left of my life and live it to the fullest and stop killing myself everyday?

Some days I appreciate so much about life. I go outside and feel an autumn wind and I'm so fucking happy that I can enjoy this moment. Other days, I lie to friends who invite me out just so I don't have to get dressed or leave my apartment. Especially lately, so close to 400 pounds again, I feel myself turning back into a hermit. Making up excuses just to be left alone so I don't have to put on uncomfortable clothes and be ridiculed in public just to have a night out. So we order in and don't leave the couch all night and it feels all miserable and shameful but I still do it weekend after weekend.

But I'm still trying to get better. The one consolation is that I haven't given up on myself no matter how many times I wanted to. Still in therapy, still taking pills, still trying to eat less, still trying to make myself do things outside of my house. It's usually a little easier this time of year, because at least it won't be hotter than the surface of the sun outside my door for TOO much longer...hopefully. I do love fall. I love Halloween. I've been Halloween shopping seven times already and it's not even October yet. Borderline obsessive? Uh yeah.

Then comes the dilemma of facing yet another Halloween as a fattie. Let's see...witch or zombie...witch or zombie?? Didn't I have that stupid pep talk to myself LAST October telling me to stick to my diet so I'd have more options this year? Pretty sure I did. Okay fat, you leave me no choice.If pep talks and health scares and thoughts of your impending doom aren't enough to get you outta here, then maybe I can embarrass you out? One night at a bar in a 5X Sexy Cop uniform and I'm pretty sure I'll diet like I've never dieted before! OR...everyone I know will be suddenly blind and it won't matter anymore? Either of those options would work for me.

Eh, just kidding. I'll prolly be a clown so I have an excuse to make balloon animals all night. But the badge was a buck and I couldn't resist. I'll use it to seduce Jeff and then continue being a lifelong virgin. Adios, dudes.

Blame it on the A-a-a-a-a-ambien.

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Ambien Zone.

So that psychiatrist that I see for like 5 minutes about once every three weeks thought Ambien would be a good idea for my long sleepless nights. I voiced some concerns that I had heard some "weird" things about the drug, but he poo-pooed me mid-sentence and said it was all media hype and that the side effects were very rare, blah blah etc. He likes to cut me off and make me feel like some gripey old man when I start to complain about one of his precious drugs.

Anyway, because I have little to no willpower and I DID want something to help me sleep, I decided to give it a try. And truth be told, those little fuckers work. My head hits the pillow and what normally would have been about a three hour process of shutting down the ol' thinker is now like 4 minutes of mumbling to Jeff followed by the sawing of many logs. And it's kinda nice not to have to lay there thinking about all the crappy stuff that happened that day and how I could have done things differently if I weren't such a screw-up and all that negative business that usually keeps people like me up at night, you know?

But then the weird shit started happening...

Suffice it to say that you do not want to suddenly be awoken from a deep Ambien sleep because you will be FUCKED up. Nothing seems real...or everything seems HYPER-real...I'm really not sure. Alls I know is that it makes me really stupid. The first time it happened was purely Jeff's fault.

He got up in the middle of the night to go pee and left the door to the bedroom open. Of course no late-nite pee would be complete without a monster bong hit before returning to bed. And like any real pothead knows, you have to like cough, man, and like, open up the airways, man and like, let it get all in your lungs and shit like that, you know, man? So it's nearly 3 in the morning and I hear coughing. My eyes open and I smell smoke and see this white haze and this glaring light coming from the other room. Smoke, light, coughing, OH SHIT, FIRE! I jump outta bed, start putting on pants, throw on a tshirt, run my big ass down the hallway and happen to see from the side of my eye Jeff standing in front of the toilet taking a pee and still coughing.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?? WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE!!"
"Wha? Why are you up?"

Suddenly I realize, there's no fire. Just pee and bong smoke. What in the hell just happened? One second I'm making a valient effort to remember the cat on my way out the apartment door and the next second I'm standing in the hallways staring at Jeff's balls with a puzzled yet clearly disturbed look on my face. Not cool, man. I just couldn't understand how it was so easy to convince myself the place was on fire while still being in such a sleepy haze. It's like having sound and reason, but only to make the most assenine conclusions of all time. "hmm, it's cold in here, I MUST BE STRANDED ON ANTARCTICA. LOOK AT THAT PENGUIN CAT!" Shit makes no sense. Goddamn Ambien.

The next time it happened, I forreal thought I was dead. I was home alone so I can't even blame Jeff this time. I don't know what made me suddenly wake up, but when I did, I was just surrounded by beaming white light, everywhere. This is it, I thought, heaven. No one was more shocked than me. Surely it must be my reward for never having any filthy dirty raunchy sex...the bright white beacon of light leading me home. So I got out of bed and started to walk around. Heaven was SO BRIGHT and FULL OF HOPE and FILLED WITH WONDER and ...strangely had the same layout as my apartment.

Hey, what the fuck, this IS my apartment. My apartment is heaven?? What a shitty shitty terrible heaven...no one even bothered to clean it. It was somewhere between the kitchen and the living room that the light started to fade and I realized it was just my awful dirty apartment with no cool lighting and nothing different at all except for a fat naked Tricia walking around the living room like some lost confused cherub.

Turns out opening your eyes mid-Ambien makes everything all white and bright and crazy. Things that would have been good to know before my freak-outs and before I booked that full-page obituary talking about how awesome I am/was. Oh well, the world still needs to know.

Truth be told, waking up thinking you're dead a few times a month is worth all the good sleepin' I been getting lately. Maybe the dosage could use some tinkering so I'm not taking like six hour naps every Sunday afternoon, but for now I'm grateful for the zzzz's. Hopefully I don't wake up and walk off a cliff or like sleepily drive into a 7-11 one night, but in the meantime, I guess I'll start putting some clothes on when I go to sleep...just in case.

Don't sink the boat that you built to keep afloat.

It's not that I don't miss blogging. I do.

I just don't like blogging the hard times, and well, I've been having hard times. I wanna be the funny girl with the snappy wit and the perfectly timed f-bomb. Not the girl who comes back three months later to report that she gained back the thirty pounds she lost and that once again, it's back to square one. Unfortunately, that's me today. Well, pretty close. I'm at 394.8, which puts me pretty firmly back to the beginning.

Four antidepressants and two sleeping pills and thirty pounds later and here I am again. Maybe a little worse for wear, but still here. I guess I'm a little upset that my magic pills didn't make me "normal." I still have the compulsion to overeat all the time and spend the day in my pajamas and only get off the couch when I TOTALLY HAVE to. I'm still me. For better and for worse. The good times are maybe even a little better but the bad times are still pretty fucking terrible, and there's still plenty of them. The older I get, the less magic I believe in. I'm not even sure Magic Johnson ever really had HIV. Publicity stunt!

I got really sad when I found out Garrett died. I don't deal well with death, you know? I spent the last couple months pretty much ignoring all things Blogger and that included most of my blog friends, and for that, I am sorry. Garrett was a really nice guy to me and we talked on the phone pretty often and I got all pissed at myself that I haven't talked to him in a couple months and now I never can again. It pisses me off that his name's still in my cell phone, but I know I can't call.

I went through this for a while when my niece died. She had this shitty modem that would randomly connect and disconnect for no reason. So at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday, I'd be online in my lonely apartment playing online Scrabble against the computer and suddenly my dead niece would sign into MySpace. That never went over well with me. I genuinely miss people when I know they're not there anymore. I don't even know what happened to him. I hope it wasn't anything too terrible. I just know I was really sad and pissed off and now here I am talking about it and feeling weird. That either means therapy's working or not working, so I dunno.

I was talking about it with my therapist today though. I mentioned that I had a hard week because a friend died. I said I didn't know what happened, but I mentioned that we had talked before about our relative obesity. She asked me about how big he was and I said "I don't remember exactly...somewhere just above 500 pounds, I think." She got this wild look in her eyes and said "Isn't it so sad that someone can get to that size?" Uhhh. "It's not all that hard, really, I'm 400 pounds." She said she thought I was around 200 pounds! I could tell she felt bad, I mean, the whole thing was kind of a shitty exchange, but I really wasn't all that offended. I can't expect someone who's probably weighed 95 pounds her entire adult life to understand the concept of 400 pounds. I barely understand it and I live it every day. I think she's a nice lady and she's compassionate about my problems and she just didn't know. I let it go. I didn't wanna talk about him like some number or some lesson to be learned. He was a good friend to a lot of us. It just sucks.

But seriously...200 pounds. Gimme a break, lady!

Anyway...I'll try to update more often. Thank you SO much for all the nice cards and gifts I got in the mail and all the encouraging comments and emails. They made me smile and it's nice to feel like people all over the world care about me even during the weird times that I don't care about myself. Seriously, it means a lot.

Dina, kindly get off my ass now.

I didn't do it.

I've been talking to my therapist a lot about how I blame myself often for things that aren't my fault. Like it's my fault the world seems to have a problem with my fat body. She says it's ingrained from having a dad who always went out of his way to make me feel like I ruined his life just by existing...and I can agree that probably is where it initially stemmed from.

But as I was leaving her office today, she said "Just for today, try pretending that NOTHING is your fault. Just try it."

Is it weird that it kinda makes me wanna rob a convenience store? Wouldn't be my fault, is all I'm saying.

The College Years.

So I spent most of Thursday night in the Emergency Room of St Rose Siena Hospital last week. It sucked. I went to bed and woke up with my heart beating about a million times a minute. I felt so fucking weird and out of sorts, tingly all over and like dizzy and just fucking weird. I thought FOR SURE, this was it. The most-anticipated, most-feared fatal heart attack that would lead to the oversize coffin and my dad standing over it saying things like "I told her all that pizza would kill her one day" and "You know, that coffin cost twice as much!" Not that he paid for it or anything.

Turns out it was just a panic attack. Like, outta nowhere. I don't get it. Why would I have my worst panic attack ever one week AFTER I start taking anti-anxiety medicine? Why would it come to me in my sleep? I don't remember feeling especially panicky or anything so I dunno what the fuck was up, but either way, I guess I'm glad I'm not dead and my dad gets to save those rants for another day.

Also, the doctor told me I was "very dehydrated." What in the fuck?? I feel like all I do all day is drink water and drink water and then drink more water. They gave me an IV which took FOUR attempts from two different nurses to get the dang needle in the right place. That one bitch was just not good at it. She kept saying "it's RIGHT THERE, I can SEE it!" then still not getting it. And she was leaving her failure needles in my arm while sticking in the next one, so at one time I had three fucking needles sticking outta my arm at the same time and I had to just look away and start humming the theme from Saved by the Bell because if I saw that stupid confused look on her face one more time, I would have punched it and there were way too many cops around.

You know, it says a lot about a person when she's sitting in a hospital room thinking she's on death's doorstep and her heart's on it's last string and yet, still, she wishes she had some Oreo's to pass the time. I dunno if there's any hope for me. Therapy...not working. Drugs...not working. Imaginary heart attacks...not working. I'm not sure what's left.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Medicated.

Psychiatrists are weird. I've been going to my primary care doctor for over four years now and I could never get her to put me on Xanax for my weird anxiety attacks. I spend 14 minutes on a couch with some phychiatrist that has never laid eyes on me before that moment and I walk away with a prescription for Prozac every morning and Xanax twice a day. Whatever, I won't pretend to understand the medical field and all its weird rules...it just seems odd to me, that's all.

He said the Prozac might help as an appetite suppressant, which would be great, but I'm definitely not putting all my eggs in that basket. I still need to get my ass back on track. I need to care JUST enough to make me wanna change things for the better. In the past month and a half, I totally gave up on myself. My will to live was totally broken, and I just want it back. I don't think it's so much to ask. Hopefully these weird shiny blue pills will help. If they don't, I'll have to find another way. I just need something to work. Giving up sucks.

Also, in the past few weeks, I've met three new doctors and they've all told me the same thing. "Have you ever thought about gastric bypass? I really think it could help you." Then they sit there with some smug "EUREKA!" sense of satisfaction on their face like they just cured this fattie. Hmm, gastric bypass, EH? Never heard of it, doc. Of course I've THOUGHT about it. You think there's a person waddling around at my size who hasn't thought about it like every day of their life?? I THINK about it all the time. My insurance WON'T cover it. It's not even an option. I've already cried that river.

And when I say it's NOT an option, I mean some dude in a suit decided that I don't get that option...so I don't. But then they always pipe up about how it could really "change my life." And they start telling me how I should consider "just paying for it." Yeah, okay. Look, dude, we'll both be lucky if that check I wrote you for 40$ even clears the bank, so let's have a quick reality check before you assume I can just plunk down $30,000 for something. My credit sucks and I wrote on your extremely extensive list of questions that a lot of my anxiety stems from financial problems, so let's just take those champagne wishes and cavier dreams down a peg or two.

I understand they're only trying to help, and I know my anger stems from bitterness over red tape bullshit that I can't even cut with a shiny new Ginsu knife (THAT CAN CUT THROUGH ALUMINUM CANS!!) It's just hard for me to open myself up for therapy and I'm trying REALLY hard and it's like "oh, your self esteem problems probably stem from your weight...that'll be $265." I know a lot of it is just snap judgements and that over time, it might, and probably will, get better. So for now I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt...and it's a really huge boulder of doubt, but still. I'll try to keep you guys posted.

And who knows? Maybe one day I'll blog about something that isn't therapy-related. Keep hope alive.

Wednesday, I feel better just for spite.

So tonight's the night, guys. Time to go see the psychiatrist and see if he thinks I'm as crazy as my therapist does. The more I think about my life, the more I realize that maybe I DO have some weird chemical imbalance that makes me think all the bad shit in the world should happen to me and only me. When I hear about happy or successful people dying, that voice in my head always pipes up "it should have been me, I'm not doing shit with my life." Do other people think this way?

It's not like I think he's gonna give me some pill and I'm gonna wake up tomorrow all happy and sunshiney and ready to take on the world. A pill that can make me eat right, exercise, organize my house, wanna have sex, not hate myself AND learn to save money? Doubtful. BUT...if it can make me stop feeling like all the terrible things that happen in the world are somehow my fault, that would help a lot.

I really appreciate all the comments and encouragement you guys have been giving me. I know I've been lackluster at best at staying connected during this unexpected turn towards shittiness in my life, so really, it means a lot to me to see you guys weathering this shitstorm with me. I rarely expect people to care about my life (shocker?), but it's nice to know that people do.

To change the subject a little, in some vain attempt to actually move my ass off the couch, I decided to go swimming Sunday afternoon at Jeff's sister's house. Well, "swimming", because I still don't know how to swim, but kicking my legs around in the water and wrestling 5 kids off my back for a couple hours is still pretty good exercise for someone like me. For the last 3 days, my legs have been freaking SORE AS HELL. How sad! How out of shape do you have to be to get leg cramps from essentially floating? Sigh.

I thought maybe I could start going over there a few times a week if they'd let me because the swimming pool at my apartment complex is super crowded every day since school's out and it seems like everyone living here has at least 3 kids running around pissing me off. I always check the pool when I get home from work in the hopes that maybe it'll be empty enough for me to dare showing my hyper-white legs and homemade swimsuit, but nope...Kid Soup every fucking day. Oh well...at least one day those little jerks will have to go back to school. So suck on that.

Summer sucks, man. I was all hyped up to have this be the summer that I was gonna beat the heat and lose weight and brave the 120 degree weather to go hike and shit and say "fuck you, sun!" But so far that shit has NOT been the case. You win this round, global warming.

Hari kari.

Had therapy again yesterday. She gave me this workbook to do to assess my depression, and apparently, it's severe. Although I can't imagine taking those stupid tests and ending up with anything less than severe. Maybe I'm just crazy to think that everyone's at least a little depressed. The world is pretty sucky, especially lately, and if you're walking around with some perma-smile just loving life, then maybe YOU'RE the weird one.

Or maybe I'm just a downer...who's to say?

Anyway, I finally realized that if there's some drug out there that can make me not be sad, I want to take it. I dunno why I fought it for so long. So I was all geared up to start some new happy-pill-regimin today, but she didn't even prescribe me anything! She said I need to see a psychiatrist first? Stupid me, I thought that's what SHE was.

So now I gotta wait until next Wednesday to go see some dude to see if I should take pills, even though she already told me I should. Makes no sense to me, but then again, I'm clearly crazy, people.

I already feel a little better, though I don't think it's because of therapy. As soon as I see that lady's face, I start crying. Turns out I have a lot of daddy issues...no surprise there. But at least my days seem a little brighter lately. Still eating like a cow though. That part sucks. My jeans are so damn tight...the doctor asks if I ever think about suicide and I wonder if she means about how I stop breathing when I zip up my jeans? If that counts, then yes, all the time.

I have a secret

Okay, this isn't Tricia. I am like Tricialite. I'm 80% less funny, and 70% more likely to laugh at people. Who am I? My boss likes to call me "Dinalicious" but seeing as that makes me homicidal, I don't recommend it.

I do have a point to posting. I know Tricia sorta well, but I do know something she thinly veils. She friggin LOVES presents. Like if you send her a card with some stickers. Or a mix CD with "Tricia + Stinkynutz 2gether 4 ever" and put Boyz 2 Men and Slipknot on it. So, if you want to buy her way out of her funk, comment here with a way for me to get your email, and if I deem you uncreepy enough (or creepy but too lazy to drive to where she lives and slash her up) I will send you her address and you can cheer her up.

P.S. I think she is just on this therapy kick because she is trying to copy Ruby.

Hi.

Not dead.

Just in a weird place. I started therapy on Tuesday and I was 25 minutes late due to some asshole customer I couldn't get off the phone before my lunch break. Therefore I only got like a 20 minute session, but I still cried. Talking about me makes me cry. It's weird to hate yourself so much. Not to mention the fact that I'm sitting there crying my eyes out and I start to feel worse because I feel like this therapist is probably thinking 'what the fuck am I getting myself into' after she asked me like 3 questions and I started bawling. Ugh.

Which is the reason I need therapy to begin with...because I'm paying like 200 bucks an hour and I feel bad that she has to listen to my story. I just wanna know why I hate myself so much. It's so hard to wanna take the steps to save my life when I can't even pretend that my life is worth saving. I dunno how it got so dark so fast...it feels like a month ago, I was happy.

Either way, I'm not dead.

I don't like to blog the depressing shit, you guys know that.

I'm pretty sure she wants me on drugs. I don't really know if that's what I want. I don't even like to have more than two drinks a night and now I'm supposed to be okay with being on some constant mind-altering drug? Just not sure if I'm ready to resort to that yet.

We'll see.

In the Year 2000...

It's weird when you think about what life will be like when the kids in our lives are our age. I'm in my early 30s and I'm already struggling with technology. Yet, Jeff's 10 year old niece is on top of shit. Using your text signature to announce to all other bitches that Justin Bieber is YOURS, goddammit. Whoa, technology. Alls I know for sure...is that I'm backing the fuck off.

Meanwhile the clock in my car is never the right time...can't figure that shit out.

As far as life goes, I guess I'm going back to counting calories to see how that goes. Gotta do something, because all this doing nothing is killing me. Also, my new jeans are far too tight, but I refuse to go back to the old ones.

Breathing is overrated anyway. Better to be in tight jeans with a good plan than sweatpants with a bowl of ice cream. I think it says that in the Bible somewhere...

If not, it probably should.

Sugarless Daddy.

This is my buddy, Jacob! Jacob is my friend Angel's youngest son and he's 10 years old. His hobbies include making paper airplanes and guns and collecting foil for his giant foil ball. At 18 months, Jacob was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and Cystic Fibrosis. Needless to say, life's not easy for him. He's just a kid, but he has a lot of shit to deal with every day.

On one hand, it sucks because he's a rough and tumble little dude, but he can't even have a juice box without a finger prick and a blood sample. I'm an adult and I can barely force myself to do that shit like once a day.

Being a diabetic myself, and having so many ties to kids and adults with diabetes, I was really happy to see YumYucky and The Anti-Jared making an effort to get us all involved in helping kids with Diabetes. It's a GREAT cause and I think you should get involved too! Donating ANY amount would REALLY help (even a dollar!) and hopefully there will be a cure for this pain-in-the-ass disease sometime soon. It's just not fair being a sick kid :(

Click here to donate!

In other news, I'm using this Sugar-Free day as a catalyst to jump-start my weight loss efforts again. Been dealing with lots of self-hate and emo bullshit and I'm ready to start digging my way out. I have lots of shit to work on, but the least I can do is give up sugary nonsense for this ONE day. SOLIDARITY!

Sorry I haven't been blogging much. I don't like to blog about my sad days, even though it does usually garner me a TON of comments! Some days I just don't feel like sharing. I promise I'm working on it and hopefully I'll be back to posting some funtimes soon. Miss you guys!

Make it a great UNSWEET Wednesday, friends!

Talkin' bout my poos again.

So...I like to read on the toilet. I'm pretty sure my colon doesn't even know how to start without a magazine or book or AT THE VERY LEAST, an emergency shampoo bottle in my hand. It's kinda weird though because I don't like to hang out in the bathroom. So it's not usually a very long read. I've bookmarked a page, then bookmarked that SAME page three sentences later and thought that was totally normal. To be continued, dudes.

The thing I'm turlet-reading right now is the Dr Atkins Diet Revolution book. Boy, talk about your boring reads! But it's creating problems.

As you may or may not know, my diet is literally, and figuratively, in the toilet. I'm going through my summer slump. It's all hot and gross outside and the last thing I wanna do when I get home from work is cook some meat-product and then eat it. Atkins is more winter-y, for sure.

Plus, some nights it's just TOO awful to cook. If I wanna have a big-ass fruit salad instead of a pound of steak, my brain says to me "that's okay!" But Dr Atkins is all "NO FRUIT, YOU DUMMY!" ARGH! And to be honest, the thought of going all summer without a giant bowl of watermelon or some grilled corn on the cob or even a Crystal Lite Slurpee makes me wanna dieeeeeee. So I think about it and I'm like "okay, well I'll go back to counting calories, because it still works and at least I can have frozen yogurt or a peach, you know?"

But then I have to poo. Which means I have to read more of Dr Atkins telling me he's going to CURE MY DIABEETUS just by making me eat pork chops. Seems so easy! I wanna cure diabetes too, Doc! Then I think "He's right, I gotta do this!" OH CONUNDRUMS.

So in the meantime, I do nothing. I do...everything. I do like a large Coca Cola/Wild Cherry Slurpee and a Choco Taco for lunch. Then we get pizza for dinner. Then I'm all "man, this scale must be broke..." Because denial is the new black. And it's too hot to wear black in the summertime, so I need to get over this shit, PRONTO.

Also, I dunno what in the hell is going on with Janell but she's got me all worried, and I sure hope she's okay! BE OKAY. Maybe if you're one of those faith-based types, you can say something nice about her in your closing ceremonies tonight. Also, be okay. Thanks.

If you don't know who it is, then it's probably you.

***Warning: I was mad when I wrote this.

You know, despite my often rough exterior, I'm actually pretty sensitive when it comes to my flab. Contrary to popular belief, I don't enjoy being reminded that it's there! I know it's there...I have to deal with it every minute of every day, so you're not doing me some huge favor by reminding me that everyone else can see it too.

Ugh.

Maybe I should explain. There's this Dane Cook joke, I think...it's like, in every group of friends, there's that one asshole that everyone hates. Well our asshole is Jack's sister. She ALWAYS just shows up wherever he is and proceeds to bitch about EVERYTHING. It's really fucking annoying, but they're like a package deal, so everyone accepts it and deals with it.

But now she's like pregnant. It's this whole like dramatic situation, but needless to say her being pregnant has done real wonders in raising her already cunt-like attitude levels. SO...we're all chilling in Erica's backyard and it's like HOTTT...Las Vegas in the summertime, whodathunkit?? She gripes for like an hour about how hot it is which is already getting on my nerves. Then THIS happens:

Her: "Ugh, being pregnant in the summer fucking sucks."
Me: "yup...it's hot."
Her: "It's already so hot, then I have to wear this fat suit all day!"
Me: "Yeah...sucks, dude."
Her: "I had already gained a few pounds before I got pregnant but nothing LIKE THIS, GOD!"
Me: "Yep..."
Her: "I dunno how you do it. Being THIS SIZE all the time!"
Me: *blink*
Her: "Like, don't you think it's too hot to stay so fat???"

Angel, seeing me there with my mouth gaping open like some fucking bass, swooped in and asked me to help her get a cooler out of her car. I...like...I didn't even know WHAT to say! Am I fat? YES. Do I need you to fucking broadcast it to a backyard full of people?? NO! UGH, fucking bitch! Needless to say, it was a real fucking downer. I dealt with it in the totally adult way of avoiding her the rest of the day and eating a lot. Grr.

I mean, today, after I've had time to think about it...MAYBE she didn't mean it in some malicious way, but still, it's just fucking rude. It's not like when I'm on my period, I go up to her and say "SERIOUSLY, I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DEAL WITH BEING A CUNT EVERYDAY BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING EXHAUSTING TO ME, DUDE!" Maybe I should.

I take the moral high ground because I'm either a weak bitch or because I think it's not worth alienating myself from the group. But man, I swear, sometimes I really just wanna punch her in her fat fucking pregnant mouth.

Am I being irrational?? Did I just take it the wrong way because I think she's an evil troll and I automatically assume everything she says is to be heard with an asshole-like undertone? I dunno. But now in the retelling, I'm pissed again.

I'm a nice person! I accept everyone for who they are, even annoying assholes. But fuck, stick a goddamn cork in it, you breeding whore. GRRRRRRRRR.

I never feel whiter than when I'm trying to rap.

I know it's been a week since I posted. I don't have a good excuse. I've been doing pretty crappy diet-wise. I'll let the shock of that soak in since I'm sure none of you were expecting to read that.

I'm really frustrated. Going though this whole why-do-I-hate-myself-so-much stage of my life right now. I don't think a single day passed in the last week where I didn't cry and have a pitiful breakdown. It was just a bad week. I dunno why I do this. I do well and I kick ass, then I let it slip and it makes me hate myself. I waste a lot of time hating myself and thinking I'm such a weak lazy bitch and then I hate myself even more for wasting time.

It sucks. I mean, most days I don't think I'm THAT awful. But then some days I'm just consumed by this rageful self-hate and I don't know how to shut it down. So it lingers and I just about give up on everything. Then one day I wake up and I'm over it for a little while. Needless to say, I have some fucked up shit inside my head and I don't know what to do with it. It doesn't seem to be going away on its own so it's time to start looking for a new therapist to hate.

In an attempt to get outta my head for a while, I went out with the gang to a karaoke bar for Jack's birthday. It was way more fun than anyone was expecting, I think. I didn't even drink but I just felt loose as fuck. Don't think about anything and just scream into a mic and things can be better. We were there for six hours!

It was a cool little place. If you've ever seen Lost in Translation (aside: If you haven't, wtf??), then it was one of those little private rooms like they use in that movie. Just you and your pals and a few buckets of beers (not for me) and six hours of kick-ass tunes. It was funny when we walked in because it was in Chinatown and the whole lobby was packed with all these fashionable Korean kids and they were blasting like hardcore gangsta rap and there were all these murals of rappers on the wall and shit. I was cracking up immediately! Seriously...best.time.ever.

Here's some pics because I don't wanna talk about diet shit anymore right now and I'm looking forward, dudes.

^ It took about six beers to actually get Jeff off the couch to start singing, but once he was up there, you practically had to wrestle the mic away from him. He kept picking all these 80s hair ballads because I think he thought it would make me happy, so that was pretty cute :)

^ The whole gang in front of the fucking rad Biggie and 2Pac wall, haha! I seriously want all my bedroom walls to look like this forever. Starting now.

^Kickin' it with Pac who had some really nice round titties in this painting.

^ Had to give seperate-but-equal love to Biggie so as to not reignite that whole West Coast/East Coast rivalry, you know? I was trying to explain to Angel that it was funny that they spelled it Big-E because that was like, so wrong. She just walked away. Also, you may notice that the wall to your right features Dina's favorite rapper S and oop.

^ I can't NOT do this shit. I know it's rude, but they left the chalk there, so it's really not my fault.

^ I just have to say that the room was like 400 degrees. You would leave the room to go pee or something and it's like cold as ice in the hallway, but then you'd open the door to get back in our room and the scent of just hot sweaty monkey sex would hit you right in the face. It was like walking into a sauna...full of ass cracks. I dunno what was up with that. Prolly some tactic to get you to buy more beer or something?

^ The place was awesome because the cool Asian waiter kept bringing in all this free shit for us. Cheesesticks, fries, shrimp and then these fancy birthday shots! I dunno what kinda shot it was but it was mighty tasty AND the only thing I ate or drank all night aside from like 12 bottles of free water. As a general rule, if an attractive Asian gentleman ever hands you a shot glass full of creamy liquid, just drink it. I saw that in a movie once...

^ The girls singing REO Speedwagon to Danny because he hates them with a fiery passion and we are really all assholes. Plus...they rule. I don't care what you say.

^ In keeping with the WAITER PICS! theme. This dude's name was "Kevin." He was cool and told me to "get all your American friends home safe so you can come back again!" Aye-aye, sir.

Good times, dudes. If I could spend all my time out and about and doing fun shit, I so wouldn't have a weight problem. I think I sweated off about 3 pounds in that karaoke room, but then we g0t 4am Jack in the Box on the way home, which is ALWAYS a great idea, obviously. Let's eat a bunch of curly fries and fall asleep.

Ugh.

I'll be okay. I'll get it together. Everything will be good again, you'll see.

"Excuse me, is there a costume shop in this town?" "no."

So Utah was pretty boring. Not that I went there to have a grand ol' time or anything seeing as how the primary reason for the trip was a FUNERAL and all. (Can't spell funeral without fun!...bad joke!)

Um, here's something: So I probably told about 400 people that I was going to St George for a funeral and most of the reactions ranged from "Utah? That place sucks!" to "Utah? It's real pretty up there." HOWEVER, of those 400 people, you would think that maybe, JUST MAYBE, ONE of them would have bothered to tell me that like, Utah is in a different fucking time zone! But no...nuh uh. No mention of that shit.

So we pull into town around 9:08 and decide we have plenty of time to burn before the 10:00 service. We stop at a truck stop and go in to like get legit. Put on mascara and lipstick, make sure your nipples aren't cross-eyed, the whole drill, you know? We're killing time trying on trucker hats and like watching people buy hot dogs because those are fun things to do in Utah.

We get back to the car and I decide on a whim to check out Twitter since I AM BORED. Hold up a sec, why does my cell phone say 10:24?? The lightbulb goes off. OH MAN FUCK IS UTAH A DIFFERENT TIME ZONE FUCK FUCK FUCK LETS GO! So we went. LATE. So late. Like, a good half hour late. And I feel bad because I'm standing around laughing about a dude who put mayo on his hot dog (GROSS!) while my boss is up there like delivering her mom's eulogy. Classic Tricia.

We explained what happened and it was kinda good because when you're in a lot of pain and grief, it's good to have your friends around to do DUMB shit to make you laugh. I think she was happy to see us, despite our bonehead moves. I know when my mom died, I was so glad when my friends from work showed up. Sometimes you just need a laugh amongst all the tears.

Plus, Utah had an Avenue Outlet store! I bought a swimsuit that didn't really fit but I thought it looked "okay enough" considering it was like, half off. The price. And off me, seeing as how when I sat down, the shirt part kept rolling up my belly like the opposite of an old lady's knee-high stocking. Ugh, sausage casing. Prolly end up returning it. That'll make three swimsuits I bought and returned in the past month! Why do dressing rooms put me in a daze that makes me think buying something too small is a good idea?? Ugh...clothes.

Anyway yeah, Utah...well, it's no California, that's for sure. I barely even took any pictures! And you guys know I will take pictures of anything! There was a Cracker Barrel though, so I can't bitch TOO much.

Here's like the THREE pictures I took while I was there:

^ Here's some weird plane we found when we got lost trying to find the Farmer's Market at 11:45. It closed at noon. Alas, no fruit for me! The road just like...ended. And there were some planes. I dunno what the hell was up with that. As you can see, I didn't even bother getting out of the car for this picture. It was hot and humid and I just wanted peaches!

^ I took this picture because this was a big-ass church. You don't see a lot of those here in Sin City. We have churches, but they're not all pristine and white and HUGE. There was this church that was being built here like a year ago and they had this big billboard on the land that said "COMING SOON: YADA YADA CHURCH! MAKING GOD A CELEBRITY!" and I thought that was a weird approach for a church. God is not a Jonas Brother, contrary to what Tammy may believe. It reminded me of Hamlet 2. You should watch that, it's pretty funny. Anyway, I don't wanna get into a whole "I DONT KNOW WHAT I BELIEVE LEAVE ME ALONE, DAD!" monologue here, but I'll just say this was a pretty building, so I took a picture of it. Also, let gay people get married. The end.

^ The last picture I took was of this sign I saw for a restaurant you'll be happy to know I did NOT go to. I think it's weird it's a buffet called with the name CHUCK in it. As in UPchuck? Cause that's how I usually feel when I leave a buffet. All upchuck-y. The A-Rama only made me think even more that it was a pukefest. But most importantly, it really made me miss CHUCK! OH CHUCK, where are you?? Come home! Mommy misses you! I always secretly hope when I check my mail (which I haven't done in almost 2 weeks!), that there'll be an anonymously sent package in there with my beloved rubber chicken and a note saying "sorry, dude." But it's never there! Makes me sad, you guys. :(

So that's it. OH, I watched Get Him to the Greek, and it's the best movie ever made and I think you should all go see it. So do that.

I hope this Monday is quick and painless.

I've had my share of sand kicked in my face (AKA WINNERS ARE HERE!)

You guys ready for some WINNERSSSSS??? Hell yeah? Oh, okay...calm down. This is a respectable joint I'm trying to run here, if you don't mind.

All in all, I had 129 entries! The most of any of my giveaways so far, so hooray!

Alright, so...we'll start off today's festivities with the coveted I CAN TIE MY SHOES award! That one's going out to my main man Tony "The Anti-Jared" Posnalongname. Did you guys know he lost over 200 pounds and now he can tie his shoes and wipe himself?? We should all be so lucky to be where you are one day, Tony (especially me!). And I ain't talking about Florida, cause humidity sucks, right? RIGHT! Sorry you didn't win a real prize, but you can have this ribbon if you want it cause I bought it for you and it cost me a whole dollar. That's nothing to shake a stick at in today's rough economic climate, Tony! You ungrateful... Congrats, Jared! I wanted to send this along with a $5 Subway card, but you people know I have strict monetary limits for gag gifts. Wonk wonk.


The next prize is the GREAT EFFORT AWARD given to the Blogger who went ABOVE AND BEYOND the call of duty in order to win like some water balloons and shit. This one goes out to my gal Tammy! She is the only one who made me a video talking about how great I am! It really did make me feel great too, so KUDOS, Tammy Gibbler. Along with your awesome ribbon, you also get those fucking BOSS Jonas Brothers notepads! There's one for each brother, AND one with ALL the brothers in case you're feeling extra sassy one day! Woohoo!

Alright, now we're getting into the meat of the sandwich, folks. Next up, we got HONORABLE MENTION! According to True Random Number Generator, this one goes out to #87, who just happens to beeeeee...Ariel of Ramblings in the Circle of Nine! I dunno what you won yet, lady, but I guess I'll go back to Ross and see if they got anymore of those peelers since you said you liked it. If not, I'm sure it will be something equally awesome because it's the only way I know how to be. Congrats, friend!
In SECOND PLACE, we got #114...and that is...TARA of 263 and Counting! Tara, you win a random summer prize pack that hasn't been assembled yet, AND a $10 Starbucks card! Unless you don't like Starbucks, which would be ODD since it's so damn great, but if you are weird and hate it for some reason, let me know before I go buy the dang thing and then you don't even use it! Really, the gift card can be from anywhere as long as it's within like 5 miles of my house, cause it's summer here and you know I don't have air in my car, so I'm not gonna drive across town or anything, but I DO want you to be happy, so yeah. Get with me on this at a later time, please. Thanks. Congrats!
AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER OF A WHOLE BOX OF 300 THINGS IS.....

#31...

AND THAT IS...

Tricia! ME?? I WON?? REALLY??? OH, it's that OTHER Tricia...(sadface.)

Congrats to Tricia at Endurance Isn't Only Phyical for winning ALL THE THINGS! Hooray!

Sheeee is the champion, my friiiiennndssss...
And sheeee'lll keep on fighting (fatphobia) till the enddddddd...
SHE IS THE CHAMPION
SHE IS THE CHAMMMPION
NO TIME FOR LOSERZ (yous guys)
Cause sheeee is the championnnnn...of my bloggggg!
(sing it, you know you want to!)

Congrats to alllll the winners, and please send your addresses and social security numbers to fight.fat.phobia@gmail.com to get your prizes!

As for the rest of you guys, I sorry :(

I love you all. All 352 of you, woooooo!!!

Have an awesome weekend! I gotta go to Utah for a funeral (downer!) I've never been to Utah though, so hopefully it won't be too terrible and I won't come back a Mormon and wife 6 of 7.

Bye bye :)

I made a spreadsheet because I am a professional.

You guys! Tonight is the drawing for the 300 THINGS!! Did you enter?? Did you tell your friends?? What are you waiting for???

I noticed I'm at like 341 Followers now. Holy shitballs! Should I do a second prize drawing if we reach the coveted 350 before the drawing tonight?? I think we should. I dunno what it'll be yet. Prolly just some random shit, but who doesn't love that? Random shit is like my favorite shit ever! We're pretty close, and I have faith in you guys. You're like the best Street Team ever! If Ron Paul had followers like you, he woulda at least been on the ballot. I wouldn't have voted for him because I still think he's all wackadoo, but that's besides the point.

Okay, so...don't forget to enter. If you already entered, your name is on this rad Excel Spreadsheet I made so everyone is assigned a number and I don't have to do a lot of handicrafts just to pick a winner. Is your name here?? If not, might wanna get on that, that's all I'm gonna say.


I don't really have anything to blog about today cause everything's all weird. I'm back on plan, and work is all sad cause my boss' mom died, then my coworker's mom died within like 2 days of each other. Lots of calls home to moms, I bet. It's sad.

In lighter news, here's some pictures from my road trip because nothing is more fun and exciting than looking at other people's vacation photos!

^Here's a picture of the gals at The World's Largest Thermometer in Baker, CA. Nothing says "California" to me like a giant non-working thermometer outside of a Bob's Big Boy. I tried to get Angel to dry-hump the Big Boy statue, but she clearly wasn't drunk enough...yet.


^Turns out people in California really like the shitty Lakers for some reason, so this picture got me shot in the ass about seven times at a Burlington Coat Factory. It was worth it. Eff Kobe.


^ I was bringing down a reign of terror at Dave and Buster's the like that those suckers have never seen! I traded in my 2400 tickets for a beach towel and a giant Pixy Stix. They were clearly relieved to see me leave before I turned over several pool tables in a fit of 'roid rage.

^I tried out this shiny new hat at Burlington's because it had all kinds of awesome shit on it like crosses, red paint, silver rhinestones, and some Old English lettering that was undetectable to the human eye. I decided not to get it because it was seven whole dollars and that mask already set me back a cool 20.


^Here we are outside of the hotel. It's like 9am and there's about 4 billion beer cans open in this picture alone. Hair of the dog, indeed.


^This is SUPER TRIVIA...like the whole reason these nerds wanted to go to D & B to begin with! I ditched this game about an hour in and found the Skee-Ball lanes. Kicked it with some 'tweens and talked about Justin Beiber. Won a shitload of tickets. Life is good.

^We played some pool to round out the night. You know it's $14 an hour for a pool table and we were averaging like an hour a game because we SUUUUUCK. The key is to be sober when the bill comes because then you can just divide it up not counting yourself and get those other suckers to pay your part. It always works. EVERY TIME. Always.


^My new thing is making out waiters take pictures with us. This was Keith! Keith was cool but he said we were crazy to live in Las Vegas. So I punched him right in the jimmy. Then I thought about it for a second and realized he was right. I apologized but I didn't really mean it.

^Waiter #2 with the birthday boy/captain. This dude's name was Mike and he sure liked to dance to early 90s grooves. Remember Quad City DJs??? They remember them at Joe's Crab Shack in case you were wondering...

Then we came home and I was freaking tired. The end.

Good luck tonite to you cats that entered!

Who you callin' a sissy??

My 3-day weekend was a fucking blast. I was super busy and I had a ton of fun. Ton, being the operative word. The wagon ran over me and I almost lost sight of which direction I plan to steer my summer towards.

It came back to me when I read THIS post by some joker named Jack Sh*t. I may give him occasional hell for the asterisk, but the fact of the matter is that the dude is one hell of a motivator. So...thanks, Jack. For all your crazy bullshit and the other stuff too.

I now present to you my feeble attempt at imitation-as-flattery. We'll call it "Pulling a Jack."














That whole ending sequence will make a lot more sense to you if you were ever a fan of 80s-era Hulk Hogan. OH YEAH, BROTHER!

***No twinkies were harmed in the making of this post. Okay, well just that one.