Why I'll Never Be a Famous Socialite.

I've never been much of a "party girl." Aside from my ever-so-dangerous love of cupcakes and balloons, my partying has always been rather tame. I'm usually the designated driver, even on my own birthday most years. And I'm not about to get all preachy here and go into a "don't be such a sloppy drunk" lecture...because we all have our demons. But I think last night I really understood why I can never fully relax and have a good time when I'm out.

We all know I have my insecurities, and they pretty much rule my life. Not by choice, but what are you gonna do, right? I don't let them fully turn me into a hermit as is exhibited by the fact that I did go out on Saturday night. Me and a bunch o' pals gathered up to hit some bars and listen to some bands at our favorite local casino, and for the most part, it was pretty fun.

That is, until one drunk-ass Angel, one of the said pals, decided we needed to go to a "classier" bar. You know those bars...they're full of trendy douchebags spending nine dollars for a shot of Jaeger and sucking on a hookah with six more frat boys who look at me like I just farted in their mouth because I dared to walk past their eyeline in all my fat glory. I don't know if you guys know this, but the Las Vegas nightlife is not very fat-friendly. Girls wear six inch heels and half a shimmery pillowcase for a dress and everyone's stumbling around and giggling. It's no place for a girl like me!

After about seven billion looks of disgust (i.e. 2 minutes in there), I said I couldn't take it anymore and that I was going back to the bar we just left to go watch fat guys play beer pong where I feel more at home. Angel stayed. An hour later, her boyfriend is literally dragging her ass back over to where we were. I dunno what happened in that hour. I can only assume the nine dollars you pay for the shot comes with a tab of Rohypnol because this bitch was OUT. He put her in a chair and tried to get her to wake up since I was their ride home and I wasn't ready to go. Needless to say, no one explained to me that she was like, legally dead at the fucking table. So, obviously, we had to go.

I had a point here. OH YEAH...so this fucking dude who is her boyfriend this week, like hefted her ass up in his arms and just fucking carried her allllllllll the way outta the casino, out to the parking lot, out to the car, laid her head down gently in the backseat and like got in next to her to cradle her head while I chauffered their asses home. Um...THAT is why I can never be that drunk. Sure, it's all The Bodyguard/An Officer and a Gentleman when it's involving some 98 pound chick like Angel. But if my big ass was to ever fall out like that in a public place, I have a feeling I'd either be sleeping it off on some dirty-ass casino carpet or someone would just like push me into a corner and put a broom handle under my chins or something so I could look like I was still partying Bernie-style. I COULD NEVER LET MYSELF HAVE THAT MUCH FUN (?) BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS TO TAKE CARE OF A SLOPPY MESSY DRUNK FATTIE. Period.

Like, in theory, I wanna think that no one wants to take care of some slopped out chick/guy EVER...but I dunno. This dude seemed like happy and proud. Captain Save-A-Ho strikes again. Like it's endearing to take care of someone like that because she's so tiny and needy...like a baby bird or something. I just...don't get it. Like all bitterness and jealousy aside, I seriously don't get it.

Anyway, it's not like I'm saying I wanna be thin and attractive so society will be okay with me getting fall-over drunk. I'm just saying...Chris Farley is dead and Charlie Sheen still walks amongst the living. Discuss.

I thought they said no news is good news?

It's hard to find a jumping-off point for updating your weight-loss blog when everything can really just be summed up with:

But I shall try...

Not a lot's been going on with me in the last...oh, let's see...four months (?) since I last blogged. Seems a lot longer all spelled out in words and whatnot. What can I say? Time flies when you're over-celebrating the holidays and blissfully unaware that your ass has grown to the size of a planet. Not one of those fake-ass planets like Pluto either. I mean a real one...like...the Earf.

Truth be told, I've only gained about twelvish pounds. Which, don't get me wrong, is nothing to be proud of. But I've really, and I mean REALLY, been packing away the junk these last few months. I mean, I haven't even TRIED to diet. I dunno what happened, really. I know my pants were getting tighter. Everything just hurts and sucks and it's like "bleh." But rational thinking took a big fucking long vacation and in its place came just this weird random brain tornado of guiltless pleasure telling me to watch Jersey Shore and eat fried chicken and donuts and yeah, let's go watch that Justin Bieber movie! Large popcorn, please.

Ugh...disgusting. I know.

I can't explain it.

I just never even thought about it. I know I look like shit. I know I feel like shit. But...it was okay. Because...right now, in this minute - nothing matters. This minute that has lasted, I dunno, four months? A year? 32 years, really? When will anything ever matter enough?

Thanks for checking in on me. I didn't die or have a stroke or anything. I just had a temporary lapse in fat judgement.

I'm going on a trip to Texas in about a month. All 400 pounds of me. Flying fat again...oh joy. It'll be my first time going home since my dad ran over my foot like a year and a half ago, almost. At least this time if he decides he needs to make a comment about my overall rotund-ness, I can point to my giant foot scar and remind him that it's not that easy to get around when some old dude runs you over on an airport driveway. The King of Guilt has met his match.

I'll try to update more. Hope you're all well.

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.