LIfe is Funny, in A Really NOT funny way!

I have been a participating member of society for 39 long and functioning years, so I am not sure why it still surprises me that people are self entitled MORONS, who feel like they can walk in and take over shit like they own it.  And furthermore, I have no idea why I feel like I need to be the bigger person who makes it ok for this to happen so that tsunami waves of shit don't roll in causing mass chaos everywhere for everyone else.

They say shit rolls downhill, right?  Well some days, I feel like if that's the case than I am at the bottom of that hill, in a hole dug at the bottom of said hill, being covered in shit.  If I'm not at work trying to mind my own business and not bury a pair of scissors in some self entitled morons forehead for their ignorance and all around rudeness, I am sitting in an urgent care facility thinking I have a sinus infection and a spider bite, only to be told I have shingles.  ON MY FACE.  Which ya know, just HAPPENS to be the most dangerous kind of shingles someone can get because it's all like near my FUCKING EYE AND BRAIN and stuff so now I have to worry that I will go blind and start slurring my words even when I'm not drunk - which isn't much lately because of the aforementioned self entitled morons and all the scissor stabbing that needs to take place.

I'm trying to be all unicorns-and-rainbows-coming-out-of-my-ass-happy ya'll....really, I am.  But life is having a really good time fucking with me and seeing how many things it can throw at me before I finally flip my shit and go all sniper coo-coo on top of a 7-Eleven taking out tailgating drivers and people that still bump Snoop Dogg out of the sub-woofers in the trunk of their beat up Hondas.  It's gonna happen.

Let's take inventory of the last two years.

• I spent EIGHT long months being tested to find out why I was in pain all the time.  I was poked, prodded, violated, de-blooded, medicated, shocked with nerve conductors and cat scanned to death to find out why my vision was blurry, my feet/hands/mouth were numb and why I had a never ending migraine.  These were just on the non-Muscato days, mind you.  My husband isn't a Doctor, no matter how often he likes to play that game.
• I received a diagnosis of MS.  Not something anyone wants, but at least it was a diagnosis.  Over the course of six months I would try several different medications and treatments, each one making me more sick than the next, NONE of them bringing me any relief or comfort.
• After another round of testing (over two more months and several more doctors), it was determined that I did NOT in fact has MS, but I had my original diagnosis of Lupus and the cherry topping to that would be another diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.  OK, then.  You're funny, life.  Real fucking funny.
• Just as I start to get my shit together and find the right combination of meds (and also regulate a severe B-12 neuropathy), I happily head off to my nieces 2nd birthday party only to BLACK THE FUCK OUT, trip and fall IN A WALGREENS PARKING  LOT and break my arm.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Arm heals.  Life resumes.  Things are starting to get back to normal once again.  I harmlessly go in to see the GYN for a yearly exam and some hormones.  What does she find?  Why a lump of course!!!  So, let's schedule a mammogram in TWO MONTHS and a BRCA test and then you can decide whether or not you would like to live in fear of WHEN you may or may not get breast cancer, or just have them puppies cut right off and  take a brand new pair for a spin.  Who wouldn't like a brand new pair of perky titties for their 40th birthday courtesy of their health insurance provider, right?  I mean hell, that lump could have just saved me $5k!!  Oh look, a silver lining! *insert sarcasm here*
• And then......shingles.  On.  My.  Face.  Because why would I get it on my stomach like a normal human being?

I am pretty sure that in a past life I was the office bitch who tortured everyone.  Or I pulled the whiskers off of small kittens.  Or kicked crippled kids.  Surely, I have done SOMETHING to deserve this much aggravation.  

They say God never gives you more than you can handle.  And the joke is that God must think I'm a badass.  Am I mean, I AM.  But for reallies God, can you let someone else be a badass for awhile because like, I'm really, really tired and my face is sore from fake smiling for people.

But until then, I will drink and be merry.  And I will keep looking for that fucking silver lining everyone talks about.  And if anyone wants to go digging up my ass for those unicorns and rainbows I was talking about, go right ahead, but be warned, my sarcasm may or may not smell alot like refried beans today so Happy Hunting!

If you only knew...

They say you have to crawl before you walk.  Four years ago when I made the decision to change my life, I had to learn to do everything.  I had to learn to sit up, roll over, crawl, stand, take my first steps…well, you get it.  But after some time, I was in a full on sprint all the time.  Nothing could stop me.  I had the world in the palm of my tightly clenched fist and nothing was going to unravel it from my fingers.  Or so I thought.

My once brightly lit star is slowly dimming against the night sky that is currently my everyday life.  The days pass by so fast that I seldom notice the rays of the sun on my face, because I’m always wishing for the darkness to come so I can close my eyes and shut out the noise of the world around me.  The rumbling is like thunder in my ears all the time.  The tears like a never ending rain shower all around me.  The things that once made me so happy are now the things I avoid.  My daily runs replaced by evenings in front of the TV mindlessly ignoring the glare of the TV in front of me.  My once loved yoga practice now a distant memory as I stretch and yawn myself into my yoga pants, only to count down the hours until I can crawl under my blankets and rest my aching head on my pillow.  My once able body is now on fire, screaming in agony, fighting my every movement, forcing me through every second of every day.  A moment of reprieve doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. 

The people I love – they’re supportive.  But, I can almost hear the sighs and eyerolling as each new doctor’s appointment reveals some new annoyance, yet they remain supportive nonetheless.  I wake up every day hopeful that it might be better than the last, but the moments of joy come few and far between.  I avoid social situations, anything that requires me to force a smile, anything that requires me to answer the everyday question “How are you doing?”  I would rather engulf myself in some TV reality series so I can invest myself in someone else’s life and ignore my own, even if only for a little while.

I’m not sure what I spend more time doing these days – reflecting on what my life has become or deflecting from the reality I’m too afraid to face.  I want to feel normal again.  I want to be happy again.  I want to remember why I lost all this weight and got “healthy”.  I want to be a good wife, and mother and friend and daughter and sister.  I want to be ME again.  But I am lost behind this porcelain mask with a painted smile that is quickly fading against the sunlight.  I’m becoming almost non-existent.

If my life were the directions on a shampoo bottle it would read:

Wake up.  Shower.  Remember to nod and pretend to pay attention.  Smile.  Go to sleep.  Rinse and repeat.

Some days I can barely walk.  Some days my eye balls hurt to even be in my skull.  Some days I want to rip my head off my neck and throw it in the garbage disposal because it hurts so badly.  And no one seems to be able to fix me.  No one seems to LISTEN to me.  And every time they fix one thing, something else is fucked.  It makes it hard to find the light at the end of this very long tunnel.  I’m driving on a thruway in a broken down jalopy of a vehicle, running out of gas and there are no rest stops or exits in sight. 

This pity party is lonely.  Depression is the devils mistress.  She is a wretched bitch who only takes and never gives anything in return, aside from more pain and depression.  Fibromyalgia is like a jackhammer that never stops vibrating against your body.   And aside from the physical, the emotional aspect is what cripples you the most.  In the words of Ron Burgundy: Anchorman, “I’m stuck in a glass cage of emotion!!”.

It’s time to break the glass.

Societal Distortion

I used to have a love/hate relationship with my body.  There were parts that I really loved, like my voluptuous, full breasts, or my somewhat thin ankles.  But lately, I have developed a very unhealthy loathing of every aspect of my physical self and it is neither healthy nor tolerable.  Like, why do I have to layer and dress and accessorize this “thing” that deceives me just to reluctantly display it to a public that doesn’t see it the same way that I do.  Why do I have to justify my feelings of hatred to people who look at me and tell me I look “fine”, and to those who say “I wish I looked like you”?  I mean, really?  DO you?  Do you wish to carry around the extra skin, stretch marks and wrinkles of a woman 160 pounds ago?  Because I dare you to.  No, I triple-dog-dare you.  And then I triple-dog-dare you to infinity to wear a bikini while doing it.  And when you take the bikini off and shit is flapping around like a wounded bird, I want you to fuck your husband.  With the lights on.  Challenge accepted?  I didn’t think so.

I know most of this self loathing is self induced.  I know some of it comes from this very plastic Kardashian/Victoria’s Secret/airbrushed –not real-suck-the-fat-from-my-ass-and-inject-it-into-my-lips world we live in, but some of it – most of it – just comes from the reality of what I have done to myself.

I lived a wonderfully cake and ice cream filled life for a very long time where Ben and Jerry’s and Little Debbie allowed me to wallow in my troubles.  I wrapped a bad marriage and a deep depression inside a Taco Bell Wrapper and washed it down with a double chocolate shake.  I held it in with girdles, and disguised it with laughter.  And then, I took the easy way out and had most of my stomach removed, almost as though I were ashamed of it being there, like I couldn’t control it’s mere existence, and left myself with a body that is as foreign to me as those menstrual cups that women walk around wearing nowadays. (I mean really?  You’re bleeding into a solo cup all day and dumping it into random toilets throughout the day, and I’m weird for having my stomach removed??). 

I just don’t know how to stop looking at the magazines and comparing myself to these genetic freaks of women who push a baby out of their cookie, and then wear a bikini the following week as if nothing happened.  I pushed a baby out of my cookie and had one cut out of my stomach and I look like I just went 7 rounds with a baby tiger and a tractor trailer.  And lost.

I need to find a way to stop looking through these distorted eyes, and into all these fun house mirrors.  I need to find a way to see what is beautiful about myself again.  If for no other reason than so that my daughter can always see herself that way, and never, EVER, carry these burdens as an adult like I do.

You’re too skinny,
You’re too fat.
Don’t eat this.
Don’t eat that.
Put on that girdle,
Squeeze into those Spanx.
Put on those heels,
A thicker belt will cinch that waist.
It’s picture time?
Go paint your face.
Make sure to stand at an angle,
One knee bent, One hand on your waist.
Eat kale and fish,
No apples or grapes.
That’s too much sugar,
You need protein intake.
Get on that treadmill,
Put down those weights,
You want to tone, not muscle,
It's sexy to look emaciated.
You’re beautiful
If the world tells you so.
Never let anyone down,
Never say no.
You can never be too pretty,
You can never be too skinny,
You can never be too perfect,
In a world without pity.

Faddy Fatty 2x4

As most of you know I am a former fatty. And I can say that because to this day I was bigger than anyone that I knew personally. And most times, when I watch other women struggle with their weight, I don’t give my opinion on anything unless I am asked because I did have gastric bypass and I feel like people judge me for it. Some say I took the easy way out. Because physiologically altering your entire body FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, and foregoing all things delicious like milkshakes and chocolate cake, and appetizers and desserts for the sake of being able to eat even a ¼ of your dinner is totally my idea of living it up, ya’ll. And THEN, when you say fuck it, and decide to indulge anyway so you can feel normal for just ONE SECOND and you have that tiny piece of cake, or that delicious Jamocha shake from Arby’s, you find yourself curled up in the fetal position, sweating like a 2-ton sumo wrestler, crying and begging for death while feeling like someone is repeatedly stabbing you in the gut with rusty shears. That’s my idea of partying down, Miley Cyrus style, foam finger shoved into my vagina, face down, ass up, making a fool of myself for all the world to see. But, I digress. Here’s the thing. Three years later, surgery or no surgery, I find myself struggling right along with the rest of you again. I too shimmy, shake, jump and wiggle my way into my skinny jeans. I Spanx, tuck, belt and suck in every ounce of every fat just like you. I battle daily with getting my pants to close without the aid of rubber bands and safety pins. I lie on the bed with my legs outstretched, sweating like a pig and sucking in my gut until my belly button touches my spine and my ribs fracture just to button my favorite pair of jeans fresh out of the dryer. But one lesson I have learned – and one thing I refuse to every do again – is fad diet. There is a reason it’s called a fad ladies. And that is because it’s not meant to last forever. And neither is the weight you will lose from it. Because while that pill or shake or eat-kale-mixed-with-laxatives-and-water diet seems like the cure all to your weight loss nightmares, it’s sure to come back to bite you in your skinny little ass the first time you go off the plan and splurge on some yummy spinach artichoke dip at a party, or my person favorite, an entire (oversized) bottle of Barefoot Muscato on a Friday night while watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model. If you want something that will last forever, do something that will change your outlook forever. Don’t look at that “naughty” food as being your enemy. Look at it as a reward to work towards. Instead of saying no, say how can I get to a point where I don’t have to feel guilty about eating that? If you have time to sit on the couch reading about the newest weight loss plan, surely you have time for a few extra lunges or a walk around the block with the dog. And if you choose not to do anything at all, then learn to love who you are. Because you ARE beautiful exactly as God made you. For the longest time I found myself striving for this unattainable perfection. I beat myself up daily to the point that I would have rather been fat again because I was happier then. And while my body is far from perfect now, it’s the body I have worked hard for. It carries me, and sustains me, and allows me to live a healthier life and I am grateful for it every single day despite its physical imperfections. Think how boring this world would be if we all looked exactly the same! I think a woman with curves is just as beautiful as a woman without any. Maybe more so! Long story short, stop spending your kid’s college funds on overpriced organic bullshit from a store. Go buy fresh from a goddamn market and support a farmer. Stop buying ridiculously over priced diet pills that promise miracles that will never happen and make your own miracles happen through healthy eating and exercise. You don’t have to spend hours in a gym or live off of kale and almonds. Chase your dog and kids around the yard. Play basketball at a nearby park. Take a long walk by a river at sunset. Enjoy a delicious grilled chicken and fresh veggies and sweet potatoes. Living healthy doesn’t mean living boring. Like all things in life, it’s all in your perception of it. The day we die, no one is going to stand over us whispering about how amazing we were because we were so thin. They will talk about who we were as PEOPLE. And I for one don’t want to be a thin, DEAD asshole who was only remembered for being a THIN, DEAD asshole. Put down the diet pills. Wash that stupid shake down the sink. Enjoy a piece of cake for fuck sake. And smile. Then get to the gym fat ass. Just kidding. But no really, if you’re eating cake, go to the gym.

The skinny on the not so skinny

I made a decision today.  A very scary, mind numbing, ridiculous decision, and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.  I had to sleep on it, think about it, eat some ice cream cake while I pondered it, and drink a glass (or three) of wine in order to come to terms with it.

I am throwing out my scale.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.  Thankfully, it still tasted like ice cream cake and Muscato.

I have spent the last year OBSESSING over the number on the scale.  I could literally put on an outfit, look in the mirror and think I looked good, then stepped on the scale, saw the number, took off my clothes and put on a nice stretchy pair of yoga pants.  And why?  Because although my mirrored perception labeled me as anything BUT fat, the scale said otherwise.  The scale....the stupid, black, plastic, LYING bitch of a scale told me to stop eating ice cream cake and drinking wine and thinking I can wear skinny jeans or leggings.  The scale judges me, taunts me and calls me names like Heifer, Fatty and Lard Ass.  The scale tells me that all of my decisions are bad one.  That all the hours I log running, gym-ing and yoga-ing aren't enough.  That I'M not enough.  And these judgements are not the things I want to teach my blossoming, easily influenced teenage daughter. 

I have to allow myself to love who I am.  No matter the weight or the size.  I have to accept my curves, my "love handles", my thighs and my big butt. I have to accept that I have given birth, grown a little older, survived cancer, and sometimes eaten a few too many chocolate, macadamia cookies.  I have to step off the scale, grab a sledge hammer and beat that bitch down, the same way that she has beaten me down for the last year.

I'm ok.  No really, I am.  A little rounder.  A little less guilty over that ice cream cake and wine.  A little more accepting of my short comings.  A little bit stronger.  A little less afraid to chase my dreams (and the occasional ice cream truck).  I.  Am.  Ok.

Or at least I will be once I smash that damn scale to pieces.  And then I will toast to it with a nice glass of Muscato as I wear my skinny jeans while sitting in front of a full size mirror.  Suck on that you judgemental, digital bitch.

Not lean, Just mean

Most days, I am very grateful for the opportunity that was given to me when I received the gastric bypass surgery, and in return when I received my life back. But some days I’m all WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY BODY AND WHY WON’T IT GIVE ME A MOMENTS PEACE???


Lately, I can’t seem to find a system that works for me. Not eating regular meals with small snacks in between. Not eating 6-8 meals throughout the day. Not eating every two hours. Not Weight Watchers. Not fruits and veggies and lean protein. Not overpriced colon health pills or bottles of Philips. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. And it’s really starting to piss me off.

I have been trying to shed the 10-ish pounds I gained for what seems like all of eternity. That’s really tough to do when the only thing that my body doesn’t rebel against are protein shakes. It hates veggies and fruits, breads or carbs of any kind and basically anything warm and delicious. A woman (especially this one) can not live on protein shakes alone without losing her mind and stabbing someone in the face with a 5” stiletto.

ALL fruits and veggies make me bloated and uncomfortable and create a complete aversion to anything with a button and zipper closure. Carbs load me down and cause me pain. There is no amount of Beano, Philips Colon Health, Miralax or Tums that sooth me.

Which leaves me two options:

Eat the fruits, veggies and carbs and suffer through the pressure and pain

OR

Eat nothing but soup and protein shakes until the day I die. This would be, like Friday because that just isn’t how I function.

I don’t mind eating healthy, but I could never be one of these girls that survives on cigarettes and the tears of small children. I need food and sustenance, people. The more time that passes by, the more my body starts rejecting food that was previously just fine. So far the list of “no-no’s” is as follows:

Whole grain bread

Salad

Salad dressing

Marinara sauce

Bagels

Cucumbers

Strawberries

Cantaloupe

Red Meat

Yogurt

Granola Bars

Oatmeal

Tomatoes

Carrots

Apples

Pasta

The list is longer, but gets depressing and just makes me hungry.

I find myself asking more and more lately, if I could go back, knowing what I know now, would I still make the decision to have the surgery. I used to be 80/20 in favor of having it done. The more time that goes by, the more that number changes in favor of not having it done.

I knew that over time I would have to make adjustments. I have repeatedly had to fight the demons that drive me towards eating out of emotion and boredom and my unending love of all things food (does all that fighting count as a workout??). I research and learn ways to become better, to eat better, to make better choices, to deal with my vices and insecurities. But how can I make better choices if I have none?

Everyday of my life lately is like being 5 years old, having the best birthday party ever, complete with bounce houses, baby horses, balloon animals and purple unicorns that take you for rides over the rainbow, and being told the only thing I am allowed to do that day is to mow the lawn. Only instead of bounce houses, balloon animals and imaginary animals that take you for rides over rainbows, my life is a 5,000 sq ft warehouse packed with brownies and cakes and candies, and those amazing Brach’s conversation heart candies that need to be available to me more than just at Valentine’s Day, and being told the only thing I can eat is the cardboard boxes they were all delivered in.

It’s like, wait….so, I did all of this work to learn to live healthier and eat better and now I don’t get to do any of that. Seriously? Like, for real? Somewhere, Ashton Kutcher is hiding behind a bush with a camera crew and they are all going to jump out and tell me I have been punk’d. And they will laugh and laugh and laugh, until I junk punch them all with a pointy toed shoe, take all of their money and go buy myself a fucking ice cream cone.

Oh yeah, ice cream is on the “Do Not Eat” list too. I’m like a fucking polar bear behind the glass watching some sticky handed little shit stand there licking his triple scoop, double fudge ice cream cone while some asshole zoo employee tosses smelly fish at me.

The inability to eat and still not lose weight only frustrates me more everyday. If I were eating ice cream and candy and Doritos dipped in chip dip (YUM!), then fine – I’m a fat ass by choice. But the fact remains, that while I may not be everyone else’s definition of a “fat ass”, I am not comfortable with where I am or how I look. So, I am trying to make the conscious and healthy decision to do something about it, but life keeps knuckle punching me in the gastric pouch and adding cellulite to my ever expanding ass. Way to be a team player, Life.

All this talk of food and unicorns has me starving so I guess the only rational thing to do is to go make yet another protein shake, close my eyes, pretend it’s a Red Robin’s A-1 Peppercorn burger and get out of my head for awhile. The silver lining is, I am still alive.

Weight Watchers, Count Me In.

So, in my infinite state of crazy obsessive-ness in regards to my body and my weight, I joined Weight Watchers. I’m still not sure why, or what I thought I would learn that I haven’t already implemented in my life, but my tax refund was burning a hole in my bank account and half a bottle of wine told me this was the way to go.


I thought maybe counting points rather than calories would help me rationalize my food intake. I thought the fact that I could chow down on fruits and veggies all day and not have to use the points I was saving for that piece of cake after dinner would make this more palatable.

In reality, I only end up more confused, always hungry and very gassy. Like seriously, after 2pm don’t even think about walking by my office without a gas mask and a can of Febreze.

Don’t get me wrong, this system definitely made me re-evaluate what I was eating and the quantity in which I was consuming things. And when I weigh in tomorrow, if the scale has dropped by even a couple of pounds, I will rescind every horrible name I have called Jennifer Hudson in this past week (being that I hate her, and she is the face of WW, she was an easy target). But I am seriously mind fucked about this “eat-all-the-fruit-and-veggies-you-want-as-if-they-carry-no-nutritional-value” thing for two reasons:

1) When I was tracking my diet on Livestrong.com, you had to count fruits and veggies. And even though their caloric value wasn’t substantial, it added up quickly. Especially fruits, which carried at least double the calories of most veggies. I would see every calorie, fat gram, carbohydrate and protein I ate in a day, so I had an overall sense of how I did, and what I needed to do differently tomorrow. With WW, I see how many points I have used, and how many I have left, but I have no true idea of what I actually ate in a day.

2) If the whole point of a “diet” or “lifestyle change” is to learn how to eat smarter, and fruits and veggies don’t “count” as far as WW is concerned, then shouldn’t we fill ourselves with something that has more nutritional value? Oh wait, you can’t without using your fucking points.

According to WW, for my old age, my short stature and my current weight, I am A-OK. It says I am the ideal weight. Which is a crock of shit. In any case, if I want to lose, say 5% of my current body weight, I can eat 26 points worth of food per day and I should be able to lose the aforementioned 5% in 7 days. Riiiiiigggghhhhttt. If it were that easy, don’t you think I would have already lost it without having to pay $55 for a three month membership??

At this point, I have two incentives to drop the 10 pounds that only I apparently think I need to lose. (Ya’ll haven’t seen me naked, so don’t judge!). First, I won’t be able to hide underneath hoodies and bulky sweaters for much longer, so unless I want to hibernate for the summer or sweat my ass off wearing Spanx under my tank tops, I need to drop these 10 pounds. And most importantly, Weight Watchers and Jennifer Hudson conned me out of the $55 that I could have used to buy the Spanx I would need, so I have to see this through and conquer this confusion.

This whole thing is making me even more annoying and obsessive than I normally am on any given day. I spend hours a day on my mobile app and my computer making up fake meals just to see how many points are in it. I think of the worst thing I could eat, and then see how long I would have to work out to earn the points back, even though I have no intention of eating the naughty food. Last night, after a 40 minute workout, I used the 6 points I earned along with the 44 “extra” points I have for the week to polish off a bottle of Sutter Home Zinfandel/Muscato (they really should make those bottles big enough for two people). It’s become a game. A challenge, if you will. I will beat the system and drop the 10 pounds, if only to justify the money I spent to drive myself insane. Game on Weight Watchers, game on.