I had totally forgotten that yesterday was Mardi Gras and completely forgot that today is Ash Wednesday. When friends had called me over the weekend to make plans for Mardi Gras, I assumed that they were referring to a Tuesday in the distant future - not last night. Then I embarrassingly learned that I was confusing Mardi Gras with St. Patrick's Day. Meh, I'm sure I am not the first person to do this - green beer, green beads it's kind the same isn't it?

Embarrassing moment of the day - I had gone to get some food because I didn't feel like making anything that I had in my house. When I gave my order, the cashier looked at me, and exclaimed  "celebrating Fat Tuesday huh?". Umm exccccuuuuussseee me; First, is it really Fat Tuesday and secondly what are you trying to say, that because I am ordering copious amounts of food that I must be observing the holiday of over-indulgence known as Fat Tuesday? For your information I order food like this ever day of my life so thank you very much.

Anyway, a few friends and I decided to celebrate this annual festivity by heading out to The Patio Bar to engage in some well deserved over-indulgence. I drank way too much, sang way too much, danced too raunchily, and ultimately ended the night on a Fat Girl Note by ripping the McDonalds' drive through at 1:30 in the morning - what we were hungry from our excessive over-indulging.

Mardi Gras is supposedly a celebration to experience all of the vices and sins that we must give up during Lent - a chance to give something up in our and learn the lesson of sacrifice or some crap like that. Most of the time as a child I tried to work the "giving up church" angle with my parents with no success. Shortly after reaching my teen years, I stopped observing this traditional religious holiday. I remember stressing to find something good and worthwhile to give up - most of the time I said something like cake or candy (both things I didn't like very much) Looking back now I really didn't understand the concept of Lent. However, I am going to take a page from many fanaticalm conversative, born-again friends and pcik and choose the elements of the Bible that I wish to follow. That being said I will tak part in the day long celebration of my obvious hedonistic tendencies and just ignore that whole Ash Wednesday/Lent/Palm Sunday/Good Friday/Easter part of the story. :)

At this moment, Reno High School students are going through the arduous process of finals. Oh finals, the trepidation of opening your exam booklet, the amnesia you always seem to experience right before the exam, and the fear that a poor exam score will invariably lead to your rejection from college, leaving you with no options except a downward spiral of drugs, sex, and crime.

Without a doubt, the worst part of finals for me was gym class. It’s simply absurd that gym would even require a final let alone how I would even begin to prepare for said final – I guess …. working out … and exercise would do it, but like that’s going to happen. The only thing that I was remotely good at in gym was kickball – stand there and punt a ball … done! – and all the flexibility tests – which didn’t mean a whole lot in Middle School but now later in life is a very useful and beneficial asset to have ;)

Like most gym teachers, mine was the soccer coach who took pleasure in sadistically torturing his students – especially the fat ones. Now what is the mortal enemy of any plus-sized individual? That would be the dreaded timed mile. Our teacher forced us to run a 10 minute mile for our exam and if we happened to not complete the mile in the allotted time then we had to try again the next day. This would continue the entire week of finals until you either (A) passed (B) failed (C) the coach took pity upon you and decided to pass you. One particularly horrifying final, I was determined not to walk the whole thing. Now as a 230-pound 5’5 individual, running was quite possibly the worst torture ever; fat rolls jingling from side to side, my chest cavity threatening to explode with oxygen, and my weak un-muscled legs – already sore from the walk to the track – turned to mush 30 seconds into the final. What made this final particularly embarrassing is that as my fellow classmates were lapping me around the track, they were patting my back, and shouting encouraging words as they sped past me on the way to success. What I learned later on was that the gym teacher told all of the students to encourage me as they ran past as a way to motivate me to run longer, faster, and further. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I am not some Pavlovian Dog whereby a few positive affirmations will instantly result in more instances of the desired behavior. Don’t you think if I had the ability to run a 10-minute mile I would instead of suffering the humiliation of having to repeat the mile time and time again?

I wish that the story ended with some epic tale of me training all year so I could not only complete the mile in less than 10 minutes but go on to break the school record for the mile just to show the coach in some epic Lifetime Movie montage. Unfortunately, I was totally mortified by the experience and decided to take up two languages just so I would never have to experience a gym final again. I wonder, years later, if I would be able to accomplish such a feat having lost some weight and strengthened my muscles …. I’ll let you know when I get around to testing it.

It's devastating that this happened in general, but the fact that it happened in public - and at a Kmart no less - just made it worse.

Last night, some friends and I decided to make a random trip to Kmart. Not really needing anything inparticular but excited for the opportunity for some retail therapy, I decided to come along. While perusing the shelves, I came across their weight/workout/exercise equipment section. At the moment I am trying to piece together a workout facility in my basement - convinced that I will never get off my ass to go the gym. So I decided to get some free weights, a yoga mat, and some exercise bands - nothing too ridiculous but just some fabulous accessories. I finished shopping - adding to my cart a random assortment of food products, toiletries, and household goods - and proceeded to check out. The cashier - though nice is forever on my shit list - begins to scan my items and about halfway through looks at my exercise equipment and goes;

"New Years Resolution huh" with an all-knowing smile.

Ummmm squeeze me? Can I help you? What are you trying to say? That just because I am a plus-sized girl and I happen to be buying gym equipment that I obviously made a New Years Resolution to myself to lose weight. Here I am the ambitious fat girl buying random exercise equipment in some vain hope to make 2011 the year that I get in shape. In the immortal words of the one Miss Tyra Banks "Bitch you don't know me, you don't know where I come from". I don't care who you are, you just don't say those things. Even if I had a plethora of weight loss supplements and an Idiot's Guide to Losing Weight stacked next to an O Magazine with the headline "How to keep those New Year's Resolutions", YOU STILL DON'T SAY THAT SHIT.  

Now at this point, all of the industrious Kmart employees somehow gravitated to this one checkout station so that everyone could bear witness to the comment. I, of course, had to play it off as if I had no idea what she is talking about. Excuse me honey it is JANUARY 11TH this is obviously not a New Years Resolution or I would have come in here A WEEK AGO to buy the equipment.  With that being said ... I'm excited for my new gym equipment and hope that 2011 is the year that I finally get in shape ;)

 Now, when it is negative 20 degrees in the great Midwestern state of Wisconsin you do not feel like doing very much of anything except for hibernating in your apartment, drinking vast quantities of beer, and praying for the most recent blizzard to blow over. The other thing we Midwesterners like to do is eat, especially after drinking vast quantities of beer.

After one particularly self-indulgent night, one of my best friends Derek introduced me to this takeout place called "Fat Sandwich Company". Intrigued by the title, we checked out the menu and found such disturbing and alarming sandwich options as the Fat Mess - the one I got -, the Fat MILF, and the Fat WalkofShame. All of these sandwiches have one thing in common in that it's the fastest way to a heart attack .... oh and they all incorporate some sort of fried fried fried deliciousness into the sandwich. For example, the Fat Mess, has the following ingredients:

Mozzarella sticks, Jalapeno Poppers, Fried Mushrooms, Mac N' Cheese Bites, Pizza Bites, Ranch, and BBQ Sauce

My cup runeth over. It's every hung over/stoner person's dream. My favorite friend fatty foods combined into one sandwich covered in frenchfries. You just can't find food like this here in Reno. Granted we do live in the land of buffets but still it's not the same as living in the land of cheese curds and Wisconsin Cheese Beer Soup.   

On my google email account I have google alerts set up to keep me somewhat aware of what is going on in the world. One alert that I have set up is “drag queen” and as I was checking my mail yesterday this headline caught my eye: Blast From the Past Series – Too Fat to be a Drag Queen? I was like the eye of Sauron and immediately honed in on it and had to know what it was all about. I kept thinking is there some fatphobic bullshit going on. Apparently, back in the day, everyone's favorite plus-sized girl Ricki Lake did a special where she brought people on to confront their drag queen friends about their weight issues.

I nearly died – it was like Jerry Springer met Too Wong Foo. These friends were some mean S.O.B.s talking about their 400 pound drag queen friends nearly causing their plane to crash on the way to the set. More unfortunate than that is that some of the intervening friends were fellow drag queens. To be a drag queen means placing yourself in the center of the public eye and open yourself up for scrutiny. There is some fear and hateration toward drag queens so why would you compound that with more criticism from within your community. Also, don't be judging your plus sized friends when you are a fugly queen yourself.

I think one of the best parts of drag queenary is self-expression and becoming who you want to be. Most of the queens sound comfortable with who they were and used their weight as a crucial component of their stage persona. I say, that if you are comfortable with who you are and have fans that love and support you then what business is of it of your friends to judge you in such a way.