Category Archives: it’s fun to be fat

There is Nothing Hellish About Ohio

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, it's fun to be fat, just pictures, no i really do love ohio
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My best friend, Tracey, picked me up at the airport Tuesday night, and we immediately went to [Giant Retailer That Goes Against Everything I Believe in but is Open at All Hours of the Night] for Cadbury Creme Eggs, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, and unmatched photo ops like this:

We sat around getting fat the next day and then drove the 20 minutes to our hometown to have dinner with my parents and dessert with our other best friend from high school, Katie, and her daughters. Well, the older one was already in bed, so we just fed Dairy Queen frozen hot chocolate (FHC for short, of course) to her baby:

On Thursday, we spent literally all day scrapbooking at Archiver’s and then had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, where Tracey was less-than-pleased with the amount of whipped cream on her plate, which she foolishly considers filler:

(I gladly ate it for her, of course, and a bunch of whipped cream is way better than the PAPER–yes, I said PAPER–I found in my sandwich.)

Then we went to Skully’s for Ladies 80s and had THE BEST time. We got back to her house from dinner around 9:30, and I was hinting practically the entire way home that I didn’t really have the energy for dancing. We kind of hemmed and hawed for a while, and when Tracey’s other friend canceled on us, I was especially ready to sit down with a tub of cookie dough and call it a night. But Tracey was really pushing to go for some reason, and in the end, I knew I’d end up having a good time, but it turned out to be THE BEST time. There were enough people there that we didn’t feel exposed, but there weren’t so many people there that we couldn’t bust out our incredible dance moves, and they’ve started playing 90s music now, so we totally got to relive junior high with Blur and Nine Inch Nails.

The next night, I celebrated my stepbrother’s daughter’s second birthday with my very festive dad:

my spectacularly vested stepmom:

and this CRAZY PRINCESS CAKE that I probably deserve for my next birthday:

Saturday night, I convinced my cousin Ethan and his wife, Katherine, to hold a party so I could see his baby, Kaydence, and take sort of creepy photos of Bethany, my twin cousin (we were born 47 minutes apart!), resting her head on Kaydence’s butt:

Instead of the roadkill his mom promised, Ethan made us these awesome grilled burritos so he could use his MAN SPATULA (or, for my feminist friends, his larger-than-normal spatula that in no way makes it manlier than any other spatula):

We played tons of six-handed Euchre, and since my dad was on a different team, he made someone else cry instead of me. YES!:


even the baby knows Euchre is serious bizness

Now, my dad lives on what he lovingly refers to as The Compound. A couple of years after my mom died, he married my awesome stepmother, Lois, whom he went to high school with and whom I’ve known my whole life, and he moved into her house a few miles away from my childhood home. She lived right next door to her dad, and when he died last year, her daughter moved in there with her husband and twin daughters. Her eldest son, meanwhile, converted the barn in between the two houses into this beeeeautiful home for his wife and daughters, and my dad built another barn behind his and Lois’s house. So it’s basically three big, ol’ farmhouses in a row out in the middle of nowhere. The Compound.

Anyway, arriving home to The Compound on Saturday night, I noticed for the first time that my stepsister’s girls are keeping their 4-H pigs in a little hut out back with a heat lamp built in to keep them warm. My dad, the farmer, scorns them for this, of course, but I think it’s cute. The only problem is that when you look out the back door, it appears that the poor little piggies are being

SWALLOWED BY THE FIRES OF HELL.

I would make an Ohio/hell joke here, but I think it’s pretty clearly much more like heaven.

My Superfantastic Weekend and What I Ate

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, restaurant ramblings
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I had such a great weekend that I’m actually going to talk about what I did rather than write some abstract post about “American Idol” or whathaveyou. Ready for this?

On Friday night, I picked Kamran up from work, and we rode the subway to Astoria, which is a neighborhood in Queens that’s getting to be known as the new Williamsburg (my previous neighborhood in Brooklyn), because it’s cheap enough that artsy, non-trust-funded types can actually afford to live there and eat from the plethora of Greek restaurants. It’s still not quite as settled as Williamsburg was, though, because there was a point where the streetlights just sort of stopped existing, and we found ourselves thinking, “Why did we agree to come to this god-forsaken borough?!”

But then we remembered we were about to eat CHICKEN, stuffed with CHEDDAR, wrapped in BACON, covered in MOLE, topped with melted MONTERREY JACK, and smothered in crumbled FETA at Fatty’s Cafe. Obviously worth it.


Lorraine seductively models the Contraband Chicken,
as if it’s not seductive enough on its own.


There were much better photos of Ash, Mike, and Lorraine,
but the look on Ash’s face here is SO GREAT.


Please tell me why Kamran posed normally in this photo with Jeff
but threw a gang sign in the photo he took with me.


On Saturday night, Kamran and I went to dinner at the famed Serendipity 3 with my longtime blogfriend Kim of Good Hair, Kim Luck. We’ve seriously been reading each other’s LiveJournals and then blog for years now but failed to meet when we both lived here, realized we probably made a mistake once she moved away for a while, and decided not to butcher it this time when she moved back recently.


The lovely and talented Kim shows off her young chicken sandwich and the hair
she had dyed especially for me, or so I tell myself.


Kamran sips espresso instead of helping me eat our giant Can’t Say No Sundae,
which included peanut butter pie, vanilla ice cream, bananas, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.

After Kim and I had been talking about “Gossip Girl” stars and handbags for 15 minutes, Kamran leaned over and whispered that Sarah Michelle Gellar was at the table next to ours with her family, which prompted us to try naming more than three things she’s been in. I failed ridiculously and didn’t slyly take a picture of Kim with Buffy in the background, but rest assured that she’ll be ceremoniously added to my list of famous people I’ve seen in NYC.

Even though Kim was in a dress and heels, we coerced her to ride the tram to Roosevelt Island with us, which is basically a 3-minute ride in the air to the tiny island next to Manhattan. We used those 3 minutes wisely, though, by loudly talking about how people from Roosevelt Island are pathetic if they think they’re part of Manhattan.


On Sunday morning, Kamran and I were treated to brunch at La Silhouette, which I think is just trying to get the word out that yes, they serve brunch, and yes, it is awesome. As if my cheesy, crusty, piled-high-with-ham croque madam wasn’t enough,

they also served us the entirety of the dessert menu. (And we secretly kind of liked their sundae better than Serendipity’s!) The full review will follow on donuts4dinner.com, obviously.

Super fun times!

They Changed the Name from Stuffing to Dressing to Make It Sound Less Dirty

Filed under holidays don't suck for me, it's fun to be fat, no i really do love ohio
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I’m in Ohio for Thanksgiving!

While there, I plan to:

• sleep in my own bed and actually spend time with my family now that my best friend, Tracey, finished grad school, got a job, and can’t stay up until 4 a.m. with me every night.

• have Thanksgiving meals with my stepmom’s family, my mom’s side of the family, and my dad’s side of the family within a span of 6 hours. All of them will involve entirely different menus that are traditional to each family, meaning that I’ll be forced to eat pecan pie, pumpkin roll, and old-fashioned cream pie just so I don’t appear rude. Oh, the hardships of the dedicated gourmand.

• try to think of awesome things to put on my Christmas list for my dad’s side of the family but ultimately just write

• eat dinner with Noel Cordle at The Cheesecake Factory, WHERE SHE HAS NEVER EATEN BEFORE.

• not shop on Friday, except possibly online, where I’ll be earning double cash back by using Ebates. (See what I did there?)

Oh, friends, it’s going to be a great time. Until I have to be at the airport at 4:30 a.m. on Monday.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010!

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, it's fun to be fat, no i really do love ohio
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Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
104 years of celebrating pumpkins, people.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
And celebrating deep-fried everything, of course.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
Do you think the very first Pumpkin Show was full of corndogs and chocolate-covered frozen cheesecake on a stick?

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
Or do you think they just stood around and worshipped the giant gourd? (This year’s was the largest ever!)

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
That’s right. 1600 pounds of pure pumpkin.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
It’s certainly changed from when Tracey and I first started going as kids. There are now BLACK PEOPLE there. And people speaking SPANISH. And this guy, whom I spotted almost as soon as we got there the first day.

“Serious or ironic?!”, I whispered to Tracey when I saw the back of his jacket. “Oh, my god, we have to find out,” she replied, a mischievous gleam in her eye. And then he turned around, and he was wearing a vest and tie. And then his boyfriend walked up. Swoon, swoon, swoon.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
Some things will always be the same, though, like this ancient carousel that shows up every year.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
And like the display of the outfit belonging to the current Miss Pumpkin Show. (When I showed my diverse group of co-workers the photos of the past Miss Pumpkin Shows, one of them said, “They’re all white!” And I was like, “I’m sorry, this surprises you somehow?”

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
It was the 10th anniversary of Tracey dragging her friends Justin and Dayna to the Show to eat wildly inappropriate-looking fruits-made-unhealthy,

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
so she made them some adorable commemorative pumpkin pins.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
Whether we planned to or not, we ran into absolutely everyone we knew in the three days we went to the Pumpkin Show, including my cousin Bethany and her brother’s baby daughter, Kaydence. Don’t fear; I have an entire series of photos of Bethany peeking out from behind the foods we ate, all creepy-eyed like that, which I’ll post over at donuts4dinner.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
I have a long history with the Circleville Pumpkin Show, you know. Why, my great-aunt was even featured on a magazine devoted entirely to it back when she was a mere girl.

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2010
But I have an even longer history with Pickaway County itself, which is celebrating 200 years of existence this year.

And I’m sure glad it exists.

Circleville Pumpkin Show, Here I Come!

Filed under it's fun to be fat, no i really do love ohio
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I flew home to Ohio last night for a week of the

CIRCLEVILLE PUMPKIN SHOW!

Which some people like to refer to as the “Circleville Pumpkin Festival” or the “Circleville Pumpkin Fair” or the “Podunk Hillbilly Gourd Celebration“.

But they are wrong. It’s a show if I’ve ever seen one.

While there, I plan to meet Noel Cordle (and Ryan Cordle, too!), to upset Julie‘s adorable kids in their double stroller, and to

EAT EVERYTHING I ATE LAST YEAR ALL OVER AGAIN.

(And more.)