FINALLY!!!

I am done with school until sometime in September!!! Okay, not totally done, because I have to wrap up my practicum during August, but I have a month without any classes! No sitting in a crappy hard chair for four hours (we don't even get decent breaks... 5-10 minutes to pee, and that's it... I'd get longer breaks slinging fries at McDonald's), no more lectures, no more madly scribbling notes as the prof flips quickly through his power point presentation, no more listening to the Thing that Wouldn't Shut Up, no more text books, no more cranking out three term papers every week.... at least, not for the next 6 weeks. I feel free, lemme tell ya. Maybe now I can relax and de-stress.

Apparently, my stress level and my unhealthy coping mechanisms have become alarming to those closest to me. I suppose I can see why, if I really stop to think about it. However, as of now, I am choosing not to think too hard about anything. I'm just gonna let it all go and see where the chips fall. I want to enjoy my life and all that it entails, naysayers and buzzkills be damned.

So, here's to hedonistic, hilarious, stress-free living. And baby, I'm gonna live it up big. At least for the next six weeks.

New Pics

Okay, my friend Theresa said I should find some other pics to see how I look different since I lost weight, so I took a couple. I guess I do see a difference... plus, I've lost 2 more inches off my waist and hips since I took these. I've been told that my appearance changes so rapidly that I look different from one week to the next. Someone even asked me if I've been sick because the weight comes off so fast. Nope, not sick... this is the way it's supposed to work.

The weird thing is, on the inside I'm still an insecure fat chick. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away.

Maybe one of the weirdest, grossest things I've seen...

I was up at the bar the other night, and there was this one guy there. We've seen him up there occasionally over the years, and he always looks the same: late 50's/ early 60's, skinny, balding, with a white driving cap, and a vacant, slack-jawed look on his face. It is possible that that hat is hiding some kind of hideous brain surgery scar or something, because I've never seen him without it, and he always seems significantly addled. His facial expression never, ever changes. No matter if he's talking, drinking, surprised, pissed, whatever, his eyes are vacant and his mouth is hanging open. I saw him get pissed once, and he was yelling like a ventriloquist's dummy... no facial expression whatsoever.

I've seen him making out with his wife before, and I thought that was pretty yucky (ya know, with the slack jaw and all), but the other night I saw something even more disturbing.

Apparently, he was slowly saying something his wife didn't like, because she put her hand up to shut him up, and he frickin' started licking it. Even his own wife was grossed out. Then he did something that made me want to hurl and laugh hysterically at the same time. With the same blank look on his face, he lowers his face to her lap and starts licking. HOLY FRICKIN' CRAP. I guess he had pushed the envelope a little too far, because his wife almost shoved him off his chair. A fall wouldn't have been a good thing for him... I don't think he can afford to lose too many more brain cells. But if he had biffed it, I would've laughed anyway.

Smells

I was sitting by this girl, and I smelled this rude smell, like four kinds of cheese left out in the sun. Turns out she had taken off her shoes and was airing out her bare feet. That's fine and all, but totally not in public where other people are subjected to the stench. I thought I was gonna hurl. My ex-BIL had the stinkiest feet on the planet. Once, on a church youth retreat, the youth pastor actually pulled the van over and refused to go any further until my BIL put his shoes back on. And he was right to do it. I think there were actual stink lines coming from his feet, like in cartoons.

For some reason I am very much affected by smells, both good and bad. A certain friend of mine wears a scent that absolutely makes me swoon. He smells so good... I just want to sit there and sniff him, but then that would be totally creepy of me. I tried to get my husband to wear a cologne that I like, but he refused. Too bad...

On the other hand, I have been in stores or at church, and an old lady walks by with waaaaaaaaay too much perfume on, and it makes me gag. Or worse, it's a perfume that has been sitting on the lady's dresser for five years, and it smells like pee. I just cannot take that... I have to get away.

Another smell that I hate is my old dog's breath. It smells like ass. I know it's because she's old and decrepit and all, but then she wants to lick me, and I don't want my skin to smell like ass, so I make her go away. But then, somehow, that smell gets stuck in my nose, and it's all I can smell for hours.

I hate having such intense reactions to scent... a bad smell brings on a fight-or-flight thing, where I honestly feel the need to either run away or smack someone. A really good smell either makes me super hungry or makes me want to.... um, yeah. We won't go there.

We were at a church for a wedding a couple weeks ago, and there was a whole side of the room labeled, "fragrance-free section." So I guess that the people who sit in that section maybe feel the way I do about smells. Or maybe they're deathly allergic, and certain smells could totally kill them. Like Superman with kryptonite or something. Anyhow, in that section of that church, no one gets to take their shoes off, wear pee perfume, or have dog ass breath. But that means that they can't smell extra good, either.

I don't know what brought on this train of thought, but.... oh, yeah.... it was that one chick's cheese feet.

A pic of me

I went to a family wedding last Saturday, and here's a pic my hubby took before we left because I wanted to see if I look as different as people say I do. I love this dress... first, it's the first new dress I've had in years. Second, it makes me feel pretty. Third, it's a frickin' size 8, and it FITS! Yeah, baby!

The wedding was a wierd experience. My grandma is getting senile, and I had to remind her who I was and reintroduce her to my hubby and kids three times. My aunt is back together with her abusive boyfriend, and I totally didn't know what to say about that. I wanted to ask her if she'd lost her frickin' mind, but... wrong time, wrong place, ya know? I hadn't seen the bride, my cousin, in about 10 years, so I knew nothing about her or her new husband. To top it off, no one in my family recognized me until I opened my mouth to speak. Strange. We stayed for the dinner, but skipped out on the dance because the whole extended family thing is really awkward. We really haven't been much of a family since my mom died 9 years ago, but this is partially my own doing because the trainwreck that is my extended family exhausts me. So..... yeah. Not much more to say about that.

So, I'm looking at the pic of me, and I just don't see the big dramatic change. I think I still look like me. Whatever. All I know is that my old clothes fall off me, I can run, and I am healthy for the first time in 18 years. Good enough for me.

My Weekend

So, I was up in Brainerd, MN for the 4th of July. We went to the Brainerd Jaycees Corn Feed, and I was pretty excited. Usually the Corn Feed is a mullets' paradise, and I was armed with my camera phone, so I thought I'd get some pretty sweet shots of some Brainerd plumage. So we get there... and there's NOTHIN'. No mullets at all. I was flabbergasted. I searched for over an hour... I still can't believe that the mullets didn't represent at the frickin' Jaycees Corn Feed. I mean, an open field, port-a-potties, and free corn on the cob... what's not to love??? The only mildly amusing things I saw were a lady feeding corn on the cob to a pet monkey, and a kid wearing a dog collar.

The dog collar kid must have been about 15 or 16, and had long hair down to his butt. He's probably a burnout/theater geek. And I'll bet he works the Renaissance Festival. He totally acted like a Festie. But the dog collar... I almost laughed out loud. It was a red nylon buckle collar... the kind you can get at Target for $5.99. Okay, I get that he was trying to express his individuality. More power to him. But if you're gonna wear a dog collar so people will look at you, invest in a nice leather one for cripes sake. I was gonna take a picture of him for my blog, but he got away.