...sort of.  Since this is both a personal and graphics journal, most entries with the 'personal' tag are f-locked, and graphics/resource entries are open for everyone.  If you're interested in my personal life, feel free to comment to this entry and I'll add you.  Otherwise, just add me to watch my journal for graphic updates.  If you just want to add me and aren't interested in my personal posts, that's totally cool with me, but please don't comment and ask to be added because you think the special graphics are f-locked... they aren't.  Anyone who was already friended before this entry (9/27/07) is still friended - so unless you don't want to be included in my personal entries, you don't have to comment to stay added ^.^ 

I miss him so much, it's like he never even happened. Like feeling good for the first time in my life was just a daydream, not real at all, and I've just always felt this miserable. I'm right back where I started. Since he quit MGA, and neither of us ever goes to school team practice anymore anyway, I literally never see him. It's like he wasn't even there at all. Just a figment of my imagination.

http://bit.ly/k9QCrJ →

This is so disturbing. Macon is a very small city, and Lauren was a friend of the mayor’s daughter. The body still hasn’t been positively identified as Lauren, but we all know and are assuming that it’s her. Really though, if it isn’t her, then where the hell is she, and who is it hacked to death outside of her apartment?

This happened right in the middle of the “good part” of town. Just a few doors down from Hay House, our biggest tourist attraction (called “the palace of the South”), right across the street from Mercer Law School, fewer than two blocks away from Woodruff House, the historic house where my office is. FEWER THAN TWO BLOCKS. I drove up Georgia Avenue, right past her, not two hours before the police found her. It’s eerie. And what’s more is that I live an easy walking distance from where this happened. A mile, maybe a mile and a half. And while I’m sure we’re all confident that Lauren was probably killed either by someone she knows personally or by a stalker who she was on contact with, it’s still so scary to think I live so close to her. And if it’s someone Lauren was in contact with…the odds are fairly good that I have come into contact with him too.

Marco and I were talking on Monday after practices were over, and I said that I was in a good mood. He said, "You're always in a good mood."

I looked at him like he was insane.

"Hi, have we met?!" He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain myself. I laughed cynically. "Marco, I've been on and off antidepressants for about the last 5 years. I'm an alcoholic! I still struggle all the time with being suicidal."

He just kinda looked inward for a second, as if trying to remember a time when he saw me that way and couldn't, then shrugged. I laughed again. I had told him just a few minutes earlier that I had switched to a new antidepressant that day, and my head was kind of swimmy.

"I was thinking that the medicine hadn't been working, but I guess it's good to know it has."

"Yeah, it's been working."

"Well it doesn't count if I don't feel any better." Mentally, I added: Maybe I'm just a better liar than you think I am.

He thinks I can't lie. He has no idea.

I just can't believe he has no idea what a mess I am. And what he does to me. He doesn't GET IT. I guess maybe one reason he acts like such a jerk is because he doesn't realize how upset I get when he does it. I'm just trying so hard not to be That Girl. I don't have the first idea what he's thinking.

The counseling service I was going to see doesn't accept an HRA plan, so each session would cost $70.  I can't do that.  I simply don't have it.  Even for one session.  I don't know what this is all for.  I don't even know why I'm doing all of this.  I know people have to eat, have to feed their families, but... I need help.  Are they really going to let me cancel my appointment because I can't afford it?

I am sick today, and while I was lying in the bathtub with a hot rag over my face and mug of hot tea, it reminded me of this past weekend.  Bethany went down to Pat's house to take a shower, and I was taking a nice, relaxing morning bath in the new giant fricking bathtub with the window open and birds singing outside, a bottle of Mike's hard lemonade, music playing on my iPhone, blissfully working out new formations on graph paper.  It wasn't that I hadn't a care in the world or anything, but it was a pretty nice moment.  Whole weekend with practically nothing to do, empty house, cool weather and a giant bathtub.

It made me think of other happy moments.  I know - shocker - Summer's been happy once or twice.  Just for a moment or two.  Particularly over this summer... I thought everything was about to fall into place.  I had met someone, I had been practically guaranteed a future job at the CVB and in the mean time was going to take one at the high school, I was going to get to coach and get paid for it, I was finally moving back out of my parents' house.  I was thinking I was going to turn over a new leaf.  Everything was finally going to get rolling again.

I don't know why I keep falling into the trap of believing that will ever, ever happen.  One chunk falls off and just pulls all the rest down. 

The other happy moment that came immediately to mind was at the beginning, when Marco and I were at Dustin's house, watching movies.  We were on the couch, my head in his lap, his hand in my hair.  The whole night was lovely, but the moment came when I had just gotten home and changed my clothes and was getting into bed when I got a text from Marco asking if I'd made it home okay, and saying that he'd had a good time and couldn't wait to see me the next day.  

I wish I could remember all the happy moments I've had, collect them like little jewels, and bind them into a tiny, sparkly book.  I'd title it, 'Summer Has Happy Moments Too, But Someone Always Fucks Them Up.'

I think I'm a pretty good catch.  I really do.  I think I'm pretty, if heavier than I used to be.  I would like to lose some of the weight I've put on since around the age of 18, but I do think I'm pretty.  I'm smart.  I'm a nice person.  I never cheat.  I'm classy, sophisticated, I can be taken home to mom, but I'm also fun.  I think I'm interesting.  I'm trustworthy and sympathetic and loyal.  I think I'm a great girlfriend. 

Of course, there is a dark and turbulent ocean under the surface, but the right guy will make all of that seem small.  I can deal with it better with a little support.  If there's someone there for me.  It'll be easier.  Right?

Why are people so ready to settle? Why are they so content to take the first thing they’re offered, when it isn’t really what they want? What’s so wrong with waiting for the right thing, the thing you set out to have?

Sure, maybe I’ll be the girl who is never happy because I’ll always be waiting for perfect and perfect probably doesn’t exist. But I won’t be any worse off than someone who isn’t happy because they took what they could get instead of waiting and working for exactly what they wanted. The only way to get what you want is to not take the first option you’re offered.

KEEP GOING. DON’T LET GO.

Okay, so I'm super-jealous (but still supportive!) of plushmistress ' weight loss and fitness success using the Couck to 5K running program ("a running program for beginners") along with portion control and calorie counting.  She lost 26 pounds in 6 weeks, and has maintained!  But I hate running.  And I also have zero will power when it comes to food (and alcohol!  Alcohol has so many calories, especially when you mix it with something, and I just adore a good cocktail), so while I've been working up to motivating myself to take on her plan... it hasn't happened yet.

Until Tori, who loves me and wants me to be as happy as she is with herself, wrote me up an entire life plan with instructions and motivations and everything.  And I figured that I have no more excuses.  I mean, if someone's going to do all the work for me, what other excuses can I make?  Someone's telling me run, so go run!  Someone's telling me exactly how and what and when to eat (she even provided links!), so eat!

So I started my new life plan on Monday.  I monitored my calories, and took in 1470, which is perfect (the range is between 1200 and 1500).  I also went out on my first run.  The podcast (which Tori provided for me) is about 30 minutes long.  It starts with a 5 minute walking warm up, then you complete 8 sets of a 60-second jog and a 90-second walk, ending with a 5 minute cool down.  Not having run in like, 3 years, I was pretty impressed with myself for making it through the first 4 sets.  But at the same time disappointed too. 

Tuesday, my calorie counting lagged.  So I resolved to do better today.  Then I walked into the break room, and Sadie, bless her precious Southern heart, had made 2 fabulous cakes, oodles of cookies and a tray of homemade cheese straws for the staff in celebration of The Cherry Blossom Festival (FUCK).  And I was bad.  I started out not so badly, with half a cookie and a moderate slice of this amazing-looking coconut cake.  But then I had a reuben for lunch, which is not particularly healthy, and when I brought it into the break room, someone had poured cherry pie filling over the chocolate pound cake (FUCK).  So I had a moderate piece of that cake too.  But two moderate pieces of cake together makes a piece that takes up most of your daily calories, bitches!  So then, having fucked it all up, I ate two more cheese straws and resolved to do better at dinner.

Well, in case anyone hasn't heard me whine about it, I currently live with my parents (FUCK).  Which is nice because I'm not paying rent and I don't have to buy meals, but that means I don't get to pick meals either.  Mom made some great green beans - not too unhealthy - and a chicken and rice casserole.  Just chicken, rice, onions, cream of mushroom soup and cheese (FUCK).  So I didn't overeat, but still, the calorie count went out of control today.  I stopped writing them in my little book after the first piece of cake.

BUT THEN, when it came time for my run, I happened to be lying in a dark room with my head buried under a pillow because of the massive headache (what else is new?), and it would have been easy to just say screw it and go to sleep early, but since I felt so guilty about the way I'd eaten today, I just HAD to get up and run.  But this time, I didn't run quite as fast and I took a different route around the neighborhood, and found that running's a lot easier when you start off slowly and don't run uphill! :)  I made it all the way through 7 of the 8 sets, and I could have done the last one too, except that I had gone all the way around the neighborhood and was back at my house, and I didn't want to end up half-way around the neighborhood at the end of the podcast.  Lazy?  Yes.  But overall proud?  Yes.  

And I'm gonna to better with the calorie counting?  I'm gonna try :)

Well, Ben Jones of 13WMAZ weather, I believe you said there would be snow flurries around 2 am. And here it is 8:00, and there's no freaking now.

Again.

I hadn't planned on having to go to work today. I feel jipped, Ben Jones. I'm skeptical that the 2 - 4 inches you predict to begin around 9:00 is coming. You'd better be telling the truth, mister.