So last nighty was salsa at 411, you know the usual 2 smirnoffs, bachatta with various men, flashing eyes at people across the room and, of course, dances with the one and only Mr. X. Except last night our dances were exceptionally flirtatous. We totally got up on the stage and goofed off to cha cha. We were laughing so hard and everyone was looking at us like we were in our own crazy world. He cracks me up cause when he does bachatta...he literally stomps his foot down like he's at a ho down and then we laugh about it. We often take salsa breaks so we can go outside get some fresh air and visit the art gallery across the street. Last night as we were looking in the window to the gallery, this homeless man was wondering around near us, which made him nervous and so he put his arm around me so as to give off the signal to the wondering man to go away. After the man left we walked back inside for more lustrous dancing. Later that night we were walking to his car (so he could drive me to mine) and he put his arm around my shoulder, finished walking me to the car and opened up my door for me. Once we were inside he started talking about this hot chick (who really looked like one of those white trash girls from Rock of Love...you know the fake boobs, bad blonde dye job, and wierd plumped up lips) and how he gave her his number and she had already called and texted him before we got to the car. As we pull up to my car he puts his hand up to my mouth and goes in for the fake hand over the mouth kiss?!?!?!?!? He tried to do that on Sunday night too...I always laugh and pull away.

Driving home (ok don't freak out) but I could literally picture what kind of silly smiley expression he would have on his face as I walked down the isle in a white dress. It was a vision out of nowhere that kind of freaked me out. Its like when I am with him nothing else in the world matters and we just create our own world of laughter. However, when I'm not with him I'm wishing that I was and replaying everything he said and everything that we did when we were together. Terry, one of my salsa friends, said last night something to the effect of "You guys really look like you are together. Are you sure he doesn't like you?" To which I replied "Unfortunately, I'm sure." I keep having dreams about him and wake up wrapped in warm, soft sheets wishing that he was there with me. As he followed my car home from Winston I thought about pulling over on the side of the highway, putting my flashers on, having him pull behind me to see what is wrong and somehow ending up kissing on the side of the highway. Thankfully, I chickened out.

The Well talked on Sunday night about Marriage and one of the things the minister said was to really be open minded about who to date and that you have to marry your best friend. Of course non of that sunk into Mr. X's ridiculously puny brain. He is in a pattern of dating people for a month or two and then thats it, usually because they dump him. I'm sure he is about to start another 2 month blip with the girl from last night (the rock of love girl...ewww).

Also, random insert...You have to check out this guys' music...it makes me want to walk down a catwalk!
http://www.myspace.com/samsparro

Ok, let me preface this with I know I am not perfect....But (insert rage here) AHHHHHH WTF? Seriously, lately I have been in my "well fuck you" stage towards legalistic christians. While I am glad that the whole debate should technically be over, pieces of it continue to linger on. I am sick and tired of christians calling me out and judging me when A- they barely know me B - they don't know where I am at in my faith and C - they throw up their legalistic ideals all over me. If I could select an artist to best represent my mood right now, it would be Eminem. Lately, The Well people have been totally pissing me off. Tonight, I made a comment about this old lady looking like Sarah Palin in 20 years and one girl got totally serious and was like "People need to think that every thing they say about Sarah Palin will be brought to Gods attention. She is a christian. We shouldn't be making fun of her and the same goes for Barack." Everyone fell silent and looked around awkwardly for a long period of time. I tried to break the awkward turtle moment, but was unsuccessful. My religious bubble of hippy like christians is not large enough to repel the sound from all of the legalistic Well people having hissy fits over Barack Obama getting elected and taking their rage out on everyone.

I have lived under the oppression of having to do and say what a normal christian should and that never turned out right for me. I became rebelious. Even now when I go to church with my parents I feel EXTREME tension, because I feel like I am letting them win, when in reality I am letting God win me over in the best way possible. BUT STILL I AM JUST SOOOO FUCKING PISSED AT CHRISTIANS THAT WOULD RATHER PICK FIGHTS WITH YOU THAN LOVE ON YOU. Sometimes the rebel side of me wants to tell them how their behavior is negatively affecting my relationship with the Lord, just to jab at them, but the truth of it is that they would rather feel like they are right about whatever topic it is than to consider loving on someone who is having a hard time in their faith.

I just posted a blog 2 seconds ago, but I have one other random expedition to tell you about.

Okay, so recently I have gained lots of weight and yet with my busy schedule I just don't have time to eat perfectly or really to excercise. The other thing is I've been feeling hopeless about the ability for me to change my weight. It seems like this huge issue that is too big to tackle right now. Sometimes I don't even feel like I am worth the effort to try changing my bad habits because they will just resurface again. Pondering about these things in the back of my brain for a few days now. I have discovered a temporary...yes I said temporary (so don't freak out) solution. Today, I spent like half of a day researching the drug called Hoodia, which is a natural plant found in South Africa (i think) that is an appetite suppressant. I am usually so not cool with weight loss pills and quick fix solutions, but I really think this could help kick start me in the right direction. People who take Hoodia lose a lot of weight. My main issue right now is over eating and if I can take something to help that it would be great. After a lot of research today, I went ahead and bought a one-month supply of it and the great thing is that I didn't buy the pill form, which often means you take 6 to 8 pills a day. Instead I bought the 100% pure drops. You just stick 1 to 2 drops on your tongue or in a drink about 15 minutes before every meal and at night and it will help me suppress some of the urge to eat. Now I'm not saying that this will cure me, but maybe after lossing a few pounds I won't feel so helpless in this area.

Something that I've secretly been dreaming of for the past year is being able to graduate and wear a dress from Forever 21 under my cap and gown. Right now one of my legs can't fit into their dress sizes, which run up to I think a small 13 or 14. I love shopping at Target, but at the same time I do it because I know I won't have to face all of the size rejection that the mall offers a young plus size woman, but being able to shop at the mall again would feel great. I'm not talking nasty Lane Bryant ghetto, or old lady like and uber expensive department stores, but places like H&M, Express, Forever 21, etc... I really gave up shopping at those places probably around sophomore or junior year of high school because the clothes only fit 1/4 of the time, which meant that 3/4's of the time I left feeling disgusting about myself and rejected by cool brands. After freshman year of college the dream to be able to go back died along with any left over evidence of ever being a part of that shopping culture.

I know that this sounds sad, but I get a lot of my wierd weight issues from my mother. She never really lasts in her diets; therefore, I look at her and even though it frieghtens me, I feel like no matter how many diets I go on that the problem is never really going to go away.

The funny thing is when I was a size 13 I thought I was fat and now that is my ideal body size. I'm not aiming for a size 2 here or even a size 8, but just to lose about 30 or 40 lbs. I just posted a bunch of pictures from college and high school where I look fabulous. Its funny cause I look at those pictures and I am begininng to not recognize myself. In Baz Luhrmans "Sunscreen speech" he talks about how you aren't as fat as you think because in 20 years you'll look back at the pictures and marvel at just how thin you really were. That is what scares me...I don't want to be 45 looking back at me now and thinking wow I was thin and my biggest fear is that I will.

I need people to pray for me that I can take control of my life. I always feel like I am pushing my career goals and never focusing on my health goals, but I want to start focusing on both at the same time or at least get the health goals started at little bit. I have made up my mind on the Hoodia stuff and I am not willing to back down from giving it a try. Starting Sunday, tomorrow, I am going to start detox for a few days before I go on Hoodia. I am only going to drink pure fruit juices and water, eat whole wheat bread (no butter, no nothing on it), and eat whole vegetables and fruits. The detox will happen for at least 2 days, but I am hoping to stay on the detox till I start the Hoodia (once it arrives in the mail) which should be Wed., Thurs., or Friday.

This morning I woke up at 7am on a Saturday not because I had to work, but because I had to stop dreaming. In my disturbing dream I was getting married...to whom, I wasn't sure. In fact, I wasn't even sure what time the wedding was until I looked at the posters around my castle like room. It was already 11am (in my dream) and I was to be married at 6pm. However, I was alone with no bridesmaids gushing around me, nearly dressed in rags, and starting to wonder about all of the details. Come to find out that because I was so eager to get married and was too busy working on my studio and thesis projects my mother had to plan my wedding for me. So I called her to ask where I was going on my honeymoon and she informed me that I needed to pick a place really quickly. Which then turned to thoughts of...oh crap that means I don't have my white nightgown for my honeymoon so I was going to have to make a Victoria Secret run. Quick realization that my car was still a total crap shoot with trash piled high inside, I begged my brother to clean it out for $8. The food was being catered by my Aunt Beth, and I had no clue what we were having. I started to sweat thinking about how terrible my dress would look because I didn't pick it out and if the reception meal would be served in plastic Tupperware. Obviously, this is a woman's nightmare and that is why I awoke from this deep dark dream of mine to see the sun shining. The funny thing is after I realized it wasn't real, I was kind of happy for a few minutes. It was like amongst all of the dramatic wedding realizations I was just happy to entertain the fantasy that if it was 11am I would be married in 7 hours.

Anywhoooo...okay so I know that people get pissed when I talk about Mr. X because...well many obvious reasons that are quite valid, but being that it is my blog I will discuss/let out all of the thoughts on the topic that I so chose. My main one being this...after thinking for the past few days about him, I....well let me preface this with, I usually am right about my predictions and my hunches about people so with that said....I really think that one day, probably much later rather than sooner, Mr. X is going to come to his senses over everything and he is going to try to either chase me or pursue me in some fashion. YET, my instincts tell me that when this happens it will be too late, like as I am moving away from Greensboro, or the week before I get married, on a trip to visit after I move out of town, or possibly just some completely unexpected moment. Although this is bad, I am kind of excited about letting him taste his own medicine. That is all for now!

Faltering, falling, fumbling, and fooling myself have been my drugs of choice. Months of recovering from foolish dreams that I know will never come true were ingested, but this week out of nowwhere a regurgitation occured. Why can't I keep down the truth?

With the lights out and my curtains drawn I immerse myself into a sedated state. A state where I can drown out my thoughts, my loneliness, my unhappiness... Images continue to flicker as my brain drowns out the pain. My body and my mind are relaxed, entertained, and temporarily distracted. However, just like most temporary fixes it is the moments in between where you realize that your problems are not disappearing, but rather that they are still waiting for attention and that new problems are forming in the meantime. The escapes that we create for ourselves are not only for the physical and rational problems, but also the irrational and mental states we are in.

I have been so completely anti-social. I use to crave face time and now I constantly hide from it. Most of my local friendships are fake. Yet, this is not why I avoid engaging them. I avoid them because I need to anesthetize myself from the pain of being a lonely overweight workaholic who is crumbling under the pressure of deadlines and expectations she doesn't know if she can meet. The guilt from unproductivity crushes me and therefore I seek to drown it out through lots of on-line television. Rationally I know that this guilt drowning could probably happen just as easily with social activities; yet, if I set up times to go out with people then I am giving into the reality that I am not as productive as I would like to image. It also means that I may end up having to face my work anyway, especially if this social time is with people from my classes.

I almost hate to write this, but it is the truth...The one thing that I miss about smoking is sitting outside enjoying the scenes, the weather, and the people watching and really thinking through my emotional state. I procrastinated just as much back then but at least while I was procrastinating I took time to really taste life. Now though I miss tasting life, I do not miss tasting cigarettes of death. In fact I did have one cigarette last night and I don't even feel guilty about it because really I just thought it was silly. One Halloween cigarette does not equal a smoker. Now I'm not saying that I'm going back to smoking or even wanting to be a social smoker....what was I saying...oh yeah basically that I still think they are ridiculous and that I'm glad that I have moved past that deadly relationship. However, what I miss is time on my porch during nice weather and taking breaks to sit outside and just live in the moment of quiet tranquility with ones thoughts.

Though I am starting to crawl out of my career and architectural depression, I found another warm pit to cry in for a while and that is the anti-healthy pit of death. While I did quit smoking and passed the LEED exam at the same time, I also had some help by the name of sugar. Oh sugar and I are such dear friends. Sugar makes me feel happy, makes me feel like I am chiseling out some time for enjoyment in the midst of work. The sad part is that sugar is a killer just like my old long lost evil no-so-great-a-friend Mr. Tobacco (short for Mr. T). Sugar is considered a treat and it comes carrying hope that tears and anguish will melt away as it melts in your mouth. It is another foolish trick that this fool falls for.

I want to run through the park sometimes, but I'm scared. I want to just sit outside and breath, but I'm scared. Though Barack promises change, I am needing change that I know he cannot bring and that is personal change. The pits that I continue to dig myself into are warm with plenty of room for quiet desperation. Plus, they are great for temporarily hiding from your problems. To crawl out of the ditches that I have dug myself into will be hard. As each day goes by I look up and the circle where I can see the sky seems to get smaller and smaller. Am I really just temporarily hiding out or am I digging my own grave?

Yet, I continue to dig deeper and deeper because I don't know if I can conquer the climb out. I always prefer taking the stairs going down because they are so much easier, well it appears that I have been taking the stairs down and expecting elevators to be waiting in the wings for the moment that I decide I need to go back up. Everyone knows that in ditches there are no elevators, but I can't seem to really grasp that fact. There is no immediate quick fix just waiting for me.

I am quite the planner and quite the rebel. So how does this often work out for me...lets see here I plan and then rebel against my own plans. It is so Jekyll and Hyde. Another secret that I've been hiding is the lack of God in my life. I am so far from him. If there ever was an elevator in a dirty ditch it would be him. Now just like in Willy Wonka, you may jump on the elevator and expect to go up but sometimes you go sideways, to new rooms you didn't know existed, down for a little while, etc...however, the goal of God/the elevator is to get you out of the ditches and at least on solid ground...who knows maybe even a mountain. Climbing out myself means that I have more control and that if or when I do finally get myself out of the hole I can give myself full credit, but then again the Mr. Hyde in me will probably cause me to either fail or will simply push me right back into the ditch after I get out. The elevator does seem like an easy ticket, but the Mr. Hyde in me is convincing me that the elevator is impractical and that I should stay just a little longer in my warm safe pit. Though I know what I need to do and will do eventually, for now I am sitting in the dirt facing away from the shiny stainless steel elevator sulking in the corner and being obstinate.