Monday Monday so good to me

On Friday, I went to the doctor...

"It looks like you've had a bit of weight gain. You've gained eight pounds since you were here in December."

Ouch... And then it got worse: "How much did you weigh when you started college?"

105. And, according to his scale, which I, personally, question the accuracy of, I now weigh 132. "Twenty-seven pounds over three years, I'd say that's some pretty significant weight gain," he says. I need to start working out, eating right, he says, or I'll continue gaining weight. Obesity runs in my family, but I never thought I'd hear my doctor telling me I need to lose weight at 21.

Friday wasn't one of my better days.

But today, today was a good day. Today, I got offered a phone interview with Teach for America. Later, I got an email regarding a job I'd really wanted but gave up on weeks ago since I'd never heard back from them. They want me to contact them to schedule an interview. Today, I did not go work out, but I did blow dry and straighten my hair for the first time in more than a week.

Friday sucked, but Monday was pretty damn good.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 8:05 PM |

the answers...

The answers from this post

1. Every dog has its day.
2. No use crying over spilt milk.
3. Like father, like son.
4. All tha glitters is not gold.
5. Haste makes waste.
6. Beauty is only skin deep.
7. Beggars can't be choosers.
8. Don't count your eggs before they're hatched.
9. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
10. Love of money is the root of all evil.
11. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
12. A watched pot never boils.
13. A bird in the hand is as good as two in the bush.
14. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 9:15 PM |

you are so not significant in my misery anymore

Earlier tonight, as I sat on the steps outside my front door, I was smoking my pink cigarettes that I think are just so cool and it hit me, that you wouldn't have thought they were cool at all. You would have told me they were stupid.

You never stopped trying to make everyone else around you feel as small as you did, and it worked. You made me feel like nothing. I thought I was nothing. Only when you were gone, when you'd knocked me down until I was barely existent and then walked away, did I begin to learn just how big I really could be all on my own.

That's what this blog was really all about: figuring out who I'd forgotten to become while I was so wrapped up in you. I've gotten over my co-dependence now. I've got plans and backup plans and love and laughter in my life, but still something seems to be missing. I'm searching to find it. I think this is about more than any man or boy who has ever come and gone in my life, any family member or awkward adolescence or otherwise outwardly affected affliction. The more my future moves toward becoming my present, the less apparent the peaceful, happy satisfaction I'd put together for it seems to be. I guess it doesn't all come in a neat little package upon graduation.

So I'm working on it. I've got an appointment with my primary care tomorrow to ask for a little help from a prescription, and I signed up for a women's spirituality group that starts in a month. Maybe I'll even join Curves. I'm cutting back on my obligations. I've gotta trust that someone else will save the homeless kids. I need some "me" time.

What I'm trying to say is, as weird as it seems, I'm not blaming my problems on you anymore, and I think that means that I'm over you. My problems are all mine now, and all mine to fix.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 9:13 PM |

Photoblogging Mardi Gras

So, Copasetic Fish came and visited me this weekend for Mardi Gras! We partied hardy. I took pictures.




First, we parked the car and walked to meet Nick and his friends at our spot on St. Charles. Then we took some pictures, but you don't get to see any of them except for Nick and I. I like this picture.

Then, some time later, the floats came. There were marching bands and flambeau dancers as well and even Styx and Journey and Taylor Hicks were there playing music for us, but since it was dark and everything was moving I couldn't get any good pictures.


There were masked men throwing beads at us, but we just kept asking for more.


Don't they look frightening? They're really very nice. They give you beads if you smile and yell and wave, which I do very well thanks to years of practice on the mean streets of St. Tammany Parish. I even caught a pair of panties. And a spear.


Then they threw beads at my face. They thought I was smiling too much.


But no worries, after a very brief recovery period, I was ready to go again. Don't you even think I wasn't catching beads with my free hand. The cold beer to the forehead inspires sympathy and amusement, which earns me extra beads.


We gave a bunch of our beads away to little kids, but we still had a lot left over. They're pretty much useless come Ash Wednesday. I always have the hardest time figuring out what to do with them, because I hate to just throw them away. This year someone told me I could donate them to charity, so I'm going to look into that.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 10:06 PM |

It's the most wonderful time of the year

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 9:29 PM |

quite possibly the bravest thing I have ever done in my life

I've worked in inner-city schools and soup kitchens. I walk around the ghetto looking for homeless kids. I go pretty much anywhere I think the poor people are, dangerous or not, figuring if they have to be there then I can be there too. Sometimes it's scary, but that's nothing compared to this.

I turned down the lights, cranked up the music, and pretended I was Mimi. I swiveled, I shimmied, I shook. I dipped and swung and grinded (grinded? ground? What's the correct past-tense form of the dance move, as opposed to the food processing technique?). And I bumped. Oh, did I bump. But mostly I just rolled my hips.

I threw coy looks over my shoulder, trying not to collapse into a lump of embarrassment. I'd seen the instructional DVD with real life white trash strippers, and I knew what to do. I had the moves, I could fake the guts. Just like that time I got drunk and thought we were playing strip poker, not regular hold 'em. Except this time wasn't quite so awkward.

And that's the story of my first-ever lap dance.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 9:58 PM |

full circle

Remember this guy?

It started yesterday with an early morning email, "I need you to call me," and a phone number. Worried, I nervously dialed the number, and there it was, that voice I hadn't heard in at least three years. He said my voice sounded different, I sounded so grown up. I thought his voice sounded different too--he sounded so strung out.

His live-in girlfriend dumped him and his heart is broken. I figured he was socially isolated and needed a friend, so we talked. But I can't drop everything in my life to be there for an ex-boyfriend that I hear from only periodically and haven't seen in years. I had plans for the evening, so I said I had to go. He sounded hurt, but I wasn't budging. A few minutes later, the boundary was crossed with a simple text: "I miss u," and later, "I still love u. I want to be with u."*

When I was seventeen I would have killed for this. All I wanted was to be with him forever and ever. To fix him and love him and have cute little babies together someday. But I grew up. I'm not the same girl he knew back then, and my bad-boy phase is long gone. I've fallen in love again--twice. He was my first love, but he most certainly was not my last. Sometimes it's best that our dreams don't quite work out as planned.

*It seems that if you were going to attempt to win back the affection of a long-lost ex-girlfriend, particularly if she has gone to college and you got your GED in jail, you would make the extra effort to spell out your words completely, even if they are three whole letters long.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 11:15 AM |

afterglow

There's a reason why I don't plan fundraisers or write budgets or delegate funds. I suck at money, I don't care about money, all I care about is the products and services that money can buy me. When it comes to nonprofit management, this is not a strength.

However, because I AM an effective leader, I have delegated all of these responsibilities to Sarah: someone who thrives on bossing people around and thinking about money. The past few weeks, I have reveled in the fact that I didn't have to know all the details, I didn't have to check up on her to make sure everything was going well. I could just trust her.

So last night, we held our first benefit and it was GREAT! There was comedy, there was music, there was...ribbon dancing? I have no idea how to estimate profits--I was thinking maybe we'd pull out with $500 bucks, but when we got the final count it was $1200, and I couldn't be more ecstatic.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 11:45 AM |