Having three weeks off school and five days off work has really effed with my sleep schedule. Namely, I’m a sleeping fiend lately! I think it’s well-documented here that I have some sleep issues, and the usual problem is that I’m not getting enough. But the last week, it’s like I’ve been in someone else’s body.

Take the last couple nights for example. Saturday night I was awake (intentionally) until 3am, but I slept until 12:30pm the next day. Then I took a short nap on the couch that afternoon. Now normally that would fuck me right up. I’d be awake all night and be miserable at work on Monday. However, last night I was having trouble keeping my eyes open at 8, and I went to be shortly after 9. And I actually fell asleep! And slept, with few interruptions, until 7am!

Huh? What is this? Restful sleep? More than six hours a night? Naps? I’m not sure what to make of this foreign functioning. Who the hell traded bodies with me? I don’t know who you are, but I kind of love you.

(Great, I totally just jinxed myself didn’t I?)

My eyeball hates me. Over a month ago my left eye started turning red all the time, so eventually I stopped wearing contacts, thinking I should give the poor thing a break. For almost the last two weeks I’ve worn nothing but glasses, and my eye was starting to look and feel better.

Yesterday I was going out though, so I put my contacts in. I thought I was doing fine, but by the end of the night I looked in the mirror and saw a monster! My eye was hideous. I took the contacts out as soon as I got home and have been wearing glasses since, but still my eye is red and hurty.

What the hell is going on?

It’s a brand new pair of contacts, so it’s not because they’re old or dirty. They feel fine in my eyes at first, but after a full day suddenly I looked stoned. But it is obviously connected to my contacts because everything was fine for weeks when I was glasses-only.

Dr. Google suggested I might have “contact lens induced dry eye” which means my eyes aren’t getting enough oxygen when I wear contacts. Seems the only remedy is to not wear contacts so often, which is just great since I prefer to wear them nearly EVERY DAY! I’m so sick of the glasses on my face.

Has anyone had this? Is there a solution?

Yesterday I had my annual lady parts appointment. I dread these appointments even more than the average woman. I’m not sure why, but I have anxiety for weeks beforehand. This time, however, I actually felt quite calm. I think I must be growing up and am better able to hold my shit together or something. I was by no means looking forward to it, but I wasn’t the mess that I usually am.

Everything about the appointment is fine by me except for the brief period when the speculum is required. If you don’t know what a speculum is, consider yourself lucky. If you do, then you know what I’m talking about when I say… awkward! And for me, very uncomfortable.

So yesterday I told the PA that she should have everything she needed within arm’s reach. At my last appointment the PA (a different one) was rolling all over the room reaching for tools while that contraption was hanging out in my nether region. Not acceptable. And boy did this PA abide by my request! It was the quickest and least uncomfortable pap I’ve ever had. When she was done (after literally about 5 seconds) I said, “Wow, I want you to do all my pap smears!” I’m sure that’s a huge compliment for a doctor.

When the whole exam was over she let me know that I was due for a tetanus shot. Actually two years overdue. She said I either had to do it that day or promise to make an appointment right away. I’m terrified of needles, and a couple years ago I probably would have promised to make the appointment and then ‘accidently’ forgotten. But like I said, I must be growing up because what I said instead was, “If you can do it right now and not make me sit here for 15 minutes and freak out, I’ll do it today.”

Within minutes there was a nurse with a syringe in the room. While the PA talked to me about my birth control, the nurse swabbed my arm with alcohol.

Holy crap, you’re just going right for it aren’t you?
I’m a really good shot giver, don’t worry. A little poke…

And just like that it was done. Easiest and most painless shot I’ve ever gotten. “I want you to give me all my shots!” I proclaimed. I’m pretty sure that’s a huge compliment for a nurse.

I guess if I absolutely must have a speculum in my vagina or a needle in my arm, these are the ladies I want putting them there. Yeah, I said it.

Tonight I’m going to the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular with a friend. I got free tickets and I’ll pretty much do anything that’s free. I told Erica, the friend who is joining me, that I invited her because she was definitely the person who could most enjoy something this cheesy with me. When she called today to confirm plans, I assured her that I had seen a few promos for the show and it looked sufficiently cheesy for us.

Luckily I’m feeling refreshed today. I was so right about last night. I was done. Shortly after I posted, I sat down to watch tv and found nothing good. So instead I did a little reading for class. I was tired so I laid my head down for a little rest and quickly fell asleep. I was trying to stay awake for the ANTM finale, but it wasn’t worth it. I got ready for bed and was fast asleep by 8. And I actually slept pretty good last night, which, how often do you hear me say that? I got about 10 hours of sleep, and I think I really needed it.

Why? Well, I went on a little spur-of-the-moment road trip Tuesday. I was gone a little over 24 hours, getting home around dinner time last night. The circumstances of the road trip were the main reason I was so tired. The trip was to nowhere exciting, but it was really fun. I want to go again!

I was up late last night despite the fact that Tuesdays are the longest days ever, not to mention the added bonus that I have to do a presentation tonight in class. But it was worth it.

Today has actually gone by fast so far, which is new. My days usually drag until the evening when they fly by. Especially now that it gets dark at 5:30. It’s like I have no day at all, just perpetual night. Have I ever mentioned that I hate winter?

Also, my sleep has been so bad that my left eye is constantly blood shot. I couldn’t wear contacts for days, and now I still wake up with a bright red eyeball every morning. I have to Visine the hell out of it so nobody will be scared of me. Maybe it’s scratched or something, but it doesn’t hurt. It just feels like I want to rub my eyes a lot. You know, like when you’re tired? Which I am. Always.

When I moved back to GR last year, for some reason I put on weight. About twenty pounds of weight actually. One day this past spring I was shopping some serious discounts and found four pairs of dress pants for four bucks each. But I had to buy them all in a size larger than I had worn since the infamous freshman fifteen. I was actually okay with that, I don’t have serious body issues. But I did try a few times to eat better or exercise more, hoping to eventually get back down to a weight I was more comfortable with. All attempts failed.

Enter the heartbreaking end to a three and a half year relationship in July. Turns out depression is the key to weight loss. For about a month I ate little more than frozen blueberries and hot tea. For a month after that I could still only eat about a third of what I had eaten daily before the breakup. In two months I lost twenty pounds. I was back down to what I weighed before moving back here.

I thought my September cruise would be the end of it. I ate a lot that week and assumed my stomach would stretch back out and I’d get my appetite back, along with a few pounds. But it’s now nearing the end of October and I haven’t gained any of it back. My appetite has returned, though I’ve noticed that I still eat less than I did before.

Lest you think I am at all advocating for this kind of weight loss plan, believe me, I am not. Though I will probably make an effort from now on to eat less and better than I did previously, I know that my dramatic drop in pounds was not healthy. And most likely I will start to gain some of it back unless I make a serious attempt to keep it off. With winter coming, I don’t see that happening.

It’s kind of humorous though. The other day I put on a pair of dress pants that I used to wear all the time. I buttoned and zipped them up, and then just laughed. They were huge! I could literally pull them off, fully fastened, over my hips. And I’ve got some hefty hips even when I do lose weight. So now, because I refuse to go shopping, I have to wear everything with belts. I look sort of ridiculous because the pants are cinched around the waist but clearly too big in the thighs and booty. I’m a fashion disaster right now. Oh and those “size big” clearance pants I bought last spring? I hadn’t worn them yet because they are kind of thick and more of a wintery material, and now I can’t even make use of them

The other thing that amuses me is that I don’t think you can even really tell (other than the baggy clothes). When I wear clothes that fit (like jeans I haven’t been able to wear in over a year!), nobody says, Dang girl! You lost weight! If you’ve been reading for awhile, you’ll recall that I kind of hate when people comment on my weight, so I don’t mind the lack of attention. But in the past, when I would lose even five pounds (to be quickly gained back later that week), people would notice and comment. Now I’ve lost twenty and probably only four people have said anything. This could be because they know I dislike the comments, but my theory is that you just can’t tell. I’ve looked at pictures of me from earlier this year, at the height of my weight gain, and I really don’t see a drastic difference. A difference yes, but I always see those ads for diet supplements and they’re all “LOST 22 POUNDS!” and the before picture shows a rather rotund woman, while the after picture shows her, now seriously skinny, wearing her old pants and holding the waistline out about twelve inches. With me it’s more like, yeah I guess her gut isn’t sticking out quite as much. And maybe her thighs aren’t quite as chunky. If it weren’t for my bathroom scale and my baggy clothes, I’m not sure I’d even know I was lighter than three months ago.

Okay. In looking for pictures to use for demonstration, I found very few full-body shots of me. I had to go back to April to find a comparison photo. The most recent full-body shot I have is from September. April is on the left, September on the right:

I think side by side like this, it’s noticeable. But when I gained the weight, I didn’t really feel that much bigger. And now that it’s gone, I don’t feel much smaller. Regardless, the point is that it took two and a half months of depression and anxiety to drop my excess poundage. I think it will take little more than a few unnecessary bowls of ice cream to gain it back. Both sides of that coin seem so unfair.

The post-cruise bliss has officially faded. I’m feeling low again. But this time I think it has more to do with sleep deprivation than anything else. Allow me to detail my last two nights and you’ll see what I mean:

Tuesday night I watched the debate and went to bed around 11. I couldn’t sleep, so I read a book for a couple hours. I still couldn’t sleep, so I got online for awhile. Still couldn’t sleep so I read some more. Around 4:30 I thought, “If I fall asleep right now, I can still get two and a half hours of sleep before work.” But I tossed and turned until about 5:30 when I gave up. At that point I figured there was no way I was going to work, so I just sat up and read until 6:30 when I called in sick. I finally fell asleep a little after 7. I was awake until SEVEN IN THE MORNING! And I wasn’t even doing anything!

I slept until 11, then got up and spent the day doing homework. So on just four hours of sleep, you’d think I’d be crawling to bed last night right? Yeah, no.

I went to bed again around 11 thinking I was tired, but I could not get comfortable. I read until 12:30, trying to make myself tired. Finally I thought maybe a change of venue would help, so I went out to the couch. I flipped through magazines until I finally fell asleep with an Utne Reader across my chest at around 2. Robin’s serenade of alarms (she seriously has three different alarms going off at varying intervals for about an hour and a half—tell her she’s crazy) woke me up a little after 6. Another four hours of sleep.

I can’t go on like this, but I really don’t know what to do. Missing sleep and being tired makes everything seem worse. So even if I’m only a little sad, I feel really sad. If I’m a little lonely, I feel terribly lonely. If I’m only slightly gloomy, I feel like I’m covered in dark grey clouds.

And it’s sunny and gorgeous here today. I don’t want any damn clouds!

Making dinner tonight, I cut my finger, and it reminded me of Mrs. Twink’s recent gash-while-cooking story. In hers, she called to her husband who helped her get band-aids, clean and inspect the injury, and bandage it up. I’m home alone tonight, so when I cut myself, I bled all over my fingers while I fumbled to rinse the cut, grab a band-aid and put it on. I’m sure her injury was much worse than mine, and it really wasn’t a big deal to tend to my own wound, but it reminded me of yet another thing I’m missing. I’m a big girl and can deal with my self-inflicted cuts, but mostly I just wanted someone there to hear me scream, then laugh with me at my stupidity. I miss that.

I had my appointment with the young hot male doctor today, and it was a good day to have it. Today has been kind of a hard day. I haven’t figured out what causes a good day and what causes a bad day, but today I was really sad and I felt the pressure on my chest again. Based on everything I told him, the doctor called in a prescription for Lexapro. After a really down day, I felt good about starting the meds, but when I drove to the pharmacy - no prescription. I guess they need prior authorization from the insurance company or something, but it was just not the blow I needed. Not because I thought I’d feel better as soon as I started them, but because now I have to wait, figure out when the prescription will be available, and make another trip to the pharmacy. And I think the fact that something as minor as that made my day and my week and my life feel so impossible is a good indication that there’s something going on here.

Also, disappointingly, I forgot to ask for a referral to a therapist. Last night I even made a list of everything I wanted to ask or discuss and put it in my purse. But then I sat on the exam table for 45 minutes and not only did I never think to ask about the referral, but I completely forgot about the damn list! So I’m still not sure what I’m doing about that situation. Honestly, I don’t feel like dealing with it. I want someone to deal with it for me. Which reminds me of something I realized recently:

Right now, when I’m hurting so much, is when I need a boyfriend the most - a confidant, a comfort, a partner. And the reason I need all that is because I no longer have it. I need a boyfriend because I’m hurting so much, and I’m hurting so much because my boyfriend left me. I need someone to help take care of life right now, but the reason I feel so helpless is because I’m sad, and the reason I’m sad is because the person who used to help me take care of life is gone. I need someone to love me because I’m lonely, but the reason I’m lonely is because the person who loved me is gone. I need someone to hold me while I cry, but the reason I’m crying is because my holder is gone.

I took your advice, I started counseling. Sort of. My employer offers an employee assistance program so I could get a few sessions free, then be referred if necessary. Since I didn’t know where else to go, I tried that. So far the whole thing has been more stressful and frustrating than helpful.

As expected, the whole first session was intake stuff, and all that really came out of it was that I tested at moderate depression and extreme anxiety. And I need to get on anti-depressants. And I need to read this one book she suggested. We didn’t get to talk about anything regarding what is causing all this, and we definitely didn’t start working through how to get better. Except to get medicated.

I’m fine with the anti-depressants, but I also want to talk through all this and figure out how to make myself better. Except, I couldn’t even get another appointment until the end of the month. So now I have to wait over three weeks before I can even meet with her again. Not to mention the fact that she’s not even really my counselor. She’s an MSW, which is fine, but her role is basically to figure out what the issue is and determine the next steps. As in, does she need medication, does she need further counseling, does she need to be checked into a hospital, etc. So in three weeks when I meet with her again, I still don’t really get to start working on this stuff. At best I can find out if I’ll be referred to another counselor. And then of course wait until I can get in with that person.

Also, another draw back to the MSW thing is that she can’t prescribe anything for me, which means I had to call my doctor and make an appointment to talk about medication. Not surprisingly, I can’t get in there for two weeks. So not only do I have to wait a month for my next counseling appointment, but I have to wait two weeks to even get started on any medication. Which, by the way, takes awhile to start working. So here’s my time line:

In two weeks: start anti-depressants
Week and a half later: meet with (not) my (real) counselor again
Couple weeks later: hopefully be able to get in with another counselor
Couple weeks later: maybe start noticing affects of anti-depressant

So what, that puts me at about November? That’s over three months after the break up. According to some theories I would be fine then anyway. Is it even worth it? Should I just call the whole thing off?

See, this is supposed to be making me feel better, and all I feel is stressed and frustrated (and kind of hopeless) when I think about it. Am I doing something wrong or is this just how it goes?

Breathe. Sometimes I have to remind myself to exhale. Sometimes I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. Sometimes I stop in the middle of what I’m doing so I can close my eyes, breathe and stop the spinning.

Sleep is becoming a problem. I haven’t gotten any real sleep in a week. The last two nights I had two Excederin PM pills in me, and I still laid awake for hours. I’m tired and I’m weary. It’s making it harder to stave off the sadness. I’m tired and weary and sad, and I keep forgetting to breathe.

Today I start classes. I woke up at 6:50am and I won’t be home until after 9pm. I need a nap, but instead I have to be “on” for 14 straight hours. I’m not ready for this semester. It should be a distraction for me, but instead it feels like a big heavy burden that I’m not strong enough to carry.

I’m so tired of feeling bad. Everyone keeps saying it will get better, and I know I won’t feel like this my whole life, but I can’t believe I still wake up most days and feel the heaviness on my heart. I still have the knot in my stomach, I still have the lump in my throat from holding back tears. It’s been just over five weeks, and I have felt every single second of those weeks. Not a second has gone by that I wasn’t aware of. Time flies when you’re having fun, but time is endless when you feel the weight of every passing minute. I wish I could wake up tomorrow and feel better so this could all be behind me. It’s so hard to imagine that in another five weeks I might still be carrying some of this with me. Five weeks? That’s like an eternity in my mind. I can’t possible get through another five weeks of this. I’m not even sure how I’m going to get through today.

I’m so angry and hurt that he made me feel this way. He’s the one who admitted he just couldn’t get himself to do the work he knew was necessary. He’s the one who was unwilling to commit. He’s the one who couldn’t give his all and who probably took me for granted. So why am I the one hurting? Shouldn’t it be me who says, I deserve better, so I’m done with you. Look what you’re missing, look what you’re giving up! Shouldn’t he be the one who regrets not doing enough for me and for us? Shouldn’t he be hurting? How did this all get so backwards?

I’ve tried to convince my heart that in fact it was me who broke up with him because I know I deserve better than him. All those times that I got frustrated and questioned our future and he asked me not to give up on him – well it finally was too much and I walked away for my own good. That’s what I tell my heart. But my heart doesn’t really care because no matter what, it’s broken. Even if I had been the one to leave, it would have been because this man who I had invested my whole self in decided he couldn’t do the same. Because the one person I wanted to love me forever couldn’t do that. Because all my hard work was rejected. Because all my faith in him was wasted. It would have been because I wasn’t loved by the person I loved, and that causes a broken heart no matter who does the leaving.

Still, he should be the one hurting, not me. But it is me.

And it’s still not going away.

I’ve learned that I don’t handle grief well. Or at least I don’t handle it quietly. I can’t push it away and I can’t ignore it. It’s always right there. I make lists of the things that I can be thankful for, I seek out the things that make me happy, I try to distract myself, I try to force myself to be happy. But after five and a half weeks I’m just so tired. And weary. And sad.

[Thank you to everyone for continuing to be there for me with your comments and emails. I know nothing I write really reflects it, but reading your support has truly helped. The last five weeks would have been even worse if I couldn't write about it all, and in return learn from all of you.]

Well, I’m officially on Xanax. Or at least I have a small pill bottle handy for when I need it… which I hope isn’t often.

I’m glad I saw a doctor, but I must admit that I felt a little ridiculous sitting on the exam table explaining that I was there because my boyfriend realized he didn’t love me and he broke up with me, and I can’t handle it so please medicate me. I almost never go to the doctor and there I am, having my blood pressure taken because of a broken heart.

There was a moment when I was sitting in the exam room alone, after the nurse took my vitals and before the PA came in, that I suddenly became aware of myself. Sitting in a sterile room, staring vacantly into a corner. Feeling empty and alone. How did this happen to me?

And worse. Instead of snapping out of it, I seriously wished I could curl up in that corner and just lay quietly. Maybe sleep if I’m lucky. It was a corner kind of tucked behind the exam table. It was dark and small and private. I wanted to just curl up and be there until they made me leave.

Then suddenly my alarm went off. I heard the little tune that my phone plays when I have to use it as an alarm. And for a second I wished that maybe I was asleep and I had been dreaming all along. And now it was time to get up and live the life I had a month ago. But no, it was just a cell phone in the next room. Thin walls I guess.

But oh well. This is my life now. We’ll see what I can do with it I guess.

People are starting to catch on at work. They ask me what’s wrong and when I say I’m fine, they come up with their own reasons. Are you tired? Not feeling well? I just agree with them. It’s easier to say I’m tired or sick than to tell the truth.

One sign of the times: I haven’t had a bowl of cereal for breakfast since Wednesday, before the all too honest email. Breakfast cereal to me is like coffee to most people—my day doesn’t feel right if it doesn’t start that way. But I’ve hardly been able to eat anything at all.

The Xanax has been nice, mostly because it knocks me out. I don’t usually sleep well, but I took some both Thursday and Friday before bed and fell asleep hard. Unfortunately that means I can’t take it during the day when I sometimes feel the worst. Saturday I almost fell over in the shower because I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t hold myself up. I often find myself stopping to just lean on something and catch my breath even though I haven’t exerted myself at all. I don’t want to take anything unless I really think I need it though, so I survived Saturday med-free. But on Sunday I started to feel panicky, and I took a Xanax to relax. Instead of just relaxing, I waited a half hour, then stumbled to bed where I slept for two hours. Sleeping keeps the thoughts away though, so I don’t mind.

My friends and family have been pretty awesome. Robin and her boyfriend Jason took me miniature golfing on Saturday where I actually found myself laughing a few times. That was nice. Too bad I can’t distract myself with putt-putt all day every day. My sisters check in with me regularly to make sure I’m okay, and both mom and dad and many friends have called or emailed to check in too. My friend Lauren said she wanted to visit me on Sunday, but she lives on the other side of the state, so I told her she was crazy, I was fine. She came anyway. Bearing gifts. She drove over two hours to see me and came through the door with her arms full of books, candy and flowers. My sadness could not possibly be worth such incredibly kind acts of friendship.

Lauren let me talk about the things I needed to talk about, then we talked about a million other things because she and I are so much alike. She’s very wise and has an amazing outlook, and I’m so thankful for her visit. And for everything all my friends and family and blog readers have done. I try to gain perspective by knowing that others are going and have gone through much worse, but I’m not very good at that. So thank you to everyone who doesn’t think I’m ridiculous for struggling so much with this.

Last night Lauren actually had me convinced for awhile that despite my incredibly high standards, hopes and expectations, there really could be someone out there for me. If the one person I’ve found who met (most of) those standards doesn’t want me, how am I ever going to find someone else? Brad was the one and he didn’t want me. What can be left? But she really made me believe it was possible.

Except when she left I went to bed lonely and woke up feeling empty again. Why doesn’t he want me? And why do I even care anymore? I should be able to know that I deserve better than to cry over someone who isn’t crying over me. I wish my heart could figure that out.

I was sitting in the car, on the phone with my dad. It was a nice day so I rolled down the windows and talked to him in the parking lot rather than try to fight traffic while chatting. The sun was bright, so I put the visor down to block it. The mirror on the visor was open so I was staring at myself while we talked. I was studying my complexion, noting the errant hairs near my eyebrows, counting the freckles that always show up on my nose in the summer. I was looking at my teeth, inspecting their cleanliness, when I noticed them. Wrinkles. Smile lines. Little creases between my nose and the corners of my mouth. Hardly noticeable, but there nonetheless.

I don’t so much mind having smile lines if that is in fact what they are. I hope it means I’ve done a lot of smiling. But I was kind of hoping the wrinkles would hold off until my 30s at least. I think what freaks me out the most is that wrinkles are permanent. I have problems with permanent.

I’ve been putting off getting my Z tattoo because I can’t decide where I want to permanently ink myself. The idea of settling in and living or working in one place “for life” makes me squirmy. I don’t even like to use permanent marker!

A wrinkle isn’t like a zit that will eventually go away. It’s not a bruise that eventually fades or a cut that eventually heals. It’s not a bad haircut that will grow out or a rash that will clear up. It’s there. Forever. That wrinkle next to my nose will be there tomorrow and next month and next year. It will be there when I’m 30 and 40 and 50 and 80. That very same wrinkle. There will be others as time goes on of course, but that wrinkle that I discovered while sitting in my car, talking on the phone, that same one will be there forever. When I’m an old lady I’ll look at the wrinkle – it will be much larger and deeper then – and remember when it first showed up, back in my 20s.

I promised myself that I would try to embrace aging as it comes, but the idea of being unable to do anything about those two little wrinkles, except watch them get more prominent, kind of makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I should name them, maybe then I’d think of them as friends who I’d like to see stick around. I can greet them in the morning and be proud as I watch them progress. Maybe I could even teach them tricks.

So what’s a good name for a wrinkle?

One time Brad and I talked about which identifying marks we’d use if ever we had to identify each other at the morgue. Like if our faces had been eaten off and we had to rely on birthmarks or scars to recognize each other. I can’t remember what we decided for Brad (so hon, don’t die and get your face eaten off until we’ve talked about this again), but I do remember mine. It’s pretty obvious: my freckle patch.

Maybe you’ve noticed it in pictures before and wondered, what the hell is on her arm? I get that all the time. Especially after a long winter when I start wearing short sleeves again. Suddenly there’s this splotch on my arm that has been hidden for months, and everyone’s curious. You know that look you get when you’ve got something in your teeth? People try to look you in the eye, but they keep glancing down? They think they’re being subtle, but the eye shift is pretty obvious every time they sneak a peek at your mouth? Well that’s what I get, only they’re looking at my arm.

Here, you can see it in this picture:

Did you catch that? Here it is a little closer (ignore the fat rolls and chubby arm please, focus on the freckles):

There’s no explanation for the freckle patch, it’s just, well, a patch of freckles. I have random freckles scattered all over my body, as do all my sisters (thanks for that Dad), but it’s as if all the freckles on my right arm forgot to spread out. They were born, and then they were supposed to migrate, but nobody told them, so they stay there huddled together.

I’ve tried to count the freckles many times, and so have lots of other people – I think it’s somewhere around 30, but everyone comes up with something different. Depends if you count certain splotches as one or two, and if you count the really tiny ones that look like pin pricks. At first, most people think it’s a faded temporary tattoo. Others say it looks like henna. My dad thinks it’s funny to lick his thumb and pretend to try to wipe away the “dirt” on my arm. He does this nearly every time I see him and has been since I was little. It’s one of my favorite ongoing jokes.

I’ve tried to get certain other people to have the exact same splotch tattooed on the same place of their arm, kind of like a “friendship” tattoo, but so far nobody’s going for it. Brad said if we ever get married, he might consider it, which is really saying something since he’s sooo not a tattoo guy. It’s not as crazy as having my name tattooed across his shoulder blades (hello Mr. Mariah Carey), but I think it’d be a true sign of commitment. Because otherwise how do you explain why you tattooed a freckle patch on your arm?

Most people won’t ask me about it. They not-so-subtly check it out while talking to me, but don’t dare to inquire. I don’t say anything about it either, even though it’s obvious they’re looking, but if someone asks me, I’m always happy to talk about my freckle patch. I think it’s really cool and unique – it’s one of my favorite distinguishing marks. And it’s definitely a really good way to identify me if I ever end up faceless in a morgue.

(Except, what if my face and my right arm are eaten off? Then what? Then you look at the fourth toe on my right foot. But I’ll have to tell you about that one later…)

This weekend was gorgeous! Well Sunday was at least. I spent the majority of Friday night and Saturday doing school work—it always takes so much longer than I anticipate—so those days weren’t quite so enjoyable. But because I got it all done, I was able to enjoy Sunday without a single homework worry. I made cupcakes in the morning, then Brad and I went to the park to hang out for awhile. We have two really great parks near our place, and my favorite thing to do with a gorgeous spring day is walk around or sit around or lay around in one of them. After the park we grabbed an early dinner, then I got ready to host my book club. That’s what the cupcakes were for.

That got done in time for me to watch the last half of the MTV Movie Awards, and then, conveniently, they played the whole thing over again so I watched the first half before going to bed. Two things to note:

1. I’m totally falling for the Robert Downey Jr. craze right now. I can’t help it, there’s something about his new look and swagger that catches my attention. Yes, I admit, I have a little crush on RDJ.
2. But more importantly, I have a slightly disturbing crush on Johnny Depp. I mean I’ve always had a thing for him, but I don’t really get all gaga for any celebrity. It’s not in me to put that much effort into celebrity crush. I joke about him igniting my girl parts, but I’ve never actually had an unintentional physical reaction to him. But when he was accepting his award last night, I got warm. Like actually warm. My body temperature increased. The hell? That has never happened before, not even in the six plus hours I watched him as Capt. Jack Sparrow, who, if you’ll remember, was the person whose poster Brad and I hung in our bedroom for awhile.

The weekend ended with a horrible night’s sleep last night. And now today I’m tired and grumpy. Great way to start the week no?