A life so wild and precious.

My life is so surreal right now I feel like I'm the main character in some low-budget indie film. The kind with a pretentious shoe gazer score and lots of desaturated lighting, and montages of kids dancing on rooftops with sparklers in their hands or something.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I have a lot of catching up to do on here. First off, I'll say that wrapping principal photography on Fear Clinic has been bittersweet. It's nice getting to choose the food I eat and the hours I keep (for awhile anyway, since it's the holidays; when I go back to work in a few days it'll be back to crazy hours and more junk food than I want to admit) but at the same time, I dearly miss the friends I made on set. The cast and crew were so terrific and seeing the same faces day in and day out for three or four weeks really makes you feel close to people sometimes. I met some great folks on the set and some of them will undoubtedly stay in touch and remain friends, at the very least friendly acquaintances, but others will fade and shift into anecdotes and old photos. It's the way it goes and I get that, but it feels like graduating high school when you know you won't see some of those people ever again.

I headed back to Texas as soon as we finished filming and of course I was greeted by my favorite bitches in the world. It's the only thing I hate about having relocated to Hollywood, because honestly everything else there is amazing and perfect and exactly how I dreamt it. But my best friends in the entire world (the non-blood family I made for myself) are there, congregated and living their stories without me, and that's the toughest part. I missed their faces so much and no amount of hugs felt like enough. I practically launched myself at them the minute my feet touched Texas soil.

We had a Krampus party to celebrate, which consisted of fucking delicious food. Shawn's an amazing cook and of course Brandy can rock some stuff herself, and Blanca made yummy green bean casserole. I ate way too much and we played Cards Against Humanity and it was freaking wonderful. I spent the night as I usually do when I'm around that group, which is snuggled in bed with Matt. Matt's been one of my favorite people in the world for years, and he and I have always had a very strong bond. He's been there for me whenever I needed him and I've done my absolute best to do the same; he is a really good soul who just wants to keep the peace and make everyone around him happy.

He recently went through a rough breakup with a woman he'd been with for a long time, so he's been a little fragile lately and it fucking kills me not being able to be there for him when he needs it because I'm across the country. But the second I was able to hug him, I couldn't seem to stop. He told me that he didn't really have plans for Christmas day, so I dragged him down to Waco with me to visit my grandma and uncle. Our family's obviously gotten much smaller after the deaths of my grandpa and mom, and everything has kind of drifted to the wayside, so our family gatherings are really small and unremarkable now. But my grandma had put up a little tree in her living room and we ate roast and veggies and too much pie. We went back to my house, which is a ghost town with no electricity or running water and we walked through the ruins, looking at the things I left behind. There's a little of it I want to bring to Hollywood, mostly my books, but everything else may end up a casualty of the move. I just find myself wanting less material possessions and more good people around me; I want to up my more creative output, keep putting out writing and art and photos. I want to keep making instead of destroying or holding myself back.

So on Christmas Eve, snuggled up to Matt in my grandma's guest room, we got to talking and things came around to the topic of love. I decided to just plunge myself off the cliff and leaned in to kiss him, which was terrifying because I had a lot riding on it. I could've fucked up a several-year friendship, I could've made everything awkward and skewed for all of us. Instead, it led to a conversation and by the end of that conversation, Matt and I decided to try this thing out.

I can't really express how it makes me feel, not really. I think he's one of the most beautiful people I've ever met in my life. He has one of the best hearts in the universe and bends over backward to make other people happy. He has such a gentle energy, so laid-back and sweet-natured, but beyond that there's this whole vibe with his makeup where he is so passionate and interested in learning and expanding his knowledge of creatures. He wants to make monsters more than anything, and I love watching him geek out when an effect works out well on set or he is able to flex his creativity and make something really cool. As someone who grew up as 'the girl who loved the monsters', I love being friends with so many people who can make them. Matt inspires me to be a better person; his mellow energy balances out my manic episodes, and he is just a good compliment to the way I am. Being best friends for five years definitely helps too, because we both know so much about each other that the next step felt like a natural progression instead of a big scary cliff dive.

The next couple of days were pretty great but also made me feel very sad because I knew it wasn't going to last forever. I have the west coast waiting for me and Matt's actually going to be on location in North Carolina for a film for most of February. They say that nothing good comes easy, and I know that Matt's worth fighting for. But we're only going to see each other a few times a year unless one of us moves somewhere closer, and that's going to be rough as fuck.

When I left Dallas, I flew out to Las Vegas, which was an event in itself. I had a layover in San Francisco, my luggage strap broke so my bag was not exactly easy to manhandle through the airport, and I had to change in the rental car station's bathroom from jeans and a t-shirt into a couture dress and Michael Kors high heels. I was out here for my friend Tom's birthday, since this is his hometown and he was sweet enough to invite me to join in the festivities. We went to Lavo at the Palazzo, which is one of the most decadent and ridiculously delicious Italian restaurants I've ever been to. We all looked pretty fabulous, rock stars in our ensembles, and we were invited into the club upstairs where we hooked a table and had bottle service. We spent the night dancing and drinking, which was fantastic. I had a great time and managed to maneuver in my heels the whole time even as we were several cocktails in. We took a cab back to Tom's house, which is beautiful and spacious and full of light, and we've been here since. It's been a fun few days--- Tom's best friend Cally lives here and she's freaking fantastic. Such a big, beautiful personality and so much fun to hang around, I can see why he adores her. And another friend of Tom's, Mojean, is also here, and he's this really interesting Australian who is an amazing cook. One day we drove to the grocery store looking like Ke$ha video rejects (leather jackets, fuzzy sweaters, flip flops, last nights' makeup) to buy the stuff for a cookout and we had a fantastic barbecue of skewers and s'mores and caprese salad and pesto and wine around a fire pit and danced to music. The night ended with us on a futon watching a movie Tom shot when he was seventeen, which was amazing… honestly, I've never met someone who has just always created art since he was old enough to do so.

Yesterday we went down to the Strip for a late lunch and walked around the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace, then headed down to Fremont Street and met with some of Tom's friends from here. They were very cool and I really dug them, they seemed like awesome people. We had a few drinks and wound up at a gay bar called the Piranha, which played really good music. Danced and drank until I was pretty trashed, I'll be honest, which hasn't happened in a very very long time. I've been drunk recently, but this was like stumbling around apparently, I remember dancing and the lights being so gorgeous and I was staring at my friends and thinking about how in that moment everyone was beautiful and perfect. It was one of those times where, like in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie says "In that moment we were infinite". I felt young and alive and electric.

I don't really know what happened after that though, I got hit with this huge wave of emotion in the car.  I remember just thinking about my friends and how the world needs more people like them, more beautiful bohemian fucks who create instead of destroy and who love each other so freely. Something earlier in the day had been said in conversation about one of my friends not ever giving all pieces of themselves to someone, and it struck a chord with me. I think that that friend is one of the most giving and true people I've ever met even in the short time I've known him, and we've had some conversations that have really made me stop and pay attention to myself and the world around me because of things he's said. I just remember getting incredibly sad thinking that this friend might not realize how amazing he was, or how much other people love him not for what he does but because of who he really is. It made my heart hurt and I went into Tom's room, where I'm sleeping, and lay down in the bed.

A few seconds later I was crying and I couldn't get myself to stop. Everything inside was aching and I just felt so completely hollowed-out and sad and lonely. I miss my mom so much; the holidays are always hardest for losing people but this one's been particularly rough because last year it was fresh enough that I don't think it had really had time to sink in yet. This year I've done so much that I wanted to share with her, that I wanted to pick up the phone and tell her. Sometimes I don't even feel like a real person, I feel like a shadow or a ghost or something and it's so rare for people to actually see me. I'm not beautiful or particularly interesting or terribly talented. I just exist, and when I get down on myself the entire weight of everything comes down like a guillotine. I try to be strong all the time and to be optimistic and keep my shit in line but sometimes I feel like I'm so unbelievably fragile and then I get mad at myself for not being strong enough to handle it.

I wound up having an anxiety attack, and Tom sat there and talked to me and tried to calm me down. I feel fucking terrible and so embarrassed about it because I was a total mess and I don't remember whatever I said. I'm sure I was just rambling and sad and a disaster because that seems par for the course. He is wonderful for trying to help me because he was drunk too and I'm sure I was totally destroying his buzz, and babysitting an emotional mess is no one's idea of a good time. Eventually I fell asleep, and I woke up early this morning and just sat on his balcony for awhile staring out at the sky.

This entire year felt like a dream, a surreal art film montage of heartbreak and love and music and movies and monsters and transition. I dropped out of school, moved to LA, got an incredible job, made unbelievable new friends and lost 150 pounds. I also fell apart a lot and was lucky enough to have amazing people around me to help pick me up.

I am a mess, but I want to be better.

Tonight's New Years' Eve and I hope everyone is looking forward to 2014. There's so much pressure on New Years'--- make resolutions, fix things that may not necessarily be broken, take a good long look at ourselves and analyze what we see. But today is really just another day; your personal New Years could be March 17 or October 2 or January 1st. Any day that you wake up and make a change marks the beginning of a new era, you don't need champagne and noisemakers and balls dropping to tell you how to hit the 'reset' button. You need champagne and noisemakers every day of your life, to celebrate the little victories and the huge ones, to mark the milestones, to wash away the sins and reinvent yourself as a better, stronger, more resilient version every chance you get.

So here are my resolutions for 2014.

1) Love myself and allow others to love me back.
2) Create more, without inhibitions or boundaries or self-doubt. Allow my muses to govern themselves.
3) Live.

That's all I need, and the rest will come.

I am so grateful to those who've helped me through the disasters of 2012 and 2013, and I am looking forward to seeing all of the chaos and beauty of 2014.

Say something, I'm giving up on you.

Everything on my end is total chaos right now but I still feel like at the essence of everything, I'm where I'm meant to be. It's a rocky road; some days everyone is encouraging and excited and a big close-knit family and other nights it's a shark tank and someone is chumming the water to stir things up. I've had plenty of near-nervous breakdowns and more than my share of stress, but I've also had some amazing moments I wouldn't trade for the world and made connections with people I never expected.

That being said, my emotional state isn't great right now. I am trying to throw myself into work, into being what other people need so that I can feel valuable and worthwhile. I like taking care of others, making sure they're happy. But I'm not really happy myself, not inside where it actually matters.

The holidays are always depressing and this marks the first full Christmas since my mom's death where it actually feels like things are sinking in. Last year it was too fresh and I was still sort of in shock. Now I really have time to appreciate every Hallmark commercial and every twinkling light. It's incredibly hard to be on set and unable to call her to tell her what's going on. It's painful doing something really cool and knowing she isn't there to see it or root for me or give me advice when I get into a messy situation. I know how much she loved Rob and his whole group, and I know how much she would've adored Thomas's laugh or brought Joe coffee or joked about how many "Tom"s we have on set.

We had a particularly stressful shooting day a few days ago and when I finally did go home, I felt completely hollowed out. I felt like nothing I could do was right, that my heart hurt, that my head was ringing. I wanted to curl up and die; I was embarrassed at my own fuckups and ashamed of my weakness in moments of panic and I was deeply aware of my ignorance. But I never once seriously thought about throwing in the towel or heading to the airport to fly back home. I could get a steady schedule of work somewhere like Target or a restaurant or even being the receptionist for some company, but I wouldn't be happy. I wouldn't be living my dream of being a part of the industry that's made me happy for so long; I wouldn't be hanging out with some of the coolest people I've ever met, helping bring something awesome to life, letting my creativity actually take root.

I'm surrounded by people but I'm kind of lonely. There are a few people on the film who I really connect with and who I consider friends, but I know that we'll most likely all go our separate ways after the film wraps and won't talk in the future. If we do, one or two times a year maybe. I hope not but I just kind of know how it goes, at least how it used to go with the bands I worked for. Can't imagine it's much different this way. I don't want it to be true though. I'm already really attached to these people and I will miss them a lot when we aren't hanging out on the daily.

I really just need an arm around me and a connection that won't dissolve. I'm really afraid of being alone and the holidays don't really make the fear much less tangible.

Victor and I broke up two days ago, which is still sort of sinking in. We've only been together since the middle of October so it was a two-month run, but it was a two-month run of seeing him almost daily and sharing a lot of intimate conversations and moments. However, he just wasn't right for me. I was trying to fit him into a mold that he wasn't made to fit, and there were so many places where our personalities just didn't come close to gelling as a cohesive unit. I love my freedom and being able to travel and be outgoing and exuberant and wander around aimlessly finding my own fun. He is in a rough place in his life right now where he's financially dependent and without a lot of ability to find his own feet without help, and it's very hard for me to reconcile that with my own lifestyle. Add to that the fact that we barely talked the entire month I've been on location; texting with him was slow and awkward, lackluster, and after a few weeks I came to the painful realization that I missed the idea of him more than the reality. Victor is an incredibly sweet guy and I wish him all the best, but he isn't going to be someone who can be with me in the long run. I am always running at 80 mph and it simply isn't a lifestyle he agrees with.

It still hurts though, ending it. It was nice having someone to care about who would cuddle me on cold nights and listen to me when I had a bad day. I was hoping things would work out with us, that we'd sort our differences out and make something really great happen instead of self-destruction, but it didn't work out that way.

I am desperately, wildly in love with my crazy job and my hectic lifestyle and my friends here, though. It is never a dull moment, and I have been lucky enough to fall in with some wonderful, beautiful, creative, talented people who always strive to better themselves and live their lives to the fullest.

My boss, of course… Rob is my big brother more than my boss, and I will always go to the  mat for him. He's a mad genius whose mood swings and brainstorming sessions are downright exhausting, but watching him in his element keeps a shiteating grin on my face. That manic energy and frantic need to create, to bring his vision to life, is so inspiring and something I only wish I could realize on my own someday. Rob's very driven and he has a circle of loyal people around him who love him and respect him for his unique eye and abilities.

And Thomas, who is one of Rob's best friends and one of the most talented young men I've ever met. I've been a fan of his films for years but he's also a wildly accomplished musician, and he is the sweetest person with a heart of gold. From the minute I met him I knew we'd hit it off, but I had no idea we'd become such fast friends. We have so much in common and beyond that, we jive so well together when we're talking.

                             

There's so many more, too… Megan, who is a makeup effects artist, is one of the toughest and most resilient women I know. I admire her so much for her strength and tenacity and ability to roll with the punches. Corey, who never fails to crack me up, is a fantastic guy who is just so easy to be around that it feels like you've known him for years. Andy, Ikuo, Erica, Liz, all of them are just these calming presences when I'm stressed out.

Honestly, it's true what you hear about film sets being family. You spend between twelve and fifteen hours a day with the same group of people and you begin to learn them. You know how they take their coffee and what brand of cigarette they smoke. You find out if they're a gossip or a wallflower, if they have been in the game forever or if they're green and shy and unsure of their footing. You develop bonds with some and learn to watch your back around others. Alliances and enemies come and go. You all exchange information and pretend that you'll keep in touch in the future, but really, most of you won't. You travel in the same circles and you may work together on a future gig, but the likelihood of remaining friends is probably similar to high school seniors who declare that they'll 'never lose touch' with their buddies when they move away to college.

Life goes on, love is transient. I believe that people are put in your life for a specific purpose, for a very specific length of time. They tell a chapter in your story; some of them are vignettes, others novellas, and others are masterworks. But in the end, they complete their arc and they leave the plot one way or another, be it by their own will or by fate or by death or some other factor beyond any earthly control. But they come into your life when you need them most to develop the story, and they leave when their purpose is done.

And if you're very, very lucky, when it's all over you have a book with a happy ending.

I would have told you if you'd only asked me.

Lately my depression has been spiking like crazy, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I know I've made several major life changes in the past few months and I'm sure that had something to do with it, but honestly I am to the point where I hardly feel human some days. I run on erratic sleep and eating patterns, I have irregular exercise routines and my mood swings are insane. I go from laughing and having an amazing time to curled up in my bed crying ten minutes later.

I love my job. It's highly stressful, fast-paced and demanding but it's amazing. I'm working alongside people who are legends in their fields and I could listen to them talk all day and swap information and discuss the technical aspects of bringing creative visions to life. Sometimes I just sit there in silence trying to absorb everything, realizing that these are the moments I'm going to think about years from now when I'm an old bitter spinster talking about my golden years. I feel like a beta fish thrown into the ocean for sure, way out of my league and in far deeper waters than I've ever swam in before, but I've been treading okay so far. A few missteps, but nothing catastrophic, so all is well in that field.

Part of the problem is money, which is kind of hemorrhaging out of me. I'm making house payments on the house back in Texas and paying rent for my apartment in LA and paying the difference on my hotel room in Ohio that production doesn't cover. That's three living expenses at once, which is insanity. I also had to make the incredibly difficult decision to board Ouija. I didn't want to do it at ALL because the whole point of bringing him out here was to keep him with me and make sure he was safe and had me to socialize with and whatnot, but when we moved to this hotel they have a very strict no-pet policy and no amount of talking to the manager could help me. I couldn't stay at the original hotel because it was a piece of shit with no hot water, filthy conditions and etc, but also because Rob moved over here and wanted me to be close to him for working purposes. It's a LOT easier to walk down the hall to get him for something, or to rendezvous in the lobby and ride to work together, especially since we're sharing a rental car while we're here. So I found a reputable, very nice boarder nearby and they put up Ouija for the month. It hurts my heart and I am so fucking lonely and sad without him, but it had to be done and I know he's in good hands there. At least people are with him throughout the day and he isn't spending fifteen or sixteen hours by himself.

I'm also in such a weird headspace right now and I feel like I'm trapped in a corner in several aspects of my life. Victor makes me so happy and I'm really excited about our relationship, but sometimes I just get sad or take things the wrong way and it's hard for me to tell him why. I'm pretty experienced in being passive aggressive, but also in just tamping down hurt or disappointment and acting like it's no big deal when really my heart is hurting. We haven't talked nearly as much as I had hoped… or thought we would. Sometimes I've asked to Skype or talk and he just isn't in the mood or he's busy with something and of course I shouldn't take it personally but I do. I know he misses me but I guess a big part of my brain feels like if he really missed me that much, he'd be more persistent and he would be the one calling me or trying to Skype with me all the time or something. I don't know. It's likely my own insecurities, which have reared their heads big time lately. I'm surrounded by beautiful people, people in relationships, people on the prowl, everything in between. And I spend a lot of time in my hotel room by myself with too much time inside my own head.

I am painfully aware of my body right now and instead of seeing my weight loss, I am seeing the loose skin, the bulges, the curves where there shouldn't be, the sag to my breasts now. I have pretty much zero confidence at the moment. I've been slumping around set in sneakers and jeans and a shapeless hoodie, a beanie to cover my hair because my hair sucks right now. I want to shave my head maybe. I want to hurt myself sometimes. I want to hide and curl up in baggy shapeless clothes because I am not toned and tight and beautiful like these actresses, because I hear the crew talk about how hot the waitress is, because I see all of the pretty girls around me and I see myself in the mirror and I know the difference. It isn't like I'm on the make or trying to hook up with anyone. I just hate the fact that I am automatically, unquestioningly shoved into the 'friend zone' or worse. I am insecure and on shaky unsteady ice and I am trying to be good at my job so that people don't resent me for being around.

I used to think I was a good photographer until I started meeting these people. Now I don't know if I want to strive to become better or if I just want to sell all of my equipment and keep my head down. I used to think I was interesting until I heard some of the stories my new friends tell, and I realize that I am a sheltered, clueless girl from the south who has never even been out of the country, who has never had some of these experiences.

I just feel very fragile right now, china glass, and it's insanely weird to me that my friends keep telling me I'm 'brave' and 'strong' for coming out here. I'm not brave or strong. I'm total chickenshit. I just fell off the edge of the cliff before I could think to apply the brakes. I don't regret the choices I've made, but it's been a very rough and painful road for me the last few years and even though I love Los Angeles and my job and my boyfriend and the people around me now… I am still as delicate inside as sugar art.

Guess this solves the age-old question of whether you lose your 'fat girl' mentality even when you lose weight. I'm 205 pounds as of this morning, but I still feel as bad about myself as I did at 348. It's actually maybe even a little worse because now I'm "normal fat", I'm the kind of 'fat' that can shop in regular stores and fit in airline seats and squeeze three across in the backseat of a small car, but I still feel horrible and sub-human most of the time. I just found new ways to channel my insecurities and amplify them without a catalyst.

I am still the fat girl in the room even when I'm not.

So sick of myself right now.

Fear on!

Everything's still chaotic on my end, but it is most definitely the best kind of chaos one could hope for.

I am writing this from the Northeast, Ohio to be exact, holed up in a Super 8 with my cat on my feet, a gloomy and frozen day outside the window, and a granola bar in my belly. I've been here for almost a week and honestly I feel like I'm going to pinch myself and wake up at any point in time.

We're working on this movie, and seeing it all come together has been so ridiculously cool that it's sort of absurd. The production office is abuzz with people who do this all day long, every day, and it's fun watching everything fall into place. From script revisions to scheduling to casting I've gotten to glimpse the inner network of people who have to bust their asses to make a movie happen, and it's nowhere near as glamorous as the tabloids make you think it is. It's hard work, a lot of politics and paperwork and phone calls and compromise, but in the end you make art that gets released into the world. You're making something that will (hopefully) entertain thousands, maybe even millions of people. Your footprint will always be there, on video store shelves, on the Internet… debated on forums, dissected in reviews, rehashed at conventions.

Kind of fucking cool.

I've also been working closely with some of the coolest cats I've ever met. Our director, of course, Rob, who I love dearly. He's like a mixture of a boss and a big brother, and he can make me laugh so hard I'm snorting or inspire me to sit down and pound out pages of writing in ways I haven't in years. Watching him work is nothing short of awesome because even now, in the 'boring' pre-production stage rather than the energy of actually shooting, he is a mad genius. He has a thousand things happening at once, dozens of people wanting his individual attention in blocks of time from the moment he wakes up to the time he eventually goes to bed, and he still manages to stay focused and aware of his vision for the film. It's so cool watching him and seeing how he makes this stuff come together from his head to reality.

And of course our DP, Joe. It's so funny, Joe has shot dozens of movies I love, including Repo! The Genetic Opera. He's hilarious, down to earth and really fun to hang out with. He really knows his shit too, which makes me feel about an inch tall as the amateur photographer I am, but it's great listening to him talk gear. You learn more listening to Joe talk for five minutes about his technical set-up than you would taking a college-level crash course in photography.

Andy, our AD, is fucking rad as well. He's a very funny, dry Australian who is a calming, very assertive presence even in the middle of chaos. Andy knows his job inside and out and so even when he's rattled, he's always in charge of his world. Under pressure, he's still amiable and in control, something I definitely envy since I tend to freak out under that kind of demand from others.

The crew's got a lot more people in it of course, but these three boys are the ones I'm working with the most closely right now and so we've spent the most time together since we all got out here. They're fun as hell and really helping me forget things like missing LA and missing Texas and missing my friends and family and being nervous about this job.

It's been pretty inspiring though, for me as an artist as well. I got to write a press release to announce our casting decisions for Fear Clinic, and several of the big horror sites have picked it up and published the information. It's so cool seeing tidbits of something I wrote on sites I go to myself for 'breaking news'. I love setting up interviews and set visits and coordinating with press liaisons. My press release so far has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish and German and posted all over the Internet. I kind of love seeing my Google alerts pop up with new places that have reposted the info about this project that's become pretty dear to my heart. Whatever kind of fan base, critic response or exposure Fear Clinic finds, I will always love it even more for the friends and experiences it's allowing me to have. I'm a very, very lucky girl.

I just closed my eyes and swung.

It's been a very strange week for me, with my head all over the place.

It's so funny, working for Rob… I actually met him in 2009 at Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas. He was there promoting his film Laid to Rest and he started talking to my mom and I. We hit it off and I just really liked him; he came across as a genuine, fun guy with an awesome sense of humor. When I checked out his screening, I was really into the movie and told him so. I had no idea that it would lead to a four-year friendship and finally me becoming his personal assistant. Rob's kind of the example of a self-made man, since he came to Hollywood from a rural town in the deep South with eighty bucks in his pocket and a dream to do makeup effects. He has since become one of the most respected FX masters in the genre as well as a successful director on stuff like Teen Wolf, but he's still the same funny, smart, cool-as-hell guy I met in '09. We've been talking a lot at work and it's really helping me get through some rough patches.

My mom was one of Rob's biggest fans; she absolutely loved him. Every time he came to Texas Frightmare she'd make sure to put together a little gift bag for him with stuff like candy and hand sanitizer, and when we'd walk past his table she'd ask him if he wanted her to get him water or soda or a coffee or anything since he was busy signing autographs and couldn't always leave his spot. When we went to LA one time, Rob offered us a tour of his shop back when it was in the old location. Neither of us had ever been to a big working FX shop before, and we were thrilled to see all of the molds and severed heads and monsters lurking around every corner. Rob took pictures of us with the big demon beast from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and my mom carried their dog Slayer around the whole time.

Now it's funny, realizing that I'm actually a part of this now instead of just a big fan. I'm working alongside Rob every day, watching him piece together what I think is going to be one hell of a smart, fun, scary horror film, and it's like a dream come true for me. I've wanted this for my whole life and now I'm actually able to do it to some degree.

I am so far from religion that it's crazy; I can't remember the last time I prayed or anything similar. I gave up on most ideas of Christianity when I was much, much younger and the last straw was when we found out that mom's cancer was terminal. But I do consider myself agnostic, I don't know if there's a cosmic driving force out there or not, but it's kind of interesting to think about. I'm not going to go so far as to say that I KNOW there are no omnipresent beings out there. For all I know it's Cthulhu. But either way, I was driving yesterday and I started talking out loud. Talking to my mom, because it's so hard not to just pick up the phone and call her.

I know how proud she would be of me. She was always pushing me to go to LA, to move out here and chase my dreams, to run them to the ground and do something with myself. She was in love with Los Angeles; she and I used to walk down the boulevard, taking pictures, laughing, talking. She spent some of her childhood in Sacramento and California was always her home away from home; whenever we started to plan a vacation, it was always Los Angeles we mentioned first. She loved it here and I see her in every palm tree, in the hills, in the sparkle of the neon at night. I want to call her and tell her about the chilly canyons at night or the way I saw a coyote dart across the road one night driving home from a friend's house or the way I eat sushi and soy and tofu like it's going out of style. I want her to know that I am shopping in all of these cool little stores and spending long hours curled up in a dark smoky room with ominous music playing and Terminator statues in the corner, writing until the sky lightens to pre-dawn.

I know how much she loved Rob and loved playing 'mom' to him whenever she saw him; I know she would be so thrilled that I'm getting the chance to work beside him on this movie and that he's inspiring me to better myself, to strive for awesome things, to work hard and push my own limits and learn things faster than I'm used to simply because he believes I can do it and I don't want to let him down or give him a reason to think he made a bad choice in hiring me.

I think I miss her now more than I did when she first died and I was in that deep depression, because now I'm doing things. I'm living on my own, navigating a strange and beautiful city, absorbing everything about this place through my skin and eyes and ears, and she isn't here to share it with me. Some people will say "She is there with you" or "She does know, she's watching over you" but no one can be sure of things like that. Maybe when we die we watch over people and maybe we don't, maybe we just go back into the soil and that's where the story ends. But either way, I want to believe that she would be happy with the young woman I'm becoming, that she'd be proud of me. It keeps me going.

This depression hasn't really got its hooks in me yet, but it feels different than the others. I don't want to hurt myself or sabotage myself or whatever I always did before when I was depressed. I don't want to lie in bed and eat until my stomach cramps. I just want to write, or get out of the house and go explore the boulevard or go people-watch in a swanky little rockstar dive bar. I want to throw myself into life instead of pulling away from it. I want to laugh and love and find a place where I can realize She's gone but I'm going to be okay by myself and I think I'm almost getting there.

I feel like LA is where I belong. Of course I miss my Texas friends and what little family I have left, but this feels so much like a home for my heart. Everything about this place has enchanted me and I don't want to leave; just the idea of moving back to Texas right now makes my heart hurt a little.

I still feel out of sorts in my body. I don't like being naked with my boyfriend, even though he tries to make me feel sexy and tells me I am. It doesn't click, doesn't gel. All I see are my flaws. I know I've made progress, even the pictures with Rob are so hard to look at because I was fooling myself for years about how big I was, how big I was continuing to get. But now there is so much loose skin and I feel so self-conscious about it. Everyone can see it. It affects what I wear and how I wear it. It makes me feel ugly and like a freak.

My arms are gross, which really hinders my ability to wear cute tank tops or baby doll tees.

But nothing's as bad as my stomach region. To the point where when someone hugs me around the middle I stiffen up. I think I was actually less self-conscious about my stomach when I was still fat.

It's just skin, there's nothing underneath it. I'm 213 pounds and if we cut the skin off I bet I'd be more like 180. This isn't even counting my ass/thighs, hips, calves, and all of the other places that are retaining extra skin and cellulite. And I have no idea if I can afford body contour surgery anytime in the future; that's about $20K at the very least, and I'd probably go home to Texas to do it simply for cost reasons.

I feel stupid being this vain when I've lost almost 150 pounds in a year. I should be excited; I should be thrilled about being on the 'thin' side of my life (even though I'm still big by any standards and a fucking elephant compared to most of LA), but instead I sit here pinching at the skin and wishing I had a way to just get it off me.

I don't know if I'll ever truly be happy with what I look like, or if I'll feel sexy or confident or beautiful. It would be nice, but it kind of feels like a mental block that I have no idea if I can get around or not.

I want my life to begin... all I have to do is let the right one in.

Everything is topsy-turvy and it's wonderful.

I have relocated out to Los Angeles, where I have a beautiful little apartment a block from Hollywood Boulevard. The walls are covered in bats and the wrought-iron lamp has Edison bulbs that throw shadows against the big French windows overgrown with ivy tendrils and the fiery orange-red of autumn leaves, and one of my best friends lives across the hall. There is delicious two-dollar sushi around the corner and a delicious little Thai place where an Asian man does Elvis karaoke one night a week in the dining room, and I like to walk and see the pink stars on the sidewalk under my shoes. If I turn at the end of my street and look up I can see the vast sprawl of the Hollywood sign on the hills. The city sparkles like stripper-glitter and I will never, ever be tired of it.

My work is incredible; I am the personal assistant to a successful director, and I love going in to our office because it's a big warehouse overflowing with monsters and dead bodies and fake blood. I sit in a dark little office curled up in black leather chairs, typing furiously until the wee hours of the night, listening to ominous movie scores on the office intercom and finding inspiration everywhere I look. I am writing again. People don't realize what I lost in my mother's death, not the least of which was myself. I used to write hundreds of stories a month when I was young, but in the past year and a half nothing I'm proud of has left these fingers. And yet sitting in that office, creative energy felt like static in the air and I wrote furiously until my wrists ached and my eyes burned. The sun was lightening the smoggy sky behind the palm trees before I lay down in bed that night, my heart singing with renewal. I felt like whatever wall I'd been butting my head against, my new boss had taken a sledgehammer to it and those fissures were spreading.

My boyfriend is beautiful, an artist whose palm feels right against mine when we walk down the street and who knows how to kiss me to make me laugh and shiver and clutch him like a buoy. He's the kind of boy you want to wake up in the middle of the night just to ask him his favorite song, and I always wake up first and trace the lines of his strong shoulders and smooth back until he stirs awake simply because I want to see his eyes in the morning sun, which puts gold in the hazel-green of them. He is protective and smart and lovely; his hands touch me with the same consideration he shows his sketchpads, my artist-boy who fills the blank pages with aliens and creatures and wolves and dinosaurs.  I don't remember ever feeling this dizzy-drunk on someone before, a magnet for kisses, someone who fits against my side like this. Walking with him, talking about hopes and fears and dreams, holding his hand in a haunted house, sleeping curled against him like a kitten... all of it feels so right that it should scare me but doesn't.

I feel like I am exactly where I need to be. I miss my Texas friends and family, of course. I am working insane hours and my schedule is demanding to say the least. But I will never regret doing this. I feel electric. I smile so much my face hurts. I feel optimistic and positive and I am loving every moment of my life right now. I made the right choice in taking this incredible opportunity, and I am so happy that I did.

For the first time in a very long time I feel like I am living for myself, and that's an amazing feeling.

Flying lessons.

I don't expect a miracle cure for what ails me--- so many people seem to believe that the weight loss surgery is exactly that, a switch you flick that automatically makes everything in your life better and gets rid of all of the problems. The thing is, you aren't really just physically fat, you're mentally fat. You've got a lot of shit to work through and doctors can only do so much. The whole hierarchy of your friends' group changes as soon as you're no longer 'the fat friend'. Guys stop friend-zoning you and sales clerks in stores are nicer to you. And what's worse is having to explain the surgery to people. I'm not ashamed that I did it, I tell everyone how exactly I've lost so much weight in ten months. I'm not going to smile vacantly or shrug or act like I did it the good old-fashioned way. I am a scientific miracle, a Frankenstein Barbiedoll. I had to have a big chunk of my stomach cut out to make me stop gorging myself on food. I'm not in a position to judge anyone for their vices, except people who refuse to acknowledge them and take control back of their lives if they're able to do so.

But I am a member of multiple weight loss support groups and it disheartens me to see people bragging about 'cheating' on their nutritional plans, or saying that they love getting drunk because it's so much easier than pre-surgery, things like that. On the other end of the spectrum you have incredibly obnoxious people who post things obviously seeking attention, things like "I had surgery two months ago and I've only lost 70 pounds! I thought it would be more but I guess it's okay :(". It makes me Hulk-rage to the point where I barely even find 'support' in these support groups anymore, I just do most things on my own.

Today was a really nice day, however. After the self-flogging of yesterday, I resolved to make today better. I went to the local day spa for a treatment to pamper myself since I had such a rough week; I splurged on a Body Contour Wrap, a procedure the spa offers that professes to be a wrap that makes you lose inches 'permanently' through detoxification instead of dehydration. I had an amazing technician named Lori who did a great job. I was nervous and self-conscious, of course; I had to wear disposable bra and panties made of black tissue paper and the panties were a tiny g-string. (On the plus side, they were 'one size fits all' and they fit and I got to tell her 'YAY! I'm finally 'all'!") She took measurements of my body in key places--- calves, thighs, hips, waist, ribcage, and biceps. Lori vigorously scrubbed my body with this exfoliator stuff meant to expand blood vessels and stimulate circulation, and then she wiped me down and applied this detox cream to me, then wrapped me tightly in Saran Wrap from collarbones to ankles. Then we maneuvered me onto the massage table to 'marinate' while she gave me a fantastic facial, a scalp massage, and arched my eyebrows for me. When she removed the wrap and measured me again, I had lost a total of nearly 20 inches throughout my body. Supposedly it isn't 'water weight' and I won't put them back on from drinking water, but I don't know. All I know is that my progress made me more than a little happy and my body felt really good from the relaxing procedures. And man does my face feel good after that facial treatment.

After the spa, I came home and worked on the house a bit more while eating dinner, more turkey roll-ups with fat-free cheese and Miracle Whip Light as a condiment. I called my grandma, who decided that we should go to the county fair to walk around.

The fair's long been a tradition in my family; there's only one year I didn't go that I remember, and it was last year because it was only a few months after my mom died. The year before, my aunt Shawn, her then-boyfriend (now husband) Kyle, and my niece Kimber went with my mom and me to the fair. My mom was in cancer treatment then but she wore a gray silk turban and a pair of light-up rabbit ears and we won stuffed animals for her at the games and fed her funnel cake. It was an amazing night for all of us and one that I remember very fondly.

This year I was much smaller, and much more nimble as we walked over the uneven ground; my grandma pushed her walker and we browsed the arts and crafts booths, wasted money on games, laughed about the rides. I won a stuffed lobster, a dinosaur, and a sock monkey, all of which I gave away to little kids who didn't win. I bought a tray of wiffle balls to throw at cups and gave them all to little boys whose mother didn't have enough money for them to play. I hung out with a capuchin monkey, who played with my hair for awhile before licking my face.

 

I ate elote (roasted corn) with fat-free mayo, parmesan cheese, sriracha and lemon pepper powder and tried to convince myself it was healthy because it involved a vegetable. I had a few swallows of homemade sarsparilla soda and two bites of a corn dog. My grandma pushed a small piece of funnel cake onto me. But in truth, those 'devious' fair foods that I once inhaled without a second thought just didn't taste good anymore. The funnel cake was like sticking my tongue in a bag of pure sugar, so cloying it almost made me gag, and the corndog tasted heavy and greasy. (Nothing negative to say about the soda or the elote though, damnit).

But as we were wandering, about to leave, my eyes lit upon the trampoline bounce. This is something I've wanted to do since childhood but I was too self-conscious then; the kids who did it were doing crazy backflips and tumbles in mid-air, fearless, soaring in their harnesses and socked feet. By the time I was old enough to psych myself up to do it, I weighed too much.

Tonight I gazed at the 'rules' sign. Must be under 230 pounds.

I walked up to the operator, a guy in his thirties with a jack o' lantern smile and kind eyes. We spoke briefly and I told him that I had always wanted to do it but had never been thin enough. He waved me up onto the trampoline and I climbed easily onto the chest-high ledge without struggling; I stood patiently, biting my lip, as he fitted the harness around me and between my legs. I was sure that there'd be a snafu, that it wouldn't buckle, that the straps wouldn't touch.

It buckled, and he pushed the button to start the hydraulics. I was lifted into the air until I felt weightless, and experimentally I bent my legs and kicked off.

I flew.

 

Nobody's fault but yours.

I watched a documentary today that was streaming on Netflix, called My 600-lb Life: Melissa's Story, and it was a very poignant watch for me that resonated hard. It was the kind of thing that really hit me in a vulnerable, emotional mood. Today's been an unstable day with my emotions anyway, but today was also a day that I realized I'm not as strong as I thought I was, and this blog's being used in part to hold myself accountable.

 

I've been fat since I was young, since my dad first pulled his shit with me. Coming into my life and telling me that he was there to stay, then vanishing without a trace, popping in like a rabbit in a magician's hat whenever he felt like causing more drama and pain for my mother and I, I began to internalize my feelings. I wouldn't talk to my mom about it because I knew it hurt her to discuss my father; he was the love of her life and she was convinced that she had done something wrong to make him leave as it was. She didn't need my questions. I started to pack on the pounds, sneaking food into my room late at night, secretly eating cookies or Little Debbie cakes and guzzling sodas and juice boxes and other sugary treats. My family wasn't big on vegetables; we were a mac 'n cheese, mashed potatoes, chicken fried steak type people. Every day when my grandma picked me up from school we went to Sonic or McDonald's or Burger King for a 'snack' to 'tide me over' until dinner. If my mom was watching TV, I'd go to the kitchen and return with a bag of chips and a can of dip or something similar, and by the end credits of the movie we would've polished off the entire thing. It became comforting, although I don't know when that started. Every time I was upset I would reach for food, and of course this stretched out my stomach to the point where it took more to get me full. I'd ask for seconds, or supplement a regular serving size with an extra side dish or a salad or two or three rolls if we were out in a restaurant. I was always eating, forcing bites past my lips even when I wasn't hungry, simply for the fact that it was familiar, it was a security blanket.

It would be easy to lay some of the blame on my mom or my grandma, but really, what's the point? Everyone has That Relative who insists you try her famous cheesecake when you say you can't possibly take another bite of food or you'll pop; I was raised by them. My mom ate to hide her feelings of rejection and loneliness about my dad, and my grandma used food as a balm. She saw it as a direct affront to her Southern hospitality if you didn't stay for dinner, or go for seconds, or have dessert. If she saw me eyeing the dessert menu she'd insist I order something, not letting it go until I was eating a chunk of pie or a bowl of ice cream, because she was convinced that if I didn't order it she was depriving me. I don't know if this was her subconscious way of trying to make up for me being raised by a single mother; all of them were overcompensating, spoiling me with any toy they thought I'd like, buying me tons of clothes, plying me with food. My mom maxed out multiple credit cards, filed for bankruptcy and started the cycle anew right away. She was desperately trying to fill that hole in her heart, and food and shopping were her only two vices. She used shopping as a way to bond with her mother, and the two of them enabled each other; before long my grandpa gave up lecturing my grandma about "bringing one more thing in this damned house" and we just picked and wove pathways through the ever-cluttered houses like mice in a labyrinth of things. All the while, my mother and me were ballooning in weight; she hit over 400 pounds before she decided to do something about it and got very serious, joining a local gym and hiring a trainer.

I was always fat, though. It became kind of my 'thing' I never went on a serious date in high school, ever--- the first time I went to prom it was with a platonic male friend of mine, and then my senior year I went with my gay best friend because I had no romantic prospects. While my friends were making out in the backseat of cars, I was taking pictures of punk bands at local shows and convincing people to make post-show IHOP runs with me because I knew that the night would inevitably end with me shoveling food in my mouth and I would rather do it in a social setting than alone in my house. At one point, I told my then-friend in a non-ironic, deadpan way, "I really wish I had the self-control for bulimia". Did I really wish I had an eating disorder? No. But I was disgusted with myself, with the way I was always using food as a crutch, as a social tool, as an excuse for myself. I was holding myself back by letting myself get fatter and fatter.

Maybe subconsciously I was scared of finding a guy like my mom had, of being hurt by one and falling to pieces under the surface like she was. My mom was the most sweet, caring, generous person I'm likely to ever meet in my life, but my father did a real number on her and up to the day she died, she had not one drop of self-esteem. She bought ugly cotton panties in bags at Walmart and refused to update her hair from the way she'd worn it in the 90s and was the person who was always remembering everyone's birthday and buying graduation presents for kids of coworkers she barely knew simply because she was beaten down and broken by that rejection from my father and she was trying so hard to be liked. She didn't believe she was beautiful; if I told her "Mom, buy that shirt, it looks great on you" nine times out of ten she'd hurriedly shove it back on the rack and come up with an excuse on why she couldn't. Once, I dyed the underside of her auburn hair black and put chunky black streaks through it; she looked amazing and years younger, and since she was coming to rock concerts with me all the time back then, I thought the change would be great for her. But she went to work and someone joked, "What, do you think you're the same age as your daughter now?" She came home and dyed all of her hair a dark brown to get rid of the evidence of the funky streaks, near-tears, and told me that she'd just decided she didn't like it, that was all. I finally wheedled it out of her and then I had to fight the urge to go punch her coworker in the face--- didn't they realize how much bravery it had taken for her to make a change like that? For her to let me paint her nails black once, for her to stop being America's sweetheart and start becoming some of the feisty, spunky girl she'd once been again?

I was the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I was desperate to be alive, to be liked, to be noticed. I was working as a photographer and promoter for bands and I wanted them to like me. Yet automatically upon meeting them, I was delegated to the 'Other' category. I watched band after band talk to the fawning, svelte girls in leggings and tight shirts, in obscenely short skirts and stiletto boots, and I stood there awkwardly waiting my turn for a scrap of attention. I wore push-up bras and hoped that my cleavage would distract everyone from the fat roll below my tits. I cut my hair short and dyed it neon pink and pierced my nose and got tattoos to make myself stand out, to try and be beautiful like the girls I admired. Even when I was wearing backstage credential lanyards, some security guards would stop me because they couldn't believe a girl like me could be with the band. My mom was actually denied backstage entrance to an event with Ryan Dunn from Jackass because, as the security guard so eloquently put it, "they don't let middle-aged fat chicks backstage, sorry lady".

So I've been working through all of this, and this time of the year always makes me kind of nostalgic. Halloween was always my favorite and my mom and I used to dress up together from the time I was an infant; she was the one who took me door-to-door in the nice neighborhoods to get the good candy, and when I was too old for trick or treating we'd sit home together and pass out treats to the neighborhood kids and watch the Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees marathons on TV. After Halloween came Day After Halloween shopping, which was pretty much our version of Black Friday; we'd hit all of the Spirit and Halloween Boutique stores, buying up fake blood and fangs and weird decor at half-off. I have a six foot tall robotic Jason Voorhees because of one such trip. After Halloween comes Thanksgiving, and then Christmas; last year was our first holidays without my grandpa and my mom both, but this year will feel even heavier because I'll be in LA instead of with my grandma. My first holiday season not being home.

When I was in Ohio, I bought a box of buckeye candies thinking "I'll make them last, I'll eat one every few days and really savor them". But the stress and the agonizing drama of moving on short notice has fucked with me, and everything has been going down from family drama to people guilt-tripping me for my lack of free time this week, and so I found myself eating them absently while I watched Netflix. They melt in your mouth, so they weren't taking up a lot of room in my stomach.

This week I've cheated. I've had about one full root beer, split between multiple trips to restaurants; I can never finish a whole soda, but I try, damnit. I've had a few bites of cookies here and there. I've eaten real sour cream on a taco salad instead of Greek yogurt or fat-free. I've eaten flatbread pizza slices even though I know the carbs are bad and the food's probably got tons of preservatives because it was from a restaurant instead of me making it myself.  And, since I returned home on Saturday, I've eaten seventeen buckeye chocolate bon-bons. I finished the box.

That isn't to say I'm completely off the wagon. I've been chugging water and I saw my trainer today for an ab-kicking session of core work, lots of stretching. I've been packing and moving stuff in the house, which is a lot of work in itself. I walked all over Ohio. Breakfast today was a grilled chicken salad, no dressing except guac and a spoonful of sour cream, lunch was fat-free turkey slices rolled around fat-free cheese sticks, dinner was a sugar-free Vitamin Water and more turkey slathered with roasted garlic hummus and rolled up for easy nibbling. I'll probably eat a LiveActive cottage cheese cup before bed and drink a little more water.

But fuck, backsliding makes me sad and I hate knowing that that urge is still in me. The urge to eat when I'm stressed, to use food as an excuse. In my mind I rationalize I worked out for an hour, I can have a bon-bon and then I look down and three are gone. I thought I'd broken this habit and I guess I'm just disappointed in myself.

My weight's still at 215 but everything is shifting around. I'm firmly a 14/16 in jeans now and a medium in t-shirts; the medium at Horrorhound Indianapolis fit but I had to stretch it a bit before I put it on. The medium I just got at the 30 Seconds to Mars show went over my head and fit nicely without even feeling clingy or snug. My BMI went from a 54.7 in January to a 33.1 today, which means that in 3.1 points I will be considered 'overweight' instead of 'obese'. And I still have a ton of energy physically--- it's just my mood that's causing the problems.

I refuse to give in to any more temptation. I've come too far for that. I'm getting rid of all of the bad food in my house and when I get to my new place, I will not backslide. I will hold myself accountable for these things, because I refuse to start putting weight back on. I am stronger than this, fuck. 

I am more than just the 'fat girl' now and I am determined to stay that way. I have an amazing new job and a fantastic group of friends and a great new guy and a whole new city that need to find out who I am now, and I want to find out too.

I don't wanna live a lie that I believe--- it's time to do or die...

It's been an insanely busy little-while for me, sorry about the lack of blogging! I'll try to make up for it by making this one awesome (hopefully).

So last time I told you guys that I had made the decision to move out to Los Angeles; I still don't have the green light to publicly say what the job is, but I can tell you it's a ton of responsibility, a pretty demanding position, and I am so, so, so honored and excited to have been asked to do it. I'm going to give it two hundred percent to try and prove that I was the right choice for the position. In the meantime, I've been frantically scrambling to hire movers, change bills over to the new residence, forward my mail, get my paperwork in order, sell everything I can to make extra cash, etc. as well as wrangling my best friend Brandy into coming on the drive to LA with me as moral support (in addition to being a Thelma and Louise type fling before I live in California and she returns to Texas).

This weekend, however, was something I'd already been planning and had paid for ages ago, so I had to take a few days from my busy insanity here in Texas to hop a plane to Columbus, Ohio.

I've been a big 30 Seconds to Mars fan since I was a senior in high school and all through college, but it really blossomed around 2009-2010 and has been pretty steady since then. I think they're an immensely talented band with a lot of diversity in their sound, and the lyrics are often a lot more poignant and emotional than most mainstream rock music. So when their new album Love+Lust+Faith+Dreams dropped a few months ago and I heard it, I just knew they would be touring soon and that I would have to muster up the money to go. Unfortunately, when the dates were announced Texas was nowhere on the roster. I know that the band pretty regularly tours for years on end and comes through a country multiple times, so there will likely be a Texas date or two in the future, but I wasn't willing to take that chance and bought a ticket to see them in Columbus, OH. (Why I picked Columbus of all places I have no idea... their next show was in Denver and I have friends there I could've visited for a bit, but I picked Columbus, where I knew no one.)

So my first victory of the trip, that elusive NSV (non-scale victory), is that LOOK HOW MUCH ROOM WAS LEFT ON MY SEAT BELT! Before my surgery I had to have the seat belt completely extended and even then I often had to ask for an extender. Gone are those days, and not only that, there were tons of inches left and I actually got to tighten the lap belt to a comfortable level. I was in first class, so I wound up crossing my legs like a proper lady for some of the flight too. You really don't understand the novelty of being able to cross your legs until you realize that when you're a bigger girl it's an incredibly difficult task. Now it's second nature to me and I LOVE it.

When I landed in Columbus and caught a cab to my hotel, I was delighted to find that I was situated in the middle of the German Village. This was a great thing but also an awful thing. When I was newly post-op an ex of mine took me to a German settlement town and I couldn't eat anything; the brats and sausage were much too greasy, and everything else seemed very heavy with bread or dough of some kind, or potatoes in some cases. I ended up picking at salads and wishing desperately for a restaurant where I could get a grilled chicken breast or something 'normal' to tame my poor sensitive belly.

This time though, ten months out from surgery and able to stomach most anything, I felt ready for this. My hotel was a dingy little thing on High Street, directly across from a small gay bar and next door to a weird, delicious place that couldn't figure out what it was. The place was a sports bar that looked like an Irish pub, was in a German neighborhood, and served predominantly Greek food. I popped in for a late dinner of hummus and tzatziki with cucumber slices instead of pita bread, then went back to my hotel to relax for the rest of the night with cable and free WiFi. The Food Network and Nick at Nite kept me company until I dozed off. 

The  next morning I had a quick breakfast and then decided to take myself on a walking tour of the German Village since I'd opted not to rent a car this trip. I took a map of the area and just set off, and once I got my bearings it was a blast. I stumbled into a gourmet chocolate shop, where I had my first buckeye candy--- it was like the high-end Reese's cup that Fat Amanda had been seeking her entire life, and I didn't feel bad when I had to buy a few to take with  me. Everything in moderation, turtledoves. I had a spiced apple cider and found a place called The Book Loft, which is a must-see if you're in Columbus. A beautiful space that looks like a big old gingerbread house with a sprawling, stunningly-landscaped courtyard, it houses over 50,000 books and is a delightful little labyrinth you can lose yourself in for hours. I wound up buying a copy of "Sharp Teeth" by Tony Barlow, an absolutely amazing novel about werewolves in Los Angeles that's written in free-verse like a novel-length poem. The prose is lush and the plot's very interesting; I highly recommend it for an unusual, fascinating read.

After that, I walked back to the hotel, vaguely aware that I'd traveled on foot almost five miles round-trip between all of the detours and random routes I'd woven through the Village during my day, but my feet weren't hurting at all. The only discomfort was because it was beginning to get warm, the kind of warm that comes right before a big rainstorm; that heavy, pregnant-feeling quiet warmth with no breeze to stir things up.

I called for a cab to take me to the LC Pavilion for the concert as I freshened up, but unfortunately the cabs were super backed up and the wait was almost 45 minutes. I wound up lucking out and snagging a vacant cab that pulled into my hotel parking lot, and the driver got me to the venue just in the nick of time. I checked in for the meet and greet and headed in to wait my turn.

The meet and greet itself wasn't that amazing because it was run very business-like and the guys kept it very brief. It had an assembly-line quality to it where you were handed a poster, you stood in line, the guys passed the poster down their table as each scrawled their symbol/signature on it, and you got it back. Then you got into a different line and queued up for the photo ops, which were very quick and consisted of you coming into frame, standing there for five seconds while the shot was snapped, and then you were shooed off to make room for the next person. However, I managed to buy myself some time when Shannon noticed my tattoos and commented on them; this got Jared's attention and he asked how I was doing. I asked him about Dallas Buyers Club, his upcoming film project, and he got very excited to talk about it. He's receiving early buzz as an outstanding actor in the movie and I am personally giddy about it. 

I really love this picture, and not just because it's with one of my favorite bands and I don't look like a complete spaz in it. But I can honestly see the difference in myself after the surgery. It's in the way I'm standing so casually, with my thumb in my jeans pocket and one hip cocked out, and the way I stood sideways; in the past I wouldn't have dreamt of it. I would've tried to hide part of my body behind Shannon, maybe, or angled myself so that I looked as thin as possible. I'm still a big girl and I'm still well aware of it, but I simply don't care anymore, maybe. I had a lot of confidence standing next to a group that have millions of people swooning over them (not to mention one of the most beautiful men on the planet, Jared Leto, with his hands on my shoulders and his face a few inches from mine) and I wasn't freaking out about looking okay. I was just having a great time. The surgery has really allowed me to enjoy living and stop being so concerned about what people think of me every minute of every day.

So we hung out backstage for awhile, got to see the stage technicians inflating the big balloons for the launch, getting the big Triad in place, etc.

Then it was time for the concert, and I had side-of-stage access that I opted not to use because I had made some great friends in line and we'd decided to stick together. Alyees in particular (and I bet I just butchered her name) was this adorable, funny chick who was my barrier-buddy and we shielded each other from drunken fangirls all evening.

After all of the anticipation (and a brief flash-flood rainstorm!) we were ready. The opening band was New Politics, who totally rocked our faces off, and then it was time for 30 Seconds to Mars at last!

 

As we got to the end of the night, they performed "Closer to the Edge" and literally hundreds of pounds of confetti paper shot into the air from multiple cannons. Some of the confetti had messages on them; things in Latin, phrases, and some said "Help! I'm trapped in a cookie factory!" 

 Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love confetti... so this face was 100% authentic.

After they played "Up in the Air" and invited people to join them onstage, Aleeys and I bailed and she was nice enough to give me a ride back to my hotel. I was too jazzed from the concert to sleep, so I just kind of ran around my hotel room in a frenzy, updating my Facebook like a psychopath and watching the video footage I managed to snag of the show. 

I also took a couple of selfies, because I was feeling empowered and kind of naked-like. Ignore the cellulite, that isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Other than the loose skin and dimples everywhere, I'm beginning to like the shape my body's taking on. (You know, like an actual female body instead of just 'round'.)

On the plane ride back today, I was first-class again and they fed me a super-healthy and protein-friendly open-faced turkey sandwich with cherry tomatoes and some kind of pesto mustard sauce. Obviously I left the bread... the stuff in the cup is some weird cheese 'salad' type dish, chunks of spicy cheese mixed with diced red peppers and some kind of vinaigrette. I had a few bites but didn't stick with it. The turkey was delicious though.

When I landed in Dallas, I drove through a torrential rainstorm to get home... I sold 45 things on eBay! All of it was old clothes from my pre-surgery days, but a lot of cute goth/punk stuff that holds its value well, and I made a nice little boost to my savings account. I have a feeling the poor thing is going to need every  bit of help it can get once I get to LA next week.

So the plan for this week is--- work frantically to pack anything I want to take, sort out trash, make phone calls to several companies, fill out paperwork and drop it off around town, etc. Try to keep sane. Friday I'm planning to have a big garage sale, then Saturday is my 'send-off' party with my friends at Six Flags in Dallas. Then early Sunday morning my girl Brandy and I are hitting the road to drive from Texas to LA, and the next chapter of my life begins.

I hope I am brave enough, strong enough and tough enough for this.