holy. mackrel.

165 pounds + admission to grad school = best day ever.

i kind of can't believe i'm here, actually.

so... first of all: 165. this is HUGE. this is MONUMENTAL. this is "OVERWEIGHT." i'm not death-fat anymore. i'm not obesity-epidemic (boogita-boogita) anymore. i'm not freak-fat anymore. i'm REGULAR fat. i'm a little soft, a little pear-shaped, but not OMFG GIANT BEAST LADY. does it feel different? a little. probably not as much as 140 will. and i think 140 is the goal. 135 would be swell, but 140 is solidly "normal"-- safely in the zone with a 5 pound buffer, but njot unachievable. if i'm THISCLOSE to being a smaller size at that point, i'll consider trying for a few more, but i think 140 is a winner.

this also means that, when my tax refund arrives, i'm gonna hightail it to the recovering actor's place of employ and distract the ever-loving shit out of her for, oh, two, three hours. it's gonna be SO MUCH FUN. (confession? some of the make-up i use with some regularity spent time in freshman dorms. OUR freshman dorms. please don't shoot!)

so... grad school. this means a lot of things. this means a way out of my dead-end (but secure and flexible!) job. it means oh, about $50k more student loan debt. it means two years of hard work, an internship and writing my first thesis. it also means a chance to prove that i AM smart, i CAN work hard, i DO deserve happiness and i'm NOT a total fuck-up. my acceptance? is provisional. i need to maintain a b average for a term or two or i'm out. it's because i slacked like WHOA in undergrad. due, in part, to the way i skated through high school and still scored a full academic scholarship to college. and in part to the bad thing. and, i'll admit it, in part to beer and pot. (and BOYS.)

i'm gonna get some LATIN on my diploma this time. tangent: my husband did his undergrad at this university. i desperately wanted to see if there was any latin on the basic diploma, so he dug his out. the only latin was the gold sticker that said cum laud. "hm," i said, "that's disappointing. i wonder if the sticker is bigger for the better ones." "baby, it doesn't GET much better," he said, all cocky and shit, and i had to be all, "oh, you'll see. there's cum laude, summa cum laude and magna cum laude. YOU have 'with honors' but then one is 'with HIGH honors' and one is 'with HIGHEST' honors." (all smug and shit.) "oh, which is which?" he says. "dude, i don't know! i got a c in latin." and... that basically illustrates my entire stance on education up until now.

(i can't help feeling a little odd about all the times i just typed "cum" here. i suppose it's the COLLEGE STUDENT in me.)

OKAY, OKAY, FOCUS:

• calorie target & nutrients
• water, water, water
• workout, either with my trainer-brother or alone if the snowmaggedon comes before 6
• next goal: 161 & -75 pound pictures