The last few weeks have been interesting, and that could be the understatement of the century.  I started slacking with the gym in a bad way.  I was having really bad headaches, possibly caused by not going to the gym and all of the bad food I was eating, combining for a few days of nasty head pain, which made me not want to go or get back on track even that much more.  So after a few days of making lame excuses, I forced myself back.  I started remembering how great it was to go and now I'm getting back into the swing of things.  The only downfall is that the holiday lurks in the doorstep, enticing me with delicious assortments of random sweetness and plumperizing (yes, I just made that word up) foods.  Mom spent last night and all day today making cookies, and let's just say I designated myself as Test-taster First Class.  I got very sick on some chocolate oatmeal no-bakes today, and very nearly threw up.  That would have been the first time in quite a while, but I forced it down.  My stomach does this weird thing now when I eat really bad foods or if I eat too fast.  Not only do I get sick, but all my blood rushes to where my stomach is to help digest the food, and it makes that whole area on my stomach start bumping up and down with my heartbeat.  Tres bizarre!  So anyway, back to a while ago...  A little over a week ago, my whole family went for an overnight trip to Burlington for a night of karaoke.  It all started as great fun, but then my dad got drunk and started acting like a big dumbass and humiliated several members of the family with it all.  Then two nights ago we went to karaoke again, here in my town, and Dad promised to be good.  He actually was okay, considering, but my night quickly became chaos.  I was having a pretty crappy time until I, Shonda, and Amber went outside for a cigarette break... that is to say, take a break from all the smoke inside the bar.  We were just hanging out when up walks my old friend from junior high and high school, Alexandria.  The only other friend I have known as long as her is Heather, and I may even have met Heather a while after Alexandria.  Well, to move on, she ran up and hugged me, but I didn't recognize her until she got really close.  I couldn't believe it was her!  A few months ago I had spent weeks looking for this girl or anybody who might know where she had moved to, but much to my dismay, I could find no one.  She had moved away when we were in highschool, and I had run into her on a previous visit only a couple of weeks before I left to study in Mexico.  I had lost all the info she had given me at the time, which was way out of date anyway, so I was ecstatic to see her.  She looked amazing.  Better than I had ever seen her.  So beautiful and happy, and I had missed her so much.  Well, later on we talked a little.  But when I went back into the bar, a friend of hers that I didn't recognize came up to me, hugged me really tightly, and said she was so glad to see me and it had been so long.  I had absolutely no idea who this girl was.  Well, she told me all about her mother like I was her best friend, and then I went back to our table with my family and the two friends I had brought with me.  After a while, I saw Alexandria sitting alone at a table, I believe trying to hide from all the guys that wouldn't give her a second to think.  I went over and was just hanging out, but when I got back to our table again, I thought Shonda seemed a little angry with me, or at least jealous.  Now let me clarify my relationship with Shonda.  She has come to karaoke with us three times.  Each time we crack a few jokes and she forces me to dance to some slow song, which I detest.  I thought, the second time that she came with us, that she may have a thing for me, but I wasn't sure.  We never really hit it off all that much.  I've never hung out with her otherwise.  Well, Alexandria and the mystery girl, who I later found out was someone named Shelly, started dancing right behind me as my back was facing the dance floor.  I turned around to watch, and they weren't dancing together or even at the same time, but out of nowhere, Shelly came up to me, started saying what a nice guy I was, and gave me a kiss on the cheek...then on the forehead...then on the lips...then stuck her tongue in my mouth.  I didn't know what to do.  I still had no idea who she was.  She kept telling my parents what a great guy I was, and I was so handsome, and she wished she could find a guy like me.  Well, I was very embarrassed.  I'm sure I turned every hue of red.  My dad knew I had no idea who she was, so he started asking her a bunch of questions about how she knew me so perhaps we could figure this out.  She said that a couple of months earlier I had bought her and a friend a drink at another bar while I was there with "my sister".  I think she meant Melissa when she said that, but she said it was a really classy thing to do and I really knew how to treat a girl like a queen... or something like that.  Anyway, I still couldn't remember her, but I do vaguely remember buying some girls some drinks once out at that bar, but I didn't remember who it was because I didn't know the girls.  Anyway, she seemed nice, if not a little too forward, but I don't know how much to attribute to alcohol and how much to honesty.  Anyway, after getting Alexandria's new contact information and giving her mine, I was on my way out.  I went in to hug her because she was going back to California in two days (where she now lives) and I knew it would be forever until I saw her again, and just as I got close, she turned her head and kissed me right on the lips.  That was surprising, but I didn't think a whole lot of it, especially after the Shelly fiasco.  Then she said, "I love you", and I said it back, because it was true.  It's so funny.  That's a girl I could really be with.  She's so sweet and considerate, independant and confident, but still wears her heart on her sleeve.  And her being pretty doesn't hurt, either, ha ha ha.  Well, after that I went back to my life, and started going to the gym again, having worked myself harder, yesterday and today, more than I have in a long time.  And hopefully getting back on track with my eating won't be a problem anymore, now that Mom has stopped baking.  I've been doing great with my diet, other than that.  And the snow keeps falling, so we're going to have a white Christmas, and then some.