I think I'm channeling Alice Cooper this week. I've been fighting the urge to run around yelling at the top of my lungs, "Schoooooooool's out for the summer!!!" Right in people's unsuspecting faces. But I can't help it. School IS out for the summer. And, just so you know, teachers love themselves some summer vacay as much as students do.

I'm convinced this is why teachers are teachers. Sure, they love children. Blah blah blah. But 12 weeks of paid vacation? Come on! Definitely a perk. And maybe the closest I'm going to come to being a kept woman in this lifetime.

So school was out on Thursday. After two of the longest weeks of my life...spent staying up into the wee hours writing hand-written cards to each and every one of my students. It seemed like a good idea at first...but after heartfelt emotional sentiment #37, around 2:00 one morning, I found my fine-point purple Sharpie struggling to write something besides "Glad you're not in my class next year, but hope you'll come back and visit!"

And, after two weeks of loose ends, turning in grades and tearful goodbyes, I came home and slept for 48 hours. Straight.

But did I mention 12 weeks of summer vacation?  

Eat when you are hungry. And be astonished by the abundance that surrounds you. That was the first assignment Geneen Roth gave us...in Week #1 of our six week Women Food and God online retreat. Just eat when you're hungry and recognize the things in your life you have to express gratitude for.  

I don't know about you, food addicted America...but I have NO idea what feeling hungry feels like. I have two speeds: stuffed or starving. In the movie theatre this week, waiting for Sex and the City 2 to start, my friend Nancy suddenly declared that she was hungry. It wasn't like she came into the theatre hungry. No...it was more like her stomach growled in between previews and she said, genuinely surprised, "Oh, I just got hungry." Like the guy sitting behind her leaned forward and flipped a switch on the back of her neck. A hongry switch. So, out went Nancy to buy one outrageously expensive movie theatre hot dog.  

So, I'm trying to figure out what hungry (not starving) feels like. Hmmm...it's a conundrum. An enigma. The secret word of the day. Everytime I say the word "hungry," I expect the characters from Pee Wee's Playhouse to jump out and scream.

But as nature abhors a vacuum, I needed something to fill the void once occupied by peanut M&M's. This week, it was retail therapy. It started with a new workout DVD and some weighted gloves. Then a lime green food scale. It measures in grams AND ounces. Then tonight, after a level 8 anxiety attack, I went roaming the aisles of Target like a sorority girl in the streets of New Orleans after a night at Mardi Gras. I bought milk, a chew toy (for Willoughby, not me), six packages of polka dotted tissue paper that I'll never use because I want to save it, four bars of Dove soap (the pink variety) b/c it reminds me of my mom, who I miss, and two candles...just to put the aroma in aromatherapy. Oh, and I almost came home and ordered a red velvet Jesus. If you think I'm kidding, look:

I don't know why. I don't own, or have ever pined for, a statue of Jesus. Especially in red velvet. But I saw it at a place called Wacko's in Hollywood and have been obsessed with it ever since. Hey, if crack addicts can have Methadone, why can't chocolate addicts have a red velvet Jesus bank? 

Don't fret, though. Before you go thinking I'm jumping from the frying pan into the fire, let me tell you...I have zero credit card debt. I pay off my bills early and entirely every month. And I think that taking things back to the store is usually just as exciting as buying them in the first place. So no long term chemical dependence here. I just needed a little somethin' somethin.'  

PS...Geneen Roth was out-of-this-world good. It was 90 minutes of freakin' amazing. How do you know I try to fill my life with sweetness by filling my belly with chocolate, Geneen? How?!? But I do. Or that I turn to food to try to connect with something sacred and special, something that transcends the everyday monotony of human life? But I do. PSS...her voice was like buttah. And she didn't say "um" once, which, according to my college speech classes, means the sign of an excellent speaker. I was impressed. It was worth every penny. If you are interested in the online retreat, there are still five live sessions left...and you can access the one you missed last week, as well. Her website is www.GeneenRoth.com.

And now to the gratitude...part 2 of my assignment. I'm grateful for you, my beloved readers and friends. Seriously, over-the-moon grateful for you. I'm grateful there is such a thing as a red velvet Jesus bank. I'm grateful for a dog that will let me dress him up like a Jewish grandmother to play Fiddler on the Roof ball. In his little babushka. My new favorite hobby. "Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...". Sing it, Bubbe!

I'm grateful for the robin's nest outside my window with the cutest little baby birds in it! (Oh yeah, I also bought little soaps in the shape of robin's eggs today...to commemorate.) I'm grateful for my friend, Melinda, who tripped and slid into a puddle of water while rollerblading today like she was sliding into second base (I wasn't there, but this is how she explained it). At such an angle as to get water UP her nose. How you get water up your nose in an inch of water is beyond me. But I'm still laughing. That story filled me with g-l-e-e. Actual physical glee. (Don't worry, she's not hurt. I wouldn't still be laughing if she was hurt.)

Anyway, tonight is Session #2..."Beyond What's Broken: Learning how to find your way back to what's already whole: the bright center of your very own life." Hmmm...is that anything like getting to the bright center of a Tootsie Pop, I wonder? Or as delightful?

I'll let you know. 

Interesting and unexpected things happen when your BFF is a librarian. You have automatic Cliffs Notes to any book at Barnes and Noble. Well, any book that you're interested in, anyway. You don't have to read the latest 500-page Harry Potter because, when the movie comes out, said BFF will sit next to you and quietly whisper each and every necessary plot detail at precisely the right moment. As you share the California rolls and box of Milk Duds you've smuggled in. You become obsessed with Post-its. In books, that is. Because you know they leave a residue that threatens the integrity of the paper and must be specially removed by library staff (who I imagine look something like oompa loompas dressed in white onezies working in a CSI lab but can't be sure because I've never actually seen them). Seriously, I saw someone with Post-its in a book the other day. Not one Post-it, but three! My body literally reacted with the "fight" in "fight or flight" response and prepared itself for offensive tackle before my brain stopped it and reasoned "You're in a church, girlie. Tackling? Not really appropriate."

And when your BFF is a librarian, you learn that yellow highlighters are from the devil. You have to sneak them. And hang your head in shame when she finds the offensive contraband. God help you if she finds the Sharpie evidence in a book you've accidently left lying around. So wait until she sees what I've done to the book that I'm currently reading. (Whispering)...I highlighted one whole page.  And pretty much something on every page. And (yipes!) it even bled through in some spots. Don't look, Kara! Don't look!!!!!!!

But I couldn't help myself. There are books and then there are books. And this is a book. Sure, in every book, there is a seasoning of profound mixed in with the "whah whah, whah whahhh whah whahhh" that Charlie Brown heard. But this one has more profoundness than most. It's Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. If you haven't read it...please run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and get it. Or order it on Amazon for half the price. If you have read it, then you smell what I'm steppin' in when I say it is 211 pages of life changing.

As you know, this blog has never focused on the specifics of my weight loss. I don't know...it seems tedious and...yawn...boring to ramble ad nauseam about calories and workouts. And I gotta say...I just don't believe it's that simple. How can millions of informed, educated, successful, well-meaning women and men be stumped by something as insignificant as little white doughnuts? Or (fill-in-the-blank)? I had been wondering how to tell all of you that I've been struggling to reach even the half mark of my goal, teetering between 30 pounds lost, up to 23 pounds lost, back down to 27 pounds lost. Blah blah blah. Then I turned on The Oprah Show and saw this:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprah-Discusses-a-Time-She-Forgot-to-Remember-Her-Loveliness-Video_1

I almost knocked myself out getting to the laptop to order a copy. Seriously, it was like the opening of the Dick Van Dyke Show, only I tripped over my own feet and not a suspiciously placed ottoman. Which leads me to the...(whispering)...highlighting. I'm only on page 100, and I'm tellin' you, people...there are too many spine tingling passages to quote. But listen to this:

"...Until you understand who you take yourself to be, true change is not possible. Even if you are lucky enough to get every single thing you want, the person who gets those things - your sense of self - will still be poverty stricken and miserable and fat. You can be showered with money or love or thin thighs and still feel as if you are separate from all that is good about being alive. Despite present day circumstances, your deepest beliefs will always - 100 percent of the time - reconfigure you into the familiar patterns you associate with being yourself. Being at your natural weight will be impossible to maintain. Having what you want will not seem real. When someone loves you, you will dismiss him or her as unattractive or shallow or dumb. You will feel like an imposter living someone else's life. And you will once again inhabit the skin and the life of unlove in whatever forms you find most familiar."

O. M. G!!! Can I get a hallelujah?!? Tell me that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up! PS...I'm taking Geneen's 6-week online retreat starting on Tuesday (if you are interested in knowing more about it, feel free to contact me or go to www.geneenroth.com).

So, beloved readers...friends...two questions: 1) Anyone wanna read the book with me? And 2) Can you deal with reading a blog that is shifting its focus from "losing 60 pounds in 6 haircuts" to "how one big-hair-lovin-West-Texas-turned-Los-Angeles girl finds what she's really made of and then looks down one day to realize she's lost 60 pounds?" It'll be like "I was in the middle of Nordstrom's one day and noticed I was missing something. Oh yeah! 60 pounds!" Until that moment comes, I promise it will be a mix of real, raw, funny, not so funny, and entertaining. Next time, more on Women Food and God. And I'll tell you how I dressed Willoughby up to play "Fiddler-on-the-Roof ball." Photos included.  

Ok, I know that's not how the song goes. For Liesl, the magic happened in a gazebo on the eve of 17. For me, it was 15. And in the spirit of channeling my thin, carefree, 15-year-old self, I thought it appropriate to wax sentimental about the music I was listening to at the time. Remember these?!? 

Can it be? Depeche Mode and the WTC? In the same music video? Who knew? PS...Kudos, my Depeche lovers, for having great hair even in the 80's. 

Oh, Enigma, you complete me! Thanks for being there during all my angst-ridden-15-year-old nights. 

Cyndi...you were ROBBED by Celebrity Apprentice. Robbed! But thanks for reminding me of my true colors. PS...was that an ABBA moment in your music video, or am I just imagining things?

Maybe the coolest music video of it's time...you really had your finger on the pulse of coolness, Peter Gabriel...but why are you naked? 

NOW YOUR TURN...what were YOU listening to when you were 15?

Sorry to go from stalking last post to snarling this one, but I gotta get this off my chest. If there are 10 things I love about Ruby Gettinger, there's one thing I don't. Her newly found "motivational"-speaker-slash-wannabe-weight-loss-expert, Tennie. It's gotten to the point where I can't even say her name without the corner of my lip automatically turning up a little.  I hope my mom was misinformed and my face won't really freeze that way.

Tennie McCarty showed up in Ruby's living room (and America's, via the magic of cable television) this season to change the face of Ladies Fat Night. Episode after episode, in an accent straight out of a John Grisham movie, Tennie was a flurry of predictable behavior. First, it was having the ladies face their obesity head on in a full length mirror, followed by an hour of conversation peppered with 427 uses of the words "enabler" and "co-dependent." Next was a form of interpretive dance involving a pile of scarves and another tearful confrontation with the mirror. Ok...I smell what you're steppin' in, Tennie. It stinks, but I smell it.  

But last week, on the season finale of Ruby, Tennie unloaded about 2,000 pounds of smelly when she opened a can of whoop ass on one unsuspecting woman. Did anyone else see this?!? Here is the clip: 

I'm dying to hear what you think about this. Anyone? Bueller?