Same problem today, only not hunger related. My brain wouldn’t focus not kept hopping to something else and didn’t really want to stay on task with work. Nothing was helping until I browsed my music and Nine Inch Nails stared me back in the face. Turned on The Day The Whole Word Went Away and from that point until now I’ve been a flurry of work accomplishment…

Maybe when my mind won’t focus I’ll look toward music as the point to start.

I like to show people this awful picture I took what’s now over six years ago at Christmas and for people who just met me they can’t believe it’s me. I’ve even had one or two declaratively tell me it wasn’t me. My laptop in the photo says otherwise.

But it’s hard to think of it as an accomplishment. If you live with being so overweight for so long and then you work as hard as I did every day for four years, the accomplished feeling isn’t in the pounds lost but the miles traveled. It’s the fact that I’ve burned through three pairs of shoes just running that give me a sense of achievement. The fact that every day for two years I rode a bike for 15 miles…and then 20 miles and then broke it because I rode it so much (poor stationary bike…ignored the first two years of its life, ridden into the ground the last three).

When you get as close to the end as I have you learn, weight is just a number. It’s not a number I used to say I accomplished something but rather its a number I used to say “Great, now I can go play soccer again.”

Yes, I’ve lost nearly 150 pounds. But these are the achievements I take the most pride in:

I dropped four t-shirt sizes, prompting a needed update to my wardrobe.

I broke a stationary bike due to overuse.

I’m playing soccer again.

I’m outrunning teenagers.

I’ve run five half-marathons since November 2012.

I can run down the stairs past people without having to turn sideways…

…and that’s another thing, I completely misjudge how much space I take up. I’m much smaller than I think I am…I’m a human chihuahua, apparently.

This has apparently changed on me. The stuff I did in between classes and on occasional weekends is now becoming de rigeur. I’ve got little kids (5-10 year olds) thinking I’m cool and wondering how can they be like me.

My first suggestion is they learn how to juggle with their feet.

I give it enough introspection and I realize, I’m not cool to people my age. I’m still the socially awkward panda at the office that people go to with esoteric questions and spout out random trivia answers to incorrect statements.

It’s that the kids two generations younger than me like that I can run and kick with them and then go and play video games with them and talk to them like they’re a peer and not a pier. I’m an interesting jungle gym that sings and dances.

Edit: What follows is a conversation with my wife:

“You became cool when you met me!”

“Heh, well that’s modesty for you. You certainly thought this guy is almost cool. If I date him, he’ll become ICE COLD!”

“Hahahahha that’s EXACTLY what I thought! “

My aunt Amy, my mother’s younger sister, passed away on January 7, 2013. My week at that point was spent mostly trying to console my mom, figure out what I was needed for at work before driving off to central Texas for the services. Through all of this, I got to see my cousins again, all of them. It amazes me how similar we are to one degree, and how different to another.

But let’s start with Amy. Amy was the type of person who gave you an honest opinion and answer, whether you wanted one or not. She was my bellwether for general health issues too. Once when I was 15, we went to go visit and I was walking around her house with no shoes on (after she pretty clearly told us about scorpions) and I heard her having a conversation with my mother.

It went something like this, “Have you seen your son’s toes? I saw them and I swear I just about puked! You need to take care of that shit quickly.”

This is an important statement for multiple reasons. Firstly, she was a nurse so the fact that my toes were that bad to her…it was time to see a doctor (I had ingrown toenails on both big toes most likely due to soccer playing and very poor nail cutting habits). Secondly, she knew I was there. She said what was on her mind and if this was important enough to be said (to her) I figure I had to pay attention.

Which brings me to a conversation we had about ten or twelve years later. Amy suffered from a myriad of health problems. I won’t talk about them because she never said I could and I’m not asking for her permission now. This was most likely at Jake’s wedding rehearsal dinner. She sat down next to me and told me fairly plainly, that I didn’t want what she had. That I needed to start taking care of myself or all the shit she was having to deal with was going to come crashing down on me. I shrugged it off at the time. What did she know, I felt great!

Yeah, right, I got bronchitis two weeks later. Between that, and being so lonely, I started watching what I ate. A new job seemed like the best opportunity to start fresh, so I finally convinced myself I had to do all of the work needed. Here I am, 150 pounds later (give or take). I can’t ever really pinpoint who or what finally made me take that step, but Amy’s got claim to being the first (that and my mom).

If you could choose that, why would you?

I knew I was asking for it, breaking so many of the rules of the Handbook. Wandered off by myself into this “convenience” store in the off chance there were some meds left…or maybe just food. Never imagined that some how, thirty some odd people had the same idea and all got trapped here. That probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the one Infected who bit them all. Now there are thirty some odd Zed heads ambling around. How I didn’t notice when I walked in, I’ll never know. I guess they were all in the back, maybe they actually learned something…

Isn’t that an awful thought? Learning Zekes…the shambling horrors who can barely make a recognizable sound hearing and learning ambush tactics.

I’m smarter than this…so damn smart I’m now trapped at a fucking pharmacy counter with a bottle of store bran ibuprofen, a bottle of Gatorade, and a gun with two bullets in it. Spent 10 of them trying to clear the Zeds at the pharmacy. Not so well spent seeming now…

The other 20 zombies look like they’re queuing at the register. Upside is that it gives me a bit of a run towards the door but God knows if there’s one that’s off distracted by its damn navel. Well, I think I’ve got all I can. May as well go for it.

A fire extinguisher…awesome. Should be good for the first couple. I burst out of the door, two heavy bodies stumble away and I dash past. An arm grab my sleeve and I immediately come straight down on the wrist with the extinguisher. It lets go. The next problem is when another grabby hand snags my jacket. I have to drop the extinguisher and twist quickly to get my arms out fast. Being throttled by my own jacket while being bitten just seems like a terrible fate.

I leave Zeke-2 with a handful of windbreaker and race for the door. Maybe I can make it…Zeds in the aisles are starting to shamble towards me. I make it past them though the moans are making the others take heed. There are two at the main door now.

Trying to shoot on the run is a waste of a billet but I haven got time to stop. Acting like some idiot hero in an action movie I shoot once at one of the zombies and my luck holds out and it drops like a stone.

The other turns to snap at me and I try to barrel past it. That one looks a bit weedy…maybe I can make it…

I put my shoulder down and level the Zeke like a linebacker. The crunch is actually more on my end. Holy crap, tackling fucking hurts. It seems to have worked because I see a twisted neck staring at me over a misshapen form.

I keep running. I can do this for an hour. It’ll give me a chance to get away. Hell, I don’t really news to run a well times 5k to beat the Zed -heads. A quick walk wi do, but I wanna get out of here.

Ten minutes later, I’m feeling more fatigued than I ever have in my life. Must be the adrenaline loss kicking my ass. I gotta slow down and breathe a bit….and that’s when I see it…teeth marks. Right in my damn shoulder.

If anyone happens to find this recording, take this little bit of advice from me…American football is shit. Much better to dodge around than to go through. And remember…save the last one for yourself…*click*

—-

“Good morning, Sun. I am a bird, wearing a brown polyester shirt. You want a coke, maybe fries? The roast beef combo’s only $9.95.”

“Rebel Girl, Rebel Girl, you are the queen of my world!”

“I wonder this time where she’s gone. I wonder if she’s gonna stay.”

“Could you be loved?”

“Breaking rocks in the hot sun…I fought the law and the law won…”

“You’re probably thinking that you’re gonna change me and in some ways well maybe you might. Scrub me down, dress me up, aw but no matter what remember…I’m still a guy.”

“You could have been all I wanted but you weren’t honest now catch in the crowd.”

“Take me away, I could use the rest. It never dawned on me that you were home free. It never dawned on me…Benjamin, no-oh, o-oh.”

X people doing Y things to Z people.

Turns out you can

Examples:

Good people doing good things to good people: Touched by an Angel

Good people doing bad things to good people: Eureka (the bad things are often unintentional)

Good people doing bad things to bad people: (the most common trope) 24, Fringe, Transformers…this list can go on…

Bad people doing good things to good people: My Name is Earl

Bad people doing bad things to good people: Law and Order: SVU

Bad people doing bad things to bad people: Oz, Game of Thrones

The lists are obviously not exhaustive and I took me awhile to think of the good/bad/good example. But hey, I’m open to more suggestions.

This boy is smart. How smart? You may not have met him yet, but he already knows how to manipulate you. He knows how you see him, he just can’t do anything about that. What he will do is convince you to do things for him because he’ll act like he can’t. He can, he’s just knows it’s better to have someone else do it. It’s easier that way. He can quote the movie Spaceballs to you, front to back. From what I remember, my parents took that movie away from him when he was 15 because he could quote it front to back. Say Frau Blucher to him. I’ll bet he whinnies.

He’s autistic. I’m not talking, high functioning, can do well in society, Aspergers autism. Real deal, barely verbal until he was 10, trouble communicating to the point of violent frustrating autistic. I didn’t get it when I was younger. He was different, but that’s all I knew. Looking back at it, I was jealous of him. Knowing that my parents loved us all but he required the most attention. Maybe that’s why I acted out and became a rebel.

Yeah, right. Some rebellion. Oh yeah, Dad! Make me wear shirts with collars to school?? Well I’m packin’ a plain purple t-shirt and changing on the way there! What’s that Mom? I have to have my homework done before I can play Nintendo? Well I’m gonna play Nintendo right up until you get home, turn it off, run to my room and look like I was working really hard. Yeah! Take that!

Then you grow up, you see that what was done was the best way. And then you wonder, this guy has had a fairly good life for someone in his position. My parents worked hard for all of us, but especially this guy. I don’t want him to lose that. So, then you start to fret. You fret because you know that some day, you’re going to be the dad. Someday, he’ll be burning off your cell phone minutes because he needs you to know what the Pokemon trainers are doing. Someday…

So you get ready for that day. Hopefully no time soon, but fortune favors the prepared and the fools. I’m going to be the most prepared fool in the world.

“One of the most memorable days of my life”

Yes, it’s a bit wordy and yes I’m assigning you reading before reading mine. It’s because, shockingly, it actually has more interesting things than this post will and it’s what inspired me to write this post.

Done?

Okay, but you need to hurry up, this blog post won’t wait all day for you…

Ready?

Good!

The week of my wedding I took off from work. Mostly on the off chance that I would actually have to take care of any little things that came up. I didn’t expect it, but I’d much rather be ready to go run off and do things rather than have to suddenly take time off of work. At least then they knew not to expect me. My tasks were basically to clean the house for our guests and be ready. I mostly putzed around and cleaned the house very slowly.

All the fun stuff started to happen on Wednesday. That’s when Stacy’s dad, aunt, uncle, and cousin all rolled into town from their two day drive from the Mitt to the Boot. Stacy’s Dad, Chuck, is a lot like my dad. He’s stern looking and sounding but he has a sly sense of humor and likes to take little pokes at the people he loves. So in this crowd there was plenty of pokes to go around…especially to me since I screwed up and reserved the tux under the name Chuck Powers…when he’s a Patrick…oops…this is something I won’t ever live down in the northern half of the world. I was having a lot of fun actually chatting with my soon to be new family and they wanted to go to lunch. I had some good seafood or cajun places in mind but as good Michiganders they asked “Hey where can we get some steak?”

So we went to TJ Ribs.

Now when you go to TJ Ribs, you get ribs (unless you’re like me and don’t like eating ribs, then you try one of their very fine other items). Today they had prime rib as a special but I couldn’t have ANY of that awesome stuff because my soccer team had become too successful and we were now in the second round of our end of the year tournament and my game was in two hours…I was pushing it eating the pulled pork poboy that I had (which was awesome). Talk about cutting it close, I had just enough time to run home, grab my stuff and get to the field. I then played that game, which we thankfully lost while still playing well (if we had won, we would have had another game on Friday and I would have had to rather guiltily missed that one). As an aside, Stacy brought home a huge box of treats for Guinness from TJ Ribs. I spoiled the crap out of that dog for two weeks until Stacy tossed the box. Thus ended Wednesday.

On Thursday, Stacy and I were both off, mostly so that we could collect people. The rest of her bridesmaids were coming in that day, and we had to go collect them. Katie and Sarah were the first in at the Baton Rouge airport. Chuck came along and we were joking at Stacy’s expense. I do feel a little bad about it in retrospect, but not much because shortly after that she created the absolute biggest scene that this airport has probably ever seen when Katie and Sarah walked out of the terminal. It was so big even the mopey goth/emo guy with the nice tats and pretty interesting piercings started chuckling, which really just served to make me laugh again.

After this, it was time on my own until my groomsmen got off of work, I think tuxes were picked up sometime before, but I forget when. We were having issues with the store not being open. I think I did it at the same time as Stefan, coincidentally. Tried it on, fit well and then Stefan and I proceeded to spend the rest of the time together. We were joined by Edward when he could escape the clutches of his family and Brian and Linnea, and Andrew when he could escape the clutches of work, and Eric when his wife escaped his clutches. Stacy S. was sadly unavailable to join us but it’s okay, she made it for when it counted, and sitting around with five guys drinking beer and playing video games isn’t really up her alley…well okay it is, but derby is more important than that.

That said, I totally kicked ass at Soulcalibur! Being drunk gives us a sort of quasi-zen feeling as ass whipping that we take into this game. It usually devolves into someone calling someone else an asshole. Eventually, the girls joined us and we played more Soulcalibur! This time with Juan and Lisa around. Juan was instantly attracted to Ivy. I think it was her interesting backstory and varied move list… that or her outfits…

Friday! Rehearsal day! The most that I remember about this day is that I wasn’t allowed to get drunk. I think I cooked a lot of eggs and I eventually went to Target to get a couple of new shirts. I picked well because Stacy was practically gushing when she saw it. Sadly, she loves the preppy look and I’m partial to the “Hey, where did my pants go?” look. Friday really is the day I remember the least until the rehearsal. The coordinator at the rehearsal had us whipped into shape in no time flat. The process is rather simple and easy to repeat so the simple expedient of making us do it once helped out a lot. Except Andrew had to work, but he’s a smart guy, he figured it out with minimal coaching. Afterwards, it was a challenge in getting everyone to go to Drusilla’s Seafood. We were a little early and that seemed to freak out the entire staff. So, our group did what we were supposed to do and sat quietly, except for when Rochelle was poking me and making me smile and take pictures and all that. Dinner was served, the room was frighteningly cold and the staff remarkably unwilling to do something about it. Eventually it got taken care of, but…ugh, not fun. Probably the worst thing that happened the whole time and for that I’m honestly quite grateful. One of the best parts was getting Stacy to meet my cousin Mike and his wife Sam as well as his mom and dad Stephanie and Joe. I gave Mike a bit of an introduction when I called him the guy I grew up wanting to be like. Like most people on that side of my family, he took it modestly and shrugged it off saying, “You guys keep saying that, I have no idea why.” Because Mike, I spent most of my early life being “Not William” and you were the next closest person to look up to.

Halfway through dinner, I’d noticed that my dad was writing notes. Dad usually does weird things for odd reasons, but one thing he never does is give an unprepared speech. Engineers are so weird. Needless to say, Dad gave a talk that I (for reasons best left unsaid) kept commenting on. Collectively, I think we got some good chuckles out of the deal. Then, he sits down and mom and Stacy are making me get up and talk…oh goodie! Apparently, I thrive best with as little preparation as possible. I started by thanking everyone for coming, especially those who came a long way and then went down the line of my groomsmen. Edward for being my oldest friend, college roomie, guy who had to put up with most of my crap for the longest that wasn’t related to me, Stefan, Andrew, and Eric for being the guys that made me who I am and helped me make it through high school as funny as possible and really just being funnier than me. Then Stacy S…maybe she was confused as to why I wanted her to be a groomsman. I’ll admit, part of it was that I wanted to rock the boat a little. Having a girl groomsman is definitely not something the Catholic Church would approve of and I definitely wanted to use that as a bit of a thumb to the nose of the establishment (I’m not much of a rebel, but I do like to make a bit of a stir). But the most important reason is that she was the first person to challenge my perspective of how things were. I’m not sure when I found out she was gay but it definitely forced me to confront my feelings about it from an abstract “I don’t care about the issue” to “someone I know and care about is this way.” She showed me a lot about how being yourself is freeing at a time when I was lost and rather lonely. To some degree, she forced me to grow up from my small self-centeredness to actually think about how what I do might affect others and how I can try to do things to affect people positively. Between her and Bond (a very lovely gay man I met in college), I managed to emerge with a better understanding of how that part of life was. Maybe I would’ve gotten there on my own, but those two definitely pointed me in the right direction. (I wax a bit philosophic here and I apologize for getting off topic).

Stacy then stood up and talked a little bit. Thanking everyone and making herself cry. I chuckled at that. What really got me though was when her dad stood up and spoke. Chuck is a very Midwestern kind of guy. He’s taciturn, straightforward, honest, and blunt. He’s not an emotional person but what he said that day made me start to cry and certainly made Stacy cry again. I hope to live up to what you think of me.

Then came the least fun part…separating and me going to sleep alone. Upside, I got to watch some truly horrible movies late into the night. I think I watched Bloodrayne: Rise of the Third Reich. To tell you how bad it was: the director is German. He couldn’t cast any Germans in the roles of the Nazis so he cast Americans who played Germans. Stacy called late and we talked a little before I passed out.

Saturday, wedding day!

This day started out pretty slow. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself, so I do what I usually do when I have a big block of time and no idea what to do…I worked out. Though go figure, in the process of working out, it turns out that Stacy S had a slight change of plan and we now need to go take her car to the church so that she and Audra could drive to the Gatehouse after the ceremony. This caused me to be on the road when Eric called to say he was at my house…oh..oops. I get home, let him in and we all start go get dressed. Stefan and Andrew show and also commence getting dressed. We’re all dressed and now pacing around wondering where Edward is. Needless to say, he’s being held up by his family or Linnea. I call and basically tell him to get over here sharpish, and he does. Yay! Powers of crazy, activate! After that, we start to pace and wonder about the limo. Right as we’re about to say fuck it and drive ourselves, the limo pulls up takes us there and we get to go stand in the vestibule (I think it’s called) until everything is in place. Photographer comes in and takes a bunch of pictures of us clowning around. Then Nicole comes in and takes pictures of us clowning around, then the priest comes in and makes me stop clowning around so he can ask me important questions like “Do you want to be called Chris or Christopher?” I went with Christopher. I figured the maternal unit would appreciate it the most. So, at the start, I walked my mom down the aisle to her seat, then went back into the vestibule with the priest. Then, I walk out with the priest and stand there, all center of attention and what not (with the priest). Then we start to hear a song I’ve heard and played countless times, Canon in D Major by Pachelbel. I wanted Toccata and Fugue in D Minor but no one ever listens to me.

Up came the groomsmen escorting the bridesmaids, it was quite nice. Everyone was matched up well. I think the only complaint was that Katie was taller than Stacy S. in her heels. Then the big reveal, and in comes Stacy in her lovely dress with green strip across the top, the world kinda disappears around this point. I go to her walk her up the steps and as we kneel down and face the altar and William walks up to the lectern to begin the first reading, I look at Stacy and say “Hey, I figured out what kind of rock the altar is made out of. Limestone.” This was promptly followed by a snort and a giggle. I’m not very good with solemn moments. We go through the whole ceremony, say the vows, and just basically move along without tripping each other, specifically for the maternal devotion and the walk down the aisle. We were kinda walking fast, though. We go out, circle to the side chapel and go back in for pictures.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to be in wedding pictures, they’re HARD to do. At first, it’s just smile and be happy. That’s easy. But at some point, when you’re taking the 300th picture your smile goes away. The photographer noticed this and mentioned it so I did the one thing guaranteed to make me smile for real…I put on the absolute worst rictus fake grin possible. The photographer grimaced at me, which made me laugh and got the real smile back. Stacy was quite funny in getting her family up. She turned on her teacher voice and shouted “If your name is Powers, get up here!” When corralling my family, I opted for a slightly more personal way of doing it by going and getting their attention one at a time. Needless to say, Mike repaid my kindness by giving me bunny ears, and John struck an inelegant pose directly in the center of the group…I love my family. We really need to hang out more.

Finally we get out and the limo takes us to the Gatehouse where most of the people have been waiting for us. The Gatehouse coordinator shoos us into a side room and Stacy gets all fixed up and we get announced as Mr. and Mrs. Christopher and Stacy Delmar. So, we walk across the room and when we get to the table there we kinda stop, look at each other and then think…”Now what?”…ok, let’s mingle!

This was shortly before the photographer started pulling us about (like he was supposed to) to get us to pose in the gazebo and cut the cake. It was nice to meet everyone but I do feel like I missed talking to some people and I kinda feel bad about it. I was barely in control of my destiny at this thing. Most of it went by really fast, but the part I liked the most (surprisingly) was the dancing. Stacy and I opened it up with “Your Song” by Elton John. It’s a nice love song that’s written like someone trying to describe what it’s like to love someone. I find it appropriate for the two of us. I only did one twirl at a time I thought most appropriate the first time Elton sings “My gift is my song and/this one’s for you.” I may have been singing the whole song while dancing too.

Stacy and Chuck went next. I wasn’t paying much attention to the song since I went and made sure Mom was ready for our dance. She kept asking me what song it was, and I told her it was an appropriate one for the two of us. Chuck and Stacy finished dancing with a big hug, it was a great scene. Mom and I stepped out there and I had a huge grin on my face because I knew what was coming and in my own way keeping people in the dark about surprises is way too much fun. On pops one of the earliest, heaviest, loudest metal-like riffs followed with a piercing scream that rattles speakers and already I have my mom laughing as Revolution by the Beatles comes on.

My family, by and large, is a family of hidden talents. My dad is an excellent woodworker, a hobby that fits with his analytical nature and engineering background. I’m a decent athlete and musician as well as a scientist. Robert probably knows the scripts to more movies than anyone else in a 200 mile radius hands down. But my mom…my mom can dance. I can’t dance for crap, but a good dancer can make anyone look good. She wasn’t leading, but I was definitely letting her decide what to do. I was just trying to keep up. Revolution is a quick paced song, and we danced together for about 90 seconds before she decides she’s gonna try to embarrass me. Sorry, Mom, can’t let you out do me. I have no idea what I did or how it looked I just know it felt funny and probably looked worse. We finished up before the song was done because let’s face it, dancing takes your wind out quick.

Next was the bridal party dance, and this was the part that, again, my friends (except for Stacy S) knew was coming. Put four nerds in tuxedos and tell them to dance, and what do you get, a lot of grumbling nerds. Eric promised retaliation. Fortunately, the song we picked was Baba O’Riley by the Who, so there was a long lead into any real song so I had time to track down Stefan and everyone else and get them out there. I took this opportunity to dance with Stacy again, then I got to dance with Eva, and finally managed to get Stacy S. to dance with me. She wasn’t terribly into it, but I’d wanted to dance with her at my wedding since she agreed to be a groomsman. Troy managed to film a good portion of it. I’ll have to see how that turned out, especially since Stacy and I stopped and stared at the camera for a second.

Then the money dance…at first I didn’t want to do this one…but let’s face it, it worked out in our favor to do it. I was at first worried that no one would dance with me. I’m guessing that thanks to my display with my mom, everyone wanted to dance with me, as I was told by Stefan later. I said hello and thanked everyone who danced with me. The ones that stand out the most are March’s mom who helped remind the florist to get my lapel flower, my aunts Amy and Stephanie, Stacy’s aunt Jude and Janny. All of Stacy’s co-workers danced with me, too, which was very nice of them. At some point, I looked over and saw Robert and Stacy dancing. Robert doesn’t dance…ever, but he appeared to be having a lot of fun. Stacy’s good with kids (have you noticed?) and she was particularly good with my kid brother. At some point, William came to dance with me, and I held him out as far as my arms would allow as a joke. I think Nicole got a good couple of pictures. Then Mr. Eric started making my groomsman dance with me, which started with me laughing at Eric when he did it, then when Andrew stepped up, I just lifted him off the ground and twirled a bit. The fact that Andrew busted out laughing really made this experience worth it. Then Stefan got up and I could tell he was uncomfortable, so I grabbed his hand and just sort of ran rather silly-like around him until I got dizzy. He was laughing to and called me a jackass (or something similar) but that made it worthwhile. Towards the end, I grabbed Nicole’s hand because I hadn’t had a chance to dance with her yet. As she said in her blogpost (which hopefully you read), I said all sorts of nice things to her. You should read her blogpost to see what I said. :-p

At some point in here, there was cake cutting and speech giving. This must’ve been before the dancing, since we have video of it and the camera died shortly after our first dance. Edward gave a nice speech, I believe I refrained from heckling too much. Lisa then gave a nice anecdote about how I really kinda messed up when I should have met her the first time. Thankfully, I think I made amends for that error.

More photos…and then we left. That was three hours. Mike wasn’t kidding when he said it’d be a blur. So much happened, and that’s what I remember the most about it. All of the out of towners enjoyed the food and festivities. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Mrs. Marlene (Stefan’s mom), she got away too fast. I feel like I neglected Lara, and I honestly feel terrible about that. For some reason, I’m afraid she’s mad at me.

When we got home and got changed, I realized that using the restroom at that point was the first chance I’d had to sit down in almost five hours. It was a really good day.

And there was an after party, but that’s for later.

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