despite the fact that i’m about to faceplant my keyboard, i have never felt this refreshed after a long weekend before. i guess that’s how badly i needed it. and to get the hell out of the apartment for a while.

brett and i went to mooresville for 2 nights this weekend–the main reason being he had to take a certification exam on saturday, and then to get new clothes to wear to work. as it turns out, spending a couple days relaxing outside the apartment, with family, was more therapeutic than anything. we sat on the couch in sweatpants, watched football, split a 12 pack of coors light, and ate frozen pizza. we originally planned on going back to charleston on saturday afternoon, but after walking around kohl’s for an hour we decided watching the game was far more important.

i got 5 shirts/dresses and 3 pairs of shoes for $115. i can finally stop rotating the same 5-6 outfits every week. except, one of my team leads actually said to me the other day, “whitney, you always wear something different to work!” and then i looked at her like she was insane because i have literally been rotating like the same 5-6 outfits every week. well, more like mixing and matching the same 5-7 tops with the same 4 bottoms… but you get the point. i end up washing the same set of clothes every single load. it gets so old. so i bought new things.

i feel like a new woman. i really hate shopping. i actually hate trying things on the most (but who doesn’t?) but i also hate trying to find things in my size. that’s part of the reason i’ve started wearing dresses a lot more lately. i don’t know if other short people have this much of a problem but jeans? that’s a nightmare. they’re always 8 inches too long if the waist fits right. or the crotch-seam area (i don’t know what you call that) comes halfway down my thighs. or the thighs themselves don’t fit right. i don’t know. it just sucks. so i started wearing a lot more dresses and skirts to work. any other time, it’s usually sweatpants, all of which have a crotch-seam area that comes down past my knees… whatever.

you know, if company dress policy allowed you to wear sweatpants and t-shirts, i’d get a hell of a lot more done. just throwing that out there. just my 2 cents.

i did get a lot of cute things, though. and i wore one of the dresses to work today with some leggings. and now every older woman i pass in the hallway immediately stops and says, “aww, you look so cute! i love your outfit!” so i’m going to go home tonight and burn this dress. juuust kidding. brett said i look like i just walked out of narnia, so i don’t really know what to think.

today is his first day at work, so i took him to lunch for jalapeno chicken day at madra rua. it’s so nice that i can actually talk to him about work-related stuff now. prior to him working, he didn’t have a security clearance, so when he asked about work… “what’d you do at work?” i’d be like “uhh… well… linux.. security.. stuff? i can’t say anything else… THEY MIGHT BE LISTENING” and that was pretty much it. i mean, some of it is still FOUO, but we can at least have a conversation now without closing the blinds. i don’t really close my blinds.

also… i do not have panic attacks every day. or cry every day. or freak out every day. JUST TO CLEAR THAT UP from the last post. a certain individual (i might have an idea of who) decided to blow up my comments. i used to do those things… all of them… just about every day. it was awful. and for a while, i did think i was batshitinsane crazy. then i quit taking birth control (first fantastic move, it changed my life). but i was still crying all the time. and having frequent panic attacks. and it took me until last fall to realize that it was because i wasn’t happy (for a handful of reasons). once i realized that, everything changed. i got my life back. i got ME back.

and then some more things changed. a lot of things changed–career, steady income, new city, new apartment, new everything… and like i said, i am happy. unbelievably happy. i was just stressed out last week and when i get frustrated, that usually comes out in tears, no matter how much i DON’T want it to. so… yeah. and instead of crying for hours like i used to, i cry for like… 2 minutes. if at all. and then it’s over.

i am not the same person i was a year ago, and i thank god for that.

i do, still, have the occasional panic attack when i’m in crowded places, or when i’m just extremely uncomfortable. like when i was at defcon in july and i had 9 random guys surround me and follow me with cameras and had to have a friend carry me out of the building. those kinds of situations? i will turn batshitinsane crazy. and there is a more than acceptable reason for that kind of behavior. i’m just not ready to share that experience with the internet yet. maybe one day.