If You Can Sort Of Muscle Your Way Past The Gag Reflex, All Kinds Of Food Possibilities Open Up

Those Girl Scout bitches are out to get me! (Oh, hey, please don't crucify me for calling young ladies of the Girl Scout persuasion "bitches." Please? I implore you. I merely used the word as a device to hook you and now I will go on with my story and try not to use profanity to discuss little girls in green outfits. Okay? Okay.) Of course, to understand why, you need to know that a few weeks ago, I was discussing hair with Hotass. She was thinking of putting some streaks in her very brunette hair, a la Joss Stone, who has lately been looking like her wig is trying to eat her head. Not that Hotass was going for the "wig trying to eat her head" look. Just that her bright pink streaks looked appealing to Hotass, who was interested in trying out a more dramatic look.

Of course, talking to Hotass about going with a more dramatic style made me think of my own old, tired, had this haircut for most of the last 10 years, shouldn't I look more like a cha-cha chick than a middle-aged soccer mom? hair. I had been pondering a color change for a while and just hadn't done anything about it. But with Hotass considering pinkish streaks, I thought perhaps I should go looking for something more fun for myself. So I found this:



We're looking at color here, not cut. What are we thinking? Cute, right? Well, put that color on this hair and then tell me what you think:



Would that not be oh-so-very-sassy? Right.

So I'm looking at these two pictures and thinking a couple of things. First, this is going to cost me some money. Because my hair is not naturally curly, so I'm going to need some sort of perm in order to achieve that effortlessly tousled curl thing. And of course, getting it colored with the different streaks in it is going to be pricey. And damn, that's a lot of money to spend on my hair. Even if I would look freakin' fantastic when all was said and done. Second, if I'm going to spend that kind of money on my hair, I want to walk out of the salon strutting to Stayin' Alive soundtrack in my head. Which means, I need to feel that inner confidence that I am so smokin' hot, not only am I hearing the Stayin' Alive soundtrack in my head, everyone around me can hear it too. Which means I probably need to lose some weight. Because I am a little shaky on the inner confidence lately.

So I set myself a goal. It's an either/or goal. Either I lose a certain amount of weight, or a start fitting into a certain pant size, and then I can go splurge and get the hair. Not that I need an excuse to splurge on myself. I very rarely splurge on myself as it is. If I splurge, I splurge for Oscar or Turtle, because I have a habit of putting everyone else's needs before my own. But that's another post. No, it's not that I need an excuse to splurge. It's that I needed a goal if I was going to make some positive lifestyle changes, of the type that would be long-lasting and life-changing.

So for the last couple of weeks, I've been eating right (fruits, veggies, smaller portions more often, etc.) and exercising and practicing a "just say no" approach to all things sugary and fattening, because I want that cute, sassy hair, dammit. No ice cream, no candy, no pastries, no frou-frou coffee drinks, no fast food, no "all the good stuff that makes life worth living." It's been tough, but I find that regardless of the weight I may or may not be losing, I feel 100% better. I feel healthier and I have more energy. And that inner confidence is coming back, slowly but surely. Because when I'm doing all the right things right, regardless of what the scale says, I see myself as a size 4. (Of course, then I look in the mirror and stare aghast because that second chin? Is still there. Why is it still there? WHY????????????)

But, of course, my nemesis is always around the corner, waiting to catch me in a weak moment. The temptation of those sweet and fattening foods is always hovering just on the edge of my consciousness. Which brings me back to the subject of this post: those little Girl Scout......girls. They are freakin' EVERYWHERE right now! I can't walk into a grocery store without passing their little table filled with those little boxes of caloric sin. I generally practice my "no eye contact, no eye contact, no eye contact" approach to getting in and out and that has been helping. But the other day, as I walked out of the store with my grocery basket filled with fruits and vegetables and low-calorie snacks, they realized I was alone and without even Oscar as a buffer, and they attacked.

"Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" they asked, simpering smiles fixed on their vampiric angelic little faces.

I gritted my teeth. I swear these girls are stalking me. Just when I think I've gotten over my craving for sugary foods and can be content with my new lifestyle, they pounce. But I managed a smile at them, anyway.

"I would love to buy some Girl Scout cookies," I replied, "but I'm on a diet. Thanks for asking though."

I made it through the gauntlet. I would live to fight another day. Those Girl Scout....girls may be after me. But I will prevail. Oh yes. I will prevail.