Am I in heaven here or am I in hell?

Ugh. I know that I promised to myself that I would stop whining about my weight since I hate it when my friends keep asking me, “Am I gaining weight?” Do unto others what you want others do unto you, right? Well, as if my shutting up about my weight will make others do the same thing! I haven’t met a girl who is 100% satisfied with her body. It’s either their boobs/butt/tummy/thighs/arms are too big or too thin. It’s a girl’s nature, I guess, to whine about how awful her body looks and whine I shall! I feel so flabby, which is the worst feeling that a girl could ever feel next to heartbreaks and menstrual cramps. Today is my parents’ 16th wedding anniversary and we ate out in this really fabulous Japanese restaurant. It was in this place called Little Tokyo, which is an entire street of totally authentic Japanese restaurants. The restaurants and Japanese grocery stores are arranged in a circle and in the middle is this really beautiful Japanese garden. Anyway, I ate the most wonderful Japanese food ever and I ate so much that I had to undo the button of my capri pants in order for me to breathe (that’s why I feel so flabby, my tummy’s not being its usual flat self).

I’ve got a new addiction: second-hand bookstores. I find the books in there a lot more interesting than those in Power Books. Second-hand bookstores are very disorganized, and often you have to look among a lot of books to find something you like but that’s the fun of it because you never know what kind of book you’ll stumble across. I got this copy of Alicia: My Story by Alicia Appleman-Jurman, a holocaust survivor. And when I looked inside the cover, I saw a handwritten dedication to a certain Adam, from the author herself. It says, “Dear Adam, A tragic page in history was written for my generation. God willing, you will write your page with happiness, love, shalom and a celebration of human dignity. With all my love, Alicia Appleman-Jurman.” Wow. My copy of this book had belonged to an Adam Tailey (he had written his name in the first page), and I wonder who he is and what kind of person he was and why he had sold his signed copy. Hmm.

This afternoon, I started with my guitar lessons. My instructor, Dave, is twenty years old and plays in a band. The first thing he asked me was who my favorite bands were, to which I immediately replied, “Silverchair.” I expected the standard reply of “Who are they? I don’t know them.” But to my surprise, he did know who they were and because of that I liked him right away (he’s also no stranger to Sarah Maclachlan and Jewel). He even told me he’d teach me how to play some of their songs–but not today because I was still a long way from learning Silverchair. He was right; I was so horrible at first. At first I blamed my unusually small hands which gave me great difficulty in reaching the chords. But eventually, I got the hang of it (though my fingers still keep slipping) and that wasn’t so bad. After awhile, the tips of my fingers started to hurt from pressing the strings so much; they still hurt a little as I type these very words. My lesson took two hours, and although I still need some practice I’ve improved quite a bit. I’m no Daniel Johns, but I bet I’ll be really good at this after a few weeks. Maybe I’ll even form a band when I go to college; no use forming one now since I don’t know anyone who would be devoted enough to be in a band anyway.

My back hurts. I think I have an awful-looking body.