goodbye, my isosceles triangle mole formation

I'm a molely person. Two weeks ago I had two questionable moles removed from my body, again. One of them was part of this formation on my left arm that I affectionately call my isosceles triangle mole formation. I discovered it in my 10th grade geometry class; we had been discussing isosceles triangles and what not in class. i remember looking at my arm while being bored to tears, and I was tickled to death to see the formation. I quickly grabbed a pen and connected the moles and sure enough two out of the three sides were equally congruent. The image above is not to scale, and does not give my moles justice. I'm disappointed that the top of the triangle is going to replaced with a heinous looking scar. right now it's just a healing wound with a hello kitty band aid covering it. I'm grateful to have my moles removed since my family has a history of melanoma and we have to be careful. I recommend that if you haven't had your moles checked recently to do it. My mom told me that her doc said referring to melanoma as "sneaky bastards!" My biopsy turned out to be fine, no bad news. It just takes one bad one out of the hundreds on my body to ruin it for the rest.

frenching, blackmailing and the summer I was actually nice to my sister

So it was the summer that they called me Baby... wait, I'M quoting friggin' Dirty Dancing now? I hate that movie! I'm sick. Let me try this again... It was the summer before 6th grade, and things were looking pretty good for me. I made straight E's in 5th grade, started on my AAU basketball team, made a club soccer team, middle school was just around the corner, had my first boyfriend (josh, my major crush), and with that came my first kiss. Many of you are thinking, "Kiss? Like a real kiss? You mean you "frenched" someone in the 5th grade?!?!" YES, I did. I ran with the fast crowd then. Funny how we then referred to kiss kissing as "frenched." For instance, "yeah, on the back of the bus they frenched." Today, I can't imagine any of my friends telling me that they saw some people frenching or that they frenched someone on their date. We just say kiss or made out, and it is safe to assume that it's a french kinda kiss.

Anyway, so after my basketball game at this tournament in Ardmore, OK, my family with my friend Jenny and I go to a restaurant for dinner. Somehow that evening top secret information about me kissing Josh was leaked from the lips of Jenny to my sister, Michelle. I for some reason felt a great amount of shame, and didn't want my sister to know. Probably because I didn't want anyone to know about it, especially my family. I was 11, cut me some slack here. The next thing I know, my sister says to me, "I'm going to tell Mom!" I'm like, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! DON'T! Please, please, please..." She realized at that very moment that her annoying little sister had in fact kissed a boy before she did, and that REALLY pissed her off! I mean, she's 2 years older than me, for crying out loud. And I'm sure her friends were kissing boys and she felt left out. Vindictively, my sister decides that her summer could be quite relaxing if she used this information against me.

As the summer began to unravel so did the torment of my sister. Mind you, I always had the upper hand growing up. I used to annoy the living daylights out of Michelle. If I got bored, I would go into her room and bug her until she either pinned me down and licked my face to death or yelled too much profanity at me that I couldn't take it. (Note: she also used to play that Dirty Dancing song that I HAAAATE with PASSION to get me out of her room.) I continue my normal pattern of behavior beginning of the summer, i.e. if you're bored go bug Michelle. But this time she, with the top secret info on me, says, "if you don't get out of my room I'm going to tell mom about..." Then proceeds to stick her tongue out like she's frenching the air. I'm like, "NO! Okay, I'll do whatever you want." She indeed then occupied the immediate power over me, and from that moment on I turn into THE nicest little sister EVER! I know hard to believe. For example, while playing in our pool I was so nice to Michelle and her friends while they were over swimming. I wouldn't harass them ilke I usually did. I would bring them beverages, hand them their towels, etc.

Oh, that summer I gave my sister full-time control over the TV remote. DO YOU REALIZE how horrible that is DURING the summer? I spent the ENTIRE summer watching lameo programming like Jem, soaps and shows that were on USA, which BTW is no longer in existence for the mere fact that their programming sucked! I wanted to watch CHIPs on TBS! I thought they were hot chasing speeding cars down the 405, is that wrong?

So yeah... I was blackmailed. I don't know if anyone out there has ever been blackmailed, but it sucks! I mean, you're controlled by someone who has something over you. Totally sucks! My summer and youth were robbed!

Eventually my observant mom starts wondering why her youngest daughter is all of a sudden being nice to her older sister. It was too odd for her, I suppose. Towards the end of the summer, my sister tries to blackmail me into something again, but this time my mom intervenes and says, "Okay, gigs up, Michelle. Stephanie, I know why you've been so nice to Michelle lately. She has been blackmailing you this whole time, and I know that you frenched Josh!" Of course, at that point I don't know if I was more mad that my mom knew, or that my wretched sister told my mom and was still blackmailing me! Regardless, I was mortified, completely and utterly mortified. To make matters worse, my mom asked me about the kiss. Eww!

Tony Campolo quote about Dobson

What are your thoughts on this quote by Tony Campolo, an evangelical author and social commentator.

“You dare not go against Jim Dobson these days. This is the guru, the new pope. He is infallible. Anybody that contradicts him is obviously out of the will of God.”

I think there are some Christian folks out there who worship or "idolize" Doc Dob's every notion on Christian living, morality and/or political values; and if you're a Christian who disagrees with him, then maybe you need be fasting and praying... because you're not right with God. Maybe there are some other Christian peeps who feel the same way about Campolo, Donald Miller or John Eldrige?

Thoughts???

I often wonder what if Christians actually focused more on loving God, each other and ourselves rather than putting all of our energy in changing laws or people. Have you seen someone come to Christ via morality?

Tom's versus Dove - this is about the pits!

In a lame attempt to start being a little more chunchy since I've been in Colorado for 3 years now, I decided a few weeks ago to buy Tom's of Maine deodorant from the Sunflower Market (health food store). I get the lavender scent because I love the smell and I thought it smelled better than the other scents. I came home after shopping and immediately put it on, ya know to try out my new product. It REALLY felt different than Dove. Like bad different. Like I don't like this kinda bad. Mind you, I have been a long-time, committed user of Dove. [I think Dove is the longest relationship I've EVER been in.] It smells great, goes on smooth, and I like it. BTW, at first it was hard to let go of Dove. I keep using Tom's, trying to give it the old college try, and it TOTALLY burns like hell. I don't like burning in my pits, okay. Sheesh! For a full week I use this Tom's and have pit-burn, it's like I'm torturing myself. So I finally tell someone about my burning sensation (never thought I'd say that) in my pits because at the time it was burning and that was all I could think about. She asked me if I shaved. And, I'm like yeah. She's all like that's probably why. So if you don't shave your pits you can use Tom's natural-organic deodorant without burning, apparently. My quandary: Do I shave my pits, use good ol' Tom's and have burning pits? Or, do I not shave use Tom's and have nonburning, hippy pits? Or, do I just go back to Dove and have normal smooth pits with no burning? Yeah... I'm wearin' Dove right now. If anyone can recommend a crunchy deodorant that won't burn my pits please let me know.

Thanks,
Armpit Management

welcome me to the world of bloggin'

it's about 1 a.m. and why not start my new blog page? yeah so, tonight i was convinced by my friend, jason the vegetarian firefighter, to start a blog. he's doing one while he's in costa rica for a month. i'm not doing anything cool like him. so while trying to put away the butt-load of clothes that are stacked on my bed, i thought i could clear off my bed OR start a blog. obviously, i decided to blog. there you go... that's why i decided to do this. to avoid putting my clothes away... i'm lame.

oh, last night i saw rosie thomas at the hi-dive. great show minus the drunk lameos who decided to act like jerks at the end of it. regardless, rosie was amazing! it was cool to meet her and see her perform. i even saw an old college friend of mine, jeff shoop; he's on tour with rosie. anyway, check rosie out www.rosiethomas.com

aight, it's time for bed. really... it is.