Seriously?

What the hell is wrong with people? I know you've probably already seen this woman (who, incidentally, believes her critics are "fat," among other things) already, but I alternate between thinking that she can't possibly look like this and feeling sorry for her. But then she called me fat, so I'm over her.

I don't want to write about Tanning Bed Mom too much, though. It's just too depressing.

What really made me take notice of this gem of a photo (besides the obvious) is that I'm pretty sure she's wearing Laura's hairbow. The way this woman has her hair fixed is the exact same hairstyle that my two-year-old wears. And Laura does seem to be mysteriously missing a fair amount of her hairbows.

In other totally unrelated news, I really did myself in at the gym this morning. I have discovered the stair climber. Not the lame one with the little pedals that I think I could do for hours without breaking a sweat, but the one that simulates actually climbing stairs. If these crazy things sit mostly unused at your gym, there is a reason. It's taken me a full nine months of regularly busting my arse at the gym to work up the courage to climb on one but I can say that, after I finish (and catch my breath and change my sweat-soaked clothes and take a long, restorative nap), I'm really kind of embarrassingly proud of myself. There was an older man on the one next to me yesterday and we got off at about the same time. We crossed paths on our way to the disinfecting wipes and gave each other knowing looks, like we were part of some sort of secret club of people who like mercilessly torturing themselves. Then I realized that he was probably a good 40 years older than myself, so maybe it was just pity on his part. 

I also realized that making myself go through this misery (actually, it's not that miserable--I like it--is that weird?) is my own sort of validation. I don't have a job wherein I'm regularly evaluated for my effectiveness at anything, so this is my own way of setting up my own challenges and either meeting them or failing. And things may be chaotic at home, our house may be falling apart and the laundry may be taking over, the yard may look awful and the car may be filthy, but I'll be damned if I'm not finishing my allotted time on the stairclimber. (I think, now that I read back over that, that there may actually be something wrong with me.)

What? Did you not want to read about the boring details of my gym routine? I really had no intention of writing about the gym when I started with the photo of Tanning Bed Lady but then I started to shift my legs about and remembered that they were sore and this is what you get. So.

Stay away from the tanning bed and have a good weekend!