Wall-Flower Power

For some unexplained reason, watching me walk or run is a spectator sport in my town. And this isn't all in my head, either. I didn't know this was a phenomenon until the people that were watching me told me they were watching me.

It didn't matter what size I was. It never mattered if I went out in drab attire. It didn't matter that I was nothing to look at when I was out. It doesn't matter that I vary my routes. Without fail some little old lady or weird redneck would come up to me in a grocery store and say, "I saw you walking/jogging/running." Which doesn't fair well with me because I am clinically paranoid and have a strong and well-deserved fear of gawkers and stalkers. I really, really don't like being watched. To be honest, the reason why I started this blog after my first week of my new routine was because I was seriously pondering whether or not I was making a weird situation weirder by having a blog. At one point, I even discovered that an entire redneck family had been monitoring a previous weight loss. Now mind you, some people didn't even recognize me after I lost weight that time and they knew me, but this redneck family approached me at a gas station two years after my second evolution. The patriarch of this group said, "I see you've been keeping that weight off. We were just talking about you last night." Creepy much?

Unfortunately, today was a non-work day for me and the night before I took a nighttime headache medicine. Which means I woke up around 10:30 A.M. PANIC TIME! For me, 10:30 AM equals almost-lunchtime-traffic equals potential weirdo gawkers. And given that I'm not exactly Tinkerbell right now, that guarantees more looky-loos (remind me to tell you about the time this little old lady came out of nowhere and ambushed-hugged me while I was out walking because she thought I "look[ed] so huggible"). A big girl out trying to run is bound to draw attention.

But something wonderful happened when I was out today: one of the handles on my glasses popped off. Yes, I will have to get it fixed, but for me, that meant that everything went from perfectly in focus to somewhat fuzzy shapes. Was I blind? No. Could I still easily determine obstacles? Absolutely. But I couldn't see any faces, which meant I got to run freely. No worries. No looky-loos. Just me, the pavement and a bunch of slightly fuzzy images that I finally didn't give a damn about.