I need to get it through my head once and for all to never, ever allow what a guy (or anyone!) does or says or thinks to determine how I feel about myself.

Others can certainly offer valuable advice and input, but they should never determine your sense self-worth.

I think I've been allowing that to happen for quite a while; this whole business of being too worried about what others think.

Today I'm going to try and be myself through and through, even if it means being a little more rough around the edges. At least it will be genuine and compassionate, not watered-down and overly conformative.

P.S. Tomorrow, a haircut! As much as I've enjoyed doing the shag-dog version of a sixth grade boy... ; )

And speaking of sixth grade boys, am I the only one over 20 who can't help laughing hysterically over the sheer mention of the passage of gas? : /

True story:

(*Standing in a crowded, immobile high school hallway after lunch. The air is heavy and humid from the swarms of bodies pressing in from every side. Britt farts. Not the usual innocuously silent fart. The Secret Weapon. It seems the body whips this one out during "that time." This thing could poison a prison full of cockroaches. After an atomic bomb had finished everything else off.)

Leslie: "Oh man, somebody farted."

Britt: "Yeah."

Leslie: (turning a shade of green, the apparent effects of aforementioned poisoning) "Man, it's killing me."

Britt: "Yeah, uh, that's hORrible."