Your passport photo makes you look like a serial killer.

Heehee! Heehee!

If you finished reading the latest Thomas King novel, you'd get the reference. For the record - a pleasure to read. Beyond expectations.

I started another book but was liking it so much that I've put a bookmark in it to save it for my vacation. I'm at that point where I will only read mediocre fiction until I am lying on a beach, slathered in politically-incorrect tanning oil, and wearing an embarassingly large pair of sunglasses and a shockingly small bikini.

So. Passport photos.

I feel as though I need to rewind. I have decided that from the beginning, this is a blog about me and only me, I do not share other people's stories. I make the odd reference, but privacy is sacred. Not mine - mine is non-existent in this forum. But other people's privacy... well, I try and respect that. Boring, I know.

Last night, I had a fight. I had a fight like no other I have had before. I fought with a friend. Can anyone else here relate when I say that I've never *really* duked it out with anyone other than a boyfriend (read: romantic partner)? I thought it would be different, but the absence of sex doesn't really change the fact that it is scary, heartbreaking, awful on SO many levels, and absoultely debilitating. This story does actually have a happy ending, by the way.

We worked it out, and I truly feel that said friend and I are stronger for it. And unlike most of my romantic relationships, present excluded, I actually feel like we worked it out without me turtling. A nice term for apologizing over and over and taking back everything I said, pretending I didn't mean it, and trying to please please please. Obviously I said things I didn't mean and apologized for them, but what it came down to was that it was a really liberating day for me. Awful in every way, but liberating. Why is it that there has to be the good with the bad? Why can't there just be the good? Ah well. Symmetry, I guess.

Long story short, I feel so open and honest and real with this person. I thought I was before, but I never realized I wasn't 100% until yesterday. I was only working at about 95% honesty. Anyways. It was a learning experience that we went through together.

Last night I cried. I cried like I haven't cried in a long, long, time. My boyfriend has made mention before at my inability (strong word, mine not his) to cry. But I'm on some pretty strong meds that work really well at suppressing feelings of anxiety. Unfortunately, strong feelings such as sadness, though they exist, are harder to bring to the surface level. But when I cry, I CRY. Something I never really experienced before the past two years. I used to cry often, but for small periods of time. Last night I sobbed until my body could no longer produce liquid. And though it was under awful circumstances, I'm not going to lie, it was overdue.

The idea that a pill changes my being like that scares me. Sure, it changes my levels of anxiety and depression and because that's good, I don't doubt its effectiveness. But when it comes to things like feeling severe sadness and not being able to express it... that's when the effects of a single pill really becomes clear. And a little startling.

Wait, I was going to try to make this story more interesting and funny. Yes. Passport photos.

After my night of emotional release, I woke up this morning feeling drained, sick, but motivated. I took everything on my to-do list that I have been avoiding for stupid reasons, and I went and DID them. One of those things was renewing my passport before it expires and I'm left with going through some shit-show to get a new one.

In my enthusiasm to be productive, I ran out of the house, toothbrush going as I threw on my shoes, without looking in a mirror. Or showering. Or putting on deodorant. And trust me, after the night sweats I have, that is a serious exclusion. I shopped, I photocopied, I gassed the car, I went in to get my passport photo taken and then realized, hmm. This is a photo to last five years. And there is no mirror in this store.

I thought that the only passport photo caveat was to not smile. Turns out you must also remove your necklace, and tuck your limp, greasy, sweaty, unmaintained, three-days before a dye-job hair BEHIND your ears. Oh, and not smile. And then they show you the photo. Oh, the photo.

My first comment was: "Yup. I look like a serial killer, must be a proper pasport photo. Looks good to me." My second comment was: "Maybe I should have re-thought the grey Fruit of the Loom tank top, which doesn't really make the serial killer thing less prominent."

I don't know what, if any, point there is to this story. But if I am to take anything from it, it will be...

1) If you are incapable of crying and only do so once every two months, just stay home the next day. For the love of god, take your sluggy eyelids and go back to bed.

2) There is always time to apply deodorant. A rule I believe is universal beyond this story, after years of waitressing.

3) If you need to have your passport photo taken, for the love of all that is good in this world: run a comb through your hair, wear a shirt that cost you more than $1.50, cover your tattoos (it will pay off in the long run) and LOOK IN A MIRROR.

Signing off as someone who has resigned herself to the next five years of being strip searched at the border...

PS