I was standing in line at the grocery store this morning with several people behind me, and as I was checking out we all heard an ear-splitting shriek from a nearby aisle--obviously a child highly displeased with something or someone in his or her environment. "Sounds like someone needs a nap," I commented. "Or a spanking," someone else muttered. Just then there was another, louder, angrier shriek.

"A spanking," several people agreed in unison.

Well, the conditions that kept me from competing in the June contest are still persisting, and so I have decided to not do the August show either. I'm pretty darn miserable--both with the problems I'm experiencing, and also with the fact that I've been forced to abandon my competitive efforts for this season. I don't feel like I've failed--I mean, look at how much I transformed my body! But, it was a serious bummer when I heard from people who attended the June contest that I'd have had solid chance at winning. Sigh!

On the other hand, I did get a real warm fuzzy tonight when I got a phone call from the contest promoter checking to see how I was doing. I'd spoken to him right before the June contest when I had to drop out of the show, and he wanted to see if I was doing any better and if I was going to do any other contests this season. Unfortunately I had to tell him that no, things weren't better and had actually gotten a bit worse and thus I had made the decision to not stress myself any more and not compete this season. However, it was a serious ego-lift to get a call like that. Still made me feel good that they were checking on me--and Mom pointed out that it probably meant that they figured I had potential to do well in the sport and was worth following up on.

So, there's next year. In the meantime I plan on getting into some dance lessons (so that I don't have such a shitty routine next year!) and working on my flexibility. And also next year I won't be dealing with trying to lose 45 pounds of fat to get ready for the contests.

No, I'm not going into detail in this extremely public forum about "the conditions." I'll just say that I'm seeing a doctor, it's totally non-life-threatening, it's very uncomfortable, and it's just plain icky. (This falls under the "at my discretion" part on my journal front page.) (No, it's not an STD... I'd have to have a sex-life for that!!)