I'm here! I haven't disappeared! I swear!

Wow. I've disappeared for longer than I had thought.

Things have just been INSANE. This is the second year in a row where I've produced a play for the Philly Fringe Festival. It's an amazing experience, but it's a lot of work. This year was really successful, at least in my eyes. I rented Studio 5 at the Walnut Street Theatre (which is the oldest theatre in the country). It's a 52 seat black box theatre. I've been working on this since February. Falling Gnome Productions, my company, was founded to basically produce my work. This year's show was REALLY good. I figured I'd show a few pictures from the show.

(I'm hiding behind the red arm chair - next year I won't feel obligated to hide!!!)

I love working on my shows, but I'm crazy exhausted. Worst part? I go back to class this week. (My school is on quarters - summer term ends in early September and fall term begins late September.) At least this is SENIOR YEAR. I'll be finished. Best part? I'll be skinnier when I finish college than when I started. In 9 months (or a little less) I'll hopefully have lost another 40 to 50 pounds and I'll amazing and I won't be scared to start Grad school or move out or anything.

I've been amazed at how good I feel though. Energy. I can walk up and down stairs without getting too winded. I feel great walking around the city again! It had been really hard for me to walk. Anything from walking through a parking lot to walking city blocks to get around - I could barely do it 7 months ago. I feel so great now. It's ridiculous how much better I feel. 

Argh. I hate my back and legs.

It's 3:30 in the morning and I woke up a half hour ago with incredibly bad leg pain. 

I use to get this more than I have recently. I have two herniated discs in my lower back, and in addition to back pain, it usually causes some super annoying leg pain. And it decided to do that tonight, a night where I had gone to bed early and was attempting to get a good night's sleep.

After a few minutes of tossing and turning, I went to the bathtub. Usually, if I soak my legs in REALLY REALLY REALLY hot water, it'll help for a little bit. I guess it relaxes the nerves. Tonight, it did nothing. Great.

So I'm sitting here, wondering if I'll ever get back to sleep. Tonight was suppose to be the first night back on a better sleeping schedule. Apparently my body had other plans.

At least I'm being semi-productive. I had to send a few emails, so I did that. I think I'm going to try to get back to sleep. Tylenol first? Sounds like a plan.

You know, I think the worst part of this is that the doctors said it would get better as I lost weight. The less pressure on my spine would elevate a lot of the pain. 44 pounds down and the pain is still there. That's a significant amount! I wanted that to help! A lot of the reason I did all of this was to help the pain I've been having. I wanted to see results. I thought I was well on my way. It's very discouraging. 

Ugh. I'm going back to bed. Hopefully it's better in the morning and I don't have to go to work like this. It makes sitting in a chair really hard, but standing is bad too. Too much of either one.