Just Friends

This Saturday, the girls and I got together to watch the movie "Just Friends" starring Ryan Reynolds (me-ow!) and Amy Smart. I was really not looking forward to this movie because it really didn't look that funny...but holy crap I was wrong. From the very beginning I was laughing so hard I cried. Picture this opening for those of you who haven't seen it; Ryan Reynolds in a fat suit pops up into the camera shot and starts lipsyncing to "I Swear" by All 4 One. His facial expressions killed me! If any of you are familiar with Ryan's work, he's typically the comedian...but he's sooooo good looking also (such a cute face...and his body's not too bad either); and that combination makes him all the more attractive. Check out that transformation!

The movie talks alot about "The Friend Zone" and how everyone has been there a few times. I know I have. I remember I had such a crush on this guy Adam in HS. I flirted with him constantly and always "just happened" to be everywhere he was. He finally called me up one day, and I thought, "this is it, he's finally going to ask me out!" No such luck...he had called to ask about my friend Beth and if I thought she would go for him. Dammit!

Back to the movie. Now Chris Brander, (played by Ryan), ends up losing a ton of weight in college and turns into a bit of a player. By doing so, he picks up on a few rules over the years that will guarantee keeping you out of the "friend zone":
1) avoid lunch dates at all cost
2) act completely aloof during the date
3) always kiss the girl at the end no matter what...because friends don't kiss

I think I'm going to agree with these things except for number 2. A guy that acts completely disinterested during the whole date will definitely not be going on a second date with me. But taking me to dinner as opposed to lunch definitely puts more of a "date" feeling to the mood, and a guy that has the confidence to kiss me at the end (assuming I've had a good time, of course) definitely gets my vote.

In fact, I have several friends right now that have been put in the "Friend Zone"; mostly because they lack the confidence to get out of it. How sad :(

On Friday night, Jill, Lynn, Jenn, Nina, and I all went to The Melting Pot for dinner. We had a blast (like always) and ate our weight in fondue. Here are some shots of the evening:
Notice the shot of the damage we did to the table...yikes! We gave the waitress a generous tip for having to clean up after us.

Ok, so I didn't tell you guys the big news about my running yet! So I woke up at 7am on Saturday to drag my sleepy ass out to the Cocoa Y for an 8am 5K run. I'm not normally a morning runner, but I was curious about the running club, so I thought I would do a check-it-out-thing just this once. There were probably about 10 of us there and it was about 50 degrees out (bbrrrrr!) Jeff is the head of the club, and he said he would stay back with me this time to keep me going. I warned him that I could only run about 4 minutes before I had to walk for 1...he just looked at me and said, "Rene', just stay with me", and then took off running. He ran a good 15 feet ahead of me and had his music turned up loud, so if I wanted to yell at him that I needed to stop, he couldn't hear me...so I just kept running. I actually ran for 17 minutes straight! I've never done that before! I didn't know I had it in me! I finally started walking for about a minute and a half, and then picked it right back up again. I stopped again for another minute at about the 25 minute mark. There was only one more time that I needed to stop, and I did a 15 second rest before we increased our pace all the way to the end. I even passed Jeff at the very end (hehehe). Ok, so I DID feel like I was going to puke after that speed increase, and my lungs were burning from the cold air, but it all quickly went away after some walking around. But the best part about this story is my time. I cut off a full 7 minutes off my personal best time! Before Saturday, I was at 39:36; after Saturday, I went down to 33:12!! Wow! I called Jenn that morning and told her the good news. She was so inspired by my time cut, that she went out and ran 2 miles by her house in like 22 minutes! She ran for like 19 minutes straight herself! I'm so impressed with us. We'll see if we can do it again on the treadmills tonight at the gym.

So no crazy dates this weekend, sorry to report. It was a lazy, relaxing weekend. The only other news to report is that I finally did my taxes, and I got to dye my hair. So I am now a red-head again :)