Seven Things Meme

Woot, last day of NaBloPoMo. It's not impossible to come up with a post a day, but I think my quality suffers a little some days. Quality? It's a freaking online diary! Ha. Anyway, Zombie Mom (aka BWB) tagged me to do a seven random things about me meme, which I think will be a good way to close out the month. Happy December!

1. I have come up with another title for this blog and am thinking of renaming it in the New Year, but I'm not totally sure I'm going to do that.
2. My math score was 20 points higher than my verbal score on the SAT, but I still chose to major in American Literature. I am pretty sure my GRE scores had even more of a disparity. Despite my supposed math skills, I can get easily confused when speaking of numbers out loud in trying to figure out the number of digits. I might very well call 10,000 1,000 if I'm not paying attention. And I never balance my checkbook.
3. I was an extra in a made-for-TV movie when I was a kid. It was called Lois Gibbs & The Love Canal (and no, it wasn't a porn movie) and I was dressed up as an owl and stood next to one of the real actors on stage. When I later heard of the concept of having fifteen minutes of fame, I was really bummed out that I had spent mine dressed like a freaking bird and singing.
4. My high school crush is on Facebook now and I'm considering stalking him and trying to hookup with him, but I think that's a pretty bad idea. Despite the fact that he does look older and has lost some hair, I'm still intrigued by him.
   
5. I spend way too much time flirting on IM at work, and really, I don't give a toss. I do think that if I did end up with a boyfriend, flirting on IM would be a daily requirement of our relationship. Maybe.
6. I bruise really easily and right now, I have a ton of weird bruises on my legs. I think this was from wandering around IKEA and also from moving a bunch of boxes around to get my ex's stuff down to the garage. It seems like I can barely brush against something and I end up with big bruises.
7. The photo I took of Michael Emerson is now up on a fan site.
   

Dating Whine

I usually prefer to follow a downer post like yesterday's with something a bit more positive, but sometimes, the universe throws you a curve ball. Or in the case of last night, something of a spit ball. I went on a date with a guy I've seen twice before. He's someone that I find smart and funny, really enjoy talking too, kissed him on our last date and that was nice, yadda yadda. Well anyway, towards the end of our third date, he told me that he really liked me, however he has issues about dishonesty and felt like I was a deceitful person because my online picture and my real life appearance were discordant when he first met me. Yes, that was our first meeting which was sometime before I went to Europe, and we had gone out on dates a few times since then. He said that he had been running everything I said through a filter of thinking that maybe I was deceitful. And I should have mentioned in the early communications with him that I didn't look like my online photo, or something of a disclaimer, but the fact that I didn't meant deceit to him and he couldn't trust me. But he continued to be interesting in dating me anyway, I guess, or at least, went on a few more dates with me.

What do you think? Seriously. This whole thing has kind of taken me for a loop in a lot of ways, because I have no idea what is going on here. I don't really think I look that different from the photo, but it was from before I met my ex, so it's about five years old. I know sometimes when you are meeting people online, you get expectations of what they are like and then you meet them in person and they aren't like that, but usually then you will decline to see them again.

I should not say, yet again, that I'm giving up dating, but stuff like this, makes me wonder why I'm bothering. I think that I am not deceitful, in fact, I think I'm very honest (perhaps too much so), and with this particular individual, I even told him stuff about my life that probably wasn't very positive, but it was what was going on through my head. And after he told me that, I thought of every thing I said, in a different way, thinking, oh maybe he reads this blog, or maybe there's something else going on. Bleh, must turn the brain off. I think I'll spend some time staring off into space this weekend, and putting together my IKEA furniture (with help from VF), and just detox a little.

Like A Gray Blanket

I found myself feeling depressive this afternoon at work. I started realizing I was having these negative thoughts, that turned into cognitive distortions. That's the way it starts, you start believing the lies of the inner critic, and before you know it, you're curled up in a corner somewhere, sobbing your eyes out. Or whatever it is that you do. I'm not even sure if I have a depression behavior other than withdrawing and sleeping. I'm glad I don't drink and don't do drugs, because those would cause other problems. But still, it's impossible to cope with, this mountain of vile words inside my head, going back and forth until I believe them.

I spent two years in my twenties thinking I'd never have sex again. Seriously. That I was dumped, that I would never have sex again. Much less have anyone love me again. Ridiculous? Yes, totally, but at the time, it became my mantra. That I was unlovable. That I had had one chance at love and had somehow blown it (never mind the fact that he was the one who had brain surgery and then decided he didn't love me anymore), and at the age of twenty-five, I was doomed to be alone. For two years, I thought this. And I didn't even know what the problem was then, why I had these negative thoughts that never left me.

In therapy, they talk a bit about the inner critic, and identifying and silencing that voice. I recognize most of where my inner critic comes from, my dad's mother who was at times a great grandmother, but as I got older, she got more and more hateful. I wasn't good enough. I wasn't pretty enough, wasn't nice enough, wasn't thin enough. No one would ever love me, she'd say, not if I didn't lose weight, if my skin didn't clear up, if I wasn't in shape. And even after having had people who love me for whom I am, I still believed this voice. It was always my fault, something I did, something I lacked, and I just wasn't perfect enough. If only I had controlled myself better, acted better, been that "right" person that everything comes out right for.

This is bullshit. There's no "right" person. I'm not perfect. No one else is. I have my faults, just as other people do, but I can't just see my faults when I look at myself. I can't spend two years having irrational fears that turn into cognitive distortions, not again. I can't turn the other cheek to this, to allow it to continue, because it's like swallowing a poison that kills you slowly, where you don't realize you are dying but you just fade away.

I can't guess the future. I can't spend hours nitpicking the past, ruminating over it and thinking I should have done better. I will strive to recognize these negative thoughts before they take over, before they descend on my mind. I look through the list of the 10 types of cognitive distortions, and realize I've done a few of them today. I can't turn my brain off, but I can reroute it in a more productive manner. One thought at a time.

My Half-Birthday!

Today is my half birthday. I was looking to see if I wrote about this subject last year, and I didn't. I did write an after-Thanksgiving with the ex's family post. I know I've probably said it a billion times, but I'm relieved I didn't have to go to that this year. Okay, enough on that subject.

Anyway, it's my half-birthday, and when I was a kid, we would actually celebrate my half-birthday. Not like I'd have a huge party or anything, but some recognition of the date would be apparent. Occasionally, I'd get a half-dollar or something. I am now realizing that my parents probably talked about my half-birthday to teach me about fractions or counting months, but at the time, it seemed like a legitimate holiday. I always loved my birthday and never felt like once a year was enough to contain all the festivities. Even as I age, I still love having my birthday. So, this is the halfway point until my birthday. When I was a kid, I would start thinking about my birthday party at this point, but my mom wouldn't really let me talk about it until late April.

This blogging every day thing is a bit much. I'm glad I only have a few more days left of it. A few days, I felt like I was just churning stuff out, and had to sneak in time when my mom was there. I would say I feel like I have more free time now, but being at work, I really don't feel that way. How many more days until Friday?

Having My Cake

Pictured is a ginormous leftover piece of chocolate cake from Maggiano's on my new smaller plate. I could only eat about half of it, but I figured it looked good on the plate. Oh, and more sudafed because I'm still sick. Or sick again? I'm not really sure. I originally got out the big plate for leftover chicken cacciatore but ended up using a pasta bowl for that, so my first meal on my new dishes was chocolate cake. Yum.

I'm quite exhausted at the moment, and not just from eating a huge amount of cake. I realize that I have had very little quiet time in the last week. I admit, I had a great time with my mom out here, but at times, I just wanted to be in silence. And not doing anything. And not getting advice on how I can be living my life better. Ha, I love my mom, but having the door open for her to tell me what all is wrong with my life and what could be improved is a dangerous thing. Once than switch was turned on, it was hard for her to turn it off. Now, I have that feeling I had when she first dropped me off in college, oh was there some important life lesson I missed? Followed by the feeling, hey, I can do whatever the hell I want now. Viva la freedom!

Live, From The Trenches

Wow, IKEA around the holidays is mad. Then again, I'm just plain exhausted. We started our day by going to Costco to look at their plates, and I ended up seeing this 2 piece suitcase set that I had wanted to buy before my trip to Europe, but then decided on the other, ill-fated suitcase. Anyway, so I bought this cool luggage set. It's made by Swiss Army and it's purple, and it was $20 off the original price. Or maybe $30 off. Anyway, I have a smaller suitcase than the behemoth I went to Europe with and a matching duffel, and it's in a great color.

Then, we went to IKEA. And we found that the bedroom set I had ordered was totally available in store. Oh, I did also find a better bed frame. It's called Ramberg and it's even cheaper than the Malm bed frame, and I like the shape of it more. Also, I got two small chest of drawers in Malm, and one larger one. Then, I found a cool coffee table for my entry, so I can stop just throwing my purse on the floor when I walk in the door and put a lamp down there. Then I pondered over the whole dishes thing before getting this basic set in white. I also got some small bowls, and a few really decorative bowls that aren't pictured on the website and I'm too damned lazy to get the camera out. I think I eat more out of bowl than on plates anyway. I am looking forward to having my first meal on my new dishes soon.

We had dinner at Maggiano's and ended up getting most of it free because my mom disliked her entree. Our waitress and the chef were very apologetic, and my mom left a huge tip.

It's Ovah!

The ex moved everything out today. I couldn't have done this without my mom's help. It actually only took an hour because his sister and her new boyfriend helped him. And my mom and I had thrown much of the stuff all in one room. It's done. I'm now the proud real owner of a dining set that was supposedly a family heirloom that no one wants. And now, I'm also the proud owner of no dishes at all. That is, no bowls, no plates, no ramekins, and no small plates. I guess I'm going to be eating out for a while, ha. Oh yeah, and he took all his drinking glasses too. I have a few which I'll have to move to a lower shelf, using a stepladder. And tomorrow, at the age of 34 (and a half, almost!) I will be buying my first set of dishes. I got a set of hand-me-downs from my dad and then I used that until the ex moved in with me. And the ex's stuff was nice, but now, I can pick out whatever I want. Yay.

The Good, The Bad, and the Eh

The ex's sister ended up calling us back, and she arranged with himm so that he's going to get all of his stuff out of my apartment tomorrow. Do you want to read the post where I talked about breaking up with him in April? Yeah, it's been almost eight months. And he's done a few passes through, trying to collect crap, but honestly until my mom came this week, he has had crap in every single room. Now, we moved almost all of it into the kitchen or my garage, and hopefully tomorrow it will all be out the door. Anyway, I am extremely optimistic that this will be the end of things. As my mom says, anything he leaves is mine. Hello yard sale.

The bad is that the lovely bedroom set I wanted, well, one of the items wasn't available from IKEA so they put the whole thing on hold. We are going back up there on Sunday so that will give me another chance to look at stuff and see what is in stock, and of course, buy more crap. Yay. It is disappointing that the chest of drawers that I liked wasn't available, but who knows, maybe it's available in different colors. Or I will like something better. Or I will steal the floor model and carry it home. Yeah right.

The eh is that I feel sick again today. Sick again? Sick still? I'm not sure, but I woke up with a sore throat. The worst is that my mom is also feeling sick. I feel pretty guilty about that since thus far I didn't think I'd infected anyone with this cold, but who knows. Maybe she infected me with something else. Yes, that's the ticket. I keep hoping one of these days I'll feel 100% again.

Waiting

Sitting at my mom's friend's rented cottage waiting for my mom and her friend to get back. They were supposed to bring me breakfast and go see her friend's new place, and it's been over two hours. I know my mom is going to miss this friend a lot, so I figured them spending time together is good, but now I'm hungry.

We went to this restaurant last night for Thanksgiving dinner. I had the steak, my mom had the salmon, and her friend was the only one who ordered the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It's not that I dislike turkey, but it's definitely not my first choice. In fact, I would have picked almost everything else on the menu other than the turkey because all the other choices sounded better to me. I liked having Thanksgiving at a restaurant. No waiting around for hours for turkey to cook, no dishes to clean up. It always seems like Thanksgiving is such a big production, even for a small group. I didn't mind not having to wash dishes.

I am guessing that we're not going to make it to Zachary's today since they close around 2, but I am sure I'll come up with something else in Santa Cruz.

Thanks, and Post #400

This month of NaBloPoMo has pushed me to write something every day. And I've done it so far. This is my four hundredth post. I don't have a lot of time to write because we are heading to Pacific Grove soon, and my mom is haranguing me about doing more stuff, since little was accomplished yesterday. However, we did go through several boxes today and that was a good thing.

Things I am thankful for:

1. Despite this ongoing cold, I will say that I am exceptionally healthy for someone who has lazy exercise and diet habits. Yay for good health.
2. My cats.
3. My family, and having my family far enough away most of the time.
4. Having a job, having a college education, having an apartment of my own. Having enough money to do things like go to Europe last month.
5. Having good friends.
6. Living in California where the weather is good most of the time.

That's what I can think of right now. There are so many other things for which I'm thankful, including not spending Thanksgiving with the ex's family. One of the best Thanksgivings we had together was a few years ago, when we went to Las Vegas. It was quiet and fun. And then a few weeks after we got back, Kiki came to live with me. Next month, she'll have been with me for two years. Last year, at Thanksgiving, we had the meal over at his sister's house, and it was the usual drunken stupidity. And they put water chestnuts in the stuffing which is not how my mom makes it, so it never tasted quite right. I joke that I'd like to date an orphan who is an only child, but really, it's hard dealing with someone else's family for holidays. Particularly if they are drunken and neurotic like the ex's. I didn't care so much what I did this Thanksgiving, even if I were home alone, it would be better than that. I'm thankful that phase of my life is coming to a close and more of his stuff will leave my apartment the next time I go downstairs.

Hanging By The Telephone

Hrm, so I've left messages for my ex the last few days, and he hasn't called me back. So today, my mom called and left a message for his sister. We'll see if that turns up any results. I know firsthand how good he is at dodging calls and procrastinating shit, but this is too annoying. I realize it's been almost 8 months since we broke up and he still has all this crap here like he's expecting to move back in any day. I let him stay at my house a little while I was in Europe, thinking he'd move stuff out, and the opposite happened.

My mom got me a bedroom set from IKEA called Malm. I got a big chest of drawers, a few smaller ones, and a bed frame. We looked at it in the store and I just ordered it online. I also noticed that they now have a black cover for my couch. They had a couch just like mine with the black cover for half of what I paid for it in the As-Is section. That section is just at the end of the store before the cash registers, and it's always so tempting. Some stuff, you can tell that it was scratched or something, but I'm not sure about the rest. I would guess some are floor models or whatever. I've seen some really well-priced leather couches there.

Tomorrow, we're going to have Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's friend who just moved to Pacific Grove, and then spending the night. On Friday, we'll drive up on Highway 1 and go to Santa Cruz, hopefully going to my favorite brunch place, or maybe the really good Greek restaurant. Hmm. I had a huge Indian buffet lunch with Heather today but I'm already thinking about my next meal.

The Kind Of Crap That Only Happens To Me

This whole blogging during my mom's visit is a bit of a time-crunch. I feel like having someone around means I have less free time to do stuff like read other blogs, to write in my own blog, to deal with my emails. Is this what living with someone was like? I guess so. But there is no downtime at work when I can do nothing but surf the web.

Anyway, last night, we went to this fast food Indian place around the corner from my house. We were sitting there, waiting for our food, and this guy came up and started smiling at me and asking how I was doing. Like he knows me. And I'm thinking, oh crap, this is some guy that I've gone out with in the last few months and I have no idea whom he is, and here he is, talking to me, and I'm going to have to introduce him to my mom. Then thankfully, he asked me if I was still going to Jazzercise and then introduced himself by name to my mom. Oh yeah, not someone I had gone out with. I was totally relieved. My mom said I had looked like I was totally panicking before I said his name. And that, my friends, is the kind of problem you have when you go on too many damned dates.

If I Had A Hammer

Today was Day One of let's get my life organized, courtesy of my mom. I probably have needed something like this for a long while, someone to kick my ass a little bit into working getting rid of some of the ex's shit and getting my apartment (and therefore, my life) more organized. For instance, we got some things for me to hang up my shoes in the closet at IKEA. Also, I got some tacks and whatnot to hang up my pictures in my apartment. Yes, I've been here almost a year and a half and haven't hung up any of my pictures. So now all I need to do is find my hammer, and I can start putting stuff up on the walls. I forgot what cool pictures I have to hang up. Already having the things sitting by the wall makes me feel like I'm in more of a home.

I think that getting my ex's stuff out of my place is going to be the absolute best thing for me. This whole breakup process, which really happened quickly in a lot of ways, has been kind of long and drawn out in others. Having all his crap around here has created a weird situation when I have people over, and really, not having my posters up too makes it seem like I'm just passing through here. Dagny is talking about settling into her apartment and setting stuff up, and I'm doing the same kind of thing now too. Getting rid of crap I don't want, the ex's crap, and moving forward with my life. Now I need to go downstairs and get that hammer so I can put the pictures up.

Tired

Tired now, but I know, I know, I have to come up with a blog post for today. Yesterday, drove up to SFO and picked up my mom, her friend, and her cat, and then we drove down to Pacific Grove. I forgot to bring my camera, unfortunately. But since it was totally fogged in, not much to see. Her friend had a really great cabin to stay in by the beach. She's moving into a place there in a few days, wanted to get into town first. Thankfully her cat wasn't too overwhelmed by the travel.

Today, my mom and I went to Gilroy Outlets on the way back, and just got back in time for The Simpsons.

Public Transportation

Don't have much time for a blog entry today, so I'll post some random photos from my trip. The first is a photo from the London Underground train I was on. I know, it's not really focused and all that, but it's kind of interesting anyway having a candid shot of random strangers.

The second photos is the Paris Metro, in transit. When you'd be standing there waiting for your metro train, another one would go by, and there would be all kinds of interesting people on it. People kissing, people fighting, people in fancy clothes and people wearing crappy clothes. It was really fascinating, a cross-section of ordinary people in Paris.

My mom is coming into town today, so I'm picking her up at SFO this afternoon, which abbreviates my usual Saturday. I should go into the Humane Society for a few hours, but I'm having a hard time motivating this morning. But, I'll do it anyway knowing that I don't have to stay too long.

It's This Or Leeches

I went to Cost Plus yesterday. I was initially just going to Petsmart to buy some supplies for myself and also for my mom's friend's cat. Her friend is moving here from the east, and needed to have a temporary litter box for her cat. I'm also fetching them at the airport on Saturday. Anyway, I went to Cost Plus and got some chocolates, some packets of Indian food, a toy for the cats, and this detox tea. They had a couple of different versions, but I bought the cheapest one. Since I still continue to feel sickly, despite taking Airborne, despite taking sudafed, I figure that I need to detoxify somehow. I do keep thinking of doing that all lemon-juice with cayenne and honey diet that my friend Lucie recommended, but that's going to take more energy to throw together than I have at the moment. Also, I need to pick a week in which I won't really want to eat much. Probably after the holidays.

The detox tea smells really disgusting, but it actually tastes pretty good. It's supposedly Chinese medicinal herbs, so it's supposed to help my chi as well as detoxify me. Do I feel extra chi now? Well, no more so than any other Friday at work, but I've only had a cup so far. I'm not sure how many cups it will take for the full effects to present themselves. Quite frankly, I would rather be going to a spa than drinking the tea, but then again, this is a lot cheaper. We'll see how this goes.

Now For Something Completely Different, Again

Seriously, I talk about a lot of the same shit here all the time. Work sucks, boys suck, I'm sick, wah wah. I have been feeling like I'm in Groundhog Day, living the same day over and over again. The cool thing about that though is that by the end, he has learned something. Maybe I will too. Anyway, I figured it was a good day for a break from soul-searching and took a random quiz. I recommend this one because it's super easy, just pick a picture that you like.

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system. And while this may not seem big, it can be. It's people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes. You're just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Meet The New Boss

Our organization at work is incredibly top-heavy. And the management is incredibly loud. For the rest of the week here, all of the management is on "away team" to some conference somewhere. Yes, all of the management. Including my boss, and the woman who goes around bossing everyone around, and the director and everyone. So where is my badge? It's not around my neck, I tell you what. I am reveling in the badgeless freedom!

The funny thing that I think most of the managers don't realize is that we do get more work done in general when they aren't here. Less stress. Less of the micro-management and people looking over our shoulders. Admittedly, there are plenty of people who are using the opportunity to sit around and talk. But even with that, it still isn't as loud as it would be with some of the managers. Like the one who laughs like the Wicked Witch of the West. Or the really loud manager who hires really loud people and they have really loud staff meetings. Or my boss, walking by and glaring to make sure I'm still working hard. And the answer is, no, I'm hardly working. Har har.

The dental thing was fine, though once again, my dentist brought up me having my front teeth fixed. Uh, they are fine. I should take a photo of just my smile and post it here to get opinions. Quite frankly, even if my teeth were all over the place, I just don't see myself going through all that orthodontia shit again. What I did suggest is that I will Google my old orthodontist and we can go beat him up together. I am pretty sure that Dr. Z is now retired in Palm Springs or something. Oh wait, according to the web, he's still working. And he gave the Republican party $100 in 2004. Uhoh. I told ya he was evil.

Recommended Reading

I just finished the book Garnethill by Denise Mina the other week. It was a great read, suspenseful and page-turning. The book takes place in Glasgow. The heroine suffers from recurring bouts of depression after being molested as a child by her father. She spent some time in her twenties in a mental institution, and gradually has been on the road to recovery. Right now, I'm reading the second book, Exile, in which her father has returned after being away since she was ten. It's really interesting reading about this heroine, who by all accounts would be a unreliable narrator, and how she solves a crime that she is initially accused of. She drinks, she smokes, and sleeps around, and is generally honest and sane despite all the crap that has happened to her in the past.

I'm leaving work early for a dental appointment, and as usual, am looking forward to getting out of work, even if it is to go to the dentist. I will have to practice my usual mind tricks to keep them from trying to get me to spend money on procedures I don't need. I can use my new monetary excuse, it's almost Christmas and I have to save my money for gifts.

Rest for the Weary

Even after sleeping a large amount this weekend, I still feel pretty wiped. Still, my ear isn't cleared and I still have some coughing and sneezing going on. I'd rather be at home. But it's Monday, and I would guess that most people would rather be at home. I am consoling myself with the fact that I'm taking all of next week off work. My mom is coming into town, and it's Thanksgiving. I'm not sure what exactly we are doing for Thanksgiving, but the cats will be happy if there is an extra drumstick for them to eat.

I just noticed during this cold that Sudafed changed their formula. That stuff has been the same little red pill since I was a kid, but now they've changed whatever the ingredient is. And the new name is similar. And I couldn't figure out for a while, why they would do that, why they would change up a product that has been on the market for so long and works just fine. Then, when I was at Target yesterday, I realized the reason. People were making meth out of Sudafed, so they changed the drug in it. I guess the 12-hour Sudafed still has whatever that ingredient is, as they were only selling it at the pharmacy. I got some of the new formulation. It seems to work about the same.

VF and I keep talking about whether or not we should get flickr pro accounts. They do let you have more than three categories. And upload more pictures than the regular account. And it's not that expensive. Anyone have any input?

Red Marble Dress

Going through my photos some more. I loved this statue at Musee D'Orsay. Dunno if you can tell, but her dress is made out of a patterned red marble, and the rest of her is a different color of marble. Confession, I love love love marble. I like those patterns that are a mix of colors.

I just spent over an hour cleaning my house, including cleaning bathroom floors and surfaces. I always have to clean up around Teddy's place mat since he has a bad habit of pulling the food out onto the floor before he eats it. The cats hate my cleaning sprees, particularly the vacuuming part, but I think it's better for all of us. Sometimes, it's the hard things that end up being worth it.

I found out that my friend Dennis and my mom are reading this blog. Or have read it. Interesting. I know some bloggers keep their blog totally private and anonymous, and others who give it out freely to everyone. I guess I've given mine out a lot, and often wonder who exactly is reading it at any one time. Hello all you anonymous visitors, friends, family, and stalkers.

R. I. P. B & B

I just found out today that these two wonderful black cat brothers who were adopted last summer, a few month after I got Teddy, were both killed this year. They were hit by cars, two months apart. I don't think the Humane society will be allowing these folks to adopt again. It's really sad because these two guys were just those totally special lovable cats, and as six month old cats were very mellow and easy going. They were maybe a few months older than Teddy. Rest in Peace, little guys.

Co-Dependent No More, Maybe

Sadly, I couldn't find the video of this Oingo Boingo song, "Not My Slave," that has been in my head the last day. Nor is it on the one CD I have. I have no idea where my tapes are. Anyway, I had these lyrics in mind:

With sadness in my heart and clouds in my head
I thought about us both and the lives we led.
The pages on a book and pictures on a screen
We shape ourselves like clay from someone else's dream.

I have been back and forth with all my attitudes with dating this week. It really does seem to vary day by day, depending on how things seem to be going at any point. And most of that is about outside forces, people contacting me and trying to ask me out. I think the whole idea of developing a relationship with myself or whatever it was, that's a little overly simplistic. But I do think what I need to do is develop a way of self-reassurance that has nothing to do with other people.

I really do think that we are all a bit co-dependent in one way or another. That is, we put up with things because we love people, we sometimes will suck in our anger instead of creating arguments, we enable bad behaviors... Okay, I shouldn't say everyone, but you know what I mean. The more time I spend away from my ex, the more I realize that I was always enabling his bad behaviors. And how I don't want to do that again. I'm sure I will, to some degree, but never to that degree. I remember swallowing my anger with him frequently. And I don't need to do that, to be dishonest with my self and my feelings.

Anyway, I had a date with a guy last night that I kind of liked. Not perfect obviously, but I wouldn't mind getting to know him better, if he's interested. But who knows. The more dates I go on, the more I feel like we're all just kind of stumbling blindly through this "Mating Game." As my date said last night, without alcohol, half of the children wouldn't be born in the first place.

Home Sick

That's the Eiffel Tower in the background, by the way. I never made it to the Eiffel Tower, but I've been to the one in Las Vegas.

I'm at home sick today. Am I more sick than yesterday? Perhaps not, but I am sick of being sick, and of going into work while I'm sick. And having to talk all day and act all perky. I woke up, called in sick, fed the cats, and went back to sleep. Until 1:30 PM. Seriously. Don't hate me because I'm well rested.

This blogging every day thing is a little hard. I was going to blog about what I'm going to do this weekend, but since I'll be blogging every day of the weekend, I can get into that at that point.

Triumph of the Consumer

Remember when I wrote about my new suitcase? I'm not sure yet if in my stages of talking about my trip if I pointed out how much said suitcase weighed, and what a pain in the ass it was lugging it around. Or bitching about the death marches that my lovely travel companion took me on with that suitcase. I remember the day that we got to Paris. At the airport, I started feeling horridly sick. Then we took the train, supposedly to near our apartment, but it ended up stopping randomly at Gare du Nord because of a strike, so we took the Metro to the station near our apartment. The Metro was always super-packed anyway, much less with the 50+ lb suitcase. It was around that time that the handle stopped retracting, or rather, it got stuck in the out position. So, I had to drag it through cobblestone streets to our apartment. Annie said at one point she looked back and thought I looked like I was going to die. I moved the suitcase around a little during our stay in Paris, but couldn't get the handle to retract. Finally, before we were leaving the apartment, we knew it would have to be in the down position to check-in to the flight. So Annie hit it several times with a wood cutting board to get it to go down, and told me I should just take the suitcase back to Costco when I got home.

Last night, I returned it. I still had the original box, so I shoved it in that. And I got a FULL refund. How cool is that, seriously? It was like getting a dress for a special event then returning it the next day. I got full use out of that suitcase (though admittedly it would have been nice if it had continued to be easy to roll by the handle) and then got all my money back. Of course, I proceeded to buy a bunch of stuff that I really need (well, I don't know if I really need the velour tracksuit, but I really wanted it) and spent all the money I got refunded. Still, a happy ending. I'm happy to never see that suitcase again. Next time I go to Europe, I'm bringing a smaller one.

Gotta Have Faith

"Well, I need someone to hold me, but I'll wait for something more."



This song has been repeating in my head a lot. Okay, it came out when I was in junior high, at one point when I did actually listen to Top 40 music. I remember a friend of mine from junior high, she had a birthday party and asked everyone who attended for the tape (remember tapes, so 80s!) of Faith, and ended up with eight copies. Yup. I forgot what a great ass George Michael has until I saw this video again.

Why is this relevant? I feel like I've hit a wall with dating lately. I passed the sixth month since I broke up with the ex, and I was thinking, yeah at six months, I'll have a new boyfriend. And I don't really have anything near that. I have a few things going on with guys I've met a few times, not sure where any of that is going. And sometimes, the meeting people for coffee and walking away without any connection gets me down. I was talking about it in therapy yesterday, and I realize that I tend to be judgmental of people that I meet, and I assume that they are judgmental of me in return, and that makes me feel bad. I was trying to tell my therapist that no matter how good your relationship with yourself is, if enough people are rejecting you, you are going to feel like crap. And really, I know I'm not being rejected by anyone specifically, it's more of a lack of connection between people.

I have jokingly said that dating is my hobby lately, and quite frankly, it's a shitty hobby. When I was in Europe, I didn't worry about it at all and just felt fine. I wasn't worried about my appearance, I wasn't focused on my flaws, and I wasn't wondering why "he" wasn't calling. (There's no "he" that this refers to.) I was just busy and having fun. Even when I was sick, I was having fun. But since I've been home, I feel like I'm just waiting for something fun to happen, to make a connection with someone. And instead of "developing a relationship with myself" as my therapist says I should do, I've been focusing on my flaws. Including my impatience. I want it now. I am the Veruca Salt of dating.

I think I need to let go of my impatience, my frustration, and to a certain degree, my desire for something to happen. I need to have faith instead that things are going in the right direction, that I am using this single time constructively, that some day I will be romantically involved with someone again, but there doesn't have to be a time-clock running on it. I've gotta have faith.

Watching TV Away From Home

Annie took this photo of our hotel room in London. She was standing in the hallway outside the room to get this picture. (Notice the ginormous suitcase on the very left, that was mine.) I think I've mentioned before how expensive London is and how we ended up with a tiny room with one double bed there.

What you can't see other than a black dot at the very top (next to the framed "artwork") is the small TV that was in the room. The funny thing about the TV was that it seemed to display 50 channels with the remote, however, there were only three different channels. It was all in English. That's the only thing I'd say for this TV. It was otherwise incredibly boring. I know that British TV is supposed to be so entertaining that we import their shows here, well, there is even the BBC America station on my cable box at home. But let me tell you, there was NEVER anything interesting on at all on those three stations. Oh and the TV had the worst picture ever. It made everyone look like their top of their heads were distorted if they were in the right spot, as though they were cone-heads. The good thing was that we did so much death marching (aka walking) when we were in London, that every night when we got back to the room, I just wanted to pass out from exhaustion. So the TV not having anything good, well, that was okay.

The apartment in Paris was different from the hotel room in London. It was what would be described as a small studio, but having the kitchenette really made it seem larger. The beds were pushed up against the walls, so there was plenty of room to flop about and store stuff. And the TV had cable. We must have had over a hundred channels, and they were all different. There were a few that were in English, including a version of CNN that was in American English. Oh and we had BBC.

My favorite channel was this one that had comedy shows. They seemed to play That 70's Show for hours at a time, sometimes in English, other times in French. I used to watch that show a little bit, when it first came out. But there was something very entertaining for watching it for hours at a time in France, particularly the days I was especially sick. I think Annie and I both knew enough French that we could follow some French TV, but we would usually look for shows that we had some knowledge of already. We saw an episode of Knight Rider, a Columbo movie, Bird on a Wire, and many episodes of Futurama en français. I love how they changed many of the voices, although the voices for That 70's Show were actually quite similar to their "normal" voices.

I know it seems kind of weird to talk about TV in Europe. Here I was, on this amazing trip, and I certainly spent a lot of time watching TV. I was sick, that was part of it, but also I missed being immersed in media. My infrequent internet cafe visits weren't enough to make me feel connected to the world at home. I needed to stare at the TV screen mindlessly. Yet strangely enough, I don't feel like watching TV at home. There are other things to do.

My Ears Are Poppin'

Taking a break from the trip stories. I have to do an entry about the television in Paris vs. England. I also have to talk more about stuff I liked while I was there, and bring up more photos. But later this week.

My ears are still driving me nuts. It was weird, I was feeling almost better on Sunday, then I went for a walk with this new guy, who I'll just call Knave, since that is in fact part of one of his online handles. Anyway, I was feeling fine and then, bleh, my ears started popping again. I called Kaiser today and talked to an advice nurse who basically said, well if there's no pain, just take some sudafed and call us back in a week or if there is pain. I don't know if I'd say there's pain but it's just uncomfortable, like my head is underwater all of the time. It's not really conducive to being awake, unfortunately, since I have to do a lot of that at work. Well, the day is nearing a close, ish. I can hang in for another hour and forty-five minutes (but who is counting, oh wait, I am counting).

Kiki did the cutest thing in the middle of the night. She got on my back and started massaging me and purring. It was kind of like acupressure because she had her claws out at times. It's hard to stay mad at a universe that has cats in it.

We'll Always Have Marbel

One of the things I love about Los Angeles is that you see celebrities. And how there is this whole cult of celebrity, how some people (well, mostly visitors) will go to specific restaurants or hot spots just to see celebrities. Of course, as they say in Us Magazine, celebrities are just like us. Imagine our surprise when we saw Michael Emerson at LAX.

For those of you unfamiliar with him, well, he's the bad guy on LOST. Bad guy is sort of relative in a way, considering the show portrays a range of conflicting views. Anyway, since I'm a huge fan of the show, I was totally amazed to see him waiting in front of one of the terminals. I didn't recognize him when we passed by, but Annie did. We were jokingly saying, oh let's go back, but with my 50 lb suitcase, I wasn't going anywhere.

After we got through the hell that is airport security, I decided I wanted a drink from Starbucks. And of course, who did we get in line behind other than Michael Emerson? Now, a really cool character would have probably said, "Hi, I like your work," or something like that, but instead I started talking loudly to Annie and ignoring him. We had a long discussion about what exactly we wanted from Starbucks, and I noticed that the marble cake was incorrectly labeled "marbel cake." Annie said, yes, that is MARBEL cake, something else entirely. Michael Emerson, who ordered the aforementioned cake, joined in on the conversation. He said, yes, it's cake actually from Marbel, a province in Germany. In a totally serious way. Because he's a very good actor. Yes, Michael Emerson was flirting with us. He looked directly at me with these blue eyes and joked with me. I said, "really?" And he said, "no."

Of course at no point did I say, "Hi, I like your work" or "what is going to happen with your character on the show?" Then he went off in his direction, and we went off towards our gate. But coincidentally, his gate was right near our gate, and he sat down to eat his "marbel" cake right near us. I wanted to take a photo of him but my hands were shaking too badly with nerves, so Annie snapped the picture above. He got on a plane to Honolulu, and we flew off to Europe. We joked that if we saw him at the airport when we got back, I'd have to talk to him. But we didn't.

Travel Injuries

I injured my finger our first night in London.

It was very easy for me to sleep on the flight out to London. We left LAX at about 6PM, and I had a few glasses of wine with dinner. Annie and I were lucky to have a four-person row to ourselves, so I stretched out and slept for many hours of the flight. By the time we got to London, it was the middle of the day. We set out to explore the neighborhood around our hotel.

The hotel itself was crappy, smaller than a New York City hotel room, but the area was fabulous. We were right in the middle of Kensington, near the Kensington Castle and Kensington Park. The first night, we walked to Kensington Park and back from our hotel. We ended up having a very expensive dinner at this place called Wagamama which had been touted as being cheap eats by Annie's guidebook. I am guessing it's comparatively cheap, because we ended up spending about $80 on dinner. I guess a large part of the expense was the large water bottle we ordered. They didn't seem to ever serve tap water in London at all (whereas in France, they did), and I was totally dehydrated from flying. It was delicious water. I'm pretty sure everyone in London is dehydrated and drinks more beer at pubs than fancy bottled water at restaurants.

After we walked back to our hotel, we decided to pay a visit to the pub that was across the street. There is definitely a pub protocol, not always broadcast, as to whether they will come to your table, or you have to get up and order. Annie and I were so relieved to sit, that we didn't realize that we had to go up and order for some time. As I adjusted my seat, I managed to wedge my middle finger in part of the chair, leaving the mark you see above. Annie was suggesting that I pop it with a needle, but we couldn't figure out how to sterilize the needle, and I figured it would just eventually scab off. The injury only hurt for the first day and the scab came off the last day in Paris. But it was so disgusting going around with that weird black mark on my finger that I had to take a photo to post here.

A Week Ago

I just signed up for NaBloPoMo which means I'll be blogging every day this month, hopefully. Woo hoo. I'm sure by the end of November, I'm going to be posting what I eat every day and boring ass crap like that. Three cheers for the web that allows for such excitement. In the future, we'll all have 15 mb of crap up here.

A week ago, I was at the Louvre. I can't believe a week has passed. So much of life seems ordinary. I saw a lot of really interesting things on my trip, but I didn't feel quite as overwhelmed and fundamentally changed by anything as I felt by the Louvre. I remember walking from room to room with my mouth open in shock. Every guide book talks about how the Louvre is just too immense and it's impossible to see everything in a day, but even seeing how gigantic it is on a map doesn't prepare you for how much stuff there is there. I had seen plenty of art in other museums, so I trekked down to the see the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian Antiquities. And I remember walking through room after room after room of Greek vases. The first room, I thought, damn I've never seen so many of those vases all in one places. And then I saw another room of them. And another. And another. At one point, I was pretty sure my head was just going to explode from over-saturation, and I had to look at a blank wall for a few minutes. I think at that point was when I trekked down to the medieval Louvre exhibit, showing what the building looked like in the early days. (See picture 1 and picture 2 that I took.) At that exhibit, there were only a few people wandering around, and it was just eerily quiet, like a catacomb or underground shrine to the past.

That day, I also went to the Musee D'Orsay, which had been recommended by a few of my regular readers. The museum is in an old train station, and it's just a manageable size to walk the whole thing without driving yourself crazy (unlike the Louvre). I discovered this pointillist painter named Paul Signac that I had never even heard of before. I really liked how bright his paintings were. It's hard to convey from a jpg the beauty of them, like the one to the right. Up close, you can see all the bright dots of color that make up the water, the thickness of the paint in places, showing how he pressed the paintbrush on the canvas. I think that's the point of seeing art in person, you realize how complicated it is, and not just a picture in a textbook but a real canvas that some artist slaved over.

I didn't take a lot of photos inside either museum, certainly not of the paintings themselves. But I was amazed that despite signs asking visitors not to, there were many people snapping photographs of the paintings. I suppose they do have good ways of preserving works, but it still seems like all that flash photography has got to take its toll on these priceless works. It seems like they take some of the preservation more seriously with some works than others, for instance, they probably shoot you if you try to take a photo of the Mona Lisa.

Let Me Rock You, Aga Khan

You can checkout my flickr link to see some of the photos I have uploaded. I still have a good number of them to go. They make it pretty painless to upload photos and tag them and organize them. I don't think I really want to pay for the full membership, but the free benefits seem to work pretty well for uploading enough of my photos. I still have quite a few left to upload, but you can see some of them there.

I'm slowly starting to feel more normal, more myself, or something. The jet lag, hormones, and cold, they are all beginning to fade. I am hoping by the weekend, I really will feel fine again.

Right now, I'm catching up on all the episodes I missed of Survivor China. They are free On Demand. Sadly, they charge 99 cents for The Office episodes I missed, so I'm going to skip those and wait for it to be on repeats.

I can't even tell you how glad I am that it's almost Friday. Today's post is humorous for one reader, probably unintelligible for the rest, but there will be more photo posts to follow, with funny stories.