Better Days Ahead

I've enjoyed reading a lot of blog retrospectives in the last few days. I think the changing of the calendar does lead to some sort of re-examination of the year past, and I was thinking of how to summarize it.

A lot of things ended. My volunteer duties changed a lot when the shelter moved this spring and my role of being a teacher and mentor ended. I no longer have to teach classes there. I actually found this more of a relief than anything else because it meant my volunteer time was less structured. And my therapy group that I had been to for what, four years, ended this fall. I am still seeing the women from there once a month, still seeing my therapist once a month or so, but it's not the same weekly check-in that I did for years. With this ending, I walked away feeling okay about everything in my life and being able to feel somewhat "cured" or at least, able to keep my depression to a manageable level and build my life without it.

I let go of a lot of things this year. A lot of my anger at my job, my frustration, I've been letting go of that piece by piece. I also have found myself letting go of a lot of pain at my last relationship and how things ended. And letting go of blaming myself for staying there as long as I did. And in letting go of these negative feelings, I opened the way for better emotions and better situations to surround me.

I had a great trip to Spain. I am looking forward to doing some minor trips in 2010 and then a trip with DMA in Italy in 2011. I got a new passport. I started a great relationship with a great guy. I got to spend a lot of time with friends. All good stuff. I have high hopes for next year.

A Crabby Little Christmas

Here I am in week two of my holiday vacation. Jealous, much? I actually kind of think that if I were at work, it would be easier to catch up on blog-reading and facebook games, but oh well. I am at home, instead, doing all the laundry from my trip.

My clothes seem particularly dirty after a week of being in LA and eating all kinds of stuff, including the crab pictured to the left. This was from this place DMA took me too out in Alhambra called The Boiling Crab. We had originally been planning to go there when we got back from Spain, but then we ended up getting back a day late, and I just had a few hours between flights so I stayed at LAX and DMA went home. I went over to DMA's house on Christmas Eve, intended to go to the Boiling Crab for dinner that night. And they just happened to be closed 12/23 thru 12/25, so we went to another place that had crab, steak, and all-you-can-eat sushi and sashimi. Oh I think the crab and steak were also all-you-can-eat, but we only got one order of each because it was a ton of food. And for five bucks extra, we got lobster sashimi which was awesome. I had to put that photo up too. So they give you the whole lobster with the middle section as sashimi meat (also pictured in the back is the gigantic platter o' sashimi which we think was yellowtail), and you eat the sashimi part and then they take the rest back and cook it. Super yummy and fresh. So that was good, but not Boiling Crab. I was happy to finally go to the BC on Saturday night. I still feel like there is garlic all over my hands even after two days of hand washing and showering.

In addition to delicious eats, it was great that I got to spend a lot of time with Jen and DMA, and also got to see my friends KJ and Lucie for a few, each with their new offspring. KJ and her hubby and I had brunch yesterday before I drove back home. I know people swear by Highway 5 but it was full of trucks, people driving badly around the trucks, and lots of stinky livestock by the side of the road. And not a lot of places to stop, so by the time I made it to the Pacheco Pass in Gilroy, I had almost no gas in my car.

I love having my iPhone for road trips. First of all, the directions are great, but also having the GPS and looking at the map and figuring out how much further I had to go was awesome. Also having all of my tunes and podcasts available and being able to call friends on the road (which I would do with a cell phone anyway but it seems easier with the iPhone somehow because it would mute what I was listening to when the phone would ring). Also I didn't need to use any of the apps for finding nearby food or gas but it was cool to know those options were available.

Happy to arrive home, see the cats were doing well and the house wasn't to much of a mess though I have a lot of vacuuming that needs to be done. And I still have another week of vacation. Yay.

Disconnected

It's kind of weird being down here in LA because this is the first time in a few days that I've actually gotten a chance to sit down in front of a computer. Most days we are doing stuff, my friend Jen and I are talking or going out. She's doing some business at the moment so I am trying to catch up on online crap a little.

I've been feeling kind of rank since I got here, well yesterday I had this insane headache and ended up barfing up a donut I had as a snack. So I slept for a few and then I felt much better. I still feel better but a little gross from throwing up.

Oh Jen's back and I think we are going to get some food.

Grateful

I am very grateful that my company shuts down over the holidays. I am especially grateful that they pay us for the time off between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day. The president usually comps the whole company a few extra days there, and really, what is not to love about that? I don't think people are very productive this time of year anyway, if the lack of work that I've had to deal with this past week is any indication. I'm especially grateful this year that I had the foresight to ask for a few extra days off, so tomorrow is my last day for the year, and the way things fall, I don't go back to work until January 4, 2010.

I was talking to a guy in another department who works for a woman who slightly resembles the Wicked Witch of the West, and not the cool Wicked version of her either. He had purchased an expensive holiday gift for her, and at the end, because of her witchiness, had decided to take it home himself. Why not, right? But I was just thinking that despite the problems I've had with my boss, she isn't like this manager who really shouldn't even be managing people because she's so bi-polar with people. I'm not using the phrase bi-polar lightly because she reminds me a lot of my bi-polar ex. My boss is definitely not perfect but she's also makes efforts to be fair and is capable of reasonable thought. Hm this sounds like damning with faint praise, but it's meant to be a compliment.

Anyway, I just have tomorrow at work then I am on vacation for two weeks. Hurrah.

Queen Bee or Control Freak

I've found myself in the position of organizing these dinners for my former therapy group once a month. Now, when I say organize, I really mean that I type up the Evite and send it out. Oh yeah and make some effort to make a reservation for the restaurant ahead of time. So not a huge deal. And in fact, this dinner we had last night was actually at one of the women's houses and she sent out the evite herself, including her address and phone number, so all I had to do was email her the list of everyone's email address.

But then I get there, and I find that she's kind of disorganized. That is, she asks me five times what I want to drink and never gets it together. And people walk in and they aren't clear where to put their stuff. So I start taking charge. I tell people to put their coats and purses in the back bedroom. I go into the kitchen and help her with whatever needed to be done, which mostly involved just standing over her when she got stuff together. (She was entertaining for one of the first times in her new house, so I think overly excited and full of holiday cheer.) And then I call everyone to dinner. I start asking people to pass the bowls of food around. Then since I am sitting far from the kitchen, I end up asking someone else near the kitchen to take dirty dishes in. And since she's not, I get up and then start taking everyone's plates in.

Then it's the White Elephant exchange. So I am counting the gifts, counting the people, making sure everyone takes a number. Then, getting everyone to sit down and shut up while I explain the rules of the game. And then go through it during the game, making sure everyone is taking their turn and understanding their choices. Then as luck would have it, the last person doesn't understand the game and takes the last gift. So there was almost no gift sniping going on. Whatever, only so much I can do. Then we were sitting around talking and people wanted to do the kind of check-in like we did at our therapy group, and I sort of got that going, but just got more tired and didn't have the same kind of energy to rein people in that I had earlier in the evening. I end up leaving a little after nine, exhausted and just wanting to go home and hang with the cats.

This has all prompted me to do a little soul-searching about this. I am wondering if I just have this queen bee-bossiness or am a control-freak for wanting to keep everyone in line, or if I'm just doing it because if I don't, no one else will. Then there is a thought of why am I doing this and what am I getting out of it? I do like these people, like seeing and catching up with them, but often I feel like I am so different from so many of them and wouldn't ever have chosen them as friends if we didn't end up in the same therapy group. Also I feel like I'm the poster-child for "cured" from depression, if such a thing exists, and that's kind of weird too. And something about being the unofficial leader made me feel like more of an outsider than anything else.

One thing I will say, I do not understand people who go over for dinner at someone's house and then do not help clear the table. I don't know if my mom was just super bossy about that (hm, any wonder where I get my bossiness from?), but I always will at least try to help, at the very least, take the dirty plates into the kitchen. Otherwise, it just feels like your friend is serving you like at a restaurant and that is just too weird to me. But here I was with a group of about ten women and none of them got up but me, and even the one who was right near the kitchen that I was trying to coerce to take the plates in sat on her ass and did nothing and I ended up having to get up and move around her to help out.

I Don't Want To Be President

Now, obviously I have my political leanings which I'm not going into great deal about, but remember I'm white, college-educated, of Jewish descent, and living in coastal California. That should start you out with an idea. Until this past presidential election, the person I voted for never actually won. I began to perhaps believe that my vote was the kiss of death for candidates, well, not really. I figured it was a coincidence. And then I voted for Barak Obama. I liked the first televised speech that I saw him do, at the Democratic Convention. In a time of a lot of catchy slogans (flip-flop!), he just seemed like an eloquent and thoughtful person. Like his politics or not, the man turns out some damn fined sentences and is well-educated. Perhaps in any other election year, that wouldn't have been so important to me, but coming after eight years of grammatically challenged speeches, it is nice to have someone who can string some phrases together.

In the last two nights, I listened to stories on NPR. Last night, they were talking with some people who were in that Tea Party organization thing that I know absolutely nothing about other than having them called "tea baggers" amuses me and makes me think of "Pecker." And while I am fairly liberal in bias, I find it hard not to agree with some of their ideas of fiscal conservatism, particularly when you hear about banks getting government (aka yours and my) money and then cutting nice bonuses for their executives, when I know people who struggle to find jobs and make ends meet. But then the radio interviewer asked this woman who was high in the organization in Texas what she disagreed with what Obama has done, and she pulls a "everything, to much to list, he's xyz," and I think, damn, you lost me. Because that's just not an answer. If she had said, "I disagree with this bill that gives X to Y" or whatever, I would have felt like, yeah I can see that, but the vague answer of "I disagree with everything" left me feeling just irritated.

Then today on NPR, I heard bits of his speech to the Nobel Prize Committee and then a bunch of reviews, yay or nay, on his speech, and I realized that I am not really an expert on speeches. Hell, he sounded good to me. He sounds eloquent. I think some people wanted more specifics, or felt like he wasn't really owning up to the fact that he's winning an award for peace two days after committing to send more troops into war. And even those who supported him had problems with him and his speech.

And I just realized, I don't want to be president. I think that despite the fame and fortune aspects of it, it's a hard job. And even if you are perfect, which no one is, you are going to suffer all kinds of criticism (unless you are in some dictatorship and try to shut that down), and even if you are just doing the best you can, people will sling mud on you. It made me happy to be little ole me, living my life without that kind of responsibility.

Bullets with No Number One

• Do you ever have those dreams that the one you are with is somehow cheating on you with someone else and isn't telling you and won't be honest and you somehow ascertain that and then start hitting them and the person they are cheating with? Or is that just me?
• Until yesterday, I really felt like I had a heart that was three sizes smaller than everyone else because it was only the first full week of December and I was already burnt out by holiday music. But then Heather agreed with me that the Trader Joe's Christmas music is obnoxious and I suddenly felt much better.
• I only have a week and a half worth of work for this year. This year! I think I deserve an award for not yelling obscenities at anyone this year.
• DMA had a subscription to XM Radio online which just expired and since she isn't renewing it, I'm looking for other online radio to listen to at work that is free. I started listening to Pandora which I had listened to before, and they have some sort of 40 hours a month limit. Which in my world translates into a week at work. Anyone have any other suggestions? Right now I'm trying out Slacker Radio.
• Just started watching Alice from SyFy (which I want to call SciFi) and am enjoying it so far. My only real problem with getting rid of cable and just downloading shows or watching them online is that I am not totally aware of TV schedules and when things are actually on. However, I could probably go to some website for that and I'm just being lazy.
• It has been totally freezing here, literally. My car has been covered by that frost stuff the last few days and on Monday I heard they had snow seen at really low elevations. Just glad my heater at home is working.
  

Exes In Texas, Or NYC

I just found out this week that this guy I used to date, let's call him Swiss Boy, moved to Manhattan. I don't really know when, because he didn't tell me. I just noticed this because I clicked on his Facebook page and there was his location, Manhattan. And my first thought was, why didn't he tell me? Like we have talked in years. I mean, we have exchanged a few emails but it's been over a year since that even. Last time I saw him in person, he was trying to put the moves on me. That was before I was even dating my ex. And I laughed him off. Because if I had to pick any ex that I'd hook up with, SB would be the absolute last.

Anyway, I was kind of thinking about him a little bit, and on some level for all these years, I was feeling as if he should apologize to me for being an ass at the end of our relationship. And a wiser part of my brain realized today that I have been waiting for this apology for years and it's never going to happen. Even when he was begging me for sex, he wasn't apologetic at all. I realized that he thinks that he never did anything wrong, or even if he does think he did something wrong, he doesn't really care. And instead of feeling outraged or annoyed by this realization, I just thought, whatever.

Having that expectations of apologies or recriminations from someone in my past isn't doing me any good. I can't redo the past, can't recreate what happened or make things come out differently. Things are where they are, and I have to deal with the emotions I have now. And when I examine how I feel about this person, I realize I could care less one way or another.