The Next Third

This Is a Little Disgusting

2012-01-29T15:20:00.000-08:00

Seriously, what a crappy week. After being in the hot tub pool in Calistoga, I started having some itching in the groin region, and by Tuesday night, it started hurting badly. I went to the doctor on Wednesday, and she and the dermatologist that she called in for a consult both thought it was herpes. Um yeah, I have honestly no idea how I could have gotten herpes anytime recently, and was having bad luck researching online what the time frame would be (because apparently there are a lot of people who have no idea how they could have gotten herpes either). Thankfully, the test for herpes was negative, as was the test for folliculitis, which was what I was pretty sure I had. So it's not really clear what is going on with me, medically, although I'm still taking a shitload of drugs that seem to be working somewhat, including Cipro which comes with about ten pages of warnings including that I might be experiencing nightmares, hallucinations, and the usual gamut of what you get from taking any antibiotic.

The only bright side was that she gave me some prescription strength Motrin which is knocking the pain mostly out. And a note for being off work Wednesday through Friday. Not knowing what it was, how sure can we be that I'm not contagious? The herpes warning that I got was basically to not have any sexual contact with anyone while I had sores, and I'll tell you that was so not an issue.

Anyway at least I didn't take any photos of what was going on, and I definitely am not sitting around bitching about this all in great detail, or at least, trying not to. But in all honesty, I have been in a bit of pain and a few days of sleeping 12 hours made it pretty clear that I'm fighting something here. I also felt mentally a lot of pain, shame, some self-loathing for no apparent reason other than sitting around having my body betraying me. I'm a lousy patient. I hate being sick. I don't like telling people about my problems in great detail, or going on and on about my symptoms, and I tend to minimize my negativity. Which probably would explain some of my bouts with depression, honestly. Hard for me to say, I'm sick, I need help.

And really, I've been having a hard time being at home alone a lot because it makes me think of my dad, and how he died. And it's difficult. I don't really know how to open up about it, where I am now, without feeling like I'm just wallowing in sadness and negativity. I have to remind myself that it's all natural, normal, part of the process, but some of the fear and pain has really caught up with me lately, and the feeling of loss. And the blur of that whole day and how much I had to process and what a waste in some way it all was. While I tell myself not to feel guilty for not trying harder with my dad and getting him to take better care of himself, I still feel guilty. Or not calling him more, reaching out more. I feel guilty about that (but obviously not enough to reach out to friends when I'm in pain). I think about how I've been on my own for a while and for various reasons, have been trying to parent myself. And that is sad too, because it's not just that I'm sad that my father is gone, but I'm sad that he checked out on life and our relationship in a lot of ways. I know there's nothing I can really do about it. But knowing that doesn't make me feel better.

What Has Been Left Behind

2012-01-23T18:23:00.000-08:00

I am finally going to have my one on one therapy appointment tomorrow. My therapist was ready to schedule something earlier, or do a phone appointment, but I figured this would be fine. I remember how inconsistent those feelings were my first days, and not even sure how one goes about talking about loss in a therapeutic setting. I heard about these grieving groups that Kaiser has, but it's not like I am having a problem with grieving. More of my issue is what do I do with my life now. But that's another story.

This weekend, I went up to Calistoga because a friend was up there for a long week of trying to get over a relationship, and she invited me up for a night. I wrote about our dining experience at Gals About Town. I didn't use this picture I took at the outside of the restaurant in that post, but I thought it was kind of interesting.

After the trip to Calistoga, I was finally able to plug in my camera and upload my photos from my trip to LA. I'm a quick unpacker when I come back from travel, and almost always feel like I just want to unpack and put my suitcase back right away. I did that when I came home, but I didn't really feel up to putting all my photos on my computer for some reason. It's weird to see the photos I took before my dad died; they feel like the photographs of a different person, a different me, who doesn't realize that soon her life is going to be different.

I took four bags of books from my dad's place, mostly the books that I figured he was going to send me at some point. I kind of wondered about some of them that I thought he would have sent me, but are a few years old. Like, would he have sent them at some point? Was he done reading them? I feel like there are always going to be tons of unanswered questions about my dad and what he was thinking, and the last months or so of his life. And I never will know what really drove him, what he really felt. I think often I try to get at the inner workings of him, to understand him, feeling like it would help me understand myself, and my childhood. But that opportunity is gone. It's not like he left me a note or anything. I kind of wish he did. I don't think he was particularly introspective and it probably never would have occurred to him. The closest I came was seeing some of the things I had gotten him over the years that he had saved.

This weekend, I was talking to my mom when I was driving back from Calistoga, and she claimed that she and my dad went to the French Laundry at some point. Well, my parents were separated by 1978, so I figured that this was not possibly true. According to Wikipedia, the French Laundry was opened as a restaurant in 1978 so maybe they did go in the last year of their marriage. But it wasn't like Thomas Keller was working there, and I'm sure the menu was different, and it's entirely possible that my mom didn't remember this correctly. And in the past, I'd just call and ask my dad, and of course, I can't do that. And I remember talking to my dad about the French Laundry at some point when I first heard about it, after seeing examples of some of the food on some TV show. Maybe he mentioned they went there? I wish I could remember this or just ask him about it, but I can't, and how much does it matter? But I myself really want to eat there some day.

Past and Future Thoughts

2012-01-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

I'm actually finding that I'm looking forward to blogging about my feelings sometimes lately. I didn't want to blog yesterday to participate in stopping SOPA and PIPA (and I guess I could have blogged and said that, but I really doubt anyone comes to my blog for news or politics anyway), but I was kind of thinking about a lot of things yesterday when I was doing laundry (one of my dad's favorite activities) and wearing this hoodie of his that I took from his house (which sounds mercenary somehow). I never was, have never been the kind of person who wants to take clothes from someone's house, or asks if I can borrow this and that, so like his old wedding ring, it is something that I wouldn't have if he weren't dead. But anyway, it still smells a little bit like him, and the smell is beginning to fade, and I think about what my brother was saying about taking someone's handkerchief and putting it in a ziplock bag so you could still smell them and remember. I know that memory is going to fade, also the memory of how he sounded on the phone. I think a bit about what it means to honor someone's memory, which is another kind of memory because I'm doing the things that I remember him doing. Like laundry. Or watching something particular on TV.

So much of what I'm doing now is just living my life, waiting to adjust to the way my life is now, which is not all that different from the way it was before. That might change sometime in the near future, because I do feel that sort of groundswell of wanting to change my life in ways, or figure more of what way I want to change. On a very basic level, I fear dying young myself. My dad was only 30 years older than me, which doesn't seem like that much. I probably won't even be retired in 30 years from now, with the way that Social Security and whatnot is going. Though who knows about that one. But thirty years doesn't seem like enough time for everything I want to do with my life (much less reading every book I want to read) and the thought is propelling me to seize the moment and not hold back with making choices and going in new directions.

I do keep waiting though to make any rash decisions because I want my brain to normalize, stabilize, where I am now. I haven't felt particularly grounded since this all happened, and a large part of that was being in LA way longer than I intended. I am by nature a bit of a planner, and I had mentally prepared to be down south eight days and it ended up being five extra days. The phrase "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" from the Grace Paley book kept coming into my head the whole time I was down in LA, and even know, I associate it with that trip.

Cleaning

2012-01-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

My friend L that I have known since I was in junior high came over yesterday. We were going to go to lunch and talk, but I mentioned that I wanted to finally get a file cabinet (something I had been talking about for years) and organize paperwork that I wanted to save and get rid of stuff I didn't need to save. And she took it upon herself to help me go through years of paperwork that needed to be shredded, and also when I was opening old envelopes, she was going through my kitchen and organizing and cleaning. It was pretty awesome. I don't feel like I'm a very organized person, nor am I good at being really organized, and I usually don't find it the slightest bit fun at all. L on the other hand, seems to enjoy the whole process, and she is really good at doing it. I probably should have asked her sooner. Also I have a whole other room full of boxes from when I moved into my place over five years ago that are still unpacked. I'm sure I can throw most of the stuff out (in fact, some of the junk in there is probably my ex boyfriend's and I know I can dump all of that), but it's just a question of gearing myself up to do it.

After she left, I looked around at my cleaner living space, and I just felt weird. I think there is nothing like the experience of sorting through some of my dad's stuff to make you think about how much crap you have and how little of it is really needed. Having everything organized makes me aware of what I have, what I have to do, and what I need to deal with. But it was also difficult sleeping, thinking about things in my life, and where I want to go from here. Thankfully today is a work holiday and I didn't need to be up at the crack of dawn.

Belief and Anger

2012-01-14T08:59:00.000-08:00

Recently I've had some anger. Anger is never really easy for me to express and process, which explains a lot of my past passive-aggressive behavior and a lot of that feeling of swallowing my feelings. Anyway, I have been dealing with being angry at other people, like my mom, and the fact that my dad is dead, and not really necessarily being angry at him. A lot of what I have felt since that moment I knew my dad was dead was that he is over, that I can't talk to him, communicate with him, or negotiate with him in any way about anything anymore. It annoys me that I can't ask him anything either, but I think the one thing that I was able to accept immediately was that my dad's life was over, and he's gone. It would be comforting to have some beliefs here, belief that he's in heaven or something, and that if I talk to him, he'll hear me. But I just can't/don't believe like that.

I think because my dad's death was so unexpected and sudden, it has made me feel like everyone around me is going to die at any minute. I have that feeling of life being very fragile and easily snuffed out at any moment. I've felt like that for a few weeks and let me tell you, having your own death hanging over your head every day really fucks with you. I know, logically and rationally, that my existence is going to end sometime. But I prefer to think of it far far out there in the future, and not imminently looming over me. I have been feeling as if each moment is my last, each meal is my last, and each random bodily pain (gas, foot asleep, etc.) is some impending shadow of doom.

Don't know if I can find comfort per se in this, but typing it out is making me find some humor in it. All along in the last two weeks, I've felt like I have had a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions, and I feel kind of like one of those game show contestants in a telephone booth with dollar bills swirling around, and trying to catch as many of them as possible. But I do feel like those feelings and emotions buffeting me are somewhat understandable, relatable, and I believe that I'll make it through this experience somewhat richer and more emotionally aware than I was before.

Stages of Grief

2012-01-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

I finally had group therapy yesterday and I got to tell the story of how I found my dad, dead, and things started feeling more real. I think giving a voice to my feelings of denial, saying it aloud, made me realize that it was a strategy of dealing with things, but it wasn't going to last and it wasn't very effective. I have heard of, learned a lot about the whole "Five Stages of Grief" business. And I'll just say here and now that dealing with my dad's death has been a lot different than any other kind of grieving I've had to do in my life. A lot of that is about where I am now in my life and my ability to process my feelings. I remember thinking the whole time when I was in LA about how happy I was that I have had years and years of therapy, because it really helped me to start dealing with things just a little bit even when I was in shock.

And now, the shock is really wearing off. In the last 24 hours, I've been sad. I think I have a hard time distinguishing sadness from depression, and I know that a lot of my efforts to really push depression out and away from my life make it so that being sad seems destructive to me, and that I just don't want to stay sad for a long time. But I realize sometimes that it's important to sit with the feelings, to feel the feelings as they are happening, without judging them or pushing them away. So, I'm sad. I go through my sent emails, and see the mail that I sent to my dad trying to setup a lunch date with him. I went to his Facebook page for some reason and then was looking at the list of his friends and wondering if I should friend the ones who were at his funeral. And wondering why he didn't post more stuff on Facebook, why he didn't have more friends there. I know it's irrelevant, but then I think of that anyway, and wish I had more idea at his inner life, his inner workings.

C took me out to dinner tonight, well more accurately we met for a dinner which he paid for. C actually wrote me a nice email saying he was sorry about my dad (and I think here that C is the last boyfriend who will have ever met my dad, and that's a little bit sad, but in a way, my dad hated pretty much every guy I ever dated except R, and you know, my dad's opinion of relationships and men is not really related to mine). And C yet again reminds me how I'm not aware of his inner life, his inner workings. I dated the guy for a year and a half, and honestly felt sometimes like I had no idea what he was thinking. Whereas with my dad, I knew somewhat of what he was thinking, but it seems very two-dimensional to me now. Did I ask him how he was, what he was thinking? Not enough. But anyway, seeing C reminds me that I wanted to date someone who can express stuff verbally, and someone that I can express my feelings to. And I think about how there might have been times when I might have seen C and wanted to get back together with him, and how the more time passes, the more I think that I want more than C had to offer me.

I know these five stages of grief aren't going to run in order, but I wish sometimes that I could move to acceptance sooner. I guess that is universal, always easier to go through your life accepting things as the way they are and not fighting at the fates, or denying things are the way they are. Or sitting around and crying. I remember going through a lot of phases in my life where I would cry and cry incessantly, and even though now when I am really sad, I don't feel like crying in the same way. I don't feel the need to cry. I feel more of a need to think about the sadness, to process it, to move on to accepting things are the way they are.

Shopping at Costco

2012-01-09T19:51:00.000-08:00

I am pretty sure that the primary method my brain has of dealing with anything bad is denial. I guess I'm just discovering that lately because when I start thinking about my dad, thinking about stuff I miss, I keep thinking "oh it's not really true, and no, he's not really dead." Even though I know it is true. Even just typing it, doesn't seem quite possible. He was young to die. And I wasn't done talking to him. See, we were going to have lunch. I keep having those moments of things I'd talk to him about, and I think about how I didn't call him as much the last few years because our conversations would always be about the same, him bitching about his mom. And it was the same retread of things that he'd told me before. And I wouldn't say that I'd give anything for one of those conversations again, but I do wish I could ask him a few things.

I went to Costco after work, and I wanted to check out how long my membership would last, because I'm on my dad's second card. It is paid out until September, and they just went ahead and switched it so that I'm the primary card holder. But at some point in September, I'm going to have to start paying for the membership myself. I think he gave me the card originally when I was a senior in college. Weird to think of that. And looking around, looking at books that he would have bought and sent me, and items I might have mentioned to him, and now couldn't. I guess we didn't have a lot of philosophical discussions, but we did talk about what you could buy at Costco, and at Trader Joe's. If I believed in an afterlife, I might surmise he'd be up there, looking through the aisles at random crap for sale. That makes as much sense as anything else, right?

I am reminding myself that it's only been over a week, and that this was such a huge shock, particularly since I was the one who essentially found him (though thankfully I called the cops who found him and I didn't actually have to see the body because I'm not sure I could get that sight out of my head). It wasn't like I received a call and got on a plane to go down there. I was there. I actually am pretty sure this is one of the more traumatic things that has happened to me, certainly one of the most traumatic things recently in my very-sedate life that avoids trauma. I am starting to feel like the last week and a half is something of a blur and I need to wake up and move forward from it.

Always Something There To Remind Me

2012-01-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

I find it easier to be at home, in terms of being able to sleep deeply, shower in my own shower, eat normally, and attempt to get back to the routines of my life. And I missed the fact that when you live alone, it's just quiet and you can sit and concentrate or read or whatever, without that feeling that someone loud is going to come by at any moment. But also being at home, there is that weird level where I can look back at the last week and say that it didn't really happen, right, that the whole thing was so surreal and maybe I just... not imagined it, but maybe something else. I don't think I'm doing this consciously, but occasionally I have that feeling of "it didn't really happen" because the events of last week were bad enough that I would like to make them unhappen in a way. Not really possible.

For instance, my dad got a blu-ray player the day after Thanksgiving, so he had it for just a few weeks when he died. So, when we were going through stuff at his house, I told my brother that I had wanted a blu-ray player, wanted my dad in fact to just get me one (instead of the random holiday gift he gave me which was some mail-order fruit), and here was this blu-ray player that I just claimed as my own. So I know logically where I got it, how I got it, right? But then I was sitting watching a dvd on it, and thinking that I would have to call or write my dad and tell him that he was right, that blu-ray players did have such a better picture and this was a good one he picked out. Then it struck me that I can't talk to my dad about this inconsequential thing, and it just seemed too weird and sad to me.

It has felt to me that my dad dying has been made up of a thousand little things to be aware of, to keep track of, to deal with. Even just trying to stay where I am with my feelings, they seem to change daily. This loss also reminds me of other losses, like bad breakups, where someone was in your life for a while, for a long time, and then suddenly they aren't, and you are just left with things that you used to share with the person that you can't any longer.

New Year

2012-01-06T14:47:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I really appreciated everything everyone said. In fact, I am generally just appreciating how many people who are out there in the world and concerned about me, and are caring about me. It's a weird thing because no matter what your religious beliefs are, I think once someone dies, you realize that person isn't here any more and that changes your life. I don't really have religious beliefs, so I'm not an expert by any means, but my brother and I both looked at each other at some point last week and said something like, he's gone.

There's a lot of stuff I just can't talk about right now. Things that I wouldn't put into writing, and things about how the situation is complicated, and for the first few days this was all going on, I wasn't even sure who I was talking to and what I was saying. I finally got home last night (which was five days later than I had intended to get home), and was finally able to sleep deeply and I feel like I'm going to need at least a few more days like that to start feeling more like myself.

One thing that has come out of all of this is more communication with my family. My mom flew out, and while this was all going on, I had a lot of conversations with her. And I just talked to my brother for an hour or two on the phone. And I talked to my uncles more than I had in the ten years (though I'm still wisely avoiding talking to my grandmother, and that's okay). I don't know of some of this is a level of me thinking that I'll just never be able to talk to my dad again. He wasn't always a great listener, but I have often found that talking to people isn't always about their listening, but more about how I'm saying what I'm saying. I still remember how my dad's voice sounds, and I wonder how long I'm going to remember that. I just keep reminding myself that all of this is a process.

Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

2011-12-31T04:01:00.000-08:00

My dad died. Sometime in the last day. We were going to have lunch on Friday, and I showed up and he wasn't answering his phone. And I called twice. And then, I knew something was wrong. The cops broke into his place and found him, dead. Someone saw him yesterday, so it hadn't been that long. I don't know what to think about that, because I've been in town for a while and I could have seen him earlier, or maybe it was right that I came that day (now yesterday because it's 3:30 the next day) because I was there, and found him, and was able to call my brother, and we were able to make decisions and deal with things in an orderly and logical manner. The way my dad would have approved of. Where calling his mother was a later event, and she wasn't the first contact, and we were able to go through things cursorily, lock his condo, and... I don't know. I don't think it's anything anyone is ever prepared to deal with, and I certainly don't feel prepared to deal with it now.

I know that I have issues with my dad, had issues, some of which I have resolved, some of which I didn't and might not ever, and now his life is a fixed point where I really am not going to get any more answers than I already have from him. I was sitting around today, talking to the cops, making calls, and I just kept thinking, wait we were supposed to go to lunch. I was just here to take him out to lunch, and see how he was doing. Because he passed out a few weeks ago while driving, and he said it was just low blood sugar, and he was going into the doctor, and they gave him his license back so I thought oh it can't be that bad. That after seeing him, maybe talking to him about it in person and not on the phone, I would call my brother and maybe we'd talk to my dad together about giving up driving, or moving to a home of some sort with some care. Not knowing that he had fainted more times (which I found out from neighbors). I obviously don't know what all was going on. I guess it is moot now, and in some way, I am sure this easier because my dad was happy living alone in his condo, and would not have been happy if he had to live elsewhere.

I'd like to think if he had any thoughts at the end, it was that I was coming to see him, that I would find him, that I'd take care of things. I know my dad was proud of me, proud of my brother, proud of the adults we had become, adults who handle their own problems and take care of things like this. Maybe he'd be happy that my brother and I were sitting down, discussing, spending time talking. I guess I'm speculating about everything, his last wishes, his thoughts. But I knew my dad pretty well, and I remember when his father died, and how he was really sad, really kind of out of it, but couldn't talk about his feelings. And I know that I've had enough therapy to know how to start processing all this, how to deal with it all, how to feel and not be consumed by my feelings but accept them as natural. Yet, not sure if this makes anything easier at this moment.

On The Road

2011-12-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

I wanted to do a year in review kind of thing but I need to finish packing for my trip to LA and get a bunch of stuff done. Happy Holidays to everyone who reads this, and enjoy your holidays.

Metamorphosis

2011-12-23T09:48:00.000-08:00

Today is my first day of vacation. I was actually kind of bummed yesterday because I looked at how much vacation time I already have accrued after taking three weeks off in October, and I do have enough to have taken all of this week off too. Not totally sure I could have gotten away with it though, but it was a nice thought. Something though about knowing I would have this long time off and not being back at work for a week and a half made the last week or two go by quickly and made it not be so bad. I feel like this year has pushed and pulled me in a few different directions, and I have been working on a lot of things under the surface, and not really noticing how far I have come.

A year ago, I remember sort of dreading the holidays, especially New Year's Eve, because I didn't have a boyfriend. And thinking that I'd work on that, try to meet someone, just when I was done studying Italian, and then just when I was back from my trip from Italy, and now it's the end of the year and I haven't put any effort into meeting any potential suitors. But I haven't felt like it was the right time either, because I have been working on so many other things, working on myself. And I start to feel this change within myself, my mind, in dealing with problems that have always been there in the back of my head. I think when you are in the middle of problems, it's always easy to say how screwy things are, and how everything is messed up, and you'll never get anywhere. But at this point, I realize that I have come a long way in the last year with righting my self-image. I also think about how often I have felt in my life that I "needed" a man to do things for me, and time and time again, I have seen how capable I am of doing things by myself, on my own. It's funny, when you stop expecting yourself to be perfect and always do everything in the right way, you can recognize more how often what you are doing is actually working just fine.

I do feel like turning the page on the calendar is both symbolic and also that change is actually afoot in my life. And I am welcoming it.

It Only Sounds Like Cancer

2011-12-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

I was sick last week, with three days of a sinus headache that wouldn't quit. I also had some pain in my mouth that was seemingly related, or maybe not. It was that time when everything hurt, and I didn't know if my mouth was hurting because I was breathing through it too much due to nose stuffiness, or what the deal was. But then this week, I've been feeling mostly okay, though my mouth still hurt. And it hurt when I ate or drank anything except water, and I kept washing it with Listerine in the hopes that would fix the problem. But fortuitously, I had a dental appointment yesterday, and figured while they were in there, prying my mouth open, they could take a look at the problem.

And the thing that has been bugging me for days is a giant canker sore on my tongue. The hygienist holds out the mirror so I can see it, and it looks huge and disgusting and like my mouth is rotting and/or full of pox. But apparently, canker sores happen all the time and some people get them monthly or what have you. So I might be a total baby about this. My first thought was that I had mouth cancer, and that I would need to have it surgically removed. But the first link that comes up in Google says that these sores are common, and not cancerous, and go away on their own. I think it's funny that the link needs to spell out that it's not related to cancer at all. Is everyone as paranoid as me about weird spots appearing on their body? Is it just that the word cancer looks like the word canker?

The upside was that the rest of my dental appointment was easy because they took it easy on me since my mouth was already in pain. And I think knowing what the problem was, as opposed to just having a few days of random mouth pain, makes it easier to deal with. Even though it's gross to look at, I would take a photo of the sore for posterity, but I can't really figure out how to get a picture of the inside of my mouth.

Slow Decline

2011-12-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

After blogging every day, coming up with blogs every day last month, I feel kind of boring around here. I will note that I did post some pics from Thanksgiving at Gals About Town, if you haven't seen them already. This time of year just seems like a slow decline into the new year, new resolutions, new ideas. This year was all about my trip to Italy, and since I've been back, I've been feeling a little stuck with everything. I still have a bag I have yet to unpack. I have holiday gifts that I have to wrap and put together. I suppose everyone has a list of all of the things that they have to do that they haven't done yet and it seems like a lot for me lately. Doesn't help that I got knocked down with some weird cold this week. I would say it's a flu because my body feels achier than my nose feels stuffed, but since I got the flu shot this year, I can't really blame that. But today is Sunday, and I feel nothing like doing what I usually do on a Sunday, which is working on cleaning my house up and getting groceries and ready for the week. I really have only two work weeks left this year, because we get a long break between Christmas and New Years that starts on Dec 23 and we don't have to be back until Jan 3. I am half-heartedly planning my annual trip to LA, but since I feel sick, I mostly don't feel like doing or planning anything at the moment. I know, this will change. I don't feel like anything is particularly bothering me or burdening me, but that there are small things adding up that must be taken care of.

In Fact

2011-12-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

My therapist printed this picture out and gave it to me this week. Instead of say trying to scan it, I figured I'd just look for it online. And found it right away. I guess I said something similar recently in group. Or used the word "assholes." My therapist was a bit afraid to say the word out loud in our three person group, as though it was too obscene. I'm pretty sure they say it on TV.

My therapist has been talking about a lot of Freudian crap recently. I was pretty sure that Freud was "out" amongst therapists, but he might be making some sort of resurgence. I've always been more of a fan of Jung myself. And when I am all rich and full of leisure time, I'm going to do some of that there Jungian analysis that involves going in several times a week, and examining your dreams in great detail.

I've been fighting some cold this week, and being in this situation puts me into lock-down mode. I don't want to start any new projects, setup any future events, etc. And that's not good this time of year, when I already have a bunch of things on the calendar and other things that I want to accomplish (like finish my holiday shopping) before the end of the year. Last night, I got home and wanted nothing more than to just go to bed. Even the cats thought it was too early to go to sleep.

Moving Right Along

2011-11-30T19:06:00.000-08:00

It hardly seems possible that this year is almost over. Tomorrow is December first. The thing I am most excited about next year is the awesome cat calendar I got from Rome. Well, that's the first thing off the top of my head. This year has been a lot of work, and a lot of good stuff too. And a few things I could do without. But it still seems too early in the year to really do a synopsis. And right now, most of why I'm writing this blog entry is the whole finishing out the month of November with a blog entry every day. I need to finish cleaning the kitchen, and watch stuff on TV. And maybe finish the book I'm reading. Not a lot of excitement for a Wednesday.

Sitting in a Circle

2011-11-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

Since I got back from my trip, my therapy group started back up and I have been going. Strange on some levels because I'm not very sure that I need to go to it, and also the people whom I think probably need to go aren't. But it's not like I'm going around diagnosing anyone, you know.

Anyway, it's interesting being back in the bosom of this now smaller group, and being closer in the clutches of my therapist, whom I have had some issues with recently. I probably should write more about that at a later date when I'm not just trying to bang out an entry at the end of the day at work. But having an ongoing issue with her lends a certain sarcasm on my part to the proceedings. I know that even when I'm unconscious of it, I can be a passive-aggressive bitch. I caught myself being really sarcastic the other week, and she either didn't get it or pretended not to. I don't really think that kind of behavior goes anywhere, especially not in a therapeutic relationship.

DMA is Marching Onward

2011-11-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

DMA just set up her own blog if you want to check it out: DMA Marches On. I encouraged her to start blogging because it's a good way to keep one's self accountable and all of that jazz.

Speaking of accountability, I have been stealthily participating in NaBloPoMo this month by putting in a post a day. Apparently this month, it is not necessarily about the content for me, just the number of posts. And I'm a few days away from having a post a day. I last did the whole month of posts back in 2007. Funny to read it now, because it was just when I was getting back from my first trip to Europe with DMA. And just getting my ex out of my life. I could swear that I thought we broke up in 2006, but there it is, 2007, with him getting out of my life. Weird. Anyway four years is a long ass time. I should be able to do two more blog posts this week and then finish out the month with 30 days of posting.

Computer Woes

2011-11-27T12:43:00.001-08:00

Finally back to posting non-Italy related content. I found the whole alphabet a pretty easy device for having something to write about every day.

The night of Thanksgiving, I had a perfect storm of irritation with my computer and iPhone. I was trying to run an update of iOS on my phone, and it crashed in the middle, then I could not boot up my computer and it had erased all the data on my phone, rendering it totally not usable. I spent about an hour restoring my computer from backup (and I will just add that there is nothing better in the computer world than backing your shit up on a regular basis and if you aren't doing it yourself, you are going to pay someone a freaking fortune to do it for you when the computer crashes). Then I still couldn't get it to update my phone. Thankfully I was able to do it the next day. At a certain point though, I was pretty certain that I was going to have to buy a new computer and a new phone. I honestly don't know why my computer, which isn't that old, has such problems sometimes. Though every Mac that I have had has had some sort of problem at some point, but it's usually a physical problem, like they won't power up, won't reboot, or just are out of date. This computer is now over three years old, and it certainly allows me to reboot it all the time, and until this week, it didn't have a problem where when it was booting up, not even recognizing the OS.

This computer has made me anxious all year. I remember in January, the first time it started locking up for no reason, and me restoring it from backup. Taking it into the Apple store a few times. I have run fixes on it. The guy at the Apple store completely restored the whole operating system from scratch. I keep thinking at some point, I want to get a new computer just because this one makes me so anxious that it is going to stop working at some important point. As it is now, I am watching the clock, because sometimes if it's been on for over an hour, it locks up for no apparent reason (though at the Apple store, they said it didn't appear to have hardware problems). And now that it's out of warranty...

It seems like things just are not built to last sometimes, and there are faults built into electronics so we'll have to turn around and buy new ones every few years. I am certainly not going to join some no electronics society, but I find it frustrating both in how things break and also how quick I am to just junk something and buy a new one. I think a lot about all the things that I end up throwing away, and how I can reuse them or resell them. For instance, I always buy salads to bring into work, and the salads all come in packaging that I end up throwing away. It might be able to be recycled, but then I'd have to clean it, and how easy is that to do at work, particularly when I'm already being lazy at work. So lately I have been making my own salads in reusable tupperware, and I feel like that is already doing something. But I could do more. But I am resigned that I will be having to buy a new computer at some point in the next year.

Z is for Zzzz

2011-11-26T19:30:00.000-08:00

The thing about traveling with someone who wanted to march me all over the city (and kept coming up with numbers of how many miles we actually walked in a day, etc) was that often there was nothing I wanted to do more at the end of the day than sleep. I did really miss my fabulous pillow-top bed at home a lot, but I found the beds we stayed in pretty relaxing after a hard day of death-marching.

Beds in Florence

The bed in Venice - two twins we pushed apart for actual sleep.

And there was a moment, when I got home, and fell into my own bed, and I was just happy to be home, sleeping in my own bed. No matter how far you rome, there is no place like home!

Y is for Yellow

2011-11-25T19:26:00.000-08:00

Ponte Vecchio is both yellow in color, and also the place where many gold sellers set up shop. Apparently, Florence is great for shopping, particularly buying leather and gold. While I was posting on Facebook, someone suggested that I should buy some gold while I was there. I did not. For starters, it wasn't a great exchange rate and I ended up spending most of my money on food anyway. But it goes on the list of things to do when I'm rich. Gold!

X is for Xylophone

2011-11-24T19:26:00.000-08:00

On our last day in Venice, we had a pretty mediocre lunch at an annoying restaurant. I do think that other than eating at our B&B's restaurant, most of the meals we had in Venice were just so-so, particularly compared to the delicious food in Florence. And after that mediocre meal, we were both kind of tired of walking through the Venice rain, and determined to just go back to the room and maybe start packing, or take a nap. But then we turned a corner, and found this amazing museum of musical instruments. I'm not even sure what the name of it was, but it was a beautiful hall that looked almost like a church, and it was playing classical music, and just relaxing and filled with interesting old instruments in beautiful condition. I did not manage to take a photo of a xylophone here, but you can see some of the other instruments that I did photograph.

W is for Wine

2011-11-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

I don't think that we had wine with every meal, but we definitely had wine with most dinners. There were a lot of nice restaurants with extensive wine lists, but we generally ordered il vino della casa, the house wine. And the wines in Italy were invariably delicious. Often when I'd be ready to take a photo, DMA would move the wine glasses quickly to make sure they were in the picture.

This is a photo of one of our better meals. The dish on the left was a saltimbocca, and the one in the foreground is the osso bucco that DMA ended up ordering two times because she liked it so much. It went very well with the red house wine that we ordered that night.

V is for Vaporetto

2011-11-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

Vaporetto is what they call the water bus (plural vaporetti) in Venice. Much like any sort of other bus, you sit and wait at a station for your bus to come along. Though unlike any other bus I've ever been on, the station is on the water and rocks back and forth. I think that Venice is not for the easily seasick. Being there made me feel like I had sealegs, and when I finally got back to solid ground, I still felt slightly wobbly. I am usually good at looking at a map and figuring out a public transportation system, but for some reason, I felt totally at sea (ha) in Venice, and I couldn't figure out how the vaporetti worked. A few times, we weren't sure which station was the right one for the bus going in the proper direction, and once or twice it seemed to take hours to get anywhere, making me think that we had gone the wrong way. There was one extremely helpful woman who sold us tickets asking where we actually wanted to go, instead of just telling us how to get there in the way that I thought was right (but would have been both more expensive and taken much longer).

U is for Umbria

2011-11-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

We took a day trip to Perugia (you can read more about it here) which is located in the region of Umbria. Umbria is known for producing gastronomic delights. We didn't get to see as much of Umbria or eat at any restaurants there, but it seemed like a really beautiful region, full of hills and valleys. For some reason, on the trip to Umbria, I kept saying "we're under the Tuscan sun," and DMA kept correcting me that we were in Umbria, not Tuscany. And also it was raining. These are the weird thoughts that occur to me when I'm traveling. And also seeing this photo reminds me that I want to go back to Italy, and see more of Umbria and Perugia.

T is for Trains

2011-11-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

The train system in Italy is one of the most comprehensive systems I've experienced. The trains go pretty much everywhere, to every city and destination. The rates are reasonable, the timetables are frequent, and the trains are reasonably comfortable. Part of our idea behind this trip was starting in Rome and working our way to Venice, then flying out of Venice. Trenitalia made it very easy to do that. DMA did a lot of research and found that we could get discount fares if we bought our tickets early.

This photo was the only train photo that I took, on our way to Perugia. It was raining heavily that day, but it felt cozy being on the train.

S is for Sugar

2011-11-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

Other than our almost daily gelato, we didn't eat that many sweets and desserts. However, we did have this lovely chocolate cake selection at a cafe. The cafe itself was at a palazzo we visited, and the palazzo itself was pretty impressive (and gave me ideas of how I want to live when I make millions on selling cute photos of my cats), but the lunch at the cafe was just okay. But then, there were these awesome desserts. I think ordering dessert can be risky if you aren't sure exactly what is going to be in something, but these chocolate items were delicious, especially when washed down with strong espresso.

R is for River

2011-11-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

It's probably something I take for granted, growing up in California, how most cities that are older than a certain age were founded on rivers. Both Rome and Florence have a river running through them, and there is a sense of that river being an actual boundary that has existed for hundreds of years. In reading guides of where to stay in Rome, the name Trastevere came up. This is the district on the west side of the river, and it is further from the major touristic scene, but it is also a district with a bunch of really inexpensive restaurants and shops. Much the same in Florence, Oltarno is the district on the "other" side of the river, further from the major attractions but still not too far.

By the banks of the Tevere, in Rome.

River Arno, in Pisa

River Arno, in Florence

Q is for Quiet

2011-11-17T19:24:00.000-08:00

We had originally stayed in Florence with the intention of doing three day trips from there (Perugia, Pisa, and Bologna), but we ended up only doing two day trips and spending an additional day hanging around Florence. We were going to visit Santa Croce church but it was only open for visitors in the afternoon (because it was actually being used as a church), so we took a long walk across the river and ended up going to this cool park at the top of the hill. You could look out and see the whole of the city, and the park was nice and quiet and not filled with annoying tourists. There was even a restroom there. Quiet is not something I got much of on this trip, so it was good to experience some of it.

P is for Pizza

2011-11-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

I heard that pizza was different in Italy, but hearing about it and experiencing it are two different things. The best pizza we had was the kind that is almost flat, just a flat crust with a generous amount of cheese, and covered with meats and/or other toppings. It really bares little resemblance to heavy American pizza, with our thick crusts and piles of cheese. The Italian pizza was just fresh and cooked quickly in a wood-fired oven. The pizza pictured right is the "diavolo" pizza, which had spicy salami on top. It went nicely with a salad and a glass of wine. I think one of the best things about Italian pizza is that it's so fresh and simple, and cooked so quickly, there is no soggy bottom or heaviness of being too covered in cheese.

O is for Ostia

2011-11-15T09:11:00.000-08:00

Ostia Antica was a harbor city, once the site of Rome's seaport. Now it's a large archaeological crammed full of well-preserved ruins. We spent a few hours there, walking on stone steps and gawking at ancient wonders. Most of the buildings are just in ruins, where you can guess at what they were used for, but there are a lot of signs telling you what is what, and still work being done preserving this ancient place. Ostia Antica is only a short thirty minute ride out of Rome, and the guidebooks said that it is as good of a historical site as Pompeii (which we talked about going to, but didn't). I got a lot of really good pictures there, including this one. We also had lunch at an interesting restaurant that day, which was right outside the gate, and were served by a waiter dressed in a Roman uniform.

N is for Nerdy

2011-11-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Reproduction of da Vinci painting

For the longest time (way way before Dan Brown ever wrote the words Da Vinci and Code in the same sentence), I have always thought that Leonardo da Vinci was awesome. The guy was so ahead of his time with his inventions and creations, and his understanding of how the world works. I'm no scientific genius, that is for sure, but I definitely have an appreciation for science museums. That is why I was excited to go to the Museo di Leonardo da Vinci in Florence. It's a small few rooms that are packed to the rafters with wood recreations of some of the greater inventions from his drawings. I was just looking around in awe that someone hundreds of years ago was able to come up with these things. It's good that DMA didn't join me in this museum, because there would have been a bunch of pictures of me looking slack-jawed. However, I did take lots of photos for posterity, including these two.

Paragliding, Renaissance-style

This is a tank, made of wood. Ready for battle.

M is for Museums

2011-11-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

One of the things that is great while traveling is getting to go to museums. Though different countries and different museums have policies about how much museums cost (too bad they aren't all free) and if you can take photographs in them or not. I think when I went to the Louvre, I took a hundred photographs. I do know that the flash from photographs can damage art works, so I was happy to learn how to turn the flash off my camera for some of my indoor shots. Here are some assorted museum photos.

Outside the Uffizi in Florence. You can't take photos inside.

Ceilings at the Vatican Museum.

From Palatine Hill museum. Unfinished jigsaw puzzle, over two thousand years old.

From the Guggenheim Museum in Venice.

L is for Leaning

2011-11-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

According to some, Pisa is a tourist trap. People come from far and wide to see this leaning tower of theirs. Essentially an error in grounding a building becomes a "must-see" site. And yet, the leaning tower of Pisa is pretty cool. I didn't want to pay the fifteen euros to climb to the top, but I got a few pictures of it from the outside. The leaning tower is part of the Piazza dei Miracoli (plaza of miracles). Instead of paying the fifteen euros to climb, we paid for a combination ticket to go into the Duomo which is a beautiful medieval cathedral, and the Baptistery. The Baptistery is a this tall round building with terrific acoustics. There was some chanting music playing, and there was an amazing echo.

We were only in the town of Pisa for a few hours, but it was really great to walk around there. We saw a farmer's market, a bunch of cool narrow streets, views on the river, and some other interesting old buildings. Pisa is only a one hour train ride from Florence, really worth the trip.

K is for Kitties

2011-11-11T17:30:00.000-08:00

Cats sunning themselves

While we were in Rome, we were walking down from the Pantheon, and then stumbled across a large square with construction, and then stopped to cross a street, and then saw a cat sitting there. Then a stairway down, with a sign, telling us that we had found Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary. I remember seeing something about this shelter online before our trip, and DMA had a coworker who also mentioned it. It was a pleasure to get to go into the shelter, and pet and visit with the kitties there.

Pictures of some of the resident cats

I think since I know about cat shelters in the US, I was more interested in finding out how this shelter was different, than getting the whole "you should donate" speech that they gave most of the visitors. The mission at Torre Argentina is similar to shelters here in the US, in California, that there are cats that need care and homes. They also took in a lot of cats that need medical care and we were in the room with the special needs cats for a while. They keep those cats inside to make sure that they don't get injured being outside.

Kiki's Roman doppleganger, fed on a diet of pasta

Anyway, if I ever moved to Rome, I know where I'd volunteer! I recommend checking out their website, and sending them a donation if you feel moved to do so. We both bought a few items at their gift shop while we were there.

J is for Jewish Quarter

2011-11-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

We didn't end up seeing the Jewish Quarter when we were in Venice, but we did see the one in Rome. I think in the guidebooks, it is referred to as the Jewish Ghetto. It was interesting, a few blocks of old buildings and some kosher restaurants. In Venice, I heard some people in front of us in line at the Guggenheim talking about seeing the Jewish Quarter in Venice. They went on a tour, and said it was just like the rest of Venice except the buildings were very tall there, and they toured three synagogues.

Now I am thinking that K would also stand for kosher restaurants, since the letter K doesn't appear in Italian, but I will have to come up with something separately for that letter!

I is for Italian

2011-11-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

I spent about a year studying Italian, both at a community college, and at a university level, and I didn't end up speaking that much Italian to people while I was in Italy. I would say that by and large, most people know English, particularly people in the hospitality and service industries. (In fact, our last night in Florence, we were seated next to some French people who were trying to order dinner, and the people who worked at the restaurant didn't really understand their French, so they were trying to come up with the English words.) However, we did have a charming Italian conversation with a native who looked somewhat like Leonardo da Vinci (the guy on the right). He was sitting in a park, feeding pigeons, and started talking to us about where he was from, and where we were from.

H is for Hotel

2011-11-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine told me that hotels in Italy had the toilet tank above the toilet, on the wall, and so I took this picture for her. We stayed at a B&B in Rome and another B&B in Venice, but in Florence, we stayed at a hotel called Nuova Italia. I really recommend this hotel. It is a two-star hotel, great for the budget traveler, and located only a few blocks from the Santa Maria Novella train station. The proprietors are a welcoming, friendly family who went out of their way to make sure that our stay was great. They speak excellent English, and when I sent them an email ahead of time, asking for instructions on how to get there, they sent me explicit instructions on the location. Also the hotel is located within mere blocks of the Duomo. And across the street from the best restaurant we ate at in Florence.

I liked staying at B&Bs, but I felt like staying at a hotel is a little easier, because there is always someone on staff in case you encounter any problems. And the folks at Nuova Italia were especially helpful at resolving issues and being responsive to what we needed.

G is for Glass

2011-11-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

In preparation for what I wanted to see in Venice, I only had two things on my list. One of them was going to Murano, to see where glass is made. It's about an hour away from the St Marco's Square by water-taxi, and well worth the journey. The guidebook said that one should try to go to the museum and also see glass being made. Museo del Vetro, while costing a pricey eight euros for entrance, did provide an in depth historical look at glass that was made in Murano and Venice, and some of the ridiculously ornate items that were made for rich people. Unfortunately, the museum has a no photography rule.

After visiting the museo, DMA and I searched for a glass blowing studio. There were quite a few places that pulled a "bait and switch," saying that there was a free glass blowing demonstration, only you'd get in there and they'd expect you to pay some additional euros (but then you could look at the items they were selling for free, how generous of them). The place we did end up going into was in the way back of a shop we walked into, and I kept expecting some asshat was going to pop out and ask for money, but no, they had a simple bin for donations. It was a rainy day, and a bit cold, but very warm near where the fire was. The guys creating the glass really seemed intent on showing us all the moves, and I was drawn to the colorful pile of glass chunks that were just the cast-offs from what they were creating. We got to see them make a goblet that was one color, then had white drizzled in a pattern on the side of it. It was really interesting to see it being made, and I'd totally recommend the experience.

F is for Fountain

2011-11-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't throw any coins into the fountain. I couldn't even really get near the Trevi fountain. Because there were just hordes of tourists in every direction. I remember thinking of the scene in La Dolce Vita, where the woman is dancing around in the Trevi fountain, and thinking about how it would be impossible to do that now. Because there are just so many tourists. I think DMA and I immediately dismissed it as very touristy, but we kept coming back to the area because one of our favorite restaurants was right near there, and also there was a really great gelato place. Also, Trevi was a nice (but a bit too much uphill and downhill for my tastes) walk from our B&B. And yeah, that gelato place right near Trevi fountain is pretty awesome.

E is for Eating

2011-11-05T17:00:00.001-07:00

I don't think we ever had any really bad meals in Italy. There were a few meals that had bad elements, like when I ordered a two part dinner, and part one was an awesome pasta with gorgonzola sauce, and part two was an overcooked parmigiana-like meat item drowned in a tasty sauce. So the meat was poorly cooked, but the rest was really tasty, so you can't totally discount that meal, but there was no need to go back to that restaurant again.

However, we did go back to the same restaurant a few times. In Rome we went back to a place near Trevi fountain, that had an osso bucco that DMA loved. And we had dinner four times at the same osteria across from our hotel in Florence. And twice we had lunch at the restaurant near Santo Spirito Church. This is the place that served a gnocchi with a cheese sauce and truffle oil. The truffle taste was subtle, but the whole effect was probably one of the richest, most complex dishes I have eaten. We made the mistake of ordering two of them, and it was one of the few dishes that I just couldn't finish.

D is for Duomo

2011-11-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

After five days in Roman ruins, we went to Florence. Our lovely hotel was mere blocks from the Duomo, which is the symbol of Florence, and with the Colosseum and the leaning tower of Pisa, one of the three must-see landmarks in Italy. According to one of the books I bought on the trip anyway. The Duomo is ancient, but nowhere near as ancient as the Colosseum. It's huge and it's just ornate and beautiful. Everywhere we walked in the city, you could see the Duomo from a distance.

Not being the death-marching type myself, I didn't take it upon myself to climb all the stairs, but DMA did get tickets to climb to the top of the dome and also at the top of the campanile. Often when I travel, my inner laziness wins out, and now I am thinking that I should have done it with her, so I'd have more photos from the top. Then again, it wasn't like we weren't walking many hours a day anyway, so I can cut myself a bit of slack in my reminiscing.

C is for Colosseum

2011-11-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

The Colosseum is probably the most famous landmark in Rome. It's on all the post cards. So we knew we'd have to go there. We actually started at the Palatine Hill, and then the Foro Romano, and then made our way down to the Colosseum. Does the word colossal come from the word colosseum? Or is it the other way around. Anyway, it's hard to tell from mere photographs just how massive the Colosseum is. And like most of Rome, it's been restored enough so you can walk around safely, but not so much that you don't get an idea of what it was like back in the days before asphalt. You walk up rough stone staircases, and then you look around at all the stone seating.

A large part of what drew me to a trip to Italy in the first place was seeing Rome. I have read a lot of books and seen movies and shows, and the idea of walking around where people lived and died over two thousand years ago is really fascinating to me. Visiting the Colosseum was the highlight of that, really made me think about history, and also about what people two thousand years from now would think if they were walking around where I live now. What will survive? Will there be media works (movies, books, something yet not invented) about our times now? The Colosseum was filled with noisy tourists, and yet it also seemed silent to me, all those old ancient stones.

B is for Bridges

2011-11-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

In reading one of the many books that I got in preparation for my trip, it said that the city of Venice is essentially a bunch of man made islands connected together by bridges. In fact, if I weren't so lazy right now, I'd go find which book it was in, because it told me exactly how many bridges there were in Venice.

The largest of these bridges is the Rialto Bridge, which our hotel was a few blocks from. I should say that the concept of a block is a bit different on essentially an island with no motor vehicles. Italy was land of twisty streets anyway, with both Rome and Florence seeming like a warren of dead-ending streets. But Venice was something else. Anyway, the Rialto Bridge is the largest bridge in Venice, and I read at one time, it was the only bridge over the Grand Canal. And this giant Rialto Bridge, that seemed like it took forever to cross, we walked over it twice with our suitcases, dragging them up. There is some notion of accessibility for wheelchairs and whatnot in some parts of Venice, but not on Rialto. And not on the small bridge pictured in this photo.

A is for Arch

2011-11-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

I am still adjusting to being back home. The first few nights, I slept a long time, and would wake up randomly in the middle of the night. But having to be up early every day to be at work is more stressful, and I'm out of synch, waking up at 5 am, and not being able to go back to sleep. I feel like I'm fighting off the slight cold I got on my trip. But yeah, it was fabulous and wonderful, and really felt in some ways like the trip of a lifetime. And while I'm not going to upload all of my photos here or anything, I figured I can post a few, alphabetically.

So, A is for an arch that I saw right outside the Coliseum. I know that I read the sign about this arch, but I don't really remember what it was about exactly, and it's kind of funny because while it looks a bit like the Arc de Triomphe, it's way less interesting than the Coliseum itself. But with my camera, I snapped a photo of it anyway, and realized that if this alphabet theme works for Sue Grafton, it could work for me.

Greetings from Venice

2011-10-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

Our hotel in Venice has the slowest wifi, but it is also open access. This is good since we didn't get to meet our landlord yesterday. The hotel is over a bar/restaurant and the workers let us in. I assume the owner will show up at some time to collect rent. We got very turned around trying to find this place yesterday, but it actually worked out well because we couldn't get in until someone came to open up the restaurant around six-thirty.

So much of doing a trip like this is the logistics. You book a place online then you have to somehow find it when you get to the locale. Streets in Italy are not based on a grid. Signs are never where you would expect them, and often small streets are not on the map. I didn't want to pay data roaming charges, so we did it the old-fashioned way of looking at maps. Our hotel in Florence gave precise directions from train station. Our B&B here in Venice never even responded to the email DMA sent. From a standpoint of dealing with these logistics, I can understand why people like tour groups. They also work out all the transport details. Though I will say that the train system in Italy is very easy to use and figure out.

We just have two full days left, then the long trek home.

Last Full Day in Florence

2011-10-23T07:59:00.001-07:00

We had planned on either going to Bologna today or going around Florence some more, and ended up doing the latter. We went to Michaelangelo's family home then wandered over the river, then back to visit Santa Croce. Now resting after a large expensive gelato. Tomorrow we go to Venice.

In Florence

2011-10-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Wish I could figure out how to upload photos from my iPhone to here.

Most of my pics are on my real camera that I bought before I left. So any real writeup with photos will have to happen later.

Food is superb here. We have not had a bad meal in Italy so far. And while most people seem to speak some English, I am happy I studied Italian!

Greetings From Rome

2011-10-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Typing on my iPhones tiny keyboard to say hello from Rome. There are no nearby Internet cafes so I am roughing it!

Mon Voyage

2011-10-09T21:52:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing I'm not in school anymore. I feel like I'm so good at procrastinating these days and back when I was in school, we didn't have the whole internet for web surfing. I am sure there are people who spend weeks packing and getting ready, but I'm just not that type of person. I had today as a downtime day to get stuff done, and I did get a lot of stuff done, but I'm still not 100% packed. I'll have to pack the rest of the toiletries in the morning. At least I'm going to be in LA for a few days so if there's anything really important, I can get it done there before I'm in Italy.

Autumn Upon Us

2011-10-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

I just realized that it's been a week and a half since I wrote here. I am hoping a cat picture will distract from the fact that I've been blog-neglectful.

It's the weirdest thing but it seems like it became fall almost overnight. Certainly over the last weekend. And this wasn't some dastardly daylight savings time issue either. It went from sunny on Sunday to raining on Monday. And it's a bit cold as well. I haven't had to turn the heat on yet, but I am figuring that it's only a matter of time. And my cats went from hanging out in other rooms to wanting to be in the same room as me and possibly wanting to be on top of me (which is nice, and probably keeping me from being too cold).

A week from today, I am going to be on a plane to Italy. I feel like I have a billion things to do, but I actually have a fairly modest list here. It helps that I have only two more work days, then three weeks off. Seriously is that not the best thing ever? I guess other than six weeks off. But I think if I had six weeks off, I would forget what exactly it is that I do at work anyway. Three weeks is probably optimum. We are actually going to be in Italy for only two weeks, but this gives me time on the beginning and end of the trip to sort of adjust to being in vacation mode, then adjust to being back in the right time zone.

I feel like I've been making a lot of progress, mentally. I had a shitty session with my therapist two weeks ago, and I never really got around to writing about it, but I spent a lot of time processing it. I realize that so often, especially with authority figures, I take what they say as if it is gospel, and it isn't really. I am an adult, and I can answer these questions about how to be, how to live my life, on my own. I think even at thirty-eight, sometimes that's hard to remember that. Even though I haven't lived in the same city as my parents for over twenty years, I still hear their voices sometimes telling me what to do. Or that I'm doing everything the wrong way. I've done so much physically to remove myself from that sort of pressure, yet I sometimes feel like I carry it with me. But I'm working on unpacking that.

Golem

2011-09-24T08:27:00.001-07:00

I had this dream that I was a golem

only I didn't know what I was

I was created out of flesh, not clay

and I just did what I was told, always

At a certain point in the dream

I started to realize who I was

gaining consciousness of my

existence

In the dream, I woke up and

looked around

realizing I had been living this life

others had chosen for me

I packed a bag and walked away

from what I was told to be

and decided to be who I wanted

to be, instead

All Work, Little Play

2011-09-20T19:20:00.001-07:00

I should have written something last week because this week is going to be all me bitching about work and how busy we are and how I had to work on Sunday, and that I also was doing training at the shelter on Saturday, and basically had no weekend. I feel sincerely needing some downtime. More than just a night. Thankfully this weekend is going to involve nothing but fun.

Heart On Her Sleeve

2011-09-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm Facebook friends with a few people at work. This one woman, someone whom I like a lot, posts status messages all the time about what is going on in her head. Like if someone pisses her off in the building, she posts about it. She doesn't post their names, but sometimes it's pretty clear who she is talking about. And if something sad is going on in her life, she posts that too. Like today, a family friend is near the end, and she posted something about that. I saw her in the hall and gave her a hug, wishing her well.

But this story isn't about her. It's about me. And how I feel sometimes like I would be better off if I could open up a little like that. Not just on Facebook but maybe in general. To myself. To others. Talk about my feelings. I could just say that I'm not that comfortable talking about my feelings, which is true, but I remember at some point I was. I'm not sure when it all changed, when I started pushing my feelings down more, to keep them secretive and hidden. Because I remember when I used to be that over-sharing type of person, and sometimes I felt over exposed by it. The more information that is out there, that is in public, the more I think I'm better off keeping my mouth shut, and maybe resurrecting a personal diary.

I read this a week or two ago. I'm not that interested in gluten-free recipes or recipes in general, but I know a lot of people are. Anyway that's not really the point. It's just kind of amazing reading about a woman who got these horrible nasty comments and all she does is write a blog about food. I'm not talking about the satire stuff but the whole thing with people wishing she'd die, saying her three-year-old is fat. What the hell. Like how twisted do people get where they start sending a total stranger shitty emails like that?

I feel like I've been struggling a lot lately with feelings, trying to figure things out in my head, analyzing and just dealing day to day with my thoughts. And I wonder if I were putting all those thoughts out there, what kind of response would I get? And would I even want to communicate them with anyone else?

Long Walks and Anxiety

2011-09-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Just vacuumed and cleaned the floors here. A week of being sick, and it being too hot on the little free time I did have, made that kind of thing seem impossible. In the Assertiveness class I took in the spring, there was a discussion about vacuuming, namely how much one "should" vacuum and how we have these judgements about the right way to keep house. Anyway, I was kind of surprised that most people don't think you should vacuum every week. I thought that is what one does. Particularly when having pets around, shedding all over. Apparently not.

I had a really good weekend, with nary a dull moment. I will be putting up a post on Gals About Town soon about what I did on Sunday, but I also had a good rest of the long weekend. Despite being ill, I went to a ladies night with some women from work on Friday, then did my usual volunteering on Saturday, followed by hanging out with my friend from there afterwards.

Then Monday I met my therapy group for brunch and took a walk with some of them. One of the women from there does a lot of serious hikes and walks, and she had some ideas of where to walk, but I picked a more urban location near our breakfast place. Hiking is fine and dandy but I am trying to get in as much urban walking in as possible before my trip to Italy next month with DMA. I know we are going to be walking everywhere. I walk almost every day at lunch for thirty minutes. It's weird that even though this is the most consistent exercise that I've done in years and years, I keep worrying that I'm not enough in shape and I'm going to be exhausted and left behind.

Anxiety is such a large part of traveling. I don't know why it is getting to me more this trip than our last ones. Maybe because I know more. Maybe the anticipation of this trip, which was in the planning stages for over a year, including me studying Italian. I just feel like I've been working very hard for a very long time in preparation of this trip, and really need a vacation first and foremost. This time of year is when we start getting really busy at work too, and none of that helps.

I'd like to remember this year not as the year of great anxiety, but that seems like what most of it has been like so far. I know there are plenty of people who thrive on anxiety, but I'm not one of them. I feel like I worry about things from not being fit enough to traipse through Italy, not having enough money for everything, having to clean my apartment (where I've been living for five years and still have boxes), not meeting men to date, not really caring about meeting men to date, something happening to my cats when I'm away, what is going on at work, how I'll cope with all these things... I am sure some people thrive on anxiety, but for me, it all kind of spins in my head and makes me feel like doing nothing until the head-spinning stops. I remember in college when I had a week of extreme headaches and tunnel-vision around finals, when I felt myself barely hanging onto the edge of my life by my fingernails... At a certain point, the anxiety took over and there was no rational way to get out of it. So I just went through it, knowing that the finals would happen, that I would move on to different classes, would have different choices to make.

But we all know, once you get out of college, your life doesn't move in the same fast way. Sometimes I think about, well what do I want to do when I really grow up. And I'm scared that the answer is what I'm doing right now is what I have to do when I grow up.

Working Sick

2011-09-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

I think some day when blogger can link with the chip in our brains, my blog will be more interesting. I have interesting thoughts, but they don't necessarily make it into the blog.

Part of the problem this week is that I've been fighting a cold, or something. It started Monday with about four hours of headache at work in the afternoon, and I came home, went to bed a little after 8 pm, and then woke up at 6:30 with still having a headache, so I called in sick, and slept all day. Literally all day. (One of my pet peeves is when people use the word "literally" to mean the opposite of what it means, and I worry that this usage is going to be stuck in our language. So I should add here that I didn't literally sleep all day because I woke up for a few hours in the middle of the day to eat lunch.) Then was back at work on Wednesday, though feeling rough and pushing myself through it. And then today when this sort of broke into feeling more like a cold, with swollen throat and congestion.

I'm really not sure sometimes WHY I push myself to go to work when I'm not feeling well. I get plenty of sick time (about a day a month) and I am not sick that often. The last time I was out sick was earlier in the year, when I was still taking Italian, and that was a few days of stomach flu. I feel like I should come into work most of the time, even when I'm borderline sick. I feel like my presence there is necessary, particularly since my often ailing coworker is out sick often (including all of this week so far). But I don't feel like my pushing myself is especially appreciated. My boss is one of those people who rarely calls in sick, and even if she is sick, she's going into work. She acts sympathetic, sometimes, but so infrequently. If I am calling in sick, I usually time it to leave a message on her voicemail before she gets into work so I don't have to actually talk to her about it. Also, it's not like I have piles of crap waiting to do at work if I'm not there. If I'm not at work, shit gets done anyway.

The real downside is that if you are sick, what you need is rest and sleep, and I can't really get that at work. And instead of rest and sleep, I sometimes end up getting aggravation and annoyance. I had someone who was a little highly strung go off on me yesterday. It was really illogical, what she was saying, and when someone is telling you that they don't have time to deal with things, but then they are making time to yell at you and give you grief for wasting their time. I just hope I can avoid this individual in the future. I know we are all different, people come in great variety, as my therapist said, but I don't like having to bear the brunt of someone's issues like that.

Bath Mat

2011-08-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

I wish I kept a video camera in the bathroom. I got one of these bath mats yesterday for my bathroom, and it has this sort of memory foam that when you step into it, it feels squishy. It took me just a minute to get used to it, but to Teddy, this was a confusing experience. First he puts one paw down on it, then lifts up that paw like the mat burned him. Then he walked around to the other side of it, and put another paw down, and lifted it up again. At one time, I did see him sit entirely in the center of the mat, but since then, he has been avoiding it. I got a good-sized one, so he has to really walk around it if he wants to walk into my bathroom.

I didn't have a bathmat in there for a while when I first got Teddy, because there was also a litter box in that bathroom, and the mat I had down became part of a war between Kiki and Teddy to see who could be more disgusting. I would step on it, and get my foot wet with cat pee. The final straw was when someone pooped on it. I tossed that rug out, and went without for a few weeks, until I got tired of standing on the floor, dripping after a shower. So I got a rag type rug from Kohl's. It wasn't bad, it was somewhat absorbent and didn't have a plastic backing. It was easy to throw in the wash. But not particularly luxurious. Whereas, my new bath mat is luxurious. Even if Teddy doesn't get used to it, I will.

Unasked Questions

2011-08-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was kind of difficult. We had this long long customer service training, and there were a few things that seemed very pointed to me personally even though it was a thirty-person event. I don't bitch about work as much as I used to, for various reasons. I've been at the same job for years, and there have been times when I just hated it, time when I liked it, times when I was indifferent. I realize that mainly that I work to put food on the table, food in the cat dishes, and it's not about me changing the world or experiencing a lot of personal growth at work. But what personal growth that I've made outside of work doesn't exist in a vacuum. I remember when I first started going to therapy at 29, and how a large part of what my problem was, was my job. What I do is stressful, and I was working for someone who seemed to have a very different set of values than myself. I realize now, cutting her some slack, that she didn't really have much managerial experience when she was assigned to manage my team. And it showed. But instead of how I would be in the situation, which is, moving slowly, she tended to move through things quickly and made decisions based on surface data and not really getting what was going on underneath the surface.

In any case, I remember that a friend of mine, someone who had worked with us temporarily for six months, had interviewed for an open position, and instead of hiring her (someone who was competent, who had already done the job, who knew how to do the job), my boss hired this utter douchebag. He was (and often is) the epitome of someone who was all surface and no substance, someone who kissed ass and chatted people up instead of solving problems. And my boss went about integrating him into our group the total wrong way, putting him on a weird pedestal. Something like six months later, he was promoted, then got another promotion into another department. But that first week, when I was sitting there, supposed to be training him, and it just hit me how futile it was working for someone who would hire someone like this jackass.

I got up from my desk, walked outside, and thought about throwing myself in front of a car. I didn't. I left work early, and I got help. I got therapy. I started taking meds. I started figuring stuff out, working on issues. I remember after being on meds for a while, I went in to talk to a doctor about going off the meds, and she was asking me how my life had really changed, and all that surface stuff of living in the same place, being at the same job, that was all there. But my inner world, self-concept, and whatnot, had made a radical shift. Then more stuff happened, started dating my ex R, back on meds again, breaking up with R... anyway a lot of stuff happened. And throughout it all, a lot of these same basic facts are there, including being at the same job.

So I'm still at that same job. I've changed. I continue to change. I'm not taking meds, I'm only going to therapy once a month. I am not always working actively on my mental health, not spending days reading affirmations, not reading self-help books. But I do feel like I'm always progressing in one way or another. And sometimes it's very slow, very hard to notice how much I've progressed. And when you work at a place where you used to dread coming into work, where you used to fantasize about being anywhere but there all day, but then you continue to go in and be effective at your job... that's something. Not saying I deserve a fucking medal, of course, but I think the fact that I managed to cope with the day to day facts of holding down a job and paying my bills while at the height of depression (the depth of depression?), I should get some credit.

I was trying about how this training brought up some bad feelings, but then I digressed into the background information. I think I'm able to bury my feelings about work in the day to day monotony of actually doing my job, but then attending this class where we had to talk about our feelings and our personal growth, it made me feel kind of shitty. Because I don't feel empowered in my work. I don't feel understood. I feel sometimes like I work with a bunch of idiots, and things would be better if I were running things. Or at the very least, if people recognized my value and intelligence instead of micromanaging me and treating me like I'm simple. Even if I was un-intelligent, I've been doing the same job for years, and so obviously am not a total idiot. But no one ever really asks me, "What do you think we should do?" and sits and listens to my answer. And I've always been a bit afraid to say what I think, and to answer that question that hasn't been asked. But maybe it's time to try to speak up.

Cutting the Cord

2011-08-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write about my fabulous weekend but it's now the middle of the week. I felt like I had a lot of good moments this weekend with friends and realized that a cord from my life that I have been holding onto for about a year needed to be cut. I don't know why I am so indecisive sometimes, even after making a decision, not sure where I am going. I think when you spend your life around controlling people, it becomes hard to hear your own voice. I am learning to listen.

I think sometimes I view change as all or nothing, or as going from 0 to 60, and it's not always like that. When trying to change, I need to remember that it takes time, that it is often the water pouring slowly over the rock that grinds it down. And remember that I'd rather be the water than the rock.

We had customer service training today at work. I have been at my job for a long ass time and this is the first formal training I think I've had, and it wasn't really that formal. Days like today, I think I'm not cut out for corporate American (not like we are very corporate, actually) but more likely, I think that they aren't cut out for me. It was interesting talking to people that I usually don't talk to, and how a lot of people have that feeling of not really being sure what they want to do when they grow up. I'm pretty sure I feel that way too but I am also sure now that I do want to grow up at some point.

Acid Mouth

2011-08-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist yesterday. I know I've mentioned this before, too lazy to figure out when, but every time I go in, my dentist seems to want to do more shit. I seriously have fine teeth. They tell me over and over again how my teeth seem strong, in great shape, etc. Yet they come up with more stupid crap to do. The latest is testing the ph of my mouth. See, I guess if your mouth is more alkaline, you get less cavities. Or something. Nevermind that I don't seem to get random cavities, and when I do get them, it is because I'm not doing a good job of brushing and flossing. So my mouth always comes up as a bit acidic. First time they tested me, I had a morning appointment and had just drunk coffee. This time, I had a salad for lunch that had a lot of vegetables on it. After they give me the test, and my mouth is acidic, I say, what do you want me to do, stop eating vegetables, because I'm not going to do that.

Also at one point, the hygienist says something about me needing to get more exercise. I pull out my pedometer, which is right on my waistband, and say, um, yeah I can tell you how many paces I walk in a day. So, you have NO way of looking at me and making an assumption that I'm not getting any exercise without asking any questions or getting any background information. Then as she starts talking, she is talking about how she herself often doesn't feel like exercising. So I would have to say, this is all pretty much about HER and her own issues.

I took a class on Zen meditation when I was 23, and one of the things that stuck with me from this class (and no, it sadly wasn't a feeling of inner peace) is that 95% of what people talk about is themselves. They may sound like they are talking to you, about you, about other people, but much of it is about themselves. I would probably change that now to say that it's a reflection of themselves, but that seems pretty accurate. I try to remind myself of this, especially when I'm at work and dealing with asshole callers (which I had one of this week), that he's really not talking to me, but he's talking at me and dealing with his own issues.

The things we love in others, we love within ourselves, and the things we hate in others, we hate within ourselves. Maybe this isn't totally true, but I think about nurturing more love for other people and for myself. Sometimes it's pretty hard, like when I was dealing with asshole caller this week. I can tell myself over and over again that this is all about his issue, but still sometimes people push your buttons, no matter what you tell yourself to try to deal with the bad feeling.

Out Of The Woodwork

2011-08-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

In olden times, before we had computers and whatnot, before people even traveled far from the village where they were born and raised, people probably never had that feeling of others coming out of the woodwork, out of the past, out of nowhere and back into our lives.

Now with the internet, that happens all the time. This week, this guy contacted me through IM. I met him once, and I don't really remember what happened. I was probably in one of my more experimental and open-minded phases of meeting guys, and I wasn't sitting down with a journal keeping track of every single thing. The fact that I don't really remember much could indicate that he left little of an impression, or that I met him and forgot because I was busy being really really interested in some other guy, or that there was something blandly negative there. Not enough to register on the memory. Anyway, I certainly didn't get a bad impression of him, nor necessarily a good one. Totally neutral, blank.

So, out of the woodwork he comes, and is talking to me thru IM when I'm at work. If I were a different person, I probably would have asked how I knew him, from where and when, but I didn't. I did try to ask about what time frame we knew each other, trying to place this single date amongst the chronology of my real long term relationships. He wasn't very precise either. Obviously I was only memorable enough to try to IM and flirt with, but not to have made it into his date book either. I'm not insulted. But I wonder which incarnation of me he met, because that's the woman he was trying to talk to now. I don't think I'm that person anymore.

I've been through a few phases since I was out of college that I was meeting a lot of men. A lot. I would go out on tons of dates with just about anyone who would strike up a conversation online and ask me. I don't really think it was out of desperation, but I also don't think I set many standards other than "not psycho" which is actually not much of a standard. Quite frankly there are a lot of people out there who are not certifiable, but still are annoying as hell to be around. I often saw it as a game of odds, where there was 1 in a 100 of the guys I would meet that I would like, so I'd go out on a hundred dates, hoping to meet that one. But I wasted a lot of time there, and would have a lot of negative experiences that made me burn out on dating.

I don't mean to sound like I'm putting this all on the guys out there, that I was perfect, and they were assholes. I think I've never been very clear about what I want to myself, much less to other people. I have a lot of friends who were very much on the "marriage then kids" path, and I think then it's easier if you are out there dating, looking for the future father of your child. Since I was never doing that, even when sometimes I thought I might like kids, I had to set up a different set of standards. But I don't think I was ever discerning in the right way, and I would take setbacks to heart. If I liked someone, and they didn't like me, my heart would be broken for a few days. I remember rejections sometimes from years ago, sometimes as proof of my being unworthy of being loved. See, I'd say, you have to take what you can get, because that guy there didn't love you. And if anyone liked me too much, well, they were crazy and there was something wrong with them.

I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to have a balance, go on a date because I'm interested to get to know a person and see how/if they can fit into my life. I want to be in a relationship. I like being in relationships. I'm just not sure how to do it anymore, with the person I want to be now.

Other People

2011-08-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

There was a time earlier this year, when I was feeling like I didn't have much of a social life, didn't have many friends. I started thinking about how I could step outside of that feeling, how I could expand my social circles. And then Kailyn got us busy with Gals About Town which is all about going out and seeing and doing stuff. I feel like I've been doing something every day of every weekend, with my volunteering, also going out and eating in new places, seeing new things. And not to mention my usual schedule of volunteering and working full-time. I have been feeling lately like I really need time off, especially from work. Maybe a mental health day? The problem is that since I'm going to Italy in a few months, I can't really take time off work. Gotta save up my vacation time for the three weeks I'll be taking off work. I was going over my records, and I didn't feel like I'd taken any vacation time this year because I haven't gone anywhere, but I took time off because of out of town visitors and time off for my finals in my Italian classes.

I also feel kind of socially awkward sometimes, out of practice with some social niceties. I think that spending four and a half years dating someone who was always putting me down, saying that I "talked funny" and wasn't humorous or easy to follow, well, that all made me sometimes nervous about how I am in casual conversations. Add to that a year and a half of dating someone who really didn't talk that much, and not a lot of conversations in between, and I feel sometimes like I don't know exactly how to do the whole conversation thing. It was easier when I was going to group therapy every week, because there was a lot of talking and a lot of listening going on. I felt like I had practice then, and I'm not sure how much practice I get now. Sometimes conversations I have are just waiting for the other person to be quiet so I can talk. And sometimes I feel like my job, listening to people and their computer problems on the phone, makes me an impatient listener. I want to get to the real problem and then solve it, and cut through some of the unnecessary (to me anyway) details.

I also have been feeling like I'm just generally more anxious than I'd like to be. Though when it comes down to it, I'd like to have no anxiety at all, and I'm not really sure if that is possible. I guess we all live with some anxiety, but I just tend to find it very paralyzing. I have all these things to do, so I don't do any of them because I'm anxious. I guess the lesson is to chip away at what must be done, one bit at a time.

Stocking Up

2011-08-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

I went to Costco after work and got the giant package of maxi pads. Are those super thin ones really called maxi pads now? I don't remember when Always came out with those thin pads, but they are the best things ever. I remember as a young girl, that feeling of wearing a diaper, and one time I was wearing a shorter skirt and someone in my elementary school even thought I was in fact wearing a diaper, and said something loudly to that affect. Gee, thanks, chicky poo. Great that I still remember that, probably 25 years ago... Anyway, in addition to the maxi pads at Costco, I also got a big bottle of Advil from Target. And I hungrily eyed the giant chocolate cake that the woman behind me in line was getting at Costco.

I am hoping to snap out of my tiredness that has been plaguing me this week. Is it hormonal? That is my hope, because that means it will pass, and not that I am coming down with something. I have things to do, emails to write, and I feel little like doing much of anything.

Me Elsewhere

2011-07-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

Totally wiped out from it being Monday and all. I have the all Golden Girls channel on, and am thinking of playing some solitaire or something equally mind-numbing, but figured I would point out that I posted again on Gals About Town. Last week, I wrote about having tea in Benicia, and yesterday I posted about a delicious meal at Dead Fish. Of course, there are other posts by other people there as well that I encourage you to read.

Matchmaker Matchmaker

2011-07-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Now that I have cable, I seem to find myself watching it at odd times. This weekend, Bravo was doing a marathon of their Millionaire Matchmaker show. I watched a bit of the show when I was down visiting my friends in LA last year. My friend Jen really likes a lot of reality programming, I think because with her busy life, it's hard to keep track of serialized shows and reality programming spells a lot out for you. You could watch one episode and "get it" right away and start following the program.

Anyway, it was very interesting to me, being single, to watch something like this. I've seen episodes that take place in New York and LA. I can't imagine being single in either of those places. I think I always think of having a "singles scene" something like the movie Singles, where everyone is hanging out in coffee shops, singing in bands, living in sketchy apartments. This does not describe what I saw on these shows. I know the focus is on "millionaires" so they have to include all these lifestyle places, with the name-dropping, expensive clothing, etc., and that part of the show really isn't interesting to me.

What is interesting to me is the psychology of it all. The woman who is the matchmaker, Patti, is sort of like a neurotic love guru. I don't know how much she is like her portrayal on the show in real life, so this is not an attempt to talk about her as a person, but the character that she portrays. And that character is tough. She's tough on people, calls them on their bullshit pretty much continuously. Not just talking about swearing at people or whatever, but there are men and women that come to her and say that they want to find a love partner in their life, and then their actions indicate the diametric opposite of that. For instance, this guy who says he wants someone whom he can be intimate with, but then only looks for women who are 15-20 years younger and overpowers them by talking about places he's traveled, but not about himself. Patti advised him to make himself vulnerable, to open up to a woman on the date he goes on. Like any kind of therapy, a lot of these clients are very resistant to change, and often the show ends with them not being successful in their dating endeavors or really seeming to have experienced much personal growth.

Patti talks a lot about these "non-negotiables," that is, five things that you won't compromise on. Characteristics you are looking for (or their opposite, trying to avoid) that come from your past experience and what hasn't worked out for you. A lot of the clients come in saying they want "the full package" or "love and romance" and then when she asks them specifically what they really want, they can't nail it down. I started taking that to heart of thinking about dating, so without further ado, my five non-negotiables.

He has to have a job and be able to support himself financially.
He needs to be emotionally open, able to express his emotions, able to talk about them, and also listen to me when I talk about mine.
He needs to be open to trying new things, exotic foods, travel, new experiences.
He has to have a sense of humor.
If not a feminist, he at least has to not be sexist.

What are your non-negotiables? I think mine come from a variety of experience, negative and positive, but I've never dated someone who fits all of these criteria. Not yet, anyway.

Journaling and Blogging

2011-07-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

My therapist wanted me to read this book about journaling to deal with some of my ongoing issues. I have skimmed the book, haven't really been journaling. I feel like this is a good idea, to start writing stuff down, but I feel like a lot of crap is just stuck in my head. A lot of the time, I think about my thoughts, think about things I could write down and post, but I don't really do it. I am sure some of that is life, the things we think of doing aren't always the things we end up doing. I feel sometimes the gap between how where I would like to be with my life and where my life actually is, and I feel this gap widening.

I've been thinking a lot about jumping in the waters of dating again. When I first broke up with C, I thought I'd start right away, then I thought I needed a few months, and well, it's been about a year. And some portion of the year, I was getting over being with him, missing some of the things that our relationship had. I thought, and decided on the whole, that the things our relationship had did not make up for what our relationship lacked. Communication. Commiseration. And that feeling of moving towards a commitment, or at least, some stability and feeling like we were on the same path. Nada.

I think being single has been good for me. There have been times when I was single, and I spent a lot of energy on making my outside look good. You know, diet and exercise, lose some weight, get in shape, throw myself into gym routines. But lately, I've done the opposite, and instead of working on my exterior, I have been working on my interior, my inner feelings. I don't think I'm one of those people who always gets involved in the same kind of relationship, but I do feel like a lot of deep-seated negative beliefs have kept me from being in the kind of relationship that I deserve, with someone who treats me with respect and takes my feelings into consideration. Oh and isn't emotionally unavailable and doesn't remind me of my dad or his mother.

Anyway, I saw this quote a few weeks ago and it kind of speaks to where I am now:
“You know, it’s quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness… There is even a moment, right at the start, where you have to jump across an abyss; if you think about it you don’t do it.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

So maybe I need to think about dating a little bit less and act a little bit more.

Wine, Noise, and Future Plans

2011-07-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

Kailyn, who has become both my social director and now the documentor of my life, has posted about what we did yesterday. I am gathering a good collection of wine glasses this summer. I managed to avoid fried vegetables this time, which I consider a minor victory.

My new neighbors haven't moved in, unless they are very, very quiet. My landlady said that they paid to move in on the first. Are they rich? Or doing some sort of scam? I think I probably read too many thrillers and watch too much TV, because I keep thinking up really interesting ideas, and it's probably a very simple and boring explanation. I keep expecting a big and loud move-in day, and it hasn't happened yet. The only loud days we have had are the residual fireworks. It was weird talking to someone at my local grocery store the day after the holiday, and he was talking about how much fun he had shooting off all kinds of fireworks, and I was thinking about how horrible fireworks are for my cats, how they were so traumatized the night of the fourth. It was over ninety degrees, but I left the windows closed because the noise was really traumatizing the cats.

So it is official, and DMA and I have our plane tickets for our trip to Italy in October. I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing from there. But I should find a way to get my phone online and maybe posting pictures and who knows what else. And you know, there is still a lot of summer to get through too. I hear rumor of heading to Benecia, and then going to the state fair, and that's just what is occurring in July.

Happy (And Hot) Fourth of July

2011-07-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

I just put up a post over at Gals About Town that I think is kind of cute, though not profound or anything.

It is a three-day weekend, and super hot where I live. I didn't really have anything going on yesterday other than a vague plan of cleaning my house, and it never really cooled down enough where I felt like doing the heavy lifting of the vacuum cleaner, but I did manage a few things. Our weather here has been crazy, because last Tuesday it was pouring rain, and yesterday it topped out at 90 degrees. It's almost surreal. I tried to bet someone at work before last Tuesday that it wouldn't rain, and she thankfully didn't take the bet, because I would have lost.

Oh, and to add to my last post, my next door neighbor told me about being out of work for four weeks, so that explains the unwashed smell and seeing him sitting around in boxers far too often. I have to say, thinking of a guy out of work for a few weeks, reminds me of my ex R who was out of work pretty much continuously while we were dating. The new downstairs neighbors have yet to move in, which is nice from a noise perspective, and maybe they'll do it during the day when I'm at work. And with the heat, it is kind of sad, but I'm looking forward to being at work because there is a/c all the time.

Thankfully there have been a lot of fireworks around here the last few nights, and Kiki seems completely non-plussed by the noise. Teddy will put his ears back and look curious, but he's not getting angry or fearful either. I keep seeing people posting on Facebook about their pets freaking out, and I'm glad mine aren't doing that. Though they will be happier when it's less hot around here. They lie flat around the non-carpeted surfaces most of the day.

Besieged by Stupidity

2011-06-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

I had one of those days. Working in IT, I definitely see my share of dumb people doing dumb things, but we had a largish bunch of users get caught up in a phishing scheme, where these users went ahead and sent the phishers their email address, password, etc, and then said phishers started using the email address and password to send out more of their spam. We could provide the fastest, safest computers in the world, but there is only so much one can do about human stupidity. I think the top layer of the cake was the woman who was denying that she sent her password to anyone. That just made my head ache. How the hell did they get it then? Please don't say magic elves.

My sometimes loud but not really that bad downstairs neighbors moved away yesterday. The only other connecting wall I have is in my kitchen with my side neighbors, though I do hear them a lot more. Particularly when last week it was so hot, and they had their door wide open, blasting the TV. I walked by a lot yesterday, when I was bringing laundry up and down the stairs, and there was this huge funky smell coming out of there. Like piles of unwashed gym socks. I don't know exactly what is going on there, but there is a stay at home mom and a dad and two kids, in a small place, smaller than mine, maybe that's why it smelled so bad.

Anyway, the downstairs folks are gone, off to greener pastures. I only found them noisy on their back patio which is under my bedroom, and they had a taste for classic rock and loud, drunken arguments. And they always remembered my name, and the husband would say my name every time he saw me, and you know I forgot his name about five minutes after he was introduced to me years ago. I am not good with names unless I see them written, even then. And you can't very well ask someone what their name is, years later. I guess with them gone, I feel less self-conscious about not remembering their damn names. I am just hoping that no one super noisy moves downstairs. Or anyone who smokes. I would prefer someone nice and quiet, just like me, but who knows what will happen. Crossing my fingers, no crying babies.

I actually feel like there are friendly people who live near me, whom I smile at, but I could probably do more. Like say hi. Then talk for a while. Or even listen. Yet, I feel like I cut myself off from people like that, because I prefer to go home and have quiet, and not have people come by asking to borrow sugar, or have to worry about wearing decent clothes. I also know that this is how I grew up, when you didn't really talk to your neighbors, and didn't really know them. That was how my mom was, when I was a kid. She's not like that now, good friends with her neighbor, and they take walks together.

I don't necessarily feel like I need or want to change, but I do think about these things sometimes. I wonder about some alternate universe, where there is a me who made other decisions, and I wonder how that worked out for her.

Cheaper Than Therapy

2011-06-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

DMA informed me that I am behind on posting. Perhaps the reason is because I had therapy last week. Therapy is like an infodump and I don't have to worry about my computer locking up during it. In any case, I should set up some bullet points in this here page and allow that to aid the flow of my thoughts to blog.

The countdown is on, four months until Italy. DMA and I are waiting to purchase our tickets until we get closer to the date, somewhat in the hope that the lowering price of gas will mean cheaper flights.
It has been unreasonably hot here the last few days, though getting a sunburn on Sunday didn't help. You can read about what I did on Sunday here. I should pay Kailyn to do a travelogue of my life. Anyway, heat plus sunburn meant me not sleeping well a couple of nights. Hopefully I can start to turn that around.
Had this sort of weird family issue in the last few weeks, and I'm not really sure how much I want to blog about it. For starters, not clear how interesting it will be unless you know all the participants. I guess part of my desire not to talk about it stems from me wanting to set a boundary between myself and the family craziness.
Just did a post on Gals About Town about seeing the Go Fug Yourself girls doing a book reading last weekend.
My therapist gave me a little writing assignment, maybe I should write that here as my next entry. We'll see.

What I Need To Do

2011-06-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

Got an A in my last Italian class.

It's been about a week since I took my final and I feel like I'm still de-compressing, getting used to not being in class, and going back to my old work schedule. I'm still not used to any of it. It doesn't help that we are finally getting some hot weather here, and I feel kind of like a wet dishrag at the moment. My cats are laying around on the rug, barely remembering to ask me for dinner.

There were all those things that I was putting off until finishing my class, and I find that I am slowly chipping away with them. Despite the heat, I made a valiant effort to clear mold off the walls of my too small bathroom. Seriously, I should never move into an apartment with a bathroom with no window again. It's a recipe for dust and mold, and my tiny master bathroom has bits of both. Though after yesterday, a bit less.

Some days it is like that, when you have that feeling that you are going to do everything but I think I tend to work better if I can just slowly chip away at all the things I need to get done, instead of building up a hope of accomplishing everything that only ends in disappointment when I realize such tasks are impossible.

The Last Couple of Weekends

2011-06-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

I think it's finally officially summer, and I feel like I've just been busy as hell the last few weekends. Because I've been busy, I've lost a real sense of time, and when Kailyn and I were talking today about going to bocce, I said, wasn't that weeks ago? Um no, it was just last week. My birthday was only about a week ago.

Anyway, I put up a post on Gals About Town about going to the Mushroom Mardi Gras in Morgan Hill which you can read. That was last weekend.

This weekend, I got back to the shelter to volunteer, and since it is kitten season, the shelter was packed and I was very busy showing kittens all day. (Boo on this, because I wish people would adopt the very sweet adult cats, and the more time I spend helping people look at kittens, the less time I spend with those sweet adult cats.) And then on Sunday, today, I went to the Sunset magazine celebration with Kailyn. You can read her post for more info on that. Being at outdoor fairs are what summer is all about in this area. There was one summer some years ago when I hit up a food and wine festival every weekend. I don't know if I have the stamina or the liver for that anymore (or the rich boyfriend paying for everything; I seem to remember that helping). I think it's probably good for me to be getting some sunlight, but I probably should be more diligent about sunscreen, as I already have one weird red mark on my arm, and my face looks a little pink at the moment.

Oh yeah, and my Italian class final is on Tuesday, so I'm off work Monday and Tuesday. I originally thought it was on Monday night, and figured I would use Tuesday to decompress, but now, I will just have Tuesday night to relax before trudging back to work on Wednesday. I feel like once I'm done with class, I will have a lot more free time to do other things.

Reflections on 38

2011-06-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

I started this post a few times in my mind, but really I haven't reached any real conclusions yet. I am now at a point where my Italian class final is in five days, and I am cramming the subjunctive in my head, no matter that I'm not 100% sure that I understand what the subjunctive is. Compared to the prepositions in Italian, it seems less complicated. (I read something online that apparently Italians find the prepositions in English complicated as well, so there you go. At least ours don't make unholy combinations with the definite articles like theirs do.)

I had a great birthday. It's weird because I've had birthdays that I thought out more, planned out more, did more events, and usually I take the whole week off work. This time, I didn't do much of that other than having a dinner out with friends the night of my birthday. I certainly didn't go away anywhere, didn't have too many expectations of anything from friends, and so I was pleasantly surprised by all my nice gifts, and everyone hanging out and having a good time. My one expectation was that both of my parents would send me cash so I could buy a new TV, which they did, so I did. My old TV, I got it about a year out of college, so I feel like I finally have a modern TV now.

Despite a very busy Memorial Day weekend, I did have some moments for quiet introspective thought. I feel like I've come a long way in the last year, and I feel that as time goes by, I am focusing more on what matters, what makes me happy, what I want. I am still not sure what that means in relation to other people, particularly in romantic relationships, but I'm just going with the flow for now.

I Only Blog When I Procrastinate

2011-05-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

I did my first post over at Gals About Town yesterday. I wrote the post while I was procrastinating doing some work for my Italian class. Which is what I'm also doing now as well. I am so thankfully in the home stretch of this class. We had another quiz today on vocabulary. I am sure there was some point in my life where I was able to sit down and memorize a bunch of words, but I think I am no longer in that state where such brilliance is possible. I did manage to memorize the parts of the body, which was good, and some of the other crap, but of course then she threw other vocabulary on there. It's much easier if it isn't just a list of "write the Italian word for this."

In the midst of all this homework, I have been having something of an existential time of life. I suppose some of that is my approaching birthday (a mere four days away). I feel like this last year, I have done a lot of pushing and pulling on myself, dealing with deep-seeded issues, tackling problems, and going way out of my comfort zone. Taking college classes, when I've been out of college for so long, it's just been hard. Also, my university didn't have grades when I was there. We had these written evaluations. So a written evaluation could say something like: "Fluffycat wasn't always able to memorize all of the vocabulary, but she really tried hard and did remarkably well for her advanced age and abilities, considering that she also had to work full-time and wanted to maintain some semblance of a social life." Whereas now, I'm just going to get a letter grade. That will hopefully be an A.

I feel like I've come up against a lot of perfectionist mentality in this whole process. Like on my first midterm where I got a 96%, and I thought, ooh great an A will pull up my vocab quiz crappy scores. And then my next thought was, what about that other 4%? Why wasn't I perfect? Um yeah. So there are some issues there. Then there is the all-or-nothing thinking of either I'm failing and flailing miserably, or I'm doing spectacularly. And all of these thoughts are not about the real issue here which is that I want to learn Italian because I'm going there in four months, and, no, I can't expect to speak the language perfectly or be an Italian scholar, but perhaps I can have a good grasp of it. I keep forgetting this is supposed to be about something fun.

Reading Me Elsewhere

2011-05-19T20:44:00.000-07:00

Quick note that Kailyn started a new blog Gals About Town and invited me to participate. You might see me actually leaving my house and posting there at some point.

Also, I setup a tumblr page. Email me directly for the link (flufficat at gmail dot com) if you are interested. I am not sure I want to link to it here because I was thinking of actually going cognito (is that the opposite of incognito or just a word I made up) on there. Though who knows what will happen.

Oh and I went through the sidebar a little, adding a few blogs I read frequently and also removing some that haven't been updated in a few years. I understand that happens, people just kind of burn out or fade away, but I do wonder what happens to people when they walk away from the computer.

Rubber Band

2011-05-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

I've felt kind of like a rubber band, pulled taught this week, and keep hoping that the forces that are pulling me will let go a little and I can snap back into shape.

I know a good portion of why I was groggy for a few days early in the week was having my period, but with having a quiz and homework to do in Italian, I didn't really have the time to go to bed early and get extra sleep. I know that feeling tiredness in my muscles and feeling physical exhaustion was related to that. I think it would have behooved me to take a day off work and just rest. But since I'm in class, gotta keep going into work. Or so I feel. I probably should make a bit more effort to take care of myself, sometimes, weeks like this.

This Week

2011-05-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

Kinda felt like life was kicking my ass earlier this week. Well, starts out on Monday when my ill and long-suffering coworker has a seizure at work. Long story short, I contact my boss, she comes up and sees him, tries to talk to him, and ends up calling his wife and 911. His wife was already on her way here because she had called him on the phone and all he was doing was breathing heavily, which was a sign of stroke. I honestly don't understand why, if you could have a seizure, and you'd know this because you had them in the past, and you had specific symptoms, you wouldn't tell the people you were around all day about this. Thankfully it was just a blip and he was back the next day.

My Italian teacher's dad died on Monday, so she went back to Europe and won't be back until Monday. We did get our midterms back on Wednesday, and I got a staggering 96%. I must be learning something, right? In any case, since we haven't been learning new things this week, I haven't really felt the need to study. So it's catching up on the DVR, reading, and just relaxing. Until tonight when it's almost too hot to relax.

It's funny, I think of other things to write here, but there is a disconnect between when I'm thinking of writing things, and when I actually am sitting down to typing stuff out, and when that happens, I've forgotten what I was going to say.

Notes On Italian

2011-04-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

One of those weeks, seriously. I had a midterm in Italian, a sinus-headache for two days, and to get a filling at the dentist. Oh yeah and on my way to my midterm yesterday, I realized my watch had stopped. I did have a brief moment of thinking I could be one of those people who uses her cell phone as a watch-substitute before coming to my senses and getting a new watch battery after work.

The good thing about having the midterm was that I did a lot of house-cleaning while I was procrastinating studying for it. The other good thing is that it's over. I did pretty poorly on the first quiz we had, got a high-C, and I felt sort of doomed and confused about the test. I remember a week ago, going over and over the same section in the book and just not understanding it. I am not really sure what caused that, but I think some of the things in my textbook come off as being obscure or poorly explained. Then when I get to class, and my instructor explains it, it makes sense. So she explained this section on Monday, and it made sense, and then another section she didn't explain also started making sense. See, you need to put the definite article (gli Stati Uniti, l'Italia) before countries, and also you put it before states (il Texas, la California), but you don't put the articles before cities. And I kept reading the section of the book where it said, "il Texas" and thinking, but what, Texas is a city. Not sure what that was about.

The really good thing too was, while I was studying, there is a chart in the book on combining prepositions with definite articles (which they do a shit-ton of in Italian) that I have been staring at for months. Not exaggerating the timeline here, months. And finally it just sort of clicked into place how I could retain that information in my head without flipping back to this chart continuously. Italian has too damn many confusing prepositions.

This class and studying for it seems to suck up a lot of my time. I forget what it was like to not have this hanging over my head. Last week, I was all but ready to drop the class because I was sick of staring at the book and not understanding it, but I feel like I am learning a lot and getting enough out if it that it is worth the effort.

Preparing Assertiveness

2011-04-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I went up to see a friend of mine that I've known since high school. A lot of my friends are people that I've known for a long time, but this is someone whom I've somewhat lost touch with. She doesn't live that far, so it's not really distance that is the problem so much. I just feel like there is too much baggage there, more specifically, she is someone who has consistently had a very low self-image and would always talk about how fat she was, how out of shape she was, etc. And she's someone who has always been in my mind, slim as in a single digit size, someone who works out, eats healthy, etc. But from the way she would talk, it was always be reflecting a picture of herself that I didn't really see. And when someone who is thinner than you is always talking about how fat she is, what do you think she's saying about you? Really. I don't think I totally imagine that, right?

I guess it also doesn't help that one time, a long time ago, in high school, she had a talk with me about "losing weight for my own good" and about how I probably didn't realize I was fat. Um yeah. Seriously. I think no matter how you feel about your own self, your own self-acceptance and body image, that kind of shit is not something you need in your life from a friend. This kind of talking happened, to a much lesser degree, in later years. I remember one time I went up to visit her and I was talking about how I was going to Jazzercise at the time, and she said something about how she herself was the most un-co-ordinated person, next to me. Again, what? I don't think I'm poorly co-ordinated, probably about average. And certainly, I did enough dance aerobics to be able to keep up with enough of the moves.

Yeah, see the pattern? I think there are plenty of people who are insecure but there is this set who are insecure and then push that insecurity onto others. I think it's fine and dandy to talk to people about their own problems and issues, as long they aren't tarring you with the same brush strokes that they put upon themselves. And in these sort of conversations, I always felt like an unwilling participant, and maybe scapegoat. But I do know that I never said, "don't talk to me this way." And I just avoided being one on one with this friend for years.

So I saw her on Sunday, and it wasn't really that bad at all. I did some pre-emptive work, when we were emailing back and forth about where to eat, and I said something about dim sum, and she said something about her diet, and I said, "I'd be happy to eat where ever you want, but I'm adverse to talking about dieting." And that was it, we had dim sum, and the subject never came up. I do think that she's in a better place right now in her life than she's ever been, is in a relationship with someone and is happy, and I don't really know what therapy she's done for her issues or whatever. I had planned out what I was going to say when something that bothered me came up, and nothing really did.

I do know that I tend to ruminate on negative things people say to me. And that process of thinking of them, going over them, gives them more weight and form in my head, and makes them more real. I'd like to learn how to let go, not sure how I get to that point. But I have been learning how to deal with things as they happen now, in the present, and that is a useful skill. And I actually had a really good time hanging out with and talking to this friend, and I'm glad she's doing well. And I'm glad I wasn't the recipient of any negativity.

On TV

2011-04-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Feels kind of like it's been one of those weeks. Less stress at work since my boss has been out, but then I feel like there is other stuff going on. Like I had my first quiz in my Italian class on Wednesday. And it was on my least favorite subject, vocabulary. I have never had that ability to sit down and just memorize a bunch of words like that, and while there are a lot of aspects of learning while older that are easier, I haven't managed to make that one work for me. I think I probably would learn better in context. It was just a quiz, so a drop in the bucket in my final grade and if we all do poorly, she'll probably not count our scores for that much.

I had a few things that I was thinking about writing this week, and right now I am just thinking of everything I have to do after posting this. Not like it's a mountain of work, but I'm finding myself feeling edgier than usual tonight and that has actually made me somewhat productive in several ways. The first thing was clearing off part of the pile of junk on my coffee table, throwing a bunch of stuff out, putting some books on the shelf, and then finally wiping down the table a little. See, when I was watching TV on my computer all the time, I barely looked at the coffee table at all, but now that I'm watching TV more, I see it all the time. And seeing that pile of stuff was starting to annoy me.

Speaking of TV, I am going to be getting a new TV next month for my birthday. New TVs are seriously cheap now. The TV I have is one I got my first year out of college, sometime in 1995 or 1996. And even at that time, it was kind of ancient. The two categories that TVs came in were mono and stereo and I got a mono one because it was cheaper. It's a 25 inch TV that I got at Circuit City for about $250. I guess you could say I got my money's worth. Heck, the TV lasted longer than Circuit City, right? I have looked a few times at TVs at Costco, and also did some online browsing. I think there is some school of thought that "bigger is better" and one needs to have a ginormous TV. The people who seem to tell me this are all men (yet none of them is offering to help me carry this ginormous TV up the stairs to my apartment). I don't know if it's the way my brain works, or the kind of things I watch (aka, not sports), but I don't feel like I need the most fabulous, giant, magnificent TV. I want something better than what I have now, and every single TV in any store will fall into that category.

Busy

2011-04-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

I just feel super busy lately. I guess part of it is having the disruption (albeit a fun one) of having house guests. Part of it is being back in Italian class again, and also I'm taking a six week class on Assertiveness through Kaiser. It's not like I really have that much going on, on paper, but I feel like I am always rushing around taking care of stuff, doing stuff. I think the days that I have class (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), I don't have a real lunch break and I tend to stay at my desk and not take breaks. I think it would do me some good to get up every so often and walk up and down the stairs or what have you.

Part of what I know I do when I'm feeling busy is that I don't want to make future plans. I am sure it's just a coping mechanism of not wanting to feel like I'm over-scheduling my life, but I should allow myself to make some plans without feeling like it's going to cut into my studying and work and volunteering and sleep. I read an article today on how some lucky people need only a very small amount of sleep and they end up feeling well-rested and have more energy all day. I'm totally the opposite, I need over eight hours of sleep and I really feel better rested when I have 9-10. But I like sleeping, and wish I could sleep later and go into work later. My boss is an early riser herself, so she doesn't really understand me wanting to schedule that, and well, I have been going in early so I can take my Italian class, but my Italian classes will be over in a few months and I am going to have to talk to her about switching back.

With as much as I have to do, I'm sure there will be less time pressure once my class ends in June. The quarter just began and I'm already thinking about it ending. Maybe just begrudging the studying every night, working longer hours. Not like I'm not happy to be learning Italian, just seems like a lot sometimes.

Oh the good thing about this quarter is that I'm no longer the oldest person (other than the instructor) in the class. There is an older guy (like he has a daughter who is probably around my age) in the class, so he gets to be the annoying older student and I just sit back and learn. Though I'd like to think I don't do the re-entry student thing of monopolizing every conversation and going on about my own boring personal experiences

Perspective

2011-04-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

I am overdue for a post again. I have a great reason. I won't say excuse, it's more of a reason. My mom was visiting me last weekend. And I had a good visit with her, but there was also a lot of hell breaking loose as well. I got the idea of getting her to help me take Teddy to the vet, since he's overdue for exam and shots. And well, wrestling him into the carrier was very difficult on the first Saturday, including him scratching and bruising me when I was trying to work him into the carrier. I got mad. I got really mad at him and was at a point where I wanted to pick him up in my mouth and shake him around a little bit, like a mama cat. It was at that point when I told my mom we should leave the house. And we went to IKEA. And she got me a lot of stuff for my apartment, including a new cover for my couch, which totally gives my apartment a new feel and color scheme. I spent a few hours putting the new cover on, putting new lamps together, and then took a nap on the couch. It was good.

Then Sunday, we had dim sum for brunch. It was a new place to me, and the food was good (though not as good as what I had in LA at Christmas with DMA). We were at this strange half table by the kitchen, which had the perks of getting to see all the new food coming out, but some of the servers were using our table as a staging area. Also we were right near the crab tank, and I swear I saw a crab making a break for it. It's kind of gross seeing a messy tank full of live animals that you know are going to die. I know all meat and seafood comes from live creatures, just prefer not to be reminded of that fact. I think I was a vegetarian for too long. We went to the mall which was Sunday crowded with pushy people (as in, literally pushing into me) and screaming kids. Then we went to get another carrier to try to take Teddy in in Monday. And we practiced several times with a stuffed animal, grabbing the stuffed animal and putting it into the carrier. Then we had Burmese food for dinner at this newish place near my house that was at one point a good Thai restaurant. The food was really good, and I got to hear stories about some Burmese guy my mom dated while in college. Then she started talking about an Indian guy she dated later... turns out my mom was sort of a romantic United Nations, near as I could tell from these stories.

Monday morning came, and we attempted to wrestle Teddy into the carrier. It got ugly. He scratched again, and then bit me in two places. I was stressed, and really, devastated in some ways. I had all these thoughts, and trying to describe them now, when my mind feels balanced and rational, I'm not sure if I can do that. It was just stressful, the whole experience. Trying and failing to get him in the carrier. Then dealing with my mom's theatrics, and an overwhelming sense of failure and of my inability to deal with this ten pound furry creature. And then my hand started hurting. And swelling. And the pain was bad enough that I had a hard time moving it. So I called into Kaiser, and they told me to go into ER.

Their ER is nothing like anything I've seen on TV. It looks kinda like a doctor's office, and I checked in and took a seat, expecting that I'd be sitting around for hours. After about five minutes, the doctor calls me. The short version is that cat bites are very likely to lead to infections, and I need a tetanus shot anyway. Also I need to take antibiotics and keep my hand elevated. And then they stick me with a huge bill in this roundabout manner. I would have been better off just saying I had "some kind of wound" and seeing my normal doctor, as the ER fee was five times what my co-pay is. On top of the medical stuff, there was a lot of negative emotional impact, a lot of negative thoughts circling in my head.

Like I implied earlier, I feel better now. I still haven't taken Teddy to the vet or made a concrete plan to do so, but since I had to pay so much money at the ER, I can't really afford to take him in yet anyway. With some distance from the events, with my mom leaving on Tuesday, I started being able to just deal with all these feelings and events without being so overwhelmed by it all. It's kind of weird how, after years of therapy, after being aware of all of these techniques for dealing with these emotions, a crisis happens and I feel so thrust into destructive all-or-nothing distorted thinking. I can also look at this in how I managed to survive all those negative feelings and am able to put them into perspective.

Overdue

2011-03-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am a bit overdue for a post, even breaking that once a week rule I am trying to stick with here. And I think that once you start letting something like time slip by and slip away, before you know it, time has passed you by.

Though I was just listening to a guy on the radio talking about physics and relativity and how in Einstein's view, it wasn't that the apple fell on Newton's head, but how Newton's head went up to bonk into the apple. Yeah, I haven't taken any physics since high school and I didn't understand it then either, so I am just repeating what I think I heard.

Last weekend, DMA came into town for the Star Trek Convention that was at a hotel near San Francisco Airport. We had gone to one last year that was actually in San Francisco. The hotel this year was closer to my house, but going there was less exciting and it wasn't in a great area of eating establishments. But it was fine, having lunch at or near the hotel during the day, then going out to dinner. By some strange circumstances, we ended up at The Plant shopping center all three nights that DMA was in town, only finally getting our Boiling Crab fix on the Sunday night. Yeah there are many other places to eat in my area, but this kind of worked out well.

Last Monday right after I dropped DMA off at the airport, I had my Italian final. I don't think I did great, but I probably did fine. I looked through the syllabus and realized that the final was only 10% of my grade, and I had an A up until that point, so it can't be that bad. Also my instructor is a tough tester but seems to be an easy grader. I am looking forward to starting back up in Italian 3 in a week. I had a weird conversation with my boss about this, about how language classes are named. See, I don't think my boss ever went to college, and doesn't understand college numbering conventions. So she said that each session, that is, Italian 1, 2, and 3 is a "year" of learning the language in ten weeks. I am still not really clear what she was driving at with that. Maybe meaning that it was like a year at high school level? But I'm not coming out of high school, and I had many years of college level language classes. I think she's just ignorant in a lot of ways, and this is one of them.

Anyway so I sort of have a spring break here, and my mom is coming out on Friday. I cleaned my house a bit for DMA's visit, but will need to clean more/again. Teddy has been aggressively shedding, trying to assert his male supremacy over me and Kiki. I don't think it's working, as we are both still running the house. Ha. In addition to vacuuming up fur, I went and got a haircut and an eyebrow wax so I feel it was a day of dealing with hair.

Lots of Class

2011-03-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

This whole ongoing taking a class thing is quite an experience. Lately I am gearing up for the final part of the class which is taking a final exam a week from today. I was a bit worried about how well I did on the second midterm (midterm is such a misnomer for these, isn't it), and then I got it back today and I had gotten an A. So a lot of my pressure about the final, and wanting to make sure that I did really well on the final to make up for the midterm, and then seeing I did well on the midterm, well, I don't feel quite as pressured. I probably should put a bit of pressure on my self so I don't totally slack off.

Also, I had to do a group project with a couple of people in my class. We had to watch a movie, Il Postino. If you haven't seen it, I'll just say that the picture of the poster on the IMDB page is hella misleading. It is not a comedy. It does not end heartily and happily. Anyway, so we had to meet to see the movie, then we had to meet on Saturday to discuss what we'd say about the movie. Then that just dragged on infinitely with the one girl who was continuously texting during us putting the presentation together. Oh in addition to her texting, she would go on and on about how stressful her life is and how difficult it is. Yes, she is a college student. I am sure there is some stress there, but it's not like she's homeless or unemployed or pregnant at fifteen. I think years of group therapy have made me more likely to listen to someone's sob story and be respectful, but in this particular instance, I realized that we had to not indulge these behaviors to get our result.

The point of all this group project preparation is that we are going to stand in front of the class for 20 minutes and talk about our movie. This doesn't sound that complicated to me, in fact, I feel like I could do it by myself without a lot of preparation. But having the preparation is probably good.

Partial Recall

2011-03-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

I got to visit the adopted cat yesterday. It's weird in a way, because I feel like I have been concerned about her for so long, thinking of her and wanting her to get adopted, and now that she is, I'm still kind of worried about things. With no rational, real reason to be. But seeing her in her new home, where she is getting lots of love and cuddles, I feel like things are mostly okay. Good even. Still some small part of me that thought of adopting her myself, that thinks of her as "my" cat. That part needs to fade away, over time.

Speaking of cats, the food that I feed my cats is being voluntarily recalled. I came home yesterday right after work, to check the dates on the food that we had left. And then it was under the recall, so I went right out and got another case of Wellness. I am brand loyal, even with this brand having some issue. I talked to the company over the phone, and they described symptoms I could look for, and thankfully none of that was occurring here. My cats get dry food in addition to wet, so all is well. You can read this article if you are interested in reading more about the symptoms.

I am really enjoying having TV again. I feel a little bit dirty in admitting that it wasn't that I wasn't watching TV, but I was watching it and not paying for it. Not stealing cable, mind you, but not 100% legitimate either. And I should say that I'd probably still be doing it if I didn't have problems with my computer. But in typing this out, I kind of think that paying for cable again is the right thing to do. Downloading shows was something I did with C, something I learned from him. So much of relationships involve these habits, and the more time goes on, the more I feel like distancing myself from that time in my life.

This week, I was thinking about something my ex R used to say to me about how I'd "style" my hair. And what he said was so ridiculous and full of his own ignorance of how things were done. I do wish I had stood up to him more, but I didn't, and I can accept that (and hopefully not make that kind of mistake in the future in other relationships). But I just think there is something funny about a balding dude who buzzes his head with hair clippers giving someone like me with a full head of curly hair advice. Like honestly, he had no fucking idea what he was talking about. I've had this talk with DMA a few times about how I'm just sick to death of people giving me unsolicited advice on things. R was full of continuous advice on what I should/could be doing. And would you take advice from a guy in his early 40s who had no job and no savings and no prospects and was living off his much younger girlfriend? Hardly.

Adoption!

2011-02-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

The cat that I have been so tempted to adopt for months finally got adopted this weekend. I'm still so happy. And she got adopted to a coworker, so I can get lots of updates on how she is doing and feeling. I think there have been a lot of cats that I would have liked to adopt, if I didn't already have two cats, but this cat was the closet I came. I was at a point of saying, well if she didn't have a home by the end of 2010, I'd take her. The thing that has really been stopping me is that I already have two cats, two cats who don't really get along all that well. They don't fight very often, but they certainly don't treasure each other's company either. Or even sit on the same piece of furniture as each other. And I knew that Kiki wouldn't be happy having another cat around, particularly not a cuddly girl who would try to take her place as my lapcat. Teddy would probably like to have a brother to wrestle around with, but this cat wouldn't have been fitting that bill. Plus three cats seems like it's over the limit for a single woman.

I have been so happy all weekend. I think I had a lot of worry about this particular cat, and some feelings of guilt that I couldn't rescue her myself. But I'm glad I found her a family that will love her.

Anxiously Yours

2011-02-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

I feel a lot of anxiety lately. I was going to say that it was self-generated, but I'm not sure I'm really conscious of doing that. I have this deep feeling of something bothering me, and then I seem to be encountering things that add to that. Like reading thrillers by Ruth Rendell. I read one day last week at work because our internet was down all day (which sucked), and then another one I just finished. Such dark books, dark people inhabiting them, doing dark things. Don't get me wrong, I would recommend her works, but I think in an already disturbed state of mind, I would probably be better off reading something lighter.

Also, I've been watching the new Spartacus and there was this character that I sort of liked, sort of didn't like, anyway, she had a pretty grisly death that happens off screen. And I feel a bit disturbed by that, because it happens in a very "violence against women" kind of way. I don't really want to spoil the show or anything for any of the three people who read my blog, but it was like I saw the wrong thing at the wrong time, and I haven't the heart to watch more episodes yet, even though I found it a generally entertaining and cheesy (and bloody and gory) show.

Then having even more problems with my computer, which has led me to get cable again and stop trying to watch everything on my computer. I probably should take my computer into the Apple Store as well, and get the hardware checked out, and maybe take a friend up on his veiled offer to take a look at it. I know, I work in computer support, but I have so little tolerance for computer problems. And I've been having problems with mine for over a month now. I keep doing things to deal with it, and I even got more memory to put it in, and that apparently hasn't solved the problem. I don't really want to spend money on a new computer at this point. In fact, I figured that getting cable would be a lot cheaper than buying a new computer. But I only want to watch light-hearted stuff on TV at the moment.

Short Post Since I Hadn't Posted in A Few Weeks

2011-02-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

Oh little blog, how neglectful I've been.

Yeah, just realized it's been almost two weeks since I put anything up here. Ooops.

Got an A on my midterm in Italian. I have another midterm in a week, and the material it will cover is probably a bit easier, but still I have some studying to do. Which I might even get to this afternoon. Also I had to do a cultural experience for my class which I did last weekend (going to play bocce with friends including Kailyn) and then write a paper on it. The "rough draft" of the paper was due on Friday, but I wasn't really sure how to write a rough draft in Italian, so I just wrote out what I would write. I assume at some point, the instructor will hand it back with corrections and then I can correct it for my final draft.

This past week was very long. I had several hours of homework to do for class, and then I also had other stuff going on. I feel like a lot of my life lately is about doing stuff that I have to do, and not necessarily doing things that I want to do. I am sure at a certain point that will change, but it's annoying me now.

Just finished another thing that I "have" to do, my tax return. The state of California sent me a thing where I could file electronically, and then I just did my federal separately. I am happy to be getting a refund, and happier to know that it is going towards my trip to Italy in October.

A for Effort

2011-02-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

I had my midterm for my Italian class today. Midterm means I'm halfway done, right? My previous class was at a community college on the semester system (although they have some kind of weird break where you can take classes between semesters, but that's another story) but my current class is on the familiar quarter system. Familiar to me, because that's what I had at UC Santa Cruz. The best thing about the quarter system was that it went by so fast. Sometimes it was difficult in that you would have a lot of work to do in a short ten weeks, but I really liked it. Because if you got bored with your class, well, wait a few weeks and it's almost over. That doesn't sound like the philosophy of someone who has been at her job for 10+ years, does it?

I didn't spend huge amounts of time studying for my midterm over the weekend or last night. I have been trying to study and read a little bit every day, figuring that this would enable me to learn things over time. I also would do the homework a little bit at a time, so when it was due, I would have most of it done and not be cramming it in. Though doing the homework required me understanding the material, which wasn't always the case without explanation, so I was doing a bit of the homework last night, and studying for the test at the same time. Which actually didn't hurt, considering the test was fairly similar to the homework exercises.

I find this whole experience strange in a way because I really couldn't care less about my grade in the class, but I also do want to do well in the class. I am thinking then, of how I define "doing well." I suppose it means learning a lot. And part of the way I can tell that I have learned a lot is when I do well on the test and get a good grade. I'm not sure how to separate the grade from knowing how well I actually know and understand things. Maybe because I have no other rubric for measuring my understanding than the grade. And maybe because I'm studying this class partly for my trip to Italy in the fall, but partly because I just find studying a foreign language interesting. And actually being in a class and having homework and exams means that I take it more seriously than I would if I were trying to study out of a book on my own. Before I went to Spain in 2009, I did look through Spanish language books, and my mom even sent me a course book from a class she took, but I didn't find myself feeling very motivated by that. Whereas, this structured class motivates me.

But what of the test? I was thinking, what if I fail this test. I don't really think I could have failed it, but I also know that I didn't get everything right. I knew right away, when I couldn't remember how to spell a few of the verbs, that I wouldn't get a perfect grade. And that's okay, obviously. It's not like actually being in the country, speaking the language, where if you get in the ballpark, people will understand enough of what you are getting at. Obviously I am not going to be graded in that way in that "close" counts as a win, but I'm not too worried about it either. Hell, my instructor was also my instructor at the community college, and she knows what I know and what I don't know. A for effort even if I don't ace things.

But It's Not A Good Thing

2011-01-29T12:32:00.000-08:00

I had this horrid stomach bug this week. At first, I thought it was food poisoning, but everyone says that food poisoning only lasts about 24-48 hours, and I was out sick for 3 days from work, and I still don't really feel totally normal by today, even though I did work Thursday and Friday. Today was the first day where I really enjoyed having coffee in the morning and was hungry enough to want to eat breakfast and not just chew down dry toast.

The weird thing about not wanting to eat is that people say things to me like "that's great" or "it makes it easier to count calories" or even the thought of how much weight I could lose, not eating for a few days. Thankfully I only had this kind of conversation with a few people. When my boss said something like that, I said, um yeah, and moved on. But then I was thinking about it, and really about the fact how I'm really not dieting now. I want to almost put that in capital letters. And I'm not always eating intuitively, or always eating healthfully, or unhealthfully for that matter, but I am actively not dieting and not obsessing about calories or points or portions or grams of fat and fiber or how many carbs I'm eating. So having these days of not wanting to eat anything, I found myself worrying about being dehydrated (which I wasn't) and also hoping that my normal appetite would come back soon. Because in general, I am trying to be aware of my normal appetite and use it as a guide for eating. Maybe that sounds simple to some people, but it really hasn't been simple to me.

First time I went to Weight Watchers was when I was 12. I think I weighed around 145. I lost what, 20 lbs, then everyone thought that was so fabulous, though I didn't get to my "weight goal" which was something like 105 lbs (which sounds fucking ridiculous to me at this point, though I guess at the time since I was an adolescent, maybe it wasn't so out of the question). Then I had a couple of years of eating normally, then my grandparents decided that I'd better lose weight or I'd never have a relationship with a man, and they'd pay me to lose weight, and so it was back to Weight Watchers. I remember going to these "youth meetings" in Culver City, and the leader was a young guy, like 19. It's kind of funny to think of this now, because I've met a lot of people who let's say, were chubby adolescents, that grew out of it in a few years. Everyone is different, growing at a different rate in different ways. I think if I had found some kind of physical activity that I liked, it would have made way more of a difference in actually losing weight. Whereas going to Weight Watchers again, I lost little weight, but started tying my self-esteem into my weight and my physical appearance. And since the numbers on the scale were barely budging, obviously I was failing. You spend a lot of time clapping for people in Weight Watchers meetings, and maybe that is motivating for them and for others, but for me it always pointed out how poorly I was doing in comparison, how slowly weight was coming off me, and how hard it seemed for me and how easy it was for other people (which I know is a cognitive distortion, but how I felt at the time).

I didn't diet in high school (other than a brief few weeks with Slim Fast when it started becoming really popular) or college, but I walked around a lot. I certainly didn't seek activity out but it was part of my daily life. Even when I got a car in college, I'd still have to walk to class or walk to the parking lot. Though exercise always seemed like something I'd have to endure, not something I'd enjoy. Then I got out of college, got a job, and joined the very sedentary work force and gained weight almost immediately. I remember wanting to go take a walk a few times after work, and feeling my ankles hurt. I figured, oh that meant I couldn't exercise, and found a Weight Watchers meeting nearby where I lived.

Fast forward to me losing weight, then starting to date, getting involved in a relationship, then not watching what I ate, then the relationship ending, then me gaining all the weight back. I remember just feeling sad and depressed for weeks at a time, and just remember eating large portions of dinner then going back for "second dinner" until I was overfull. There was a time in there where I started drinking wine at home by myself too. Then after a year or two of self-medicating with food and wine and being depression, I went back to Weight Watchers. And lost more weight. Then the pattern repeated, though thanks to some pharmaceutical intervention, I wasn't as depressed. And lost some weight, and started dating my ex R. Who ate everything in sight. So I started eating normally, and gained some weight, and then my weight stabilized. And then we broke up, and I gained a little weight, went to Weight Watchers, then lost a little weight and started dating again and... well you get the idea.

That brings me to last year, when I was still dating C, and I started reading and learning more and more and realizing that going to Weight Watchers wasn't for me. I would credit reading about fat-acceptance on the internet, but also I am going to say that years of therapy also helped indirectly. Sitting in WW meetings, and listening to people and thinking, you know these people should be in therapy, not necessary losing weight. There was a lot of proselytizing and condemnation, and discussion of the "old you" and the "new you" and I started realizing that it was a lot of crap. I should just say that I'm not against losing weight, if individuals want to, but it's not the answer. When my leader (and not to pick on her, because every leader I met was like this in some way) would talk about how she was maintaining her weight, she would talk about things like eating a certain kind of yogurt because it was only one point and then putting only a half cup of raspberries in with it because that was zero points, and I thought about doing that kind of shit for the rest of my life to maintain my weight loss, and my resounding thought was no.

So here I am now. Not dieting. Not counting calories or anything else. But I am trying to make sure I get a few servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and am trying to eat a balanced diet. I am also trying to eat when I'm hungry and eat what I want to eat when I am hungry for it. I have a house full of things like ice cream and cookies (some of which I got to prepare myself for PMS), and when I have these things, I eat sparingly from them. Because I remember when I was dieting and then "being bad" and then I'd have to finish the whole package of cookies to get them "out of my house" otherwise they would "torment" me. (Not trying to be sarcastic with that, but more to just get at my thought process at the time with the current recognition of where I am.) Oh yeah, and I am trying to find more ways to incorporate physical activity, and I was working out a few days a week, walking others, up until this illness.

I am trying to love my body, but I would say that I don't most of the time. I sometimes think about how I looked before, when I had lost weight, and how life was easier when I was thinner. But then I remind myself what it took to get there. And I keep telling myself that dating would be easier if I were thinner, but I realize this is just a distortion on my part. Dating would be easier if I made the slightest effort to write people back on OKCupid. But going back to counting points and going to meetings is unrelated to that. I think it's more important for me to break that bond in my mind between my weight and my attractiveness. And putting this all out in type, yeah, I can see that bond was instilled at a young age, that I needed to be thin to "get a man." I know this is not a rational thought, but a thought that has been put in my head, and I need to let go of it. One day at a time.

800 And Counting

2011-01-24T19:39:00.000-08:00

This is my 800th post here. I dunno, nice round number.

I have been having problems with my home computer for a few weeks and it just seems to be getting worse. This would suck if it were just my home computer, and not also my entire home entertainment system. See, I watch TV shows on my computer, online. And I am watching Netflix Instant Viewing now too. I don't have cable anymore, and I don't get any other channels. Nor in fact, do I have a home stereo setup. It all comes through my computer, which is having episodes of being unfunctional, to a point of crashing and dying when I'm in the middle of things, often taking thirty minutes to come back online. And my apartment feels eerily empty when I don't have anything playing, and just sitting there staring at the computer not coming up is driving me crazy.

I've been trying to deal with these issues myself, but haven't had much luck. I am pretty sure there is some kind of hardware issue at this point. Luckily, my computer is still under Apple's Pro Care, and there is an Apple Store not far from home where I can take it tomorrow night to get it looked at, and hopefully repaired for free. Hopefully it is repairable.

Anyway, I hate anxiety. My stomach was upset yesterday, and this morning, and I didn't go to work thinking I might throw up. I'm not sure if it was all anxiety, or some part my period, but I was pretty sure I was going to be sick. A few extra hours of sleep made me feel a bit better, but I still don't feel 100%.

Princess Procrastination

2011-01-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

I should probably be studying for my Italian quiz right now. Then again, it's a 5-10 minute quiz on something that we've been studying for these last two weeks and I feel like I understand the material pretty well, and hopefully will be able to regurgitate it on demand. In preparation, I did go through my old textbook for my Italian conversation class, and was reminded of how much easier that book seemed. Though now it seems harder, that it less explains things. And then we'd have those long explanations in class that ended up getting hijacked by that one loud, annoying woman... okay this class and book is better.

I had dinner with someone last night, and she had to then go and add something to my Facebook status saying she was glad we had dinner again and will have to get together more often. I don't know why this just seems overly clingy to me. I realize it might be tautological proof, that is, I find this woman overly clingy to begin with so this just seems like further proof of my theory. This is someone who I've known for years, and I know I talked about her before in relation to my ex C and how she and he used to have some sort of relationship some long time ago. I reached out to her again when he and I were parting ways, romantically, mostly because I wanted some sort of background information on him, some ideas of what he was like in the past. Then this woman lumped me in with her situation (a breakup of a ten year marriage, left for a younger woman, etc etc cue violins) and was talking as though C had dumped me (not the case). But, I felt vulnerable, and I thought of it all as mostly harmless.

Now, it's not like she's Single White Female-ing me or anything, but I get these entreaties to do something with her every so often. And the previous time, we were going out to brunch on a Saturday and she called me up about ten minutes before I was leaving my house, to flake out on me entirely. Because she woke up with a headache. Thankfully it wasn't as I was heading over there, but I had to then totally change the course of my day. And then she wanted to do something over Christmas, but I was out of town, so I just suggested this weekend. And we had agreed on lunch on Monday, but then she writes me with no preamble and explanation, and it's somehow become dinner because of her busy schedule (and honestly, from the sound of it, this is someone who will spend a day waiting at home for a package, so no, she's not that fucking busy).

If this was someone that I was long term friends with, this sort of last-minute plan-changing fuckery wouldn't bother me as much. Or someone who had real scheduling conflicts, like taking care of kids, spouse, having to work weekends, general life exhaustion... and even then, I realize that I tend to accept excuses better from someone that I actually like and look forward to spending time with. Whereas, when I see this woman, I feel drained in her presence. I mostly feel sorry for her, which is not a great basis to be friends with someone. I really have been trying to make myself do more social activities and see people more, but I think I should take more of a pass on this one.

A Past Particle

2011-01-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

My week back at work from a nice holiday break was long and stressful as I mentioned. I started a university-level Italian class and am going in three days a week! It's really weird to be back in that system again. I didn't feel the same way about my community class. That was a different experience, but it felt like a new experience because I'd never taken a community college class like that before, and I didn't know what to expect. Also my friend Jennie was taking it with me, so I felt like I could rely on her a bit.

The Italian class I'm taking now is one of those university language classes, the kind that I took so many of in college. I took about two years of French, and several quarters of Russian, at the university. I find sometimes my memory is so unreliable, hard to recall short-term and long-term items, particularly when I have that feeling of I was just thinking of something and forgot what it was. But being back in this class is making me clearly recall all those classes I took in college. I think some of the why is that Italian is a lot like French in some ways, and learning some new grammar or vocabulary that is like French makes me remember learning the French in the first place. And while I don't always remember the specifics, the day to day ways that I learned stuff, I really do remember a lot of French. (I should add that in addition to taking a few years of it in college, I also took three years in high school and spent the summer in Belgium in a foreign exchange program.)

The first day of class, we had to go around talking to people in Italian. We had a list of characteristics like "is a vegetarian," "lives on campus," "is nervous today," and "is the same age as me." When I saw that last one, I knew that no one in the room was going to be the answer to the question. I wouldn't say necessarily that I feel so much older than anyone in the class, so much as I just feel so different. My life itself is so different, this class fits into an already full work day where I spend the rest of the day using my brain in a totally different way at my job. Then my motivation for taking the class is also so different. Obviously I want to do well in the class, but it's not like I am worrying about a GPA or what classes I need to complete a major or anything like that. But unlike these students, I don't really have any other things to "study" so it's not too hard to devote a bit of time every day to some Italian work. Though as I say that, well, I didn't do any all weekend. So I'm off to work on some past tense verbs.

Stressless

2011-01-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

Last night was the penultimate stress management class. I debated going. A large part of why I wouldn't want to go was that I've been super tired since I got back to work. It's the whole having to wake up early and not take naps in the middle of the day business, plus now I'm having to wake up earlier to get to work earlier so I can take my new Italian class during the work day. I have felt super rushed so far all week, and I am hoping that I'll snap into this new schedule soon, because I don't feel like I'm here yet, mentally. I've had a bit of a headache the last few days, and I know it's my back at work and not getting quite enough sleep headache.

I went to the stress class anyway, despite not having done any of the reading or really thinking about the class over the two weeks I had away from there. What I would have to say foremost as the thumbs up about the class is that the materials are good and interesting, and this book that we got for free with the class is a really good book. But then I'd have to throw a thumbs down on the rest of it. Maybe I'm just not that stressed, but it seems like a lot of the people in the class would be better served by actual therapy. Particularly this one woman whose depressing monologues about how everyone at her job sucks make me want to put my hands over my ears and go "LALALA" so I don't have to listen. Seriously. I know everyone has people at their jobs they don't like, but when someone says over and over again, "I'm a really great worker, I am the best, the management just doesn't understand me," I want give them a reality check. And I feel bad, because I know the woman is sad (and probably depressed) but that's not really what the class is about, and as our lecturer tells us time and time again, the class is not meant as therapy. Yet she lets this woman go on and on about her life, eating into the two hour class time when I could be learning stuff.

I went to a therapy group for what, four years. Or more? And I got used to listen to people's sob stories. I sound mean, and I don't mean to, because we all have our own sob stories. I'm sure there were times when I would be talking where someone would be like "damn I wish she'd shut up." But the real difference between actual group therapy and this stress class was that the leader was really good at managing people. If you have a group of 10 people, and one of them sucks up all the time and energy, you don't let them go on indefinitely, and when the person says sorry sorry for doing this, you don't keep saying, "that's okay, we are here for you." You let them know that the class needs to move on. The dynamic the leader had with this depressed woman was pretty nauseating, as depressed woman would constantly be telling the leader how wonderful she was and how just seeing the leader lights up her life. Seriously. Nauseating. And instead of maybe dismissing this or moving on, the leader was lapping up the praise like it was chocolate cake.

Also, there was talk of what a wonderful, successful group we were, and how we were all bonded together, and how we were all making so much progress. And all this time of talking about how the group was so bonded and we were all learning so much, I felt like they were speaking a foreign language. I did ask, is it me, do I have some attachment problem? But I realize last night, that I just don't feel it. I don't feel bonded with these people. I don't feel like the leader is that amazing. I feel like I got a bit of valuable insight out of the class, and it made me want to check out what other classes are offered, but I mostly felt like I was not getting much out of the class, that I was unheard when I would talk, and I didn't feel that good feeling of being in a room with people who had similar problems or who could understand my problems. I even had one week where I actually opened up to the class, and I felt really good actually doing that opening up about my ongoing issue, but then I felt like what I talked about was dismissed, or at least, not ever really brought up again, and the leader was way more interested in talking about her own experiences.

I got a lot out of group therapy, before. I do think every once in a while about how I'd like to have group therapy again. But I think so much of it depends on having a good leader who knows how to listen to people in the group and not allow one person to go on ad nauseum. Towards the end of the meeting, the leader passed around a piece of paper saying that we could all put down our names and numbers and organize some meetings outside the group. I did not put my name on the list. I feel primarily neutral towards most of these people, certainly not bonded enough in that I'd want to see any of them again.

Resolving

2011-01-02T19:15:00.000-08:00

I spent a few hours studying Italian just now. And I'm exhausted. I feel like there is probably some level of just "getting it" and I'm perhaps far from that, but I can't really tell how far. But I went through the stuff in my new textbook that I should know, and it seems like I know some of it. I have a feeling that the vocabulary stuff is different in the class I just took and the class I will be taking starting tomorrow. And that worries me. I don't know if I can sit down and just cram knowledge into my head as easily as I'd like to. It's been a while since the heavy-drinking days of college, and I do think that most of my brain cells are spared from that, but I don't know about getting the information in my head now.

It's weird, I really did think that I'd spend the break studying, and yet here I did it at what was my last day of vacation. In the midst of several procrastinatory activities, including going out and getting a new shower caddy. I got a big one, not realizing that it wouldn't fit well in my shower. I found a way to make it work, but I think it will take me showering once or twice to figure out if that actually works or if I'm just deluding myself with my laziness of not wanting to go back to Bed, Bath, & Beyond to exchange it.

Anyway, felice anno nuovo as my Italian word a day calendar says!

Into The Future

2010-12-30T21:41:00.000-08:00

I had a moment in my trip to LA. I was driving by the 90 freeway, this tiny four-mile freeway that has one exit, and I remembered how I used to live off of that exit when I was a kid. And there was that moment where I was swept in a feeling of it all being okay. That my childhood happened, that all kinds of shit happened that I've been dealing with in the last year, and really that it's all kind of okay. I've been filled with a lot of anger at things in the past, a lot of conflicts, trying to sort ideas out in my head, and deal with things that happened long ago. And while I love visiting people in Los Angeles, love going down there, I know it's not my home anymore. But it was okay that it once was, and I was filled with a feeling of gratitude for things that did happen in the past. Too often my mind, in the throes of depression, has been concentrating on what went wrong, what the problems were, and in some ways, how I could make a list of how I was wronged. And instead, I started focusing on what was right.

This upcoming year, I'd like to let go of my anger. And also be more direct with that anger, instead of letting it fester in me. I feel like I've done a lot of internal growth this year, and worked towards self-acceptance, and having a more positive body-image, and generally trying to avoid situations that added to me being depressed or anxious. I want to continue to do that. I also have gotten out of the habit of talking about my feelings, compounding that by being in a year and a half relationship with someone who couldn't talk about his and I felt around him, I couldn't share my feelings either. I realize that was sort of the crux of the issue. I need to stop being held back by things that happened years ago, and move onward into the future.

Cleaning & Spending

2010-12-22T15:24:00.000-08:00

I have been busy the last few days. I just finished my fifth load of laundry, and as a single person, I'm not really sure how I ended up with five loads, when I usually run one or two. But I think it was me putting aside a bunch of sweaters for the gentle cycle in one load, then doing sheets, plus comforter cover, as separate loads. Wow, that sounds pretty boring, like all I've been doing is laundry. Should I mention the vacuuming, the trying to beat back the mold in my bathroom, and actually going through things in a vain attempt to get rid of crap?

So thus far this month when I should be buying presents for other people, I have spent a small fortune. First, I had to get new textbooks for my Italian class starting in January, and that was about $200. I procrastinated a little then ended up buying the stuff on Amazon, and it probably turned out fine, but upon receiving my book and workbook in the mail, I think they are both incredibly overpriced. I forgot that college textbooks are like that, mostly because when I was in college, my mom paid for all my textbooks, and I didn't have those moments of "hm, groceries for three weeks or a textbook." Of all of the reasons to be grateful for my mom, not having to worry about that shit in college was a big one.

Then I took my car in for oil change and some other fluid thing that was expensive, and when I was there, they were like "wow your battery is really low." Of course, it's the original battery and my car is now over eight years old. So, I got a new battery and got the guy at the auto parts store to put it in. I guess is this one of those things that they do, help you out with stuff, all the while looking around because it's not their policy. It is kind of annoying having dated a couple of guys who worked on cars, or said they were good with cars, but they never helped me. And this random guy who worked at Kragen, well, he just took care of it. And a lot cheaper than having a boyfriend, just gave him $10 for doing it. But still, all this car shit has been expensive this year. And it's all general maintenance. I have no plans to get another car though, so the expenses seem necessary.

Tomorrow, I'm heading down to LA to hang out with friends. I am already looking forward to relaxing, eating dim sum Christmas Day, and getting out of town for a while.

Holiday! Celebrate!

2010-12-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it just seems like my holiday break comes super early this year, but as of yesterday, I am on vacation until January 3, 2011. I think this is a good break for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that I was starting to feel so burnt out by work that I was ready to yell at people. And I don't really want to go down that road at work.

What will I do with all my free time? I feel like I have a lot of basic stuff to do around the house, starting with vacuuming and moving forward. And going down to LA for a bit to see DMA and other friends, and have some Christmas Day dim sum along with the other Jews and lots of Asian people. We went last year to this popular place in Chinatown and are going to do it again this year. Christmas traditions of food off carts. I could make up a whole song about this.

I think there is a desire this time of year to make a list of "what did I do, what did I accomplish" and all that. I might get to that sort of blog-writing at a later date. I actually feel like I've been dealing with a lot of issues this year that I haven't really talked about or wanted to talk much about to anyone, and while I don't feel like I have a handle on everything, I am at a point where I feel okay with that.

Had dinner with C last night. Kind of random, he IMed me at work and asked if I wanted to meet. It's weird, how I kind of miss him some days, and I wonder about us reconnecting. I think if he actually said something to me, anything, about his feelings or about what happened, it would be a lot easier. But I kind of feel instead like I have to read between the lines, and wonder if it was always like that, a year and a half of me guessing, or if things just degenerated over time.

Not Really An Autobiography

2010-12-14T20:42:00.000-08:00

I think I mentioned this mind-body anti-stress course I've been taking through Kaiser this fall, right? Anyway, it is this two hours once a week class, and I find that I'm not really getting that much out of it. It varies week by week. After last week, when this woman who has a lot of issues and I would probably diagnose her as clinically depressed (not like I'm a clinician, but have been and been around plenty of depressed people), hijacked the class and spent about half an hour talking about her problems in terms of what this other person was doing to her. It was really hard to sit through, and since the instructor is not a therapist, she just kept saying she was sympathetic but can we move on... and the woman didn't want to move on. Rinse and repeat.

We were at the halfway point in the class so I was considering just not coming back. But I did go through the workbook, and I looked at the topics for the next few weeks, and the topics themselves really interest me, and the workbook doesn't explain them very well, and while the instructor annoys me in some ways, she is good at explaining stuff. So I went in tonight. And I just think it was a mixed bag. We talked a lot about core beliefs, and how destructive negative core beliefs can be. I found that particular discussion very useful because I am working on some of my own core beliefs. But then we tend to get into a lot of ridiculous shit where people talk about Dr Phil and Dr Oz (is he even a therapist or is he a medical doctor?) and go through these fairly goofy new-agey things that make me either wince or want to stab someone. Maybe I was born at the wrong time or you have to pass through the hallowed halls of menopause to understand that shit and feel like it helps you.

And, in the aforementioned workbook, there was a section on journaling and how to get started, and then it listed some "autobiographies" including Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, which is a fictional story. Hm, Amazon says that it's semi-autobiographical. What the fuck does that mean? It's about a dude who makes paintings, which, as far as I know, did not describe James Joyce. I would wager it's no more "semi-autobiographical" than any other work where the author writes about someone with similar upbringing as themselves. Anyway, I pointed this out to the instructor (feeling a bit like a tool, but also like someone had to say something) and she said something like thanks for telling me, and I'm pretty sure the workbook won't be changed.

If I try to nail down what annoys me about this class, it's probably two-fold. In addition to this whole false positivity new-agey Dr Phil bullcrap, the instructor spends a lot of time talking about how the class is not supposed to be therapy. And when I told my story of a negative core belief and finding out about it in therapy, she immediately says thanks for sharing and that is a good example, and then, but this class is NOT therapy. Um okay. We just learn the tools of therapy without calling it that? Or is it really not therapy? When she says that, it makes me feel like mental illness is being shoved into a corner. And don't put mental illness in the corner! Because there are others who need therapy more than I do at this point.

All I know is, I can't wait to tell my therapist about this! She recommended this course to me.

Navigating The Darkness

2010-12-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

This is the first winter in a years where I haven't been on medication for depression. I think I'm in remission, that is, I don't really feel like I need my medication anymore, and don't feel like I have many days where I'm depressed. I don't really notice many depressed thoughts, either. But I do notice that I am often exhibiting some of my depressive-behaviors, like wanting to stay at home a lot and not socialize very much. But as I type that, I think of how much socialization that I do end up doing. In addition to working at a job that primarily consists of me talking to people all day, I also have a friend I walk with most days at lunch and we talk during that time. And I'm taking an Italian class where I talk a lot, and I have a friend in the class that I talk to before and after the class. Then my stress class, I also talk during that class. And I talk to people all the time at the humane society. So usually by the time I have away from these activities, I mostly want to sit silently at home, watching TV or hanging out with the felines, who are fairly undemanding creatures. (Though as I type this, Kiki is sitting right next to me and purring loudly and occasionally trying to walk on the keyboard. Not that I'm complaining about this cuteness of hers.)

Sometimes I have dark thoughts though, and I realize that a lot of these thoughts are just fears that somehow my mind says as though they are realities. I've been trying to deal with myself as is, accept myself as I am now, but I find myself often thinking that I need to change to attract a mate. In what ways? Lose weight for starters. Become fitter. Become sweeter, more docile, less honest. Subjugate my desires more. Or act more casual like I'm just interested in hanging out and not in a serious relationship. Or that I'm just too old to meet anyone, that everyone good is "taken" and I should just give up (despite not really having tried to meet anyone recently anyway). And then I have thoughts of C being somehow my last best hope.

Yeah, when I type these thoughts out, I realize what I have been telling myself about these thoughts is true, that they won't make me happy and they are just a way of punishing myself for my supposed past "failures." When I haven't really failed at anything. I'm a thirty-seven year old single woman who loves cats. I'm not some fucking stereotype of spinsterhood but a real person who would like to meet a good guy and get married some day. But I'm not in a hurry to bind myself to someone out of fear of ending up alone surrounded by cats, because my cats are good company and nicer than most people. (And as far as I have heard, unlike dogs, cats won't eat your corpse if you happen to drop dead in your home. Though I'm not really sure about Teddy in this instance.) And I can't date someone again where I don't feel like I can talk to them about my thoughts and feelings. Or date someone who takes all his problems out on me and criticizes me continuously.

I can't change my past any more than I can predict my future, but I can work here on the present, pushing against the darkness, dealing with the dark thoughts as they arise, and remind myself that there is light ahead.