cindy's world

Before I logged onto the computer, I spent more than half an hour wiping the mini-blinds in my upstairs restroom. It was an amazingly pain-in-the-arse job, but I really wanted each blade clean. So I see my horoscope after I log on and it says for today:

Today’s Forecast
Taking care of your prized possessions will be foremost on your mind now. That goes for your car, your clothes and gifts you’ve received. Just don’t forget about the people in your life who may also feel ‘broken.’

In Detail
You’ll end up washing, waxing and buffing out your vehicle in the driveway now — and doing it for a good long time, too. You may also spend hours replacing buttons or meticulously wielding Krazy Glue to repair a broken ceramic wing or tail. No matter what it is, you’ll put all your attention into it. Just be sure to save a teeny bit of time for the one who loves you — who might also feel the need for a bit of your attention.

All right — who needs me?

Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised by how easy it all feels. Even earlier today I was convinced I am a much better, happier person without a relationship or a man even on the horizon, because men add so much stress that I can’t control or alleviate to my life. And I looked forward to a low-key Friday night by myself. Even hanging out at Outback after work, I wanted to leave the people I was there with and go home so that I can lounge on my couch and finally watch some of those DVDs I haven’t yet unwrapped, while laundry’s going so that I feel productive.
And then there is the reality of now. I am disappointed at the things I miss, and how much I miss them. I want to call, but what is it I can say? “Hi, I wanted to connect with you, but I’m still in the same place and haven’t changed my mind.” What’s the point? I guess it’s progress that I can resist calling at all.
The radio was playing Dr. Dre’s “Nothin’ But A G Thang” on my drive home. It put me back in high school, and I instantly took on the persona of teenager Cindy. What a difference. My biggest misery back then was, “How come this boy I like doesn’t like me back?” I had no idea what a blessing in disguise unrequited love is back then. What can possibly go wrong if one person isn’t interested in the other? I can’t get cheated on, I can’t be lied to, I can’t be disappointed, I can’t be betrayed.
Let’s see if I can get my act together tonight and complete the plan: vacuum, laundry, and yoga.

Something is wrong. I should not be this injured after 6 sessions of jujitsu, just a week and a half into the class. At first I thought it was just me. Today I had to skip my lunch workout because my entire right side is tweaked. Right knee joint is painful, pain on the right side of my lower back, right wrist is bruised on the outside and the joint hurts, tightness on the right side of my neck. My left arm has bruising all the way from the wrist to mid-forearm, and a bruise on the inside of the left wrist. I have bruising, abrasion burns and scratches on the inside of my left shoulder from other students grabbing me too hard through the gi. All of these were from yesterday. And yesterday I was wearing the full garb so it’s not like they just went thru a t-shirt.
I went to lunch with my blackbelt coworker. We talked about my class (he’d taught martial arts before, too), and he wanted to see me demonstrate some of the blocks, hits and sweeps. “Okay, line it up,” he said.
My response was, “Huh?”
“You don’t even know how to line up? Just show me your fighting stance.”
I was lost. Didn’t know how far apart to put my feet, where my toes were to be pointing, where to place my hands, how high up, what angle, closed-fist or open-palm. My coworker was horrified. He did a tutorial for me and explained the basics, and throughout the demos I’d say, “Oh, I saw them do that.” But I didn’t know how to do it myself, when to apply it, why I would apply it. I didn’t even know what part of my hand/arm was supposed to make contact for a block. I explained we just went thru the motions by imitating someone else showing us the motion, and the instructor would walk around correcting us and kinda fine-tuning. “Hands farther out. Good. Quicker, like a snap. Good. Turn your hip more. Forward. No, forward. There.” That means nothing to a beginner! It’s not like learning to dance where the position is just for aesthetics. My coworker is scared that I’m gonna get killed because I don’t know how to do anything properly or which leg to use to sweep or why and how to manipulate the move so that I could still do a sweep if someone’s lined up with me on the opposite leg. We’re all formless masses of dough and this instructor doesn’t seem to remember how to form raw dough into a pastry, he only knows how to fine-tune, like making the edges really pretty and crispy and giving it that nice brown glaze.
My coworker told me to get out of the class now before I really injure myself. I’m not learning the basics of the techniques and I’m not being protected from someone hitting me or throwing me too hard. If I wanted to be more serious about my training, I’d have to unlearn the bad habits I pick up now from not knowing how to do it correctly from the beginning. “You can’t tell an illiterate person to just copy a sentence in calligraphy. First you have to teach them how to use a pen, and teach them the alphabet.” I should’ve picked up on this myself, the way the instructor teaches abs. It’s rather a messy teaching, so when I stepped in to lead on abs instruction, I corrected the students on proper form, ab isolation, and explained why I wanted their chin up, how high I wanted up, how they can achieve it. I’m going to talk to the instructor next week and explain this to him. He probably doesn’t even realize we’re so lost.

A friend/coworker who is a blackbelt who trained under Chuck Norris (before Chuck became a celebrity) and frequented different schools/studios to study a variety of martial arts told me today about a counter-culture of martial arts. Apparently it’s a very common thing for blackbelts to hit on and pick up on female martial arts students, and there is a market of female “blackbelt groupies.” My friend said he’s seen this in virtually all the studios he’s been in. Guys even say things like “I’m right about to get my black belt. Then I’ll be getting all these women.” And there are women in these studios who have slept with most of the blackbelts there. Ew. And here I thought that the people I’d meet in martial arts would be nice people because no one expects hot feminine women to be taking martial arts so picking up women can’t be the guys’ motivation for attending the class. Armed with this knowledge, however, I felt empowered and liberated as I drove to jujitsu. As another friend suggested, I am just gonna step back and watch the train wreck that’s about to happen between the new girl and the blackbelt.
The class was totally different for me today because of my new nonchalance. I was more easy-going, more open, and made a bunch of new friends. I think I shall go to the September convention in Arizona. In our after-class discussions today, it looks like it’s going to be a co-ed hotel room situation between me, the new girl (who I now get along with because I no longer care about the competition), an intermediate level Japanese guy named Josh (who tried to talk to me yesterday but of course my head wasn’t in it then), and another intermediate level guy named Gerardo. I had a really good time chatting and sorta hanging out w/these 2 guys today throughout class. From the bits and pieces I observed, it didn’t look like the blackbelt appreciated my new friendships. He ignored me unless he was dealing directly with me (like during grappling), and if we had to deal with each other, he’d throw liners at me like “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me.” At one point he touched the side of my neck with his fingertip and said, “Oh, you’ve got a pretty bad burn there.” I shrugged. When I got home, I looked in the mirror and the burn must’ve totally and completely healed itself. It was all pretty laughable.
Oh yeah. And I led the class again on abs, and was happy to see that the 3 new ab exercises I added in were strains to them. Brave class, tho. They are very gung-ho about a good strenous workout.

I like this series of photos. How many attempts does it take to get a good picture in which we all look normal? I’m writing the captions out for you so you don’t have to rest your mouse over the photos for them (altho that works, too.)
1.
Attempt 1: Brad’s sticking his tongue out like he’s gonna lick Diana.
2.
That’s #2. I’m not ready.
3.
That’s #3. Diana is frustrated. “How hard can this be? I don’t understand!”
4.
That’s 4. “Get down here and put your head like this,” says Diana.
5.
And finally, success. Attempt #5. Cut and Print!

For photos Mike took of my b-day dinner on Saturday night (see 7-3-05 entry, San Jose, Part I), click here: http://www.ocliw.com/things/weekends/cindyBday2005/index.php

As with all my photos, just rest your mouse over the photo for a caption. Please keep in mind that WE WERE ALL SOBER. It was a totally dry beach with tons of sheriffs around to enforce that.
See 7-5-05 entry, San Jose, Part II.

Wonder how much Jimmy outweighs me by.
Don’t look so surprised, Brad!
For more and better photos of this July 4th, 2005 insanity, please click on: http://www.ocliw.com/things/weekends/bigBeachBBQ2005/cindy/

It’s like this.
Don’t try to make me feel special if I’m not. Don’t kid with me as if you missed me with an “about time you came back,” don’t give me an intimate breathy hello how you doin’, or walk in front of me and face me to give me a private grin and a wink. Twice.
Don’t do that if you’re going to squeeze another girl’s arm when you don’t know I’m behind you, ask her persuasively if she’s going to be back tomorrow, give her a special goodbye (again not realizing I’m behind you) and revel in her flirtatious sing-songy “ByyYYYyyye.”
And what’s up with your dad trying to get me to room with her for the September trip? Well, to heed the advice of a good friend, “Keep your enemies close.” I see through her. She’s nice to me to impress you. It’s rather quite a joke. People are so two-faced. But then I’m multi-faceted.
I don’t appreciate your attempt to play me. I find it obscenely offensive. Thanks for fueling my workout. I hit the gym hard after I left the two-hour jujitsu class. Driving time noted, I tried to burn off my emotional glumness physically from 6:30pm to 10:30pm.
It’s not about a man anymore. It’s about no man, and yet every man. There is no more searching for “the one.” There is only “Screw you, and you, and you.” Get out of my face. I don’t want any of you and yet all of you are mine.

What a crazy lunch. Our trial settled late morning so I had some extra time. Since I did not sleep until past 3am and had a really hard time getting up this morning, I took an hour-long nap in the jury room women’s restroom “lounge” at lunch. Really odd dream involving tea lights on a cheesy mattress, my crying because I wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom of a friend’s house, and something about living in a forest. When I woke up, the tiny room I was sleeping in had turned into Antartica. I took a walk across the street to an outdoors eatery to thaw out. (Yes, my lunch is legally 1.5 hours long.) Ran into a DA who was enjoying the weather, his wireless internet access on his laptop, and what appeared to be a really decadent lunch of celery and carrots. I purchased my pizza and Diet Coke and joined him at the outdoors table and we analyzed my dream. I find myself still rather cranky about my last relationship. Then when I came back to work, on my keyboard I find a newspaper clipping someone had left with the headline Cindy Hits Gulf Coast. “Tropical Storm Cindy, possibly intensifying to a Category-1 hurricane this morning, will churn inland across the Mississippi Delta early today, packing winds at over 70 mph as it batters the region with heavy rain and thunderstorms.” I like how they personify objects, and objectify people, but my weather alter-ego is definitely sounding like me as she sits and pounds over New Orleans. You go, girl.

I went to Drug Emporium to pick up some fabric detergent earlier after dinner. As I was wandering the aisles perusing random objects, I noticed a boy who always seemed just out of my direct line of vision, but who was always around. No matter where I walked, he was within 10 feet or just around the corner of the aisle. I deliberately walked to the makeup aisle and looked at foundation. He followed me there, too, and there is no 12 year old boy who needs anything in the makeup aisle. This is not the 80s. He walked by me down the aisle, then turned and watched me from the end of the aisle, partially hidden behind some bath products hanging at the end of the shelf. I walked thru 2 more aisles. Same thing. What the hell. I walked up to my friend and muttered, “The kid’s following me.”
“I know,” he said, “He’s been doing that awhile.” I got uncomfortable and left the store.
“Do boys even have hormones at that age?” I wondered aloud.
“Oh, yeah,” my friend informed me.
“Why’s he looking at someone my age? It’s not like he’s gonna come up and hit on me. When I was his age, I would’ve thought someone my age is totally old.”
“Boys are different,” I was told. “He’s gonna go to his friends later and say, ‘Hey, I saw this hot Asian chick at Drug Emporium, she had really long hair and she was wearing this tight tanktop and you can see her blue bra straps that matched her jeans…’ He’ll be thinking about you when he’s alone later tonight, too.”
Ew. Now I was uncomfortable in more ways than one.

Well, that wasn’t nearly as mutually painful as I had been dreading. The northern Cal people who were around the dinner table during a certain discussion this past Saturday night would be happy to know that changing the code is no longer necessary. I am once again in actual and constructive possession. Altho I really do feel bad that, as I told a friend earlier, I watched a grown-ass man cry and all I could think about was “I hope his tears and snot don’t drip onto me.” I’m going to hell.