cindy's world

One of the bloggers who I read frequently wrote a rather empowered post displaying smug satisfaction at having put herself first and done what she needed/wanted to do this past weekend while her boyfriend sat on the sidelines. Which got me thinking about my own behavior with and without a boyfriend.

I posted the comment on her post:
Prioritizing myself above the significant other…*sigh* still working on that one. Sometimes I think the only reason I’m so happy single is because I’m #1 by default. I don’t know that when a new man enters my life that I won’t be a doormat again. This is sad.

Sometimes it’s just fun to look unusually hot for work for no reason at all. We are currently trying a pain-in-the-arse Civil trial on 2 cases simultaneously because consolidation was not successful. All the arbitrarily introduced exhibits are creating a paper nightmare. The judge is very cranky with the hurky-jerky progression of the trial. So today turned out to be a good day to look pretty.

Sleek black boots; short A-line red, black and white skirt; thin red (and very fitted) 3/4 length sleeve sweater; all my regular makeup plus blush and lipstick. I rubbed Victoria’s Secret “Love Spell” body cream on, and layered it with a fine dusting of VS’s body shimmer in the same scent, just to highlight my collarbones.

It’s a funny thing about lipstick. It was the first makeup item my mom ever let me wear, and she bought me my first lipstick when I was in 6th grade. It was my one staple for years. And then I started having boyfriends and the lip color waned to tinted lip gloss to nothing. One of my girls (I can’t remember who, but I remember the conversation) said a couple of weeks ago, “You can start wearing lipstick again!” The thought hit me for the first time and I said, “Oh! You’re right! I CAN!” Lipstick makes such a difference on a woman’s face, especially if she has pretty lips. It just makes her look alive.

Jimmy asked me tonite, “What do you think are the keys to being a good couple?”
I thought a bit and responded, “I think keys are similar ethics, mutual respect, mutual dedication to address and resolve arising problems, integrity.”

It’s one of those things I don’t really think about until I’m challenged to analyze my perspective. These days I don’t think much about relationships at all in relation to myself. It makes me feel tired, and if I’m forced to delve deeper into a topic about my relationships or thoughts thereon, I become agitated and angry as I touch old wounds. But now that I have created a list, I thought I’d document it to compare it to a list I may have in the future.

Another list w/my current state of mind: No-Exception Dealbreakers
1.) cigarette smoking
2.) substance abuse (including excessive alcohol)
3.) compulsive lying
4.) cheating
5.) frequent/regular contact with exes
6.) someone who never wants to get married
7.) someone who never wants kids
8.) someone who currently has kids
9.) no integrity
10.) moral turpitude issues

Woke up right before 6am. There was some light visible thru the curtains, and I was feeling normal. I had complete recall of everything, including my dream that I had already woken up and gone out w/everyone for breakfast. I came upstairs thru the iron spiral staircase, looked out the window, and found myself staring at the ocean. It was a bit overcast, but the water was glittering and blue, and the sand was white. I had no idea we were that close to the beach. I would’ve burst into song if I could think of a song to sing. What a great house! What a great location! What a great morning! I needed to get to my car, grab my omnipresent workout bag, change to workout clothes and go jog on the beach! I started to leave, but decided to come back and leave them a note just in case they woke up to check on me and think I freaked out and ran out. Before I could write the note, Boyfriend came out of his bedroom (he did tell me the nite before that he gets up at 6a), marveled at how awake, spry, and not hung over I was, and insisted on coming with me to my car. I was grateful, as the place looked totally, wonderfully different in daylight. I practically skipped to my car. We decided to drive my car back toward his house to find closer parking, and we managed to park half a block away from his beachside property. By the time we came in, my girl friend had grudgingly gotten up and we made a plan for the day.

The three of us took a morning stroll beachside (the houses along the sand are simply amazing. I don’t know how many times I carped about not having my camera on hand.), wandered by some stores in Downtown Manhattan Beach, stopped by Starbucks where Boyfriend got coffee and a muffin, walked up and down the famous Manhattan Beach Pier…

…where some runners were warming up for a Pier to Pier race at 7:15 am, then walked back to his place. My girl friend and I then drove to Vons and bought breakfast groceries. We made eggs, hash browns, bacon, 2 kinds of sausage, buttermilk biscuits, and mimosa. I felt like I was on vacation. We were waiting for the cloud layer to burn off so we could go for a swim in the ocean. I didn’t have a swimsuit, so the three of us took a walk to Downtown Manhattan Beach where, uncharacteristically and on a whim, I purchased a $90+ red very sexy little bikini. Then back to the beach house, where the two of them took a nap (at least that’s what they said they were gonna do, altho it sounded from downstairs like a very “active” nap) and I took my morning shower.

When we set up at the beach, we laid out for a couple of hours conversing of the ramifications of cross-generational ignorance upon global environment, society, history, pathology, until some other friends of Boyfriend’s joined us, then the three of us (I, reluctantly) walked to the water. I had no intention of going in past my ankles, as the last time I was in ocean water farther than that was when I was a hairline away from drowning myself, but the Boyfriend ran up to me and grabbed me and threw me in. When I came back up, I said, “You didn’t even ask if I could swim!” He looked horrified, and apologized for traumatizing me for the rest of the day (I can swim). Completely uncharacteristically of me, I was in the water chin-deep, playing with the waves, and it was wonderful. The ocean was warm, and Boyfriend played with a bobbing jellyfish. “It’s the kind that doesn’t sting,” he insisted. They got out of the water too quickly for my taste, but I followed and we laid out on the beach discussing movie plots and shortcomings for the next few hours. I noted how different these people’s frames of reference are. They were joking about celebrity deaths, which is common guy talk, except the references were to various planes, their external structure, inner operation, etc. Apparently these flashy-careered (screenwriter; something Sony Pictures related; TV commercial producer) people all have pilots licenses. They were discussing celebrities’ drunk flying in the same casual mainstream way the people I’m normally around discuss celebrity drunk driving. Boyfriend, in making fun of my Chinese girl friend and I, alluded to the Thursday Wall Street Journal article about 2nd generation Chinese American spies in the engineering fields. Of course we hadn’t read it. When his friends got there, he made the same allusion in mocking us and they all knew what he was talking about as if it were the over-media’ed Michael Jackson trial. But I digress.

We soon separated to clean up. I got a nice hot shower rinse in Boyfriend’s patio outdoor shower (!!) and as my girl friend and I cleaned ourselves up, Boyfriend and the band went off to rehearse somewhere. My girl friend and I caught up on each other’s lives, watched TV, walked to the store and bought junk food, Tecate beer, Absolut vodka and Bacardi Vanil rum, then Boyfriend got back with groceries and made dinner for us (BBQ pork ribs, BBQ beans, seasoned almond rice, BBQed asparagus, BBQed corn-on-the-cob, chocolate sorbet, Vanil rum-n-Diet-Coke). Great dinner conversation goofing off with some extreme low-brow humor, great stimulating and thought-provoking after-dinner conversation, and despite their urging that I stay another nite and have breakfast with them before I leave, I left.

8 drinks this weekend. That is really uncharacteristic of me. Absolute appreciation for life, its beautiful details and friends, hopefully becoming more characteristic of me.

OMG, fking amazing weekend. Not that the weekend’s over; it’s only Saturday nite/Sunday morning. And I just got home from going out Friday nite.

Work was uneventful for the first time in awhile. After work, I went to Outback Steakhouse with coworkers and had an eagerly anticipated drink. Thought I’d try something new. Since martinis are my new thing, I picked an Aussie Purple Passion martini. Uncharacteristically, I downed it before the appetizers even got to the table. Also uncharacteristically, I ordered a second drink. My tried-and-true caramel apple martini. Downed that drink before dinner got to the table. Had a nice fish and steamed veggies dinner. I came home exhausted at 7:30p and got ready for an early nite as I took out my contacts, washed my face, and changed to jammies.

One received phone call and an hour later, I was driving to Manhattan Beach in a ghetto-casual getup, hair done, makeup done, contacts back in, to hang out with my girl friend and her new boyfriend and his band members. Yes, my girl friend is dating someone whose job-away-from-job is playing in a rock band. On the way down I dismissed the fancy that maybe I’ll meet some interesting people thru her tonite, and brought myself back down to earth thinking, “They’re probably a bunch of old folgies, I’d likely be disappointed.” Which has been the case with her boyfriends’ friends in the past. As I was getting close to the restaurant they were all hanging at, I was on the phone with one of the guys who was giving me directions, so when I got to a certain point my friend and the guy came out to help me find a parking spot and guide me to the restaurant. It was dark and I didn’t even see them, but I stopped the car at their direction as they saw me. My friend opened the passenger door and popped in the back seat of my coupe. She pulled the front seat down and directed the guy friend to take shotgun and give me directions. This friend dropped down to get into my car and I did a stunned gawk. This guy, who turns out to be the drummer in their band, is easily one of the hottest men I have seen in a long, long time. Dirty blonde hair, beautiful eyes, great smile, dimples, and from what I could tell, he sees the gym plenty.

Anyway, I got to the upstairs patio seating portion of this restaurant, met everybody else, and then they paid the tab and we all walked across the street to go hang out at a pub type bar playing loud rock music. The drinks there were strong, and I was ordered (yes, passive voice) two apple martinis. Those drinks tasted like apple-scented vodka. I felt a tad dizzy for a few minutes, and that’s saying a lot for me because I don’t ever get any other alcohol-induced symptoms (such as the typical Asian rosin). The amazing thing at this bar is, even tho I was with my hot hot girl friend, male eyes were on me instead of her. They may have been able to tell that she was with her man. One man across the way stared so intently and for so long that my girl friend noticed and said something to me about him. But she and her man also hinted for me to flirt with Drummer Boy, who apparently, according to both of them, was interested in me. I made some minimal effort to chat w/him, but it was too loud in there to carry on a decent conversation. We soon left to hit bar #2.

Bar #2 required about a mile of driving and some knowledge of the local streets to find parking. So my girl friend and her man suggested loudly that Drummer Boy come with me to help me out. We found parking pretty readily and went in the bar. Things got a bit friendlier, and as the minutes ticked by, Drummer Boy said, “I don’t think they’re coming.” I said that there’s no way my girl friend would do that to me. They did show up soon enough, and we had another round of drinks. Drummer Boy got me my old usual, a Redheaded Slut, but I had to lean into the bar and tell the bartender how to make it. A bit past midnight and some racy conversations later, my girl friend and her boyfriend tried to get everyone back to the boyfriend’s house to hang out, but Drummer Boy allegedly did the “polite” thing and hailed a taxi home, after firmly telling me that I am not driving home tonight after 5 drinks. I thought that was a bizarre end, but I learned later that Drummer Boy is really not a player and altho he can get girls, he doesn’t do the fling thing. Not that I’m a big promoter of the fling thing, but am I supposed to feel offended here? Anyway, I never saw him again.

Turned out Boyfriend’s house is walking distance from this bar, so we walked back. He has a very very nice place on the beach, well-decorated, full of whimsical artifacts from the 50’s. I slept on a big comfy couch downstairs after being warned that, as I’d never been drunk before, I will be hung over in the morning, and I may freak out not knowing where I am when I woke up. I said I’m not drunk, and I’ll be fine. My girl friend agrees that altho she’s never seen me drink that much (and strong stuff), that I don’t appear to be drunk altho I seem to be buzzing, which she finds to be unusual enough for me.

I miss someone.

I’m not being deliberately vague; I don’t know much more than what I stated above. I am missing someone badly and I can’t see his face, I don’t know who it is. I don’t know whether I’ve already met him or whether he’s someone I’m meant to be with waiting right around the corner. It feels like someone protective and warm, a tad older (I’m feeling 4 years), he’s got dark coloring, quite a bit taller than me (yeah, who isn’t?), athletic and healthy and open to new things and wholesome activities (read: NOT drinking and partying). What keeps hitting me is the feeling I have when I lean my head against his collar bone and his arms go around me. I feel like he figuratively turns me so that he’s against the wind, the rain, the burning sun, and I would be bathed in just the soft breezes and moonlight and filtered sunshine. He likes putting his hand behind my head to stroke my hair as I press my cheek into his chest. He also likes to pick me up — wait — I just got a highly disturbing image/thought.

…oh, gawd.

…Yeah, I’m going to bed.

Good gawd, when have I become one of those people who felt guilty for not working out twice a day? It’s past 4am, and I’m mad at myself for falling asleep until now. I did abs and weights at lunch for 45 minutes, and now I’m considering hitting the gym to do cardio for an hour or so. Should I go back to bed, or do cardio? I know in 8 hours, I will be at the gym again. I figure I’m one of the two below:

1.) guilty for carb intake yesterday – a generous quantity of homemade ciabatta bread my court reporter made, consumed with actual butter; more Japanese rice crackers; 3/4 graham raisin bagel; lots of Trader Joe’s pumpkin flax seed cereal (omg, new favorite cereal) w/1% organic milk (can’t tell the difference)
2.) getting that weird OCD/anorexic overexercising thing where people think they’re fat but instead of starving or puking they try to burn the calories off by obsessively exercising, all tracing back to some underlying feeling of inadequacy and loss of control.

There was a bailiff in here earlier talking to my bailiff. The conversation (in which I did not participate) was about whether money makes people happy. My bailiff said he had the house, the family, the life, but the problems and betrayal surrounding his wife made life very difficult and unhappy. The other bailiff said that he’s seen all kinds. He’s seen people who are rich and miserable; poor and happy; poor and suicidal because they can’t get their life together and move up; and rich and happy because they don’t want for anything. “But by far, the category of people I’ve seen who are the most happy,” he said thoughtfully, “are women who don’t need men and are completely content with themselves without having a man around.”

I perked up. That’s been true of both me and my court reporter. We’ve both been miserably hurt in our relationships, and she said (referring to her daughters) once a girl gets to dating age, there is such a world of hurt and disappointment opening to her. My reporter and I don’t need a lot; we’re self-sufficient. We don’t need a man for money or for gifts. We don’t need someone so hot he’d make all our friends jealous. We’d just like someone we get along with whom we can respect and love, and all we ask in return is that he be there for us and not hurt us. And they can’t even do that.

Does life get lonely or boring for me as a single woman? Of course. Sometimes. But now my laughs flow more easily than the tears. My food goes down easier without the lumps in my throat and the dryness in my mouth. The colors are brighter, the small things are more lovely, birds sing louder, music sounds more upbeat, life is more vibrant. My mind is able to expand and be open to things, no longer locked down and smothered by fear, anxiety, and pain.

On the drive back from Orange last nite, I called my friend Andrae and that ended up being a 1+ hour lecture on how I’m too nice and give too much of myself and need to stop it. He’s right. I’m sick of mind games and don’t care to play them, so I didn’t, but what I did wrong was give too much too quickly (what else is new?). There’s a difference between playing manipulative games with someone else’s mind and simply keeping yourself more discreet to maintain some mystique, he said. It’s like bluffing vs. displaying a poker face and keeping y0ur cards closer to yourself. The reason I didn’t put any effort into creating a mystique is because at this point in my life, I’m tired and I don’t care what people think. If my quick response time makes me appear too available, accessible and desperate, then fine, a Potential can go look for a player elsewhere and not complicate my life. To me it’s just courtesy and honesty. I will, however, listen to Andrae in this as it appeals to my present low tolerance for games: I’m just going to stop my efforts and courtesies. If a Potential is interested enough, he can be a man and step up. If he isn’t and doesn’t, then I haven’t lost a damn thing except trouble in the long run. It’s win-win for me. “It’s not your job to pursue, it’s the guy’s,” Andrae said. “You gotta see the value in your time and yourself.” It’s not like there aren’t people around fighting to get their foot in the door the second they see an opening, none of whom I need. It’s nice to just be open to the possibility and not want for an arbitrary relationship on a physical or emotional level.

I knew there’d be a reason this song has been playing nonstop in my car for the past few weeks:

Someone To Call My Lover– Janet Jackson

Back on the road again
Feeling kinda lonely and
Lookin’ for the right guy
To be mine

Friends say I’m crazy ’cause
Easily I fall in love
Gotta do it differently
This time

(chorus:)
Maybe we’ll meet at a bar
He’ll drive a funky car
Maybe we’ll meet at a club
And fall so deeply in love
He’ll tell me I’m the one
And we’ll have so much fun
I’ll be the girl of his dreams, maybe

(bridge:)
Alright maybe gonna find him today
I gotta get someone to call my lover
Yeah baby come on
Alright baby come and
Pass my way
I gotta get someone to call my lover
Yeah baby come on

I spoil them when I’m in love
Givin’ them what they dream of
Sometimes it’s not a good thing
But I’m blind

I love hard with everything
Giving my all more than they
I’ll take my friends’ advice this time
I’ll do it differently

(chorus and bridge)

My my
Looking for a guy guy
I don’t want him too shy
But he’s gotta have the qualities
That I like in a man
Strong, smart, affectionate
He’s gotta be all for me
And I’ll be too
You’ll see happily

(chorus and bridgex2; chorus and bridge)

Foodwise, Wednesday was terrible. Whilst discussing a technical deficiency in a divorce case I’m working on, I mentally counted that as of 3:30pm, I’ve already had seven pieces of chocolate. They were all bite-sized stuff, like those individually wrapped rectangles of Hershey’s and Dove chocolates, but still. Seven. I decided I had to eat healthy that point on, so I went to Trader Joe’s after work. I bought flax seed cereal and organic 1% milk, among other stuff. I’ve never had either one. But did I open either package? No. Instead, for the next 15 hours, I continuously ate those soy sauce coated little Japanese rice crackers to the point where I am so bloated right now that my internal organs hurt, and two dots of sores or ulcers appeared on my tongue. Probably abrasion cuts from the rough crackers and add to that the toxic amount of sodium replacing my blood/platelet supply.

Exercise-wise, Wednesday was not bad. I did 50 minutes on this insane elliptical trainer at the gym at lunch, which should’ve burned at least 400 calories, or 4 pieces of chocolate. =P After work, I drove really far to Orange to brush up on jujitsu. Haha, you can always tell when I’m doing jujitsu. 3 new bruises on the inside of my left arm, huge already-purple bruise on the side of my left knee, three forming bruises/swellings on my right shin. After the class (in which I led the cool-down stretches), the instructor, 2 blackbelts (yes, including “the”) and 2 students (me and another girl) went to a nearby Japanese restaurant and had sushi. At least I don’t have to feel guilty about that meal. The dinnertable conversation was fun and funny.