cindy's world

Indicia that I really, really dislike housecleaning:
* I’ve taken 4 catnaps already (and I’m not one to nap)
* it’s suddenly really important that I review my gradeschool diary first
* I’ve spent a combined time of over an hour lying around “planning” housecleaning strategy for the most efficient use of time in all I need to do, instead of actually doing housecleaning
* I’ve spent a combined time of an hour staring at my face in the mirror and grooming my eyebrows and playing with my hair and overusing my tweezers
* I’ve considered how much easier life would be if I didn’t have cat hairs, cat litter, cat food, cat eye juice, cat vomit to clean up after, and instantly felt so guilty I spent 20 minutes cuddling with my cat (naked so that I don’t get cat hairs on me) on the upstairs hallway floor
* the laundry has been sitting in the dryer for over 1.5 hours now, ignored
* I’ve weighed myself and taken my bodyfat percentage 3 times since this morning
* I’m upstairs on my laptop blogging.

The ONE freaking day I planned to actually LEAVE the courthouse for lunch and not work thru lunch, and they’re going to inundate us with THIS CRAP.

I had to cancel lunch plans I was CONCEITED enough to make this morning with a DA pal who’d been wanting to take me out before I leave on vacation. Jury complications off the map, constant juggling of disappearing attorneys on 2 cases, jury hung on 1 count and we took the verdict on the other count into lunch, so I had to cancel lunch plans, and then they gave us ANOTHER TRIAL. Non-stop phone calls in the morning so I can’t get ANYTHING done. I wanted to either HAVE a damn lunch or go to the gym for once! I haven’t even been able to leave the freaking courthouse before 7:30p all week (except Thursday when I bailed close to 5:30p). So I may as well work thru lunch to process 7 divorce cases that the Judge had signed for me this morning and to do my trial minute order and to close out the damn trial case now that we’ve reached a verdict. The amount of work for a clerk post-verdict is extensive, anyway. It looks like another LONG evening at work, too.

DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT.

So last nite, after my final “diet meal,” I struggled hard with the technicality of when my diet is considered over. Is it over after the immediate consumption of the final meal? After that meal digests? After I sleep and wake up again? After midnight? I really wanted to eat something, anything, that’s not on the diet’s food list, and I wanted alcohol.

So it was easy when my ex called after 11pm to get me out to a local restaurant/bar and get me intoxicated. Long story short, when I haven’t had a lot of calories in me all week and my body’s out of whack due to that and weight loss and hormones, that any amount of alcohol goes a long way. So… I may have been convinced to get back together with him.

(more…)

I thought I had put this out there but I guess I didn’t.

I’m not normally one to diet. I generally pay some attention to what I eat, try not to go overboard, but I do occasionally succumb to my cravings. My thought is that I’m still young enough to burn off what I put in, so I’m gonna work out to give myself some food leverage. Plus, it sucks on a date that you’re just chewing on some bland leaf (mmm, chlorophyll) when you can be having lobster bisque, sourdough bread, filet mignon, and creme brulee. And a cocktail.

However, because the demand on my time this week is so high for getting my stupid family law crap done before I leave on vacation, I knew I would have to give up my lunchtime workouts, and probably work late in the evenings, too. So since I can’t burn off what I eat, I’d better just control what I eat. Thus, this psycho chemical diet. If I’m gonna have to start bringing lunch (no way I’m gonna grab fast food every day and bring it back to work thru lunch and still fit in a bikini next week), it may as well contribute to my diet. So it all works out.

I hope.

My bailiff, upon seeing the success of my chemical diet so far, made a photocopy of the instructions and menu. I told him that if he wants to do the diet, I’d give him the seven saltine crackers it calls for so he doesn’t have to go out and buy a gargantuan carton like I did if he doesn’t normally eat saltines. He looked at the menu and said, “I don’t think I can do this, man. There’s not enough eats on it for me.” I looked at him quizzically, wondering why he made the photocopy. He answered my unspoken question. “I’m gonna give this to Lisa.” His girlfriend.

Can you guys just SMELL the bloodspill already?

I didn’t say anything to him.

So apparently, this woman (no one I’ve met) has a crush on one of the guys I know, and the guy knows about it because word came back to him that this woman was saying stuff like, “If I was an ice cream cone, I’d want him to lick me like this and this…” (I know, ew ew ew)

While the guy was telling another male friend of mine about the above, I asked, “So what’s she look like? Is she hot?”
The guy responded, “Lemme put it this way. I wouldn’t even touch her ice cream with a ten-foot pole.” The two men started laughing about how they’d only use the pole to knock the ice cream away from her.
My friend, the other guy, said to the 1st guy, “She’s so nasty, I wouldn’t even lick her with your tongue.” More guffawing.

How’s a girl supposed to feel confident with a crowd like this?!

I flew home yesterday after work in time to watch on the news JetBlue’s flight approach the runway in Los Angeles International Airport with its front landing gear stuck at a perpendicular angle to the way it’s supposed to be. The plane landed perfectly on its two rear main landing gears, nose up till the last possible moment when gravity took over, then upon contact with the ground, the front wheels melted sparking flames, but ultimately did not veer one visible inch from the center divider line of the runway. Incredible piloting. Successful engineering of the axel, too. Nothing broke or crushed under the pressure and friction (except the small front tires, of course). The emergency vehicles were on both sides of the runway prepared for the plane to veer one way or the other or maybe turn over. *dignified golf clap*

Then I shoveled my diet dinner into my face and took off to Mr. W’s house. On the drive down, I spoke to my cousin Jennifer on the phone, who invited us down to her house (5 mins from my destination) for dinner and TV nite. She and her sister/roommie Diana have a group of friends who alternate in hosting a TV/dinner nite weekly. Altho I could not eat dinner with them (nor participate in the ingestion of a decadent looking layered chocolate pie of some sort; I’d give a more detailed description but I kept my eyes averted from the temptation), we did have a blast watching “Lost” (first episode of Season 2, first episode period for Mr. W and I). It’s funny and cute how involved in these shows my cousins and their friends are. There was lots of audience participation in the form of shouting advice (or insults) to the characters, some screams, jeers and cheers. Jennifer caught us up on Season 1 details as needed throughout the episode. Interesting series. I would watch it again.

I’m glad I couldn’t be tempted yesterday. I’m down 4.5 lbs from Monday. I can’t wait to see what my weight is once I debloat. I’m also glad everyone liked each other. These people are important to me. The fact that both sides make the effort on my behalf is very, very appreciated. I’m also glad that in the 3.5 hour donut hole of my sleep last nite (I think I was up between 1a and 4:30a), I was productive and folded/put away fresh laundry, reorganized my jammies drawer (golly, I have lots of sets of jammies for someone who doesn’t sleep in jammies, but they’re really cute stuff, mostly VS), decided on some stuff to bring to Cancun, tried on other stuff just to see how the combination fits and whether they fit. Sent out an email.

Okay, okay, I expect some finger wagging.

I’m standing on the bridge
I’m waiting in the dark
I thought that you’d be here by now
There’s nothing but the rain
No footsteps on the ground
I’m listening but there’s no sound

Why is everything so confusing
Maybe I’m just out of my mind

Thus goes the first half of Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You,” pouring out of my work computer speakers as I try to get rid of another month’s worth of divorce files. But the song takes me back to another time so vividly that I had to stop and let it drown me.

2 or 3am. Weeknight. I’m driving south on Beach Blvd toward the ocean, tears blinding my vision, sobs drowning out portions of this song. The empty front passenger seat is littered with wadded up Kleenex tissues. It’s amazing how one can be in what feels like a constant state of lowness and anguish, and then there’d still be a jolt that drops you even lower. I am lost in my emotions and my hurt. Nothing makes sense, all I know is that I am swirling in emptiness and disappointment, that after I gave all of myself over and over, I am still met with cruel disregard and abandonment. I don’t even want answers anymore. I have no hopes for resolution or recovery. I just want it to be over. I just want the numbness to come and take me over. If the coldness of the ocean doesn’t end it, it may never end. This is hell.

Poor little girl. As much as I can cry for her now, want to take her in my arms and warm her cold, wet, sandy body, she feels so distant from me. Like a sad made-up story, something I can’t relate to. But that was me, in the beginning of the end, March 2004.

The mess of that night would never have believed me if I told her that in 17 months, her biggest concern would be to get the month’s worth of family law cases reviewed so that she can leave to go home, eat her diet dinner, then run off to spend some time with a great guy whom she won’t get to see all next week because she’ll be in sunny Cancun with her college roommate.

…yup, still hating it.

The diet today has cottage cheese on the lunch menu. I was optimistic this time around, because the thought of cottage cheese did not induce the gag reflex that it used to. I thought, “Maybe I’m over this. Maybe it’s an acquired taste that you get as you grow up, like spinach or eggplant.” I was wrong.

As I sit here trying to swallow a cup of this crap, I am reminded of why I could not do this diet more often. Eating cottage cheese still is, in my opinion, like eating a lactose intolerant person’s vomit.

“I don’t necessarily think there’s just one person for everyone. It’s more about finding someone who fits and making it work.” – Tyra Banks

Kinda rare that anything a Hollywood celebrity says inspires me to write a post. But then again, I’d been looking for an excuse to write this post anyway. I didn’t leave work until about 7:45p. It was an unusually complicated day with curveballs thrown at me in my criminal jury trial, criminal court trial and sentencing matters, and in family law wrinkles. Sensing my tenseness, a very welcome and wonderful person came by after work to share some hugs and company with me. After he tried unsuccessfully to work out a tension knot in the middle right side of my lower back, I was ready to call it quits and I shut down the computer at 5:30p in favor of catching a flick at a nearby movie theatre. A quick check of the current features later, however, he suggested I’d be better off getting more family law divorce crap done. Due to the difficulties of the day, I had not been able to get to one family law case today despite working thru lunch. I reluctantly agreed because, after all, he’s right. I do have an imminent (and eminent) deadline.

To my surprise and guilty pleasure, he stayed with me the whole time, chatting w/me and helping me stuff envelopes like he did on Saturday. And I did indeed get rid of a lot of these cursed cases in the time we spent torturing ourselves with their presence. As I got ready to leave, I told him, “I do feel better now that these are done.” He joked, “That’s because I’m a good influence.” He is. He’d said earlier in talking me into staying to do work that he just didn’t want to see me stress any further over these things as I got closer to vacation and my available time got shorter, and he said it helps the time pass by faster if I’m working with someone around and it’s not just me with the janitors.

He also asked me about my transportation arrangements to get to/from the airport for Cancun next week. I hadn’t made any arrangements yet, and he offered himself. That’s so sweet! He had also previously asked what I was going to do about my cat the week I’m gone, and when I said I hadn’t secured that detail yet, he’d also offered himself even tho my house is totally out of the way for him, and he’s allergic to my cat. I was touched at his offers, but I can’t do the cat thing to him. I’d still like to have him around when I get back from vacation, I don’t want to find him convulsing and foaming on my living room floor due to an overdose of Dodo.

I was so grateful to him when we separated at my car. He just blew an evening hanging out with me at work and volunteering himself to do work that isn’t even his. We didn’t do anything social and we couldn’t even go grab a bite because of my diet. He said it wasn’t a wasted evening for him because he got to hang out and chat with me.

Life is really good to me right now, no? And now I get to look forward to seeing his handsome face right before I leave for and immediately upon my return from Cancun. 😀