cindy's world

I just opened a box sent to me from my ex that my Judge brought up from the mail a few minutes ago. He’d called me yesterday to ask whether I’d like Grace’s book P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern (which I’d loaned him when we were still dating, which he’d just finished reading) returned to my home address or work address. I requested it be sent to work so that I’d be here to receive it. He has other books I loaned him, Hamlet and Dracula, but those aren’t as special to me as P.S. I Love You, which arrived with 2 other books Grace had ordered shortly before her death. I remember being at the funeral reception in Justin’s building’s rec room in New York, and Justin had just returned from getting the mail. He opened the large package and when these books came out, he looked suddenly broken. I quickly took them from him and asked to borrow them.

I expected there to be a note of some sort in the box from my ex, and there was. A handwritten letter. But what I didn’t expect, which made tears spring to my eyes, were the 2 boxes of contact lenses. I guess he knew I wouldn’t have found another optometrist yet (since no medical plans offered us has good vision coverage) and he still wanted to take care of me. At least in a professional capacity. Except he didn’t charge for them. So it’s still a favor.

The letter made the tears spill over. In a nutshell, he wrote about how good the book was for him, and how he’s stopped reading my blog because it’s too painful because he still loves me “way too much.” He wished me the best, then closed the letter with a quote from the deceased husband character in the book:
Don’t be afraid to fall in love again
Open your heart and follow where it leads you…
And remember, shoot for the moon…
PS, I will always love you…

This package is a gift in more ways than one. It’s a gift of surprising maturity after meeting so many embittered, immature men after him. It’s a gift of continuing love. And it gave me closure I never even asked for. Even though he will likely never read this, thanks, J, for the peace.

I left work at close to 7:30p last nite and went to the grocery store to buy the food for my chemical diet. I think the sudden appearance of cumulonimbus clouds, lightning and brief passing rain is a good sign. Haha. I arrived home to a yowling cat circling his food and me restlessly. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked him. “There’s food right there.” And then I looked closer. Ants. The outdoor moisture must’ve chased the ants into my house. That was fun to clean up. I love my Fantom Fury vacuum cleaner.

I gave myself extra time this morning to pack my chemical lunch and to eat my chemical breakfast. Normally, I skip both meals. But the bulk of my spare time in the morning was used in sucking up more ants and spraying Raid around the kitchen. I did feel twinges of guilt. I mean, are they not little lives, too? Do they not have souls? Aren’t they just trying to survive and get out of the rain? :*(

Actually, processing family law divorces isn’t so bad with a great playlist pouring out of the computer. I dug out a CD Rom of MP3s from the crevices of my desk and couldn’t remember what’s on it. So far I’m on the subfolder entitled “HS”, which turns out to be songs that totally took me back to high school. Driving in my first car to school at the buttcrack of dawn, listening to hip hop on my pull-out radio; driving to West Covina Mall after school w/my friend Nina in the passenger seat; sitting in the back of Edgar’s car going to school before I got my license, with Grace in the front seat and Brian to my left. Driving w/Ling to UCLA to visit some friends on a weekend. House parties in people’s backyards. International Club socials where I had to beg Eric to be our DJ. Sitting in Geometry watching Jon stomp and clap out the bass rhythm of “The Ditty.” On our hands and knees (w/Grace, Vivien, Bonny, Christine, Kenny, Ronnie, Tina) painting props and backgrounds for International Club events and plays. And yes, sitting on front of the computer all summer 1993 BBSing on my super-fast, super-compact 386 with a whole 8MB of RAM. Haha, those user meets were something else! Each song has tied to it memories of sound, feel, thoughts, sight, even scent. Even which songs were associated w/which crushes. *blush*

So far:
* The Ditty – Paperboy
* Daisy Dukes – 69 Boyz
* Mr. Wendall – Arrested Development
* Very Special – Big Daddy Kane f/Spinderella
* This or That – Blacksheep
* I’ll Make Love to You – Boyz II Men
* Knockin Boots – Candyman
* Fantastic Voyage – Coolio
* Rebirth of Slick – Digable Planets
* Humpty Dance – Digital Underground
* Kiss You Back – Digital Underground
* Knockin da Boots – H-Town

I wonder if I knew as I was listening to these songs in HS that they would be the magic peephole into the past, the time-defying vortex, in my future. I wonder what current songs in my life now would cause me, in 10 years, to squeal in nostalgic delight and dance in place as my heart soars as high as my smiles turn up my lips and brighten my entire composure.

I can’t believe I forgot.

GO BRUINS! Woohoo!

(I say this like I even watched TV at all this weekend. But I did watch a thought-provoking docufilm called “What the BLEEP Do We Know?” and the first third of “Nightmare Before Christmas.”)

Man, I learned MY lesson about getting sufficient sleep. So everybody, you were right. My immune system is kaputt during this stressful period and I have only myself to blame. But I’m grateful that, as bad as it is and this is the worst I’ve ever had this problem, that it’s not worse. I can see how it could’ve easily been a lot worse.

Deadlines are looming now that I’m a week away from Cancun. I’m actually foregoing all my jujitsu classes for the week and the noontime workouts to get my family law crap done. They just gave us a criminal trial today, so I’m not gonna be able to be as productive during the regular work hours. But I also need to lose weight, so I’m putting myself back on this insane chemical diet I’d been on before. Since I can’t afford time to lose weight by burning incoming calories, I’ll just have to control the quantity of incoming. (No, I’m not gonna starve myself.) Starting tomorrow. Today’s moon cake day. =)

I just realized that my cell phone is at home. It must’ve been at home since Saturday morning, since I didn’t pick it up to leave yesterday. No wonder it’s been so quiet lately. I think I’m enjoying the fact that no one can get a hold of me right now.

I’ll probably snap at people anyway — I was at WORK for four hours yesterday evening. If that won’t make you cranky, then being at work for four hours doing divorce cases will. >=( The only redeeming thing is that I had wonderful company who volunteered to come along and keep me company. As his laptop played several episodes of one of his favorite TV shows on DVD, he helped me do some of my busy work, i.e. stuffing SASEs w/conformed copies of these annoying litigants’ stupid finalized divorce papers. If he weren’t there I probably would’ve taken an extra hour to do what I got done. I didn’t even have to drag him in! He totally volunteered himself and insisted on helping to ease the stress of my workload, since I am SO annoyed about my stupid divorce cases that I’ve been working on them thru lunch and after work. This is because my supervisor threatened to cancel my vacation unless I get thru the 70-some case load. And I’m not even a family law court! I am actually having psychosomatic symptoms from the family law stress. I won’t go into what those symptoms are. Okay, enough complaining.

After leaving work at 10pm, we went to BCD Tofu House and had a good meal. And a good Asian meal is not complete without a stopover for boba. Unfortunately, I opted for something different — Thai iced tea w/pudding — and he didn’t take to it as much as he did the boba. (I got him into eating boba and hummus. Hee hee. Altho this was his first time with Korean soon tofu, he already liked tofu anyway so it was just a cool little experience for him, not a food preference overhaul.)

Mr. Wonderful is cutting up potatoes to make brunch. I should get off the computer to at least keep him company.

Yesterday after work, we went to the 17th annual Taste of Newport event, which is like a huge, upscale street faire on Newport Center Drive in Fashion Island, Newport. (For locals to the So Cal area, this event goes thru the entire weekend, last day being this Sunday, September 18.) 33 local restaurants, from the casual chain La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill to the classy The First Cabin at The Balboa Bay Club & Resort, present samples of their best in introductory booths, with incentives like the $20 dining certificate we picked up for McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant. You get a “rechargeable” debit card upon entering the event, and use those to buy the food. Some vendors, like Sunkist’s Almond Munchies, are giving their entire proceeds to the Katrina Disaster victims.

When we first arrived at the venue, a Police Tribute Band, “Fallout”, was performing onstage. After them was The Derek Bordeaux Group doin’ their R&B, Motown and Soul groove. And then, as we made our way to the 5th row from the stage, MACY GRAY began her performance punctually at 9:15pm. (The B-52s are featured for today, Saturday, and Hootie & the Blowfish are featured for tomorrow’s schedule.) I’m not a huge Macy Gray fan and I had never heard any of her music aside from the two overplayed songs on the radio, but I really enjoyed her boppity and bluesy styles. People started getting drunk around us, the y0ung on beer and the old on wine, and once again I was in that too-familiar mode of watching out for other people and their exaggerated, oblivious bodily movements, making sure I wasn’t going to get myself hit or spilled on. This time, however, the company I was in was not drunk and it provoked endless smiles on me to be able to enjoy the evening with my Bacardi (low carb) Green Apple and not worry about having to watch my back, and knowing that should anything happen, my protective company would have my back. There were actually a few times when my unspoken rising concern about some rambunctious guy near me caused my date to hug me and swing me around so that I was on his other side, placing himself between me and the threat. Big brownie points, I tell ya.

Speaking of brownie points — and I have gone back and forth about whether I should blog this — he appears to have a sensitivity and consideration to me or “us” that I have never seen before in anyone I had ever dated, but which quality my girlfriends and I display instinctively and just chalk up to “a girl thing.” After we buy some food item that requires a flat surface to eat off of, we’d look around for some open seats at the round tables set up in the middle of the aisles in between the food booths (technically on the grassy center divider section of the street that the faire’s on). There’d be a couple of people on one side of the table and those looking for repose would ask to sit with them, and people there are generally friendly and entertaining, especially the older people (the young college age people were just loud and drunk, like young college people usually are). Anyway, here’s the brownie points part. We walked by a table w/2 scantily dressed women probably in their mid 20s (there were quite a few of those, and I had not known before last nite that Newport is the Land o’ Plastic Barbies) and after we passed, he said, “Well, there were some seats open by those 2 women back there, but I didn’t think that was appropriate.” I did feel a bit uncomfortable walking by those women and realizing they had the rare open seating at their table, but nothing I consciously registered. I was just so used to having to deal w/that stuff from my last relationship. I asked him, “Inappropriate for whom?” He said, almost nonchalantly, while looking around for other tables, “Inappropriate to sit with 2 women while I’m out with my girlfriend.” I think it was a slip of the tongue for him, and I chose to ignore the title, but what will forever stick out in my mind is the realization that someone will consciously choose to forego, without even being asked, hanging out w/attractive young women in favor of keeping me comfortable as a prophylactic measure. I know more men who will make a point of sitting with these 2 women and hide behind the excuse of “Well, there’s no other seats! What are you so insecure about? It’s not like I’m gonna ask for their number or something, geez!” Altho my female friends and I would never do that in a role reversal situation, we certainly don’t expect the same consideration from men.

My date’s favorite part of the night, he told me, was chatting w/the people we sat with. At one table, we joined two older women (by older I mean probably 60s) and at first it was laughing about how they have their men under their control as their husbands brought them food item after food item, drink after drink, so that they didn’t have to get up and fight the crowd. And then that somehow evolved to talking about what my and my date’s occupations are, and it got into my writing. My date looked so proud of me as he talked about how “incredible” my writing is and I just watched him brag about me in a sort of awe. (I was in awe, not him.) Oh yeah, and it turns out that the older of the two women is also a UCLA alum – English Department. I knew there was an innate depth and intelligence to her when I first started talking to her. 🙂 When we walked off after good luck exchanges, I thanked him for all the nice things he said about my “talent.” He put his arm around me and said, “I’m your biggest fan.” I smiled and said, “I think you might be.”

I just returned from the district picnic. That’s right, no gym at lunch today, I ate instead. How absurd is that? Eating at lunch. Pshaw. The way I ate can only be described as, I ate things that I had no business eating. I’m probably going to hit a sugar low, food coma soon and be out of commission all afternoon.

I had planned to work thru lunch today to get some more of these divorce nightmares under my belt, but my reporter appeared in the department I was covering (I’m covering 2 courts today, and actually brought more divorce files with me to work on while I was in the other department) with 2 tickets for the picnic in hand. How could I resist free food and great company?

The weather, by the way, is beautiful. It’s nice to get some sun and great laughs with people I work with but don’t see a lot.

I once had a merged life with a dark source, and it muddied my brightness until I became heavy and dank. It took a lot and a long time to separate from this darkness, and now that I have, my light shines brighter. With the separation, I can now see the darkness for just how ugly it is and was. My light appears so much brighter in contrast to that dark. It makes me appreciate life, and everyone I still maintain in mine, so much. Everywhere I look around me, everything is aglow and transcendent.

I am so, so happy.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring. (I have an idea, tho. *huge smile*)

I’d just like to say…I’m a good personal trainer!

My trainee told me today (middle of our 2nd week of training) that the pair of pants she’s wearing is roomy enough to tuck her shirt in, and that she hadn’t been able to even get into these pants since June. I asked her if the workouts left her too tired in the afternoon, and she said no, it energizes her and motivates her. And she’s seen differences in her body tone. Plus, she’s now sweating profusely within a couple of minutes of cardio. Woohoo!

Now if only I could get myself results like that.