cindy's world

My second “quarter” of jujitsu started yesterday. I’d never seen the class so full. Half were new students. It was really, really cool to hang out w/the regulars again. I congratulated Gerardo for winning gold at the Okana competition in Arizona last weekend. Everyone harassed me for not going. It sounded like a lot of fun, maybe I’ll go next year. Got my usual wink from the blackbelt. This class started better, I felt. After the initial warmups and stretches and toning exercises, they began the jujitsu training by breaking down and drilling blocks and kicks. Then the class was split into 3 groups to work on various falls and take-downs, just to get new people acclimated to jujitsu in general.

Unfortunately, because half the class was new people who didn’t have gis, I couldn’t work out my aggression on them. Until Gerardo came up to me as I was doing the take-downs. “You can throw me,” he offered. “Really? I really can?” “Yeah! Go for it!” I threw him across the room. He did a dramatic airborn roll. Sometimes it’s nice having people who can read me and my antsiness, especially if they can do something about it.

The Dove Chocolates wrapper fortune I just opened reads “Listen to your heartbeat and dance. ” I understand the reference to dancing. I do feel better now, after lunch. It was a good thing I forgot my tennis shoes. Seeing some actual doves helped, too. The second wrapper (who has just ONE piece of chocolate?) reads “Don’t think about it so much.” Okay, will do.

Thanks, everyone, for the calls, the talks (electronic and in person), the hugs. I’m content.

Apparently it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

I bet my ex is happy.

I apologized, we had some small talk, then I said, “I’m so stressed right now, I gotta go, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“So we’re cool?”
“Always.” He gave me a big smile. I smiled back. First time I smiled in over 12 hours.

I think I potentially messed up two things already this morning. I’m gonna go apologize.

This is very possibly the worst morning I’ve had in a year. It’s not even fking 9am yet.

There’s the computer glitch in the morning at home. That got me off on the way wrong foot. And then I realized I have to return a pair of shorts I bought over the weekend that had the wrong size posted on it, it was about an inch smaller around the cut than the other shorts I got in the same size. Throughout the morning getting ready and showering, the thoughts swirling around my head just made certain things feel worse and worse until I rather felt indignant and violated in general. And then I was late going in to work because of the computer glitch. Then driving in, I realized I’d left my tennis shoes at home so I can’t even work out my steam at lunch. I am PISSED about that, because this is the one day I don’t have my gym trainee so I was planning to hit the gym HARD to make up for my inability to before. I can’t after work because today is the first day of jujitsu this quarter. Driving in, I thought that the only thing to make this day worse is if a certain person (who doesn’t normally work here) were to be here today, but then the chances are slim to none because he’s never here on a Monday and he didn’t come in at all last week and driving thru the parking structure, I didn’t see his vehicle. And then while I was waiting for the elevator, he came up behind me. “Hey, nice boots.” I don’t have anything against this person, I just know I can’t handle it today. So I burst into my courtroom and bitched loudly to my bailiff about the morning so far, and at the point where I was saying, “…and he walked up behind me while I was waiting by the elevator! So I was like [made a gesture of exasperation with my head dropped back and sighing in irritation]”, my bailiff very obviously said, “Shh, there he is behind you, okay hold on,” and I turned around and the very person I’m talking about was already walking into the courtroom. Good fking gawd. My bailiff walked out to avoid the scene.

I just plunked down on my seat with my back to him, couldn’t even make eye contact. He asked me what was going on. I said grouchily I’m having the worst morning ever. He said, “Am I making it worse?” Of course he heard me. How could he not? I said crankily, “Yes. It’s just that I’m in such a foul mood that I would piss off anyone near me in about 10 minutes.” He said, “Should I leave you alone?” I said, “Yes.” He said with a stand-offish tone, “Ookay, see you later,” and left.

Why did I come in to work today? I should’ve called in sick this morning. I’m also upset that I didn’t get to wash my car at my parents’ last nite (their friends paid a surprise visit and parked in the driveway right next to my car so I couldn’t wash it w/o getting their car wet) , and leaving my house this morning, a look around the disheveled rooms unnerved me as I hadn’t been home to clean stuff up.

Add to all that, I’m freaking bloated as hell from all the chocolate I ate last nite before I left my parents’ house; I’d brought over my cooking class end-products to their house to put in their fridge, and my mom misunderstood and thought I was leaving it there for them. I didn’t bother correcting her, but really, why the hell would I do that knowing they don’t like chocolate?! She, btw, also reminded me how they don’t eat chocolate and said she was just gonna give all the stuff away today.

I am going to implode at lunch.

Andrae and I had another analytical conversation last nite. Our approaches to beginning relationships are really different, but one thing we do the same is the hunt for red flags in the beginning. This is partly because we both value our singledom so much that before we jump into something (when both of us are in, we are damn committed), we need to make sure it’s worth the changes and efforts in our lives. Instead of being like some people who want a relationship so much that they find excuses for and ignore red flags in order to justify continued dating of someone bad, Andrae and I look for potential reasons/signs to get out.

For me, I think one of the reasons is that I am now so protective of my peace and peace of mind, which is the main beauty of being single and having no one on the brain, having come so close to losing myself and my sanity in the recent past. Another reason is that I am terrified of being hurt like that again.

Sometimes the excuses are easy and large and very legitimate. It brings to mind the thought of “If it’s this bad now in the wee infancy of this relationship, it’s only gonna get worse later.” Other times, it’s more subtle, like a nagging feeling that something is being kept from me. Actually, the latter is the worst because it’s the beginning of the first crack in the foundation, the first brick in a wall that will separate us. I don’t know whether I’m keener from experience, or paranoid because of it.

I spent 20 fking minutes writing a really thought-out post about stuff screaming at me on my mind and the minute I was finally done the laptop did something weird on its own and fking went back w/o my touching anything and the whole damn thing disappeared!! WTF!! I can’t even use the forward or back button on the browser to restore it!!!!!! Now I don’t have time!!!

WTF. I’m gonna try to reproduce it anyway. I’ve never been more convinced that it needs to be put out there than now that I’ve been prevented from it.

During my hike today, I expressed my thoughts on how important it is for one’s emotional well-being to have things or plans to look forward to. That being said, here’s the list so far:

FOOD
1.) The Stinking Rose in Beverly Hills’ Restaurant Row, motto: “We season our garlic with food!”
2.) Papadakis Taverna in San Pedro, Greek food and belly-dancing, opa!
3.) dim sum (I dunno, anywhere)
4.) Korean soon tofu (I about fell over when my hiking buddy said, “I like tofu.” I told him how non-Asians complain to me that tofu didn’t taste like anything. He said, “Sure it does! It takes on whatever flavor of the food you cook it with!” That’s exactly what my dad says.)
5.) Taiwanese breakfast?

PLACES TO VISIT
1.) UCLA campus and surrounding Westwood Village in Los Angeles
2.) The Huntington Library, Art Collection & Botanical Gardens in Pasadena (oh darn it, I just saw that the mansion is under renovation indefinitely according to their web site)
3.) Glen Ivy in either Brea or Corona
4.) Diamond Bar High School for Bingo some Saturday nite (Vicky, nudge nudge.)

I’m sure I’m missing out on something I’d had running in my head that I’d like to go to or eat in the next few months or so, but this’ll do for now.

Wrapping up another wonderful weekend.

Friday, I got to show off my cooking skills on a whim. I don’t get to cook enough; cooking for 1 sucks. It’s not even worth the work with no one to share the meal with. It was nice to use someone else’s kitchen and get help cooking and have someone else do all the cleaning. The compliments and appreciation are nice, too.

Saturday, to further satisfy my cooking urge, I went to Trader Joe’s and bought a bunch of crap in the morning that relives my college days. Middle Eastern bread w/lots of stuff to use as toppings (seasoned crumbled goat cheese, bruschetta sauce, etc) to make into little pizzas to toast in the toaster oven, hummus, flatbread strips, etc. Dumped it all off at my friend’s house, made and had brunch with great company, than ran off to meet my cousin Diana who leaves 10 mins away from my friend. Diana and I went to a cooking class – Extreme Chocolates! She and I made dark chocolate ganache truffles and chocolate flourless cake. We learned how to make triple chocolate brownies, chocolate mousse tarts, rolled chocolate cake, etc. Taking a chocolates cooking class on PMS is bliss. I could not stop munching. Our cake turned out beautifully, and our chocolates tasted great, altho we went overboard w/the Kahlua and espresso syrup. Altho that’s probably what made it so great. Afterwards, Diana and I went to her friend’s housewarming where I met a bunch of people I had a wonderful conversation and homemade meal with. We really bonded over the patio table out in the backyard in this beautiful Mission Viejo house. Lots of laughs and therapy.

Today, I finally got some exercise in. I accepted a friend’s invitation for a great walk and talk up in the hills of Irvine (or it might’ve been Tustin, not sure of the borderline). The walk was on the verge of a hike at certain points, so I was able to break out in a sweat. Toward the end, I saw a big suspended pipe by the side of the trail that looked like one of those playground bars I used to flip around on as a kid. I asked my companion, “When you see something like that, don’t you just want to climb on it?” The next thing I knew, I was being dragged to the bar and I did a flip on it but couldn’t come back up on it because the pipe was too thick for my grasp. Oh well. But now I really want to climb on some jungle gym.

After the hike, I got to watch “The River,” a Chinese award-winning film that my uncle Miao Tien starred in. We could not finish watching this gawd-awful film, altho we did have fun laughing hysterically at how horrible it was in the beginning. Maybe there’s some great surprise ending that puts the whole disjointed movie together, I dunno.

Oh yeah. I also bought half my Cancun wardrobe today at a swap meet. Do I need anything else except my current swimsuits and board shorts?

I had a little internal twitch earlier this evening that I think was made better by a vicious 95 mph drive to my parents’ house with the radio so loud that my ears rang after I got out of the car. I guess I need to do that every once in a while.