cindy's world

With the new year, I’m going to attend all sessions of jujitsu — 4 days a week, 2 hours per session from 6:30p -8:30p —

*** INTERRUPTION *** My bailiff JUST told me he’d recently found out that law enforcement (all branches) has a website in which single (or married and player, which is more likely) law enforcement officers can post a dating profile and women can shop for someone online like a dating service. It’s called something like “date a hero dot com.” My reporter and my reaction after looking at each other: “Oh, gawd. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” I turned to my bailiff and said, “Like you guys need something else to help your egos along!” *** END OF INTERRUPTION ***

and I’m still going to hit the gym at lunchtime. I’m also adding running back into the mix. I can’t hit the weights as hard as I used to, one because my conditioning isn’t there anymore, but two because I’m still training my coworker (who is improving her abilities and physique by leaps and bounds), but I figure the extra cardio and martial arts will make up for the lack of weightlifting. Running will keep the muscles off, anyway, and I don’t want to be overly hefty and sacrifice flexibility and speed in jujitsu.

Hopefully this more rigorous workout regimen will afford me the weekly Tuesday lunches with my current and retired coworkers, and the Friday evening happy hours. And since I’m gonna be home more, maybe the house can be better kept, as with the feline roommate.

Mr. W and I had a talk last nite and we decided to see a lot less of each other. At first it felt nauseatingly like slitting the throat of the honeymoon stage and ending it early, forcibly. I tend to do stuff like that because I’m sensitive to even minute changes. You’ve got something going on from 6-7? Okay, I’m not even going over at all that day then. Touch a snail’s antennae and it recoils immediately and completely into its shell. But Mr. W made a good point about his character. The only time in the recent past that I’d been comfortable doing my own thing was when I was single. It’s such a rarity that I can truly enjoy being self-indulgent that I had a really hard time giving up the singledom. However, what’s been unique in this relationship is that even if I wanted to travel around the world on foot by myself, Mr. W would encourage me to do it and although I would miss him, I’d know that while I was away, he would not be off somewhere betraying me. This may be a blessing in disguise. This may be the first time I could be comfortable being a whole person and not just “the girlfriend” while in a relationship.

Altho, on the flip side of the coin, and maybe this is just separation anxiety talking, I have known people in relationships that, unless it came out verbally somehow, you’d never know they were in a relationship. A person would come to events solo, anytime you ask if they’re available to hang out, they are, without having to check with anyone or anything first. People who know about the significant other would ask what the other half were doing, and the other half’s always out doing something totally separate and social. And people would whisper, “Why are they even together? They spend like no time together.” And eventually, this strange, estranged couple would break up, and everyone would nod at the predictability and say that they saw it coming. “There was no passion there, they didn’t even hang out, it was like they weren’t even friends.”

And yet, there is something nice about how last week, there was an event going on that I was deciding whether to attend, and a married friend had joked, “Did you get your hall pass?” I’d scoffed. Hall pass. I’d be lucky if he didn’t drag me there himself, kick me out of the car and take off without me, shouting something about strengthening my social network out the window.

Gosh, it really sounds like he doesn’t care to be around me, huh? Well, I guess I can’t keep up the last 4 months forever, accepting every invitation to go running over there, being home only half an hour a day to get ready for work, neglecting jujitsu and friends and bingo and stuff. And there’s stuff that he wants to do, too, that he’d never told me about until last nite. I used to ask him what he’d be doing on the weekend if he weren’t attending one of my friends’ events with me. He would say nothing, running errands, same stuff, except doing it alone. That was really nice of him to say that so that I wouldn’t feel like I was taking him away from more important things. It was so easy to just go with his flow and get comfortable. I guess the timing of this is right. It was starting to feel unhealthy last week when my cousin Jennifer suggested, “Make yourself happy,” and I couldn’t.

Hey, I’m not sore! Saturday afternoon during “camping,” we went on a very hilly (estimated 4 miles) hike. The hike was difficult for me because my hamstrings were sore from my Friday weightlifting, I was on medication that warned of drowsiness, and it was the part of my cycle when I’m normally fatigued. Mr. W warned me that I’d be sore for days. I wasn’t sore Sunday, and today, I’ve completely recovered from even the Friday weights soreness. That means I can kick serious butt in jujitsu today. Yay! (Yeah, right. They’re not gonna let us throw beginners.)

I don’t think I’ve blogged about this, and if I didn’t, then the proper context was missing from the campfire story. Mr. W doesn’t like “real” fires in his fireplace because he doesn’t want to deal with the soot and the ashes afterwards in his immaculate designer-looking house. I love burning stuff. I love to stare at the phase changes and listen to the crackling and watch things get devoured and moved. When Mr. W started turning on his gas fireplace for me shortly before Christmas, I found little satisfaction in the predictability of gas-powered flames lapping futilely at metal imitation wood. I whined and reasoned and bargained for burning stuff in the fireplace, to no avail. Finally, perhaps having his heartstrings pulled at watching me piteously watching the fake fire devoid of meaning, Mr. W stomped over, grabbed a decorative cinnamon-scented pine cone from a basket by the fireplace, threw it unceremoniously on top of the fake log, and said, “There.” My whole face lit up as bright as the burning cone while Mr. W shook his head at me and called me a pyro as he walked away.

Mr. W: What are you laughing at? Are you laughing at what you wrote?
Me: (laughing) Uh-huh.
Mr. W: You’re proud of what you wrote, huh?
Me: It’s a writer thing. It’s like giving birth — to something really funny.
Mr. W: Is it about our camping trip?
Me: (laughing) Uh-huh!
Mr. W: Is it about your fire?
Me: Most of it is. (laughing again)

I just returned from my first “camping” trip. Yesterday morning, Mr. W was having breakfast on his balcony when the beauty of the weather and sunlight and the warm prior night compelled him to cancel our weekend plans with other people and go on an impromptu “camping” outing. Once he got that idea in his head, there was no stopping the momentum. Sleeping bags, tent material, various wares and gear were thrown from upstairs over the balustrade to the foyer. I was a bit bewildered, having no experience with camping and therefore having no mental prep, but he knew how to push the buttons. The promise of an outdoors fire where I’d be allowed to burn stuff for real put the grin on my face and with matching glints in our eyes, we set off “camping.”

The reason why “camping” is in quotes, is because I don’t think that having a portable dual-range gas stove, electrical outlets, running hot/cold water public restrooms and showers are really “roughing it.” But according to Mr. W, this is how “everybody who really camp” do it. Well, we could’ve been more spoiled, I thought, as Mr. W plugged an electrical pump into an outlet and inflated the air mattress. We could be in one of those RVs with the generators humming and the satellite dish propped up on the tripod in front of the portable kitchenette. We got back to nature by sleeping in a special-order tent that sets up right over the bed of his truck so that we’re not even touching the ground. We didn’t even have to catch small woodland creatures for skinning and roasting over a bonfire spit. No, we had hot chocolate and Marie Callendar’s canned soup that was simmered over the stove range. Basically, it was like setting up half your kitchen and living room outdoors and claiming you’re “camping” just cuz you’re out of the house. I did manage to keep him from putting a nice tablecloth over the wooden picnic table, however.

Okay, enough of my silly criticism about spoiled “campers.” The experience itself was fun. The stars were beautiful, the company can’t be beat, and I got to burn stuff in an open flame. I think Mr. W thought it was funny that he dumped ice into the fire pit, causing my waning fire to sizzle as we were packing up to leave this morning. That act of cruelty caused me to scurry around like a little squirrel gathering what pine cones I could find to run back to the fire and try to revive it. “Hurry, hurry!” he called after me. “It’s a race against time!” The firepit smoked and smoldered for a long time as the ice surrounding it melted. But later, while Mr. W had disappeared to use the public restroom, I was triumphant. By the time he got back, the flames were licking the ice and I was sitting there with a Napoleonic grin on my face. So of course he had to pour what water was left in the pot directly over the fire as he was putting away our portable kitchen. 🙁

It’s okay…he did what he had to to ensure that he could tear me away from the “camp.”

At lunch, on my drive to the gym, I listened to a voice mail that my jujitsu instructor left apologizing for not enrolling me correctly in the class and assuring me that the problem’s been fixed. I got to call him back and say, “Not only did ‘SC lose to Texas, but ‘LA won against Arizona!”

I could hear him practically hang his head over the phone as he responded, “I now know what humility feels like. I guess I’m a Longhorn fan now.”

Last nite I dreamt I went to northern Cal to visit a friend, and while hanging with this friend and her friends, a long-lost friend of mine showed up because he knew one of the girls that were there. I jumped down his throat about why he lost contact with me after he went thru all that trouble to find me again and I’d responded and he apologized for not being better about being in touch and said he hopes to hear from me soon and when I wrote back, he never responded again (true in real life). We talked about other things, looked at old photos, reminisced how close we were way back when and how he was my best friend in ’94, I kissed him on the forehead and told him I loved him and probably always will. And when we parted I knew I would never see nor hear from him again. I also never got my answer.

It’s strange how someone could’ve meant the world to you, and never be there at the most important points of your life (like when I moved into my 1st apartment for college, and college graduation, both of which events he’d promised to be at). It’s amazing to see how resilient I was as I kept offering my best to him whenever he needed it, while knowing that when I needed him, he would be absent. I think this is why he’ll resurface here and there, jump thru hoops and connections to find me, offer me a page of apologies, but he is still unable to stabilize his own life, much less remain a constant in mine. Although he came from a good family and had every advantage (he was starting quarterback in high school and graduated from a UC) I’ve never known anyone to get into the type of trouble he’s been in. Not just with the law, but with Asian gangs, upper-echelon mob-business people, and a grab bag of illegal activities so unique that I have yet to see any of his crimes duplicated in any of my court cases.

I hope he’s okay.

Kaiser was as efficient as it could’ve been, except for the waiting. I went from the main waiting room to the lab to the waiting room to see the RNP to the pharmacy, and that took from 6:45p to almost 9:30p. The RNP, after talking to me and examining the results of the lab test, asked whether I wear thongs. I said those and g-strings are my staple underwear. She told me to stop wearing them for 6 weeks. WHAT?! She said, “I know, I know, the underwear line thing. My husband would even stop and whisper to me, ‘Hey, you can see that woman’s underwear lines!’ But before thongs became popular, we had 10% of the infections we do now. Ten percent!” Wow. I didn’t know the two were correlated, but you can’t argue those stats. So that’s my public service announcement for today, girls. If you get recurring UTIs and you’re doing everything else right, reduce the thong wear. 🙁 I personally would rather go commando than show underwear lines. Oh, that reminds me. She also advised to go to bed at night sans underwear. If you choose to wear underwear, choose something with at least a cotton crotch, if not completely cotton everywhere else.

I chatted on the cell w/college roommie Diana while I was in the large overpacked waiting room. “Wow,” she said, “Why’re there so many people? Is everyone just sick with the flu or something?”
“I don’t know what they’re sick with,” I grumbled, “looks like chromosomal defects.”
Later, I called Mr. W while I was waiting at the Kaiser pharmacy. He asked if I was playing pat-a-cake with a bunch of children. “I know! If I have to stand in a long, slow, winding line with a ton of screaming children, there should at least be a ride at the end of it.” A woman in line behind me let her child scream at the top of his lungs for what felt like forever instead of handing him off to her husband and/or teenage kid to take elsewhere. HMOs in low-income areas…sigh.

I’m sad. I can think of many counterexcuses why I should be more understanding, but why should I make excuses for someone who doesn’t even care enough to make these excuses himself? Besides, excuses or not, the bottom line still remains that I’m sad.