cindy's world

My mom has gone from 1) hinting I should chop my hair when I’m at their house, to 2) blatantly telling me to cut my hair so that I’d look younger and less heavy and listless, to 3) telling me via phone to get my hair cut, to 4) emailing me today with a huge paragraph about how I need to chop my hair off. Her argument today in the email is that when I was 4 and she’d taken me to get my hair cut short, everyone kept commenting how cute I looked, which meant that she has great taste and I should listen to her. She also said that when my hair was cut, I had said, “It’s so ugly!” My opinion about that haircut remains constant. I think she associates short hair with looking young because in Taiwan, she’s used to seeing the “student hair,” which is the required uniform haircut for schoolgirls, i.e. hair no longer than to the bottom of your earlobes.

It’s not that I’m against getting my hair chopped. I’ve had short hair before, above the shoulders, but I usually do that every few years in the summer. In the winter, I like my long hair to hide evidence that I’m cold. My other arguments for longer hair is that I can’t wear my hair long when I’m old(er), so I may as well do it now while I can get away with it. Besides, guys like long hair on girls (with exception to Mr. W, who sides with my mom on this one and has already told me to make an appointment for this weekend). I also need it long enough that I can tie it back when I’m working out. The biggest thing is that short hair is high-maintenance, whereas long hair is wash-and-go.

It’s at that final argument point that I stop and think about something else my mom said in her email. “There’s no ugly women, just lazy women.” She encourages me to play up my youth while I still have it and make other girls jealous. I don’t think she meant it in a catty sort of way, she just means that while I have something to show off, I shouldn’t hide it behind ratty clothing and a messy mop on my head. A little effort is good in youth because it takes so little to look good, and looking good just starts your day off on a better note and your confidence makes you look more attractive in general.

Maybe I should take Wilco’s suggestion for goal #8 more seriously: Be hawt like wasabi at age 30.

(as always, rest your mouse pointer over the photos for captions.)

With only 3.5 months left of being 29, here’s a progress update of my original Before 30 goals:

1. Stay at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. Haven’t done it. BUT I went to Cancun instead. Diana and I figured the week off I had was a waste for San Diego cuz that can be a weekender thing.
2. Get back into kickboxing or take up a new martial art. Jujitsu! Tah-dah!
3. Take an automobile simple mechanics course. At least so I can change my own oil/tires. I forgot about this. I still think it’s a good idea. I’ll pull out the class schedule I just got and see if anything’s available. The upcoming Spring semester, I’m gonna be taking jujitsu and yoga already, so with a 3rd class I may as well go back to school.
4. Learn to surf. I’m not sure, but I may be scrapping this.
5. Stay at a bed-and-breakfast at the Niagara Peninsula. Ooh. Still wanna do this.
6. Buy a motorcycle. I’m scrapping this.
a. Learn to ride said motorcycle. ditto.
7. Lose another 10 lbs without chopping off a limb. I sort of already done this. But it was the same 10 pounds I already lost the first time. Guess I should’ve been more specific when I wrote this.

Vicky said this morning, “I’d like to tell my [future] kid or something that the year I turned 30, I ran a marathon and climbed Mount Whitney.”

Doesn’t that sound cool?! It immediately attracted me to the prospect. Maybe if I had ambitious physical goals like that, I wouldn’t be so scared of turning 30 because that would mean 30 isn’t over-the-hill, it isn’t official-boring-grownup-status, it doesn’t mean my life will be a decline from that point on.

The other thing I’m holding on to with my fingers crossed is something my ex and his friend William had said before, that women are at the peaks of their beauty in their early 30s. Something about still having the glow of youth with the sophistication and confidence that comes with wisdom gained through experience. (Not their words, I’m assuming and hoping that’s what it is, as opposed to, say, they just have a fetish for older women. GAACK, look, I still think of 30 as “older”!)

I’m gonna go up to San Jose to visit the Northern Cal buddies the weekend before my birthday. I already emailed them to clear their social calendars. They’re great wholesome people whom I know would not want to just sit at a bar and get me drunk. At that time, I would’ve known some of them just over a year. Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t even known them a year right now. They’re such a big part of my life. Well, my online life, anyway.

College roommie Diana and I are IMing regarding the 2 people who caused an avalanche outside of Tahoe today, and how it relates to my possible 1st snowboarding experience.

Cindy: they’re missing a lot of people just because of those 2 idiots.
diana: that’s the thing….this is outside of the resort, so there is no avanlache control
diana: so people who go outside, pretty risky
diana: anyway, i hope it turns out ok
Cindy: so far I’m seeing lotsa reasons why I shouldn’t go snowboarding.
diana: if you stay inside , its fine
Cindy: my screaming would probably cause avalanches, and I’d have to deal with THAT guilt.
diana: hahaha
Cindy: so I should just sit inside all day?
diana: no no, i meant inside the ski resort, not inside the lodge
diana: these people went out of bounds
Cindy: oh. I don’t even know the difference.
diana: haha
Cindy: I’ll probably drift out of bounds and then scream for help and bury myself in an avalanche.
diana: trust me, it’s not that easy to go out of bounds
diana: you have to want to and try really hard
Cindy: oh. that’s better, then.
diana: people don’t go out of bounds unless they are looking to
diana: generally people who are quite good and know they can handle the terrain
diana: people do it becaues the snow is un-touched, but w so much snow, it is very dangerous
diana: but some people are stupid
Cindy: you know what another way to get untouched snow is?
Cindy: cause an avalanche!

I’m pretty happy with my after-work productiveness today. I left about 20 minutes early (which is 40 minutes later than most people in my job description, and 70 minutes later than some others, plus the judge worked us 15 minutes into lunch today, so don’t judge me) and gassed up my car, went home, changed the cat litter, cleaned the cat area, vacuumed the house, did the dishes, cleared out some bills, collected and took out the trash, and got to jujitsu on time.

At jujitsu, we warmed up so hard I was totally pouring sweat (maybe my metabolism was still on from my 3-mile run at lunch today which, by the way, made me sick), and then I was directed to the front of the room to lead the class on abs. And then we did — I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like ron-doori, which is two people facing off with their hands on each others’ gis and trying to turn the other person off-balance and induce a fall. That’s one of the things I’m worst at, I always lose the skin off my left knuckles from fabric burn, and I’m always being thrown. But with the breakdown of the moves and strategies in a drill today, something clicked in my head and I kicked ass! I think the trick is (or at least, the trick that worked for me) to turn them left and right and then pull an arm in while pushing the other arm out so that they’re going backwards, perpendicular to you, and then step quickly into them while continuing to pull the side that’s down. They fall on their side or ass every time. Anyway, I got home, showered, and I just installed TurboTax.

Right now I’m waiting for the free TurboTax State to download. If I can finish my parents’ taxes tonight, then they’ll have it ready this weekend when I visit them and they can sign it and mail it in. I really thought I’d have to ditch jujitsu tomorrow to clean up around the house and work on taxes, but now it looks like I won’t have to. Unless I decide to go to this celebration at a local pub that the DAs invited me to. I don’t even remember what they’re celebrating. I don’t think anyone’s being promoted this time. The problem is that I can’t do both. I learned early on that even one margarita before jujitsu totally dulls my reflexes and clarity of thought, even tho I have zero other symptoms doing normal stuff. I guess jujitsu is just more demanding on concentration and coordination. I guess I can go and not drink, then head over to jujitsu. Hmm.

Who knows the reference to my post title?

Do people do anything for less-than-a-year anniversaries anymore? I just realized that all we did for our 6 month anniversary was salvage the relationship. It was a busy weekend errand-wise for him, and I helped where I could, but we had no private time at all and I didn’t mind that. I guess I can romanticize it by saying, “On the precise day of the 6-month mark, we could have gone either way, but he gave me hope for the relationship and restored ‘us’ back to the way we were in the beginning. And that is the best gift I could have asked for.”

But the reality is, he got up really early Saturday morning to take his daughter to sing at an elementary school ball game’s opening ceremony, then they came back, collected me, the three of us went to his ex’s house to pick up his son, who was already uniformed and ready to start his high school baseball game, we stopped by a local restaurant for breakfast, dropped the son off at his game, went back to his place, dropped the daughter off at home, then he and I went back to the son’s ballgame, watched the son and his 2 nephews play on the team, left early to take his son (who had a fairly serious mishap) to the orthodontist, learned the office was closed, went back to his house to drop me off and make an appointment for urgent care, he took his son to sit in urgent care as I stayed home to hang out with his daughter, we watched “Friends” on DVD, he and son returned, he was messing with his fishtank so I took daughter to get her haircut, his ex came to pick up son, daughter and I watched Little Black Book on DVD while he planned his Alaska fishing boys’ expedition in June with his buddy, daughter went to bed, he and I sat up in the living room and talked out our problems. And that was just Saturday.

Sunday, he caught a renegade fish in his fishtank and we returned it to his fish store to trade it in for some shrimp and another different breed of fish. Had Japanese noodle house lunch by the fish shop. On the drive home with fish and shrimp prodding my lower abdomen through their bags on my lap, his daughter called and asked him to pick up a bite for her on the way back. He refused, said his fish needed to be taken care of pronto, but that he’d take her after he finished his fish-related errands. I offered to take her when we got back, so while he tended to acclimating his fish and shrimp, daughter and I went to McDonald’s where she, with great difficulty, filled her cup with Hi-C instead of soda because she’s going through sympathetic Lent and has given up soda until Easter Sunday. We came back, he and I went to another fish place to buy salt water and other supplies, and he cleaned his tank and put his newcomers in. We watched the interaction for awhile until we fell asleep, then I got up and went to my parents’ house. And that’s Sunday.

There’s a part of me that misses the marking of small milestones, and there’s another part of me that’s unconcerned enough about it to have forgotten about it over the weekend, since we were frying bigger fish. Maybe I’m growing up. Or maybe I’m growing into my inner guy.

My childhood friend Vicky, who has always sworn to hate running, has signed up for the San Diego marathon, running for the cause of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She has a progress page that documents her runs and the amounts of her donations, how close she is to her goal. I put in $100 just now. The site takes care of the donations online, it was really easy.

You guys may have heard me talk about Grace here and there. She was one of my best friends. We met waiting for the school bus an early September morning when we were 14. She swore I gave her a dirty look that morning and that she never would’ve thought then that we’d be friends. Not only did we become friends, but that friendship stretched across great distances as she went to Berkeley for undergrad and I went to UCLA, and when she moved from there to New York to take a job offer with Merrill Lynch Risk Management (consulting, something to do with the stock market). She met Justin while training for Merrill Lynch. He was sent down from the Great Britain branch for training in the New York branch. She caught his attention when she kept dropping the ball during one of their getting-acquainted exercises in which everyone in that group sat in a circle and whomever got the ball had to say something about themselves and throw the ball to someone else. They fell in love and the plan was that she’d move to London after their wedding. “You keep moving farther and farther away,” I’d once told her. But she was so happy, and I was so happy that she was so happy. I was to be one of her bridesmaids. She never made that move to London because leukemia made her move even farther. I donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society then and also sponsored her when she did a walk across some bridge event for the Society, and registered as a bone marrow donor, but did little for the cause since.

I’m glad to be doing this for Vicky, and I’m glad that she’s doing this for the Society. And I’m so proud of her for completing her first 8-mile run this past weekend.

I had my first Dove chocolate square in a long time. The foil wrapper read “Do something spontaneous.”

So one phone call later, I nixed my lunchtime workout plans, and did that something spontaneous.

I feel good.

For years now, the number 14.4 has wafted through my conscious and tortured me with its failure to reveal its origins. It’s one of those familiar things, and I pronounce it in my head as “fourteen-four.” Why is fourteen-four so familiar in my head? What does it refer to?

187, 211, 459, 1170.12(a)-(d) and 667(b)-(i) are familiar to me because they’re California Penal Codes for murder, robbery, burglary, and the premise of the 3-strikes law. Is 14.4 a Penal Code? I don’t think so because it’s something so familiar that I’d retained it in my subconscious. Is it Pica on a typewriter? Is it a standard measurement of something? But it’s such a imperfect number. Not 14 and a HALF, not FIFTEEN. What could it be? The length in inches of a legal piece of paper? No, that’s 8.5″ by 14″.

I think at some point, I had figured it out in a conversation with someone. But I’m not sure because right now, I have no idea what the hell 14.4 is. Do any of you out there know?

I tend to not “fight” for a person’s romantic interest. I tend to feel that if someone’s focus on me can be swayed or confused by some random outside person or thing, then that’s an internal problem with “us” and a relationship probably would not work out anyway. If there is some competition, I back off and if the guy likes me, he’ll bridge that gap and come to me. If he doesn’t, then that inaction tells me everything I need to know. Someone playing hard to get with me to spark my interest would just end up not being gotten. If he plays the hold-out-to-call-her thing, I assume he’s not interested and I move on. If he takes even longer, by the time he calls I may have forgotten about him. People who have dated me know this about me.

Thinking about this tendency of mine on the drive to work this morning, I wondered how much of it has to do with my being hurt and miffed. Am I not fighting for someone because of principle, or am I not fighting because I’m hurt and have retracted into my Cancer shell?

On the other hand, I have fought for someone before, just in the spirit of competition (I can only think of one example), because the chick trying to take this guy’s attention was totally on my nerves, and the guy wasn’t interested in her. He kept trying to turn back to me and she wouldn’t let him, until he just finally turned his back to her and came to me. She was really pissed, and kicked my chair hard on her way to the bathroom. It was all really immature. In this situation, I was not emotionally vested, so I could not be hurt that there’s competition out there. It was almost a big joke. This was a long time ago and now, I can’t imagine fighting for someone for sport. It just seems so unnecessary and childish. If he wants her, he’ll go to her, and if he wants me, he should come to me. That’s it.

So I guess that’s what it is. When there’s something or someone competing for the attention of someone I’m emotionally attached to, I get hurt, curl up, back off, and hope and wish that he’d come to me. If he doesn’t for a long enough period of time, I am tortured and start to deteriorate. And then I prepare myself to walk. I may put out one last effort to communicate my feelings to him, but if he’s unresponsive to that, then it’s pretty much over.

I don’t know if that’s healthy or not.