cindy's world

Yesterday after work I was cleaning the downstairs rooms in my house (cuz I’m lazy, that’s why I did the house in halves), and walked by the kitchen. Something misplaced caught my eye. A photo of me and Grace with our arms around each other in high school was sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator.

This photo WAS on a French ribbon bulletin board that’s magnetically attached to my fridge. Grace had given me the bulletin board for a birthday or Christmas gift one year. On it now are some Happy Bunny stickers, a postcard childhood friend Karen had sent me (I think from Italy), many photos of me with my parents, me with other friends. Of all the doodads, many many photos and stuff on that bulletin board, the one of me and Grace had removed itself from the board, turned the corner, and laid itself neatly facing me on the countertop. I’m gonna take it as her acknowledgement of the recent post I wrote about her. If I had to list all the visitations I had from her already I’d scare some people. 🙂

An attorney who called me the other day (for something totally work-related) told me about a new weight-loss program she’s on. It’s a totally customized program designed and monitored by a doctor who used to be a ob/gyn and therefore is very knowledgeable about hormone levels and how it affects the human body.

The doctor takes a blood test and examines all the markers for metabolism and the individual body’s response to various hormones and food enzymes. That way he knows how each person’s body would respond to carbs, proteins, specific foods, etc. He then designs a special diet for what the patient is to eat all day. The attorney said the food is good, natural stuff, but that she was surprised at the things her body would react poorly to, for example, she can only eat 1/2 a tomato a day and no broccoli because there’s some enzyme or protein in those veggies that her body reacts to by slowing metabolism or insulin production down. Because she was bulimic in the past, this new diet will retrain her body to react heathily and normally to foods, and by correcting her metabolism, she should be on the fat-loss track as normal people are. Just like me, she used to work out 2 hours in the gym daily, do all sorts of cardio, and have zero results.

Although she said this diet is a bit expensive, if it works for her I totally want to try it. All the diet programs out there don’t work for me, either, because my body doesn’t respond to anything due to what I’ve screwed up being anorexic in the past.

I hate going to the maul in these holiday seasons. Is it me, or are we just way more populated than we were 10 years ago? Plus, people are freaking hostile. Especially large women driving SUVs. They’re just angry and they want you to be angry, too. My usual practice is to cross people off my gift list all year long. You know how sometimes you see something and you think, “Oh, that’d be perfect for so-and-so,” except it’s not so-and-so’s birthday and it’s not Christmas, so you don’t buy it? Well, I buy it and stash it in my Gift Closet. I haven’t started “Christmas shopping” yet this year, but the only person I have left to buy something for is my judge. I’m going to REI to get him a giftcard as part of his present package. He’s all into the vacations spent hiking and doing the dude ranch thing. There are some other people whom I’d like to get something for, but am undecided as to whether I should, because I don’t want to oblige them into buying me something and starting this future trend thing. So that being said, should I be buying presents for a boyfriend’s children? Oh yeah, boyfriend’s present Part I was a 3-year pre-paid membership to the gym which I gave to him early, and he’s been so good about using it! That makes me happy. =)

I’ve heard this song twice now on the radio and the words speak volumes to me. Beyonce’s got it right. Once you’ve betrayed us you’re dead to us. And why is it that every guy says, as he’s walking out (hopefully for the last time), “You’re never gonna find someone else like me.” Hello! You’re an ass and I’m leaving you for it, why would I want to have another guy like you?!

That’s all.

You know what I don’t understand? How lighting a match is supposed to magically eat up all the fart and poo stench in the bathroom. I don’t think it works. I think smelling the burnt sulfur mixed into the scent of flatulence just makes everything worse. It says, “My innards stink, I stunk up the place, and my ineffective attempt to cover it acknowledges that I know I stink.”

Okay, but what if you’re on a plane, and you stunk up that little plane lavatory? One passenger tried the ol’ match trick on the plane, too. Long story short, her flatulence LANDED the plane in Nashville, Tennessee. See short article here. And not only did she cause lots of inconvenience and money, she got herself banned from the airline.

This is why you shouldn’t eat broccoli, cauliflower, or dairy before you fly.

I was sending on a feel-good holiday perspective email, and as I’m going through my email addy book selecting recipients, I decided to simultaneously do some housecleaning. I deleted the emails of people in my past who have not proven to be worth the “friend” or even “acquaintance” label; I deleted old friends who have chosen to abandon me when I parted ways with people who were bad for me; I deleted friends-of-friends who were involved in past email strings but whom I wouldn’t email on my own; I deleted my friends’ exes and my own exes. (Well, except for the ex who got me the car hookup; we’re cool.) What I could not bring myself to delete, were all of Grace’s email addresses. I think of her daily when I’m at my desk and I see the photo of her arm around me at her wedding shower, and when I scroll through my email address book and see the various places where her addresses, sorted alphabetically, pop up. More than a few times I’d wanted to double-click her email to include her on the forward list of something I’d expect her to enjoy. I’ve never done it, because I’m scared to see the mail get returned back to me with something about an unknown recipient, or worse, if the address had “permanent fatal errors.” I think it was a permanent fatal error that she’s no longer here. But anyway, life and death have their own rhymes and reasons.

I thought about her husband, Justin, on what would’ve been her 31st birthday October 21st, and my heart went out to him as I know that somewhere in the cold state of New York, a loving, amazing man is going to be hit with the anniversaries of the birth of his wife, of her death, of the date he proposed, of Christmas, of New Year’s, and of Valentine’s Day, all within 4 months. I also think of Grace’s parents in Diamond Bar, five houses up the street from my parents, and of Grace’s younger sister, who will be celebrating the holidays soon, with one less girl to shop for.

I’d felt a little better, more at peace, after my little email cleaning. Life’s too short to waste on losers. Please be careful out there, you guys.

When I was younger, I thought Adult Cindy would…

1.) never tire of running to a ringing phone to see who might be calling;
2.) never be boring like Mom and Dad and order duck designs on checks;
3.) not be one of those meanie grownups who dislike children.

I think I may be wrong on all three accounts. The first, because I find myself laying listless sometimes as the phone rings, and I’m thinking, “There can’t be anyone calling who’s important or interesting enough that’ll make it worthwhile for me to get up right now.” The second, because I just wrote a standard designless checkered background check to pay my cell phone bill and not only is this the first set of checks I’ve had (since the first book of free checks you get for opening the account) that’s not some cool or cute personalized design, but I don’t even care that this check is boring and doesn’t say a thing about me, because it’s free. (I had a bad experience with ordering specialty checks that has now convinced me to be content with the bank’s free and hassle-free ones, boring as they are. You can read about the bad experience here and the update here.) The third, I’m not really sure about; people like Jordan, Dwaine and my gym trainee have said that it’s not that I don’t like kids per se, I just dislike unruly undisciplined kids in public. That may be true, because this past weekend I met a little toddler girl who’s well-behaved, quiet, and happy. She melted my heart. Mr. W and I had gone over to his kids’ mom’s house to pick the kids up, and mom’s sister was there with her toddler. The little girl was playing on the stairs, so Mr. W walked up and picked her up lest she fall to her death. Bringing her down, he walked toward me and I reached out a finger to the little curly-haired girl and said, “Hi!” She actually stretched out her open hands and arms toward me, and leaned toward me. “Awww!” I said as I took her from him. She giggled at me.

So what kind of expectations did you guys have of your grownup selves when you were kids? Did they come true?

Me: *outside, waiting for Mr. W*
Me: *still waiting for Mr. W*
Me: *checking watch*
Me: *looking around, still waiting for Mr. W*
Me: *FINALLY seeing Mr. W walking briskly toward me*
Mr. W: Hi!
Me: This is you. *pointing my index finger at him, slowly bringing it closer and closer to him, until my fingertip makes contact with his arm. Then I push it a little harder.*
Mr. W: Ow. What’s that mean?
Me: You’re a slowpoke.

I had a really crappy evening. Not because anything went wrong, or because something expectedly good didn’t come through, nothing so legitimate like that. I guess I just let someone get to me that didn’t deserve to have such an “in.” It surprises me that the mood is not more connected or responsive to the intellect, because this person is on the waaay peripheral of my life, doesn’t physically affect me or my loved ones, and I keep telling myself that I know I didn’t do anything wrong to this person, I’d in fact always tried to be supportive, and if for some wacked out reason this person suddenly decides to be rude during these holiday seasons, well, that’s really not my problem. I know I didn’t wrong anyone and frankly, it’s not like this is some great person whose favor says anything about me. Besides, this person is more than busy with self-created, self-induced problems due to this person’s own stupidity and poor past decisions. Everyone who is important, whom I respect, admire and love, are just fine, and are interrelationally fine with me.

Hmmph. Time to cross this person off my list. Coincidentally, all yesterday I wore some Happy Bunny socks inside my boots, and Happy Bunny is saying, “Like I Need YOUR Approval.” Yeah!