cindy's world

(photo of the beautiful 5’2″ Alyssa Milano courtesty of www.sofeminine.co.uk)

I haven’t had a meaningful workout since before the wedding. Yup, you heard me right. Some days after the wedding in early September I stood in front of the mirror staring at my smaller boobs and the bones poking out disgustingly in between them, while grabbing and jiggling the omnipresent lower abdominal fat roll, and thought, “Geez, I can’t lose any more fat, I already look kinda gross and my curves are disappearing, and it’s apparent my body isn’t gonna burn up fat from where I WANT it to burn up.” So I decided that I’d rather put on a few more pounds and bring the curves back. Rather than being gross AND lumpy, I could just be lumpy. In the following 3 months the holiday chaos made working out at lunchtime pretty difficult; either I’ve had to work through lunch, or Gym Trainee (my ride) had to, or we both just didn’t feel like gymming and would take a brisk walk around the neighborhood instead. Our handful of gym days produced unmotivated and uninspired workouts. Knowing I wasn’t giving it my all in the calories spent area, I made an effort to control the calories taken in. The results aren’t bad; I probably gained 2-3 pounds since before Thanksgiving, maybe 8 overall since the wedding. My weight and fat percentage are acceptable, but I’d like to look more toned, so I knew I was gonna have to find my motivation somewhere.

New Year’s Day, Gym Trainee and her son woke up at our house from spending New Year’s Eve with us. More acurately, with me; Mr. W spent much of the evening playing a computer game while the remaining 3 of us hung out. He explained it was the only way he could stay awake. He eventually, after deflecting half a dozen death glares from me, left the computer and came to sit with us in the living room, and then called it quits and went to bed at 11p. So I rang in the new year with Gym Trainee and my godson with Martinelli sparkling cider. I’d actually missed the transition and countdown while I was in the kitchen struggling with the bottle opener. Oh well. I’ve had worse new years. So anyway, New Year’s Day we watched a marathon of The Biggest Loser, Season 3, and Gym Trainee and I got so inspired to work out. She has this week off on vacation, but promised to hit the gym and catch up on her cardio training on her own so that we can meaningfully weightlift next week when she returns. I’d invited Mr. W to go on a jog with me that day after our guests left, but he declined. You see, he was not as inspired because instead of watching The Biggest Loser with us after watching the 120th annual Pasadena Rose Parade, he was in the backyard digging big holes and planting rose trees. I look forward to all the colors that will pop up next spring.

Over the weekend Mr. W and I discovered a new show called “What Would You Do?” or something like that, in which 3 “out of shape” people in each episode are faced with a simulated disaster and they have to go through a sort of obstacle course to survive the disaster, or save a loved one. Like, there’s been a major earthquake while you’re at a movie theatre and various things collapsed. They had to climb over some collapsed theatre chairs, pull 5 sandbags off a large wooden box blocking the pathway, then pull the box out of the way, get down and crawl underneath a low obstruction, then up some narrow fire stairs after pulling a beam out of their way. Or they’re driving along an unpopulated road when they blow a tire and skid into a pile of stuff on the side of the road. The driver has to run around to the passenger side, pull a 250-lb barrel out of the way, grab the passenger (a dummy) who simulates a loved one knocked unconscious and carry/drag it 100 feet away in case the car blew up, then jog the 1 mile up the dirt road to a gas station where they could call for help. (I, too, was thinking, “Why don’t they have a cell phone?!”) Of course everyone fails the challenge the first time around, either because they couldn’t complete it or they took longer than the time allotted which is calculated by how long it would take an average “fit” person to complete the scenario. Then the 3 people are monitored by a doctor provided by the show, given nutritional training and fitness training by three Marine Corp drill sergeants (the hot young one was also a kinesiologist) for one month, and then they get to repeat the challenge. Most of them pass this time, or get really close.
Mr. W and I were like, “MAN. I wanna do those challenges and see how well we do!!! Why don’t they have stuff like this for non-obese people?!”

Today, the postage stamp sized iPod Shuffle that Mr. W gave me our first Xmas together is finally charged after years of neglect, and I was inspired to push myself. Just a little, though, don’t want to burn out. I figured I’d see if I can run a mile on the treadmill and then do some light weights. Ideally I’d do more cardio than that, especially when I haven’t conditioned my cardiovascular system for so long, but I didn’t want to get discouraged right off the bat. I started a light and easy jog pace. To my surprise, a mile flew by and I was so spirited I felt like I could run forever. Each new song I hadn’t heard in so long pumped new adrenaline and excitement into my veins so that as my hands tingled with it, I wanted to sprint right off the treadmill and through the walls. Everything was motivating; the large women on the elliptical trainers in front of me struggling through their new year’s resolution, Kanye West talking in my ear telling me to “work it, make it, do it, makes us, harder, better, stronger, faster,” and that what “don’t kill me can only make me stronger,” and seeing in my mind that I was running toward my goal, the look I want in tangible forward-running steps so that if I just run those steps it will lead me to looking how I dream (forgetting for the moment that I’d need liposuction in certain areas to actually make that happen).
And then mile 2 hit and I was bored. I took a sip of water which threw off my breathing, and I had to struggle for concentration again. Step step inhale, step step exhale. Mr. W appeared in front of me another half mile later, pale and dewey. “I’m spent,” he complained. “How much more’ve you got?”
I glanced down at my digital stats. “I’m working toward a 5K,” I explained in a stronger voice than I thought I had the energy to produce. I saw his eyes flutter wider in surprise. “I didn’t mean to — I was just hoping to do a mile, but I felt good, so…”
“That’s good, I’m gonna go shower and if I’m done first I’ll wait for you,” he said eagerly, and limped off toward the men’s locker room.

Well, I finished that 5K (3.12 mile) run and walked another eighth of a mile for a cooldown, teetered off the treadmill, and wobbled my way into the locker room, where I ran into a really cute new district attorney a few years younger than me, a little shorter than me, who has the anomaly of sharing my last name. I thought I saw her on another treadmill farther down but wasn’t sure, and now that I see her in her tight jogging clothes I thought, “I have GOT to look like that.”

Two nights ago, I spent a couple of hours watching the season finale of The Biggest Loser. I hadn’t seen any of the other episodes this season, but that show always inspires me to work out. To watch these people push themselves at the gym with fitness trainers yelling at them to suck it up and give them 5 more, and the triumphant weigh-ins as their lifestyle changes begin to remold these morbidly obese bodies…makes me feel guilty that I’m sitting on my butt popping Junior Mints after not seeing the inside of a gym for weeks. That night I dreamt I jogged to work, jogged at lunch, and was surprisingly not winded.

Last night, I spent the evening watching the Victoria’s Secret 2008 Fashion Show. I LOVE the below segment, the Ballet de Fleurs, which has great music and my favorite wings of this year’s show: a gorgeous pair of butterfly wings with an assortment of floating life-size butterflies around the model’s big wings (1min30secs into this video). I also love that these models were allowed to show off their angelic smiles, and not just strut around smoldering. And they DO strut…I couldn’t strut so hard my hair’s bouncing like theirs without everything else on me jiggling, too. Blech. Mr. W was shockingly disinterested in watching supermodels strut for an hour in lingerie. He said he doesn’t understand fashion shows because who in their right minds would wear crazy concoctions like giant feathered gold wings on the street? I had to explain that they are exhibiting their 2008 lingerie collection and the decor is just eye candy interest, like when you order a simple vegetable at a French restaurant and it comes out on a plate decked out in swirls and whorls of sauce and shaved truffle and decorative hand-carved carrots in the shape of a rose. You’re still just eating that vegetable in the plate, but the presentation adds a lot. I’m sure model after model in just lingerie would start to look the same after awhile, too. Nevertheless, Mr. W’s attention was unbroken from his computer while I called out name after name of stars the camera panned to in the audience of the fashion show. You’d think he was watching porn or something. What could be more interesting than half-nekkid strutting? Here, see for yourself.

So anyway, I was again inspired to hit the gym. I should watch this video daily for motivation. So I can hit the New Year on a running start, instead of just starting out New Year’s Day on a diet resolution like everyone else. It takes awhile to get going so I’m gonna start early, hit the ground running.

I have been completely unmotivated to hit the gym. I was dragged out there yesterday by the convincing words of Gym Trainee and Mr. W. Today, I ditched it again. You’d think my lack of desire to be “good” would make me less of a hypocrite, but it doesn’t.

Yesterday at the gym, Gym Trainee said off-handedly, “I guess I’ll do abs at home while I’m waiting for dinner.” So around 8:15 p.m., I text messaged my 11 year old godson, Gym Trainee’s son: is ur mom doing ab exercises? she said she was gonna do them tonite.
I received an unenthusiastic response: she said she guess so
I decided to make him my partner in crime, to get his mom to step it up. So I bribed him. make her stick 2 her word & ill bring u the 3rd evangelion dvd 2morrow. I’d gotten him hooked on the award-winning anime series just last month with the first two DVDs.
It worked. I received simply: ok
Some time later, I got a report: she’s on her third set of smiley faces. That’s a lower abdominal exercise where you lay on your back and swing your extended legs in the air in a low arc, like you’re drawing huge smilies with your toes. It sounds easy until you do ’em right.
I instigated. thats it???
I received: she did smiley faces crunches. ya she said shes tired.
It wasn’t long before I got a voice mail from his mother. “YOUR CHILD,” she said in a mock hostile voice, “is about to be HOMELESS!” And then she laughed and hung up.

This morning she came by my courtroom for a visit. Apparently how the boy got her to do the ab work was by waving his cell phone around where she lounged on her back watching TV and threatening, “I can send a video of you doing just that — nothing.” Ah, cell phone technology. Gotta love it. I may have a crappy work ethic right now, but I’m a dedicated trainer.

I had JUST written about how I’m “happy” with my figure despite the weight gain when the unthinkable happened to me yesterday.

A friend emailed me some photos of a mutual friend’s wedding (which I did not attend), and I had the photos open on my computer at work, examining the bride and groom. This was the first I’d seen the bride, and we were talking about how some brides go all out and hire expensive hair and makeup artists for their wedding day… and there’s no way to say this without sounding catty, so I’ll just say it straight out. We were discussing how unfortunate it is that, a wedding being one of the biggest, most important, most photographed event in a woman’s life up to that point, and some women just look awful. It’s like, “With professional hair and makeup and a year’s advance notice of your big day, and this is the absolute BEST you’re able to look?” Don’t roll your eyes at me, you’ve all thought that when you’d gawked at the forwarded internet/email circulations of hideous wedding photos. This bride in particular appeared to be wearing quite a bit of makeup to no avail, her hair was slicked all up and back to where all you see looking at her head-on is a narrow clump of bangs which fell in the center of her forehead much like that weird feather-thing on the forehead of a quail, and although not ugly, she was a big girl who would’ve benefitted from SOME hair framing her face and falling over her shoulders. I did like her long form-fitting chiffon-wrapped wedding gown, but I thought it looked like lingerie on her and she may have looked better in a less clingy dress, given her size.

Karma wouldn’t let me get away with these criticisms. In the midst of my judgmental thoughts, my courtroom assistant — who was AT MY WEDDING and knew what I looked like on my wedding day, by the way — walked in and looked over my shoulder at the photo up on the monitor. And asked, “Oh, is this you at home?”
:O
AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
I instantly wailed to the friend who’d emailed me the photos. The only thing the friend could think of was that my courtroom assistant was kidding. But I know she wasn’t, she had truly thought it was me, a case of mistaken identity.

I forwarded the wedding pictures to Mr. W, along with a brief description of what’d just happened. His short emailed response was, “You’re Asian….You all look alike.”
Gym trainee was at least more sympathetic, writing back, “Are you ok? I know you’re pissed.” I asked if this was life’s way of poking me for not having gone to the gym all week. She comforted me with, “Look at the source. Please, WE look alike some days.”

Even so. That was yesterday afternoon. Today, I hit the gym for the first time this week.

Remember how my coworkers are betting on my getting fat just cuz I’m married? They haven’t been keeping good track of my weight.

I passed by a coworker earlier in the week who likes to make verbal observations about my appearances. This time it was, “*point* You’re really keepin’ that weight off, aren’t you?”
I laughed and said, “I’m tryin’!”
But the truth is, I gained 8 pounds since the day after the wedding. I haven’t gone to the gym all that much, partially cuz I’m at the mercy of happenstance. Today, for instance, gym trainee called me around noon to tell me her son is sick and she was going to pick him up from school, so I sat at my desk through lunch (not that I was disappointed as I’m not that motivated to hit the gym these days anyhow). Since I now carpool to work, if I don’t have a ride I’m stranded. Another coworker in an incredible act of kindness offered to loan me her car as she was staying in for lunch, but I couldn’t do that.
The other truth is, I’m not unhappy enough with my figure as it currently stands to do much about it. Turns out, my “goal” weight of 116 pounds didn’t look all that great on me. As I dropped below the mid-120s, my body started pulling fat from all the wrong places, while the places I wanted to be smaller stayed fatty. So actually, my weight now is a good equilibrium.

…I’ll just keep telling myself that.

Mr. W had an appointment this morning with Body Scan International for a full-body scan. It’s like a giant 3-D animated MRI of your body from the trunk of the neck down to the pelvic region. He thought it’d be useful for me to take the day off and go along with him, as a second set of eyes/ears during the consultation. He first had to remove all the metal from his body (there’s quite a bit of it), then he went into a little room where I couldn’t follow, but when the radiology technician gave instructions and operated various scans, I could feel a powerful generator humming along. After the images were taken, we were told to return in 45 minutes for the consultation with a doctor.

We watched an animated x-ray image on the screen travel down the inside of Mr. W’s body, like how food would probably see him as it’s being swallowed, if the food were a tiny living Superman with x-ray vision. The radiologist explained various things on the screen as she paused to point out a few things. This is his stomach. It’s normal. This is the large instestine. No visible polyps, no abnormality, which is good for his age. Those black areas? That’s poo. Yay for poo. These are the spinal vertabrae. This is L1 through L5. There’s slight degeneration at the end of L5, which compared to a scan he took 5 years ago, had worsened slightly. This is the liver, spleen, kidneys. Nothing remarkable, no kidney stones or gallbladder stones. This is the heart, it’s normal-sized. This is the aorta. Uh-oh, see those white things along the edges of the circle? That’s calcification of plaque build-up. Let’s travel down and follow this aorta. See the white stuff here, and here, and also down by the pelvic region it reappears, here and here.

What’s that mean? Is that bad?
This is hardened fatty deposits in your blood vessels, and this is what may cause a heart attack. Your dad had his first heart attack symptoms your age, but after his bypass surgery he’s fine, so that’s good news for you. There’s an assessment score for the level of plaque build-up; yours is 66. A normal male your age should be at 33. You have twice the level you should have, and the rate of increase since your last body scan 5 years ago is high; 65%. You should really only be increasing about 15% a year as you age. But it looks like it’s genetic, since you’re in great shape and you exercise regularly and looking at your diet, you eat better than most people on restricted diets.

Cuz my husband looks like this (he took this picture about a month ago and thought it’d be funny to sneakily import it into my cameraphone pictures):

You have to ignore his messy head. He’d just gotten up.

So anyway, the radiologist said it looks like time that Mr. W got on high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol medication, and to take the scans to talk about this with his regular doctor. She suggested he start taking baby aspirin daily starting immediately, so that if a hardened area of his blood vessel ruptures, there’s less chance of a clot forming and causing a stroke. Mr. W is the last member of his family NOT on cholesterol medication; his parents and all 4 brothers are on it. =P

[Getting on my high horse] I noted to the doctor that he’s been eating a diet high in raw fruits and veggies and has dramatically minimized his fast food and soda intake in the last 2.5 years that I’ve been with him, and in the last 2 years, have started weightlifting regularly at the gym. He also does yoga once a week (rec class at the gym). So how could it have gotten this bad in the last 5 years?
Well, apparently, it would’ve been A LOT worse if he hadn’t done all that to curb it 2 years ago. Yay, me. Yay, organic. And I’m totally glad I haven’t had fast food in almost 3 years, and I’ve probably had 1 serving of soda in that time.

[Getting on my soap box] Somewhere in between high school and college, I pictured myself right where Mr. W found himself today. With my vivid imagination, I saw myself at a doctor’s office, gripping the edges of the armrest, as I was told that I have long-term damage to my body based on 40+ years of doing little things wrong. Years of refined white carbs, cookies, bleached white bread, fast food, excessive sugars in sodas and candy bars. I asked my imaginary doctor what there is to be done. “Nothing, except surgery if you have a heart attack, or baby aspirin to mitigate the effects of a stroke you’re very likely to have in the next couple years.” Crap. Crap. How could this have happened? What’d I do? “It’s nothing you did yesterday; it’s years of eating this and not exercising enough.” I need to go back in time, say to my late teens, early 20s, and stop eating those things! And then popping out of my day-nightmare, that’s exactly what I did. I joined a gym in 1994, cut down the fast food and junk food, virtually stopped the soda intake, didn’t pick up smoking or drinking (much), dramatically reduced sodium intake. As I got into my 30s, I stopped fast food altogether. I really don’t miss sodas or donuts, and don’t remember what was so great about them, cuz the former now burns my mouth and the latter burns my stomach. The more studies I read on newfound negative effects of junk food, fast food, artificial foods and sodas, the more it confirmed that I had been doing the right thing.

[Grabbing the loudspeaker] It’s not too late to not ruin the rest of your life. You don’t have symptoms now, but it doesn’t mean that stuff isn’t happening inside. My husband’s heart plaque is asymptomatic and if not for the scan, he wouldn’t have known about it. Thank goodness he didn’t have a heart attack first! All those problems you see in people in their 60s, where they’re struggling, popping prescription pills daily, always going to the doctor to be monitored for this or that problem, that didn’t start in their 60s. That started in their 20s and 30s. If you’re my age and you’re feeling healthy, make it last by NOT selling your future health for a greasy fried manufactured item today. It’s not worth it. PREVENTION IS KEY. And it’s cheap, WAY cheaper than daily meds and doctor visits and treatments and surgery.

[Stepping off my soapbox, putting away the loudspeaker] Of course, *I* didn’t get a body scan…

Murphy’s Law –
I finally get to my lowest weight since, like, forever, and the month before the wedding, my period comes 4 days late. The month OF the wedding, my period comes 2 days late. This pushes the bloating to DURING the wedding. I try to make myself feel better saying I’m 118.5 lbs at the wedding, 22.5% body fat, that’s not that bad. And then 1 night AFTER the wedding (i.e., late last nite), menstrual symptoms subside and I pee like mad. This morning, I’m 116 lbs and 21% body fat. ARGH! I’m gonna look bigger in all the wedding photos. *sob* At least my skin didn’t break out. And the wedding went by so fast and so much in the dark maybe people didn’t notice.

A major flaw with people, or with myself more specifically, is that bad stuff could drop me 10 notches whereas good stuff largely go by unnoticed. I think it’s also a woman thing to fixate on a negative thing or flaw, cuz we want so badly to fix it or to will it into oblivion. Nag it into oblivion, for some. But I like to try to notice the good stuff, stop myself from dismissing it, and give the good the proper weight it deserves.

I was having that crappy evening yesterday, and then I called Mr. W, who proved why he’s worthy of my dedicating the rest of my life to. Even though I didn’t tell him much except that I was in a foul mood, he was nice about it, didn’t pry, and said with a smile in his voice that I need to get my nightly dose of comedy. I realized then that I hadn’t had the TV on all evening, which is a rarity for me. But by the lateness of the hour, I’d already missed my favorite sit com of Two and a Half Men, and Friends and Will and Grace wouldn’t be on for another hour or so. There was a little silence, and then he did the closest thing he could to giving me my show: he sang the theme song of Two and a Half Men to me. “Men men men men, manly men men men…” I laughed and felt better instantly.

After we hung up cuz it was past Mr. W’s bedtime, I got online and saw that James was on. I IMed him and we chatted online for a bit, when I realized I’d forgotten to eat dinner and had only a smoothie for lunch. I did have birthday cake for breakfast, though. James said that if I wanted to go out and grab a bite, that he would pause his work and keep me company. “I could use a beer,” he said. I’d been wanting to hang out for days, but Dwaine’s been MIA so I’d just been moping at home. James and I hadn’t seen each other forever; he’d gotten busy picking up a contracted job on top of his regular job, I got busy with random stuff and stopped Zaino-ing my car, and hence went our regular contact. We looked online for nearby restaurant-bars open late, and decided on BJ’s. I got there first, and waited for James at the bar.

I hadn’t sat by myself at a bar during late night for a long time. I’d forgotten about the regulars, the drunks, the overly-dressy women, who hang there at weeknights hoping to catch some male attention. I remember Sandy saying that it’s pretty sad when we see women all decked out to go to a restaurant bar cuz that means this is the highlight of their social life. I had thrown on a fitted t-shirt and shorts and despite being seriously underdressed for the ridiculous crowd, still turned a few male heads. When James showed up, we had a nice chat over a thin-crust appetizer pizza (me), glass of Framboise Lambic (me) which is a raspberry ale off tap, and he had a Hefeweizen off tap. And then he ordered and we split a Pizookie, BJ’s specialty giant cookie fresh-baked into a tin and topped with vanilla bean ice cream. James told me that he’d thought about me recently in a personal problem he’d encountered, and remembered what I’d told him some time ago about how to address and resolve uncomfortable issues. He said he was going to let it fester and go, but actually evaluated the situation from the perspective I’d shown him before, and he addressed it the way that, according to him, I’d “taught” him. And it completely worked out and appears to have resolved everything. It was really nice of him to give me credit for an interpersonal success he’d accomplished, and I felt special that something I’d said to him or demonstrated on him before had been taken seriously, remembered, and adopted.

Definitely much better than feeling sensitive about some lame 4 minute phone call.

I took the afternoon off on Friday and hit the gym pretty hard for a couple of hours. It was only my second workout of the week! Gym Trainee sprained both her ligament and tendon in her right foot, so she’s hobbling along unable to put weight on her foot. I’ve known for awhile now that any motivation I have for gymming, I’ve borrowed from her, and without her, I am less than uninspired. But my afternoon off wasn’t just for the pleasant task of toning up my sleeping muscles.

I had an appointment for my 6-month pap smear. Why’s it called a pap, anyway? That term makes the procedure sound way cuter than it actually is. It should be called the foreign-object-vaginal-insertion-and-extraction-by-stranger smear. Yeah. I think that’s pretty accurate. I had the same doctor who did my biopsy and LEEP procedure last year. As he peered in between my spread stirruped legs and spread speculumed vagina, he said, “You know, the human body is so amazing. Your cervix healed so beautifully from the LEEP procedure. In fact, it looks better now than it did before the procedure. They should make LEEPs a mandatory procedure for cosmetic reasons.”
I said, “But you guys would be the only ones who could see it.”
His head poked out from behind the sheet covering my thighs. “And we don’t count? Okay, I’m gonna call the mechanic out there and have him come in to admire this. ‘Hey, c’mere, look in here and check out my beautiful work!’ ”
“I think I saw a plumber outside when I came in. Let’s get him in here to admire your work, too.”
“Good idea, let’s get ’em all in here!”
What a goofball.
Despite his running an hour behind schedule, my portion of the visit was through in less than 5 minutes. That was the quickest pap smear I’d ever been involved in. He told me he’d email me the lab results in about a week. Let’s hope all the precancer cells and bad abnormal stuff really ARE gone…

(written earlier this morning; borrowing a coworker’s internet access to post)

It’s 9:05a and I’m already having a wonderful day! I started the morning in a great mood because the meeting with the management company last nite went extremely well. This is a godsent company, which is not only professional with unprecedented response time in my couple days of dealing with them, but the CEO I spoke with was pleasant, had all the answers I needed and wanted to hear, was chock-full of experience, and was extremely flexible. The company also had tremendous resources. They can strip my bathroom wallpaper, retexture and paint, clean, replace blinds, etc. at a fraction of the time and expense for me to do it myself. They already have an interested renter in my place! So they’ll do all the applications, pull credit reports and background records on potentials. If an eviction is necessary, they’ll handle all that, too! I don’t even have to be there. They’ll pay the monthly bills and send me accounting at the end of the month. And they’re cheaper than any other management company I’ve heard of. Woohoo!

When I finally got my outfit put together for work, I had a strange “first” for me. I looked strangely “too” skinny in the mirror. I don’t get it; I looked chunky naked, I could see gross fat, but when I put my clothes on, they fit too loosely to look good. So I had to change the shirt a few times to go with the narrow short skort I put on (which I couldn’t get into comfortably for a LONG time). The shirt I ended up wearing was fitted across the shoulders and chest, but loose from the ribs down. Really, really odd. But it’ll have to do, so I left the house. I hummed along with my MP3s playing in my car in the drive to work, had a decent drive without hitting my usual 27 straight red lights, and as I walked from the parking lot to the building, I was aware that the skort was so roomy around the waist that it was actually riding up and getting even shorter at the leg. Good thing there’s shorts under the skirt part, but from outside it still looks like I’m wearing an extremely short skirt that’s growing shorter with each step. Oh well, I’m still a bit late, so I keep walking. As I walked through the metal detectors and collected my purse at the other side, a suited tall gentleman in front of me, who had turned to face me, said, “Hello.”
Thinking it was someone I knew, like a DA or private attorney, I replied pleasantly, “Hi!” Then I looked up to realize that this isn’t someone I knew, altho he looked familiar so I’m sure he’s a regularly returning attorney. Probably in his late 30s or early 40s, well-dressed.
“You are so pretty,” he said discreetly to me. Is this sexual harassment? I looked down and realized I am indeed wearing my employee badge, so he knew he was talking to court personnel.
“Thanks!” I smiled at him trying not to look as taken aback as I felt, pulling my purse strap over my shoulder and walking around the detector to get to the employee elevator.
“You’re welcome. You are so pretty.”
“Thank you, you’ve made my day,” I said nicely.
“Well, have a very nice day,” he waved and was off.
It must be because I only put on 2 layers of my BareMinerals foundation instead of my usual 3 as per Anny’s advice on the phone last night. Wow, she was right. Haha.

Going into the employee elevator, I was stuck with a floating court reporter who had sought me out in a stalkerish way earlier in the week. On Monday or Tuesday, I accidentally ran into him in the crowded elevator after lunch, and he followed me out on my floor then waited outside in the employee hallway for me in a very obvious way as I dodged out into my court reporter’s office to stall and wait for him to go away. But he didn’t. And I turned the corner on my way back to see him and pretended not to see him but he blatantly called me out so I had to stand there and make uncomfortable smalltalk for 20 minutes as nobody came to rescue me and he refused to take my body language hints of leaning into my door trying to get inside and not inviting him and not divulging personal information despite his prying and not looking him in the eyes. My supervisor even walked by a couple times and I’d taken the opportunity to tell the reporter, “Why does he always catch me when I’m not working?!” but the reporter didn’t take that hint to let me get back to work, either. When I finally ended the conversation after blaming my judge for a stack of imaginary work, I returned to my desk to email my supervisor that we need a secret code word when I’m stuck in a conversation I didn’t want to be in. My supervisor wrote back that henceforth the “secret word” shall be, “May I ask you a question about the death penalty case that we’re doing?” and he’ll rescue me. If you asked why I didn’t tell this reporter guy that I’m engaged, I DID. He went back and harped on that but did not leave me alone. And this morning, he gabbed with me for a bit, and then called me from his courtroom 15 minutes later to finish gabbing. And then he asked me if I had any single Asian friends. Like I would subject any one I cared about to this boredom! In the words of my gym trainee, he’s a total dork. But luckily I was able to be honest when I told him that each Asian female I know or am related to is in a relationship currently or married. He went thru his dating resume (stable job, nice guy, has a condo…) and asked me to keep him in mind as he’s currently looking for a girlfriend-slash-relationship. I agreed. Uh, any single Asian chicks out there wanna date a tall Korean court reporter, stable job, not dangerous personality, appears to be pretty educated, non-fobby, 34 years old? Leave a comment.