I read an article the other day about how journaling stimulates both the left analytical side of the brain, as well as the right creative side. Just 20 minutes of journaling a day reduces stress and anxiety, helps memory, improves intellectual acuity. Jotting one’s thoughts down is far more beneficial to the mind as a whole than something like crossword puzzles or number games, which only exercise the left side of the brain.

As my need for anxiety- and stress-relief waned and my social life picked up again, the blog posts got farther and fewer in-between. But I kept on blogging as much as I was able, finding a few minutes here and there, because I had created a world of readers and friends that I enjoyed entertaining and communicating with through Cindy’s World. I met people I never would’ve run into in real life, nurtured and tightened friendships that distance and busyness would’ve otherwise tested. I found value in my blogging as my online presence seemed to be even beneficial to some other people.

And then I lost internet access at the place I spend the most time at in front of a computer. Blogging became far more difficult, but I still tried, thinking maybe my words would be sought after, if for nothing other than entertainment purposes.

I’m not sure that’s happening anymore. As much comfort and convenience as I had derived in the past from being able to look up records of what I’d done on a certain day, or do a search on this blog for a specific topic for future reference (such as a restaurant whose name I couldn’t remember but know I’d gone to for a specific occasion that I’d blogged about), I am seriously considering stopping. I’ve long since lost my need for creating these records, and it seems people have lost their need for my writing. I will always, however, value what I’ve written up to this point. Anything I write becomes my child. I am reminded of a phrase a college English literature professor once quoted, although I had been too poor of a student to pay attention to know whose quote it was: Cut these lines, and they bleed.

So I instantly thought of where *I* could be during this historic moment. When I’m old and grayish-yellow-green, when my grandkids ask me if I remember the day, this will always be the story of where-I-was-when. I bounced a few ideas around and then I said excitedly, “Ooh, I should go to Florida! They finally turned blue this election! I can watch the inauguration with Jordan!”
“We won’t even know for two weeks whether I’m gonna get to go or not!” Mr. W protested.
“Okay, but I’ll just tell Jordan now, since it’s a possibility.”
“Don’t tell her! Wait at least 2 weeks.”
“But she might be scheduling her work schedule for January NOW,” I pointed out, eager to start planning my 4 days in Florida.
He still insisted I shouldn’t tell her, we shouldn’t start planning on something that’s not set yet, I shouldn’t get our hopes up that I’ll be making that trip to Florida when I may not be, etc.
“Okay,” I finally relented. We said our goodbyes and hung up.

Instantly I called Jordan. Anticlimactically, I got her voice mail and then she didn’t get back to me for a few hours. But when she did, we started excitedly planning where we could go on day trips, since it is a long weekend. I’ve been to Miami, but never to Orlando. She also named some other city, Saint Somethingsburg, where I’ve also never been. After all the giggling and excited chattering, we came down to earth a little and talked about how this may not happen cuz Mr. W may not be going to Washington D.C., after all, and we’d be all disappointed. There was a little silence, and then I said, “Heck, if he tells me he’s not going after all, I’ll just tell him, ‘Too bad, we already planned this, I’m going to Florida anyway!’ ”

I think I’m beginning to see why Mr. W didn’t want me to talk about it with Jordan early.

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.

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.

It’s not even 10 am yet. My veteran is sitting in his hammock wrapped in a bathrobe reading the lastest of fantasy series book Brisingr. I woke up about 40 minutes ago in the spare bedroom where I’d stayed up late reading an old bestseller about a true alien abduction, Communion. I’d staggered out into the hallway to see that a big maroon pillow from the master bedroom was sitting awkwardly balanced on the rail. I lifted the pillow and saw my cell phone, the hapless victim of the smothering. Soon after Mr. W came up and seeing me awake, pointed his finger at me and sternly admonished me for having a “bad” phone. A bad phone which identified this morning as any other weekday morning, not recognizing automatically this day’s holiday sleep-in status, and chirped its 6am alarm. As no one hit the alarm-off button, it chirped again at 6:05. And 6:10. And 6:15. And so on. “I even put a pillow on it and closed my door. And THAT didn’t work! I wanted to throw it in the toilet!” Mr. W was lamenting.
“Why didn’t you just turn it off?”
He froze as this new possibility entered his head. Then he said, “I don’t know which button to push! Your phone has a million buttons!” I guess he didn’t read the screen.
“Then why didn’t you just give me the phone and I could’ve turned it off?”
He didn’t have an answer for that one.

Now he wants to go to the gym. So much for relaxing.

For the first time I got to see what *I* looked like that day.

Me and the ‘rents.

Me and the moms, showing off how much liquor we had in hand.

Instead of doing a Costco sheet cake like other people when they’re afraid the wedding cake isn’t enough, they did a CLAIM JUMPER MOTHERLODE CAKE. (You have to click on that for a slice image. Really. You do.) Don’t you just wanna get down and worship these two people?!

My husband getting down.

I just like this shot of my legs.

Good times.

My newlywed cousin and her new hubby gets back from their Jamaica honeymoon late tonight.

“When I play ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’, I always choose Rock.
Then, when someone claims they’ve beaten me with their Paper
I punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say something like…
‘Oh shit, I’m sorry, I thought paper would protect you.’
…
OK, I understand that Scissors can beat Paper
and I get how Rock beats Scissors
but there’s no way that Paper can beat Rock!
Paper is supposed to magically ‘wrap around’ Rock leaving it immobile?
Then, why the hell can’t Paper do this to Scissors?
In fact. Screw Scissors!!
Why can’t Paper do this to people?
Why aren’t sheets of college-ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class?
I’ll tell you why!
It’s because Paper can’t beat anybody!
A rock would tear that shit up in about 2 seconds!”

Ah, logic after mine own heart…