cindy's world

…I know where it went. It was STOLEN!

I was up at 7:30a and wrote a list of things to do today on my day off before our flight takes off to the Big Island of Hawaii tonite at 7:10p. I thought I was doing REALLY WELL, too, and remarkably ahead of schedule. The to-do list looks like this:

1.) pack (just makeup, sunglasses left to pack)
2.) pay bills
3.) gym
4.) buy wedding card/hit up ATM
5.) as time permits, a professional pedicure across the street from the gym/ATM
6.) tidy up house

So Mr. W told his son to come by my house at 3p to give us a ride, and then said that he (Mr. W) will be at my house at 3-ish as well. It was 10:30a when I started paying the bills that would become due when I’m gone, having finished packing (except for the makeup, which I’ll still have to use after the gym, so I’ll pack it then). Scribble on the checks, scribble on the register, peel-n-stick the stamp, peel-n-stick the address label, lick the envelope, ingest what some overpaid researchers have discovered is half a calorie per envelope seal licked, on to the next one. I was a productive methodical machine! And waaaay ahead of the 3pm schedule!

And then the cell phone rang. By “rang,” I mean that Mariah Carey crooned “Oh, you’ll always be a part of me, ooh I’m part of you indefinitely, boy don’t you know you can’t escape me, ooh darling, cuz you’ll always be my baby!” which would be a creepy stalker anthem if it weren’t so upbeat and if I weren’t already engaged to the caller. Mr. W asked me what I was doing. I happily reported how ahead-of-schedule I am. He asked me what’s next on my agenda. I told him I was going to drop off my bills at the post office, go withdraw money from the bank, buy the wedding card (okay, so THAT I big-time procrastinated), then hit the gym, all of which things were within one square mile of each other. He said he got the afternoon off and will meet me at the gym at noon to work out, then we’ll go eat and he’ll come back with me to my place to wait for his son.

Wait. Did I just hear that I got THREE HOURS shaved off my preparation time???

ACK! It’s less than 10 minutes to noon! I gotta GO! Now all of a sudden I’m LATE and I was SUPER DUPER EARLY just an hour ago!!

Got this via email, and I think it’s a nice reminder…

Heavenly Father, help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts You give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

Working for God on earth doesn’t pay much……but His retirement plan is out of this world!

Just for kicks, and for Hump Day HaHas, and for giggles and shits, here are the first 2 paragraphs of my last post as translated by Gizoogle.

Pizzost # 1378
Two thugz contacted me yesterday ta nudge me ta pizzy (one was very gentle, tha crazy ass nigga was kind of a brizzay `bout it), so okay, I’ll just sit on tha blog here n see whiznat nigga falls F-R-to-tha-izzom mah finga.

Speak’n of fall’n wanna be gangsta I did a 45 minute H-I-Double-Lizzy run yesterday at lunch fo` mah workout. I Hadn’t run in a long time, n it surprised me thizzat I was hustla out of breath, n mah brain neva bitched ta me `bout how awful tha run was n tried ta bargain wit me fo` cutt’n tha run short with the S-N-double-O-P. My only limit was tizzle ta help you tap dat ass. Howeva, tha fizzirst half-mile ta mizzy of tha 4-mile run was painful on mah stomach n abdomen, coz all tha thick steppin’ around made mah skin ache cuz its a G thang. I wished fo` a fitted bodysuit. I wished fo` a jog bra fo` mah entire body fo yo bitch ass. (There, That’s some TMI fo` everyone who wants ta tell me I’m not fiznat.) How do those seriously obese thugz on “The Biggest Loser” do it? I enjoy tizzle show, BTW. I find tha participants’ weekly 15-lb weight loss mackin’ in tha same impossible wistful way thizzat I aspire ta live like Shot Calla Teresa . Throw yo guns in the motherfuckin air.

Crap, I’m revealing too much emotion to my jurors. Straight face, Cindy. Straight face. mmrrrrpphh
*shaking*

Two people contacted me yesterday to nudge me to post (one was very gentle, the other was kind of a brat about it), so okay, I’ll just sit on the blog here and see what blubber falls from my fingers.

Speaking of falling blubber, I did a 45 minute hilly run yesterday at lunch for my workout. I hadn’t run in a long time, and it surprised me that I was never out of breath, and my brain never bitched to me about how awful the run was and tried to bargain with me for cutting the run short. My only limit was time. However, the first half-mile to mile of the 4-mile run was painful on my stomach and abdomen, because all the fat bouncing around made my skin ache. I wished for a fitted bodysuit. I wished for a jog bra for my entire body. (There, that’s some TMI for everyone who wants to tell me I’m not fat.) How do those seriously obese people on “The Biggest Loser” do it? I enjoy that show, BTW. I find the participants’ weekly 15-lb weight loss inspiring, in the same impossible wistful way that I aspire to live like Mother Teresa.

Gee. I sound cranky. I wonder why that is. Maybe it’s due to the awful nightmare I had this morning that brought to light all the worst qualities of who I am and played it out in a dream about going to China with Mr. W. Poor Mr. W. I suck. I don’t know whether he hasn’t realized it yet, or whether he’s realized it and loves me anyway. Sucker!

Speaking of Mr. W and trips, this Friday evening we are leaving on a flight to the Big Island of Hawaii to attend “Wilco”‘s destination wedding. I took care of the flight, accommodations and rental car as a 2-year anniversary present for Mr. W. He’s definitely the most expensive wedding date I’ve ever bought, snicker.

Speaking of wedding dates, there isn’t one for us, yet. People keep asking, I keep replying “9 years.” It’s gotten so that Mr. W automatically replies “9 years” as well. Over the weekend when Mr. W and I were visiting my parents, they talked about all the wedding venues being booked up for 8-8-08 (8 in Cantonese, a Chinese dialect, is the phonetic equivalent to the word for “to prosper,” so many Chinese people want things with 8s in them for good monetary luck. House numbers, phone numbers, social security numbers, dates.), similar to how there were a ton of American people who thought they were brilliantly original for aiming for 7-7-07, lucky number 7. My dad brought up that if couples wanted luck for their wedding, they really ought to aim for 9-9-09, because 9 in Chinese is the phonetic equivalent to longevity. We don’t want to get divorced, or have our spouse die early on us, do we? I’m all for aiming for 9-9-09, because it gives me leave to procastinate more.

It’s no secret that I am a huge “Friends” fan. I scheduled my life around their episodes, and despite owning the entire 10-year show on DVD (thanks, Mr. W!), I caught every episode of the re-runs I could when it aired on TV. That means that for the longest time up until recently, I was in front of the TV at 7p and 11p weekdays. I’d sometimes watch “Everybody Loves Raymond” as it leads into “Friends” if I was before the TV early, and would watch “Will and Grace” after “Friends.” I’d fall asleep to that lineup late at night. When “Sex and the City” started running at 11p pushing “Friends” back half an hour, I was ticked because it made me wait a half hour longer and stay up later.

This week, however, something shifted in TV Land. “Friends” at or around 7p disappeared, and the 11:30p episode got pushed back to past midnight. In their place are two episodes of “Two and a Half Men,” starring Charlie Sheen. I’ve always enjoyed the show whenever I happened upon it, but it’s a rare occasion for some reason and I don’t know when or where it airs. Despite my feeling disloyal to “Friends”, I can’t think of a better replacement, and I found myself for the past few days and nights staying up just to watch “Two and a Half Men,” which makes me laugh out loud in a way that “Friends” no longer can, having made myself immune by inadvertently memorizing all the characters’ lines from frequent overwatch. I call it Bland Overwatch of Reruns dEsensitivity Disease, or B.O.R.E.D.

Charlie Sheen’s character “Charlie” is a womanizing bachelor who lives alone at a Spanish-style house overlooking the ocean in Malibu which he affords by writing commercial jingles, but he secretly has a warm heart which he’ll deny to the death. The series begin when he takes in his geeky overly conservative younger chiropractor brother when the brother got a divorce. The brother’s son visits on weekends and the stuff that comes out of the kid’s mouth is irreverent and very boy-like. The show is witty and funny and the best part is that Mr. W, who has a tendency of talking through every show and movie he watches as he tries to predict the upcoming plot and lines, has been wrong on every prediction. HA!

In an ongoing email conversation, I asked a jujitsu friend today whether he thinks I think too much. He replied, “if you didnt think as much, do you think you would end up getting in trouble?”

Me: “Huh. I never thought about that before. (See, I DON’T think too much!)
I wonder if my thinking is mostly after-the-fact, justificational thinking, or whether it’s consideration-thinking where I think out a situation before acting and therefore avoid poor decisions. I daresay it’s mostly the former and occasionally the latter. Well, maybe not, cuz I think a lot about random things in an attempt to compulsively explain things to myself. Like, how the hell are Dippin’ Dots made? Cuz if they’re ice cream droplets on a surface that are then frozen, they wouldn’t be as round. If they’re that round, that’d imply they were mid-air when they were frozen, but they couldn’t have been too impacted by gravity because they’re not droplet-shaped, they’re spherical. So how are they being so quickly frozen before they’re even allowed to fall? What were we talking about again?”

Him: “what? sorry… i wasn’t paying attention…. “

I woke up this morning from a disturbing dream in which college roommie and I were talking and she revealed she’d been in email contact for quite some time with a guy from my high school past. In the dream I was surprised and somewhat disappointed that he’d bothered to stay in touch with her but not with me. I told Dream Roommie, “Back then, he would make or break my entire summer on a daily basis.” And that was true.

Since waking way too early from that dream and being unable to fall back asleep, I’d been in this sticky web of emotional nostalgia, and not in a good way. It’s dark and murky, what I feel. Secrecy and real trouble surround this guy, and yet he always sneaks into my dreams just often enough for me to keep looking for him, to make sure he’s still alive. I’d house-cleaned him a hundred times, he’d disappointed me at least that often, but every time he emerges in a dream I return to the same disturbed state.

I sought for old contact from him on Friendster. He’d found me in 2003 on that site, left a vague email about wondering how I’d greet him after all these years, with a hug? With a slap? He wrote that he’d been to hell and didn’t think he had actually ever come back. Said now that he’s finally found me, he hopes I haven’t forgotten him. I wrote back that sometimes people I care about have to take the walk to hell for their own reasons and altho I recognize that, it doesn’t make watching it any easier. I let him know my hand is outstretched to help and whether he takes it or not is a matter of choice. Some disturbing response from him about how he’s been shot at, bribed, arrested, homeless, and that he’s learned in his adventures walking the world and getting into adventures, like Cain (from “Kung Fu”), that life is cold and uncaring, that all people have ulterior selfish motives for any kind acts they do, and that self-serving unjustness rules the world. He said even his contacting me is selfish although sincere — he is lost and wishes to be found; he hopes to rekindle a friendship that was regrettably neglected. I wrote back that I have the same phone numbers he’d last had. Without hearing more from him, he promptly and mysteriously disappeared again.

I contacted him through the same means some 2 years after this (after another disturbing dream that I’d traveled up north to find him, and I could not, and he wasn’t where he said he’d be, he never picked up his phone, and no matter what I tried I came to dead ends) he responded 20 days later apologizing for losing contact, said that he’d been trying to sort out issues for some time and haven’t kept in touch with many people. Said I have always been “too good” to him and therefore apologizes for not keeping in touch with me. Wrote that he trusts I’m doing well except for my overthinking which he’s sure I’m still doing; that I’m too smart for my own good and that ignorance is bliss. Ended on “hope to hear from you soon.” And disappeared again. That was 2 year ago.

He is and had always been vaporous to me, elusive to grab but simultaneously everywhere in a cold thin veil of mist. You could never feel secure around him. You could never really penetrate his vibes, get a good read on what and why he does or says what he did or said to me. At least, I couldn’t.

I think his recent appearance in my dream wasn’t about him, it was about what he represented. Yesterday, I ran into someone who I thought I was worth more to than how he was treating me. It bothered me to the point where it bothered me how much it bothered me, that I was treated like any common acquaintance from the street, as if we didn’t once share a closeness that permitted (no, embraced) the rare entry by a non-significant-other into our most private fears and thoughts. Yesterday, I felt as insignificant to this person as I had felt a hundred times with the guy from my past. Like, I had given you so much of me and you drank it all because you needed me, and you could not be bothered to stand by me on my most important day when I needed you in return, and you didn’t come, and you didn’t call, and I didn’t matter, and I don’t know why.

The entire time I’ve been writing this post, this has been playing in the background of my mind:
You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
Now I’m bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

So I thought I’d look up the rest of the lyrics. And it was me, ages 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.

“My Immortal” – Evanescence

I’m so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
‘Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone

These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus:]
When you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears
When you’d screamed I’d fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
Now I’m bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus]

I’ve tried so hard to tell myself that you’re gone
But though you’re still with me
I’ve been alone all along

[Chorus]

I keep looking to my medical provider’s “award-winning” website to see if my lab results are updated. I want more info on the (abnormal) pap smear. But nope, nothing new. Everything currently posted shows me as the posterchild for health. For example…

The National Institute of Health (NIH) has these guidelines for cholesterol scores.
Total Cholesterol
* High: 240 milligrams per deciliter of blood or above
* Borderline High: 200-239
* Desirable: under 200
ME: 181 mg/dL
LDL (l0w-density, or “bad” cholesterol)
* Very High: 190 and above
* High: 160-189
* Borderline High: 130-159
* Near Optimal: 100-129
* Optimal: less than 100; less than 70 if you have heart disease
ME: 99 calculated, no history of heart disease in the family
HDL (high-density, or “good” cholesterol)
* Major Risk Factor for Heart Disease: under 50 for women; under 40 for men
* Higher Would Be Better: 41 to 59
* Protects Against Heart Disease: 60 or above
ME: 75
Triglyercides
* Very High: 500 or above
* High: 200-499
* Borderline High: 150-199
* Normal: less than 150
ME: 33

My cholesterol/HDL ratio: 2.4 (according to my mom, 3 is normal, and your risk for heart disease increases the higher your number). And I blame my high LDL on the fact that I had Nutella crepes with lots of whipped cream late the night before.

*** Afternoon addendum ***
K reminded me in her comment about the US citizenship exam, so here’s a question from the exam that I remember from my childhood (from my parents studying for the exam):
Q: What are the colors of the American Flag and what do the colors represent?
A: Red is for courage; white is for peace; blue is for justice.

This is lame, but because I’m still laughing at it, I’m gonna post it.

Mass email to all courtrooms from my supervisor this morning:

Please let me know with the hour whether or not you have an “imperative” case set in your Courtroom tomorrow.

P.S. I arrived late this morning. Sorry for the short notice. I will use mare common sense the next time.

My email response back to him (yes, within the hour, as requested):

Wow, mare common sense? Neigh, you have the common sense of a stud!
Sorry, couldn’t resist. No imperative cases set tomorrow unless we get a trial from F today.

I saw him in the elevator after lunch and he was too emphatic in his hello to me, so I knew he’d read the email. I asked if he was offended, and he said that he’s “unoffendable” by now and admitted he did enjoy my email because I didn’t just write “You wrote ‘mare’ when you meant ‘more,’ you idiot” like most people would’ve done if they wanted to call someone out on something. Hee hee!