cindy's world

Jordan cursed me yesterday. I called her on my drive home from work, and she asked about my plans for the evening. I told her I was picking up sushi because I want food early enough in me that I’d digest before bellydancing, and that I hadn’t heard from Dwaine regarding the purported wine-buying extravaganza so we’re probably not meeting up and I’m on my own for dinner. She started to say that she doesn’t know where all my energy comes from considering to her it feels late, before she remembered the time difference between California and Florida. It was 5-ish for me, 8-ish for her. So of course immediately following that conversation, my body switched to Florida time.

I only managed to shove a roll (raw salmon over a California roll) and a half (spicy tuna over CA roll) down my throat before I was full enough to throw up. The TV was on, I had a load of laundry in the dryer, and it was 7:15p. I decided it was safe to get a little shut-eye for half an hour. I woke up at 8:30p. ACK! Bellydancing was half-over, and by the time I rush upstairs, wash my face, change and drive over there, it’d be over. I’d flaked on Vanessa! I thought about calling her to let her know I wouldn’t make it, but she’d be in the middle of class and I didn’t want her cell phone to ring. Yes, it’s better to call her after class at 9p, or it would’ve been, except that I promptly fell asleep again until past 2a. I watched, with one eye (as my contacts had dried out in my eyes), some sappy “The Parent ‘Hood” episode about a school play and a giant and the importance of friendship, as my brain tried in vain to get me off the couch with logical reasoning. At 2:30a, I finally got up and pulled my clothes out of the dryer, brought them upstairs and put them away. So now it’s 3:30a and I decided to blog. I figured the only person who’d be up would be Jordan. I think she works today. At 6:30a her time, she’s probably already at work.

7 minutes after I logged on, childhood friend Sandy logged on. “Greetings, fellow insomniac,” I greeted her. Turned out she’s still up working. She’d set her alarm for a half-hour nap and was just starting to get back to work. She’s miserable and tired as hell, and asked why I’m up. “I’m on Florida time,” I explained. She wrote, “ahh…I see.” No further explanation needed. I do feel really rested after 7 hours of sleep, but if I stay up from here on out and head to work, I’d be exhausted. I’ve got a lunchtime workout and afterwork jujitsu session, too. But if I go to sleep now, it’d take forever to fall back asleep AND I’d be exhausted when I wake up again in a few hours. Oh, what to do?

Jordan!!!

This morning, I held my breath and nervously pulled up a pair of size 2 Express Editor pants. They zipped and buttoned perfectly fine. I pulled on a thin pink ribbed 3/4 length knit shirt, an Express small, and that fit, too. Yay, I’m back in my skinny clothes! I mean, they could fit better, but at least they’re don-able. On my way out I grabbed a light leather jacket from the hall closet.

I can’t wear a leather jacket without a line from this guy’s email running through my head. Some years ago, I was doing my own thing and was stopped by a female acquaintance. She asked me whether I was seeing someone, and I told her not at the moment. She said one of her friends was interested in me, and had asked her to find out some stuff about me. So I guess her tactful way of doing it was just coming out and asking me. I was flattered, so that led me to exchange a few emails with this friend of hers. In one email, he complained about having a headache. He further explained that he had a headache because he’d gone to an outdoors concert event the night before, and “was banged around for an hour in a leather jacket.” My mental reaction now is the same as it was the time I read it, i.e. ??? Assuming he did not mean that people tied him up in a leather strait jacket and beat him senseless with a bat for an hour, I guess he wore a leather jacket in a moshing-like environment. But what’s the leather jacket have to do with his headache? Does banging on a leather jacket cause some kind of chemical reaction, like two molecules hitting each other? Maybe the force of the impacts releases some kind of toxic gas that gives people headaches. Maybe the sound created from banging on leather emits such a deep echo that it gives the wearer a headache.

Or maybe, just maybe, he was s t r e t c h i n g to brag about the fact that he owns a leather jacket, shoving that fact into a story that really has no relevance to the fact at all. Which just makes it kinda sad and pathetic. I’ve come to learn that people who do, or people who are, even people who have, don’t need to talk about it. Typically, people who talk are overcompensating for what they don’t or aren’t or haven’t.

MAN, you people! BLOG something! Entertain me!

Considering how exhausted I was yesterday, I was surprised that, as I yawned my way home late after work yesterday (I left an hour and a half later than I usually do, too), I managed to make it to jujitsu, and then when I was done there, I went to the gym. At the gym, I increased my treadmill running pace to 6mph, and did 30 minutes of hills on level 4. And then I hit the weights. It was not a good day to forget my gym towel. I was just wet during and afterwards. It was disgusting. I had to take a shower (I had my bath towel) afterwards even tho it was close to midnight when I got done, and the clothes I peeled off myself weighed probably a few pounds due to the sweat absorption. It was like, someone poured a gallon of salt on me, and I’m a snail. The small reward after the workout is that I caved and had an In-N-Out cheeseburger, animal-style. I’ve all but weeded fast food out of my life, and sodas as well, but I’ve always made an exception for In-N-Out in my head because their food is more natural and less processed than other fast food burger joints. However, the last time I had In-N-Out, it was stupidly 2 days before a gym weigh-in, and I bloated 6 lbs for the next 4-5 days and I refused to get weighed in for another week because of that.

Speaking of not drinking sodas, here’s an article about a study that links cola consumption to osteoperosis in women, courtesy James.

Today: gym at lunch and bellydancing. I’d made the commitment to my gym trainee about 45 minutes ago, and then the judge announces on the bench that if we’re not at a certain point in our trial, he’s going to keep going right into lunch to get it done. =P Oh well, we’ll both by gymming anyway, even if we’re not doing it at the same time. I’d called Dwaine yesterday to let him know about a Beverages and More sale, buy 1 bottle of wine, get the 2nd same bottle of wine for $0.05. He invited me to go wine-shopping with him today, and I’d agreed, not realizing it’s bellydancing Wednesday (the Monday holiday threw me off). Well, if we can make it back by 8 for my class, I won’t have to cancel on him.

By the way, did I mention it took me a full year to lose the stupid 10 lbs I gained last September/October? I still have to lose the 5 lbs I gained after February. Stupid metabolism. Stupid high school anorexia.

I woke up this morning feeling green. Not as in sick and nauseated, but as in unripe. I felt like a tart hard fruit not ready to be picked, not meant to face the world, but nevertheless was plucked prematurely out of bed.

I dreamt that I was doing jujitsu training in waist-deep pool water and suddenly on my left lower abdomen, I got a sharp almost-painful bloating feeling, like my left ovary just ballooned up or something. So I stopped, holding the offended area with my hands. I tried working out again and the feeling came back, so I stopped again, and I dreamt the blackbelt instructor came up to me to see what was wrong. He decided I needed to go to the emergency room, and was about to take me himself, but his girlfriend offered to take me instead. So we went back to my home, which was an apartment in the dream, to call 911 and pack some clothes. While there, I felt better so I decided to check up on my agenda. I must’ve sent the girlfriend home. My planner stated that I had a trip planned to fly to Northern Cal to hang out with friends, except it was Saturday in my dream, I’d forgotten about the trip, and presumed I’d missed my flight. I called my mother to ask if she knew when I was supposed to leave. She said I could still make it, the flight wasn’t until late. So I decided to pack some reading with me, since flipping through my planner I also discovered that I have a few novels due in a week or so as I am back in college. I was relieved to discover that I’d already read both novels before, one was an Asian American themed one, and the other was an American or British classic. I normally dream that I’m back in college and can’t find my classrooms, or I suddenly realize some huge project or reading I hadn’t done is due right that day, or that I was horribly behind in some complicated class like math because I’d failed to attend class all quarter and never cracked open the book and now the final is upon me and it’s too late to drop the class.

I’m exhausted. It’s not easy to be green.

I haven’t worked out since last Friday, so this being a long weekend, today was spent walking around at Disneyland and California Adventure, we got back in the late afternoon, and then the rest of the evening was spent Zainoing Mr. W’s car. That car looks niiiiice! A damp terrycloth bath towel slid across the hood and fell off. Of course, through the entire process, even tho I told him I’d do the whole thing myself, Mr. W kept complaining about his labors. I said, “Oh, you’ll feel better when everyone’s admiring your car at work tomorrow. And they’ll say, ‘Gosh, I wish MY wife/girlfriend gave enough of a crap to wash, detail and polish my car for me!’ And you didn’t even have to buy the products!” In the end, I asked doesn’t he have this great sense of accomplishment now with this great looking car that’s gonna end up blinding people on the freeway tomorrow? No, he said disgruntledly. He’d rather pay to have the car washed for him, and he doesn’t expect to ever do this again. I bet he’s gonna take that a car to an automated carwash and have the crap scratched out of it, even tho we just spent hours claybaring and polishing it (3 layers with Gloss Enhancer Spray in between!) with the Z5 swirl remover polish. =P Well, if he doesn’t, this polish job lasts 6 months and all he needs to do between now and then is to wash it with a mild car wash and spray a mist of Z6 anti-static sunscreen Ultra Clean Gloss Enhancer Spray on it. How hard is that?!

*Sigh* I’ll end up doing it when I wash my car, I bet.

Just got back from watching The Departed, starring Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson. I’m still a little bit in shock.

Synopsis: The mob (i.e. Jack Nicholson) grooms a young boy (Matt Damon) into one of their own, and because the boy starts young, he was able to build his life in a double-agent way, entering the State Troopers police academy and legally became a cop, quickly promoting within its ranks thereby working on the inside and spying for the mob. The police (i.e. Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg) takes one of their own (Leonardo DiCaprio) with a shady family history and has him infiltrate the mob as their informant. Add a few guns and blood and you have a fun, intense, cat and mouse and rat game. There’s even a hint of sex when the two rats schlup the same shrink.

Hot guy hubba hubba factor: pretty damn high. Shirtless and muscle-clad.

Entertainment value: great if you like violence and mafia and deception; twists in plot

Acting: pretty damn good. You really do believe the characters and stress out with them. Leonardo DiCaprio has redeemed himself out of the Titanic Guy role for me. Matt Damon is no longer the innocent underdog from Good Will Hunting.

Ending: seriously. Really? Come on. The only conceivable worse cop-out (no pun intended) ending would be if Leonardo DiCaprio suddenly wakes up in bed in a cold sweat, in his nice neat suburban home next to his beautiful wife, 2.5 kids and dog in the yard, and his wife asks, “What happened, honey?” “Oh, I just had the worse nightmare!” The End. I mean, it was like Quentin Tarantino stepped in the last 10 minutes of the direction and said, “I’ll take over from here. You guys liked Natural Born Killers and Kill Bill, right?” Tightly woven plot, clean script through a complicated situation all the way through, great smart-ass cracks, nice one-liners and suspense, and then BAM! Pulp Fiction. I dunno. Mr. W and his daughter are hoping for an alternate ending when the DVD comes out.

Not being a fan of violence or blood and gore, I watched this because I wanted to support Jennifer Aniston (and Brad Pitt, :P)’s production company, Plan b Productions, which produced this movie. At the ending, Mr. W turned to me and said, “Your girl produced this?” and laughed at me. Sigh…

Happy Moon Festival Day! Have some moon cakes. And don’t be getting greedy and popping an entire bottle of anti-gravitational vanity pills. If you do, say hi to the bunny in the moon for me!

And for Monday, Happy Columbus Day! It’s a court holiday.

And if you’re Canadian on Monday, Happy Thanksgiving!

I got 2 emails from Jordan this morning (2 on EACH ACCOUNT) all excited telling me she made some Cindy bobblehead doll and that if I don’t put it on my blog, she will (put it on hers, I mean). I haven’t seen it yet. It won’t load. So I’m gonna try it on here and see if it works from within a blog.

Despite the fact that I ditch jujitsu like it’s an ex-boyfriend or a divorce case, last nite I missed my first belly dancing class. The parking lot was so full that I had to park on the street, and then I was concerned that the crappy Nissan Sentra parked in front of me was gonna back up into my new Zainoed car while I was in class. I, along with a bunch of other belly dancing students, opened the door to the regular room where class is hosted and were surprised by the sight of various occupied banquet tables with two little girls performing violins on a stage. There was no notice given to us that there’d be no class that day, and nothing posted on the doors. I caught Vanessa in the hallway, and we decided to go to the gym instead. Not to work out, oh no, but to sit in the steam room. Both our backs were bothering us.

We sat in the steam and rubbed Epsom salt on ourselves, hung out and chatted for almost an hour. Afterwards, we drove back to my house (where she’d left her car) and she got to visit with Dodo, who was plenty happy to see his prior roommate and catnip dispenser.

My back really is feeling better today, and Vanessa had written me an email earlier saying she finally got a great night’s sleep after the steam room. It reminds me that I haven’t pampered myself in awhile, not since I tightened the purse strings after the car purchase in order to get back to my original state of finances in 3 months. Maybe it’s time to book a massage appointment. (Last night, I also restored my finances by 50%, so I’m well within the 3 months I gave myself.) I’d forgotten the importance of the occasional stress-relieving luxury.