cindy's world

I’m pretty happy with my after-work productiveness today. I left about 20 minutes early (which is 40 minutes later than most people in my job description, and 70 minutes later than some others, plus the judge worked us 15 minutes into lunch today, so don’t judge me) and gassed up my car, went home, changed the cat litter, cleaned the cat area, vacuumed the house, did the dishes, cleared out some bills, collected and took out the trash, and got to jujitsu on time.

At jujitsu, we warmed up so hard I was totally pouring sweat (maybe my metabolism was still on from my 3-mile run at lunch today which, by the way, made me sick), and then I was directed to the front of the room to lead the class on abs. And then we did — I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like ron-doori, which is two people facing off with their hands on each others’ gis and trying to turn the other person off-balance and induce a fall. That’s one of the things I’m worst at, I always lose the skin off my left knuckles from fabric burn, and I’m always being thrown. But with the breakdown of the moves and strategies in a drill today, something clicked in my head and I kicked ass! I think the trick is (or at least, the trick that worked for me) to turn them left and right and then pull an arm in while pushing the other arm out so that they’re going backwards, perpendicular to you, and then step quickly into them while continuing to pull the side that’s down. They fall on their side or ass every time. Anyway, I got home, showered, and I just installed TurboTax.

Right now I’m waiting for the free TurboTax State to download. If I can finish my parents’ taxes tonight, then they’ll have it ready this weekend when I visit them and they can sign it and mail it in. I really thought I’d have to ditch jujitsu tomorrow to clean up around the house and work on taxes, but now it looks like I won’t have to. Unless I decide to go to this celebration at a local pub that the DAs invited me to. I don’t even remember what they’re celebrating. I don’t think anyone’s being promoted this time. The problem is that I can’t do both. I learned early on that even one margarita before jujitsu totally dulls my reflexes and clarity of thought, even tho I have zero other symptoms doing normal stuff. I guess jujitsu is just more demanding on concentration and coordination. I guess I can go and not drink, then head over to jujitsu. Hmm.

Who knows the reference to my post title?

Do people do anything for less-than-a-year anniversaries anymore? I just realized that all we did for our 6 month anniversary was salvage the relationship. It was a busy weekend errand-wise for him, and I helped where I could, but we had no private time at all and I didn’t mind that. I guess I can romanticize it by saying, “On the precise day of the 6-month mark, we could have gone either way, but he gave me hope for the relationship and restored ‘us’ back to the way we were in the beginning. And that is the best gift I could have asked for.”

But the reality is, he got up really early Saturday morning to take his daughter to sing at an elementary school ball game’s opening ceremony, then they came back, collected me, the three of us went to his ex’s house to pick up his son, who was already uniformed and ready to start his high school baseball game, we stopped by a local restaurant for breakfast, dropped the son off at his game, went back to his place, dropped the daughter off at home, then he and I went back to the son’s ballgame, watched the son and his 2 nephews play on the team, left early to take his son (who had a fairly serious mishap) to the orthodontist, learned the office was closed, went back to his house to drop me off and make an appointment for urgent care, he took his son to sit in urgent care as I stayed home to hang out with his daughter, we watched “Friends” on DVD, he and son returned, he was messing with his fishtank so I took daughter to get her haircut, his ex came to pick up son, daughter and I watched Little Black Book on DVD while he planned his Alaska fishing boys’ expedition in June with his buddy, daughter went to bed, he and I sat up in the living room and talked out our problems. And that was just Saturday.

Sunday, he caught a renegade fish in his fishtank and we returned it to his fish store to trade it in for some shrimp and another different breed of fish. Had Japanese noodle house lunch by the fish shop. On the drive home with fish and shrimp prodding my lower abdomen through their bags on my lap, his daughter called and asked him to pick up a bite for her on the way back. He refused, said his fish needed to be taken care of pronto, but that he’d take her after he finished his fish-related errands. I offered to take her when we got back, so while he tended to acclimating his fish and shrimp, daughter and I went to McDonald’s where she, with great difficulty, filled her cup with Hi-C instead of soda because she’s going through sympathetic Lent and has given up soda until Easter Sunday. We came back, he and I went to another fish place to buy salt water and other supplies, and he cleaned his tank and put his newcomers in. We watched the interaction for awhile until we fell asleep, then I got up and went to my parents’ house. And that’s Sunday.

There’s a part of me that misses the marking of small milestones, and there’s another part of me that’s unconcerned enough about it to have forgotten about it over the weekend, since we were frying bigger fish. Maybe I’m growing up. Or maybe I’m growing into my inner guy.

My childhood friend Vicky, who has always sworn to hate running, has signed up for the San Diego marathon, running for the cause of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She has a progress page that documents her runs and the amounts of her donations, how close she is to her goal. I put in $100 just now. The site takes care of the donations online, it was really easy.

You guys may have heard me talk about Grace here and there. She was one of my best friends. We met waiting for the school bus an early September morning when we were 14. She swore I gave her a dirty look that morning and that she never would’ve thought then that we’d be friends. Not only did we become friends, but that friendship stretched across great distances as she went to Berkeley for undergrad and I went to UCLA, and when she moved from there to New York to take a job offer with Merrill Lynch Risk Management (consulting, something to do with the stock market). She met Justin while training for Merrill Lynch. He was sent down from the Great Britain branch for training in the New York branch. She caught his attention when she kept dropping the ball during one of their getting-acquainted exercises in which everyone in that group sat in a circle and whomever got the ball had to say something about themselves and throw the ball to someone else. They fell in love and the plan was that she’d move to London after their wedding. “You keep moving farther and farther away,” I’d once told her. But she was so happy, and I was so happy that she was so happy. I was to be one of her bridesmaids. She never made that move to London because leukemia made her move even farther. I donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society then and also sponsored her when she did a walk across some bridge event for the Society, and registered as a bone marrow donor, but did little for the cause since.

I’m glad to be doing this for Vicky, and I’m glad that she’s doing this for the Society. And I’m so proud of her for completing her first 8-mile run this past weekend.

I had my first Dove chocolate square in a long time. The foil wrapper read “Do something spontaneous.”

So one phone call later, I nixed my lunchtime workout plans, and did that something spontaneous.

I feel good.

For years now, the number 14.4 has wafted through my conscious and tortured me with its failure to reveal its origins. It’s one of those familiar things, and I pronounce it in my head as “fourteen-four.” Why is fourteen-four so familiar in my head? What does it refer to?

187, 211, 459, 1170.12(a)-(d) and 667(b)-(i) are familiar to me because they’re California Penal Codes for murder, robbery, burglary, and the premise of the 3-strikes law. Is 14.4 a Penal Code? I don’t think so because it’s something so familiar that I’d retained it in my subconscious. Is it Pica on a typewriter? Is it a standard measurement of something? But it’s such a imperfect number. Not 14 and a HALF, not FIFTEEN. What could it be? The length in inches of a legal piece of paper? No, that’s 8.5″ by 14″.

I think at some point, I had figured it out in a conversation with someone. But I’m not sure because right now, I have no idea what the hell 14.4 is. Do any of you out there know?

I tend to not “fight” for a person’s romantic interest. I tend to feel that if someone’s focus on me can be swayed or confused by some random outside person or thing, then that’s an internal problem with “us” and a relationship probably would not work out anyway. If there is some competition, I back off and if the guy likes me, he’ll bridge that gap and come to me. If he doesn’t, then that inaction tells me everything I need to know. Someone playing hard to get with me to spark my interest would just end up not being gotten. If he plays the hold-out-to-call-her thing, I assume he’s not interested and I move on. If he takes even longer, by the time he calls I may have forgotten about him. People who have dated me know this about me.

Thinking about this tendency of mine on the drive to work this morning, I wondered how much of it has to do with my being hurt and miffed. Am I not fighting for someone because of principle, or am I not fighting because I’m hurt and have retracted into my Cancer shell?

On the other hand, I have fought for someone before, just in the spirit of competition (I can only think of one example), because the chick trying to take this guy’s attention was totally on my nerves, and the guy wasn’t interested in her. He kept trying to turn back to me and she wouldn’t let him, until he just finally turned his back to her and came to me. She was really pissed, and kicked my chair hard on her way to the bathroom. It was all really immature. In this situation, I was not emotionally vested, so I could not be hurt that there’s competition out there. It was almost a big joke. This was a long time ago and now, I can’t imagine fighting for someone for sport. It just seems so unnecessary and childish. If he wants her, he’ll go to her, and if he wants me, he should come to me. That’s it.

So I guess that’s what it is. When there’s something or someone competing for the attention of someone I’m emotionally attached to, I get hurt, curl up, back off, and hope and wish that he’d come to me. If he doesn’t for a long enough period of time, I am tortured and start to deteriorate. And then I prepare myself to walk. I may put out one last effort to communicate my feelings to him, but if he’s unresponsive to that, then it’s pretty much over.

I don’t know if that’s healthy or not.

Stevie Wonder had written in a previous comment, “…if salvation there be.”

I think I can drop the “if” from that statement now. =)

Sorry guys, I just had to put this out there for therapy.

I tread softly in knowledge’s shadow
The trouble with learning is we can’t unlearn
Aye, there’s the rub, isn’t it
I awake in its omnipresence
I choke on it when brushing my teeth
It collapses me throughout the day
Squeezes the air from my lungs in my shallow breaths
Pushes the tears out my eyes
Drains the productivity from my day
Reminds me constantly I am powerless
Steals the colors from around me
Kills the laughter from my past
Isolates me, then shakes me
Unthink me, it taunts daily
Get over me, Ignore me
And it’s too loud, and I’m too susceptible
But I can’t run, I certainly can’t walk
The hows and whys don’t matter
Maybe the way out is
Finding what does.

What is the drive home like for people whose marriages have broken down? Does it start as a happy cheerful day at the office laughing and joking with coworkers, until the time comes to leave? Do they ask around to see who’s available to grab a happy hour drink, but are disappointed when all their coworkers in turn say they need to pick up their kid, pick up dinner, have a dinner date with the spouse, have a date-date, sorry-buddy-next-time? And then do they drive home slowly, dreadfully? Does a 20 minute commute feel like half a day, winding slowly toward an unhappy destination, a black hole devoid of light, full of vacuous cold and emptiness? Maybe they think about the earlier days, when they were one of the eager ones to go home and see their spouse after an unbearably long day at work. They had not lied when they recited “best friend” in their wedding vows, so what had happened? There used to be a joy, a light that shone in the home which led the way to the person who understood the best, who always had a light stroke for your hair, a nuzzle for your cheek, a pillow for your heart. And now, the night is long, the day is too short. The drive itself, albeit extensive and dreadful, is a blur as the driver sees only the layer upon layer of troubles and issues — the top of the stack, still seeped in fresh blood; the bottom of the stack, decayed and sulfurous; all of it, heavy and unresolved. Sickened and worn, maybe he’s powerless to resolve these issues and take them off the table because the spouse has stopped communicating and trying. Maybe he’s lost the hope that he can carry this relationship on his own shoulders. There are ones who go to the bar alone and stall there. There are ones who have stopped coming home. And then there are ones who come home just a shell, the spirit of their identities torn and forgotten, the joy of love and partnership just a cheesy love song on the radio, the warmth and safety of home a joke.

I read somewhere that an optimist is one who looks forward to marriage, and that a pessimist is a married optimist.

I wish it weren’t like that.

“How’d you sleep last nite?”
“Like a donut.”
“How does a donut sleep?”
“With a hole in the middle.”

For the past 2 nites, I’ve gone to bed a bit past 11p but I’d wake up at 3a-4a and be up for about 3 hours, unable to fall back asleep until it’s like 6a and I’d finally fall asleep for an hour or so before getting up for the day. During the hole, I’d be wide awake, not tired, but it’s too early to get up and get ready, so I’d just lay there, stewing in my own thoughts. This would be the ideal time to have crazed weasel sex with someone and tire myself out, except nobody has donut sleep like me. I think the return of the donut hole in the middle of my rest is a sign of internal turmoil. (Duh.) I’ve been told that I just need to quiet my internal voices and thoughts. From experience, they’re only quiet if I’ve had a mental breakthrough (i.e. figured out a solution or theory that puts me at ease) or if I dump it all out via writing or blogging.

Funny thing is, I’m not tired today at all. I was hyper driving to work this morning, bopping along to my soundtrack to The Longest Yard. Probably just adrenaline.

Today has been a remarkably better day mood-wise than yesterday.