cindy's world

I like this series of photos. How many attempts does it take to get a good picture in which we all look normal? I’m writing the captions out for you so you don’t have to rest your mouse over the photos for them (altho that works, too.)
1.
Attempt 1: Brad’s sticking his tongue out like he’s gonna lick Diana.
2.
That’s #2. I’m not ready.
3.
That’s #3. Diana is frustrated. “How hard can this be? I don’t understand!”
4.
That’s 4. “Get down here and put your head like this,” says Diana.
5.
And finally, success. Attempt #5. Cut and Print!

For photos Mike took of my b-day dinner on Saturday night (see 7-3-05 entry, San Jose, Part I), click here: http://www.ocliw.com/things/weekends/cindyBday2005/index.php

As with all my photos, just rest your mouse over the photo for a caption. Please keep in mind that WE WERE ALL SOBER. It was a totally dry beach with tons of sheriffs around to enforce that.
See 7-5-05 entry, San Jose, Part II.

Wonder how much Jimmy outweighs me by.
Don’t look so surprised, Brad!
For more and better photos of this July 4th, 2005 insanity, please click on: http://www.ocliw.com/things/weekends/bigBeachBBQ2005/cindy/

It’s like this.
Don’t try to make me feel special if I’m not. Don’t kid with me as if you missed me with an “about time you came back,” don’t give me an intimate breathy hello how you doin’, or walk in front of me and face me to give me a private grin and a wink. Twice.
Don’t do that if you’re going to squeeze another girl’s arm when you don’t know I’m behind you, ask her persuasively if she’s going to be back tomorrow, give her a special goodbye (again not realizing I’m behind you) and revel in her flirtatious sing-songy “ByyYYYyyye.”
And what’s up with your dad trying to get me to room with her for the September trip? Well, to heed the advice of a good friend, “Keep your enemies close.” I see through her. She’s nice to me to impress you. It’s rather quite a joke. People are so two-faced. But then I’m multi-faceted.
I don’t appreciate your attempt to play me. I find it obscenely offensive. Thanks for fueling my workout. I hit the gym hard after I left the two-hour jujitsu class. Driving time noted, I tried to burn off my emotional glumness physically from 6:30pm to 10:30pm.
It’s not about a man anymore. It’s about no man, and yet every man. There is no more searching for “the one.” There is only “Screw you, and you, and you.” Get out of my face. I don’t want any of you and yet all of you are mine.

What a crazy lunch. Our trial settled late morning so I had some extra time. Since I did not sleep until past 3am and had a really hard time getting up this morning, I took an hour-long nap in the jury room women’s restroom “lounge” at lunch. Really odd dream involving tea lights on a cheesy mattress, my crying because I wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom of a friend’s house, and something about living in a forest. When I woke up, the tiny room I was sleeping in had turned into Antartica. I took a walk across the street to an outdoors eatery to thaw out. (Yes, my lunch is legally 1.5 hours long.) Ran into a DA who was enjoying the weather, his wireless internet access on his laptop, and what appeared to be a really decadent lunch of celery and carrots. I purchased my pizza and Diet Coke and joined him at the outdoors table and we analyzed my dream. I find myself still rather cranky about my last relationship. Then when I came back to work, on my keyboard I find a newspaper clipping someone had left with the headline Cindy Hits Gulf Coast. “Tropical Storm Cindy, possibly intensifying to a Category-1 hurricane this morning, will churn inland across the Mississippi Delta early today, packing winds at over 70 mph as it batters the region with heavy rain and thunderstorms.” I like how they personify objects, and objectify people, but my weather alter-ego is definitely sounding like me as she sits and pounds over New Orleans. You go, girl.

I went to Drug Emporium to pick up some fabric detergent earlier after dinner. As I was wandering the aisles perusing random objects, I noticed a boy who always seemed just out of my direct line of vision, but who was always around. No matter where I walked, he was within 10 feet or just around the corner of the aisle. I deliberately walked to the makeup aisle and looked at foundation. He followed me there, too, and there is no 12 year old boy who needs anything in the makeup aisle. This is not the 80s. He walked by me down the aisle, then turned and watched me from the end of the aisle, partially hidden behind some bath products hanging at the end of the shelf. I walked thru 2 more aisles. Same thing. What the hell. I walked up to my friend and muttered, “The kid’s following me.”
“I know,” he said, “He’s been doing that awhile.” I got uncomfortable and left the store.
“Do boys even have hormones at that age?” I wondered aloud.
“Oh, yeah,” my friend informed me.
“Why’s he looking at someone my age? It’s not like he’s gonna come up and hit on me. When I was his age, I would’ve thought someone my age is totally old.”
“Boys are different,” I was told. “He’s gonna go to his friends later and say, ‘Hey, I saw this hot Asian chick at Drug Emporium, she had really long hair and she was wearing this tight tanktop and you can see her blue bra straps that matched her jeans…’ He’ll be thinking about you when he’s alone later tonight, too.”
Ew. Now I was uncomfortable in more ways than one.

Well, that wasn’t nearly as mutually painful as I had been dreading. The northern Cal people who were around the dinner table during a certain discussion this past Saturday night would be happy to know that changing the code is no longer necessary. I am once again in actual and constructive possession. Altho I really do feel bad that, as I told a friend earlier, I watched a grown-ass man cry and all I could think about was “I hope his tears and snot don’t drip onto me.” I’m going to hell.

Waiting for people behind me to finish boarding the plane for my 9:40 p.m. flight out of San Jose airport, I stared out the window and caught a magnificent fireworks show. It must’ve gone on for half an hour. I was impressed by the firework that goes up in one unit, then sprays red sparks out such that they line up and make a huge heart in the sky. I don’t know how they control the direction of and and distance traveled by the sparks for such a formation. There were 3 of those.

The view below was beautiful after take-off. The brightly lit grid beneath me was punctuated here and there by small circlets of color exploding and glittering as people on the ground celebrated our nation’s birthday. I don’t know why I thought fireworks reached as high as planes fly. From the sky, the fireworks seemed to be tiny mushroom caps right at the city surface. From the ground, the fireworks are gargantuan umbrellas of color, fire and smoke reaching across the heavens. I was relieved to discover this difference, and kicked myself for having my camera packed away in the overhead storage bin so that I couldn’t document my enlightenment.

I will add more photos later when I receive a copy of Jimmy’s photos (documenting our insanity on Monday), and when I get to my better photo editing program at home so I can crop out all the dead space around the photo. Meanwhile, this photo is representative of Monday:

Our trial attorney asked me an hour ago which beach I had gone to in San Jose, and I could not remember. He started naming all these beaches, and none of them sound right. The point is, it doesn’t matter. The location was a variable; it was how I felt that was the surprising constant. There was a big crowd at our beach event and although most were strangers, I was comfortable enough to completely be stupid. My camera battery died so the really stupid photos are on Jimmy’s camera. Things like my standing on Diana and Jen’s backs and shoulders in a human pyramid, and our imitating the famous photo of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima… only instead of Feb 19, 1945, it was July 4, 2005; instead of the American flag it was a beach umbrella; instead of the US Navy it was Val, Jen and myself; instead of the battlefield rocks it was Diana’s ass.

Good times. At one point I looked around, fully aware of my high level of contentment and comfort, and then it suddenly hit me that later that evening I would be on a flight home and this beach, these people, are so far away from “home.” That was a strange feeling.

I’m sorry to have missed the beach night bonfire, but very happy to have participated in the antics of the day. I am grateful to all of these people who have befriended me and taken me in at a very hard time in my life, and have shown me by their mere existence that continued faith in people, friendships, and connectivity is warranted. Thanks, guys.

Saturday:

There is something so satisfying about hanging out with these people, a lot of whom I have only met once before, a month ago. From grocery shopping and cooking with Brad to laughing at Mike’s renditions of events to rebonding with Diana over each other’s social miseries to watching Jen’s sweet silliness to making fun of Jimmy under the stars to falling asleep outside and waking up just prior to hypothermia setting in. I perched so long on top of the stone-topped cooking range in Diana’s backyard last nite chatting with people that I think I bruised my butt-bone (okay, so I’m not an anatomy genius). I told them as I sat out there watching the stars get brighter as the night got darker (mostly because Diana couldn’t figure out how to turn the lights on outside; turned out the timer switch was unplugged) that it’s amazing how comfortable I was there that evening. I didn’t feel left out even tho a lot of the night was spent out of the circle of main conversation, and I felt totally at peace and safe. There was no worrying that someone was gonna get drunk and out of hand, or that there was some subplot going on so I’d better keep an eye open and watch my back. And I’ve only known a lot of these people a month. Amazing. Oh yeah. And the lasagnes turned out pretty well, if I can trust the compliments of the guests. The largest compliments were the guys who went back for seconds, and Henry’s girlfriend whose parents own(ed?) an Italian restaurant and who said that this is the best Italian food she’s ever tasted that an Asian person made. These people felt like kin.

Sunday:

Sunday isn’t over yet as it’s right before 9pm and it looks like we’re getting ready to go out again. I accomplished two things. The first is the realization that people who I’d thought were perfect and so admirable, I found out today is as human as the rest of us, and everyone has issues. I’m not sure if this is a good discovery, but over time I’m sure its effect will be revealed. The second thing is that I finally got a tan. I wore my bikini to Melanie’s (right photo, whose back you see) annual July 4th pool party and had good food and…well…interesting company. I didn’t mingle as much as I could have, but there were enough people I liked around me that I didn’t feel compelled to go out of my comfort zone. Jimmy, thanks for letting me throw you over my shoulder onto the grass. Now I know never to throw a fully-clothed adult while I’m in my bikini. Ouch, the fabric burn on my shoulder and shoulder blade…

I’m supposed to be packing and otherwise getting ready for my trip tomorrow, and what am I doing? This:


Disney’s Mulan in traditional Asian garb… Cindy in traditional Asian garb (2nd from left).
Okay, so maybe there are SOME similarities between me and Mulan. (For new readers, refer to 6-27-05 post, “Cindy the Cartoon“.)