cindy's world

At the gym at lunch, I laid back on the bench for the lat pull-down machine to do a set of chest exercises with dumbbells. In mid-set, out of the corner of my eye I saw an older guy walk around and sit down at the perpendicular and connected machine that works calves. He had been sitting on a nearby bench taking a rest and watching me do my circuit. When I got back up to do lat pull-downs again, I noticed that he had taken the pin out of my weight stack and was using it for his calves machine! How rude! There were free weight stacks all around us connected to our machine that no one was using! I leaned left and took the pin off an unoccupied stack and put it silently into my weight. He watched me do this but didn’t say anything and continued his set. I added my irritation to my glower power from yesterday and had a super-aggressive workout. But after I stepped off the cardio machine onto the sliding scale…HOW THE HELL DID I GAIN 5 LBS THIS WEEK?! 4 days straight of jujitsu, 2 hrs each, AND I still worked out at the gym 3 days this week, and I GAINED weight?!

The glower resumes.

My b-day flowers are beautiful, blossoming, and fragrant. These photos (taken with my dinky cameraphone) really don’t do the bouquet justice, because from where I’m looking at the actual thing it’s clear there are 25 roses 2 feet tall. It’s hard to believe that when they came, they were this little scrunched up pile of buds in a tight rectangular box. I remember Grace’s wedding florist, Ernie, telling me “When roses are given in love, they’ll bloom. When they’re not, they’ll stay budded and wilt as buds.” I used to have all my roses wilt in buds. I guess Vicky and Peter really love me.

So I’m analyzing my social self. I had an impending-doom feeling all day because I knew I was getting too high and overly giddy and way ahead of myself. I still don’t know how to rein it in. But I knew that I’m putting too much into what may be nothing. My bailiff helped by being so supportive and optimistic. So I’m feeling let down and discouraged. It wasn’t even that anything “bad” happened, it was just that nothing amazing happened. And just like that, I felt like throwing my hands up in defeat and looking for some steady ready comfort that I really don’t want and really isn’t worth it in the long run.

And I thought, “Why is this? Why are my expectations so high?” I’m about to make a confession of the most conceit ever. *Sigh* 1.) Every ex-boyfriend or even semi-serious dating relationship I’ve ever had have come back to try to secure a second (maybe third or fourth) chance. The begging process is like pouring fat into my ego. “I miss you, I am still in love with you, look at you, you are so amazingly beautiful/hot/smart/fun/good etc etc etc.” Some of these exes still tell me things like this to this day. What I should’ve noted: these guys are not objective; they are wearing rose-tinted lenses. 2.) I get my ego stroked all day long at work by men who either work around me or come into contact with me thru their occupations. What I should’ve noted: these men, most of whom are married, are sick of the day-in and day-out grinds with their wives so any woman younger and different from the spouse seems like greener grass than the lawn at home. 3.) I’ve become spoiled by getting my dates/boyfriends from men who come up to me and hit on me, or otherwise pursue me. What I should’ve noted: I haven’t done the work of pursuing and successfully turning the head of some guy I had my eye on first, so what made me think that I can have or get any (single) guy that I want? 4.) I think I’m buying into my own sour grapes bullshit that I’d been telling myself over and over since my breakup with the most recent ex: You don’t need to be with a cheater, you can do so much better! You’re still young, you’re fun, active, witty, you have no financial problems, the only debt you have is your mortgage, you’re pretty and it’s been a long time, years, since you were crying over unrequited love because most guys do end up liking you, even some people you don’t want having feelings for you seem to start. You just let the guys come to you and you have veto power. You don’t need to settle. You can even afford to aim higher!

So what do I do know, having to face the mirror and see a deluded woman who’d just been put in her place? I don’t know, but I feel like taking a time-out and going to the corner to lick my wounds. Oh, that’s right, I’m going up north this weekend to do nothing but stuff that makes me happy. Levity, not gravity, this weekend. I hope I feel better by then. If not, then that’s why this weekend’s placed in my life right here. I could surely use it.

I knew I shouldn’t have finished that margarita. I was more vulnerable to alcohol because of the 3+ mile run I did at lunch and I didn’t eat much all day. I got a headache that I’m even now still experiencing.

I made it to class early so that I could change into workout clothes. I’ll admit that a vain part of me did want certain people to see what I look like as a girl, and altho certain people were not in the classroom when I first poked my head in wearing a short skirt and heels, I ran into certain people on my way to the restroom to change. Certain people recognized me first and greeted me and I got to show off the 2 huge bruises on my left knee and shin, which certain people helped make. Gawd, I think I just gave too much away. Mental note: don’t give certain people this blog addy.

Teaching the ab portion was fun. I only had them do 1 set (20 reps) each of like 7 ab exercises. I fully planned to hit 40 reps, but quite a few of them were gasping and struggling already. The time worked out pretty well so that I ended at 7:29 (the instructor had said these warmups stop at 7:30 sharp). The students and instructor were very complimentary, about the effectiveness of the exercises, about my explanations of what each exercise worked as I went along, about my emphasis on proper form.

Then my day went downhill from there. I had forgotten what it was like to suck at something. When I look back, there really isn’t any activity I had failed to succeed in. Some things were more effortless than others, but if I wanted to do something or learn something, it was done. And most things WERE effortless. Today, with the skin torn off my knuckles as I was thrown again and again, my seeming inability to rise to the challenge or even progress beyond the last in the class was very discouraging. The students were great; they would give me tips and teach me as I did the exercises against them so it’s not just the instructors giving the directions. However, I just felt utterly un-adept. I would blank out and not remember what I was doing; the cognitive skills were fried and of course I haven’t developed an instinct to work off of yet; I had short-term memory problems such that I could not remember what station to go to or what action is being performed or received at each station. The new girl seemed to have flown way past me (altho I did learn today that she had previously taken some form of kung-fu or something because I asked her where she got her uniform) and one-on-one with her, she threw me way more times than I would’ve preferred. I’m gonna lie to myself right here and say she had an advantage over me being like 7 inches taller than me and outweighing me.

And it bugged me to not be in the limelight of the “new girl” title anymore, too. I so enjoyed the novelty-worship the class gave me the last 3 days. I feel like she and I are too similar and she’s in my space (socially). If I got into it more than that on here people would start losing respect for me (more so than they have already anyway). I feel pathetic and yet blue. But I did try very hard to be nice to her and she was nice in return.

After work (and I use the word “after” loosely) I met up with some coworkers at a local restaurant/bar, Geezers, for a farewell-good-luck social for a deputy district attorney who is leaving the DA’s Office to go into private practice with his friend. Many of my favorite work people were there, and I would do shouts-out, but I don’t know how they’d feel about being named on a public blog. 🙂 For a belated b-day drink, a fellow clerk bought me a HUGE margarita which was easily the size of 2 large margaritas. I had some second thoughts about finishing a drink that big, but I can’t let good alcohol go to waste. I missed most of the good stuff, because I had to leave at 5:45p to make it from Santa Fe Springs to Fullerton for jujitsu. It looked like there were props being brought in by the attorneys and I left just as everyone started eating. Oh well.

In case you can’t read what I wrote on your card, Mike (guest of honor), it says, written upside-down and reverse mirror-image and in German, “Vielen Gluck und Geld, mein Freund.” Much luck and money, my friend. Thanks for the counseling sessions over beers at Outback.

The above paragraph is funny because, altho a few DAs have my blog address, the aforementioned Mike does not even know I have a blog. Maybe I should tell him tomorrow.

Yesterday evening at jujitsu, the instructor discreetly confirmed that I will go in today to do the abs drill, then when we were all doing warmups, he announced to the nearly 30-member class that there will be a “guest instructor” for an abs drill the following day and they should all be there, but they should take care not to eat beforehand or they’ll have a pizza party (vomit on the mats). That seemed to scare some people off so he said, “No, she’s not gonna be that tough. She’s a short girl [extending his arm to chest-high], she’s like my granddaughter’s height.” Our eyes met briefly and I gave him a dirty look. “She’s shorter than everybody,” he continued. One student asked, “Is it Rebecca?” “No, it’s not Rebecca,” he said. Then later, he said across the mat to his son (blackbelt assisting him in class), “Have you figured out who it is yet?” His son asked, “Is it an old student?” “No, it’s someone new. Brand spanking new.” He touted it over and over that now I’m thinking, “What if I can’t give them an effective enough workout? Or what if I’m TOO hard on them?” Ack.

I just have to post my mother’s email to me, it’s too funny not to:

H-A-P-P-Y BIRTHDAY!  Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear cindy
Happy birthday to youuuuuuuuuuu!
 
29 years ago, approx. 5:30pm, a new born babygirl had changed a new couple’s life, lots of joy! Thank you!

I think it’s cool that my immigrant mother can send me a jovial email like this, but the more important thing is I WAS BORN AT 5:30 PM WHICH MEANS I AM NOT 29 YET! Woohoo!

I have panty-trim fabric burns, workout bra-trim fabric burns, a bruise on my left shin, a mat burn on my left knee, a swollen right fleshy-part-of-thumb/palm, bruise on my right upper wrist, sore right forearm, and what appears to be a spread-out, gargantuan hickey on the inside of my right forearm with a black bruise beginning to form underneath. Am I whining? Haels no. I’m BRAGGIN!

The smaller intermediate jujitsu class yesterday consisted of all guys, plus me. I felt horrible that I was slowing them down on the drills, but they were all very good about it and gave me pointers on how to fall and hit and block, where to grab, how to roll them off my back and hip. I tossed a few guys and got tossed myself. The instructor incidentally discovered an aggression button of mine when he felt I was being too mild on defending the attacks: he told me to get back at all men. As each of the guys came up to me in a line of right and left punches, I smack-stopped the punches with the back of one hand, punched their extended bicep with my free hand, did the same with their other arm, threw the heel of my hand into their face and stepped into a hammer on their crotch in quick succession. The instructor looked so proud. I’m leading the class on a crunches drill this Thursday.

‘ , ‘ , ‘ , —-‘—,—{@ Cindora @}—,—‘—- , ‘ , ‘ , ‘

If I knew how to do colored text on here to make the above roses yellow, this would be a TOTAL flashback to summer, 1993. Ah, the good ol’ days, right, Medea/Antigone and Scarlett? (Delusion/Euthanasia/Bella Starr/X-to-C/Photi…was I anything else?)

364 more days in which I can still claim to be in my 20s. Thanks to everyone who called and sang or otherwise wished me a happy 29th. Vicky and Peter, thanks for the 25 yellow roses! Yes, they are still my favorite flowers. Any morning spent trimming and arranging flowers is a good morning at work. They’re on display on the left corner of the “wall” part of my desk, as close to the center of the courtroom as they can be without being unprofessional. =D What a nice 70th entry to blog.

I was discussing July 4th weekend plans with a stationary bike buddy at the gym today. He’s considering going to Tijuana with buddies to watch a bullfight (royale!) which takes place on Sunday. I told him I’m flying up north again and described all the activities involved. And then we discussed what I did last July 4th: hung out with a bunch of inebriated people at the usual bar, then branched off with 3 of them (one being the ex) to launch fireworks from a local neighborhood street. That’s the euphemistic version. The reality is that these people continued to suck down beers, and played the following fireworks “games” on the street:
* blowing up beer cans, cardboard boxes, city construction cones
* playing “chicken” with fireworks to see who can hold a lit firework the longest before throwing it into the air
* jumping over lit fireworks on the ground
* squatting over grounded fireworks that spray flames and sparks into the air (to see who can squat the lowest the longest)
* trying to hold lit stick-fireworks between the buttcheeks
All this while laughing hysterically, jumping up and down and clapping, sucking down more beers, calling me “uptight,” saying I “had no childhood” because I don’t see the necessity of burning body parts for no good reason at all. And these people range from ages 35-44. My stationary bike buddy assured me that their behavior isn’t typical and it’s not me because, altho he’d laugh if his drunk buddies engaged in activities like that, there’s no way he wouldn’t discourage it and tell them to stop being stupid, and no way he’d participate in those “games.”

“I remember sitting there last year kinda apart from them and thinking, ‘Oh my God, is this my life from now on?'” I said.
He smiled and said, “Well, now you know the answer. It isn’t.”
I must’ve glowed from smiling so hard as I said brightly, “Nope, it isn’t, and that feels SO GOOD!”