cindy's world

I just scrolled down the length of my blog page real quick and incidentally realized how phallic the shape of the Challah is! It’s beautiful in person, and the color and shape is really impressive when you’re looking down at this loaf of bread. But squashed somewhat into a 2-D format, OMG! (BTW, challah is pronounced “HAH-lah” with the leading “h” sound very guttural, like you’re clearing your throat. That just makes the whole deal sound even dirtier.) Maybe my subconscious is trying to demonstrate some Freudian concept.

So I finally got my “explanation.” It was a very nonchalant and unsatisfying “I totally forgot. And I didn’t check my phone last nite. My phone was dead all day today and I just got your voice mails right now. Sorry.” (10pm, 24 hours after the flaking was happening.)
“So what’re you gonna do about it? You owe me a big one for this,” I said, rather good-naturedly considering the situation, I felt.
The flaker seemed actually annoyed. “I don’t know what to say right now. What do you want, blood? Obviously my apology isn’t enough.”
I tried to explain the concept of how flaking makes the victim feel unimportant, and how this pitiful apology (I didn’t use an adjective when I said it aloud) isn’t cutting it. The lack of guilt or even any sort of human emotional response I was getting from the other side was so discouraging and annoying that altho I had initially agreed to hangout with these people and let them make me a bloody mary, I backed out of it and said I hadn’t been convinced. “You need convincing? I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, your problem used to be that I didn’t call you enough or whatever, and now I call you the next day and you’re still mad… I really don’t want to get into this right now. You have yourself a good night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I didn’t push the issue since I understand it’s awkward when someone’s trying to get on your case when you’re out in public (grocery store in this case) and you’re with friends. HOWEVER, this totally makes me feel wronged! I mean, WAIT A MINUTE! We had prearranged plans for me to stop by after my cooking class and DELIVER A VARIETY OF FRESH MADE BREAD to your doorstep, and not only do you not call like you said you would, but you don’t pick up your phone when I call, and 24 hours later, you call and tell me you forgot, and then give me attitude because I’m miffed? And you feel I should be GRATEFUL that you BOTHERED to call me the next day after flaking on me?! And for the record, I did not have problems of “Boohoo, you don’t call me enough.” That’s retarded. What I’d said before was that if someone knew I had just had my best friend die on me, or had just found evidence that my house was broken into, or was just crying because my world collapsed around me, you’d think they’d bother to check up on you at least ONCE in the next 2 weeks, and that I took the fact that this was not done to mean not that this friend did anything “wrong” per se, but that I am simply not a priority, I am unimportant, I am not on this person’s mind. I made it very clear when I had this talk that I was not making an accusation or judging anything that was done (or more accurately, not done) as “wrong,” I was simply saying it told me where I stood. I can’t believe it was taken as some stupid whining over not calling me enough.

I don’t understand things like this. If it were me who’d “forgotten,” I’d feel so rotten that I’d be offering to treat dinner, COOK dinner, whatever it took to make it up to the person. I certainly wouldn’t pull a cranky demand for brownie points for simply calling the next day.

I feel so disconnected. I miss having people I feel close to. I miss being able to go grab an impromptu drink with someone at this hour (11:30pm). Why does everyone around here still live w/their parents, and the ones who don’t, move so far away?! I think I just miss college.

The college roommie had said that the July 4th trip can also serve as a celebration of my b-day, which is June 29. This works out well for me mentally because I was feeling pensive about spending my b-day alone this year. As it turns out, my b-day will be on my 2nd Jujitsu class so I will be busy all evening so I don’t have to think about it. And the 1st weekend after the b-day, I will be up north, kayaking around the seals in Monterey Bay. NOW I’m getting excited! The roommie remarked that it’d be the same as Memorial Day weekend; fly up Saturday, dinner Saturday nite w/friends, athletic sight-seeing activity Sunday, BBQ house party Monday, flight back Monday nite. I’m definitely gonna bring my camera this time so I don’t have to go around begging the roommie’s friends to send me their digital photos of the weekend.

Seriously, I am SO perturbed! Didn’t I just vow to never let anyone drag me down like this again? WTF. This better be hormonally related and not actual slippage from my emotional and psychological progress.

On the brighter side of things, the tentative agenda for July 4th weekend is a homemade Italian meal at someone’s house on Saturday evening (I’ll make lasagne and tiramisu, everyone else can figure out what they’re able to contribute…altho now that I think about it, I don’t know how I’m gonna pull off tiramisu because I’m flying up Saturday and I usually like finished tiramisu to sit overnite for the flavors to develop), kayaking on Sunday, July 4th BBQ/pool party on Monday.

Damn it, that didn’t even cheer me up. I can not believe how offended and bummed I am.

Today was supposed to be such a great day. [Except for the flaking.] After work, I went to Cypress and registered as a continuing education student and enrolled in the Jujitsu class. I had to pick Jujitsu over Kenpo Karate because Kenpo is held Saturday mornings, whereas Jujitsu is held Mondays and Wednesdays. I email-planned with my college roommie today to fly up north and visit her + friends for the July 4th long weekend, which means I need my weekends free. It felt good driving out of Cypress, a student once again (albeit not a Bruin this time), with a student parking permit for the summer semester tucked in the center storage compartment of my car. I was flying high. Class begins June 27. [I hate flakes.]

From Cypress, I drove farther south to Irvine to the Blackmarket Bakery for the Artisan Breads class, and arrived half an hour early, enough time to grab a quick bite and find the place. I met up with my court reporter and her twin brother at the bakery. We made from scratch Walnut Pain Au Levain (basic sourdough), Ciabatta (italian slipper bread), Challah (Jewish braided bread), and Sourdough Multigrain (this is English and should thus be self-explanatory). Fresh bread has amazing aroma, texture and taste. My entire downstairs smells like a bakery right now. I know this because I just went downstairs w/my camera to take photos of the aforementioned bread in my kitchen. [Flaky people SUCK.] The class ended almost an hour later than it was supposed to, but hey, I do have four pounds, four loaves of bread to show for it. What am I gonna do with all this bread? [This wouldn’t have been an issue if certain people weren’t flakes.]

Today I took the first major step in crossing stuff off my “goals” list. I should remove the motorcycling thing [and replace it with “never associate with flakes”]. In a phone conversation yesterday evening, I was given the suggestion [by a flake] to add “kiteboarding” to the list. It’s sort of a cross between parasailing, snowboarding, surfing and waterskiing. “It has you written all over it,” I was told, “because it’s athletic and looks like work.” I suppose it more realistically and more comparably replaces motorcycling than helicoptering does. [I’m so pissed; the flaking chased away all the sunshine that was so bright over my day earlier.]

My staff and I had a conversation today about how “living” is not to spend countless hours every night at a bar, stationary except for the constant arm movement lifting alcohol to mouth, forking over hard-earned money in exchange for useless calories and inebriation. Living is visiting important friends and meeting his/her friends, and doing things like bike rides in beautiful wine country, creating friendships, new perspectives, and memories. When I look back over the last couple of years, it looks like a life in shadow. Blurry, cold, frustrating, drudging. Trying not to get dragged down into the sludgy viscosity, trying to watch deluded drunk men’s backs as the only sober person, while trying to watch my own back to keep from being dragged into barfights or destruction of others’ personal property. In wonderous contrast, where I have been the last few weeks is sunny, colorful, vibrant. This is living! This is learning, experiencing, growing. I hope I never again become stagnant like I had been.

I’m having trouble registering for my Kenpo Karate class online, so I guess I’ll do it in person later on in the week. It won’t be tomorrow, tho, since I will be attending a specialized bread-making class after work. 🙂 This is living!

I had a long chat with Grace’s mother this past Sunday evening. I’ve heard many stories where one or both people in a couple knew upon the first awareness of the other’s existence that they were “meant to be.” I have a coworker who walked up to a fellow stranger student in high school and told her, “I’m gonna marry you one day” and freaked the heck out of her. Decades later, they are still happily married with their three children. I have a friend who dropped his normally bitter and jaded disposition when he met the love of his life on a flight, and glowingly upon his return described to us how, as he watched her connector flight take off from the window of the airport terminal, he thought, “My God – I think I just met my future wife.” We were incredulous but months later, they were wed, she flew to California to begin her new life with him, and has told us since that as she flew off that day, she watched the airport shrink and thought the exact thing – that she had just met the man she was meant to marry. They remain to this day one of the strongest couples I know.

My question is, what is the ratio of people who have thought this and had it happen, versus the people who have thought this and were wrong? You never hear about the “wrong” stories.

The Colour Of My Love Lyrics
Artist: Celine Dion
Album: The Colour Of My Love

I’ll paint my mood in shades of blue
Paint my soul to be with you
I’ll sketch your lips in shaded tones
Draw your mouth to my own

I’ll draw your arms around my waist
Then all doubt I shall erase
I’ll paint the rain that softly lands on your wind blown hair

I’ll trace a hand to wipe your tears
A look to calm your fears
A silhouette of dark and light
While we hold each other oh so tight

I’ll paint a sun to warm your heart
Swearing that we’ll never part
That’s the colour of my love

I’ll paint the truth
Show how I feel
Try to make you completely real
I’ll use a brush so light and fine
To draw you close and make you mine

I’ll paint the truth
Show how I feel
Try to make you completely real
I’ll use a brush so light and fine
To draw you close and make you mine

I’ll paint a sun to warm your heart
Swearing that we’ll never part
That’s the colour of my love

I’ll draw the years all passing by
So much to learn so much to try

And with this ring our lives will start
Swearing that we’ll never part
I offer what you cannot buy
Devoted love until we die

So I was despondently belting this out in the shower just now (it’s 2:12 am as I type this). At times like this, I can imagine how my lilt would intonate and personalize the music if I were sitting at the velvet-lined bench of my shiny black baby grand (at my parents’ house). Sometimes I feel as if a force or feeling or some multi-dimensional something is bursting within me, and no poetry I could write, song I could sing, picture I can paint could express it justly. Maybe an animated 3-D image set to specific music with the temperature just so and the colors just so and a scent ever so light as to convey a certain feel and induce a specific line of thought could simulate or express what it is that hangs around and within me. This must be a challenge that the creators of Disney’s “Fantasia” films had.

I really want a Sea-Doo, too. Maybe it’s midlife crisis. I have what appears to almost be a death wish. I want more speed! I want to master more elements! Land, air, water! If I hit all the goals, I’d be a race bike riding, helicopter flying, martial arts ass-kicking law enforcement surfer chick. I may as well apply for a job as a Charlie’s Angel. Plus I’m sorta tri-lingual.

I’m trying to stay strong and level-headed, but it’s hard when I take a nap and dream about my phone not ringing and about his phone not calling me and even tho this is not the case in real life, I awake with an overwhelming feeling of abandonment. I should just stop taking naps.