April 30, 2006

Perhaps my problem is not in what I'm doing with my life, but who I'm doing it with/looking up to as a model.

I mean, I live with a 37-year-old bachelor, I hang out with a 39-year-old bachelor. I spend weekends with my high school boyfriend (the "favorite ex"). My best friend is still hung up on an asshole twice her age, even though she knows that he's bad for her and has probably already moved on (though that just makes it harder to get unhung up about him, I should think). My favorite blogs are written by two divorcees (though I'm really feeling that the "She Walks" divorce story is spookily familiar. Not that I was married, but I feel like she and I have each made the same mistakes in perhaps the most important relationship of our respective pasts ... in a way, that is comforting: I'm not the only one who has screwed up so royally on something that was so important, yet so taken for granted).

I'm sure that's not all of it. I mean, I have the whole issue with my mom, the fact that my work hours are completely screwy compared to the rest of the world (though not screwy enough to discourage me from actually going out and doing stuff, is it?), the fact that my "free time" schedule isn't exactly stable enough for me to take a class or two to throw some new people into my life mix (again, because of the mom issue).

I'm sure I've said I'm tired of being alone. I'm also tired of what feels like punishment for the mistakes I've made in the past, especially since I'd like to think that I'm doing my best to avoid those mistakes, to avoid being a hurtful person to be around, period. I actually am starting to like who I am again. Why, then, did the world seem to like me better when I was someone I hated?

Maybe it didn't; maybe I was just easier to take advantage of.

Enough depression; it's enough to make a girl want to gag on her own spittle.

Yesterday, I finally did it. I finally got myself a real LBD (little black dress):

I cannot wear a bra with it. It provides easy access to the boobies. I'm sure there is a man or two out there who wouldn't mind. Perverts. *wink*

Also, my best friend, Steph, who kindly went with me, had her very first (I think?) book signing yesterday. I went and watched her slowly become famous. With small children. Who'd've thunk?!

April 28, 2006

Something is wrong with me ...

How can it be that when the choice is between me or a long distance relationship, I'm the loser?

Am I really that bad? Really? That bad?

This is very depressing. Fuck it, I don't even think I want the guy anymore (Someone who treats me like that? Bugger 'im.), but still. That really, really hurts.

Really.

Can someone please just tell me what I'm doing wrong here?

April 26, 2006

I'm so proud. I used to date this guy:

http://news.com.com/Large+animal+a+hit+at+do-it-yourself+gathering/1606-2_3-6064975.html

What, can't I boast a little once in a while? I have to have something to be happy about.

April 25, 2006

So I cheated on my diet yesterday. Can't I be excused? It was Indian food. How could I resist? Really.

The past week has been ... interesting. I don't think I can call it "fun," per se. But interesting.

I spent Saturday night at the hospital with Mom. I think she was at her post-surgery worst. Not speaking, grumpy, incoherent and aloof. It was not a fun night; I had to help her go pee about 20 times throughout the night, and about a quarter of the time she couldn't hold all of it long enough, so I had to clean up the mess, too. There are some things you're prepared for in life. Watching your mother, a person who has been such a powerhorse and (at times) fearful personage all your life, suddenly become a mute, weak, floor-wetting mess is not one of those things that you can ever, ever be ready for. Ever.

24 hours later, though, she was great. Talking, excited about the prospect of going home, even saying that she thought that her sense of taste was better than before the surgery. She's home now, and I'm a bad daughter because I haven't called her yet today. I should do that right now.

Pause for phone calling

That was a mistake. Now I have to pick up my brother at noon from school, because he has a minimum day. My dad has the flu, my sister is taking my mother to a doctor's appointment at the time, and my brother is too ditzy to be trusted to get a ride home set up.

I hate my life.

I made stew today — or rather, I'm making it as we speak. Throw a bunch of stuff into a crockpot (hooray! I'm using it for the first time), put it on low, and supposedly cookery magic happens. I can't wait. Mmm. But now I will have to, since I am going straight down to San Jose post swimming tomorrow morning. Look how beautiful it is right now:

Well, okay, it doesn't look great. Yet. But it will! I promise! I think. I dunno. This is the first time I've done the crockpot business, so I just have to cross my fingers.

And probably come home first after swimming to turn it down, so it doesn't over cook. Blah.

My boss, and friend, is currently having a "mid-life" crisis. Remember that he is 28. Don't these things usually wait until you're 40 or something? At any rate, he's decided to stay home and not leave the house until he's figured out what he wants to do with his life. It's a resolution that has involved backing out of a couple of concerts we were supposed to go to together this month. (This works out, though, because I have to back out of those concerts, too, re: the family situation ... no planned anythings until this has died down a little. Bleh.)

This last weekend was his first at-home. He spent half of it watching the British Pop Idol — the show that inspired the current American Idol BS.

I think he's going to be at this for a long while. Sigh. He's really the only person I know in the area that's fun to go to shows with. I think it's time to find some new friends. Ones that don't consider 10 p.m. as bedtime.

Eric's little crisis has semi-prompted one of my own. Well, not a crisis, per se, but a desire to have some goals for the year. Not quite resolutions, but at least some things I would like to have done by the time December rolls around. This morning before going to bed I made a list:

That was easy. Somewhat.

The socks for Wanda and Chip are new additions, since their birthdays are both in May (next month! Gargh!). I'm impressed and proud of myself for what I've done so far on Wanda's socks:

I haven't done much color work, and definitely not in a long time (stripes don't count ... it's just like using a new ball of yarn in a project). So the fact that it looks so good, unblocked, is fantastic. Hooray for me!

Chip's socks, on the other hand ... well, I got halfway done with the first one Saturday night, during my vigil, and tried it on to see if it would work. Nope. Cast on was too tight, and I think it's a little small all around. I have to decide if I'm going to add another repeat to the pattern (it's from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, a heelless sock pattern, since she had expressed a liking for it and a liking for "tube socks" when she gave that book to me), or up the needle size — amazing, me, upping the needle size on a pattern. Usually I knit so loosely but in this case, it's a pattern that should be knit with a lot of stretchability. Blah.

This entry has gone on long enough, methinks. Time to close it out; sorry to be so verbose.

April 21, 2006

Restarting my diet, especially since it's the Atkins diet, means several things for me:

• An increase in my grocery expenses (all that protein costs more than bread and potatoes; plus, I tend to cook my own food more when I'm dieting)
• A decrease in my eating-out expenses (because it's fricking hard to pass on my favorite sugary/carbalicious/not-Atkins-appropriate dishes when I go out to eat)
• Pork rinds ... With salsa
• Funky leafy green vegetables in my crisper drawer
• An early period

I got my period today — two days early, and I was spotting a little last night at work, too. I'm on the pill, so technically this type of thing shouldn't be happening. But the last time I seriously dieted, almost two years ago (I've kept the weight mostly off that long? Woot!), my period was also all wonky, despite the supposedly-steadying effects of the birth control pill.

I read up on it a little, and found out that fat tends to store estrogen, so when you lose weight — and therefore lose some fat — it releases that stored estrogen into your system, playing havoc with your regular cycles. So early periods are a good thing. Not that they were ever really bad; it's the late ones that you have to be fearful of.

Well, that and my own stupidity. I knew I was spotting, and still decided that wearing my white terry cloth pajama pants was a good idea.

Oops. I'll have to do a load of lights tomorrow, I guess.

I like the fact that I've only been dieting for a week, and can already see the effects. Next week: begin a regular swimming regimen. I swam twice this week, which probably helped with the loss, and want to get back to my old goal, back in August, of swimming three times a week, possibly with other random exercises thrown in on the non-swimming days.

I also like the fact that dieting encourages me to try new things in the kitchen. Today when I got home from visiting Mom in the hospital, I was starving and decided to make myself Thai Basil chicken. A little internet-searching, a 10:30 p.m. trip to Safeway, and some chopping and cooking and mixing. Voilà! Something tasty, easy, and relatively low-carb. Stole the recipe from here, and I may have to make that again, once I finish the leftovers. Substituted the "holy basil" with regular basil (next time I'll try to get Thai Basil, at least), ground chicken with cut up chicken breasts, thai chili peppers with jalapeño peppers, and sugar with Splenda (because, of course, otherwise it wouldn't be "low-carb" ... bless that pourable sucralose goodness. Bless it.).

I did learn from the experience that one should never touch any sensitive parts of one's face/body after chopping up jalapeños, at least not until the hands have gotten a thorough scrubbing. The inner lining of the nose is no exception — no, I didn't pick my nose! Honest! I just rubbed it with a paper towel that I had used to dry my hands off with. Damn spicy oils clung and infected! The solution was to stick my nose in a cup of water and sort of snort it in and out a few times. Funny how that works, better than wiping at it.

I also stopped by the yarn store today (Jesus Christ, will this entry ever end? Nope, sorry ... you're stuck forever! Mwahahhaa*cough**hack**ack*ha.), which proved both productive and anti-productive. Productive in that I picked up yarn for the birthday socks I plan on knitting Chip and Wanda — Wanda's are currently on the needles, in fact — and unproductive in that the yarn storelady "coerced" me into breaking my self-imposed yarn diet and got me to buy eight balls of sock yarn for myself. But! Each ball was just $3. I think one ball could be used to make one (short, lacy) sock. And! It was yarn that had been discontinued! Also! It was merino. Soft soft tightly plied merino that doesn't pill and is pretty. And the balls she showed me were an apple green. I don't like apples much (and I hate apple juice), but I do love me some apple green. Especially when spring has finally come to the city and the sun is out and I have a lacy sock pattern in mind just made for apple green yarn. So how could I resist?! Four balls of the apple green, and another four in a light blue. They also had lavendar and red and a lighter green ... but I had to control myself. I am on a yarn diet. And on a budget. I'm trying to save money. So yarn purchases must be under control.

And, for the most part, I think I controlled myself very well today. Let's just ignore for a moment that I probably added another mile of yarn to my stash just with today's purchases. I think that is something that can easily be overlooked, don't you?

Though perhaps I should go back and buy some more. You know, just in case I want it down the road ...

April 19, 2006

It is perhaps time to replace my flat panel monitor. The colors are dying, everything is looking very very yellow. Shocking to find that 17" flat panels are now half the price I paid for this one three years ago. I'll shop around, but probably wait until I have a wee bit more saved, especially since I have a wedding present to purchase and dresses to find for myself. :P

Until then, I can live with a little sickly yellow in my life.

Or, never mind. Apparently fiddling with the connection cord from the monitor to the PC fixed everything. Huzzah for saving $250!

My boss and I won the lottery last night. Since I owe him money, I let him have the entire winnings, which came out to be ... wait for it ... $7. Shocking. Instead of reinvesting it (someone else won the $265,000,000 Mega Millions jackpot ... the jerk) for a shot at $12,000,000, we decided to cash out and wait for next time. We're getting better; this time we were only $3 in the hole from what we put in versus what we got out. Next time ... who knows?

Mom's surgery is today, too. That's going to be a whole ton of fun. I'll call the family when I wake up to see how the chaos is going. Guh.

And finally, I'm starving myself to death because I spontaneously decided to start Atkins again — I was shopping at Safeway and realized suddenly that everything I was putting in my cart, save for the pint of Tomato Basil Bisque (Safeway's is the best, by the way ... it's like heaven) that I was reaching for, was low-carb. What better incentive than to give it another go? I've got a good 15, 20 pounds to lose before I'm at my happiest-goal-weight. I've even started attempting to go to the gym on a regular basis again, though it's a no go today, seeing as I got four hours of sleep yesterday in two two-hour blocks. :P

And on that note, I should be in bed. Wish me luck.

P.S.: I think my "About" link is finally working. Check it out, yo.

April 13, 2006

Do you ever sit around, thinking up conversations with other people that probably will never happen? Do you ever plan out what you would say to them, if a certain line of topic ever came up, or if a certain long-awaited conversation ever took place?

That's the pre-bedtime exercise for this morning, it seems.

What would I say? Oh, I'd say a lot.