Caterwauling

I believe lots of things. Not usually what anyone tells me (a hot stove will burn me? Gotta feel for myself. OK, ouch, heat hurts), and definitely not what the right-wing nutjobs are selling (we’re different than George Bush!! We’re only using his speechwriters; they’re not going to script out the next four years. No siree, not at all!).

But I do believe in me, in fate, in God, in good things someday coming to good people, in love. I am trying to keep up these beliefs through faith, as life hasn’t really shown me evidence of most of these things yet. But I can’t go on if they aren’t out there, so I’m just waiting my turn.

I thought I’d heard everything, but recently I learned that my body has gone into starvation mode.

Humph.

How the hell is that possible?

I seem to have plateaued in my de-pudgifying efforts. Apparently eating a salad a day, along with some rice cakes and maybe some yogurt, isn’t enough nourishment. Who knew?

It’s very strange, because a few weeks ago, I was the one championing the fact that you’ve got to eat to lose weight. Because I was still eating pretty well — just healthier. And I don’t know if I’ve gotten too busy, too apathetic, too broke or just too “I know better than you,” but the less I eat, the less progress I make.

Damn it.

It of course occurs to me that my problem never really was overeating. Poor food choices, sure, but not necessarily always a quantity issue. Cheap food isn’t exactly the healthiest.

And now that I won’t put anything in my mouth that doesn’t have some redeeming nutritional value, well, that means I may not eat at all.

It’s weird to be sitting here at 10 p.m., just home from work, with no appetite whatsoever and mostly feasting on all the thoughts flying around like a weird combination of butterflies and hornets inside my head.

I mean, I’m annoyed because I haven’t felt well enough to do my work at my usual speed. I’m agitated because I got a resolution (more or less) and it just ain’t what I wanted it to be because, hey, maybe he’s just not that into me. I’m thrilled that I stood up to someone for something I desperately need that I may never get. I’m curious about the boy from long ago and far away who seems to want to be in the here and now. And I’ll never stop wondering about something else I just cannot say to anybody.

But …

I’m so much better off than I was. Twenty-five pounds ago, I wasn’t swimming in my clothes and buying new ones. Well, I’m definitely getting new bras, since I seemed to drop a size there. (Damn!) I’m the proud owner of a new workout wardrobe (although my dumb ass still hasn’t bought proper workout shoes).

Twenty-five pounds ago, I wasn’t taking photos of myself just to monitor my progress. I mean, if I’m losing boobage (yaar), then I am clearly losing weight faster on top. Fine. So each week, I’ve snapped a photo of my face. Nothing exquisite — just for comparison’s sake.

And you know what? The girl who hasn’t posed for a photo in years suddenly sees a new light in her eyes. She’s actually picking a photo or two to put on her profile. She’s getting e-mails and private messages from boys she knew from college and beyond who simply take a moment to tell her she looks hot.

Hot. Me!

*blush*

And let’s face it, 25 pounds ago, I would never have called that boy back. I think I stopped taking myself seriously for a long time. And then I had my stupid epiphany in which I realized the heart, she’s still beating. And maybe beating a little faster when it comes to someone in particular. But then the beating stopped, cold in its tracks.

But there’s a new boy, and he jumpstarted it. Now, I’m not going to claim that it is anything or that it will be — it’s still early, and we all know what happens when I get my hopes up. (There goes that “seeing by faith” thing again.) But this is a story that I thought was over, and maybe the book was never totally closed.

In any case, people are seeing me again. And maybe they always were. Maybe I was the one who assumed no one was looking.

If there’s a good kind of wrong to be, then this is it. 🙂

Anyway, so that’s my journey that I’ve been on, and the one I will continue along. With some modifications, of course. The de-pudgification process feels like the only thing I have any control over, so of course I’m frustrated to be stuck in neutral right now. But at least it’s not in reverse, and I can get it moving back in my favor again.

After all, I’ve got a lot of adventures ahead of me. And the ones I can have RIGHT NOW are motivation enough. …

more cat pictures

Am still slightly blown away from yesterday’s memorial service for Leanne. I was fine — cheerful, even — but once I heard the first sentence out of J’s mouth (and saw him cry), I was done for.

I’ll never forget what he said. And I’ll never forget how I felt. I’ve had two friends ask me to reconsider my reconsideration of my epiphany. After yesterday, I might.

What I will say was that here was this beautiful person that many of us only knew peripherally. And yet, there was a venue overflowing with people whom she had touched in some way — some lucky enough to have known her well; the rest of us getting a glimpse of the person we missed out on knowing better.

And what I know I loved was that, not only did they play Bon Jovi in her “favorite songs” soundtrack, but that the celebration was equal parts tears and laughter. Maybe just a shade more laughter. As it should be.

The overarching theme in my head for the past two weeks was solidified. I want a love like theirs. Not transient, of course — but the easy soulmate-type compatibility that he described to us. I barely knew them as a couple but what I did witness was downright effortless. It clicked. It worked. It was strong and real and natural.

And as I look around for those natural connections, well, it makes you wonder why you spend so much time on forcing what just doesn’t fit with all the other ones. And not only maybe pretending to be something you’re not, but also pretending they’re something that they, simply, are not, as well.

Do we think we’re noble or do we congratulate ourselves on being overachievers? Who taught us that it’s supposed to be difficult? And is anyone ever going to show/prove to us that it doesn’t have to be?

Oh well. Time to get ready for another harrowing week of work. Besides, at times like these, the story is best told through music. Click to play; lyrics are below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

The blog usually goes dark around July Fourth, and I mean that in any sense of the word you want to give it. I don’t often post and if I do, it’s pretty depressing, so why bother?

July 3 brought my great-grandmother Anastasia’s birthday (she would’ve been 100) and July 4, just as fireworks are starting to be shot off across the land, brought the nine-year anniversary of my grandmother Rose’s death. July 5 marked both the birthday and date of death for my great Uncle Stan, Anastasia’s brother.

It oftentimes takes everything in me to make it to July 6, so here we are and phew, am I glad that this particular anti-holiday is over.

I’ve waxed and waned over the failure of the healthcare system for every death that I’ve experienced, so I’ll spare you the Charlie Brown’s teacher routine and just say how glad I am that I knew these wonderful people, even if it was just simply too short a time to really get to know them.

I’ve never talked about Uncle Stan, mostly because he was some strange entity who lived on the farm with Aunt Josie. What little I remember of Josie was that she always wore sheer white tights and hadn’t shaved her legs in decades. I also remember that she claimed she bathed in Clorox, although I don’t think anyone could survive that kind of trauma.

What I remember most about Stan and Josie was that they talked about “kidnapping” me, of taking me to the farm because they never had any kids of their own and they would have loved to have me there.

Sad to say, I spent my youth pretty fucking freaked out over visits from Stan and Josie. 😉

Two weeks after my high school graduation, shortly after we lost Aunt Josie, Uncle Stan showed up on the doorstep with a cashier’s check for me. My grandmother had apparently told him how I had applied to several top-notch colleges and had gotten accepted to every last one. Only problem was, I didn’t have two dimes to rub together.

Sure, I got a full, one-year scholarship for the school I ended up choosing (for that very reason), but room and board wasn’t covered and I really wanted to socialize myself that first year. (Read: I wanted to get the fuck away from my family at the first-available opportunity.)

The amount of the check isn’t important — those of you who had your parents pick up the bill for college would say that barely bought you a semester. But to me, it was a million dollars.

My grandmother and I had many fights over that money … she wanted me to buy a car, live at home and find a job till I got married. *bwahahahaaa* I figured I had a genius-level IQ and a desire to make a difference in this world, so I was going to use it for school.

I ended up making the money stretch for a few years. I got lots of loans and grants and found that apartment living cost a third of what the dorms did. (Without having to buy a meal plan, I didn’t have to eat, so that helped!) I know some people around me were resentful because I got that helping hand, and I was sometimes forced into being generous.

I used the last of the money on a round of roommate roulette that meant I couldn’t finish my senior year on time. So I worked three jobs and saved and ended up having a year-and-a-half-long senior year when I did go back.

Anyway, I guess in the hustle and bustle of life, there are so many seemingly forgotten people at unmarked graves, whether via cremation or simply the family’s inability to afford a headstone. And I don’t want this world to not know that the people who have helped to shape me were here.

I didn’t get this far on my own. Yes, I fought every step of the way, but sometimes when things looked downright hopeless, a gift appeared out of the bloody blue, at the exact moment it needed to.

Along those lines, I made a friend this week. We both grew up in the same area, we both lived at the same apartment complex two years ago and never crossed paths, we live in the same area now, we both take our two cats to the same veterinary practice and to the same doctor, to boot. Plus she mentioned she’s been wanting to visit a new church, and oh gee, it’s the one I’ve attended for the past seven or eight months! We’re the same age and she’s about to inherit her mother the way I did. It’s just spooky, how someone can strike up a conversation and it’s like, how have we not met before this?

I was telling another friend that I’m more giddy about having a new friend than I am about getting a date. Dates are hell. Dates suck. I don’t care if there’s free food, as I am eating rabbit food these days anyway.

Dates are playing dress-up and pretending to be whomever it is that they think they want you to be, even though they don’t know what the hell they want and you really have to spend the whole time subtly grilling them on whether they’re really the victim they present to you or whether the common denominator in all their failed relationships is the fact that their dick won’t stay firmly in their pants.

You wonder whether they’re attracted to trainwrecks because they either have too much sympathy for people in need (ooh, aww, reminds me of me!) or because it allows them to keep the world at arm’s length and they are simply too self-involved to ever love anyone or anything but their PlayStation or Wii console.

Anyway, a FRIEND! Now THAT’S something joy-inducing. Someone to do things with, talk to, experience things together … someone who won’t tune you out while you’re talking because somebody with a nice rack bobs on by.

Don’t get me wrong … a good date DOES get the ol’ juices flowing. But in my quest to really, truly find out who I am and what I’m supposed to be, I’m jazzed when I meet someone who has either been where I’ve been or is headed where I’m going because that’s a signpost along my way.

This isn’t to discount the importance of people who have come along my path already … they were there for a reason. And while perhaps it’s my own doing (or lack of doing) that they aren’t traveling beside me right now, I have fond memories and a lot of gratitude that they showed me the next destination and, in their own way, prepared me for it.

And, in turn, I will replicate Uncle Stan’s actions to someone else who’s praying for a miracle, when I am in a position to perform one. That’s all it is, just a cycle of seeing who/what you DON’T want to become and instead emulating those whom you DO respect and admire.

And the thing about a friend? It’s just nice sometimes to have someone who’s right where you are, along for the ride. Even if we offer nothing but moral support to each other for a brief period, till we get to our next stop on the journey. If it’s the same stop, great. If not, so long and thanks for all the fish.

All right, time to pack and launder and work my eleventy billion hours and get no sleep and roll out to the ‘burbs to the airport and meetings meetings meetings and finally a reprieve. Bah. God give me strength to get through the next 72 hours!

Was this what I was dreaming of when I was working so hard to get into/stay in college? I don’t think so. But it’s sure not bad. I feel like I’m finally coming into my own, whatever that means. I feel like Anastasia, Rose, Calvin, Stan, Josie, Donald, Lenna and all the others who have left us during the past few years saw that I would go far, even when I couldn’t. I am glad they could see it then, since they can’t see me now. Or maybe they can.

I hope I’ve made them proud. And I’ve got a few miracles left in me yet. ….

Internet went all epic FAIL on me today, so I actually used my silly noggin and hauled my laptop to Panera to meet a deadline. Well, I didn’t meet it — it got blown by a good half-hour (or so). You should’ve seen me driving on the freeway to get here — who says you can’t traverse 2 miles in 90 seconds?

speaking of little things, my 4 1/2-year-old niece and 2 1/2-year-old nephew went to see Barack Obama at a Springfield, Ore., rally. The boy was sitting on my friend’s shoulders and, when there was a silent moment in the rally, he waved and yelled, “O HAI BARACK OBAMA!”

And the Democratic candidate DID look over at him and wave, while the crowd cracked the hell up.

My niece, however — not to be outdone — took that opportunity to yell, “I GOTTA GO POTTY!” at that very moment.

My friend keeps telling me that she’s saving their baby clothes for me. Maybe if she’d stopped the story before the potty comment, I might be more amenable to the “shitting out rugrats” thing! 😉

Final feet-up day, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

It’s been a good three-and-a-half years (two of which were at this very desk), but it’s time to move on. One last (busted-up) feet-up day for old times’ sake, and two more boxes to pack, and I’m outta here. It’s not a day of endings — no, just the opposite. I feel like a completely new person. Bigger and better adventures await!

see more crazy cat pics

After consuming nothing but a frozen dinner and vending-machine cookies yesterday somewhere around 3 p.m., am feeling very full from a nice dinner at Los Tios and nummy ice cream at Dairy Godmother with mah homegirls this evening, after a full day of PodCamping.

Actually, it’s not just mah belleh that’s full, but also my heart as well. Thanks, ladies, for everything. *mwah!*

I usually keep my outings to myself, but this one bears repeating. We were talking about how, if we won the lottery, we’d join the ranks of the unemployed faster than you can say, “We’re going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too.”

While Tiff outlined her brilliant plan for tormenting people, Steph suggested she’d simply crap on her desk if she got the winning lottery ticket. I guess I went somewhere really bad in my own head after that comment, as I volunteered about myself, “Somebody spray some Febreze — I think Goddess just quit!”

I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard since, well, my friend at work and I discussed, well, our usual roster of things we discuss. 😉 It was just nice to do it on an 86-degree, sunny day on the patio of a Mexican restaurant with margaritas, sangria and queso for a change.

Scratch, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Took the poop monsters to the vet today. Maddie has slimmed down to a little over 10 pounds (down from 18 three years ago!) and Kadie is up to 10. That’s a whole lotta angry pussy to drag around town!

I have the scratches and the empty bank account to prove that I went today. *sigh* $300 for shots, exams and a “geriatric workup” for Maddie, who turned 12 years old last week. And, sadly, I forgot her birthday till I was forced to remember it for paperwork today.

Years ago, I took Maddie to the vet (pre-Kadie) and some little girl looked at her in the cage and asked me, “Izzat a dawwwgggg?” And I was like, how the hell do you figure a cat is a dog?

Fast-forward a good 10 years here, and as I dragged my little fudge muffins from the clinic, a family with four little girls stopped to look at what I was carrying. And, hand to God, one of the little girls asked me about Kadie, “Izzat a puppy doggy?” I said nope, it’s a kitty, take a look. And she was so cute — she said, “I’m very sorry I thought it was a puppy!”

Hell, I was ready to put down the cats and adopt HER! 🙂

Speaking of cuteness, this is Scratch in the photo — he’s the official mascot of my veterinarian’s office. My kitties had just gotten their shots and Kadie — who hissed and howled the whole time — was back in her cage. Meanwhile, Maddie was scooped up for some extra tests and it was the one time she wasn’t with me.

Scratch wandered in to say hello to me, and as I petted him, Kadie started having a huge hissy fit in her cage. Scratch went over to the cage to say hello — he’s very docile and quiet, but totally unfazed by Angry Kitteh.

In fact, to get some peace, Scratch found the opening in Maddie’s carrier and got comfortable inside of it.

I thought Kadie was going to go into convulsions over it, so I gently asked Scratch to evict the space, and he did.

The next vet visit for me will be to get Maddie’s test results (why oh WHY does she miss the litterbox by three rooms?) and the visit after that will be to get her furry ass shaved, as she’s a matted mess. (Poor baby.)

You know, the point of this visit was to find a way to put a stop to shit landmines. But after all the trauma my girls endured today, does anyone really think they’re NOT going to pay me back for this epic voyage?!?! 😉

I was telling a friend about another friend’s goofy-ass boyfriend. To describe him, I said:

“He’s the poster child for protection … witness protection.”

That is perhaps an understatement, but you get the idea. 😉