building a mystery

sounds about right...and if i didn't have this blog, i'd probably score even lower. :-p

You Are 38% Open

You are open at times, but generally you don't let many people into your inner world. It's possible that you have a friend or two that knows you well. But to most people, you are a total mystery.

How Open Are You?

holy shit, batman

min got her disability! first time approval! and she got ALL of it (ssi/ssdi). also it'll start in november instead of 5 months from now! which is what they told her before.

um. wow.

and, there was no "hearing". she just met with a guy she'd talked with once on the phone, who was super nice. min said before she could even sit down he said, 'you're approved!'

holy shit.

and thank god. and thank EVERYONE who was sending all the good thoughts, prayers, etc, because obviously it worked. and another virtual thanks to all her doctors, who apparently sent in all the necessary documentation THE SAME DAY the govt asked them for it. especially impressive given some of those doctors' histories. :-p

but anyway - woooooooooooooooooo!!!!

progress!

min got her disability hearing scheduled! it's this thursday at 11. please keep her in your thoughts, that it goes smoothly! and obviously results in her getting approved first time out of the gate. :-D

song du jour

breaking the habit.

let's just say that growth is hard, and sometimes, good as it is in the end, sometimes i get tired of it.

no WAY

i did NOT see this one coming:

You Should Be a Joke Writer

You're totally hilarious, and you can find the humor in any situation. Whether you're spouting off zingers, comebacks, or jokes about life... You usually can keep a crowd laughing, and you have plenty of material. You have the makings of a great comedian - or comedic writer.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

quilters! the musical!

finally posted a few pics from our little jaunt to bernal heights the other day, including this gem, which made me stop in my tracks.

anyway, also posted a few random pics from the last few weeks, so at your leisure i invite you to browse and smile.

girls in motion

last night i dreamed about going to a club. drinking, watching the throngs, joining the throngs and grinding away with some girl. just like college.

oh except for the "with some girl" part. because if you think i can be a wallflower now, back then i was permanently affixed to the wall.

anyway, i don't know that i've had that type of dream since then either, but my thoughts on why i had that dream last night:

1. yesterday min and i talked about going to a club tonight. which we won't, but still, we NEVER talk about going to clubs.
2. min's preparing to go on a month-long trip. yes month-long! to visit friends east and northward. which means that
3. i'm going to be by myself, free to do whatever, whenever. which made me think of clubbing, apparently, and is soooo likely to happen.

our last therapy session, which i said was almost like pre-breakup planning, also focused on us doing more solitary activities. getting out more in the world, without the other person, to remind us of who we are, and that who we are is strong, when we're alone. granted that was 70% targeted to em, 30% to me, since i am out and on my own more often than she is, already. but this was impetus to really crack on her trip, which had been being thrown around for months. now she is actively planning to go in mid/late october, with some $ help from a friend who wants her to visit. :-) otherwise we couldn't afford it til next year.

anyway, while she's gone, i AM looking forward to getting out and seeing people that maybe i don't see that often, doing things that she wouldn't want to do (maybe ice skate! haven't done that for a while), etc. but to be honest i'm really looking forward to cleaning up the spare bedroom. :-p because it is filled with mostly her stuff, and (i will talk to her about this first, of course, but) i want to get it all down into the basement. i haven't seen most of the floor in a long time. also, my sister & her hubbie are coming at thanksgiving and hope to sleep in there. and no, not on top of all the, um, stuff.

updates: the short, short version

• saturday we went to SF and:
  • saw our therapist, b, for a VERY difficult but also productive session. to be honest it almost felt like pre-breakup planning. very interesting.
  • strolled around bernal heights, which i have decided i'm in love with. they have an awesome little pet store with fabulous prices, for starters. and everything else is just adorable.
  • had a most scrrrrumptious dinner at valentino ristaurante. simply charming, our waiter let us pick the music that played, and the food….oh my. sooo tasty.
  • followed this with dessert at ghirardelli square. any day that ends with chocolate is good.
• had to get a new cell phone last night because cingular is run by punks. just kidding. we used to have at&t and well, finally had to convert. so today my right hand is a little tired from putting in phone numbers. because the old sim card was at&t they couldn't copy it to the new phone. so they said :-p
• OTOH my new phone is much cuter. i wish it was a camera phone, but maybe in a few months!
• marriage is being protected against sharks. i just thought you should know.

ok that's enough for now. later!

word of the day: oscillococcinum

don't ask me how to pronounce it but i have found The True Story of Oscillococcinum. and i tell you, it is hard to resist reading a True Story About A Very Long And Funny Looking Word.

or at least skim it and find these gems:

• But they could also grow and get one or two more balls.
  
• Roy thought immediately of a homeopathic application.
  
• Korsakov's first name is often incorrectly transcribed as Semen
  
• The mass of that container would have to be about a googol googol googol times our world, which would be incomprehensibly larger than the visible universe.

thanks, liz, for alerting me to this fine word which could be quite marvelous, but is in fact just questionable.

everybody loves hypnotoad!

that's right, hypnotoad

i now return you to your regularly scheduled bl...i mean...bzzzzzzzzz.

i <3 hackers (and food)

especially when the hackee is me. no, i have not turned to a life of crime; i've been sick with a head cold. although i'm very happy to say that i'm almost over it now. i used this time to reacquaint myself with the throat-soothing joy that is creamy wheat farina.

but i'm fickle and i'm going back to my power bars tomorrow morning i think. i'm too impatient if nothing else. cooking? in the morning? please. meantime if you hear me hacking, that could be because i was choking or because SOMEone was being funny. hopefully teh funny.

not really much up otherwise, although i just remembered: before i got sick i planned to blog about the MOST amazing salad i had in my LIFE. uh...blogging about a salad? but let me get you salivating:

- strips of lean, tender, smoky NY steak
- the most exquisite beets in the world
- the most decadent nectarines in the world
- oh-so-juicy mango
- perfectly ripe strawberries
- black beans
- tarragon (!) vinaigrette
- mixed greens

about every second bite i would start making "yummy noises". and ALL organic - the beets and nectarines were the biggest yummy surprise. although, wasn't sure i'd like the dressing but - damn. oh and i got it at hoffmans, a long time favorite of ours. afterwards we followed up with ice cream at another standby, marianne's.

so what were we doing in santa cruz? well, we *tried* to attend the women's game night at the diversity center. we got there on time, sign said open...but no one home. called, waited 15 minutes...whatever. at least we were in cruz, where there's plenty to do! and so we dinnered, desserted and tooled around downtown.

in other gallavanting adventures (see, i'm getting around to some of it!), a few weeks ago i went to the PWG texas hold 'em poker night. by myself, thank you. after i sat through the 20 MINUTE in-person infomercial about an upcoming 'lesbian fashion festival' or somesuch, and the explanation of the poker rules, i actually had a good time. didn't clean up like i did up in tahoe but all those newbies, it took forEvEr to do one round.

plus as i said, we wasted a lot of time with the fashionista sales pitch. but wait, there's more! while we were playing, the fashion queen came by. does anyone here want a flyer? to pass out to friends, family, coworkers? no! go away. a few minutes later: everyone done signing up to volunteer at the fashion police roundup? yes! and no one signed it, so go away!

but still i had fun. and as liz pointed out, by surviving the sales pitch i've now got ownership in a timeshare in hawaii. kick. ass.

taking the ring off

for years i couldn't get my wedding ring off. now i take it off every day.

when min and i first got together i was a size 6. living on macaroni, hot dogs and working 3 jobs plus full time school will do that to you. i always said i'd marry a cook, so i didn't need to learn how to do it myself.

and that's precisely what i did. min is a fabulous cook and that first summer we were together, neither of us worked. so we had fun in the bedroom, fun outdoors, and fun in the kitchen. before long i had ballooned up quite a bit. i'll leave numbers out of this but suffice to say i hit clothing sizes i never expected to. min could care less, actually said she loved me more, and so for the most part, so did i.

i'd guess six months or so after our wedding (which was march 15, 1997), i noticed that my ring finger was bothering me. oh hi. my ring was stuck! after a good half hour, using a variety of tricks, i finally got it off. and it stayed off for a full day so my little cells could breathe.

i tried to make a point of taking it off every few weeks but after another couple months it was ON. no amount of wheedling would entice it off.

and so it was, until last spring, when it came off relatively easily. huh? i'd noticed my pants were a little more comfy, but whatever. we didn't have a scale yet, but after min's stomach surgery we got a scale to track her progress.

well even though it was for min, of course i couldn't let that scale just sit there. it kept talking to me everytime i went into the bathroom. fine! so i stepped on...oh. nice! i'm down 10 pounds! from the last time a doctor pushed a weigh-in on me that is.

it's been a little over a year since i stepped onto that scale at home. at this point i am just shy of having lost 75 pounds. this morning min happened to come into the bathroom as i was getting ready for the day, and she was admiring some new clothes of mine. this led to a brief discussion of weight (weight loss=new clothes) and then when she figured out how much i'd lost, she practically squealed: you should be so proud of that! good job!

and i am...it feels good. but like jennie said the other day (about her own transformation), it also feels odd at times. stopping eating when i barely begin to feel full? choosing healthier foods because i *want* healthier foods? exercising because if i don't, i feel out of sorts the next day?

um. who is this?

incidentally, min now she says she likes me this size better, if only because it's so nice to be able to reach all the way around me, and be more limber. i agree. i also like the new clothes. min has a pair of camo pants she bought that shrunk, so she can't wear them. i have been eyeing them for months, and last week i finally got them on! they're not comfortable enough for *me* to wear, but if this trend keeps up, i should be able to wear them in a month. just in time for fall!

i don't expect i'll ever get to a size 6 again, and i am totally ok with that. i'd *prefer* to lose another 30 pounds or so, but if i don't, that's ok too. all i really want is to get into those pants. :-D

oh and the ring? i have to wear it on my middle finger now. flies right off my ring finger. i actually lost it for a few days, a few weeks ago, because it *literally* flew away while i was brushing off the bed. even with all the trouble min and i have been having, this ring means a lot to me, and i love having a symbol of her wrapped around my finger. well, most days. :-)

ps. i started this entry months ago, but finished it today, courtesy of clearcase. i love you, clearcase!

unspoken

min recently started blogging again. i'm very glad, because she needs an outlet just like i do. however, i actually read her blog (she doesn't read mine anymore) and so today she had a post that included a "quote" from me.

the quote was something i never said. something i've never even thought. however it WAS something SHE said. i remember it very clearly because it startled me.

i've tried to gently correct this misremembrance before, but since it has to do with me wanting to be with other people, it's tricky. i understand how she could think that i might have these feelings, and that it might even seem natural given the situation (especially at the time, which was back in april). might even be easier to believe that i just needed a good fuck than the truth, which is that i was bereft on a much larger scale.

at any rate, i'm sorry that that i withheld my feelings and i imagine i'll be apologizing for that til the day i die, although obviously the problems in our relationship are the result of both of us. i wrote to her about all this tonight, hoping that in written form, i am easier to assimilate. and believe. we shall see.

meantime - i'm sad and frustrated. we're doing better in some ways, but this monkey is still not off our backs. and i hate it.

gallavanting part deux

yesterday i gallavanted up to alameda to shop and explore some local parks. so, buncha new pix up on flickr. also, got 2 innertube shots of me from the lake berryessa trip!

as to what else has been going on in my world, well, maybe i'll write eventually. but as you can see, i've been drinking. and giving myself away. i'm not sure it's the best way to whore my way to financial freedom but it's worth a shot.