Exercise Chronicles, Part II: "I am officially insane."

All of yesterday, I wore 2.5 pound weights around each of my ankles, and I'm doing the same thing today. You wouldn't think that small amount of weight would make a difference, but it does. It felt really funny trying to walk, let alone run. It was like trying to wade through thick sludge. Plus, everybody was looking at me strangely because of the weights peeking out from underneath my pant legs.

I can't really explain why I feel this is necessary. For the majority of my young adult life, I've had body issues. I've never been fat, I suppose, but I've always felt subpar. I would work out constantly and got too thin there for a while. While I knew that I didn't weigh enough, I felt good. I felt pretty and fit and I could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. Now I'm at the ultimate low place, at least for me. I have gained weight and I just feel blah.

I just wish I could get to a point where I was comfortable with myself. It's true when someone says that anorexia is an incurable disease; therapy would probably help me but a part of my brain just eeks out when you talk about going to see a therapist. Paying somebody to talk to? Um, I can just talk to my mom, right? She's free and has a ton of emotional support just waiting to be dispensed. Or my dad. He's a pillar. My sister could probably also be an ear. But I almost feel like it's trivial. There are people in Haiti that have lost everything; children are starving; the elderly are being forgotten. Sigh.

Sorry, I've just been going through a rough patch. So I'm going to think of the sunshine coming my way tomorrow. Maybe spring really is just around the corner.

Week in Review

This past week has been interesting. For one, I hate snow. I hate ice. I hate being cold. And yet, it all managed to happen ALL AT THE SAME TIME. And then, the weather turned friendly, with sunshine and warm(er) temperatures.

I didn't have work on Monday due to President's Day, which I guess was kind of nice, but there's a lot of stuff I needed to get done at work (review applications, call people, go through item d's, submit new budgets, etc.) The middle part of the week was kind of a bust because I was playing catch up.

Which brings me to a whole other set of problems. I may have written about this before, but the guy who had the job I have now basically didn't do anything for the last month he was there. He had a lot of problems, mainly psychological ones, but he also just could not keep up with the work. So he just let it sit there and dodged phone calls from the nursing homes who were rightfully wondering what the hell was going on. So now, I'm calling the nursing homes and letting them know who I am and that I'm working on the mess left for me. They're pretty understanding, although now I'm getting calls, asking how far I am and if they'll be able to get any information. So we're both being patient with each other.

Moving on, I had to spend four hours of my day on Friday, driving to McMinnville, a town I had heard of but thought that maybe it only existed in some farmer's mind. But no, it's there. It's in the middle of nowhere, but it's there. I was able to meet a few other people that are in my field (nursing home case worker for the state), which was nice. I've been emailing these people for weeks now, and now I can put a name to a face. It's kind of strange, since a lot of the people I had assumed looked a lot different than they actually do. I'm also amazed at how the majority of state employees are older people, ones who have been there for a long while. I think I was the youngest person in the room.

Then, for Saturday, my body thought it would be fun to be sick, so all the things I had planned for that day were shot. I had wanted to wash my car, clean my room, set up a Quicken account, go on a hike, write a few chapters/short stories, etc. Instead, I watched "Howl's Flying Castle" and "Sliding Doors," played Lords Online (which is such a waste of time) and signed up for Gilt. I wondered about time zones and how someone (or someones) determined exactly how to divvy them up amongst the world. I even got a lot of plot holes worked out for my story. I read a lot of blogs (I'll fill you guys in on these later), posted on Tumblr and generally got nothing done.

And today (Sunday) seems to be no different. I was supposed to go to lunch with my family and a friend of my sister's who is moving back to Utah. I was going to do some laundry but the washer appears to be broken. Even though it is gorgeous outside, I don't feel it's the best thing to put my body through exercise, just in case it's not completely over this bug I have. I may end up going to the park to walk Zola and Maggie, but that's probably a pipe dream. (I wonder where that phrase comes from ....)

Here's hoping that this week will be much better and more productive than last week. I only have a few more reviews to do and the weather looks wonderful, according to Weather.com, but we all know how weather forecasters can be blowhards.

Now, on to Arbor Day.

Oh, Valentine's Day, how I have loved and loathed you over the years.

Now, however, it seems our relationship, be it benevolent, malevolent or ambivalent, has somewhat ended. I had completely forgotten about your existence, very similar to how I forgot that I have dated certain guys over the course of my romantic history. Despite the media's influence, I was neither thrilled nor dreadful of your advent, and now, since you will soon pass into yesterday in a mere few hours, I don't think that today has been bad. I was able to get four shirts for under thirty dollars, bought new mouthwash and lotion, and even ordered some very cute tops from the Calvin Klein website but a few minutes ago.

Granted, my hope to go ice skating with the females of my family - my father has a certain animosity towards anything involving skating, as he usually spends most of his time either hugging the wall, falling or complaining that the previous things were occurring, so he would have none of it - was squashed, as the Sports Plex was not willing to be open past 3:30 p.m., so I opted to spend time with the mother-person. I don't even think we really fought today, except when my mom was phantom-break-pedaling because I didn't stop a mile before a stop light.

And I was able to have a Valentine: little Zola, who will love me unconditionally, as romantic entanglements come and go. She woke me up with sloppy puppy kisses, one of the best (and sometimes worst) ways to bring in the morning.

I do have but one regret: Mass Effect 2 was not in stock at Blockbuster. But I ended up renting Miami Vice and Howl's Flying Castle, as well as purchasing Idiocracy for $5.00.

Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Does anyone else start giggling every time the chorus for "Sexy Bitch" (or "Damn, You's a Sexy Chick," if it's being censored for the kiddies) comes on the radio? Because I do.

Pop music has not been known for its Shakespearean lyricism, unless Ol' Will penned such a masterpiece as, "Baby, have some trustin', trustin', when I come in lustin', lustin', 'cause I bring ya that comfort. I ain't only here 'cause I want ya body; I want your mind, too. Interesting's what I find you*. And I'm interested in the long haul. Come on, girl. Yee haw."

And it infects EVERYTHING. Ke$ha** says, in way too white of a voice, "I'm talking 'bout everybody getting crunk, crunk; boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk ..." ETC ETC ETC. I mean, this is stuff children with dirty minds can think of, and it's selling like hot cakes. Or whatever, you pick your phrase.

But then we have Taylor Swift with her simplistic "bleachers rhymes with speakers!!" mumbo jumbo, and instead of me laughing, I'm now kind of irate. Add Lady Gaga's*** "disco stick" and we have ourselves a veritable cornucopia of blech.

There is a reason I stick with the likes classical music, Fleetwood Mac, Imogen Heap, Placebo and Rufus Wainwright. There is actual thought in their words - unless it's classical and then it's just music, but still.

Now get off my lawn.

* What the craptastic syntax???
** What's wrong with a plain old "S," Miss Sounds-like-I'm-Perpetually-Drunk? I will forever be stumped by this weird trend of spelling things oddly. Like Le-sha (pronounced Ledasha, duh). Whatever happened to Joan? 
*** Don't get me wrong. I love me some Gaga, but I get tired of hearing new euphemisms for male genitalia.

Of all the gin joints in the world ......

I just had lunch with an old friend of mine.

To be more accurate, he is technically an old boyfriend; while the truth is much more complicated, I'll just say we dated for about a month before he basically said, "I'm not ready" by being evasive and ball-less. We were able to get past that once I realized I wasn't interested anymore, but for a while there, we really couldn't work together. Oh, did I not mention that we were both servers at an Olive Garden? Where teamwork supposedly is key? 'Cause we were.

Anyway, we managed to get our friendship somewhat repaired once he apologized for being an insensitive ass, but then I left the restaurant for a job closer into town. We hung out a couple of times after that and talked on the phone intermittently, but eventually, as it almost always happens, we lost touch. I thought about him from time to time, wondering if he was doing alright.

See, this guy was a rather interesting individual. He was a drug addict and heavy drinker in his early life until he became a Christian in his mid-to-late-twenties, which totally turned him around. The kid with no ambition in life wanted to become a prison preacher, and he had started in that direction. A few times, he started drinking again but was always able to get himself back on track. We had exceptionally deep religious conversations compounded with frivolous video game arguments, at which we always laughed at the juxtaposition of the two topics.

I had always thought that he would land on his feet and hoped for the best for him.

Then I saw him in my office today. As many of you know, I work at the Dept. of Human Services, or, as it was formerly called, the welfare office. It was just strange to see him there, sitting among the other people applying for assistance. Not strange because I think he's better than that - if I had known such services were available when I was going through my rough financial patches, sure, I most likely would have done so - but strange on another two levels: 1) I never thought I'd see him again and 2) he's always been able to make do.

He had this sheepish look on his face when he recognized me. Of course, I was just surprised to see him period, but I'm sure the expression I had on my face didn't help his embarrassment. Luckily, I was not assigned his case - conflict of interest and kind of uncomfortable - and he gave his case worker his number to give to me. I was in an interview with another client at the time, so I called him once she left to see if he wanted to go to lunch.

"Sure!" he said.

Then he asked me to pick him up because he was walking. "My car was impounded."

We went to Ruby Tuesday's (their spring roll thingies are really good, surprisingly) and talked for a good hour. It was just nice to see him and be able to tell that, while he's not in such a good spot, he's still okay. He's had his problems over the past year but he's still positive. Again, we discussed faith and Final Fantasy XIII and giggled at the pairing. We compared each other's past year histories and laughed at our relationship follies. He then made sure that I entered his number into my phone and had me drop him back off where I picked him up, saying that he wanted to go down to the movie theater to apply for a job.

After letting him out of the car on the square, I drove off, thinking about how different our lives had turned out. When we met, we were both measley servers at a chain restaurant, forced to wear white button down shirts and garish ties, and now I'm on the employed side of the office, whereas he's in the lobby. I feel bad for him and wish him the best.

And I really hope the theater is hiring.