Thanks for the fish

what is going on? I’m going to California tomorrow. I already feel so run down and am not particularly looking forward to the long plane ride. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever gone on such a long trip alone… like alone alone. I’ve been to plenty of conferences in CA, but usually there is at least one coworker with me. This will be totally solo. I tend to think it’s sort of fun traveling alone, because you don’t rely anyone else and then you realize that you really are pretty self-sufficient. It’s good for the ol’ self esteem. Of course I would never admit to anyone that I’m nervous because I’m a badass… and I can’t say I really am too nervous. Just a little. : )

Had an altercation in the grocery store parking lot. Apparently I dinged a door in this lady’s fancy new red pickup and she got all bent out of shape. That one took counting to 10. I have a temper and boy did she activate it. So I said a few things, but mostly I just shut myself up and then drove away once she had her required insurance information. BITCH!!! grrr… I handled it ok. Yes, I audible said “fucking bitch” as I drove away, but well.. what do you want from me?? She was a bitch!

Anyhoo… it’s raining raining raining like it’s noah’s ark. All night… boy does that sound help me sleep. All day… boy did I want a nap! still… boy do I want to go to bed! I have to get up at 3 am to be ready by 4 am to get to the airport by 5 am to catch a plane by 6 am, to connect in NY at 7:30 am to get to CA at 11:30 am to be in lovely downtown Irvine by 12:30 or so. Actually I have no idea if Irvine is lovely or not, but I’m at the Hyatt, so things are looking up! I don’t think I’ve ever stayed at a Hyatt before. : ) Hopefully they are as nice as I’m imagining.

I’m actually sort of psyched about the conference. It’s about health literacy. So it’s about talkign to people who don’t necessarily have high educations about their health in a way they understand and can relate to. Something a lot of people I work with don’t quite understand. As a copywriter, it makes total sense to me, and I hope to get some solid factoids about health outcomes using these methods so I can say “See!” and hopefully get some good tips too. Because I suppose it is possible that I don’t know everything.

I’m pretty much packed. Brought mostly work clothes because I don’t really belive in wearing jeans to conferences. I know everyone does it, and you’re not at work, but you never know who you might meet. It’s always best to look professional. Bringing some books to read. Wicked - which my coworker/friend A gave me and says is awesome. Artful prose…artful sentences?? something like that that A & D brought me from a conference they went to. Looks like a good writing book that I will never read in my leisure time but could probably be useful in my job.. and in my fiction writing.  And a Carl Hiassen one that I picked up from the lending library at work. I should have plenty of time for reading.

I feel like rambling along about silly stupid topics, but for once I’m going to refrain. : ) I need to practice piano since I’ll be away till Sat. but will probably go lay on the couch and take a snoozaroli. Over and otu till saturday unless I stumble on internet access somewhere.

I keep forgetting to say… On Saturday? I was walking out with my parents to go to breakfast (sunday?) and right over my septic field a bald eagle flew right over! My eagle found me! I’ve got a thing for eagles.

Well, I had kind of a shitty day at work. My friend D is still on vacation so I don’t have too many people to talk to. I have 2 days before I go to California for a conference so I’m trying to catch up on things. Then I got a bunch of shit today, which is basically grunt work, that I had to do at the last minute because certain people didn’t plan ahead, and it all pisses me off. Besides, it’s that time of the month and I feel crappy anyway. And it’s cold and rainy and that doesn’t help. So I chain smoked all day and ate nothing but peanut butter, south beach bars, and diet coke. Felt crappy all day so picked up a bottle of lovely Ravenswood Zinfandel on the way home. My parents are here, and with a bottle of wine, they seem perfectly lovely, enjoying my homemade crabcakes and frozen Freshetta pizza and watching jeopardy and antiques roadshow on tv. : ) Such lovely civilized people.

J is cleaning, trying to make me feel guilty for being a horrible wife. My parents tell me to just sit back and enjoy it, so I guess I will. : ) My writing group is comign together. WE are trying to figure out where to meet. I offered my house, though it is out of the way. Nobody ever comes to my house, though I am not ashamed of it. Secrectly I long for people to look at my bookshelves and see what good taste I have and to comment on my taste in decorating as well. It’s sort of sad how we all say we don’t care what people think but we still would like for someone to agree with us (which doesn’t happen down here much, where the only audience is my in-laws and they obviously don’t agree with my asthetic.) I’m happy that one of the two guys in my writing group have agreed to participate. Not only do I like their participation, but I also long for someone to secretly flirt with. J said tonight that I like to flirt with guys and don’t like girls because I can’t work them. Whatever.

My next book, that I think I will start on my flight to CA is Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. My gay buddy says it is awesome. I have a bit of a thing about people who build books around existing books, art, etc. Like “Girl with a pearl earring” I can’t help but think they are riding on someone else’s coattails and sort of cheating. It seems more like a writing exerise than anything legit. Do you agree? Not to say the writing is not good.

There’s a cute guy at work who keep saying hi to me. He seems very arrogant, like he always gets what he wants. He’s friends wilth the guy who I really think is cute. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will never have sex with any of them (since I’m married. doh!) But they are cute. And I like men. And I suppose if I was single, I probably wouldnt’ be interested in them at all. So I’m coming to terms with teh psychology of attraction just a bit. But I have to say… men who look you in the eye and are not shy are in their own way, very very appealing (though I usually like the shy, nerdy type).

Wine is gone. I’ve been writing poetry in my dreams lately. And sleeping horribly. I’m run down and tired and not in the mood for travelling, but so it goes. Which makes me think of someone else. : (

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another perfect day. Blue skies, sun, nice temps. Went to lunch with an old coworker today and saw her baby, then came home and worked in the yard. Mulched some beds, trimmed back some perennials, then went out and bought some pansies for teh window boxes, and some lambs ear, some periwinkle… : ) Got the window boxes planted and a few more beds mulched, then freaked out because 2 of my beds are already totally overrun with clover… it’s only April! Ack! I can’t have lost control already. Oh well… I’m focusing on the beds that are not covered in clover and working from the most visible locations out and I’ll get it all done. It seem overwhelming already though.

Nature seems to have popped overnight. All kinds of things are coming up. My hollyhocks, the artemesia, the bleeding heart is already up and has flowers on it. The poplars have leafed out! They’re so pretty. Spring is really inspiring. I felt like bursting into verse all day today.

My parents are here. They got here last night, which means I got super drunk. I love them to death but I can only deal with them when I’m toasted. They’re coming back tonight and luckily I had enough vodka for one martini. Just enough to take the edge off.

I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. I guess we need it though that’s surprising because of all the snow that melted. For some reason things dry out quickly here. But luckily we usually get plenty of rain. Well, time for dinner. Herb encrusted haddock and green beans. yum!

today. Oh well. They won yesterday too, but I did go two days without a single cocktail. : ) I am having one tonight though. Can’t win ‘em all. I still like my system and have faith in it, and plan to one day market it (just kidding).

Anyway, so I went to my last writing group last night and it was so great. And all night I kept hoping that someone would bring up the idea of us continuing to meet and finally someone did! Yeah, god forbid I speak up.. timid lil me. So I’m ecstatic. I don’t know why it’s so important to me, but the writing group has just gotten me so much closer to where I want to be. First of all, it forces me to write. Before we just wrote in class and that’s good too. But for the final class we had to write something before hand and I guess I realized that I really need a deadline in order to make something happen. I’m not sure how often we will meet - weekly, biweekly, or monthly, but I’m super excited.

I feel very blessed in my life right now and again thank the lord that I moved to maine because none of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t. The problem with living somewhere where there are millions and millions of people is that you get lost in the crowd. Yes, there is a lot going on, but I never felt like I belonged to any of it. I tried a few things. Went to a few churches in search of god/dess, did a few other random things, but nothing ever stuck. Here, I’ve just found such a good niche and I feel like I belong… like at the music store I take lessons at, and my group, and at work, and even in the neighborhood (since they are all related to me and have to talk to me).  It’s just very cool being a child of nomads to feel at home somewhere and yet have the independence to feel that I could go anywhere too. But why would I want to?

I’ve been doing kind of a shoddy job at work lately. I turned in a project that really sucked and got called on it. I’ve had a lot going on but I still have plenty of time during the day to get my job done and do it right. So that sort of sucks, but all I can do is start over and do better. My boss wasn’t too hard on me. He said I should take it as a complement that he hardly ever had to say anything to me about the quality of my work. I’m not too sensitive about it but I feel bad. My friend D is on her wedding/honeymoon cruise so I’m a little bored without her. My friend A is still there but he can get on my nerves wicked bad sometimes. He overthinks everything and he can be a real Eeyore. And he’s a perfectionist control freak. But I love him (as only a straight married girl can love her gay guy friend).

I have piano tomorrow and my songs aren’t coming along, probably because I haven’t practiced them at all. I have a recital June 9 and I have to have them memorized. This is year 2 for me on this. The problem is that I just dont’ like the songs she picked and I’m still mad at her for the way the whole thing went down. She irks me sometimes… I don’t know why. I guess it’s pride or something that I pick up in her and it rubs me the wrong way.. or some really big need for people to say that she plays well… it’s sort of sad actually, but I’ve never been one to play into people’s hands. That’s mean I guess… if she needs approval that much, I should just give it to her. Anyway, whatever. Maybe it’s my own issue with not wanting to see people’s weaknesses or something.. I’m sure I could psychoanalyze but it’s strawberry shortcake time!

Well, I bit the bullet and cranked out a short story tongiht for my last writing class. I was seriously thinking about not doing and ditching the class, but that would’ve been lame. Besides, I want to see what the other people wrote. I’ll post my story on my other blog, which I haven’t updated since the 2nd day. : ) So much for writing everyday.

I continue to try to work healthy habits in my life. So what if I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was 15. At least I’m not giving up! Nobody ever gained anything by giving up, so I refuse to beat myself up about it. I went for a long walk tonight and according to my omron pedometer, here are the stats: 4769 steps, 4334 aerobic steps, 116 calories, 1.5 miles. Not bad, eh? I had one cigarette and didn’t even enjoy it, 3 diet cokes (whoops) and 0 (yes that is a zero) cocktails!

My new system is called Virtue and Vice. I have a list of vices: Smoking, diet cokes, eating bad, drinking, and not exercising (sloth). And a list of virtues: Eating fruits and veggies, drinking water, protein, whole grains, tea, weight lifting, aerobic exercise and meditating. The goals is to at least balance out the virtues and vices. So one cigarrette, plus 3 diet cokes, and one horribly fattening lunch = 5 points on the vice scale. And weighing in the virtue side I’ve got 2 fruits and veggies, 1 water (sad, I know) 1 tea, and 1 aerobic exercise. So it’s balanced. It sounds weird, but hey, it’s kind of fun. Maybe I’ll even reward myself if I end up with more virtues than vices.

I want to start a bookclub, but I dont’ know who to invite. I need more group things in my life. I’m sad my writing group is over. But I guess I’ll look for something else to do. I think it’s important to branch out and meet new people, even though the tendency is the opposite, at least for me. Well, yawn! I’m exhausted. Hopefully the diet coke won’t keep me up. I didn’t sleep well last night.

Well…first of all, I bought my kayak! My plan for the day was sleeping in, doing some mulching, working a short story for my final writing class… But J wanted to go to the map store and then hit Freeport and I needed to get my sister a present, so I went along. The map store is kinda cool. Delorme is a big map company and they’re based in Yarmouth, which is about 20 miles south of where we live. I drive by it every day on the way to work. They have the biggest rotating globe in the world, or somethign like that. She’s called “Eartha.” Anyway, it’s sort of one of those quaint tourist traps along Route 1, along with the big Indian and god knows what else. I looked around for a birthday present for my other sister (she’s a cartographer and her birthday is coming up soon too) but found nothing. J bought some charts of the bay near our house where we want to go kayaking.

So off to Beans. We’ve been planning on buying kayaks since last summer but were waiting for the “paddlefest” which is an event in June where you can try the different boats out in the water and get 10% off. But we wanted to have an idea of what we wanted so we stopped in at their paddling store. Well.. turns out they had 10% off all boats, 20% off all accessories…that’s huge when you have to buy everything, so we bought everhthing. Actually J didn’t get a kayak since his wasn’t in stock but I got the beautiful Necky Eliza in Lime green. Here she is.

Pretty, huh? : ) I got really stressed out though. But it’s over and she’s home and I’m under budget.

Thursday I finally went to my eye doctor (did I already write about all this?) Basically I’m allergic to my contacts so I have to wear my glasses for the next month. I’m taking 2 different eye drops 4 times a day. They still feel sore but they look a little clearer. I also bought 2 pairs of prescirption glasses..high definition too… Kate Spade.. $1000. What am I doing? But they’re cute.

Weight loss war… not going well. I’m actually up a pound. I feel like I’m covered in a big roll of blubber. But I keep eating and drinking.. J says it’s my writing that causes me to have bad habits. But that’s not true because I hardly ever write. Tonight though I started a short story for my final writing class on Tuesday. 833 words and I have yet to discover a plot. I’m sure it will show itself eventually though. The openeing 2 paragraphs kick ass though… so much potential…

I’m beat. Worked all day yesterday at a kids festival for work. Ha! Yeah, I know.. how did I get that gig? Kid hater that I am. But they were actually wicked cute. The great thing about kids is that the littlest things can make them so happy. So it wasn’t bad and I made $300 in overtime. Carpooled with my boss and that was ok, but he asked me some questions about some issues that are gonig on and I didn’t really want to get into it. But whatever. I tried to be nice but honest.

Other than that, I’m totally broke! But the weather is awesome, the daffodils are blooming so life is fucking grand!

Turn your head. one day I’ll figure that one out.

Oh, so get this. Remember the bird mites from last year? We had a bird’s nest under the porch and when the birdies left in late July, their little mitey mates decided that I was breakfast, lunch, and dinner for them. Then they got in the bed, and all over the house adn I thought I’d go insane. But we did eventually get rid of them. So I get home yesterday and J says to me “I watched the bird build her nest under the porch all day. Because of my new buddhist beliefs I can’t remove the nest, so you should do that tomorrow.” Um, yeah. The bird mites were absolute hell, but I cant’ ruin a bird’s nest. The poor thing slaved away on it all day. : ( So I was basically in tears and stressed out. But this morning I looked online and it is apparently against the law to do anything to a wild bird. yay! I was happy. J said “nobody would ever know” but I’m a law abiding citizen so I’m not touching it. Next year, we will have to really wire off teh  porch so she can’t get back under there. My plan this year is to watch closely and as soon as they are out of the nest, to get it down and as far away from the house as possible. And keep the miticide handy. fun stuff.

So, to recap the day, I went out looking for a birthday present and spent $1700 on kayak supplies. But in the end, I got my sister a cute gingham sleeveless buttom up top from beans and a packet of Stonewall kitchen snickerdoodle mix. At least I’m keeping the money in Maine. Even if it’s all made in china.

And that is the weekly update. I’m sooooo ready for bed right now. It’s 7:25 so I guess I have time for a quick nap before bed~

What is there to say? I went to the gym - check! uh… went to work - check! That’s about all I did. I think I should probably stop smoking again. I always pick it back up for the wrong reasons and now I just feel icky all the time. coughy and smelly and now I’m really addicted again. It takes me a while, but now I’m getting that agitated feeling every 2 hours. Time to torture myself and quit again. Why do I do this?

My final writing class is next Tuesday adn I’ve had a month to write something for an anthology and have nothing. I have one little poem that I’ve already “published” here but I feel like I need something more substantial, but I’ve written nothing. Well, the weekend J was out of town I wrote some stuff, but nothing worth making more of. Ugh. Now I’m working all day Saturday but maybe Sunday I can throw somethign together. Or skip the damn thing entirely. I liked going to that… Now I feel like I need osmething else to occupy my time. I actually watched TV on Monday night. I’m not oppossed to tv watching, I just don’t do much of it myself. But I haven’t felt like doing anything else. I have a pile of books to read, piano to practice, songs to learn, but I just sit here and surf the net and drink martinis and then wait till 9 (sometimes) to go to bed.

Have an appointment with my eye doctor tomorrow. I’m so tired of this. I can’t wear my contacts and just feel gross when I wear my glasses. I know eventually I won’t be able to wear contacts at all. So… while I’m there tomorrow I think I”ll get a new pair of glasses… something a little sexier. If they make such a thing.

J is kicking my ass at our weight loss war. I’ve lost 1 pound, he’s lost 4. That rhymes. : ) Maybe the beginning of a poem for my writing group. Well, one more martini. I had 6 ciggies, 2 or 3? diet cokes. It’s like bridget jones diary.

back! Peeping down at the pond… soon it will be deafening. Yes, another sign of spring. The crocuses are out and pretty in their purple and yellow in the front garden. Went out last night and raked the boulder bed of all the oak leaves that fell last fall. Weeds are coming up already! Luckily I have about 15 bags of mulch I never laid last fall so one of these nights I’ll go out and put that down. My plan this spring is to mulch, mulch, mulch before the weeds can catch up. Not much blooming… the forsythia isn’t even out yet. But the daffodils have poked up and hopefully soon they’ll be blooming. I still need to cut back my perennials from last fall… the snow fell so early and never melted so I never really had a chance.

Went to my primary care doctor today about my eye (finally). She said it might be allergies and prescribed some drops. i don’t think it’s allergies, so I’ll call my eye doctor tomorrow. I guess I should’ve just done that originally but I never know which doctor to call. I think it’s probably just dry eyes or something but it’s gettting very painful and has been like this for 2 months.

What else? 5 ciggies, 2 diet cokes, 1 cocktail today… could be worse…? Also went for 2 walks and ate ok. We got this ready to cook meal from hannaford. Italian chicken with green beans, gnocchi and pesto. Everything’s already cut and packaged up and then you just follow the directions. $20 for 4 servings, but super easy and really tasty. Compared to a restaurant meal that’s cheap. I begged him to pick one up because I was craving home cooked food and didn’t feeel like cooking.

Picked up my music last night and have been practicing. I have Only Time by Enya. It’s not super easy, but not too hard either. The other one, Jessica’s theme from the man from snowy river, I’m not sure I like it. It sounds like that theme from that tv show “the greatest american hero” which just brings back awkward memories for me. I have Ashokan Farewell as my backup… I can play that one already but it’s hard enough that it would be challening to memorize… Oh, I don’t know!

Work sucks.

 This pretty much sums it up:

It’s good to go out and do things because it really makes me appreciate being married – so I don’t have to hang out with girls very often! God, if that’s what it’s like to be single, let me never wish that on myself again. Not that it was all bad. There were fun moments. I got pretty sh*tfaced and am fairly certain I had fun, though I can’t say I entirely remember it. Most of the night I spent stumbling around the Boston streets trying to find somewhere to buy cigarettes. But there was some good food, good wine, good mojitos, good martinis, and a salsa dancing lesson. Then I even tried it out (dancing, that is) with some random Latin guy. I gave up halfway through the song though. I suck! Ha ha.
The weekend was actually a total nightmare, starting with me locking my keys in the car in Portland on Saturday morning. Then a lot of awkward silences with people I don’t know. Lots of mommy conversations about kids, along with the crap about weight, neither of which I really could contribute to, so I didn’t even try. I really hate women sometimes. Not to mention that I blew hundreds of dollars. Grrr… The worst part is that this was just weekend 1 of a very busy spring and I’m exhausted already.

Boston in the morning for a girl’s weekend… should be fun. We have a matinee show of Menopause… whatever that is. : ) and lunch and tootling, and then dinner and then salsa dancing lessons! I’ll have to get pretty drunk to try that, but I guess that’s ok. I’m going with my friend D, and her “crazy aunts” and some other friends of hers that I haven’t met. And 2 other girls from work are going for part of it. I threw a shower for her at work today and I’m so glad it’s over. It turned out really good though and I think she was happy about it. Not that I did it all single-handedly.. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. Anyway, it was fun, but the whole thing was stressing me out.

2 cocktails a night has become the norm. As has not exercising. Must get back on track… on Monday! Have a ton of work to do and got absolutely nothing done all day. BUt my hair looked good and I even let it go curly, so all is good with the world. And I lost 2 pounds this morning, though after the potluck lunch we had (lasagna, chicken chili, spanikopita, cocktail meatballs, etc.) lost my train of thought…

So I was just talking to J about people at work, and it’s such a weird regional maine thing that there is a certain body type that is very typical of maine women… big boobs, no hips, no butt, skinny legs. J’s mother has that body type and it’s just one that I’ve never really seen anywhere else before. Not that I’ve never seen a woman like that before, but never in such mass quantities. I think it’s a scottish thing. Wait - let me google something… yes! It’s a scottish thing. ha ha.. anyhoo… I must pack, wrap presents for yet another shower, maybe make some cranberry apple chutney, maybe watch that queen elizabeth movie about the golden age… etc. etc. : ) Happy weekend!