Thanks for the fish

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.

Since January 1, I’ve lost about 8 pounds and am happy about it… but I’m still at least 5 pounds above the heaviest that I really want to be. In other words, I don’t want to weigh more than 150 - even at night when I have pms and have just drinken a gallon of water. But the motivation is lacking a bit, as is evidenced by the fact that I had an oreo frosty for dinner - with a martini for a chaser.

So… J said today he wanted to lose 5 pounds so let the weight loss war begin! Wer’e still working out the rules but I’d like to be at least 5 pounds lighter by the time I go to dc May 9. Got on the treadmill tonight and did some interval walking (i know, hard core, right? watch out granny). I want the prize if I win to be a massage at a spa. I’m going to kick his ass. Though it does seem that men can lose weight really easily.

I was pissed off and irritated all day. I ate horribly, smoked and had 2 diet cokes. Still no cute IT guy at work and my mini Ryan Adams wasn’t even at the grocery store. It seems every time my friend D is not there, I have a shitty day. It’s not like I don’t have anyone else to talk to, but somehow she diffuses my bad moods. But essentially work is going really well. I’m busy as shit, though I really need to start getting some stuff done. I may even work the weekend - which could work since J is out of town in Boston. Then next week, I’m in Boston for a bachelorette weekend.

Picked out 2 recital songs that I’m not crazy about, but I wont’ even get into that. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for my piano teacher and I coudl really just whopp her upside the head. Tonight was like that, so whatever. One song is “Only Time” by Enya, which is actually a song I really like. The other is called “Jessica’s theme” from The Man from Snowy River, whatever that is. It sounded pretty. This is for the big recital so I have to memorize them both, but not till June.

I think J and me are finally back to normal. That was really weird. We go through phases and all but that was the worst one in a while. He’s really sort of a master at letting things blow over. That’s not an art everyone has.

the snow is melting. purring cat on my lap…

double income,  no kids, that is. Tonight I picked J up (actually he met me at my work and left his car there) then we went to the local audubon headquarters, where they have some trails and stuff, to go for a walk. Then we drove around Falmouth (sort of a ritzish place where people are rude and snobby) and found a little deli to have dinner at. The people were super nice, which is unusual in snobville and I had a salami sandwich and a perrier. They also sold wine there and italian ingredients and stuff. So as we left, J said it cost 20 something dollars!! For 2 freaking sandwiches, a bag of chips and 2 bottled drinks… !! We’re in MAINE. ?? But J is in a big buddhist phase so he said “well whatever, we don’t have kids” then I remembered there was an acronym for that… double income no kids.. dinks!

I feel like people at work must think I’m loaded because all of a sudden I’m spending money like water. Got a $1500 bonus today so my kayak fund is complete! I’m thinking about this one. http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&categoryId=49698&sc1=Search&feat=sr Hello, you sexy thang!

And yes, I’m still buying a mini. Change my mind on the color daily but I’m back on a blue kick… with white racing stripes? ahhhh… : ) And then there’s Africa, which I still have not booked. Me and J are getting along better but I have to admit that I checked out the Portland apartment listings just to see if I could afford rent. Is that bad? But I know I couldn’t handle that kind of stress. Breaking up is hard to do. Especially when you’re married, have a house, 2 cats, and no particularly good reason to do it. Then I think to myself, if I wasn’t married what would I be doing right now? PRobably eating dinner by myself, surfing the net, being depresed, getting drunk alone and hating myself. So….

Yeah. Pretty much the same thing as I’m doing now, but with less money and no one to talk to! Isn’t it funny how the older you get it seems the less your friends count. I have friends but  I would have absolutely no one to hang out with if I was single. I suppose I would just move back down south (though I would deny that) so at least I could go to my sisters houses for dinner sometimes.

But… I have decided to live each day, day by day, and whatever happens happens. Is that the most redundant sentence ever? Things work themselves out. You know… I feel bad complaining because I’m ecstatically happy a lot. And I think about couples who are miserable together who stay for whatever stupid reason… and people who have multiple scelerosis, etc. etc. and well.. you know where I’m going with this. I guess maybe we all just always feel like we could be happier. Except some days I really don’t feel like that. Some days I’m as happy as I can be.

So fuck it. I’ve been watching Mists of Avalon, which one of my coworkers loaned me after I told her that I really got into things like Renaissance Festivals (remind me not to tell anyone that I like Star Trek). It’s good… very scandalous.. incest and sex and really sexy long haired medieval men. Speaking of sexy men… I haven’t seen many lately. It’s like they all disappeared from work. Makes life a little more boring but luckily I’ve been super busy anyway. Oh.. smoking. So the quitting smoking effort hasn’t been going great. Why did I start again? But I’ve only been having maybe 4 a day… one or two on teh way to work. one or two at luncthime. one or two on teh way home. That’s not too bad.

Getting good use out of my martini glasses. Still bored as hell at night. Need to find something to do. Might even investigate this thing called “TV” (out of pure desperation).

I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel depressed and hopeless and all that crap. And I’m dying for a cigarette. It must be time to play bad habit whack a mole again. I’ve been doing really good on the drinking (other than this weekend). I didn’t have a drink last night and I ran and felt great and just kept thinking how great I’d feel running the next day without having had a drink for 2 days. But for some reason when I cut back on drinking, I really want a cigarette. You know what I should do? Spend my $10K on freaking therapy instead of going to Africa . Honestly. I feel like I have all these unresolved issues that I just can’t get over no matter what. Half the time I’m ecstatically happy with my life and just can’t believe how well everything has turned out, and the other half of the time I’m just…not. I can rationalize everything I feel and try to talk myself into believing I have everything worked out, but then the same insistent thoughts (obsessions?) keep popping up. It’s annoying and I know I should just distract myself. On the other hand… sometimes I feel all better and then I’m afraid that I won’t be able to be creative if I’m not in that tortured emotional state. So then I wonder if I’m intentionally sabotaging my emotional health in order to have material for my book. Same old negative cycles…

 

 

I read this book called Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman at the beginning of the year, and it really helped me. It teaches you real practical ways of working positivity into your life. So every night I’ve been writing 5 things I’m grateful for, and it really helps. But I’ve been slacking off a bit. I think I need to get back into that, get back into my book research. Maybe I’m just overreacting. And I don’t even have PMS. I was pretty proud of myself for not buying ciggies at lunch time. I bought chocolate and diet coke instead.

 

 

On another note. Now I’m rethinking the $10K and wondering if I should invest it. I know… that was exactly what I wasn’t going to do. I find that the more money I have, the more frugal I get. It’s the Scrooge complex. I mean, I could put it in the bank and make $500 in interest on it next year and buy myself a kayak. : ) Well, we’ll see. I’ll put it in the bank for now and see what happens. I don’t envy rich people. Having money is too much responsibility. Luckily for me, I’ve always been cursed with money and am pretty convinced that I will never have that problem in my life!