It all comes do…

It all comes down to the size and color of the dots.

–Me

Always at my expense…

I just had a pretty original thought: I accommodate others at my own expense.

I can state this with complete certainty because I googled said thought and found absolutely nothing to read. And if you think about it, that’s crazy because you can google anything you think is original and find out it has been felt/posted/said/stated/memoired/memorialized by others, usually many others, before.

I have no idea how to change that behavior. I don’t usually even recognize it until I’m too committed to stop. Occasionally I don’t notice until after the fact, which is nice, because I’ve already clawed my way to the other side. More often than not I come to the realization right here in the thick of things, when it’s too late, I realize I’ve over extended myself to the point of physical, mental or emotional exhaustion, so I tell myself I just need to get through “this,” whatever “this” is, then I will do a better job next time. We all know where this is going – I never do a better job next time.

I am quite frankly too physically, mentally and emotionally tired to explore this tonight, but I felt it was too important to not feel/post/say/state/memoir/memorialize.

 

The End.

52 Days Later…

I just got home from drinks and dinner with the Hawthorne Girls. The Hawthorne Girls are a group of neighbors and friends who live on, well…Hawthorne. We live in this awesome slice of urban/suburban heaven in Dallas. Our neighborhood is sandwiched in between Highland Park (think OLD Dallas Money), Cedar Springs (think gay man heaven) and Uptown (think Yuppie Lifestyles of the Now and Happening). Our neighborhood consists of several streets of houses, duplexes and apartment buildings mostly built in the 1930s. Every place has character. Every place has trees that have been here longer than the oldest person we know. It’s beautiful and vibrant and full of gay man and divorced women and young families and somewhere-in-betweens. I can’t see myself living anywhere else. Ever.

More important than the drinks and dinner (we do that a lot, especially the drinks), I had lunch today with a group of former coworkers, including the married man that I slept with in Vegas. Including, hands down, without a doubt, the man who gave me the most incredible sex I have ever had the pleasure of receiving. Or giving. Or fantasizing about. I didn’t think sex that good existed. Part of me wants to qualify this with the disclaimer that I have only slept with 5 men, including him, and that 3 of them have been post-divorce. But it was fucking awesome, and I think if I had slept with 500 men, this would be the one standout.

So I got home from Vegas with awesome sex on the brain and I really did hold out for several days. I did. And I tried to forget it and I tried to pretend it was nothing, but then my birthday came, and Craig poured the vodka really strong at Belinis, and I didn’t download the “don’t text drunk” app so I made the STUPID mistake of texting him, which freaked him out and caused him to ask me to meet him for lunch the following Sunday. When he told me he and his wife talked and decided to work things out, I said “good, you should work it out.” And when he said he didn’t want to make everything worse, I didn’t ask him if he meant worse by telling me it was nothing or worse by telling me it was something. I was just happy he didn’t yell at me. I apologized profusely the gave him the speech about my life being simple, with a moo-moo plan, he said “that’s great, because by then my kids will be in their 30’s.”

The Moo Moo Plan. So I am not blessed with a natural metabolism. Or a shortage of stretch marks. Or belly fat. Now that I’m almost 50, the amount of effort it takes for me to pass as someone who is not obese is ridiculous. I starve, work out, starve and work out, and the best you can say about me is I am average. Fine, I will fight to be average. But I’ve decided that when I am 75 years old, I will wear moo moos and glasses with sunflowers circling the rims, and I will eat and drink whatever I want. Anyone who knows me knows my moo moo plan. And the fact that he is OK with my moo plan, and may want to be a part of it, is oh so comforting.

Anyhow, we left that lunch with him working it out with his wife and me determined to move on and leave that memory exactly where it needs to be. In my memory. But today I loved the looks he gave me, and the references to inside jokes. And him mentioning the fact that he’s keeping up with me on Facebook. But what I loved the most was the stare-down, the hold-so-tight, linger-a-little-too-long with his face-in-my-hair hug he gave me when I left. Because I know I’m 28 years from having that every day.

All of that makes the $35.00 parking ticket I got while at lunch absolutely and completely worth it. Oh and I deleted his cell number from my contacts so I have no way of contacting him.

90 Days Later…

So apparently I am not cut out to be a daily blogger. Or even a weekly or monthly blogger. So if I blog 4 times a year, that makes me a quarterly blogger. OK, I’ll take that. I think that gives me enough cred to call myself a blogger.

Turns out when I have nothing but boxing club classes going on, my brain goes into blog-mindset and the ideas flow freely. But the minute shit starts to get serious all up in here, I fail to see the humor in life and get all like “oh no, I can’t blog about that.” So be warned, this is not going to be pretty. But it’s real, and I’m guessing that is what this is all about.

The new job sucks, working from home is lonely and I am encountering serious hygiene issues (what’s the point if nobody will see me anyhow), the company I started working for makes me share hotel rooms with co-workers when I travel (12 days with the bitch from hell. I started a blog entitled “I have a boil on my ass named Olivia” but couldn’t finish it), and they think I’m slow and stupid. And I can’t get my old job back because I helped fill the position with one of my oldest and dearest friends. And she’s rocking the house.

My wallet, keys and phone were stolen a couple of weeks ago. 

My landlord is an idiot so I need to move, my friends complicated my life by calling social services on my landlord and his 90-year old mother, my favorite gay couple in the whole world broke up, and I had a 4-day affair with a married man in Vegas. He has a baby. A very young baby…this after my 26-year marriage ended when I walked in on dickhead screwing another woman. In my bedroom. On my daughter’s birthday. And I swore I would never, ever do that to another woman.

So no, I don’t have anything witty. Or funny. Or inspirational. I am flawed and turning 47 tomorrow. And just wanted to throw it all out there.

 

 

Holy boxing gloves, Batman!

I had great intentions for this post. I’ve worked from home for three days now and I was going to go into some seriously witty detail about my experiences so far…especially the surprises…because there have been many.

But I’m afraid I don’t have much time left.

Elisa talked three of us into going to a class at Title Boxing Club. I hadn’t heard of it either so do what I did. Google it. It seemed like a grand idea since I hadn’t left the house or showered in two days. That’s another story for another day.

It began with the signing of a release form (never good), the purchase of brightly colored hand wraps (I picked orange) and picking out cute pink boxing gloves. We were then told to position each of our out-of-shape asses in front of our very own…you guessed it…punching bag. Not the little one that goes “kabomp, kabomp, kabomp” rhythmically when you tap it, but the big heavy one that goes “Ha ha, bitch. You are going to die.” Seriously, I heard it say that. But I need to get on with the story because I am fading fast.

The class started with fifteen minutes of plyometrics. Google it. And somebody please add it to the internet’s dictionary because plyometrics are real, my friends. Very real, and you’d better be afraid. Plyometrics also exist in the Insanity workout, but they are so much easier because I have watched Insanity plyometrics from the comfort of my couch while eating chocolate chip cookie dough flavored Pop Tarts and drinking vodka with mineral water. And I have rarely broken a sweat.

Anyhoo, back to the evil that is Title Boxing Club. Suffice it to say that 15 minutes of plyometrics, when done correctly by any non-18-year old marathon runner/triathlete/Lance Armstrong on steroids, is harder than most Zumba classes, and definitely harder than any 15 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution I’ve ever done. Even DDR4. (Full disclosure here: I’m usually drinking vodka and mineral water during my DDR workouts, so I guess it’s possible that might impact my motivation a tiny, tiny bit). Anyhoo, plyometrics go like this. You run and jump and shuffle and squat and jump rope and a bunch of other shit for 15 minutes straight. This will hereinafter be referred to as the outer circle of hell.

After that little warmup, the ‘instructor,’ as we call him (I’m pretty sure he’s satan), tells us to put on our gloves for 30 minutes of boxing. Which we did. Welcome to the middle circle of hell. And let me just warn anyone who decides to try this, OPEN your water bottle BEFORE you put on the gloves because if you don’t, the rate at which life-sustaining hydration leaves your body will make it physically impossible to remove the gloves and take a drink before you start seeing spots. Or hurl. Or pass out. Or all three. Please don’t ask me to explain.

Lesson learned from middle hell: there is no one in this world I hate enough to punch for 30 minutes straight. Even dickhead, and I hate him a LOT. But I have this little ego thang that makes me stubborn enough to keep pushing on, through the pain, the horror, the wickedness. Seriously, I don’t know how much longer I can type. And the SMELL that comes off your hands when they come out of the gloves! Oh lord have mercy, it is vile! If I’d had anything left in my stomach, I would have had a free, non-stop flight to hurl city. Small blessing my friends, small blessing.

By now satan’s horns and tail are showing. He sends us to grab a medicine ball. Since I’m barely crawling at this point, I don’t make it to the rack in time to get an eight-pound ball. Or a ten-pound ball. I get a 12-pound ball. I have now reached the inner circle of hell and my ego gets to torture me for another 15 minutes. With lunges and squats and shuffles and push ups and sit ups and all kinds of SHIT with what feels like 200 pounds of lead in my hands! When it was over I scooted on my ass around the corner to the bathroom so I could wash the smell of who knows WHO’s sweat from my hands and verify there was nothing but bile left in my stomach. There wasn’t. In fact, I am proud to say that I am most likely still bile-free.

So if anyone asks me about my Title Boxing Club workout, I will tell them it’s awesome and fun and oh so invigorating. Then I’ll pour another drink and snicker. But I have to go take a shower now, because I am pretty sure that the grim reaper is on his way to my house, either to end the torture I have endured, or to inflict Death-by-Boxing-Club-Funk. If he doesn’t show tonight and I miraculously survive, I am absolutely certain I won’t be able to raise my hands over my head tomorrow.

Let me know if you need an almost-new pair of orange boxing hand wraps. They’re available.

Fear and Doubt

Like every morning, I am sitting here sipping my Sunday coffee while checking my email and browsing all of the wonderfulness the internets have to offer. Walter, my black pug, is barking at the kitchen window, but neither he nor I have any idea what he’s barking at. Every time I read a blog, I think about starting one of my own. But then I wonder what I would blog about since I live alone with Walter and my ninja cat Sydney. My daughters, Kelley and Katy, have moved out to pursue young adulthood, and my divorce has been final for almost a year. Sometimes I wonder if all of my interesting stories are behind me. But I start a new job Tuesday (Monday is Memorial Day) and I am mortified about the extent of change this job brings. Seems like a perfect place to start…

Walter has been limping on his front left foot the past few days, and I’m thinking a vet trip is in our very near future. Normally, a trip to the vet would be a welcome excuse to leave work early one day (or come in late, so I would have an excuse to sleep in. Comparing myself to “morning person” would be like comparing a few drops of water to the Pacific Ocean). However, with a bazillion-and-four other changes that come with my new job, working from home is one of them. Can I “take off” during the day to take my dog to the vet? On my first day? Can I make a 5:00 appointment and just make sure I start working by 8:00 that morning. I hate being a new employee anywhere, but the added stress of structuring my own time and learning the remote worker ropes is making me break out in zits and chain smoke. OK, the smoking thing is pretty normal for me, but I’m enjoying it less.

My first law firm job started in 1991. If you do the math, that’s approximately 22 years ago. First I was a secretary, then a junior system administrator, then a trainer, then a training manager, then a manager of all things “user services,” (training, helpdesk, hardware support). That’s where I’ve pretty much stayed for the past 10 years. I changed firms twice and both times comfortably stepped in the role and kicked its ass.

A chance phone call from a former colleague about a month ago started the wheels in motion. Do you know anyone who could do what you used to do as well as you used to do it? This small eDiscovery company needs someone to not only train our software, but enhance the training program so that it is an integral part of the company’s success? Would you be interested? Resume tweaked, interviews complete, salary negotiation final. I said yes. Excited about a change that I so desperately needed; mortified about the unknown. As I type my palms are sweating, my heart is racing and I feel slightly nauseated. OK, I feel really nauseated.

Will I be able to work from home? Is my desk big enough? My chair comfortable enough? Will I be able to stop at the end of the day? Will I become sloppy and fat and introverted? How quickly can I learn the software? The industry? The acronyms? What about when I have to travel? Will it beat me down and wear me out? Will I snore when I bunk at the CEO’s house? Yes, it’s a small company and people stay at her house. And I’ve snored for years. Haven’t had any feedback on that since dickhead moved out two and a half years ago, but I suspected I haven’t experienced a spontaneously snore-healing-event. I could go on for hours.

But here’s what I will do today. I will go out and rid the patio of the debris from the last two rain storms. I will finish potting my plants and clear the leaves. I will go to the grocery store for chicken, marinate it with yumminess, clean the grill, pick up the house, and make slippery nipple pudding shots. And enjoy the afternoon with the new friends I’ve made since my life turned upside down two and a half years ago. I will smile knowing that I am strong and smart and resilient. And I will remember that with one exception, a Kentucky Fried Chicken gig when I was 15, I have eaten every job I had for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. And I will raise a toast to myself for stepping WWWAAAAYYYYY outside my comfort zone and taking a chance on something that is a far cry from a sure thing. Because after 46 years of being the responsible, reliable one, it’s about fucking time. Worry can wait until tomorrow.