Take a picture.. it will last longer

why do i hate christmas

For many years christmas has seemed like more trouble than it's worth, but the other day it finally occurred to me why i dread it so much.

1) because i grew up poor.

For most of my early childhood there was no allowance. what money i had was what i saved up from lunches not bought, or something someone gave me for a holiday, or money i found in the laundromat under the machines, or in the coin return of soda machines and pay phones. (yes i was that kid).  or maybe someone found a chore i could do for some extra money.  the point is, there wasn't a lot of it, and with divorced parents, it's not like one was going to take me shopping for the other.  I remember going with my class to 'santa's secret workshop' where we could buy smelly erasers and screwdriver sets for our parents, and I had to choose something, i'd guess, in the two-to-three dollar range for each parent. one year I gave my dad mustache wax.  I remember him opening it and being so gracious.. i was like.. 7. shame is a big, heavy, *foreign* thing, to a 7 year old, but i remember it like it was yesterday, and it hasn't lost any weight. sometimes i wish i were less intelligent as a kid, so i could go on oblivious to that sort of thing.  Most kids are, i think, oblivious to money, or no money-- but in my kind of household, money was all there was and wasn't. money could cure all your problems when you had it, but the lack of it was everywhere you looked when you didn't.  it was only natural that it represent the things people gave me, things that i couldn't earn and would never deserve. 

for some reason i feel a lot less shitty today. the snow is gone and the blinds are open, and i got about 22 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours.. so maybe that's the solution.

dental-drama induced weight loss at 8lbs.

Headed to the gym, and thinking about getting a tan. a tan always did make me feel better when i had the winter blues in NorCal. Also need some REAL (read: not Puma) snow boots, but i'm not shopping on black friday. oh hell no.

Best seat in the house.

Best seat in the house.

Goodies.

I'll take the pat-down.  

As a woman in the US over 18, i've been going to the doctor every year for a number of years specifically to maintain my current sterility via a miracle drug i like to call 'birth control'.  the trade off for this is that said doctor will grope and scrape around in my lady-bits  in order to make sure i don't have The Cancer growing in there. hey, no cancer AND no babies??? that's security i can believe in.

anyway, all women in a similar situation will tell you that they have a certain mindset going into it, and there's a protocol.  I will walk in, disrobe, and think about my grocery list, and the doctor will do all the appropriate groping &etc while making idle conversation about the weather or running shoes.  We both understand that s/he will see a dozen more naked women today, and i'm nothing to write home about. in fact, we hope there's nothing to write anyone anywhere about.  It's over in 15 minutes.

so, boys, just turn your head and cough. it will be over in a second and no one has to feel violated.

(honestly, i just don't see the point of fighting it. The government and whatever is gonna find a hundred ways to screw me before i die, probably without dignity in some government facility. but whatever. i'm just trying to live what passes for life as efficently as possible until then, save as much money as i can, stay out of trouble, and hope that will keep me alive and relatively happy until I die.  I'm not wasting energy on this one. )

 

this thanksgiving brought to you by stove-top

in whiny self-obsessed thanksgiving post tradition..

seven months ago i moved to seattle to have the shit kicked out of my lifestyle and everything

*hold up. the quick compose box on typepad is actually LAGGY. retreating to a text window for unfettered composition**

...and everything i love is far away. I worked really hard to make a life in TN, and i left behind some very good friends, friends i worked my ass off to make. Friends which i have no desire, no energy.. and no opportunity to supplement with friends out here.

The weather here isn't killing me, but the lack of sunlight IS. I can handle the overcast skies, and nearly constant rain of a seattle winter (i was warned, after all) but the sun is up for just 9 hours a day-- 9 of the 10 or more I'm trapped inside a windowless office with my only view of daylight from our security camera feed. I have all these grand ambitions to go to the gym and hit the grocery store and etc and etc after work, but i hit the dark parking lot and reconsider it all. i go home. i sit in front of the fire, and i fall asleep. I sleep a lot.

i suppose too much sleep is better than too little.

work is.. punishing. I love my job, and i'm good at it, and i provide a good service to customers who pay a lot of money for a good product, but it is hard, hard, unending, unyielding work. Today in fact, C and I are discussing winter/studded tires, and how best to get to work during hazardous weather.. ice and snow. Since not going to work is not an option. and how we will spend all this money on tires for the likelihood of two or three such storms a year, and how the reward for all this research and time and money is.. to go to fucking work. to be eaten alive for a paycheck. for the next..what? thirty years or so?

And then there's the dental drama. short story: i broke a tooth, went to the dentist to have it fixed, and ended up with --not only more pain than i had-- but more pain than i've ever known in my life. in 34 years, i have never had so much pain, i have never taken so much advil, i have never explored the possibility that a) i may become addicted to a medication and/or b) i may live in pain, and worst c) i cannot live in pain. Luckily, things seem to be turning around and instead of being in a universe of hurt, i am only the occasional world or far-flung moon of hurt when i chew something. So, i eat a lot of soup.

on the plus side (or the minus side ha-ha) i have lost seven lbs.

Relax, friends, just seven of the ten or more i gained when i moved to this promised land. you won't catch me wasting away; not while god and all of creation has me skipping the gym and living on cambell's soup and nutella.

It's thanksgiving and we have no plans. Normally when we have no plans, we have plans to go to waffle house, and that's our us-against-the-world thing, but this year... there are no waffle housen in seattle, neither of us wants to drive in the snow, and us-against-the-world feels more like the world just forgot about us.

I know i'm whining. i'm turning off comments too, on the off-chance anyone is even reading this, or the more-off-chance they've gotten this far, and on the absolute zero chance they care about my indulgent and pathetic bitching and feel like leaving me a comment to make me feel better... I don't want to feel better. I am motivated by being uncomfortable, after all, and feeling like this long enough will either kill me or make me stronger, but i won't live like this forever.

at the end of the day, and because it's thanksgiving.. I am thankful for my cat and my husband. there is literally no one i'd rather be stuck in this shithole mess of a life with. For what it's worth.

Dear Eastsiderunners.com

Hi ESR!  What's your.. slowest.. pace group?  Everyone in your banner pic looks so fast, and so fit, and I have been coming back to this page again and again wondering if there's any place in your group for an 11 min/mile recovering run-walker.  I've got a number of races under my belt, but I'm not fast, and I'm afraid I'll join and be completely outclassed and left for dead out there.

So be honest.. do you have anyone like me? More than one like me?

slow but motivated,
kat

twilight..

I guess i can see the adolescent appeal.  there are many shirtless hotties and the everpresent threat of teen sex.  Every girl wants hair that long, and boys fighting over her. every guy wants a six pack, some ass to kick, and .. the everpresent threat of teen sex.

However, it was a little painful to watch (acting aside).  I mean, by the end of the first one, it was pretty well obvious that the writer/director/producers were going to put Bella in whatever unlucky heartwrenching situation they could dream up.  Such drama!!  can't a girl catch a break?   I kept hoping Zack Morris would roll up with that award-winning grin, and turn her life around.

anyway, movie date with the man, tomorrow before work.  yay!  we'll be seeing the third chapter of this wrenching love story.

there is still an element of the dork that ISN'T cool. the rest is marketing.

FACT: I was not cool in school.  Given that all of the same qualities I had then, I still have to some degree (talk too much and too loud...dress poorly....bad at sports...nailbiter...perpetual ponytail-bump..etc) it is unlikely that I am cool now.  But the media would have you believe that dorks are cool, because weezer wore those little square glasses, and Dr. Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) has all the ladies in a half-swoon.  NO!  it's marketing!  Someone in an ad agency wanted to sell things to real dorks, so they put some glasses and a collared shirt on an otherwise totally crushworthy normal guy, and now he's the face of the dorky masses!  

farce!

well, you posh dorks, you can put on my illfitting clothes, and pull your hair back into my awkward ponytail.. but no one can work that genuine social discomfort like *i* can.  I own this-- i STILL own this.

i spend entirely too much time on the internet

Just a quick note while my work system boots up (windows.. could be a while).  The hourglass reminds me that I spend wayyyyyy too much time on the computer, especially now that i have no real-life social interactions going on. I also eat way too much food from a microwave, most notably: microwave popcorn.

I can't help but think that these things are making me a lesser human.  I'll spend tonight thinking about what I can do to correct this.. because i can do something. I gave up plastic bottles, after all, and if a 30 something in the USA can do that, why.. anything is possible.

 

 

(there are unused icons on my desktop, apparently.  Windows, i hate you).

 

off to work.

 

 

Eddie + Emily 4-ever

I'm going to california now. well in a couple hours.  I'm gonna hang out with my BFFFF Jen, and we're gonna see Eddie and Emily marry each other.

*GLEE*

for those of you who like smiling at beautiful and awesome things, here's Emily's photography website. She's made a great business for herself in the last few years, and i couldn't be more proud of her.  now it's her turn to get all done up and photo'd.

happy weekend, all, hope it's sunny and filled with love.  (mine will be)