Maybe because it's Monday...

.... and maybe it's because I only manage to never find a seat on the days I think it is safe to wear my black lace-up heels during my commute (rather than the saner, safer running shoes),

But I still do not understand how the 6 men seated in the back of the #9 bus this morning were content to watch me stand in their midst and hold onto a pole (while acknowledging that my choice of shoes is my own), ignoring my struggle to stay upright for a 25-minute ride that included stopping once a block while on a downhill while additionally braking for 10 or so unpredictable Southie double-parkers and a half-dozen more errant pedestrians, followed by a 6-series of 110-degree turns to wind around the Broadway T.

All were about 30 or younger.  Five of six were head-down on handheld electronics.  The sixth was sitting right in front of me....about 6' 4" and wearing workout clothes. Not sure how he didn't notice my passive-aggressive evil stare for the majority of the ride, to catch his eye and plead for mercy and see if he noticed my tottering and swaying and attempts to shake the numbness out of my necessarily-elevated left arm without pitching over.

I refuse to beg for chivalry from strangers.  But the lack of it sometimes still disappoints me.

A truly Mondayish Monday

This was my Facebook status at 9:17 this morning:

"Karin ... is thinking this Monday already has way too much Monday in it for its own good. Lord give me strength."

It's 5:45 and I'm still looking for strength. 

It was a day of fatigue and bad hair.  Of feeling unmotivated and somewhat alone. Of feeling the sting of clients departing (through no fault I could name).  Of feeling vaguely disturbed at 72 degrees in winter. Of feeling frustrated that a health matter has grounded me from running (more on that later) for a week when I have a Bikini Challenge and a marathon to prep for.

Still not sure what the remedy here could be.  Sleep, of course.  MSF living closer, perhaps.  Less inertia and skepticism about my career, definitely. 

However, lacking these things occurring, perhaps interim solution:  walk to Davis Square for rehearsal tonight from work.  Clear head.  Breathe air.  Think not.  Google Maps says it is 5 miles, walkable in 1 hour 41 minutes, althoughtI betcha 10 bucks I can do it in 1:20.  Rehearsal is at 7:30.  It is now 5:53.  Time to get cracking.

And here's to a Monday nearly done.

Still breathing .... kinda.

Can't quite figure out why, these last 4 or 5 days, my energy level is in the toilet.  Brainstorming if its the malaise-inducing weather, or if it's because I gave up playing Tetris for Lent, or if it's because I also gave up chocolate and drinking Starbucks for Lent, and that's just a massive amount of sugar and caffeine that my body is no longer benefitting from. 

That, and there have been trying situations at work ... not new to have trying situations at work, but new situations that are trying different levels of patience and coping.

(Sigh.  Thanks for your patience as I navigate this weird little week, not really wanting to write anything other than a Facebook status update.)

But I did mean to tell y'all that that friendly Outlook e-mail reminder ("Patience.  Deep Breaths.  Self-Awareness.") I set up last week is still getting a good workout.  As in I still refresh it on the half-hour and I swear I indeed regularly remember to also:

"…..take a big drink of water. :-)

And.  Smile."

The week being what it has been, I've found myself adding lines at key moments to fit situations.  On Wednesday, a particularly tough day, I was filling MSF in on this motivational reminder -- to which he replied, "Could you add, "[MSF] sends a [:nurffle:]" to the 4:30p one?"

So I did, and its still there; now I'm getting a [:nurffle:] every half hour. Today, again a bit overwhelmed, I added more:

"And.  Rise above. In work, in play, in life.  You can. This is the moment you’re going to pull it together."

Very grateful that in a life where sometimes control seems out of reach .... it's so very good to just keep breathing.

Foggy February Friday

This was the view, or lack there-of, pretty much all of today:

Many times, when I turned my head from my computer and saw this bleak grey wall, I called to mind the sound and lyrics of Dar Williams' "February" .... beautiful, melancholy, and bleaker than a Dickens novel:

I threw your keys in the water, I looked back,
They'd frozen halfway down in the ice.
They froze up so quickly, the keys and their owners,
Even after the anger, it all turned silent, and
The everyday turned solitary,
So we came to february.



First we forgot where we'd planted those bulbs last year,
Then we forgot that we'd planted at all,
Then we forgot what plants are altogether,
And I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting and
The nights were long and cold and scary,
Can we live through february?

It snowed for about 15 minutes this morning.  By the time I tried to snap a photo it had turned to mist, then soon, the fog that you see above you.  Not craving the snow and cold, but I'd certainly take it over this soul-sucking grey.

(And, no. Don't get me started on Dave Matthews' "Grey Street." That most certainly might do this already-fragile mood in.)

Oh, Whitney.

I got home from being out (with Joshua, for dinner and drinks in Cambridge) at 1:22 this morning, and had just hopped online for a good-night chat with MSF.

Karin: Hola.  Thanks for waiting.
MSF: Hey hey
K:  I had to read a few minutes about Whitney Houston dying...
MSF:  What does that mean?
K: Whitney Houston died earlier today.
MSF: Wow!
K: I know.  It's like Michael Jackson revisited.
MSF: [:laugh:] Yeah.  She was "found dead" Whoa.
me:  Oy. Sorry to be a buzz-kill...
MSF:  No sweat.  She's not much of a music influence on me.

Oy, indeed.  And Ugh.  Bleh.  Sigh.

Whitney.  Shit.  Please don't be a cliche of drug-spiralled pop stardom.  Please, really, don't be remembered primarily for this.  Don't be a punchline.

No slam on MSF .... but Whitney was a music influence on me.  In the era before internet radio in rural North Dakota, she was one of only a few major artists to infiltrate the playlists of me and my junior high female peers.

I remember wanting to perform a version of "How Will I Know" for the CHS Homecoming Lip Sync when in 7th grade, being usurped by a band of older girls who had already chosen it.  (Amazingly and inexplicably, my friend Patty and I covered a Phil Collins tune instead....)  So syrupy sweet with perm and big bow and fake-sax-playing dance partners and that sassy head bop.  The effortless energy and vocals.  So much defined what I wanted to be and was not.

For years, I cried every time "The Greatest Love of All" came on VH-1, at the final moment, when she strides to the wings and hugs her mother, that endless last note sailing into powerful vibrato. ("Find. Your. Strength ... in Love.")

Today I've choked up no less than a dozen times listening to her 1991 version of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV.  I was a senior in high school and the Gulf War pervaded every aspect of our lives that month and year, so shortly after the invasion of Iraq.   Seeing her power and dignity with that tune .... nothing ostentatious about it, just grounded and soulful ... was pitch-perfect for that moment in time.

Jeez.  Whitney even sang a song with that name .... for the Olympics in 1988 ... that has similar gravitas and only could succeed, and escape cheesiness, thanks to that voice.   And now I'm crying listening to that, on repeat.  

There is and was and will be no one like her.  Even if her downfall came in the most conventional of celebrity traps.

Thanks-Essay 4: To Not Griping

Got into work quite late today ... the result of staying up very late.  As in sun-coming-up late and not because I wanted to be.   As in:  for the first time in months being up with heart-racing insomnia that didn't abate with a hot bath, with rereading transcripts of past fond chats with MSF, with the eating of a plate of cold turkey breast at 4:30, or even pulling out EB White's "One Man's Meat" for folksy storytelling distraction.

I'm blaming Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, the account of a Mt. Everest expedition featuring loads of high-altitude frostbite, delusions, and death.  I love the book and have already read it 3 times -- and for reasons unknown, last night was the night it decided to disturb the living shit out of me. 

It took pulling the laptop into bed, queuing up the cartoon Ratatouille, and letting the happy rat chef make some splendid soup before my brain shut off and heartbeat relaxed and I drifted off at about 6....only to wake myself up with a dream about riding bike across an f#$%ing ice bridge while looking down at an endless crevasse in either direction.

Oy. Hope the pleasant dreams MSF wished me before we said goodnight at least came true for him.

Not to gripe, though.  Last night I guess I could have been at Wal-Mart, getting pepper-sprayed by a fellow video-game shopper.

It's in this context -- a bit sleep-deprived, a bit sated from the food and fellowship of yesterday, a bit daunted with the to-do list that awaits these last November days -- that I was grateful to see David Brooks' Times column today editorializing on his project, "The Life Reports".  His request:

"If you are over 70, I’d like to ask for a gift. I’d like you to write a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way. You can write this as a brief essay or divide your life into categories — career, family, faith, community, and self-knowledge — and give yourself a grade in each area.

Of course I read most of these essays this morning, here at work in our sparsely-populated office after having death dreams and not sleeping... and promptly started crying.  But even if you had productive slumber and are reading this blog entry in your pajams with coffee and curled up in front of a fir e... I highly suggest them for your post-Thanksgiving glad-you're-not-out-shopping-instead reflection.

Tuesday jumble

Weather not requiring even a fall coat.  First decent run in 10 days.  Suitcase open on bedroom floor, clothes jumbled and wrinkled .  Dishwasher full of clean dishes, sink full of dirty ones.  Desk stacked with trustee changes to facilitate and cost-basis updating projects and new accounts to open, left over from 5 days out of the office, now reaching semi-critical completion necessity.  Cats spastic from lack of my attention, taking claws to the duvet and dining room chairs.  Reflecting on vacation that contained just one rank certainty -- that Cousin J and her husband were meant to be married and did so -- compounded by so much family love, affection, coffee, cookies and friends who traveled from all over, that the heart is still full.  Reflecting even more on all the uncertanties of a vacation where cousins and sisters let emotions and opinions hang out and a grandmother tripped briefly into a life-threatening situation and a long-distance boy instigated more fruitful, more emotional, and more wrenching conversations than previously thought possible.  To the point where the mind is still as jumbled as the unpacked clothes -- getting through the stacked tasks of today impossible, much less thinking of all the things that could and might come after. 

With thanks for the mild outside and the near-empty bottle of Maker's Mark inside and the strong feeling emanating this way from the Midwest and beyond.

Wednesday addendum:  Love this photo of Dad and me from the wedding reception (one of many provided to this camera-less girl by Cousin J's maid-of-honor, Tashia). We don't get to see each other nearly enough.

Friday playlist

Maybe I should assign WERS 88.9 FM its own label in this space, since lately I've been drowning in my love affair with the stream it's spitting out.

Today I was re-reintroduced to Susan Tedeschi and introduced to her husband, Derek:

Tired of living without
When others have so much
If I could find someone
To bring loving touch
All this time been wasted
No more words to spare
If I knew how to love,
I would take you there

Got my daily dose of Ben Folds.

There was a time when I had nothing to explain
Oh, this mess I have made
But then things got complicated
My innocence has all but faded
Oh, this mess I have made

Was reminded that Johnny Cash's cover of Depeche Mode (Personal Jesus, anyone?) makes all the sense and no sense all at once.

From the Wikipedia: "The song was inspired by the book Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley. According to songwriter Martin Gore: "It's a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It's about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody's heart is like a god in some way, and that's not a very balanced view of someone, is it?"

And again, marveled that The Police's So Lonely is one of the most danceable depressing songs there is. (I immediately began chair-dancing at :51. You should too.)

Well, someone told me yesterday
That when you throw your love away
You act as if you just don't care
You look as if you're going somewhere
But I just can't convince myself
I couldn't live with no one else
And I can only play that part
And sit and nurse my broken heart, so lonely

A couple hours ago, I had flagged out the songs that I remembered most distinctly from 'ERS today -- swear it was done with no pre-meditation. Now as I cut and paste the lyrics, the melancholy run-through is not lost on me. While I'd suggest I wasn't in the best mood today ... hmmm.

Subliminal or not, I've got to kick this. It's the beginning of a crisp, fall (and for some, but not for me) 3-day weekend, and I've got to find a 21-mile run tomorrow morning, and this wallowy vibe, subliminal as it is, cannot prevail.  Heading over now to Boston University, to hear the Arneis (string) Quartet play a bit o' this:

And this.

Hoping there's lift somewhere in them there 'cello swipes.

Pros & Cons

Last night starting at 9:45 p.m., I spent 2 hours getting my life in order via visits to Home Depot, Target and Stop & Shop at the South Bay Center in Dorchester.  I could do this at this hour because I live in a large city and there are retail stores open until 11 and all-night supermarkets.

Last night starting at 11:45 p.m., I spent 30 minutes trying to find the One Available Parking Spot In All Southie.  There were evidently Zero.   In my 5 years here I have never not been able to park on a Monday night.  In this perfect storm, it seems, the combination of massive utility work on W 1st Street and the Tuesday 5-7 am street-cleaning signs on Broadway meant all vehicles on these 2 major thoroughfares were vomited onto side streets. 

While waiting at a stoplight, I texted Man from San Francisco:

K (12:06 am): For 20 minutes now i have been crusing for a parking space .... This f#*$ing neighborhood ...
MSF (12:07):  ::Grraar!::
K (12:12): There are so many other things i'd rather be doing ...
MSF (12:14):  I can think of one or two ....
K (12:22, after finally scoring):  6 blocks away.  Down a hill. I see a large glass of wine in my near future.

Sleeping was among the other things i'd rather have been doing at that hour. Not buying cat litter. Not cruising. Not swearing. Not walking up Broadway in the dark by myself. Not, again, considering the truth of living in a large city: that the accessibility and public services that make it great also make it an insomniac-driven pain.

Weird groove

In this weird groove lately
(so disagreeable in this solstice).

Wouldn't call it a crisis, or depression
or even unhappiness.

Might call it unmotivation
(yes, a made-up word).

It's how thoroughly I don't care
if I actually do the things I've set myself up to do.

It's about everything, just about,
starting with getting out of bed in the morning.

Followed by blogging, then running,
then taking care of a sore throat
as to not lose my voice again
(which I did, anyway),
then working, then choring,
then socializing, then paying bills,
then going to bed at night.

These all seem difficult, somehow,
(these things that are good for me).

These are not difficult.
My life is not difficult.

Maybe it's this fun with (lack of) sleep thing?

But, I'm attending at class at the MGH Benson-Henry Institute
to try something called "mind-body" meditation
so I can go to sleep better at night
and stop finding simple things difficult.

(Turn off the brain.
Calm the thoughts.
Find the focus.
Find the positive.)

Class started last Wednesday,
meets again this Wednesday.
Haven't yet done any of the homework,
and I feel unconcerned about this,
but don't like me for it.

Which is the dichotomy keeping me up tonight:
nonchalance and guilt and how they
seamlessly coexist.

And no, it isn't lost on me
that I'm focusing on this dichotomy
instead of taking care of what's causing it
and I know it.

Which goes back to why
this groove is weirder than I enjoy.

A (good) tired

This morning
I live the tiredness
of the
too-social
too-much biking
too-much stout
too-much spreadsheet compiling
too-much not-sleeping
weekend.

As in,
I'm so tired
you can't convince me
that I actually
slept at all
since Friday.

(I don't have
a newborn baby
hiding in my apartment
keeping me up.

Or a man,
either.

I promise.)

So please forgive that
I don't
want to write
another word.

Day 9 of 30: 3.64 miles

April Total:  18.93

2011 Total: 172.92

Talking

I mentioned several weeks ago that while visiting my nurse practitioner for a physical, she noted that my chronic insomnia, recent trending to chronic low moods, and chronic tendency to eat entire boxes of cereal when not hungry (among other qualities) made me a candidate for referral to Mass General's Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine.

BHI programs aim to "reduce the impact of stress through a variety of research driven skill-buildling exercises to improve medical symptoms, mood and well-being" and whose 6 core components include "relaxation response, social support, physical activity, nutrition, recuperative sleep and cognitive restructuring to increase positive emotions and behaviors."

In simpler terms:  therapy.

Wanting to shift away from each and every one of these negative chronic tendencies, yesterday I had my initial consultation with an internal medicine specialist at BHI. The poor doctor. She asked questions from time to time, but I talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. I talked so much that upon leaving the office I saw the doctor greet her next patient by apologizing for being a half-hour late ..... because I kept her, by talking and talking and talking, and she was too kind to say so.

Obviously I needed to talk. (Date Meltdown Man's observation had a point, maybe?)

Obviously the doctor recognized that. After our talk, she consulted with her supervising colleague down the hall, and the 2 women returned for a follow-up. The first question the supervising colleague asked:

"Do you have someone you can talk to when you need to?"

I was able to say that I generally do, that I have friends and family who listen, although as our lives get busier and more child-dominated and we all get older, it becomes more of a challenge to track each other down. I didn't tell her about the blog, which could be construed as another form of "talking to someone." It occurred to me later that I often substitute talking with blogging .... that I don't have conversations with my friends in the same way because I assume they already know everything about what's good and bad in my life.

The upshot? The doctor thinks, based just on our preliminary talk, I have symptoms synonymous with depression. She thusly handed me another referral: to a personal counselor, and to a weekly "mind body" discussion group at Mass General.

Obviously I think I need to talk more, because both ideas sound peachy. In fact, just hearing someone else tell me "you sound depressed" took a load off the feelings of depression. I'm scheduling both ideas into my schedule. And thank God for health insurance.

Last night I was out for beer and salad with Balint -- talking, go figure -- and almost immediately I told him about the therapy. Balint is one of my best friends, and his response to this revelation was quizzical .... as in, really? You're depressed? You've been depressed since November? As in either he's been too preoccupied to notice, or I've been too closed-mouthed to admit how I was feeling, or we were both abashed because both oversights are probably true.

It's always a good thing to talk, folks.

Day 31 of 31: 2 miles

March Total: 50.93

2011 Total: 153.99

Because sometimes even Fridays can suck

And So it Goes

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

--Billy Joel, 1983

Numbers (and why they inspire hope)

Left 80 sunburning degrees behind in Florida this afternoon .... but Boston is at 40 tonight and my parka is too warm to wear walking home from the airport bus. Which isn't that awful.

After 1825.23 inches of snow (and 14,358.35 decibels of tough-ass Bostonians whining about it), the 40 degrees means that all the snow that was covering my car last Thursday is g-o-n-e baby gone without me lifting 1 shovel-ounce.  Which means I survived another blizzard week without losing a limb to the Great Southie Space-Saver Wars.

(Of course, 5 more inches of snow are supposed to come tomorrow. Which is typical.)

Packers 31, Steelers 25.

Today is my dad's 69th birthday.  Which is cool.

E-mail from Joshua tonight:  116 days until his wedding on Lake Sunapee, and he's encouraging hotel reservations sooner than later.  Which means I have only 115 days to find a date to split costs. Which based on my track record with finding and retaining dates for weddings means I should start finding one tomorrow.

After 88 nights of auditions in December in January, the musical I play for that goes up in May is cast .... and rehearsals don't begin until February 21.  Which means I've got 14 evenings free before 3.5 months of chaotic but gratifying servitude to The Secret Garden.  Which could equate to the opportunity for 6 restorative yoga classes and for 2 dozen nights go to bed before midnight so that when rehearsals start the chaos isn't so chaotic.

(Which might be a total pipe dream.)

Which will be easier to do since I have 0 outstanding correspondences on OKCupid and 0 folks sending me IM messages late in the night on any regular basis and 0 dates anywhere in my vision, peripheral or straight-on.  Which is OK.  Really.  I think the break is/has been/will be good.

And I found time to run all 4 days (for 14.7 miles) of my Florida vacation which is 5 of 7 days so far this month.  Which I'll take as a good sign.

Day 6 of 28: 2.90 miles

Day 7 of 28: 4.00

February Total: 18.45

2011 Total: 68.46

Weekend observations...

....from a Monday in the deep freeze.  (The river I wished I had to skate away on, thusly materialized. Now if I just owned skates.)

1) Thank heaven. 

Just in time for sanity, friend L reconstituted Rooftop Thursdays into Fireplace Fridays ... the second of which I hit up at posh Post 390. Remembered all the Michiganders by sight, a few by name. Sociability level still high. And 2 glasses of riesling took the edge off my getting-dumped pissiness. Resulting in multiple animated conversations with multiple eligible bachelors of all ages and professions, one of whom said as I was leaving, "you're coming back next week, aren't you?"

Indeed.

2) Diet be damned.

Between Wednesday and Saturday I ate an entire jar of peanut butter straight from the spoon in addition to all other regular meals.

But I still fit into the dress Saturday night.

So ha.

3) Good point.

Joshua came to my cabaret performance Saturday night, after which we stopped for a beer at People's Republik on Mass Ave in Cambridge. During which I expounded at length my frustration at men in their 40s with self-involved lack-of-commitment annoyingness. To which he listened patiently and then replied: "I know that he dumped you via wishy-washy e-mail, but would you have preferred he instead just disappeared and said nothing?"

Of course not.

3a) Good point #2.

During same conversation, we recalled one of Joshua's ex-girlfriends .... a relationship that was notorious between us at the time for me thinking he should break it off and him kind of also thinking so, but unable to drop the axe for something like a year. To which Joshua noted: "Isn't finding the words to end a relationship you want to end one of the hardest things to find words for?"

Of course.

3b) But still.

Even further into same conversation, I talked for 10 minutes without pause about my frustration with unrealistic pre-expectations and lack of patience in dating among folks my age, set in our habits and ways as we are and unwilling to compromise. As in, with Sunday-Night Man, how I felt he and I, from what he told and showed me, were 80 percent compatible .... not perfect, enough for me to want to see him and get to know him better .... because who on this earth is 100 percent compatible with anyone?

Yet he wanted 100 percent compatibility and immediate emotional connection without putting in the face time. Four dates spread out over 12 weeks is not going to breed emotional connection, and he did not choose to make himself available for more.

I'm no longer mad about Sunday-Night Man. Yet I'm concerned most men his age will continue to be like him. And all I can see on my horizon is frustration ....

.... unless I, too, learn some further patience.

4) Relationships, too, sometimes suck.

After long hiatus, I reconnected yesterday with Student Driver .... because I noticed she hadn't blogged in eons and eons. And discovered that, sadly, it has much to do with her current angst with her current love.

When feeling pissy about one's relationship status, it is often helpful to remember that fustration is not limited to the dateless.

(And hope that Student Driver's man shapes himself up.)

5) So do delayed Christmas cards. 

If you're still waiting, you might be getting one today .....since I finished writing and mailing another 20 last night.

Only 40 more to go. Only a month behind. Only for sure going to finish this week.

(Sorry for sucking.)

Dumped (again)

Maybe when I first meet a guy, I should inform him that if he's just going to eventually dump me via e-mail mid-afternoon on a Friday in January in a wishy-washy tone, he's going to get whatever response I decide he deserves.

Believe me.  I do get tired of trashing guys that I date.  I don't enjoy it.  I'd actually rather be dating them. 

Speaking of, I thought I had a good time with Sunday-night man last Saturday.  He kind of had a good time, but not good enough:

"Hey Karin

Had a fun time...always do with you. But I’ve been thinking about things and realizing that I want to have a an emotional connection with someone that I am being intimate with and I don’t really feel that between us. Honestly, I really do enjoy being with you, but I think I want something more – but not necessarily something serious – I’m a bit up in the air about this so not sure how to convey this correctly....so I think I need to take a bit of time to figure this out. Also, I’m stepping the job search up and I tend to get distracted by women – big time! Oh and if you see me on okcupid, it’s really out of procrastination and boredom – plus it’s a bit of a turn on for me with out having to engage further.....make sense?"

Yeah.  It does.  Fancy way of saying you're not interested.  You were initially hoping we could get together for makeout sessions but because you decided already to take yourself emotionally out of it because you're ostensibly pursuing a career, you're surprised to discover that, voila, we don't have an emotional connection.  That makeout sessions without a connection don't connect nearly as well.  (Funny. Tell yourself you're going to close yourself off to emotions .... and you probably will.)  But you'll probably troll around for sex-chat buddies because better to be bored and procrastinating with girls who don't require anything from you than putting any effort to connecting with someone that you already invested in.  (Guys like toying with women online to get turned on?  Color me speechless.) 

I should have probably said this. 

Instead I did what I thought I needed to do, which is to turn around 10 minutes later and reply: 

"No, your ambiguity is confusing. You have fun, but you don't feel the connection, you enjoy me, but you want something more, but not something serious, but you don't know what, but you're up in the air.

Blah, blah, blah.

When you get around to figuring yourself out, how about not leading someone on for months at a time. Total waste of my energy and that's 3 months of my life I don't get back."

Of course, I don't get that reply back, either. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon wishing I could send a follow-up simply stating:

"Oh.  And also:  you're an ass."

That would be lamer than my initial e-mail.

Besides, I'm exhausted, drained, and feeling foolish for even letting it go on as long as it did.  Mad that he had to go and ruin the start of my weekend.

I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

(Hardly) snowing

Snow, folks.

It's just
Snow.

And it's after midnight,
And there's supposed to be 8 inches of it,
Soon,
And I don't see any of it.

Which is why
I don't understand

the
Snow hysteria
and the
Snow emergency
and the
Snow day
for those
Who hardly need another one
and the
Blatant
Snow Wimpiness
of my
Fellow Bostonians.

Buck.
Up.

Figure it
Out.

If I have to,
You have to.

Day 20 of 31: 3 miles

January Total: 31.36

New Year's Resignation

Sigh.

I'm trying to remember....didn't I start this year with a sigh, also?

After the last couple days (and weeks, nay months?) trying to convince myself that this last year was more than just one big sigh ...

.... as I'm sitting here tonight as the last person (of the year? woo-hoo!) in my office, listening to the kids and perhaps already half-sober adults) down in Copley Square blowing vuvuzela horns audible from the 28th floor ...

....as my left lower molar throbs while waiting for the 800 mg of ibuprofen and amoxicillan to kick in and make me forget about it for another 8 hours since, hell, if you're going to get a toothache why not over a holiday weekend when your dentist is on vacation ....

.... as my voice is again lost to a fresh cold that caused a sea of coughing as well as near-zero sleep the last 2 nights, due to said coughing ...

.... as I think of the 3 parties I'm not attending tonight because of the tooth and the cough and the amoxicillan and near-zero sleep and my general lethargy, and that I've chosen instead to drive with a friend to Worcester for a 4th party instead, since I think all non-drinkers should be designated drivers on such a night ...

... as I contemplate that Sunday-night Man did write me back last night to say that he had phone problems and sent texts over Christmas that never arrived and that he was sorry, that he'd love to hang out as we have but doesn't want any more of a relationship than dinner and a make-out every 3 weeks, which seems a fitting end to a year when I seemingly met every man in Boston who has time to date but not time to Date For Real ....

....aaah, yeah.

I'm just trying to remember the good of it.

Alan's inauguration.
New girl friends and their new perspectives.
Eastern Europe with Balint.
The beaches of the Northeast.
Cousin J's good news.
Mom & Dad's 45th.
Good kissing.
Marathon PR.
Oliver.

And, of course, a paying job that stayed a paying job, a home that I can still afford, a car that still runs, a city I can still admire, friends that cook dinners and buy drinks and water plants and give rides and teach lessons, and cats that still nuzzle my ankles whenever I come near.

Happy eve. Happy morn tomorrow. Happy good year to come.

Single girl's eve after

9:56 PM

Blizzard.

Christmas card assembly,
finally.

My So-Called Life,
the complete series.

Three jiggers of Bailey's Irish Cream
and a shot of Ketel One,
on the rocks.

Fervent hope that,
maybe, 

the office will be closed
tomorrow.

Fervent gladness to not have had

travel plans that might have been thwarted, 

for once.

Fervent desire that

(in addition to the cats)

my company included a live

Scrabble-playing 

Bailey's-drinking

companion

at this moment.

Yeah.

Go back to that first picture
of a blizzard.

It's a bit too quiet.

Sigh.

Merry Christmas.

Comfortably neutral

Oy.

I was riding the T up to Cambridge after work tonight and found myself trying to put a pin on my emotions these last 2 weeks.

A period that included birth of nephew.  Preparing and singing a concert of Praetorius Advent tunes.  One friend's divine birthday celebration at Bin 26 on Charles.  A massage.  A visit from a high school friend and her introducing me (instead of vice versa) to Giancomo's on Hanover.  Radio and face time with Student Driver.  Sushi and Belgian Ale with Claudia.  Running and chocolate stout with Bill.   Way too much Grey Goose with all the gay boys at a seriously happening benefit on a Sunday.

Sunday-night Man even (finally) e-mailed tonight after 2 weeks of sick and busy.  Said he's been thinking a lot about me and my black leather knee boots with the 4-inch heels.

Meh.

All I can feel is numb.  Not negative.  Not elated.  Neutral as in beige.  As in the gearshift position between R & D. As in a dull knife edge ... cutting things, but not very well.

(Case in point: it has taken me nearly 2 hours to write this blog entry. Maybe because I don't have enough strong feeling about anything today that warrants writing about.)

This happens from time to time and even with experience, I'm stymied about how to jumpstart ye olde joy-o-meter.  Even Vitamin B-laced coffee drinks are not helping.

Suggestions are welcome.

(And thanks for sticking me through the drought.)