The Un-blogables

(I was sneaky and wrote this Sunday night when I actually had the time to create TWO blog posts!)
I have been in a less than stellar mood off and on since November, and it has gotten noticeably worse in the past month.  There are reasons for this.
The simple one first–we are finally hiring a new VP in our department at work.  Which of course means everyone is edgy and uneasy about what that means.  I’ve been joking that it could be good, bad, or neither.  Joking because, duh, that is true of any situation, right?  But specifically, any of us could get promoted, lose our job entirely, or none of the above.   She could be awesome, a tyrant, or just another member of the department.  And any changes she makes could happen instantly, or they could happen in 3 months once she gets settled.  I’m still in a place where I could live off savings for a pretty long time should my position get cut, but you know, I still don’t want that to happen.  Oh yeah, and my whole increase in hourly rate conversation was put to the side until she starts.  No surprises there.
The less simple matter is that shortly after finding out E. has a new lady friend who joined him on a trip to Cancun, we had a rather unpleasant exchange and some things came out that, at least from my end, took us off the path of ever being friends again.  It’s made me angry and miserable about a lot of things I was more neutral toward when we first broke up.
For better or for worse, I’ve also had an epiphany about our relationship that has left me a little sad.  Each of us alternately felt like we were no fun at various points in time.  This was a common issue in our relationship that really got magnified toward the end.  The reality is, we had very different ideas of what “fun” means.  So of course we never felt like we were enough “fun”–most of the time, what we thought was fun was not fun for the other person.
It makes me very sad that I spent so much time in a relationship where 2 people couldn’t have the same kind of fun together half the time.
The upshoot, or happy side if you want to call it that, is that I’ve really been taking a lot of time to focus on myself and those fun things I so love to do.  Like taking yoga classes, and art classes, and going to things like a celebration of Mozart’s birthday (complete with multi-course Austrian meal!).
So, in all of this, I am not ready to date again.  Not right now. I feel like I am picking up a lot of broken pieces and I’m working on getting whole.  And while it makes me very sad sometimes to be alone*, I know that if I were with someone right now I would be giving him far less than 100%.  And the next person? Is going to be so good that they’re going to deserve 100% and then some.

*I am not alone, though.  I still have a great group of friends who have made this whole transition 1000x easier. Hooray!

Crazy Food Bloggers

I’ve been a real Ranty McRantpants* lately, (mostly on FB) but here I go again.  The good thing is I don’t think what I’m about to post is going to offend any of my regular (? with my light posting/reading, do I even have those anymore?) readers.
Clicking through some other blogs, I have come across this phenomenon of what I like to call the Crazy Food Bloggers. These are people who post pictures of every meal, describe it in intimate detail, and in some cases post all the stats in terms of calories/carbs/protein/fat and total calorie count for the day.
Look, I know blogging helps keep a lot of people accountable on their diet and fitness goals, and that is F-I-N-E fine with me.   I stopped logging calories a long time ago…and in the end, perhaps that has been a detriment, but generally I’ve stuck within the same 5 lb range for 2 years or so now so I feel like whatever I am doing is working for me.  And if photographing all of your meals is working for you, well, I don’t know how you have the time but ok.
HOWEVER.
What worries me is that this behavior seems to me a bit obsessive. And what’s worse is that I see comments supporting this behavior and I feel like people’s obsessiveness feeds off of other people’s obsessiveness and it turns into a big, supportive obsessive circle.  Bleh.
You know what?  I eat cheeseburgers and fries sometimes. I overdo it on chocolate, still.  I am far from perfect in my workouts.  But I am healthy (healthier than a lot of people I know, honestly), and happy, and most of all, my life is BALANCED.  What I consume does not consume me.  And I think it is really frightening that for some people, it  truly does.  I guess there’s always been those people, but somehow blogging makes it more obvious…
At the end of the day, I feel like obsessive food bloggers aren’t doing what they do because they want to be healthy.  I think they are obsessed with their body looking like they want it to.  And while we all do it to some degree, there reaches a point when it is unhealthy.
I eat an egg white and turkey bacon breakfast sandwich from Starbucks every day.  Whoop-dee-doo.  Does anyone really care?

Am I totally off base here??

*Actually, all around I have been a grouchy, sensitive, unhappy, angry, resentful and bitter person.  I’ve come to terms with this and it will pass on its own.  I completely understand why and I’m not wallowing in it, but still, I feel like I have to warn others that I’ve been a bit prickly lately.

The Great Gym Debacle Drags On

I have probably mentioned here numerous times now that a new gym was supposed to open in my neighborhood.  This whole thing started last summer.  And after town hall meetings that *I* attended and a variety of legal red tape, they finally, FINALLY opened on Monday.
Of course I did not have time to get over there until today (I did go to Bally’s Monday after work though).  I went with H., and after all our excitement and anticipation…
we are not so sure we want to join after all.
Let me just do a quick run down of Bally’s vs. the new gym:
Bally’s
Pros:  1 block from office, huge variety of equipment, closer location I can go to on weekends, month to month contract, cheaper monthly rates than new gym.
Cons:  Generally filthy, crowded, 1/2 the machines are broken on any given day, a lot of equipment roped off for “personal training only”, personal trainers are assholes 90% of the time.

New Gym
Pros: Close to house*, brand new, community business
Cons: 1 and 2 year contracts, very limited equipment for what I do (I would not be able to do about half of my current routine there), storefront building means everyone walking down the street sees me working out

*This is both a pro and a con.  By the time I get home on the train, am I likely to schlep over to the gym? Or am I more likely to go straight from work and then relax on the train ride home?  Also, I thought this would motivate me to do early morning workouts, but let’s be realistic.  Given the choice, I inevitably opt to sleep in over getting up to go to the gym, and I’ve not gotten to bed before 11pm a single night this week.

So. For now, even though Bally’s makes me feel icky and angry, they have more of what I want at a reasonable price.
I dunno.  We have a month to take advantage of the “early bird” special, but I am finding it hard to imagine myself signing up and being locked in with a gym I am unsure about.  Which is both silly and too bad after all of the fuss of waiting for it to open. :p

ETA: My last post inspired some folks to ask, here and otherwise, questions about better managing Facebook feeds and groups. I really want to post something intelligent about this b/c it’s a complaint I  hear A LOT from non-Facebook users that I think could be really helpful.  So I’m working on gathering info, but I’ll probably be looking for your nifty input as well.

State of the Blog Address

Kim had an interesting post up earlier this week about how many relationships can be managed at a time, and it morphed for me into further reflection on the blog v. Facebook debate I’ve been having in my own head.
There are a number of reasons blogging is less convenient for me than Facebook.  The most obvious one being that WordPress and other blog sites are blocked in my office while Facebook is not.  I also have the FB application  on my Blackberry which is about 100x easier to manage than reading & commenting on blogs there (in over half the cases, commenting is seriously all but impossible from my Blackberry).  And, frankly, the brevity of keeping up on FB is attractive to me.  I feel like I make statements in my status updates that sort of sum up my day to day, and I keep up with people I know that way as well.  And the commenting becomes an easy dialogue, almost like a message board.  Also, duh, Farmville. Perhaps my favorite aspect of Facebook is the complete and utter control I can have over who sees what.  My friends are divided out into general, work, and childhood/family which makes it neatly easy to control who sees what content.  I can rest assured that some random person is not going to run across my FB profile and have access to my life in ways that I may not want them to.
Of course, this leaves the debate about what to do with the friends I’ve made through blogs who either are 1) Anonymous, so I can’t be friends with them on FB or 2) Not as active on FB.  Some bloggers have taken to posting their blog posts on Facebook–and I’d say about 50% of the time I am more apt to read them there.  But the sad reality remains that I just don’t have time to  read everyone’s posts.
Most days I go to work, then go to the gym, then come home and either attend to things around the house or read or just go to bed.   Or, as is the case lately, I go out.  I went out three nights this week!  By the time I am tucking in at the end of the day, reading blogs feels like a chore.  Which makes me feel awful, but it’s just the honest truth.  When I post a longer blog post, I even feel bad, because I think, “Who the hell has the time to read all this anyway?”
There are about 5 core blogs I read with regularity, and I hardly ever add new blogs anymore.  Probably only 3 of those 5 I actually comment on with any sort of regularity.
I haven’t made a decision to take down this blog, and I’ll never leave the blog community entirely.  And believe me, if you and I read each other at any point in time, I am SO GRATEFUL and truly appreciate the insights and support I’ve gotten over the years, and the really awesome friendships I’ve made that have so often rolled over into “real” life.  But the trend toward being more quiet here is probably going to continue…at least for a bit longer.

I Am Happy, Yes

Actually, today I am not happy, but only because it’s gloomy and wet and I swear I could just crawl into bed and spend the whole rest of the day sleeping.  But!  Overall, things are on the upswing (KNOCK WOOD) and most of this past week I really was unreservedly happy.
My hardcore devotion to the gym recently has, I think, helped a lot.  I’m feeling really good about my goals. (Aside from the fact that, holy cow, I could eat and eat and am actually waking up in the middle of the night and doing exactly that.  Help?!)  So good, in fact, that I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle 8K and know a couple other women in the neighborhood that are doing it as well. I’ve never done an 8K before and put myself in a pretty slow pace group.  Honestly? I’m a little relieved that it’s notorious for being a crowded race b/c at least if I am pokey I can blame it on that.  Ha.
Last night I went over to a friend’s house and did a “vision” board.  It sounds a little airy fairy, but it’s basically a collage of images to represent what you want the year to bring.  And if you do it right, your brain turns off and magazine images speak to you and then you arrange them in a way that makes sense on some subconscious level.  Mine came out such that work stuff is towards the center and intersects images of yoga and running and strength training, then kind of ladders up into a plethora of healthy food images.  Oddly enough, there’s a picture of a female runner right smack dab in the middle.  There’s also an image of a couple wayyyy off to the side and the guy’s face is kind of fuzzy in the picture.  Ha.  In other words, maybe I make space for someone special this year but I’m not certain.
And there’s a candy heart near the runner that reads, “Great expectations.”
So yeah. There’s that.
In other news, as my FB friends know, I got a Kindle and I love it to bits and I am tearing through the 5 free H.G. Wells books I downloaded.
Nerd alert!

ETA: Ah, there was a photographer on hand! My board is the one on the lower  right. Though I’m sure it’s not totally easy to see, at least it gives you some idea.

Haiti & Other Thoughts

I spent most of today running around with H. — at Target, and at Old Orchard mall mostly.  For a variety of reasons, yes, this was a bit of retail therapy for me which I very much needed.
In the middle of the day I put up a slightly tongue in cheek post on Facebook about needing a good reason not to buy a gorgeous pair of pale pink eyeglasses, considering I barely even have a prescription for reading glasses.  The only comment was, “Haiti?”
I felt like a jerk when I read that and immediately deleted my earlier post. But, then I got kind of annoyed.  Yes, things are awful in Haiti.  And guess what, things have been awful in Haiti and the rest of the world for a very long time.  So, every time I buy something nice for myself, am I supposed to feel bad because I should be sending that money to a cause?  If I gave up all my earthly possessions for the good of mankind…well, wouldn’t that make me a nun?
I’m not saying my little joke wasn’t tacky.  I just got kind of annoyed that the immediate response made me feel like I couldn’t buy something nice for myself because of the earthquake in Haiti.  I gave to two charities this week and plan to donate to a third, so it’s not like I’m selfishly blowing all my money on nonsensical things.  In fact, I’ve been squirreling money away into my savings account in fear of losing my job for the past year so frantically that I kind of am in the mood to treat myself a bit.
And another thing.  I will openly admit that yes, sometimes THINGS make me feel better.  My life right now feels like a series of days where I go to work, go to the gym, and come home to my cats to read.  I do have a lot of good in my life, and many friends and interests, but some days I feel like if I can’t have that person standing by my side, loving me regardless right now, then dammit, I can want material things.  I can even find comfort and joy in them…in things like a new mascara or pretty new shower curtain.
This post is again sort of all over the place, but I guess to sum up, sometimes I like buying things for myself.  And I don’t think I should feel bad for not sending all my money to Haiti.  Because guess what?  Haiti was in pretty bad shape BEFORE the earthquake and I didn’t see people rallying so much back then.

More Bad News

Guess I won’t be calling this blog “Wafelenbak’s Happy Fun Times!” anytime soon.
It’s public now, so I can share here.  P’s mother passed away unexpectedly Thursday during the night (in her sleep).  My heart is breaking.  Please keep him and his family (2 sisters, 1 bro) in your thoughts.

Pulling Away

I’ve been in a mood lately, compounded by the fact I’ve been fighting off a bit of a cold all week long.  Last night I had a terrible headache on the left side of my head and I went straight to bed after leaving work at 4pm.
For the most part, I am feeling very antisocial lately.  Which isn’t really like me at all.  And also, I think I would feel a bit better if I spent more time with other people but I also feel like right now it is okay to want to curl in upon myself a bit and sit with the feelings of general bad-moodiness.
I want to focus on myself, like I think I should be doing, but right now myself feels lonely.  But then I don’t want to be around people, so figure that one out.
Some good things are going on, though.  The training for Hustle Up the Hancock is going REALLY well and I feel confident I am going to have a great race and a great time.
Also, I finally talked to my boss this week about raising my rates (to review: I’m an independent contractor, but have been at the same company for 4 years now).  She asked me to take on some new and bigger responsibilities and it was the perfect segue for me to make my case.   So I have to put some things together this weekend that she asked me for and present them next week and she said she is “confident” we can make something happen.  I’m a little overwhelmed by some of the new stuff I am taking on, but feel if I can really do a good job of it I’m going to have a lot in my arsenal for either arguing to be hired full time or made a team lead, either here or elsewhere down the road.
Today I unfriended any remaining associations I had with E. on Facebook, including his mother, after finding out he is going to Cancun with the girl he’s been seeing after me.  Stupid Facebook.
So to sum up…
I am in a weird place.  But some good things are happening to get me through.  And Facebook is bad for my mental health, unless I am playing Farmville.

That Was Nice

The whole weekend, I mean. 

I had a great time on New Year’s Eve, and I am really, really REALLY glad I went to the party.  It was actually one of the nicest parties I’ve been to on NYE.  Very low key, with lots of nice people.  And no, I did not kiss any boys.  Most of them were gay anyway.

I spent a lot of time alternating between relaxing and being crazy this weekend.   I don’t know why my friends put up with me sometimes (but I am glad they do).  I am going to see a movie this week with a fella, and I actually think it is nothing more than I wanted to see a movie and he offered to see it again with me.  But after that, I’m taking a break. I’m worn out.  I didn’t expect the thing with the Person of Interest to hit me so hard, but  it did.  And I was angry about it an awful lot of the weekend.  Angry that he didn’t even give me a chance, even if I know it was meant to be and there’s a reason (and I believe it) the universe had his friend pipe up when she did.  I’m angry that he made the “safe” choice–a girl he’s known for a long time who just “happened” to express her feelings after we went out–vs. lesser known me.  I’m most angry that this bothers me as much as it does, but…I feel like I just got off the Demon Drop of emotion.  I was swooning after our date, and he was giving every indication he was interested in return, and then just like that, the whole thing was cut short.  Blah.  Anyway.
Sorry, I got off track.
H. and I went to see Sherlock Holmes on Saturday and I really enjoyed it.  We also checked out the new fitness center, which should be opening any day now (and no later than the 15th they say).  They’re just filing paperwork at this point and expect to take applications soooon.  I also spent time reading a couple of fluffy medical thrillers–finished one and am nearly finished with another.  It was really nice to have quiet time to read, even if I felt weird and squirmy about being home on a weekend night (because admittedly, I thought I would be out with the Person of Interest this weekend, before he made his “choice”).
This morning I went to yoga class for a change of pace.  It was a little…weird.  A bit more “heady” than I usually like, but it was nice to get out of the house.  I spent some time this afternoon with friends and started my laundry.  In a few, I have to head down to H.’s house to wash my hair because my shower is broken and they haven’t been out to fix it yet.  I can still take a bath and in theory could probably wash my hair in the sink, but if H. doesn’t mind (and she doesn’t) I just really would rather take a real shower.  Hopefully that’s fixed tomorrow.
I think I got kinda ranty here but the point was that my NYE was nice, my time with friends was nice, my reading was nice and my weekend in general was nice too.  Huzzah! And no tears–double huzzah!

Let This Be My Mantra

Of course I say I am going to be quiet here and here I am anyway.   I guess that was more of a retroactive quiet…
There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where a woman tells the lead male character Ted that the woman for him is out there, and she is coming as fast as she can.
You kind of have to see the episode to appreciate the whole context.

But!

I know he is out there.  And he is coming as fast as he can.

I have learned and grown so much in the past few years that I think he was waiting for me to be ready for him.

Happy New Year’s.  I am so thankful for those of you who I have met, grown closer to, laughed and cried with, and especially for those of you who have been by my side through a particularly difficult year.  Here’s to 2010, and health and happiness to you all.