Last night I came home and finally figured out why my bathroom sink was taking forever to drain. At last! Now I could clean my sink and have it sparkly clean. There had been no point when it took 15 minutes to drain anytime I used it. I had tried drain cleaner, more than once, with no luck. Turns out there was a huge wad of hair at the very top of the plunger to plug the sink hole closed.

Strange, since most of it looked like the cat’s hair. I don’t brush my hair at that sink, I just wash my face, my teeth and my hands there. Where had all this hair come from?

Anyway, sink’s clean, drain was never not working properly, no plumber needed. One of the joys of home ownership is that every time you figure out a way to not involve a professional and spending money not in the budget, is another home owner victory!

This morning saw the cat’s box cleaned (doesn’t count in my tally as it is a weekly task), not a major deal and I took all the holiday/thank you/and family update letters off the back of my front door. They had been this very nice reminder of people in my life right before I walked out into the world each and every day, but they were all from the past.

My boss at work told me she has a dream board on the back of her front door – reminding her of what she wants to create in life right before she leaves the sanctity of home. I really like that idea, so that is what will be going up. At least now it is clear to create that. The end of the hallway is a little brighter, now that the white of the door has been revealed. Not as cluttered looking, even though it was strictly visual clutter.

Plenty more to do, but progress is happening.

I have a plan, I have structure, I have reason to be motivated.

The plan: lose some weight. 45 pounds to be precise.

The structures:

1. morning boot camp! begins tomorrow. lasts a month. I went and checked the location out today, while the sun was shining, because I need to be there at 6 am, when the sun don’t shine.
2. buddy system! my walking partner for Saturdays also signed up, so I have reason to show up and not just stay in bed like I may want. don’t want to bail on her.
3. fitted clothes! no more 100% stretchy fabrics so I have no idea what size I am, where my body is bulging. already went and bought some new outfits this last week, and was amazed at what sizes I had to buy. but they are not stretchy. apparently they are even flattering, given the looks and advances I have been getting this week.
4. questions: am i still hungry? do i feel full? wearing fitted clothes helps me realize that the meal’s bulge is enough, i don’t need to go any further. doesn’t work to unzip a skirt in public.
5. scale! I went and bought a digital kitchen scale. One friend of mine who recently lost a noticeable amount of weight told me the only change he made was he weighed everything he ate so he was really concious of his portion control. nothing else was different. Another friend who also told me her recent weight loss story, merely stopped eating dinner and eliminated dairy from her diet. I don’t really eat dinner myself, but I could eliminate the late-night-when-I-get-home-grazing I do. I am also considering not doing the morning mochas for the next month. Considering, I say. Haven’t decided to commit to it yet. I do get almond milk for my mochas instead when it’s an option.
6. oatmeal! I have heard it from a million people, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day, blah blah blah,” but I’m just not hungry when I wake up. But a friend gave me his remaining oatmeal when he left the country, and I took it to work, so after my morning workout, I have oatmeal to look forward to to start the day. I think I can manage that. There’s even hot water out of the office water cooler. Comforts of home.
7. No time! I just worked out my schedule for every day and night until the end of June, and besides not scheduling any work for Sunday nights, I just don’t have time to eat that often, ya know?
8. Finances! I need to be saving some money here, and just not eating out would make a huge dent in my available cash flow, in addition to getting rid of the ritual (and expensive) morning mocha.

The motivation: oh the many reasons! the basics: to feel better about myself, to have more energy, to fit into more of the clothes in my very extensive wardrobe that I currently don’t fit into, to ensure my health by being my ideal adult healthy weight, to impress someone, to cause envy of someone else (cause mischief), to generally have my physical appearance match my mental image of myself, etc, etc, etc. Ya know, the usual reasons, yadda yadda.

The cool thing is the reason I have picked the weight I want to get to is I know I can do it. I was nearly there when I went off to Europe, back in December of 2003. That was less than a decade ago. So I know it’s doable. The weight I think is ideal is because I used to be that weight for more than a decade of my adult life, with no effort maintaining it. Then I moved to LA and got a real corporate job, and I stress-ate to deal with it. Quit the boyfriend and lost a bunch of weight. (Couldn’t sleep, found myself walking a lot to do something with the nights.) Went to visit Europe. New stresses. Same boyfriend in my life again. Weight went back up. Quit the job AND the boyfriend again, lost a bunch of weight again. Up, down, up, down. Right now, I am nearly to the same incredible, horrible weight I was once before, but feeling quite different about it. Feeling a lot more balanced in my insane life of three+ jobs and working every day of the week. I just feel in more control of my life, my finances, my choices. This is what I am doing to get by, right now, and it’s working, and things will get better soon, because I won’t put up with this insanity for too much longer. I have an internal clock, and it says things will be changing soon, for the better. And I believe it.

Another cool thing is I know exactly how to maintain my weight, once I get to whatever weight I get to. I walk. I walk a couple of miles, three or four times a week. Can be totally flat walking, doesn’t need to be strenuous, it just needs to be consistent. End of story. My weight maintenance plan.

And I just heard an interview with someone talking about weight and financial changes, and they suggested doing something drastic to start with so that you are motivated to continue on the path that will get you to your desired goal. When you see a result in the first few weeks, you are more likely to continue with the changes, even if the later weeks are less drastic. By then it becomes a habit. So the boot camp is my drastic jump start to get me going, and then all the other little changes will start to make a showing.

Yay, I love a well crafted plan. Pretty good for just a bunch of random decisions being put together towards the same goal, isn’t it?

Of course, still clueless if barking up an unavailable tree, or an uninterested tree or what, but we have had coffee twice these weekday mornings. We walk and talk. It’s been fun to get to know one another.

Not only have I been getting exercise as a result, actually going to bed and trying to wake up early for our meets (he wakes up at 5:30 every morning!) but I’ve been writing poetry again.

Smitten I say! If nothing else, the excess of energy, motivation and interest in life have been excellent enough benefits, in addition to having a new friend, that whether the smittenness is mutual or not, does it really matter?

Here’s today’s offering:

I remember why/

early morns have no appeal/

when cold/

outside my cave of covers/

I’d rather snuggle warmth!

Well, once the character of Cole Turner was introduced, and his epic, tormented love for Phoebe, as a demon, as a mortal, as the ultimate evil, the Source, banned to purgatory Wastelands, escaped because of his undying love, with ever expanding powers, yada, yada, yada… I was hooked. And I got to thinking:

What sort of love is this? He never gives up. He is addicted. He is manipulative and controlling in all his efforts to resist her/ gain her/gain her back, convince her of his love, it is what drives him in all his actions. Got to admire him for it, if not condone his actions.

It’s very appealing as a storyline. Who hasn’t loved someone that wasn’t right for them, damn the consequences? Most of us don’t end up the Queen of the Underworld as a result, but we all know that good girl attraction for bad boys is real. And obviously the converse is true too, or else there would be no bad boys to fall for.

Before his 46th episode, an entire storyline was developing that was picked up in later seasons. Would it have redeemed him if he had taken on the same struggle another character later did? What had the writers originally intended for the character of Cole Turner, if the actor Julian McMahon hadn’t started working on other projects (i.e. a starring role in Nip/Tuck)?

Alas, at 46 episodes, he anti-climactically got written out of the story line.  I kept expecting for him to come back. I wanted his love to conquer all, for him to be rewarded for his tenacity, his blinders of focus for only one woman. One more episode had him guest appearing, but it didn’t really add anything. Not really. A little hope, and nothing further developed in the storyline. Not developed further because then Julian was working on Fantastic Four in addition to Nip/Tuck? Alas… what further might have happened?

One friend is a bit bemused by my endless analysis of all this.

And then I realized, it is research. In my continuing quest to make my vampire novel unique and still tell a story that hasn’t been covered by other writers who got their product out AFTER I had my idea but before I have gotten mine published, I am now re-working my heroine as in part, evil. Can an evil character be sympathetic, hold the reader’s interest?

I think Cole Turner of Charmed points to yes. There is hope for my evil heroine.

*Incessantly=8 years of 22 episodes per season, at least, at approximately 42 minutes an episode (not counting the credits I skip) = 120 hours of nearly constant episode watching when not at work…. Yeah, that’s incessant. Why is it that I’m not meeting anyone new again?

Just wanted to get that off my wish list.

I would like to have a body that I could look great in in a bikini. That’s it.

Like I said, a little secret.

I realized I had a deposit slip for the completely wrong bank. Oops.

Since work was a mere 1/2 mile away, I just turned around and went and got the correct pre-printed deposit slip and tried again.

Let me just say that the bank was busy, every teller with a customer, and I may have been first in line, but that was no guarantee it would be soon to speak with a teller.

When I came back, there was no line, and I went straight to the first teller available. It was the teller I frequently get, who asks about my weekends and sympathizes when I say I will be working, as will he.

He said he noticed me in line the first time and wondered what had happened. I explained I had the wrong bank deposit slip and figured it would help if I had the right one, the correct one for the bank I was standing in.

When I left I realized that was really pretty attentive of him, noticing me in the first place when the bank was so busy, and he with a customer. Hmmm.

When I mentioned the whole thing to my boss the next day, she knew exactly which teller I was talking about.

As I say, somebody has been paying attention. More than one somebody. But it certainly hasn’t been me. Next time I need to go to that bank, I will have to make a point of checking out whether a wedding ring can be seen on his hand.

These are of my parents, looking very stylish and dapper for the late 1960s. My mom, when seeing these photos, commented on how awful her glasses looked.

My Mom in Japan, 1969

My Dad in Japan, 1969

 

 

 

Weren’t they a handsome couple? Who knew?

 

Here they were in Nikko.

I stumbled across my ex-boyfriend in a reality show. It aired its first episode just this Tuesday, and he and his girlfriend were in that premiere episode.

I wasn’t looking for it, honest, even after he mentioned in a voicemail after I last saw him that they had recently been in a reality show. I thought, oh, okay, whatever. They both want to be actors, here’s their shot. Wonder if it will get aired. I mean, whatever happened to the reality show Dr. Drew was doing with random couples taking a road trip together? Or maybe that was someone else’s show, but I thought road trip, I’ll audition. Never heard of it again.

So what to my wondering eyes should I see when looking through Hulu, to see what episodes of favorite shows I missed while on vacation, but a snippet that clearly showed the ex’s girlfriend. Uh-oh. I think I found it. Like I said, wasn’t trying.

I took a deep breath before clicking play. My heart was pounding. Did I want to see this? He had mentioned there was therapy, and physical trainers and stuff like that involved. Would I be enlightened by watching this? Would it help me understand what went wrong in our 7+ year relationship? The one he said if he had any sense, he would marry me, because we obviously would never get bored with one another and things to talk about and do together? And really, enough about them, what I wanted to know, was would I come up as an issue in their relationship? The love of his life that got away? Because he always stays away from me when he’s with someone else, because they get so jealous of me. I can’t imagine what he says about me that causes that, but I miss one of my best friends not being in my life when he’s dating someone else. I know we can still be friends, but apparently he doesn’t.

I hit play. I watched. My heart continued to pound.

That picture in the background of their place, I remember when he got that. The plates they ate off, we went shopping for matching ones for me, and we too ate off them. The breakfasts they talk about preparing before consulting with the nutritionist are the ones he used to foist on me, and I would protest it was too much food, I wasn’t that hungry.

This is the girlfriend he started seeing while still seeing me. He claimed he stopped seeing me because I got too fat. At the start of the show, she is far heavier than I ever was, or ever have been.

Yeah. And then I wonder how much reality shows are scripted.

I won’t give away the grand finale, but I just noticed the date they wrote in the sand while at the beach. Hunh.

Because, about two weeks later, after not hearing from him for months, maybe even a full year, I got a phone call from a police officer at his request. I was at a party, with a date. Drinking. Enjoying myself with friends.

The police officer told me where they were, and requested I come pick him up, so he didn’t have to take him to the drunk tank. They couldn’t book him for drunk driving, as no one actually saw him driving, but the tires up on the curb, and the voluminous empty beer bottles in the vehicle and his polite but quite drunken demeanor were evidence enough. No keys in the ignition, something he knows well not to have when the police stop him. My showing up, date driving his vehicle as I knew I should not be driving at that point, meant the ex did not have to go to the drunk tank. They handed over his cell phone, keys, and ID to me, and explained since I had come so quickly and was obviously responsible, they were releasing him to me. Could we just move the car off the curb before we left?

After the police escorted him out of the back seat of the police car, I immediately asked him why he hadn’t called his girlfriend. He said she was working. And so? I thought.

I spoke some more with the police, hoping my own intoxication was not obvious. My anger covered most anything else, I think. Besides, I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I wasn’t driving. The cell phone in my hand started vibrating. By the time I was able to look at the screen, I could see it was his girlfriend.

Should I answer or not?

Hi Meg, it’s your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, rescuing him from the police again. How are you? Why didn’t he call you?

No, I decided, enough drama without creating some more. I got to our car, where he was now captive in the backseat of a two door coupe, and told him his girlfriend was trying to get ahold of him, and handed him his phone. We closed the door to leave him in privacy, and went to go move his car. There was cash strewn all over the seats, and I figured I didn’t want to be responsible for his car getting broken into for such an obvious temptation, so I gathered that up too. The car was a pig sty. I had never seen it that messy before, with food and wrappers and CDs and just stuff. Almost like he was living in his car.

He gave us directions, and we took him home, someplace he had never invited me to before, though I knew he lived somewhere in this area for a few years now. Five miles away from me, rather than the 50 I had been always driving to see him four years ago.

His place was a disaster. Now, you must understand, he and I are both slobs. We are clear on that. But one thing we had always been good about was keeping the common areas clean when sharing space with others. I asked where the dog was, since I knew they had adopted a dog, just as we had once when we had lived together. I had been wanting to meet the dog.

“Oh, Meg’s probably walking him.”

“I thought you said she was at work.”

“Uh, or maybe the roommate is out walking the dog.”

“Uh-huh.”

I walked straight into the kitchen, the very same one shown on the reality show, and immediately put his keys, cash and ID in the freezer. Unfortunately, the point of hiding them was kinda moot, since he followed directly on my footsteps into the kitchen.

The freezer? you ask.

Yes. It was someplace he always hid things when drunk. I figured when he woke up the next morning, it would be one of the first places he would look for them, in perfect drunk person logic. He used to go to parties and hide his keys in random places, so he wouldn’t drive drunk. Then call me to pick him up, hoping the keys were found the next day during clean up. They usually were.

But instead I got a text from him the next morning asking where his keys and ID were. Guess he wasn’t watching when I put them there after all.

So the question is, why call me? As he has had no contact with me for months, why would he even assume I was in town, even nearby?

I could have not answered the phone. When I answered and it wasn’t his voice, giving me directions to someplace completely random, I thought maybe it was a prank. Another reason to take the date with me, in case I was right and somehow walking into something dangerous.

But I did, and I was nearby, and I did rescue him, again.

And now that I have watched the reality show and seen the conclusion, I wonder all the more about the health of that relationship.

Because when you are in trouble, don’t you call the person you love and trust the most? The one you know you can count on? Isn’t that the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?