Strayed

I'm feeling blue today. It started last night when I ate a pint of Ben and Jerrys. I don't feel guilty, but I could stand to lose a few pounds and consuming that much goodness isn't helping in that area, even with the over five miles of walking I did yesterday during work.

Maybe my blueness started over the weekend. Well, OK, maybe it started before that because I failed to remember to take my meds for a few too many days in a row. Nothing sabotaginal about it, I just forgot. I'm back on track now.

Saturday though. I read somewhere that a good way to work towards reducing body fat is to do an exercise once a week that alternates; 60 seconds of high intensity followed by 60 seconds of rest. Do this for about 16 minutes and add two more minutes every week.

On Saturday I got Harlow all leashed up and headed to the Fells for a hike-run to implement this new exercise. I had mapped my path using an app in my phone and was holding my phone and the dog leash while trying to navigate the paths (the GPS in the app isn't very accurate on a good day let alone when you're hidden in trees) when I tried to take a little hop over a small log and caught my foot sending my full weight square onto my knees on rocks.

I got up, assessed the damage and decided I could finish the work out just fine. And I did. So did Harlow. As we rested in the shade at the end of our forty minute hike which started with the 60/60 workout, Harlow was lapping up some water when I looked down at my phone, not four months old, and realized I'd shattered the screen. And then I remembered that I had meant to buy an industrial strength Otter box to protect the new phone, and that the bumper currently on it was just a place holder. But I forgot.

I got home with a mission to figure out how to replace the screen without going bankrupt. Long story short, the best deal I could get will run me a bit over $100. So Wednesday I'll take it to Apple to have that fixed. I bought an Otter Box online Saturday afternoon as I looked down at my sad phone.

Something about damaging my phone really got to me. I wanted to cry. Like, really wanted to. I take great pride is taking good care of my possessions, and somehow damaging this particular one really bothers me. A lot.

These feelings are also an indication to me of how valuable my phone is to me (read; how dependent I've become on it). I use it to take and post photos, contact friends and family, reach out to clients and learn about stuff in the world.

We headed home and I iced my knee for an hour and a half, then I mowed the lawn, then I wanted to vomit from the heat. I went into my evening plans frankly feeling like complete shit, convinced that there's something wrong with my gall bladder because when I feel sick, the area where the gall bladder apparently is, aches. I suppose I could ask someone about it. Like, a professional or something.

The evening picked up my mood with good company and a few mini-theater shows in the city. Laughing fixes a lot. So does winning a raffle with an envelope full of really nice things like skin treatments and coffee shops and bakeries. That was nice. And I deserved it.

Home ownership has me stressed. Looking at the condition of my house, I'm pretty sure a residing is needed. What I need is someone all-knowing to come to my house, look at it, and tell me, magically, what is needed most. Is the porch rotting? Will my shingles make it a few more years? And so on. Since buying my new (used) car and paying for it with much of my Cydney Scott Photography savings, I don't really have the money to do the siding anymore. So I'm left wondering if I can't do it this year will I be able to afford it next year or, as it is with home ownership, will something else come up that will zap me like a failed heating system or something and I'll end up having to sell my house cause the walls are rotting and I didn't stay ahead of it?

Then there are the trees. I have a huge Maple Tree in my yard which is big and strong and beautiful in the fall for seven and a half days before it dumps 42 tons of leaves on my property. I'm constantly pulling up little saplings in my yard, and the big maple makes so much shade that nothing will grow beneath it. I'm not a supporter of cutting down trees just because they're a nuisance, but I also have visions or the roots growing into my basement.

My gardens have saplings of all kinds growing all over and that's another project I have to take on soon - pulling them up.

I'm fighting the urge to buy things in an effort to fill the little hole of loneliness I have in me. That space where the thought grows that I am never going to find my person and I need to simply accept that and embrace it.

I have been listening to Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. She's an author and advice columnist for Dear Sugar, and Tiny Beautiful Things is a collection of letters and answers which she has given over the years. I once visited the Dear Sugar site and I didn't have the patience for her very long and wordy responses (what a coincedence, she thinks as she rambles on), but having her read them to me is far more palatable.
Interesting though to find it to be rather intense, almost leaving me with a need to take a break from time to time. People writing in about their heartbreak and trauma, etc. One man writing in about how he is so physically deformed that he cannot see himself ever finding love and her telling him a story about a friend who was severely burned and eventually killed himself. These stories alway give me pause and make me reflect on the absurdity of my own self-criticism.

Another woman writes in about how she can't find the right man and should she just have a kid on her own? Of course that one hit close to home with the added bonus of pregnancy not even being an option for me. Fostering could be an option, but is it a good idea? Not really. Sugar gives the girl the same things to consider that I have considered myself about having a kid alone; can you afford it? How would you handle childcare? how would you be about no longer having a social life? And so on.

I've been messaging with a few guys on OKCupid (online dating) and one recently said he was off to Philly with his son for ten days. In my FB newsfeed there came a story about a pizza joint in Philly where you can buy a slice, then pay for another one that could go to a homeless person at another time. Very cool. I shot him a message basically saying "I know you don't really know me so maybe this is weird, but I saw this and thought I'd mention it to you since you said you were Philly-bound" I added a link to the story about the place.

His response was not "Hey cool! Thanks for sharing but..."  It was this...

i'm kind of outside of town - i didn't actually grow up in the city. i'd like to give you a suggestion since i saw it when you made the change to your profile in the activity window. i think it is a mistake to be upset if a guy asks you out with only 12 hours to go - that you feel down. first of all - please take this off of your profile. it feels desperate. just speaking as a friend. it will keep guys away from you. second, i am a spontaneous person and i would l often suggest things at the last minute - i would fly to other countries and spend months there based on how i woke up in the morning. third, i sort of dated a woman briefly and she'd get really upset if i called her from work and suggested that we get together that evening. it had nothing to do with her - it was just the rhythm of my life. you are forgetting that people might be dealing with crazy stuff at work and there not even sure if they are going to be in town or even free on a weekend. lastly, in the beginning - it is better to start more as friends and let it build naturally from there. that's my view on it at least.

In general, he is very correct. Finishing the statement "I spend a lot of time thinking about..." I stated that, basically, being asked out at the last minute leaves a person feeling like an after-thought. It's a new statement I added to my profile just the other day and definitely needed removing. Rather than give him a diatribe, I simply said thanked him for the advice and told wished him a nice trip, even is he couldn't make it to the cool pizza place (which he never even thanked me for sharing with him).

I am picky. I am demanding. I am entitled. These are facts. But also true is the fact that if a woman showed to a date not "date ready", there would be no second date. If I showed to a date right from work because I was asked out while at work the same day, I'd never hear from that guy again. Why? not because I'm a slob at work, but because it's hot out these days; I wear my hair in a bun, not nice and sleek and flowy like it's expected to be, even if I'm just going for ice cream. I'm wearing presentable pants and a nice t-shirt, but not date-appropriate clothes.

Dates for me FUCKING SUCK and I hate them. I have to go all the way home, shower, wash and dry my hair, do my make-up, pick out the right outfit which flatters my figure the best and works for whichever location we may be going to. Guys? Unless they're in work-out clothes, no ones really going to judge THEM for showing up wearing whatever shirt was on their back all day long. And even if they do need to change, the prep-work expected of them is FAR less than any beauty torture bullshit we have to go through.

"It was just the rhythm of my life" he wrote. Exactly. YOUR life, but not the life of the woman you were dating at the time. No regard for what the rhythm of her life was like (I say this knowing full well I know nothing of that relationship so I am writing on face value), or the pressure she felt about having to look right for the date, or the feeling she might of had that she was the plan B that evening. Hm, nothing great's come up for my evening so maybe that woman I'm casually dating with come hang out. I'll ask her to Jump and she'll ask 'How high?'! because all women want to be loved and will put up with men not valuing their time because  a good guy is hard to find and if I don't put up with this disrespectful person's treatment towards me, I'll be alone forever.

Awesome.

I'm grouchy and going for a walk now.

I'm back and while on my walk I listened to more of Strayed's book. When I pressed play while leaving my building and walking out into the sunlight, she was picking up where she left off in a response to a letter writer. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself" her voice said into my ears. Ah, yes. Well said.

Later she said "You don't have a right to the cards you feel you should have been dealt. You do have the right to play the hell out of the ones you were".  I feel I was dealt a very good hand, but I just liked the quote.

Pick-me-ups...

she says she wants a Pope-mobile for Christmas now

Shake it off from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.