Snapshot(s)

My snapshot of me today is, I'm depressed. Maybe posting literal snapshots will lift my mood a little. I forced myself to do aerobics. That's a start. OK, now some pictures and maybe a little more train-of-thought. Maybe. I dunno.





What matters in life is animals -- big, huggie doggies and fluffy kittycats who love you and want to be your friends.

I drew a picture of my Filipino friend under a green canvas tarp awning...

I want [access to] a beach and friends and animals and security and health. You know I did another actuarial calculator today. I think it's BS because the nature of the questions betrayed ignorance and assumptions. Like, why would I need 24 ounces of milk a day if I take 1000 mg of calcium every other day and eat other calcium rich foods? Anyway, it basically says I'm gonna kick the bucket if I don't get some kind of health plan that allows for actual checkups versus emergency care, and also if I don't make some friends. 84 is all it gives me. Shades of the Beatles -- "You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out of here." But again it's BS. My bloodwork was perfect -- all lipids, hormones, every marker tested was completely optimal. The calculator didn't ask me any of that, except that it asked me for cholesterol numbers that I didn't actually know (I just knew they were perfect.) Instead it basically just said fie on me for not getting a checkup. Then it offered to take me to a website for making friends. "Might have gone but what for?" (Jack Jones?)

When I had dear Anwar I asked him if he would get me a pet elephant when we moved to Egypt. I'm glad he didn't hurry to agree. If you're gonna get an elephant you gotta get two. Elephants who don't have other elephants pair off platonically with dogs. OK, I know of one such story, anyway. The elephant sanctuary had many best-friend pairs of elephants, but the odd elephant out made friends with a dog.

Brain Dump (with More Anwar!)

Yesterday I came down with the stomach bug. Today, feeling a little better, I decided to take advantage of the quiet in Russ' absence by writing a little in my blog. I can browse the want ad's while he's cranking the stereo, but writing is best done when it's quiet.

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Remembering Anwar has its up-side. He really did help me lay in a store of memories, for which I am thankful. I remember his stature, his fair skin, dark hair, red lips. I remember his little teeth and childlike smile. I remember his intelligent speech unencumbered with intellectual narcissism. I remember how open, honest, respectful and affectionate he was...

We used to watch videos together, like Grease, Saturday Night Fever and Luceille Ball videos from her show in the '70's. We'd open up YouTube and show each other things we had enjoyed in the past. What a great way to share our respective cultures with one another.

We tried to share religion that way, too; but the Islamic apologist, Deedat, on YouTube did not impress me with his scholarship or his rhetoric. The Christian apologist (whose name I forgot, but he wrote "The Case for Christ,") by contrast, really had it together. I find Ahmed to be a much better representative of Islam than Deedat.

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Chalk one up for women. Women are so adaptable. They know that when they find a man they will be, to some extent, living his life, the life he chose. There was something so proper, natural and elegant about that but I've forgotten what it was. It hit me one day while I was getting something out of a kitchen drawer. Let me go see if the memory is still in the drawer... [be right back.] OK, the only thing I found in the drawer was this: that in general a man is or can be attracted to many women, while women are emotionally very selective of men. When a woman finds someone who meets all her emotional requirements it doesn't make much sense to let a little thing like lifestyle get in the way. Who's the boss? Where will we live? What will we do for a living? I don't care -- draw straws -- as long as I get this man and no other. (I think this is the reaction Moliere's titular Misanthrope was going for in the final scene!) And yet, if women don't also get this from men, I suppose they have to doubt whether they are really loved.

More Anwar

I thought I'd tip my hand for anyone who would ever be kind enough to read my blog. From my last post it's apparent that I got engaged to Anwar before my emotions were fully on board. My emotions caught up with me as I knew they would. But this modus operandi must sound really strange to people from my culture, so I thought I'd at least try to explain myself here.

First, I wouldn't have done that for just anyone. Second, I wouldn't have planned it that way by myself. Here was this great guy that I really liked asking me to marry him. So I said I would do it if I fell in love with him, which I was sure I would because I liked him so much already. I said we should start planning, so I got in touch with my Church about getting Anwar's previous marriage annulled. We worked out details like rings -- like no rings, please, because we both disliked to wear any jewelry. (We both liked to play gutar, actually. How would that feel with rings on?)

And then, like I said, in the end I did fall in love with him, with rather ironic timing.

Did I manage to explain myself here? It isn't often that I become attracted to anybody, after all. Well, I'll ask Eric and Eliot. They're good at breaking it down.

I Missed My Chance to Show Him Love

Pursuant to my previous post, I did go and do some housework in the middle of the night. Maybe that's what jogged the thought loose. I know what my problem is now, with regard to Anwar.

When he left for his visit to Egypt, I was still trying to understand the man. I was trying to see and appreciate him for who he really was. When a few days passed without him around, I began to get some perspective that allowed me to appreciate him more deeply than I had before. In his absence I could see how happy I had been in his presence. More than this, I realized then how much I loved him, and I looked forward to being able to express this in person. I wanted to shower him with affection. I didn't know it but it was already too late.

When he broke up with me long-distance (email from Egypt) a few weeks later I missed another chance. It was at that time that I should have asked him to help me tie up emotional loose ends, answering questions like, "Why her and not me?" He gave me some answers but now I wish I had all the answers he would have been willing to give me if I had asked. Maybe I just wasn't ready to ask. I was too stunned with surprise. I was also focused on making the transition easy for him, because I thought it must have been hard for him.

My eyes are stinging and tearing right now as I think of the man who approached me last summer and said he enjoyed seeing me and would like to spend time with me. When he was gone I couldn't believe he was gone. I had come around for him emotionally in record time and it still wasn't fast enough for him to know fully how I felt. Maybe I could have kept him if I had warmed up to him faster.

Brain Dump

Man, it's so cool having my own computer. Thanks a million to the friend who gave it to me. (Friend, in my blog I will refer to you as Charlie.)

Charlie's band is performing next week and I intend to drag my roommate to the show.

I neglected to count calories until after dinner, only to find that I had slightly overeaten. Counting is key. Count. Measure. Measure and count. Tonight I will need a workout. I'm wearing some skinny pants but they are tight.

If I didn't have this awesome gadget to play with tonight (the computer,) I would probably be procrastinating about housework while watching TV. Now I can procrastinate much more productively. And yes, I have been known to get up from my funk late at night and do housework, and I'm sure that is what will end up happening tonight as well. My mother was the same way. I can remember falling asleep to the sound of the vacuum cleaner when I was a child.

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"Only the Destitute Walk" is the name of a blog whose link you will find at the bottom of this page. It's not nearly lighthearted enough for me to actually want to read it. I actually haven't read it for some time. But if you want to get educated about the reality of poverty in America, here's your read. It reminds me of the newspapers I sometimes buy and hardly ever read because the news is too scary.

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To make a small donation to help a poor woman to help a lucky horse, check out http://silivrenwolf.deviantart.com/ . You may be surprised at how good you feel helping to save an animal versus whatever else you were going to do with small change.

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Did I really have so little to say? Is it really time to clean the kitchen and scrub the toilet bowl? Not quite...

I remembered -- last night I started to have a good cry over Anwar so I called Charlie. Charlie pointed out my main problem. I mean, Anwar isn't my main problem. I lost him fair and square and he's surely in good hands now with his new lady. No, my problem is something Charlie hit upon last night; I don't have a good local support system. Who are my friends in Seattle? Well, there's the flirty guys. Charlie says they're not reliably supportive because they have their own (however innocuous) agenda. Also, there's Russ. But Russ isn't as supportive as one might think, because he has a strict schedule that incorporates everything from work to entertainment and, if I'm not down with the schedule (pinball, anyone?) I'm not going to get much face time. There's Charlie. He's certainly a friend, but only one friend. A person needs a community -- a network of emotional support to be emotionally healthy. I replied to Charlie that community was one of the things my job provided that I really liked, when I had a job.

So now I find myself an introverted, boring blogger who writes about her love life and house chores, sometimes stopping to count calories out loud.

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I thought about Nicola again. He's so charming and mysterious that I should write a comic book about him. Nah, I wouldn't know what to write. How would I fill in the blanks? Nicola is a fleeting thought for me because he just doesn't give me enough material to think about.

In my Humble Opinion

I should have prefaced my bold statement in the previous post with "In my humble opinion," but these days that kinda goes without saying.

Release Cranium from Anal Sphincter

Here is a letter I wrote to Nicola:

Hello Nicola,

I hope you fared well through all the market corrections. I'll chalk just one up for John McCain although I would not have voted for him (and didn't:) The best way to address the banking situation is to start by paying [a portion of?] people's upside-down mortgages. This would have tethered the value of all the affected securities to something concrete, whereas other efforts look like disconnected attempts to throw good money after bad. It's looking like those of us who prayed, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," have something of an answer in that.

Be that as it may I love our new president and I mainly trust the things he does. Actually I'm disappointed in McCain for not brokering more bipartisanship all along; I thought that would be his big historic role in America's return to sanity.

One thing I can't stand about all the rhetoric about the mortgage and securitization crisis is that most pundits overlook the fact that the kinds of loans in question used to make sense to borrowers, because a certain level of wholesome, labor-based inflation would ultimately help pay them off. This kind of inflation was deliberately curtailed and essentially reversed almost thirty years ago, but people raised on hope continued to hope that the future would offer them something -- because, if you think about it, we had no choice. I could see people signing notes in the '80's and '90's with the mental reservation that, "well, if things don't get better for me I'm in trouble anyway." In fact, that probably was among my thoughts when borrowing some of my student loans.

If you've been reading my blog, you've seen where my head has been since I lost Anwar. I was thinking of titling my next post, "Release Cranium from Anal Sphincter." My spell-checker didn't balk, so I think I got that right.

I had a dream that was very unfair to Oprah. The mega-star was casting for a chorus line and she cut me because I was too fat! Seriously, though, springtime is a great time to lose weight. My BMI is now in the normal range, albeit near the top. My goal is to be a healthy, dead-center 145 lbs or so. My father is a champion dieter and he helped me pick a goal weight.

Did you ever get to Australia? Will you be in Washington anytime soon?

Sincerely,
Kitty

hopeless romantic

Sometimes a man likes me right away -- a strange man I never met before. How do men do it? They become attached to strangers. Why can't I? Sociobiologically it makes sense that a woman needs to be friendly-familiar with a man before she can be attracted to him.

Some of these guys -- all they want is to be loved. It seems so unfair that women are programmed to be on the lookout for "the one" when billions of men need someone. There are junctures where my ideals about romance clash with the reality of a man who wanders up like a stray cat and asks if he can be mine. I wouldn't turn the cat away. Why turn away the man? How can I keep this up?

I wasn't like this before. It never troubled me. As a kid I figured that if a man liked me then I would become his muse and that should be fine with him. Ultimately, though, this doesn't address his emotional male needs (to say nothing of his physical needs, which I can't do much about, as a Catholic single virgin.)

A man who cares for me is a miracle and a beautiful person. Then I come in with my preferences and my Prince Charming motif and blow it all away. I'm tired of this. And yet, we all know it has to be this way. It has to. I don't like it, but it just has to be this way. I can't come across for anyone and everyone. That is not natural for any woman. And I've always been particularly romantic, even as far as women go (which is pretty far in the romantic direction.) I'm all Sydney Carton without any assurance that I would actually brave the guillotine. But short of that assurance I'm totally Sydney Carton, hoping that I would be brave, hoping that I would never have the opportunity to be brave or otherwise. I'm all about carrying a torch for some muse of my own. (Never mind that right now I don't even have a muse.)

I met a precious fellow the other night. Tonight he came to dinner. He's all adoring and cuddly. If he were a cat we'd have moved him in (except that we're not allowed pets in our building.) Why don't I adore him right back? 'Cuz he's a stranger. What if I never like him that way? That's likely, and it's probably going to hurt us both. Moreover, the reasons for it will not make sense. I'm tired of this.

He looks to be all of maybe half my age, by the way. If I'd been really nosey I could have offered him wine and asked if it would be legal. Man, what a nice guy, though. He took an interest in my art and also drew me a picture of mountains and trees and sunshine.