Mother's Day again?

It's the Saturday before Mother's Day, a much maligned "holiday" made up by the greeting card producers of America so many years ago. Then the flower growers and candy makers hopped on the bandwagon and bing-bang-boom - Mother's Day as we know it today.

And Mother's Day stirs up so many emotions for people. Gratitude mostly. Mine are probably not those of most. And this is something that I've been aware of since about nine years old and has somewhat bothered me later in life. While in 4th grade when the other little girls in my class would go around the table declaring that they love their mother, but I could not.

And I feel for those kids who were neglected and ignored today. My adult realization is that I grew up in a household ran by a mother who was depressed. I was raised by a caretaker and not a mother. And it maybe because she was older than most at the time she started to have children, or even combined with the fact that she was the youngest of four herself.

But for whatever reason she behaved the way she did towards me and my brother, even the hatred towards my father that she divorced,  we will never know because she took it to the grave.

What I do know for a fact that is I'm not my mother. I have done things in my life and accomplished things that she never did and most things I'm glad that I did. I had my son at age 21. I own my home. I own two cars.

Despite the fact that both of my parents were neglectful to a degree, I somehow ended up not being a huge detriment on society.

I learned that there are three types of people in this world:
1) those who follow the rules
2) those who acknowledge there are rules but think they don't apply to them
3) those who just do what they want with reckless abandon.

... guess which lane I swim in?

Funky

I've been in a funk lately. I think it's a combination of things that are effecting my moods: my job, turning 44, getting my Crohn's under control, not getting out of life what I thought I wanted in so much as a career goes and being lonely. Social anxiety makes me shy and nervous around groups of unfamiliar people. It's amazing to me that some people that have come to my attention recently are worse off than me financially and still somehow function. I guess I'm at a point where I don't have anything to really live for and the question, "What's next?", is being waved furiously in my face and I'm avoiding the answer for fear of my own disappointment and that feeds my procrastination. I've always been one to do just enough to get by and I've been happy with that, but since now I don't even feel like doing that... funk. Funkity, funk, funk.

Fuck You All

I deleted all of my so-called friends on Facebook that were in my games group. Playing games for me on the computer is such a grand waste of time. I'm now left with about 176 people... a combination of family, friends, old school mates and a few artists and musicians. Shut up - people in the arts feed my soul. Besides, it's better to be active showing your support them than passively on the computer.

Life, Part 2

A friend called me last night and wanted to talk about a situation he's in. Sadly, after hearing his plight, what he's going through is nothing new and it's something I have heard men complain about before. After years of marriage, his wife is unhappy and won't take action herself to fix a sexual dysfunction in their relationship. And she thinks that the problem is everything else but her own behavior. She points fingers at this, that or the other thing and the man is at a loss because he can't fix her. This situation my friend's in is compounded by the fact that his wife is quickly loosing her identity as a mother because her son is 18, grown and not a baby anymore and she doesn't know what to do with herself now. She's had the luxury of being a housewife and now she has no one to fuss over but her husband and she knows if she fusses over him, he's going to take it as she's interested in him sexually and she's not. So she doesn't put forth any affection whatsoever to show him she loves him anymore. He's at that certain point of frustration where something's got to change.

I was glad to hear he said he has an appointment to go to counseling with her because he thinks his marriage to her is worth working on, but if she turns marriage counseling down and refuses to go, it makes you wonder what's going on in her head and her life that he doesn't know about because he's at work.

Chris Rock Quote on The View 10/7/09

Chris Rock commenting on David Letterman's past bad behavior today on ABC's The View:

"If the bad guys are after you, you call the cops.
If the cops are after you, you call a lawyer,
but if your wife is mad at you, there is nobody to call."

If you love her, you conceed and apologize, make amends, don't do it again and move on.

And if you don't? You simply move on.

A Cautionary Tale

I have a love/hate relationship with my job. I love what I do, but I hate the fact that I have to commute to do it. And because of the commute, any type of social life that I once had has pretty much ceased. I used to be able to go out with my friends in LA after work, but now all I want to do is go home since the drive home is that tedious.

So knowing that there are all of these things to do at any some odd day of the week since I live in Southern California, I decided to eek out a social life once more however tiny it may be. I decided to do that with the help of Yelp!. Yelp! helps get me out of the house because what it is is a website made up of peoples opinions about stuff to do, see and experience and these generally cannot be done at home. And that makes me be more social and have something to write about.

So... this week was the first time I attended an officially sponsored Yelp! event. It was a house err hotel warming of sorts in Huntington Beach. And it was held at about the same time I landed back in OC, which meant I could go! Yippee! So dressed in my work garb, I traipsed over to the hotel and found my way up the stairs to the restaurant's balcony where all the people were. I was there for maybe over two hours talking to all these amazing people who participate on Yelp! just like I do. It was a very cool evening and I was encouraged to go to next weeks event.

So, I got to work the next day and I told my co-worker about what a good time I had out last night with my fellow Yelpers. And he tells me this story. He told me that one of his friends is into Disneyana and joined a group and befriended a man in his 60's. At first, he was fine because he was into the group, but more and more he wanted to hang out and do other stuff to fill up the void his day. The old man had recently retired and basically had no one to socialize with so he placed that burdeon upon my friend's friend. And as time went on, his friend decided that the old man was just plain mean and disgruntled with the world in general and had no friends. So my friend's friend decided he was going to take him on a bus run to Palm Springs or Las Vegas, I don't remember which one, and force this old guy to socialize with other people his age to get him some friends.

And a light bulb went off in my head. AHHH! I don't want that to be me. I don't want to end up a mean old lady alone because people can't tolerate me and/or don't like me. I want to have something to say. I want to get out in the world. I need Yelp! and these outings to get me to be more extroverted and less introverted. And maybe that will lead to other good things in my life.

The Urban Dictionary on Bad Relationships

See: Tool, Guido, Narcissist on www.urbandictionary.com

I have suffered from just too, too many of these men as a result of being on Match.com and Yahoo Personals who sought me out. I understand you have a 50/50 chance at most anything in life you try, but you have to keep trying when you fail. Everyone deserves a little happiness, every single day.

130 Days

This is the letter I wrote in response to being dumped on voicemail after the holidays. The lesson I learned dating this guy is listen to your gut feeling and don't let things drag on longer than they need to. There are bigger, better and more fish in the sea.

**********************************************************************************


I don’t imagine you will read this email at all. You’ll probably delete it to spare your feelings and diminish mine because that’s just the way you are with your ego. But if you do find the courage to read this, I have to tell you I’m sorry for getting so involved so fast if at all. Having a relationship with you seemed promising, but it just was not in the cards. Your life simply has very little room in it for me and I allowed my involvement to go on far too long.

My roughly 130 day relationship with you was punctuated in the beginning with the death of your neighbor and you calling me about every ten minutes while I was dealing with a business client and then the death of your guinea pig. I watched you coil into a fetal position and cry “your mom and everyone only wants you for your how much money you can make for them”, after the animal died which was clearly not the case with me because I could care less how well-off you think you are. I’ve dated men richer than you and I’ve dated men poorer than me and as long as they can pay their bills and I’m not paying for them all the time, I really don’t care what you make. And in the end with the announcement of your father’s heart attack, probably awaking the feelings of your own mortality more than ever because you talked about giving my son your personal property?, as well as the death of your cousin, which you didn’t even bother to tell me about until you were almost on your way home but conveniently got stuck in Seattle over New Years Eve and then we had that mishap with the airport. I mean, I called you and even texted you, too, for three hours while I waited for you to land, but you ignored me and never replied. You said you’d call when you got to the airport and you never did.

In between was approximately 12 days of you and me in bed and/or on dinner dates, one dedication ceremony for work and a few times at the lake. All the rest of the time, you seemed to be busy and working, exhausted, sick and even in the hospital and if you had the time, you weren’t interested in what I wanted to do. For instance, when I told you I thought It would be cool for us to go and kayak on the Newport Back Bay after watching a show on PBS, you thought it would be funny to run the jet ski through it and my idea was never brought up again. When you put parameters around me talking to you on the phone (remember when you said, “I talk all day on the phone at work so I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking to you on the phone, I rather talk to you in person”), to use a baseball analogy… was strike one. In person, exhausted from your long work day you wanted to eat then frequently fell asleep on the couch or in the club chair. Keeping the schedule that you do, whatever it is you make up for yourself, must be maintained for the benefit of the project and I understand that. With it out of control, it also wears on your health and runs you into the ground so much so you have no time or energy for me. Although there were other glaring instances I could mention, strike two was the three times I invited you to dinner either out or at my house thinking that you not having to cooking would be less of a strain on you but you didn’t even acknowledge that. I guess my choices are not good enough for you, so they were dismissed. No one had ever died from my cooking and my friends seem to like the places I eat out at, so maybe that was just your own personal hang-up.

The third strike was the level of communication you had with me versus your construction friends. It was clearly different… like when you slipped and said you told one of then that ‘she likes to fuck, she’d never say no to that’ or how you said that you couldn’t wait to tell them and so they would laugh their head off about me yelling ‘no’ a million times on the back of the jet ski, something I had never did before in my life and was absolutely terrified about because I’m not a fan of deep water. It wasn’t funny, it was cruel. Or the email you sent bout how stockbrokers should jump out of the windows of the NYSE because the market got so bad due to the housing crisis. You knew I worked in the financial field for years and I felt that was totally insensitive of you. I can only imagine what else you told them about making me out to be the butt of your jokes.

I’m not going to even get into your random acts of drunkenness, public or otherwise. You know what those were because even you said you drink too much and it’s because of the stress level you deal with at work. That moment of personal clarity and your ability to self-correct on that one element gave me a glimmer of hope things might get better about the other aspects of your life, too, but I guess that was too much to wish for. Oh yeah, you’re scratchy eyes were caused by you drinking too much wine all the time – nothing more and nothing less. Your eyes need to be hydrated with something other than wine, so on a wine drinking binge when your liver and kidneys get overloaded with it, that’s what happens – that sand in your eyes feeling. That and the onset of adult acne. Now I understand part of the reason what the witch hazel was used for.

But to top it off, the holiday season, November and December, was the worst and it was the most lonely and depressing time for me ever. On Thanksgiving, you were sick yet again and so into your own incapacity, you never picked up the phone when I called and then failed to call me and let me know you having my son and I over for Thanksgiving dinner was cancelled. When I showed up on your doorstep, I’m sorry I even gave my son the opportunity to shake your hand because up until that point he thought you were just a figment of my imagination when I talked about you. I ended up salvaging the meal and we had turkey after all that weekend, but you never bothered to ask what I did or to reschedule. After that, we never seemed to get back on track. I put together a gift basket for you for Christmas of Asian food from your favorite store and two different cook books with the thought that you enjoy cooking so much, told you I wanted to deliver it, but you never found the time to accept it in person. I just left it on your doorstep and you didn’t even bother to say ‘thank you’ later.

The last time I talked to you on the phone, and I had not seen you in 5 weeks by then, you informed me that it was my job to interrogate you so that I could learn the details of what is going on in your life. I stood there dumbfounded because, hey, isn’t sharing your feelings and the details of your life however mundane they may be just simple human communication?

You have been through some of the most stressful times in your life since we met in August and it took its toll on whatever relationship was eked out in between. Thanks for leaving me a message on voicemail that you are not going to be calling me anymore.

Ribbon Cutting

Monday, I was invited to go with my boyfriend to the reception and ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly renovated Ronald McDonald Family Rooms at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. He was the superintendent over all of the subcontractors that worked upon this volunteer effort.

I learned a new acronym - OSHPD pronounced 'oshpod'. Basically, it's the State of California's governing entity over planning and development of hospitals.

Happy

I am so happy that my boyfriend is not sick anymore. I really missed him while he was ill. He was adamant about me not getting infected with what he had, so I stayed away. I had dinner with him for the past two nights. Pasta at his house and then sushi at our favorite place down the street. We were told the main sushi chef quit last Saturday because he moved to New York to be with his wife for breast cancer treatment. That's sad, but you do what you've got to do.

What does this mean?

I knew by about 9:00 AM that Friday was going to be one of those stinky poo kinda days. I had a snide comment said to me in Spanish by one of my charges and it pissed me off. I emailed the client and my boss to let them know I was upset about it. Then I emailed my boyfriend.

He has to deal with management issues just like I do, but is able to handle them differently because he actually *is* the boss of the worksite, while I am an oversite manager employed by a third party contractor. He said I'm sorry you're having a bad day. Later, he emailed me a photo of a vet with his head stuck up the ass end of an elephant. I looked at the photo and related to it. Me working with someone elses crap that no one else wants to or knows how to deal with.

He called me later in the day to remind me he had to go to some function for work (that he did not invite me to, but I did get invited to go to the one in San Diego in February, so that is cool.) but made it a point to tell me specifically where he'd be. What does that mean? Doe he want me to dress up and meet him there, in essence crash his party? Or is he just telling me this because he wants me to be able to pick him up later if he needs a way to escape? I don't know. I do know, however, that he's already tired from the long ass hours he's put in this week. He said he would call me when he got home from the party, but I wasn't counting on it because when we are tired, we sleep and we ain't thinking about calling or talking to anyone. Sleep, baby sleep.

Saturday & Sunday

Saturday, September 20th was one of the last days of summer. People rush around to go do something, anything in the sun while it's around. That was our plan... Robert and I are going to Lake Perris SRA Sunday to hang out and ride his waverunner. I an terrified of any sort of big water, but I'm going to face my fear and go for it. He said he would keep me safe.

In the mean time, we had dinner Saturday night at Sakura. You would never think that this place located in a strip mall next to Ralph's would not be any good, but if you thought that, you'd be wrong. This is actually the second time we went there and I got to tell ya, it just keeps getting better and better.

I ordered a sashimi plate and Robert got the baked mussels. We both got these fried chili spiked green peppers. I did fine on the baby one with no chili, but when I got to the second one and bit into the chili, I thought my mouth was on fire. We also both had orders green bean w/ peanut. It's O.K., but I think they are just trying too hard with that one. We also shared a special crunchy roll. Yummy. As for dessert, the chopped orange with plum wine. That thing is crazy good. To wash it all down, we drank ice water and I think 3 bottles of dry cold saki which were shared with the proprietors.

After dinner, we went over to Ralph's in our saki induced haze and bought snacks for the trip on Sunday. A bowl of chopped mixed fruit, a can of nuts, Triskets, Milanos cookies, a package of shrimp, and cocktail sauce. Robert had already taken care of the drinks and the ice.

So before going to Roberts on Saturday night, I thought I had packed what I need to bring to go to the lake. I had shorts, a top and a light jacket for the morning because it's usually kinda cold in the desert and some rubbery flip flops. I was informed I needed a bathing suit because I was going to get wet. Oh hell. I wasn't planning on getting wet because all I wanted to do was learn how to cruise in the waverunner and not get dumped into the lake. So the stupid alarm goes off at 4:30AM by accident and we sleep in until 5:30AM and then I get dressed to run over to my condo with his blessing to give the dog a car ride in order to grab a tshirt, my polo shirt dress and my bathing suit. In my mind, I'm thinking a wet or not, a tshirt over my red string bikini would be ok for waverunner riding and prevent needless sunburning atleast on my shoulders and some of my arms.

I changed into the bikini and wore the polo dress over it during the commute. We backed everything up, got gas and hit the road at about 7:30AM. I was tagged shotgun navigator. That 60 E to the 215 S interchange is still under construction and confusing as hell because the signage is not quite right. Robert said he missed it before and I can see why. What a pisser that exchange is!

While passing through Riverside, Robert said we had to go eat breakfast at McDonalds. He said it was tradition. I was game. We exited at McKinley and found our way over to the restaurant on the north side of the freeway. I ordered an egg mcmuffin w/ no cheese, a hash brown and a hi-c orange drink from the fountain. Robert got the two sausage mcmuffin with egg deal and coffee. We sat where we could keep an eye on the waverunner and the reserve gas bottles.

We made out way out to Perris Lake by 8:30AM and had everything set-up and the waverunner launched in about 20 minutes.

The shirt turned out to be a good idea because it provided me some level of cottony comfort under the life preserver. It also acted as a cover-up for my bikini while I sat under the Ez-Up and hung out in the shade snacking, reading the newspaper, listening to the Angels baseball game on the radio, sunning my pasty white calves and taking pictures of Robert, among other things, as he came in and out of the water.


I went out onto the lake with Robert a total of three times. The first time, I screamed "No!" about one hundred times until he reduced his speed to about 25 mph. I couldn't get over the fact that the speed feels so much faster on the water. It's got to have something to do with the wave motion and all the reflections. Amazing.

The second time, he went putt-putt slow for me around the island in the middle of the lake. That was nice. I can handle cruising under 20 mph. We saw how folks were set-up on the island, how some were fishing, and some local flora and and fauna which is stuff like I like to do anyway. I'm an observer, so that was cool.

The third time, which he said didn't count?!? wth... we went straight to the dam area which is not visible from the Lot 5 location where we set-up camp for the day. That was kinda weird and kinda cool because I never seen anything like that before. He went faster than putt-putt this time, so I was having a difficult time with the jarring and my breathing was still in panic mode, but I wasn't yelling "No!" so much this time. Then he told he ate it twice over by the dam later in the day, broke a toe, jammed up another and ended up with some weirdly placed bruises on his body from getting dumped off of the waverunner. Gesus. He told me Evil Kenevil was his hero before we got out to the lake. So now I know I'm dealing with a man with no fear. Good in some situations, but not with high rate of speed in uncontrolled environments. Maybe he'd like one of those race car driver packages they offer at the speedway in Fontana for Christmas... hrmmm. I'll have to poke around and see if he's ever done that before. But I digress...

So we were out there maybe a total of about 6 hours. It was nice to be out in nature with him because it's something I would not do alone. I told him it was a big deal for me to do something like going on the waverunner and step out of my box... out of my comfort zone. He said he proud of me and now wants to take me up to Lake Mead with my own Yahama Waverunner Cruiser. That was a lot to take in all at once considering I'm not confident even riding alone on his vehicle yet. Sounds cool because I like the desert, but yikes! My own waverunner?? I'll have to go to Lake Perris a few more times before going to Lake Mead.


He told me no one took pictures when he went before so I think he liked the fact that I took pictures when we went. I think they are important especially for only children. I've taken tons of pictures of my son so much so that he now considers me paparazzi and hold up his hand or turns his head all the time. So now I have another subject to photograph - good. I received an email from newegg.com today with a price shocker on an Olympus splash resistant digital camera, which lead me to look deeper for a water resistant one that I could take onto the waverunner without totally freaking out if it got wet. That would be cool to take pictures from that vantage point. He could do his version of speed racer on the water and I could go putt-putt and be happy.

Experience

***Experience is a wonderful thing.***
***It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.***

Match.com is supposed to be a way to meet someone special that you may not be able to come across in your daily life. You hope they are nice, productive members of society and are able to function in the general population without too much drama and intervention by paid professionals AKA police, parole officer, alcohol and drug rehabilitation, doctors, lawyers, your local mental health provider, etc, etc. You get the picture. The best case scenario is that you actually find someone with some things in common and can talk to them without having to hang up the phone in utter disgust in the middle of a sentence or break out in laughter at the sheer stupidity coming from there mouth through the phone lines and directly into your brain.

So a man found the nerve to contact me about the ad I posted on Match.com. We've been talking and Friday night is our first date. Wish me luck.

Hold on

"Emotional intelligence involves interpersonal competencies including self-awareness, self control, flexibility and empathy."

Powell's Five Levels of Communication:
1) Cliche - opens conversation, establishes rapport
2) Reporting - offers fact
3) Judgement - giving your opinions, ideas, evaluations
4) Gut Level - sharing emotions, feelings
5) Peak - when two become one in communication and intensity of feelings

Generally, we look for the other individual to reciprocate at the same level of intensity.