Plum Crazy

I'm Officially "Too Old"

Yes, it hit me today. I am now "too old." I've hit the amount of pop culture absorption I can handle. I dealt with l33t sp3ak. I can even deal with txt msg language, although I don't really care to use it myself. But LOLCode? No. Sorry. I can't deal with that. I've hit pop culture saturation. Remember, I've still got phrases and hand signs from the 60s rolling around. Seriously. I actually flash people the peace sign instead of waving.

So I'm just going to sit here quietly in my corner reliving the halcyon days of my youth. I shudder in the knowledge that 30 years from now, when I'm in my 70s, I'll be listening to the Ramones or AC/DC and some kids will hear and say "Check out grandma over there listening to that old people music."

Oh, sure, sit there and laugh at me, youngsters. Some day this will happen to you. I made it to 43 before hitting saturation point. Let's see how old you are when it happens.

Changes

I know I haven't posted in like forever. My life has changed quite a bit over the last few weeks. First, I landed a new job. It's a very good job, and I'm very happy with it. However, it's taking up a lot of hours. Not to mention it took up 10 days for a business trip. I was in London and Zurich; two places I'll be going regularly. No, it doesn't suck to be me. Switzerland is beautiful. And, yes, the chocolates are amazing. If you can get them, try Spruengli chocolates. Wow.



I've also now moved in with A. Well, it's kind of a slow, phased move. But the cats and I are safely ensconced in our new abode. Cats freaked out initially. They've calmed down a bit now. Emma is mostly sleeping on the couch. Portia is mostly exploring in the closets. In other words, they're behaving like themselves now, rather than Emma growling and hissing at everything mobile and immobile and Portia whimpering 24/7. As for myself, I'm sleeping on the couch AND exploring in the closets. OK, not really. A and I are trying to figure out which of his stuff has to be put in storage so we can fit my stuff.



So all is good, but I'm very busy. I may shut down the blog, at least temporarily. Not sure, but since I'm really not posting, also not sure what purpose keeping it up serves. We'll see.

Fundraising Appeal

I'm posting this to request that anyone who can afford to donate even a little bit to the Jacqueline Fund do so. Jackie is a very intelligent and kind woman who is facing her third surgery for breast cancer - a double mastectomy. This will then be followed by reconstructive surgery. She's only 33. She works as a temp, so she has virtually no insurance coverage. She doesn't qualify for Medicaid or disability. Even if she did qualify for Medicaid, her reconstructive surgery wouldn't be covered, as it's considered purely cosmetic. Due to her temp status, she is also facing her surgery and recovery times without income. Jackie is one of the many faces of those who suffer without health insurance. Sadly, this is the kind of thing that can happen to anyone.

Any little bit will help, so if you can afford to, please donate.

UPDATE: Wow, the website was successful. Apparently it somehow got to the company she was temping for, and they are going to put her on their insurance plan. So the worst is covered. She still won't have income coming in during her surgery and recovery times, but the most expensive stuff is taken care of. The website will be left up to help collect funds for her living expenses while she's unable to work, with anything over what she needs going to the Breast Cancer Research Fund. So thanks to anyone who clicked over and donated.

Thanks.

Lesley

Genius

Part 1: My colleague George had a Bryan Adams CD on his desk the other day. I peruse the song list. Summer of 69. Kids Wanna Rock. Cuts Like A Knife. Straight From The Heart. "Wow," I comment, or something to that effect. I continue to remark what a good album it is, that it has all his top hits. I even note, to my puzzlement, the 1993 date on the back cover. Never putting two and two together until George responds, "It's his greatest hits, you ying yang."

Part 2: I receive a replacement Treo for the one I lost the other day. I look in the spot where it says Sim card. I see no Sim card. I take it to a store for a new Sim card. The guys goes put in the new card, and to my amazement, slides out the Sim card that was there all the time. Never thought to look there.

Part 3: I take up running and discover I can extend my mileage to 7 or more miles with no sweat. I do it a few times and get a stress fracture in my foot from doing too much to soon. Fast forward several years. I take up walking, including the 3 miles from work to home on a few occasions and a couple of back and forth trips from work to the Forest Hills/Kew Gardens vicinity. The result? Likely another stress fracture. Lesson from the first time? Not learned. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Or however it goes.

One Year Ago Today

July 7, 2005. The date of the terrorist attacks on the London Underground. 52 people killed. I was in London at the time. I was already an Anglophile before that day, but afterwards, I became even more of an Anglophile.

Cheers to all my friends in London!

Country Road Take Me Home

Here I am in West Virginia with my finacee Judy. It's her 40th birthday present to me. Two nights at a B&B and kayaking today. We're staying at the historic Carriage Inn in Charles Town, West Virginia. It's a restored home that dates to the 1830s and that was the site of a meeting between General Grant and General Sheridan when they drew up plans for the Shenendoa Valley campaign. The inn is quite quaint and homey with two lovely hosts, Donn and Marie Davis. Later on, we're heading to River Trails and Outfitters in Harpers Valley, West Virginia, where we'll take a kayak class and mini-trip. All in all it will be a nice weekend away, albeit short. The trek here and back is a long journey. It took 7 1/2 hours to get here - traffic at the GWB and on the NJ Tpke - and we'll have to leave early tomorrow to avoid traffic on the way back. Well, it's time to get ready for kayaking. I'll blog more later.

I Feel Happy! I Feel Happy!

After having read this post on Feministe the other day, I was planning on writing an entry about how clueless Ann Coulter is* and the amazing number of restrictions most women put on their lives in order to avoid rape (including things like not inviting a man up to your apartment unless you want to have sex with him, something I practice assiduously), but I'm in far too good a mood now to want to tussle with the "philosophy" of Ann Coulter. So I won't for the moment.

Instead, I shall wish you all a lovely weekend. It's a rainy one here in New York, but hopefully this means the Yankees will get rained out and cease losing. Stranding 10 runners indeed. But even the Yankees sad playing cannot spoil my mood right now.

*I'm sure this is not a new sentiment to the majority of my 10 regular readers and probably goes without saying. But I said it anyway.

God Bless My Fiancee. . .

. . . she's an adorable ditz. She's in New Zealand right now - there for another week sadly - and announces to me today that it's now DST in New Zealand. What was 7:00 in the morning, when we usually speak (it's 1 pm the day before here), is now 6:00 in the morning. I start pondering this when I get off the phone. NZ lost an hour, yet it's DST. Then it dawns on me. It's not DST, it's standard time! They're going into fall down there, not spring. What a wonderful airhead she can be.

Question of the Day

Is it necessary to stir pre-blended yogurt? I always stir yogurt before eating it, even coffee and vanilla yogurt. But is this really necessary? Sure, the fruit-on-the-bottom stuff needs to be stirred, but I'm not so sure about the pre-blended variety. Yet I do so out of habit anyway. Maybe the next time I have a coffee yogurt I'll live dangerously.

Meeting at the Well

I am going through an interesting but draining exercise right now. The rabbi that is marrying me and Judy is requiring us to go through pre-marital counseling, something that is typical if not required for Jewish couples. It's a process to prepare us for being married, for us to understand what is expected in a marriage, to lay the foundation for life after engagement, to understand each other better, and to air out any issues and pre-conceived notions that we will bring into the relationship. The rabbi that is doing the counseling - different rabbi than the one who is marrying us since the rabbi marrying us is a college friend - has asked us to go through a book called Meeting at the Well: A Jewish Spiritual Guide to Being Engaged. I am on chapter two, exercise two, and while it's a freeing process, it's also taking a toll on me. Answering the questions isn't easy, requires a lot of thought, effort, and honesty. But it is helping to reveal some things that I wasn't aware of and that will hopefully lay the groundwork for a solid relationship with Judy that succeeds not just in the near term but in the long term.

Withdraw This

Sure, BSG withdrawal is tough, but it's nothing compared to fiancee withdrawal. Gone a week today. Gone for one more week before she returns from New Zealand. It's getting harder, not easier, and it really sucks.

Is I Is or Is I Ain't

A metrosexual. My fiance thinks so, her mom thinks so, and Lesley thinks so. I dress really well and invest time and money in my wardrobe. However, I bite my finger nails rather than have them manicured, don't use facial cream, our hair gel or mousse. I do watch women's figure skating in the Olympics, though, and make comments on the grace and elegance or lack thereof of their skating. I had Judy in hysterics last night with some of my commentary.

So I leave it up to you faithful readers to determine whether I am a metrosexual.

Is I Is or Is I Ain't

A metrosexual. My fiance thinks so, her mom thinks so, and Lesley thinks so. I dress really well and invest time and money in my wardrobe. However, I bite my finger nails rather than have them manicured, don't use facial cream, our hair gel or mousse. I do watch women's figure skating in the Olympics, though, and make comments on the grace and elegance or lack thereof of their skating. I had Judy in hysterics last night with some of my commentary.

So I leave it up to you faithful readers to determine whether I am a metrosexual.

Signs that You're Not As Young As You Used To Be

A random number of signs that I'm not as young as I used to be:

1. I am as old as the Super Bowl, and they've played 40 of them. Yikes!
2. I am shocked that Super Bowl 17 was played 23 years ago.
3. Jerome the Bus Bettis has been in the NFL for 13 years, and it just seems like yesterday that he burst onto the scene as a rookie for the Rams.
4. Star Wars will be 30 years old next year.
5. NFL great Jim Brown just turned 70, and I was in my infancy (if even that) when he was with the Browns.
6. I look nothing like the picture of myself at my first birthday party.
7. My cats are already 9 years old.

Where does the time go?

Fathead

Do they make fatheads of Heidi Klum? Yeah, I know I'm obsessed, but I'm suffering from withdrawal.

Bye

Judy, my fiancee, will be moving in with me in about six weeks and has already become a regular fixture in my apartment. Time to toss my back copies of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. Goodbye Heidi. Goodbye Veronica. Goodbye Yamila. Goodbye Ana. You will all be missed.

A First

I wake up this morning and look in the mirror. On my left eyebrow, I spot what appears to be a piece of dandruff. Except it doesn't brush off. Turns out it's a gray hair. My first one. Sigh!

Compromises

I am the Felix Unger of the family. Not as obessively neat as I was when I was younger, but still a clean freak who must have things orderly. The stapler and tape dispenser on my desk must be lined up straight, and when someone borrows one but doesn't put it back the way it was, I straighten it out. Yes, I am that bad, and I am now discovering the challenges of living with someone. My girlfriend is spending a week with me, sort of a test drive to see how we do when we see each other every day and in the routine of every-day life. What I am learning is that she doesn't put the toothpaste back the way I like, doesn't hang the towel up straight, or put the chain on the door in its holder when she leaves the house. All little nuisances, at least for me, but stuff that I will have to learn to live with. Simply accept the fact that I will have to place the toothpaste how I like it, straighten the towel, and put the chain up. Make those little compromises that are crucial to happiness in a relationship.

Moving On Up to the East Side

...but not to a deluxe apartment in the sky.

In about 4 hours, I will officially be living in Manhattan again! Yay!

I am excited. The Hoboken thing ultimately didn't work for me. I miss the excitement of New York City. There's an energy on the streets of New York that you don't get in Hoboken. I happen to like that energy. It makes me feel much more alive. I guess you could say I'm kind of high-strung. I know this comes as a great shock to those who actually know me.

So the next time I call myself a New Yorker, no one can contradict me.* I was born there. And I'm living there again.

*At least not for the next 8 months...

I'm with Lex

Lex Luther had it right in Superman 2 when he told General Zod that his needs were small. He only wanted some beachfront property: Australia. The man has a point. Looking outside as the sky darkens before it's even 5 pm, I'm thinking I need to spend half the year in the U.S. and the other half in Australia so I never have to deal with it getting dark early. Book me a flight baby.

Crying over Spilled Milk

Let’s see, had I invested the same $2,500 in Google as I did in Express Scripts, I would have netted about $9,500 to date. Not that my two-month-old investment in Express Scripts is languishing. I’ve earned $20 per share to date. Still, if wishes were horses.

Similarly, had I paid attention to my e-mails from American Express, I would have been on the ball about tickets for the Odd Couple with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Could have saved a pretty penny on the tickets I just snagged through a broker. Plus, there would have been the chance for some arbitrage by snagging some extra tickets and pawning them on eBay. Orchestra and good mezzanine seats are going for more than $400. Oh well.

I Hate Ironing!

A Fresh New Start

My on-again, off-again relationship is pretty much off again. This time, I think it's different. I feel differently about it. I feel like this time, it will stick. I'm sad, but not as devastated as I've felt about previous "offs". It's time to move on.

Other things in my life are likely to change too in the next 9-12 months, which played into the off. I'll disclose them when things are more definite. Suffice it to say that I'm very excited about this potential change.

Which is all sort of a long-winded way of getting to the point of this post - How people react to break-ups. Most people I know do something to signify a new start. A lot of women I know will get a new haircut or hair color. I changed my hair color and style back in February, so I'm not going to do that again. Instead, I changed my make-up. I bought a new brand of foundation, concealer, and powder. I'll probably buy some new clothes and shoes soon too. [Although it being fall is enough reason for me to buy new clothes and shoes. Okay, the sun coming up is enough reason...]

What about you?

Thinking About You Sistah Girl

I confess. I pulled a line from a movie when I left a message for my girlfriend Friday morning, and of all movies, it was Undercover Brother. UB tells fellow agent Sistah Girl "I'm thinking about you Sistah Girl." Sure it's fiction, but it worked for UB. Since I was thinking about Judy, I called and left the same message. I did, however, leave out the Sistah Girl part.

p.s. If you've never seen UB, I highly recommend it. I can watch it wherever and whenever.

Self-Confidence Is The Ticket

At the same time I was dating Jennifer, I had also been persuing another woman, Judy, whom I know from softball with the Appalachian Mountain Club. We had been out a couple of times after games and had dinner together one night. I felt all along that she liked me. She asked me out, proposing a tennis date, before I ever had to ask her out, and when she went to Alaska, she brought something back for me.

We were out together again yesterday. We went to the Bronx Zoo then had dinner and saw March of the Penguins. A nice day. On the subway ride up to the Bronx, she tells me about a trip she's taking to New Zealand next year and invites me along. We were then leafing through the AMC calendar, where we saw a listing for a weekend at their Mohican Outdoor Center over Labor Day. She said she would go with me. It was then, believe it or not, that I began to doubt her interest in me. I thought to myself that it can't be this easy and that maybe she thinks of me simply as someone to pal around with. So over dinner, I point blank asked her if we were on a date. She assured me that we were. Obviously, it is that easy.

I come by this lack of self confidence honestly. The reasons are too numerous to go into, but I have always been insecure around women. The question whether we were on a date comes from an experience I once had. I went on what I thought was a date, what any normal person would think is a date (especially since the woman in question knew of my interest in her from a friend), yet she didn't think of it as a date. That was her flaw, of course, but that experience plus the relative ease of how things are developing with Judy, left me doubting myself, as I always do. Something that I need to keep working on and develop the self confidence that would make life so much easier.

Cold Shoulder

It astonishes me sometimes how people can so easily turn their back on you. When Jennifer broke it off with me last Sunday, we didn't part on the best of terms. She told me she needed to get off the phone and we said a terse "good night" to each other. Not wanting to leave things off that way, and wanting to see if there was still a spark, I e-mailed her, telling her I would call her. A couple of nights later, I called and left a message. No return phone call. I sent another e-mail, once again trying to persuade her to change her mind, but also wishing her well in case she didn't call. I told her that she's a special person and that I would miss her. No response to the e-mail either. Granted, we hadn't know each other for long or been out together that much and she doesn't owe me a thing, but we did like each other and enjoy other's company. I thought that would count for something. She's not the only ex to turn a cold shoulder like that to me. It's something that I don't get, how someone could so resolutely make up their mind and blow you off despite a history together. It's also not worth dwelling on. It tells me something about Jennifer, and the others, and that I clearly am better off without her.

Ever Have One Of Those Days

Where you get home, swear you're just going to lie down "for a couple of minutes", and wind up falling asleep with the lights on, your clothes on, and your make-up still on? [Okay, if you're a man, not the last one. Or, hey, maybe the last one. Not that there's anything wrong with that.]

I've just had two in a row. At least this time, I woke up before 5 am. So my coat is brushed, my face is washed, my shoes are clean and neat.*

Good night for real.

*Kudos to the first person who catches that reference.