"I could tell by your expression that the pain down in your soul... was the same as the one down in mine"

Today at lunch I was reading the synopses of films at the upcoming Hollywood Film Festival. I was really happy (and surprised) to see that one of my favorite actor/directors, John Cameron Mitchell, has a new one coming up called 'Rabbit Hole'.

I became enthralled with JCM (as I like to call him) when I saw 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' at the theatre. Hedwig is a rock musical with as much glam and as many crazy followers as 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'. The story of Hedwig is an interesting one. It goes something like this:

Hedwig grew up in communist East Berlin as a boy named Hansel. He wanted to go west toward freedom, but the only way out (around that pesky Berlin wall) was to marry an American soldier named Luther. By law, the marriage must consist of a man and a woman, so Hansel had an operation to become Hedwig. His sex change operation got botched. His guardian angel fell asleep on the watch. Now all he has is a Barbie doll crotch. Oops! Those are lyrics from the movie. Yeah, anyway, Hedwig and his 'angry inch' end up in America and he and his band of Eastern Europeans play night after night of dive bars. The theatrics are hilarious and campy and the songs are so catchy that you'll be running out to get the soundtrack in no time.

There's a really good message in the movie about love. It's nicely summed up in this song called "The Origin of Love". It's one of a few ballads in the film. Here's a little tidbit that not many people know about me. If I were ever to get a tattoo --and I'm not saying I am going to anytime soon-- the design on the top of my list would be to get the cartoon version of the two halves of a face that make a whole, which represents finding your true love/other half. If you've been following my blog for any period of time, you would know that I've often had the debate with myself about whether or not there is The One out there for me or not. Or, perhaps maybe it's just a bunch of hogwash that sells at the box office in greeting card stores.

Anyway, not to digress. But since I already am digressing, if you agree with the message in the Hedwig song, then everyone has their own soul mate that you have to search for. As soon as you find that certain person, you'll know they are in fact your other half. I like how it also includes same sex couples in the storytelling. Because I mean really, why rule out 50% of the population? Am I right? Who's with me?

So back to this tattoo thingy. I've thought about this for a pretty long time. What I've come up with are basically two different options. Option 1 would be to get the tattoo as is with the two halves just as shown below on my hip. Option 2 would be to get one half and then wait until I met the right person and then they would get the matching half on their hip and then when we're um, yeah, then the two halves would match up. Not that we would even be able to see them unless there were like mirrors on the ceiling or maybe like a video camera. WAIT what??

So is that really lame and sappy or what? There, now you know.

Here's the Origin of Love song.


All the songs for the musical were written by Stephen Trask. He's an amazing musician and plays guitar in Hedwig's band in the movie. This is another of my favorites and you get to see the tattoo morph to it's final state at the end.

What I've been listening to

Music is awesome.

Live music is even better.

What I've been listening to lately has been a bit eclectic. One band I'm diggin' is Starfucker. Or, as their album is called S********r. They're from Portland and their music is sort of electro-pop that you can dance to.

Here is their song called Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second. The video is pretty cool, but the part with the teeth freaks me out a bit. I have nightmares where my teeth are loose. I should probably see a therapist about that.

Inertia: lack of skill, slothfulness

So I've been crabby for a bit. For that, I apologize.

I relegated myself to a time out to do some thinking lately, some soul searching. What I've concluded is that sometimes I don't handle stress very well. Hence, the whole crying thing at work the other day. (Yeah, classy.) I also concluded that I'm very easily distracted.

I've taken on this goal of mine to be a slow, fat triathlete as another pressure in my life rather than something fun. That's how I have to look at it, however, to make sure I follow through. I've been working so hard at getting in shape, I'm down 27 pounds now, and I'm not nearly anywhere close to my goal. Sometimes big goals can be overwhelming. I still have the mass of a small child to lose somehow. Well, make that a medium-sized child.

When things at work get stressful, as they will inevitably from time to time, it takes more energy for me to get through the day and that leaves little time and energy for any sort of workout. My weekly plan is pretty intense....for me anyway. I have 2 days at the gym, 2 days at the pool, 2 runs, and at least one bike ride on the weekend. Over the past 6 weeks or so, I've barely gotten any of my workouts in due to long days at work or other obligations. Then, once I start getting behind in things like household chores, grocery shopping, etc., all of those tasks have to come first in my mind over things like going for a little jog. Work before play. It's messed up, but that's how my brain works.

So when I've been stressed out at work over the last month or so, I've missed going to the gym, which means not seeing my friends, which means my friends miss me, and which means I miss them, which means we're not caught up on each other's lives and then it just snowballs from there. If I don't make it to the pool on my swim nights, then I *know* that I will have to endure the wrath of Coach Martha the next time I do make it. (Can anyone say close-fisted swim drills??) Besides not getting the benefit of the exercise, I'm also paying close to $100 per month for the gym and pool alone. Wasting money really makes me angry!

Unlike people who are always in shape, it is really hard to overcome the inertia of wanting to remain sedentary. It's easier to lounge on the sofa than it is to drive your bike someplace for a ride or jump into a cold pool. The problem is that when you're not maintaining a level of activity, the next time you do go out to do something, it's almost like starting from square one. No one wants that.

So why go through all of this then? I thought about that too. Being a triathlete is really something that I want to do. Yes, definitely. I'm hoping that I like my first race enough that I'll want to continue and find more challenges in 2011.

How ironic.

Remember my post yesterday about how blah blah blah work sucks blah blah? Yeah well today it sucked even more (if you can believe that). So yeah, I'll be updating my resume.

Then I'm gonna get one of these and go sit on the beach.

I've found the proverbial elephant.

I'm a bit apathetic right now. To figure out how to get un-apathetic, I decided to trace my feelings of apathy to their origin. As a starting point, I'm not feeling excited about my workout program. From my unhappiness with my workout program, I've traced that back to not having enough free evenings to exercise. I've traced not having enough free evenings to having to stay later at work. Oh snap! The cause of my problems is work.

It's not just the atmosphere, the layoffs, the people quitting to find greener pastures and happier lives, the cutbacks (they won't even authorize colored Post-its now), the general crabbiness, the "me-first" attitudes. It's more like is this really what I want to do for the rest of my adult working life? Above all, I'm tired of everything coming down to the last minute. The last minute is when there is always no budget, no time, but yet everything has to be done somehow anyway. It's not fun working on weekends or past hours or on my Friday off when I might already have plans dammit. And guess what? My best work product does not come through at the last minute.

I had a conversation with another professional the other day that went something like this:

Them: I need help to get something done next week... can you help me?
Me: While I would be happy to, I actually have eleventy-billion fourteen other things I need to do between now and then.
Them: Well, you see, I'm going to be out of town and I need someone reliable to make sure it gets done.
Me: There are several other people who might be able to help.
Them: No, it really should be you.
Me: Unless someone invents a way to magically stop time, then I'm sorry I cannot help you.
Them: Pleeeezze
Me: No!
>> Enter mutual feelings of resentment as conversation ends with an awkward pause. <<

I don't like to be unhelpful*. In fact, helping out others is really one of my favorite things. But, when I get too bogged down and cannot help, then I sense animosity that does not enhance my workplace enjoyment.

I also feel that I cannot do my best work when everything alwayshastobedonerightaway. There is no time to reflect or to regroup or to collaborate. Collaberation... now there's a genius idea. When I was graduating college and toured engineering offices, I remember seeing lots of small meeting areas where people worked together. In fact, I recall happy engineers sitting around said tables happily producing work together. Now I know those happy engineers were just stand-ins. Props.

For we have tables too, and I know the truth!

*That is, unless I'm being spiteful, in which case it's on like Donkey Kong.

"On your left" has no meaning to these people!

This weekend was pretty fun. On Saturday, I participated in the OC Gran Fondo Bike Ride through Irvine. It was a charity ride with donations going to the Catholic Neumann Center. There were four rides to choose from: 101, 63, 31, and 11 miles. I have to say that with this being the inaugral event it was an awesome time, but there are a few kinks to be worked out starting first with the road markers! I know I didn't actually stay on the correct course because I definitely didn't end up riding 31 miles.



The course started out near my office in Irvine. There were tiny "post-it note" style arrows on the ground, with a specific color representing one of the four routes. All rides started out at the same location, but in one-hour intervals. I got there a bit late and started with the 11-mile group, which was mostly families and kids. Holy batman robin!! These kids need to be brought up to speed on bike lane and bike trail etiquette!!!! Stay to the right kids… that's all I can say! I seriously thought I might die in the first part of the ride. You’ve got novice adult riders mixed in with kids just off training wheels and then serious roadies all sharing the same path. We weren't even 2 blocks into the ride when there was a pile up in the bike lane on Alton Parkway. Riders started going into the traffic lanes to get around the carnage, causing actual cars to swerve to miss them. It was heinous.

I thought that once we were on the river trail, we'd be in better shape. Oh.my.god. People were riding 3-4-5 abreast on a two-way path. The worst was when we were going down the hills in the underpasses and people were zooming in the other direction almost having to play a game of chicken. Some of the underpasses don't have guardrails so it'd be a nasty spill to end up down the embankment and into the urban runoff. If that wasn't bad enough, then while pedaling up the hill on the other side of the underpass, people would randomly hop off their bikes to walk… not paying attention to those of us behind them who are clipped into our pedals!

One of the funny memories I have is of this mom who was obviously on her hubby's mountain bike because her feet couldn't reach the ground. She was riding with her two young boys. I kept my distance from them while waiting for an opportunity to pass, but she seemed competent enough on two wheels to not make me fear for my life. Not so much. For absolutely NO apparent reason, she lost her balance, veered hard to the left towards oncoming riders, then cut hard to the right desperately trying to touch the ground with her feet, and then wobbled back to the left before regaining balance as if nothing ever happened. It was hi-larious! Props to her for staying upright though.

Once I was on my own trying to follow the course route, things got a bit hairy. The aforementioned route markers were nowhere to be found and the peeps who had started my ride an hour earlier were also nowhere to be found. So, I just sort of did my own thing and had a good time. Hopefully some pix will be up on their website to post.

To continue my active weekend, on Sunday I was a TriLaVie volunteer at the OC Triathlon in Mission Viejo. TriLaVie is a local women's tri group. The founder and head coach is the same lady who runs my weekly swim workouts and she is awesome! My morning started with a wake up call at dark-thirty to get to my location by 6:00am. It was a major intersection that was closed as part of the course. My job was to direct traffic to other routes and cheer on the racers. It was really fun. After the bike riders came by, I walked a mile down the road to my next station, which was an intersection where the runners turn around. There we just needed to make sure that they actually made the turn. It was a fun experience and something I would definitely do again. However, next time I would volunteer at T1 where I could help hot tri dudes strip out of their wetsuits. :)

Is it Fall Yet?

I took a little break in blogging and other things, which was much needed. Not to worry though because I am back. I appreciated the heartfelt words and messages that many of you sent when I was having a rough time. Just wanted you to know that they were not taken lightly. For you, I'm thankful.

So this time of year is always my favorite. I LOVE fall. Today was the first day that it felt like there was a touch of autumn in the air. We've had some really hot, summer-like weather lately that is not how it should feel in October. Today, however, it was somewhat cooler, a little damp and when I walked out of the store tonight, I could smell the faint smell of a fireplace. Not sure who would be out of their mind to have a fire going when it's 75 out, but hey, it set the tone.

One of my favorite cartoon movies is 'Daria Is it Fall Yet?'. In fact, I thought it appropriate to put on the top of my Netflix queue. I love fall because there is a sense of urgency in getting ready for the winter. Well, okay... there is when you don't live in a perpetual tropical climate. Just like the fable ants getting ready for winter, I always enjoyed helping to winterize our house... getting the leaves raked up ready for the first snow. I also loved shopping for new fall clothes! Mainly because I love coats. Not so much need for coats out here.

Besides reminiscing about the changing of the seasons, I've also continued to prep for my tri, which is quickly approaching in a few months. I haven't had much time in September to work out, as I spent a week in St. Louis (too freakin' hot to work out!) and a week in Las Vegas (selfish Mike Tyson wouldn't share the spin bike). But, I've got to get back on it! That is going to be my mantra for October.