A Hard-Reset Monday.

On Monday, I got solid confirmation from my ortho that per my physical examination and my MRI results, my PCL in my right knee is in bad shape.  The conservative approach is 2.5 months of SERIOUS PT.  Not "kinda do some stuff" PT-- rather, I've been prescribed a 5-day per week workout regimen to strengthen the leg, get it up to the same strength as the other one, and maybe see about circumventing surgical necessity.

Well, "necessity" is a bad word.  If I just wanted to live a normal, sedentary life, I'd probably be ok. The problem is that I do NOT. I want to keep skating, or at least, being active on a regular basis. I want to continue getting MORE fit, not staying at the same level I am at or degrading in that.  And if I had a different situation right now I may have agreed to the consult... but I can't. I live an hour away from work, and carpooling is not currently an option. I can't be right-leg-less for the 6-8 weeks that I'd be on crutches and immobilized.  It is just not an option today, so all I can do is anything else, which is hard.

I agreed to hang up my skates until my followup in the middle of July, and that broke my heart, but I have a good plan. I am really afraid that this plan may not be good enough, though, and my ortho strongly indicated that without surgery I may not have the opportunity to return to the flat track, but he conceded that we can look at it a little later and see.  First, there's a lot of work.

About 2 hours after that appointment, I got confirmation that the friend who has been trying to work out his financial plan to purchase my house is just not going to be able to do that at this time... and so if I do want to sell it and move into town, it's going to have to go on the market.  I have a good list of the things I need to accomplish to do that.  I need to get about 50% of my possessions out of it, firstly.  Then I need to do some prettification and resign myself to strangers poking around my home. I may need to temporarily re-home my cats, which I'm not excited about at all.  It may be that I end up storing most of my things and, when the time comes to listing it, move into a small apartment for a short while which is a new level of scary all to itself.  I don't know...but I know that first, there's a lot of work.

How do you move them? One at a time.

SO, it looks like the prevailing theme of my summer is going to be "Do Work, Son."  I'm going to have to change some plans to re-route some time and finances, but I can do that. I'm going to have to write lists, and hold myself accountable, and I can do that, too.  I'm going to have to be honest about what I need and what I like and what I've just been hanging onto because it is convenient, and I'm not just talking about my clutter but also things like mentality and drive and excuses.


The only thing left to do now is write the playlist and get to work.

90 seconds of absolute batshit crazy

Scene:  A Sonic Drive-In Restaurant, approximately 9:00 on a week night.  Our heroine is patiently awaiting delivery of a magical Diet Cherry Limeaide (extra cherries, please) after Roller Derby practice.  As is fit, she is sweaty. She is wearing an ensemble consisting of bicycle shorts, a teal T-shirt reading "Bitches Be Trippin'", a purple bandana on her head... and pink KT Tape decorates her knee. Her socks feature C3P0.

In the next car-stall, an older woman is piloting a large black pick-em-up truck whilst maintaining a solid grasp on the chili dog in her right hand.  She hits the menu post with her headlight, and rather than stopping and realigning tests the boundaries of physics to see if her F950 (est) can win the battle. It can, but at the cost of her headlight shielding, headlight, and a portion of chrome plating, all of which shatter upon the ground, glistening in the security light and menu glare.

Then shit got real.

Ok, so seriously? This woman (whom I hate for her actions, not for her chili dog) is all like, just going on away, leaving the car debris. So I call out of my window "You forgot part of your truck!"  Because I am HELPFUL, you know.  So she stops her truck behind me and rolls down the window and says "Oh, it's ok! It's just my headlight!"

OH BUT NO.

So I leap from my car and grab a shard of displaced plastic from where it bounced off of my car and I waved it at her.  "This was under my tire."

She sits there....and takes a bite of her motherfucking chili dog while examining the glistening shard in my hand.

So I proceed to pick up all the bits and pieces and chunks of Made-in-the-USA-Pickup-Truck, WHILST carrying on an improv monologue on how SOME PEOPLE just leave their trash lying around to puncture tires and ruin nice evenings and SOME PEOPLE could get out of their damn trucks... and I carried them over to her.  At which point she quickly handed off her chili dog to the passenger, which is a damn fine thing because had her hands not been free, she'd have been catching shattered plastic bits in her lap, and probably, that damn chili dog.

She did say thank you, though. I'm not sure if she was grateful because I gave her back her headlight or because I did not punch her in the throat, because I suspect that my appearance was pretty damn frightening... that lighting is never complimentary in those parking lots, you know.

Scene:  The carhop arrives with a Diet Cherry Limeaide and a perplexed expression on her face.  Was the confusion because the patron was out of the car or because the menu one stall over was askew, unlit, and scratched to hell and beyond?  Who knows.  Our Heroine was happy to point out that the black pick-em-up truck was getting on about their hitting and running now that their trash had been dealt with.  And then there was Diet Cherry Limeaide, and all was good.

---End Scene---

This post not sponsored or endorsed by Sonic Restaurants.

Untitled, and I'm ok with that.

"Fake it 'til ya make it" has made me a much happier person.  Really- IT WORKS!  Want some soundbites? GOT THEM.  "Happiness is a choice." TRUE.  "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be." I believe it.  Parrot that stuff repeatedly to yourself or whomever will listen and eventually, you will start to mean it, you'll believe it, and you will be happier than you used to be.

Sometimes, though, a girl just needs a good wallow (or "waller," in the proper dialect of my homeland).  Yesterday the entire universe aligned properly to give me the Perfect Storm for a 100% Legit, No-Holds-Barred angstfest.  How so?

• Jury Duty!  You can go home after sitting in the room of bodies with warring perfumes just long enough to get a killer headache, but you have to call in every day until we tell you not to to see if you have to come back.  insider tip: my schedule being up in the air freaks me the hell out.
• Clashing with a friend!  It happens. Friends have to work their shit out sometimes, and it's ok.  Timing is what timing is... and God knows, it's never a convenient time to have a Situation.
• HORMONES.  Just....yeah. Fuck you, kitten. Why are you looking at me?
• TIME TO CRY! Practice was tough last night, and in my crummy mindset it felt like it was a series of tailor-made drills designed to specifically exploit my weaknesses. It wasn't, and I know that, and I knew that then, but I still made special time to have a meltdown... and may have scarred the Coach for life.
• Guess who's not ready for Gulf Wars? THIS GIRL! Seriously, I leave on Friday for 5 days of camping, and I'm SO not prepared.

So, is it better today? Nope. I still have a residual pity-party hangover, but as of noon today, I am going to be actively forcing myself to put it in check as I spot it.    

Wednesday Night's Fight Club Moment

"Don't deal with this the way those dead people do. Deal with it the way a living person does." -- Tyler Durden

Ok, so maybe that's a TOUCH melodramatic, but last night I learned two valuable lessons:

1) My body did not fully heal in 2 weeks from the tattoo.  The area had the appearance of healing, but was still quite tender.

2) Shading needles hurt like a mother when there's no endorphin rush leading into it.

This makes me so. damn. happy.  5 hours, all told, and 5 hours of my life I am happy to have sacrificed towards decorating the temple that is my body with something that I don't think I'll ever possibly regret.

Next time, though, I might decide to find spiritual resonance with something a little bit smaller...

Didn't even have to use my AK...

TCK's first bout of the season- an away bout in Mandeville, LA, was a wonderful success.  We won, but I'm mostly happy about the way that we actually worked together as a cohesive team in regards to strategy and smart game play.  We made some progress in this direction towards the last part of last season, but two months of really focusing on these details in addition to all the other things at practice really did pay off. 

There is always more work to do, though, and I'm excited to see what comes next.

Cards Against Humanity will be going with me to every single bout for the rest of my life.

It was, indeed, a good day.

--

I'm somewhere at the end of a month of being a really-truly nonsmoker. I've gotten to that shitty point where I don't like how I smell when I leave a bar.  The upside is that it's also the point where the flowers in my office make the place smell amazing, so there's always a bright side.

Gluten free-vegetarian is not nearly as dramatic or difficult as I expected.  I don't wanna try vegan- I love my eggs and cheese- but I'm feeling amazing.  I miss fish, though.  Fish may be coming back at the end of Lent.  My GF trial is technically over on my birthday later this month, but I think I may keep it.  On Feb 1 my Glomular Filtration Rate (indication of renal function) had improved by 2%.  That could be because of the GF, or because of any number of variables, but I don't miss wheat and I've figured out that by packing a bag like a toddler's mother would do, the inconvenience factor is pretty low.

--

Don't trouble trouble, right?  I've identified that my presence on OKCupid was just adding to my stress level.  I don't want to be a bitch, but the volume of illiterate and/or married men contacting me were starting to not only piss me off but also shade my self perception.  I've always felt that dating profiles that present with a laundry list of "Do not contact me IF:" items came off as horribly negative, but I was starting to see the appeal.  So... I've killed that shit and set my account to disabled. Maybe for a week, maybe forever. Who knows?  I feel better, and I'm not experiencing anxiety when I see "DoucheBag8478 sent you a message!" in my email or on my phone.

"To change and to change for the better are two different things."

I skipped observing Lent last year.  I think I thought about it and then I forgot.

This year's contenders were:

No Meat!
No Alcohol!
No online dating!

--

No Meat won.  I'm not worried about getting anemic, and I've done it before (albeit, I've never done it without gluten, so my "easy answer" of a Veggie Delite sandwich just got kicked off the island).

I'm aware that Sundays aren't part of Lent. In the past, I've ignored that and trucked through to Easter.

We'll see how that goes.

Wherein I realize I'm older than I thought I was.

me: Ok. I have to confess something.
For the past several weeks, I have been thinking that I was coming up on my 33rd birthday... and I was wrong.
I'm going to fucking be 34.
EvilSara: :(
me: I AM SO MAD.
EvilSara: Want me to take your mind off it?
I took a 20 minute GMAT test for shits and giggles and realize how math and grammer I have forgotten
I am scared yo
you are mad you are going to be 34?
me: I am mad because I thought I was 32, really.
EvilSara: I have thought I was 32 for the last 3 years
 (yes, that counts the year I was 31)
me: I feel better.
EvilSara: I have to do the math every single time I need my age.
me: I did the math. And I did it wrong.
EvilSara: ok =-| I can't help you with that one.
EvilSara: Did you know you can't even use a simple calculator for the GMAT?
me: Clearly, I'd be screwed.
And I did not know that.