Subtle Glow

Last night while watching Grey’s Anatomy, Christina flinched when the new resident hugged her hello. When the resident asked if she was hurting Christina, she simply replied, “No… You’re touching me.”

Heh.

As a fan of the show I saw that one coming - Christina gets peeved by hugging.

At the same time, it made me think about my own thoughts about personal contact with strangers. I’ll admit: It’s really not my most favorite thing. Part of it, I’ll admit, has to do with the germ factor. Shaking hands is just asking for trouble when it comes to germs. I’ll also admit I’m a little more fanatical than your average bear when it comes to germs.

But to prove how it’s working for me: On a weekend away my son contracted salmonella. We never did figure out where or how he got it. What I do remember is that I did not get it from him - despite all of the touching and cleaning and more cleaning and fucking bleaching the fuck out of everything (ok not really) that I had to do that weekend. Even his pediatrician remarked at how diligent we must be with cleanliness in our home. HA.

So, getting back to my point. At times while venturing through the mall, I have happened upon two different kiosks that seriously bring out my inner bitch.

The first are those rice pack booths. They have them all warmed up and ready to drape around your neck. They want to entice you with how relaxing they are, plying you with tempting features (”It’s filled with lavender to allow for an aromatheraputic experience!”).

Meanwhile, I can’t help but wonder how many people actually allow them to do their demonstration. How clean are those people? What about people with their long hair - isn’t it going to touch those things?

BAH!!

I usually make a deliberate move to sidestep them (because you know how they like to just jump right in front of you, trying to get you to stop) and give them a curt, “I don’t like to be touched!” Also there is a bit of determination on my face that I’m pretty sure translates to “I will so totally mow you down and leave you as mall roadkill if you don’t move. your. ass.” Or something. Anyway, they usually move.

The second dreaded kiosk is the hand/nail care people. But it’s handwashing! Handwashing is the first line of defense to the dreaded evil of The Germs!

Uh huh, I know. That’s all well and good, as I am a big fan of handwashing. However, I was once unlucky enough to be trapped by one of these well-meaning handwasher/nail buffer people. Before I knew what was happening, my hand was lathered up and I was choosing a scented lotion for her to apply.

But then. Then! She was holding my hand in order to demonstrate the magical mojo goodness of her products and she - would NOT. LET. GO. Even gentle tugging of my hand wouldn’t release her grasp. At the same time she is asking me if I would buy a set for just $35 dollars, and why? Why wouldn’t I buy one? Why? When I told her that’s not what I came here to buy, she pressed me for details. And the whole time she is holding me at handpoint and I am about to go Rain Man all slapping and chanting and I’m sure there would be a little bit of rocking and screaming. LET GO OF ME!!!

So I told her I was here to get to pick up an order for some fetishwear from Fredrick’s and I didn’t want her prissy-ass lotion because I preferred scalding hot candle wax instead.

Or something. In any case she let go of my hand and I got away.

Just a word of warning to perfect strangers: Please. No touching.

I have but one burning question at this moment:

Is it ever acceptable for a woman to have a mustache? Specifically, when the hair is very fine and very light and visible only in certain lighting or an overly bad application of powder?

Also - what is the correct approach to take if indeed, there needs to be some process to make the upper lip acceptable?

Here is the dilemma. If I try to do anything to it… will I temporarily correct the problem only to find that I have created an even bigger problem as that hair grows out?

The options, as I am aware:

• Bleaching
• Plucking
• Waxing
• Laser Removal
• Shaving powder
• Shaving
• Leave it the hell alone

Bleaching seems to be the least dangerous (I’m not quite convinced I can call it the safest) with the smallest probability of re-growth horror. Risks include reaction to the bleach, causing either chemical burn or rash-like outbreak. Possibility of a reaction I would say is medium to high, based on my the violent reaction my eyebrow region has to waxing.

Plucking would eliminate the possibility of a chemical reaction, but then there is a higher risk of re-growth horror. Possibility of said horror is rather high, judging from the mess I’ve made of the little hairs below my belly button. Although waxing that area of my belly doesn’t seem to enrage the skin anywhere near what an eyebrow wax does to my brow. So I guess the waxing reaction is only applicable to areas of my body that people would be able to see when I am fully clothed. Awesome.

An eyebrow wax, as I have noted, results in either violent red or very pink skin for at least one to three hours. Once the skin calms down and returns to it’s normal color I spend a week and a half with a nice little outbreak of what look like thousands - ok maybe only hundreds, or at the very least tens - of pimples all around my eyebrows. So, you know, after the first 10 days it’s great! I’m generally not thrilled with it around my eyebrows, and I’m certainly not going to risk it on my upper lip.

The next three are just out of the question. Laser removal = too expensive and too great of lengths for something that is there but most of the time is not even visible. ANY method of shaving will result in either re-growth horror of ultimate proportions, or an extreme paranoia about the existence of any re-growth and the visibility of it.

So I’m back to the last option: Leave it the hell alone. It’s one of those things that I wonder if people notice but wish someone *else* would tell me to do something about.

I’m also wondering if this whole debate has only started bouncing around in my brain simply because I’ve been up since 3:15am.

I’m fighting off a nap right now. Usually on a Saturday afternoon, with the kiddo away, I would be perfectly suited to run errands in the morning, come home for lunch and then settle in for a little nap.

But not today. Not today because taking a nap now would mean I probably wouldn’t be able to go to bed early - in preparation for the FOUR AM! project tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a great day for a nap, but not today.

Besides, I have a whole list of things I’d like to do today. Instead of running errands this morning I lounged in bed until the last possible minute before I had to get up, jump in the shower and run off to my hair appointment. From there I went straight to the soccor field to watch kiddo do his thang. During the watching of the kiddo and the soccor, I drank almost an entire liter of water which meant that leaving the kiddo and the soccor was a struggle to stand up straight.

I’ve had my lunch, and now - I want my nap.

I still need to hit the grocery store and I’d like to do my taxes today, and get a pedicure. That should take up quite a bit of the day, and with any luck I can settle in for dinner and an early movie before falling easily to sleep sometime between 8 an 9 tonight. Because OH, how I do not want to be still awake at 11 or 12, knowing that in mere hours the alarm will be bitching at me to get up. Hateful alarm. Hate you!

Since it’s a work thing causing me to get up so early, I won’t go into great detail but I know it’s safer to start earlier rather than run out of time. In my opionion four in the morning is well beyond “safe” and well into “fucking insane” and in the end I know I’ll do it. But does that mean I have to love the idea? Seriously. I did what I could to avoid being out on the road, tired, driving, in the middle of the night - but in the end it didn’t work out that way. I told them if anything happened they would have to be the ones to explain it to the kiddo - which pretty much guarantees the only thing that will happen is: I will be tired. And probably cranky. But also working and getting it done, so I can go home. And NAP.

Maybe after that I can give an update or two: about this, and this, but not this yet.

A! M!

That is what time I have to be in here at work on Sunday. I am hope hope hoping this project goes live and goes well.

FOUR IN THE MORNING. Starbucks doesn’t even open that early.

But Hey!! You know what? There probably won’t be ANY traffic that early. So it will be 20 minutes to get from door to door. woo.

Unrelated: Tonight I am going out to dinner and then to a movie with a co-worker.  We’re meeting some other friends of hers for their semi-occasional “chick-flick night.”  And I? Am a little apprehensive.

First, we are going to see Match Point. I’m not usually one for Woody Allen movies, err - “films” actually.  I am going to try my best to get through it and not totally hate it and run screaming from the theater.  Because that would be kind of obvious, and probably embarrasing.  It’s only 124 minutes long.  :/

I have tried watching Woody Allen movies before.  I don’t remember how many. I don’t remember the names. I don’t even think I made it all the way through any of them.

I sort of wonder if I’m not “cultured” enough or lacking some other essential component that makes me an official “grown up” so that I can watch and enjoy the subtle points of a Woody Allen film.

Anyway, dinner is at Panera, so at least that will be good.

I really *should* go to the gym. Really. I should get on there and move my ass as I watch the calories burned climb… 100, 200, 300, 400. After 400 I tell myself I can stop. I try to do it in 30 minutes. For the most part, I can, but on days like today I know I’ll have to crank up the intensity because I am seriously dragging.

I’ll feel better if I go. I won’t make this week look like last week, where I went on Monday and flaked the rest of the week.

If I don’t go tonight, I won’t go at all until *maybe* Saturday. Tomorrow I have plans and Friday night I have plans. If not now, when?

I am tired, I could go to bed right now. I have PMS. I ate too much today. I could go 10 feet into my living room and do yoga. I’ll still feel like I flaked.

Once I get there I know I’ll feel better. I could burn off the extra calories I ate today, and then some. I want to see scale progress on Saturday.

I’m going to get changed and then I’m going.

**UPDATE**

I went to the gym.  I worked out.  I feel so much better!

Tiny bits at a time. My total weight lost so far is 5 whole pounds. Five pounds in three weeks is, by my standards, not very impressive. But - I’d rather lose it than gain it!

I was actually surprised, because when I peeked at the scale on Wednesday (mid-week peek) I was UP a pound. I fully expected to see that pound still there on Saturday. So - happy day! when I saw it was gone.

I only made it to the gym once last week - and even though I did a great workout (burned over 400 calories!) once a week is just not going to cut it. I went again tonight, and I’ll plan to go each night this week. Three nights is my absolute bare minimum, though. This is the official week of Fat/Ugly, so there are at least two reasons to motivate me. #1 - Exercise can be a mood enhancer and I’d say that wouldn’t be a bad thing this week. #2 - If there’s the slightest chance for water retention and GAINING this week, well I think a little exercise will help curb that.

Reading is one of my favorite things to do.  Unfortunately, I rarely find I have time to read as much as I like, but usually if I have a book to read, I make the time.  By the time Christmas rolled through here last year, I was thirstly for some new reading.  So I took one of my gift certificates and a big chunk of change and got the following:

1. The Beauty Myth
2. The War on Choice
3. Bitch
4. By the Color of Our Skin
5. The World According to Mimi Smartypants
6. Slut!

My hope is to finish reading these by the end of March, where I’ll then buy another slew of books and continue that pattern.  I’ll be giving my opinions here as I finish each one so if you’re interested I’m creating a new category for it.

A: “Yeah, so I was reading this story on a blog the other day - ”

B: “Oh my god. I am so addicted to reading blogs.”

A: “I know.  Me too -   I have a blog.”
B: “Yes! So do I!”

*giggles from both*

A & B: “I’m not telling you where it is, though.”  “Oh HA! HA!”  “Me either!”

A: “I never blog about work though.  Ok, well - my FORMER job, but never this one.”

B: “I don’t really blog about much at all.”

A: “I’m totally blogging this of course.”

Recenlty a friend emailed me to ask if I was expecting big changes to come in the near future.

The answer is definitely Yes.

Change is a good thing. Inevitable. Unstoppable. Difficult. Intimidating. But usually a good thing.

Ok, enough with the little dance with words.

I am in over my head.

More and more every day, I find myself drawn to someone. We agreed there would be no strings, and therefore no entanglements.

That was just over a year ago.

At the time, it seemed reasonable, because it was meant to be a short-term thing. We didn’t want anyone getting hurt, so we agreed to Keep It Casual.

But, really, the hurt is almost unavoidable because when you spend enough time with someone and the time you spend is good, then you start to feel good about that person. Because you associate the goodness to them. You start to think to yourself about how much you like spending time with him. You smile to yourself a little bit now and then when you remember something he said, or did, or the way he kissed you or held you. When you realize what you’re doing you also realize what you’re headed for and that you should get out, get out now before it gets any worse. It’s difficult, and it’s painful but you make the break before it’s way too late, before your heart is in it and things are really really fucked up.

Or.

Or, you realize what you’re headed for and how much you should get out. Or really at the very least give the person a bit of “Hi - this is getting a little bit sticky for me. FYI.” You realize this person will likely be the one strong enough to end it before it gets any stickier, which means it will be over and you will have let your heart into it and it will be gone. Even though you know it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you, you feel a little bit like that anyway.

So you don’t say anything, or at least you’re trying to get up the nerve to say something. You play the conversation out in your mind but even when you’re alone, and imagining it, somehow the words are getting stuck and you’re swallowing a lump in your throat. Then you think about how he is planning to move away in a few short months, how he has been planning the move for about a year now, and you knew it all along, so what did you expect? So you tell yourself you can just wait until then, and then he’ll be gone and it won’t be because he didn’t want you anymore, it will just be a result of circumstance.

A little voice in the back of your mind whispers that if he knew how you felt he would also want to find a way to make it work, or at least years from now you wouldn’t have to look back and wonder ‘What if you had said something?’ and how it might make things different. You ask yourself how important is it to you not to look back at any of this with any regret, and that’s when you realize all over again you have to find a way to SAY something. That all of the aftermath would make sense one day when you look back and know that you didn’t have to wonder about it.

Meanwhile, you are still seeing him, and every minute you’re with him the words want to pop out of your mouth. So many words in so many ways:

“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

“I’ve spend months going over how to do this.”

“I’m crazy about you.”

“I want this to work.”

“I love you.”

I’m sorry.

The right thing to do. That’s what it is. It’s the right thing to do, the adult thing, the mature thing to do. Tell it like it is - or as a friend says, “Just come out of your face and say it.” Let what happens after that just happen.

My own words from last year haunt me:

“I’ve been through worse. A little heartache won’t kill me.”

Another little part of me is angry at myself, of course. I knew that more than likely some feelings would develop. I wasn’t naiive or stupid enough to think otherwise. I knew at some point my heart would end up involved somehow.

I completely underestimated just how much.

Whatever I do today, I HAVE GOT to get some either 1- or 2-cent stamps.  I have two bills that have to be mailed each month, one for rent and one to my attorney.  Neither one is something you want to pay late, on account of stupid 2-cent stamp!

Other than that, I think I’m off to buy myself an ipod today!