Marching to the beat of a different mandolin

Bartender guy texted last night.

We had a mild flirt.

He announced he has a girlfriend and is monogamous, but that he wants to friendzone me if I'm open to it because he likes me from listening to me host trivia every week. (I'm paraphrasing.) (And actually I hate that term and am only using it flippantly.) (Sometimes I think I overuse parentheticals.)

We have plans to hang out next week. I'm really psyched, but also kinda bummed he's not *available.* I will not be making any move to try and change his mind, though. My lifestyle is different, but my moral code is still pretty strong. It's just a shame because this is the first crush I've had in like 2 years, and I guess it's going to have to flame out.

We've been doing better as the week progresses. We made one KO semifinal for a nice big chunk of points for Zac -- he was shocked that we got 11 all at once like that. Today we're playing in a playoff for 3rd place in a 3-session KO (they didn't get enough teams to do a full final KO). Then tomorrow I fly home to my sweet boyfriend and devil kitten. I've had a great week and I'm really looking forward to getting home, too.

Last night, we played against Val and his sponsor, Carol. Early in the match, Zac jokingly told me to fuck off. Carol, a woman at least in her 70's, was very shocked, and Zac spent the rest of the match apologizing for his language. As we got up to leave the table at halftime, Zac said once more to her, "Again, I'm so sorry about my language." She goes "I don't give a fuck!" It was my favorite moment of the week.

They annihilated us in the second half after we kept it close in the first, so Val offered to buy my drinks at the hotel bar. It was the first time we hung around after, and we ended up shooting the shit with Steve Weinstein and Bobby Levin. It's such a small tournament, they're some of the only pros here, and we were the only people around to hang out with them. That was a good time. It made me feel like one of the cool kids.

I also witnessed the most awful human behavior I've ever seen yesterday. I've already told this story all over Facebook, but I'll put it here for a more permanent record. In the first bit of the first session yesterday, a woman playing in the small room (7 tables) with us fainted. Everyone in the room stopped playing as we waited, concerned, for her to wake up. Paramedics were called, but her husband assured us that she has a fainting disorder and this is not uncommon. She's probably fine. She wakes up and the color starts returning to her face, and she says she's okay. The surrounding tables continue their play. The paramedics arrive, lift her off the ground and back into her chair, and begin to evaluate her. Then a woman (JH) gets up and walks over to the patient and paramedics and says "could you please take this outside? It's really bothering me."

What. The. Fuck.

Like, seriously, I know bridge players are selfish assholes, but that was a spectacular new low. God damn.

Anyway, one more day of fun-filled excitement, then home to my love. It's been a great week :)

Also Happy Fucking Birthday to my little sister today! I dunno if she still reads here now that I'm not on LJ and she has an infant to wrangle, but I've wished her happy birthday in several other places as well. (Hi Em! Are you still with me here?)

Last night while I was playing bridge online, a friend fb messaged me and asked if I wanted to hear a funny McKenzie story. I said "No, and thanks for checking with me first." I've just had a lot going on that has my Z-related anger pretty close to the surface, and didn't want to have my mind on him at all. But then the friend goes, "Well, it's not really about him at all. I wanna tell it." And then he tells the story. I reacted exactly as I thought I would -- some anger bubbled up and I had some word vomit about it, and then I kind of shut down. I really wasn't interested in that conversation. Friend keeps talking. I respond sparingly. Eventually I tell him I'm going to go to bed. He's like "OK, but you should think about messaging me sometime. It sucks that I'm the only one who ever starts conversations."

First of all, not true. I do message this friend from time to time. Second of all, thanks for the guilt trip right after you made me feel like shit. I think I won't be messaging you any time soon.

I met up with my friend Dan for happy hour last night. (Not my ex Dan.) He's possibly getting divorced, so I reached out to him thinking he might need a friend, and I missed him 'cause it had been a while. He's actually doing really well. He says the emotional fuckery of the split with his wife was only really bad for a couple of months, but he's not really hurting anymore, and he's so much happier. He seemed to be telling the truth about that. Having been through this myself, I know that it comes and goes -- I got teary talking about my own divorce with him last night, and it's been over two years. But for now, Dan's doing well and I'm happy for him. He has a pregnant cat at home, and I'm very eager to meet the baby kittens. They are expected within a week or so.

On Sunday, I'm flying to SLC to play bridge with Zac on a team with Max and Dee at the regional there. It's Zac's first tournament ever, and one of my first since my big hiatus, so we're all very excited. I should be able to see my friend Veronica while I'm there, too. I have no idea why so many great people choose to live in a state like Utah, but they're the only reason I'm excited to go there. And the bridge, I guess. My understanding is that this is a pretty tiny tournament, so even though Zac and Dee combine for maybe just a couple hundred masterpoints, we'll probably be in Bracket I all week. Well, I hope we win it all. Why not?

I lost another 1.6 pounds this week, for a total of 6 pounds in three weeks. That's pretty good, but now I'm all kinds of anxious about keeping up with the program while I'm in Utah...I'll probably be largely sedentary and won't have a lot of food options...but in any case, I probably won't gain back all 6 pounds...fingers crossed I have the energy and opportunity to get some exercise, at least.

I am so sick of all the disrespect I get at the bridge table. I'm too mentally exhausted to go into the whole story from today, but it has a happy ending, anyway. My team won. We're a hodgepodge team thrown together to fill out the event, and we fully expected to be bottomfeeders, but we were solid today and tomorrow we'll play against Dave's team for the district championship. I feel like I'm playing some of my best bridge ever, and while I don't think our team is better than theirs, I think we could win. I would like that very much.

The thing I hate the most, though, is that when I complain about being disrespected, most (older white men) think I'm overreacting. The older white men in charge of ruling the game (and handing out zero tolerance penalties) don't think any of the transgressions that bother me warrant a ZT. (Then why call it ZERO tolerance if you'll tolerate MILD abuse?) But get fucking disrespected every goddamn time you play, and the littlest things eat at your soul. I just wish the directors would have my back here. Or that I could stand up for myself without looking like a whiner or some kind of tattletale.

But you know what?

Scoreboard, motherfuckers.

Birthday week has been fantastic! Let's back up to last weekend. On Saturday, Toby and I went to Seaside and played a weekend of bridge. The weather was crap, but the tournament was a good time. It was Toby's first real bridge against decent competition, and we did about as well as a pair can be expected to do in such cases...45% and 41%. Sure I'm disappointed we didn't scratch on Saturday, but that wasn't really even remotely expected. On Sunday, Joe and Amy joined us for the Swiss teams. I have too many points for the team to compete in the limited games, so we were in the A/X field, which was 6 9-board rounds. Any bozo can win short rounds, but 9-board rounds are pretty tough. It's generally long enough for the better team to win, and with one complete novice on our team, the expectations were not high. But we won 3 out of the 6 matches! And all but one of our losses was a close one! All in all it was very good, and we actually tied for 2nd in X, which was worth a little more than our match awards were. So Toby has his first silver points and I'm very proud :)

On Wednesday, I had one of my biggest crowds ever at trivia -- it was standing room only at the Jolly Roger with 10 teams playing. It was awesome to have such a big crowd, and it meant I actually got some kinda decent tips.

Thursday was our birthday. Toby went to work, and Nick came over for our weekly nap, lunch, and board games. I felt like walking up to Rainy Day Games just to see if there was anything new I should buy myself for a birthday present. $100 and three games later, Nick and I came back to my place to test one of them. It's called Castles of Caladale. It's Carcassonne-ish. A little faster and lighter than that. I've only played it as a 2-player game so far, but it plays up to 4. I like it. I also picked up two new expansions for Mystic Vale. It's a newer game we've been playing with our game group, and I really like it, but it's not very well balanced. It's the kind of game where a bad bit of luck can get you irretrievably behind, and then it's just a slog until it's over. But the guys at the shop said the expansions help balance it a lot, so I'm excited to try them out. Hopefully we'll give that a go at our game night tomorrow. Toby had a work team thing after work, so we moved our birthday celebration to Friday night. I'm glad it worked out that way, because we ended up getting to do a little extra partying.

Toby made reservations at Epif, a vegan South American-inspired restaurant in NE (not that there are any vegans in South America, but the food was good!). We dressed up all fancy and took transit out there so we could get our drink on if we decided we wanted to. There was a gelato place right next to the restaurant, so naturally we went there for dessert. We decided to go back downtown to the Barrel Room, where I used to host trivia, for some drinks before heading home. It's a really fun dueling piano bar on weekends, and the show was just revving up when we arrived. We didn't really intend to stay long, but we got sucked in -- it's just such a fun atmosphere. I texted our friends Jared and Auburn, who are usually out on the town on Friday nights, and sure enough, they were nearby and were happy to join us.

For some reason last night, the bar was serving all cocktails in solo cups, so I got a nearly-full solo cup of martini. Hilarity ensued. Well, really just a lot of drunken dancing. But then at the end of the night, I made out with Auburn a little bit. I'd never kissed a girl before. Felt like the thing to do. :)

Toby and I rode the last Max home, and we did the things couples do when celebrating birthdays, followed by sleep.

I had plans to play bridge with Joe today at the club at the south waterfront at 1, but I had no intention of waking up sooner than noon. Somehow, though, both Toby and I were awake by 10, and the weather was splendid, so we decided to go for a bike ride. We rode a few miles and got breakfast, then rode to the train. We trained into Portland, and I rode another couple of miles from the Max stop to the bridge club, all along the river. It was beautiful. Joe and I had a nice game, and I reversed the ride for the way home. Lots of good exercise on a beautiful day. I've been super tired since bridge, though, and will probably fall asleep early tonight.

Also yesterday, I made it back to Weight Watchers for my first weigh-in since returning to the program a week ago. I was down almost 3 pounds! I gained a frightfully discouraging amount of weight in the clinical drug trial I was in, so I've got a long way to go before I'm happy with my body again, but it was nice to start with a good week. I hope I can keep it up! Toby and I are sticking with the 100 pushups program, too. I've repeated a few weeks along the way, but will be starting week 5 tomorrow. I can definitely see a difference in my arms. Just gotta keep on with it. Tomorrow will be a running day. After sleeping in.

I went back to Weight Watchers today. I promised my therapist this was the week. Of course I waited until Friday. Afternoon.

For those not in the know, I was in a clinical drug trial for the last year. The last six months of the trial, I was put on a drug that made me gain weight like mad. Super fast, lots of weight. 30-40 pounds in six months? Didn't help that with my various injuries, it's been hard to keep in a regular fitness routine. But the trial is over now so there's no chemical reason I shouldn't be able to lose this weight. I stopped gaining weight, but since the trial ended, I haven't really lost any, either, despite my attempts at better habits. I knew I needed to go back to WW. The plan has always worked really well for me. It's just a matter of staying on it. So I guess starting today, I'm back on it. The shitty thing is that even if I do really well, it'll take many months to shed the weight I put on, and that's really discouraging. I also hate when people see me who haven't seen me in a while because I look like I REALLY let myself go. And I want to be like "it was for science!"

I also did my second bike ride in two days. Just rode home from the shop where I'd had it tuned up, about a 3-mile ride. My crotch is sore from the saddle, but I think if I make sure to ride regularly over the next week or two, that should go away, and I'll be able to handle longer rides.

Tomorrow, I leave bright and early for Seaside with Toby. We're staying at a hotel and playing the team game on Sunday as well. In my mind, I'll wake up early Sunday and go for a run on the boardwalk. But the possibility of actually doing that is probably pretty slim. I'll pack running gear just in case...writing it down here just boosted the likelihood that I'll go by at least 40%.

I got my taxes done yesterday (shut up), and I didn't owe nearly as much as I thought I was going to. So that's kind of like found money. Exciting :) Doing taxes always stresses me out like whoa, and I feel like, if it's this hard for me to understand, the average schmo can't possibly be doing it right, can they? I'm glad Toby was there while I worked on it. He's such a calming influence for me. Getting that done and the relief of not owing more spurred me to be very productive. I ran 3.2 miles in honor of the 32 Virginia Tech victims on the anniversary of the shooting. Toby and I also went to look at bikes, and he ended up buying one for himself (the one he owns already is a single-speed cruiser). We got a bunch of accessories for both of us, and I scheduled a tuneup of mine. I'm really looking forward to doing more biking as the weather gets nicer. We also picked out a recipe from a cookbook and shopped for the ingredients and made it. It was really good, but Toby ended up burning the garlic, which stunk up the whole house. So we took a late evening walk to the head shop a few blocks away to get some incense :)

This morning, I met my lawyer to pick up my settlement check from my accident. Nearly 3 years after the crash, that's done. Of course it's not really over. My body hasn't been the same since, and it probably never will be. But the paperwork and lawyer part is done. It's a relief.

Since I had to be downtown to get the check, I met Toby for lunch and decided to go to the gym down there. It's about a 1/2-mile walk from Toby's office. When I got there, though, it was closed. Apparently there are structural issues with the building next door, so it's a safety issue. I walked the 1/2-mile back and got on the train to go home, determined to just go to the gym in Beaverton instead. But when I got back, I could barely keep my eyes open. All I wanted was a nap. I did not, however, want the dose of self-loathing I'd get if I skipped, so I summoned 100% of my willpower and I went for a 30-minute elliptical session. Not much, but way more than a nap. I'll do pushups tonight with Toby. We're working our way through the Hundred Pushups Challenge together. It's a lot slower progress than the last time I did it, but the progress is undeniable, so I intend to stick with it.

Right now, Cleopatrick is snoozing and purring on my chest. I'll have to move him in a half hour or so so that I can get to therapy and then a showing afterwards, but for right now, I'm a very happy cat mom.

I moved to Dreamwidth. I'm going to post more there. Most of the reason I've posted so little here is because I've been uncomfortable with the whole Russia bullshit, and now with the new TOS, fuck it. I'm out.

Same username there. Let's keep in touch :)

Lately when I get bored and can't find any new content on the internet, I've been browsing wedding rings.

Since the ACA didn't get repealed this week, the practical urgency for marriage is somewhat reduced, but...

I want to do the thing.

Last week, two of my friends (both the same age as me) found out that their partners have cancer. They are still learning more and/or haven't shared prognosis details, but it's still scary as hell. With Rafal's death in addition to this news, I'm even more aware of mortality than I normally am.

I'm not afraid of my own death. I'm totally at peace with the idea that one day I will be gone from this earth. But I'm terrified of losing loved ones. I've been a paranoid nag about my parents' health since I was a teenager, and I'm so grateful that they're both very healthy for their age, but their age alone scares me and I know I will lose them one day and I hate that. But the scariest thing for me right now is losing Toby.

I am not even a tiny bit worried about our relationship ending. I know I've failed at two marriages, but even in those relationships, I was never 100% sure they would last. I had lots of fear of breaking up, being left, or even my own ability to sustain my love. I don't have that at all with Toby. We're disgustingly perfect for each other and I'm 100% certain that we're in it for the long haul. I haven't had any doubts about this in a long time.

But suddenly I'm really afraid that he'll get sick. One of those illnesses that strikes without regard for how well you've cared for yourself all along or how old you are or anything. If that happens to ME, it'd probably suck, but I'd just take it as it comes and deal as necessary. Toby, though...shit...if I lose him...I just can't even imagine a future without him. I don't want to.

I know that worrying about things you can't control is a big fat waste of time. It impedes your ability to enjoy the present. I get that, and know that worrying won't change anything except my own mood. But sometimes I just get freaked out and have a hard time putting the scary thoughts aside. Now having written this down, I'm going to hope that I can put it out of my head for now.