Marching to the beat of a different mandolin

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%.

It's super duper nice to be done with my writing project, but life gave me a nice kick in the balls (you know, figuratively) this morning just to make sure I don't get too cozy, I guess.

The last few times I've ridden my bike, I've had issues with the ride. A few weeks ago, I noticed that the brakes were dragging on my back tire, so I took it in to a bike shop that I passed mid-ride. They fixed me up in just a few minutes and I was on my way. I rode the rest of the day with no real issues. Then it started doing it again...riding with your brakes constantly (somewhat) engaged is really fucking hard. So on my way home last night, I rode to Performance and told them what was going on. They worked on it for a while and sent me on my way. It felt decent for the short ride home. Then this morning I woke up at butt o'clock to ride in, and I noticed the brakes were dragging again. I didn't have much choice other than to live with it, though, because it was 5:30am and the bike shop wasn't exactly open. But then my back tire went flat.

I whimpered about it for a moment, but then I called a cab company to come get me with a minivan or SUV cab that I could stow my bike in. So I made it to work on time, but now I have a gimpy bike sitting in an empty office here and I'm not sure what to do about it. Obviously I'll take it back to the bike shop, but there remains a question of how I'll get around for the next few days until McKenzie returns with the car. I can mooch rides through the weekend, I think, but getting to work on Monday is the challenge. Z says I could use his bike...but I don't think I want to. It's soooo heavy and there are huge hills that I am not going to want to power a super heavy bike up at 6 in the morning. Then again I've been working against the brakes on my own bike on my last few rides, so maybe it won't feel much different. Maybe I'll see if Peter can carpool on Monday. That's actually probably my best bet. It's funny how it's just so hard to come up with reasonable ideas when you're focused on a panic situation. But really I guess this doesn't have to be all that stressful. Still, it was a shitty way to start my day.

The day gets better, though -- I'm going to a concert tonight with my mother-in-law and a couple of friends. I don't have any writing assignments to do. I want to buy myself a treat of some sort for finishing that project, but I'm strangely not in a shopping mood right now. I'll give it time, I'm sure I'll start to feel differently soon.

I'm feeling okay right now but not sure that'll last. I never let myself look at the clock last night because I knew whatever time I saw would really discourage me, but my estimate is that I finally got to sleep around 2 or 3. No idea why I couldn't sleep. Bed was comfortable. I wasn't hungry or thirsty. Maybe it was just knowing I had to be awake and physically active at 5am that kept me up.

I just noticed a transit worker doing tai chi in the bushes. That's a little strange.

Anyway I was on my bike and out the door around 530, but timed this day exactly wrong...arrived at the train station two minutes after the train left and 28 minutes before the next one. Whoops. I'll still be plenty early to work, it just means sitting around bored for a half hour knowing I could have slept a little more, maybe. But I'm not feeling the lack of sleep just yet. We'll see when I have to ride home later.

I love riding transit and using the many car alternatives that are available to me in and around Portland, but when a car is not an option at all, it gets stressful. On Monday, for example, I had two things on my agenda: meet my prof downtown for lunch and see my trainer at 3. Because I had to transit everywhere, and make several transfers from the burbs to downtown and then all over Beaverton, I was out of the house for almost nine hours, all for three hours of scheduled activity. The rest of the day was either spent riding or waiting. It's not that my house is inconvenient for transit options, it's that my house is pretty far out from most of the rest of what I do around here. Work is the worst though because there really is no good way to commute without a car. Biking works when it's nice, but it means waking up at ass o'clock. All of this is why I'm thinking seriously about getting a scooter. I've wanted one for a while, and it honestly seems like it makes a lot of sense. But I dunno. This is the only week on the calendar this summer where Z had the car away at a tournament, so I can't really use inconvenience to justify a purchase like that. Meh. But, you know, it'd be fun, I think.

So it turns out the guy I hit is a lying jurkface.  Not only is he claiming $1000 in damages (I didn't even scratch his car one little bit!  NO dents! Even if the paint was scratched, a bumper paintjob is only $500 -- I know this, I'm in the biz, y'know), but he's claiming injuries now.  So I went ahead and turned it over to my insurance.  They'll cover the costs, so it's nothing out of pocket right now, but it is possible our rates will increase come renewal.  Luckily we don't renew for another 11 months...  I've talked to three different adjusters now, and all are sympathetic, that it's really unlikely dude is actually injured and they are also dubious about the damages.  I sent them pictures of my car, which shows that the paint isn't even scratched and there's no evidence of a collision, beyond the fact that I admitted to it.  I just can't believe that mofo is claiming injuries.  I've hit cars harder while parallel parking.  Ugh.  I hope my insurance will deny his injury claim.  Our adjusters would.  Seriously.  Less than bumper car impact.  What a fiasco.  I can't wait 'til bike weather is back.  I would like to quit driving please.  Maybe I just need to suck it up and start biking in the cold rain now.  Maybe next week...

My fitness has been faltering a bit.  As expected, I have been totally slacking on my half marathon training.  It's just not breathing down my neck yet, but it's not like it's the kind of test you can cram for.  I know I need to work on building up to it.  It's just so hard and unpleasant!  Suck it up, Massie.  You got this.  Maybe.  I also managed to gain 7 pounds in November, before Thanksgiving, even.  So I've been working on undoing that, and I think I mostly have, but it was kind of a wakeup call, like, hello, you are getting too lazy again...

I still work out every day, but having a gym at work means I use it on my lunch break the three days that I'm there, and that means a much less thorough workout than I'd get at the real gym, because there's less time and less equipment.  So I'm looking for ways to mix it up a little better and amp up the stuff I do on non-work days.  Perfect days for adding mileage, really, except that I always schedule my free time to the supermax.  I need to just put more gym time into the schedule.  And get out and run more and just fucking do it, because I know I can.  I just don't WANT to.  But the more I do, the easier it'll be, and the less miserable...at least I'm trying to tell myself that.  I'm also looking for a yoga studio.  My gym has yoga, but it's not my favorite style, and yoga studios around here are pretty cheap (and also more common than Starbucks).  Katy is coming to stay with me this weekend, and I think we'll try out a yoga place together.  We're also gonna do some motherfucking baking.  

Blazers game tomorrow with Rob.  Rip City!

I am officially a bike commuter!  I still feel like a poser in the cycling world, but by the end of this week, I will have done almost 70 miles.  That's worth some cred.  My legs are pretty sore, but my crotch is by far the sorest.  I know I'll get used to it and it won't stay sore, but it's pretty brutal to ride on such a bumpy trail for 10.5 miles each way.  It's all paved, but a lot of it is just shitty quality trail, with lots of roots and cracks in the pavement or just really bumpy pavement in general.  Still, I'm thankful it exists and my ride is really beautiful.  Once I get past the newbie pains, it'll be nothing less than awesome.

My alarm went off at the absolute perfect time this morning.  I was having a dream where a toilet was overflowing, and panic was setting in.  Never have I been so relieved to be jolted out of sleep!

Work was relatively slow today.  We didn't get the Lindsay Lohan claim.  Oh well.  (She was in an accident with a commercial truck, and our office handles insurance claims for the trucking industry, mostly in California...so it wasn't too far-fetched.)  I really like it there.  How long is the honeymoon phase for a new job?  I started four weeks ago.  Anyway it feels like a good fit.  I'm really happy with the way things are going these days.

So, McKenzie and I have decided to buy a house.  We've come a long way in our plans recently.  At first, it was, "we'll probably never be able to afford a place in Portland, oh well."  Then it became a long-distance kind of plan...maybe one day we'll somehow have the kind of money to buy a nice place here...but even then, I wanted city and Z wanted rural, so it was a very hazy idea.  Now that we've been living in the 'burbs for a year, I'm really, really in love with this particular neighborhood, and I've been totally jonesing for a house on the street next to our apartment complex.  There's a little neighborhood there with mostly older, smallish houses.  Some of them are kind of in disrepair, but some of them are so super cute, and the perfect size, and it's just exactly where I want to be.  Only trouble is none of these is for sale -- not that we were looking at buying anything soon anyway, but it's hard to fantasize about a house that may never be available.

Still, whenever we'd walk through the neighborhood, I'd point out houses to Z that I love and we'd have another conversation about Oregon homeownership.  My feeling has always been "I know it's not possible now, but as soon as possible would be nice."  When I got my new jobs, it started to look like a year or so would be a realistic time frame to save up a down payment that would be enough to bring our monthly housing costs down when switching from renting to paying a mortgage on the size house we want.  The more we talked about it, the more Z moved closer to my timeline...and then he leapfrogged me.  We both agree that we love Beaverton and would love to buy in this particular neighborhood.  We agree on the size place we want and the price range.  But now Z thinks he wants to buy right away.  No, we don't have money for a down payment right now, but we do have good incomes, and with the prices and rates so low, it does make really good sense to try to get in on something before the market turns again.  So the plan is to borrow money for a down payment from my parents, to be paid back over 2-3 yearsish, and then borrow the rest of the mortgage from the bank.  My parents are on board with this idea, so basically it's totally doable...we just need to find a house we want.

The problem with that is there's not much on the market at all.  In any price range.  Right now, most houses are getting lots of offers, and there's a lot of competition among buyers -- at least if the house is any good.  There are several that have been sitting on the market for over a year...but no one wants them.  This whole competition aspect is very stressful for me.  I don't mind paying a competitive price for a house I want (within my range), but I just don't want to be in a hostile, time-pressured situation with other buyers.  And I wish there were more options, though I do like some of the ones out there.  Hopefully some more will come on the market soon.

Z has the car in Canada all week, so Wed-Fri I'll have to bike to work.  I've mapped it out and more or less know the way, but I definitely want to do a test ride tomorrow before I have to do it for real on Wednesday.  Today would be a perfect day for it except that I have a training session at 3.  Probably not a good idea to ride 21 miles before the session, and definitely won't have the energy to do it after...so tomorrow it is.