One and a half days of regular season baseball left.
I’m going to the gym to sweat all of the poison out of my body that I purposefully put in to it last night. Andy and Vlad will be throwing dice and logging information. I’m leaving for Chicago tomorrow afternoon on a plane. They are leaving for Council Bluffs tomorrow night in the RV. I’m very excited to once again be packing my very sexy back pack.
I lost both scrabble games. The rematch is on today.
Bring it.
I am drunk on Red Bull and vodka. We just walked back to Vllad’s place from having a few drinks and playing travel Scrabble at the bar (our tab read “Scrabble”) down the street from his place. We got home and found out the anti gambling bill that Andy has been following on some internet threads, that everyone said could not have possibly passed, has passed. Some redicilous thing tacked on to the patriot act. I’m not totally clear on what the deal is, but it seems to make it illegal for banking institutions to transfter money from gambling sites….or something like that, to your US bank account. We’re not really sure yet. The way that we get our money now is that we use Net Teller to transfer money from the online sports books to our banks accounts. This law may make it illegal for Net Teller to deal with the likes of us. Net Teller is basically Pay Pal of a similar sort.
We were talking about moving to the UK for next baseball season mainly because gambling winnings are not taxed as income. We were just waxing philosophical, but now……who knows.
This seriously sucks since most offshore sports books deal heavily on US action as a main source of profit. If there is limited US action, this will effect the books and in the trickle down will effect us, which in my drunken selfish state is what I care about most.
Someone (not me) got a parking ticket…. totally not this persons fault. If this person (not me) is not from the state that the ticket was issued. What do you think the chances are that this ticket, if unpaid, will come back to bite said person in the ass. This fictional person’s fictional husband thinks that the percentage is 100 in favor of ass biting. Said husband brings up the unjustified fines by the fictional couple’s former HOA that escalated and eventually had to be paid by the sale of the house.
Any persons (fictional or otherwise) with experience or opinions on this hypothetical situation are welcomed and encouraged to comment.
*I don’t know why I just fictionalized this event. It was totally me. The whole payment thing was weird and there were no meters, just this box. It was on the street, but there were no signs where I was parked and it was just dumb and confusing and I’m pissed. I know THE MAN doesn’t care, and really, it’s only $20 but, come on…. really.
I’m going back to Denver today. I’m glad I came to LA.
After a mix up and a friend not knowing that I needed to sleep on her couch, at midnight Friday night I was resigned to sleeping on my folded up yoga mat, in the back of my rental car, on a street off of the mod and swanky portion of Sunset Ave. Andy was insisting that I get a hotel room and I was trying to explain that I was fine, safe and comfortable. The thought of getting up, searching for a place, getting my stuff together and checking in just seemed like too much. Fortunately couchsurfer Erika got my message of distress and Andy was spared a fitful night of sleep dreaming of my murder in the rental car. I drove twenty minutes to her driveway and snoozed there until she got in.
Saturday night I stayed at a friend’s place that I knew from Detroit. She lives in Venice Beach. She had every cable channel known to man plus OnDemand movies, something I have never experienced. It was a glutonous evening of visual entertainment. If anyone is interested, I highly recommend Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and do not highly recommend A Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Sunday morning when I woke up, I walked ten minutes to the beach and baked in the beautiful sun for most of the day.
Sunday night Erika and I went out for sushi and I slept at her place again. She introduced me to some red cactus-y fruit that we had to chop off of huge rubbery plants overflowing the wall from her neighbor’s house. What I didn’t know is that these little suckers had hairy barbs that I got all over my palms and fingers. I guess you learn something new every day. We watched her favorite movie, Muriel’s Wedding and then stayed up way too late and talked.
This morning I woke up early to make an 11:30 Bikram yoga class, ate an order of fried plantanes (tostones) for lunch, took a shower at 24 hour fitness, filled up the rental car with gas and spent twenty minutes in the Hertz lot shoving all my stuff back in my pack that had been exploded all over the puke gold Mazda. Now I’m at the Travel Right Cafe across from gate 43 at LAX. There’s a sign on the wall that says, “The highest recorded temperature in Honolulu, Hawaii was 95 degrees. The highest recorded temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska was 96 degrees”. The New Orleans football game is on the televisions. It’s the first game there in the thirteen months since hurricane Katrina. I have an hour before boarding begins for my flight.
If you’re reading this then you can assume I made it back to Denver to post it, since I’m not going to pay $7.95 for internet access here.
There are five more days of regular season baseball left.
After doing an hour and a half of 108 degree yoga, I went to 24 hour fitness to take a shower since the studio or my car, didn’t have one. No one was around so I decided to go down to Sunset to eat some sushi and decide where to go from there. I locked my keys in the trunk of the rental car two seconds after I looked at them in the trunk and told myself not to do what I ended up doing. I paniced. Luckily the doors were open and the back seat gave me access.
After I ate, I didn’t feel like drinking or having to buy some food item that I didn’t want to eat just to have a space to sit and use my computer. I found the perfect solution, The Standard Hotel. They have a swanky lobby with puffy 60’s couches, a dj who is now playing a cut off of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (PYT for those of you in the know) and free wifi. It’s fun to be able to blend in with the cool kids. Little do they know I am but a spy.
I have trashed my goldish tan economy compact rental car. Who buys this color car on purpose? I feel right at home next to my phone car charger packaging (I forgot the six we already have at home), scarf, yoga mat, hoodie, yerba matte tea and Target bag riding in the driver’s seat.
The Garmin portable navigation system that I brought with me is still my best friend. I told Andy that if I wasn’t already married to him, I would marry Garmin. Then he said if I decided to have a three way without him, it would most likely be with Garmin and my new backpack. He’s so right. I love those guys.
I know it’s only been about six hours, but I can totally see living out of a car and a backpack staying with couchsurfers and camping along the way. It helps that with the new medication I have no appetite. Andy looked it up online and 5% of people taking Lexapro report loss of appetite. This is a great thing for me since before I went on this, I was obsessed with food. I was hungry ALL the time. I ate healthy good food, but I was never satisfied. Every time I eat now, it’s such an amazing experience to eat a plate of food and be done and to actually feel satiated. I didn’t really realize how big of a problem it was. Most of the time I stopped myself from eating as much as I could because it was embarrassing. I mentioned the food thing because before it was nearly impossible for me to imagine going camping in the woods with limited amounts of food, or not being able to have a fridge near by. It really contributed to the anxiety that before a few weeks ago I thought was just a normal way of life.
I got in to LA at noon and had was driving out of the Hertz lot by two. I was going to do Bikrim yoga at a studio that offered a introductory deal, but arrived right in between two classes and would have to wait for two hours. So I went to 24 Hour Fitness and rode on a stationary bike, ran on a treadmill, sat in the sauna and took a really long shower. I think that I saw Danny Masterson and that he said “hi” to me, as we passed each other on the sidewalk by the yoga studio, but I can’t be sure. It just could have been a really mellow, laid back dude that looked like Danny Masterson.
Now, I’m sitting in the parking lot of Target in Pasadena with the drivers side door open, my leg hanging out typing this waiting for couchsurfer Erica to meet me in this clandestine fashion so we can get some Thai food.
(She couldn’t find me because we were at different Targets. After getting to the same location, we finally connected after several thwarted attempts to find each other in the three level parking structure. We ate some great Thai food. Then went to her parent’s house to hang out, watch a movie and talk, since her place was being painted. A fun time was had by all. Now I’m hanging out in a coffee house with wifi charging my trusty link to the world and waiting for 4:30 so I can take a yoga class.)
I just bought this awesome backpack. I’m going to LA tomorrow to visit some old friends, make some new friends and break in my new AWESOME backpack.
I haven’t updated lately because I am taking Lexapro. Lexapro is an antidepressant / anti anxiety medication. I am not depressed. I don’t like the word. I wanted to write about it, but then, I didn’t want to write about it.
I have been thinking about going to the doctor and asking about taking something for about six months, then never actually went. What I have been feeling for at least six months maybe longer was the inability to feel happy. Mind you I was not unhappy. More like indifferent. I did things because I thought they needed to be done but never really liking the idea of doing anything. I was running more on compulsion and a need for order more than anything else. I knew in my mind that my husband loved me madly but I wasn’t able to feel it. The running joke was for Andy to check in with me daily to see in what state my “loveometer” was in. I knew that my life was amazing and would always think so, but I wasn’t able to really be a part of the experience.
You know me. I eat well. I exercise three to five days a week. I do yoga. I take responsibility for my actions and analyze my deep motivations for things, always trying to evolve emotionally and spiritually. This felt like this was something that was a chemical problem. This felt like no matter how much I did all the right things, something was pressing on me that I would never be able to lift off. It made me really think about how a less educated person could one hundred percent believe that demons and their possessive powers were a reality.
I felt that spending the month with Bob and my mom in Chicago was the stressor that finally moved me to cry “uncle” and go to a walk in clinic here in Denver. The doctor was really nice. She was, or at least looked about 28. At first when she came in she was very sedate. Like she didn’t know what she was walking into. Was I suicidal? Was I going to cry? Was I going to cry alot? I told her what I told you above. I told her that I know the difference between being sad for a reason and feeling what I was feeling now. This I felt like an organic problem.
She asked me if I had anxiety or trouble sleeping. I thought long and hard and answered no to both. She gave me the prescription and I had it filled.
It’s been about two weeks since I’ve taken the first pill and I feel like a fool that I answered “no” to the anxiety or trouble sleeping questions. What was a normal day in my life seems to have been jam packed with what I can now correctly identify as anxiety. For the first three or four days of taking this, I sat on a rock and marveled at the stillness of the trees. I told Andy that “nothing was vibrating” anymore. The tightness in my chest, that I didn’t know was tight is gone. My racing thoughts that I didn’t even know were racing, are calm. I don’t feel “high”, or weird, drugged or woozy. I feel normal. I feel like I can think clearly and my mind doesn’t automatically try to figure out every possible outcome to any given situation. No more frustration and restlessness over nothing I could put my finger on. The last two weeks have been the most grounded I have felt since I can remember.
Andy and I are both surprised and amazed at how much my “moodiness” effected both of us. I feel foolish for not recognizing and doing something sooner. My husband is the most patient and incredible person that I know. I love him madly and feel, really feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
I haven’t been feeling like updating for a while. Or answering my phone for that matter. It’s nothing personal. I’m coming back soon.
We’ve been laying out on large, flat rocks in Clear Creek and sunning ourselves like lizards. It feels pretty good.
Usually I lay out in the sun and read, or not, and Andy balances river rocks in impossible positions. He gets a lot of attention for it. Kayakers, tubers and the general public are curious and stop to talk. Yesterday a group of twenty something stoner kids came by and after tripping over me and stepping on my stuff several times, saying “sorry” on each occasion. Asked me how (pointing to Andy) he got across. There was a swift current that led into a tiny rapid that was between where we were and where he was. I pointed upstream thirty feet and told them to walk across there. Using my best stoner vernacular, I said that it wasn’t so “harsh” up there.
They went over, sat with Andy and asked questions about rock balancing. One of them being, “Do you think this would be really mellow to do on an acid trip?” Then they repeatedly jumped into the rapids, swam to my side and tripped over me and got all my stuff wet again. I thought someone was going to break a neck or a arm. They were full on diving in two feet of water and a rocky, jagged bottom.
When Andy and I were walking back he said they had asked if he was married. He said yes and pointed over to me. One of the guys said, “the hot one”. Andy said, “yeah”.
I know it’s vain and probably shallow, but at thirty five years old, being called “the hot one” by a twenty two year old made my day a little.
