On the knee

Still holding off calling the other doc at this point.

My knee isn't feeling great today, but it's not feeling particularly worse either, and it does seem like it's improved over the last few days. During practice today (yes, I went to practice) I thought I was going to really blow it out once and for all when I did a quick acceleration on one particular point, but it actually seemed to feel much better once I got going and things warmed up. A little TLC for now -- icing after activity and a regular regimen of vitamin-I. I'm going to continue to keep an eye on it, but at this point, I'm going to just play on it and try to be "careful," whatever that means. I'm pretty sure I'm just fooling myself. But hey: stay foolish, do what you love. (Somehow, I don't think that's what he meant by that.)

In other random knee news, it turns out that Mom just recently tore the posterior horn of the lateral meniscus of her left knee. (I may not have mentioned it, but I was pretty much convinced that I had a tear in the posterior horn of the lateral meniscus of my left knee before I saw the doc yesterday.) Maybe I'm just experiencing sympathetic sensation or something. Dunno.

It also turns out that the SOOTTAD has a torn meniscus in her left knee, but it's the medial meniscus, so it's definitely not as much of a freaky coinkydink as with my mom.

Well, ok. Maybe it is.

"Stay hungry. Stay Foolish."

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

(Forwarded to me by my friend Juje)

Summertime treat

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Alpine strawberries -- yum!

(just gotta get to 'em before the critters do.)

Light and Tunnel

I can see an end in sight -- we're in the last week of classes for the first semester, and it's probably just in the nick of time. I'm feeling pretty burnt out. It'll be good to have a break, but we've still got a quiz, two finals and a technique assessment before we're done for the summer.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't also have to learn C++ and crank out some code in the next day or so for work. Ugh. I'm actually pretty psyched about having the opportunity to finally learn and use C++, but I've felt so exhausted the last few weeks (and the last few days in particular), that I wish I could take a day or two off to just catch up on my sleep. Sadly, there isn't time for that.

I may have to resort to the nuclear option: after 13 years off the stuff, I may have to recaffeinate. It could get ugly. Hopefully I'll be able to manage without it.

* * *

A few random bits and pieces:

• Went to my 15-year college reunion. Always a tough start: I'm wandering around, not really seeing anybody I knew, feeling out of it, and wondering what the hell I'm doing there. I don't like people. I'm socially awkward. I don't chit-chat well. And literally 10 seconds after those thoughts cross my mind, I see 6-7 people that I'm really happy to see.
• The SOOTTAD met me in Ithaca. She had an awful trip out -- up at the crack of dawn, was supposed to arrive around 4pm but because of stupid airport configurations, bad itinerary from Travelocity and a few wayward thunderstorms, she didn't get in until 10pm. And ended up eating something at LaGuardia that took her out for most of the weekend.
• She also drove back home with me, and was back for the week so we could attend a wedding together yesterday afternoon/evening. It's always wonderful to have her back home, but we've both been crazy busy with work and other social/family obligations that we didn't get much quality time together. She'll be back in July -- hopefully things will be a little calmer then.
• My left knee has been bothering me for the last month or so. Finally saw the doctor today. Not the best experience I've had: 3:45pm appointment, arrived at 3:12pm because I was told to arrive 30 minutes early for X-rays, back in the waiting room the next time around 4pm, called in around 4:30pm, saw the doctor at 4:35pm, out at 4:39pm. I guess two hours isn't so bad, but the signal to noise ratio -- oy. The assessment was, well, basically that everything looked fine -- probably a muscle/tendon strain, definitely not a torn meniscus. Which is great, except that it had all the symptoms of one. So, we'll proceed with caution, and maybe after practice tomorrow I'll try to get an appointment with the other doctor who left the organization to start his own practice.

Aftermath

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Doesn't seem like such a big deal, does it?

Sometimes

Sometimes when life is a little rough, you can take a step back and appreciate what you have going for you. You count your blessings. Things may be tough, but you're a lot better off than a lot of people. Sometimes it just takes a little perspective.

Sometimes you can just ride out the bumps. Take things one step at a time. You make adjustments.

And sometimes, when you think: despite the rough spots, everything's going to be ok...

Life will come over and give you a quick kick in the nuts.

And then give you a cookie, just to fuck with you.

* * *

So things seem to be going ok. I'm not overly excited about work, but the latest to-do list is keeping me somewhat engaged. I think I finally found an accountant so I can get all this self-employment/independent contractor stuff taken care of. It's too bad that he's confirmed that I'm going to have to pay 1/3 of my estimated taxes for the year (for what I expect to make on this contract for the full calendar year) by next Wednesday, despite having only been paid for the first 9 days that I've worked -- meaning, I have to pay more in taxes than I've actually been paid. I know that it'll even itself out the next time around, but it still feels wrong. Oh, and there's still something funky going on with my knee, but it only seems to flare up when I'm sprinting hard -- I seem to be able to run at a normal pace without too much trouble. (Too bad it means that whenever we play disc, I seem to tweak it. But practice was great yesterday.) Oh, and there's some nasty critters that are eating the lilies out front, but at least the rest of the garden is looking pretty good.

But, you know -- it feels like summer. Class is almost over. I'm going to see the SOOTTAD in two days. I can make it.

Or at least I thought I could.

Like I said, work has been ok. And the Physiology final this evening wasn't too bad. I would have liked to have gone out with the rest of the class, but I needed to get home and do a practice session and study Anatomy because I'm heading out to my college reunion on Friday, so I won't have any time to study. I figured I'd try and tidy the house up a little before T arrived, since she'd never been to the house before, but I settled on doing the dishes.

And sliced my hand open on a glass that I hadn't noticed was broken.

So much for being good and getting you work done. So much for doing the "right thing." I should have gone out drinking.

Anyway, I've been through this routine before (One day, I may have to write about the cleaver incident) so I was pretty sure I was going to need stitches again. Wash it out with soap and hot water. Direct pressure. Ice.

I call T and tell her we're going to have to cancel today. I call some friends to figure out where the nearest emergency room is since the last one I went to closed its doors a few years ago. Lots of people not answering. I finally get through to RB, (he asks if it's my throwing hand. Uh, yeah. Maybe I can just go long) and it's off to Newton-Wellesley. The bleeding seems to have stopped by the time I get in the car to drive myself to the emergency room (because I don't want to subject any of my friends to the torture of the hours of waiting). It starts bleeding again by the time I get onto 128. Damn, I haven't eaten dinner yet.

F! Not going to be able to practice the arm techniques this week. Final assessment in 2-1/2 weeks. I'm really hoping it'll have healed up enough before then. No disc. Getting even more out of shape. I'm not sad, I'm pissed. Ripshit.

When I get to the hospital, there's no parking in the emergency lot. Not a good sign. I end up parking on the street. I check in, make nice with the staff. Yeah, I've been through this before. Whaddaya think, 4 hours? More like 14, the receptionist jokes. I really hope I'll be out before midnight. I bring my Anatomy notebook so I can study while I wait. I call the SOOTTAD. It starts to rain. Hard. Thunder and lightning.

The cookie? I don't think I wait more than 40 minutes and I'm called in and see the attending physician. 4 stitches; they can come out in 10 days and things should be back to normal, more or less. Keep it dry for 48 hours; keep an eye on it for signs of infection. (The rain will make that a bit challenging, but whatever.)

I'm out by 9:40pm. Wow, an hour. Despite the waiting area being packed, it's probably the shortest I've ever waited for emergency care. Apparently, not being a severe injury (whew, I was feeling guilty about that), I get sent to a lower priority area which turns out to be less busy. Lucky break. I'm still pissed, but at least I'm home before midnight and I can get dinner, right? ...right?

Small consolation. I suppose I should also be happy that lightning didn't hit the house while I was in the shower and electrocute me. (Not that I can find any record on-line of this ever actually happening, despite all the dire warnings.)

e unum pluribus

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

From one, many. (Well, two.)

Planes, trains and automobiles

Back from Chicago. An interesting trip.

Good to spend time with the SOOTTAD. If you're interested, you can read about a few of our misadventures here. (At least the culinary ones -- everything else went pretty well except that we were both completely exhausted after the last few weeks of craziness. There was a lot of sitting around and napping going on.)

So anyway, I may have mentioned that we were going to drive out to Chicago. I had actually planned to just fly out and visit for the weekend, but it turned out that I had more time off from school than expected which coincided nicely with a sudden need for the SOOTTAD to have her car sooner rather than later. So we drove.

All good intentions aside, we ended up getting on the road after 3pm Thursday afternoon and made it as far as Barkeyville, PA before retiring at a Comfort Inn with free wireless internet from the TA TravelCenter across the street, surprisingly soft sheets and mattress and free waffles for breakfast freshly made from a self-serve waffle iron in the morning. We were pleasantly surprised. (Sadly, the waffle didn't agree with me so much and we had to make a longer-than-planned stop at a rest area in Ohio.)

A few notes on the drive:

• Medium soft serve at DQ off the highway in Pennsylvania: $1.69
  Medium soft serve at DQ off the Indiana Toll Road: $2.49
  (granted, the Indiana wafer cone was actually larger)
• I expect people to slow down around construction areas (especially when there's a lane drop, the speed limit is posted at 40MPH and there are signs making threats about doubled fines every 50 feet). However. Pennsylvania is the only place that I can remember where the average speed of the traffic was 20MPH BELOW the posted construction area speed limit.
• We saw cops practically every 10 miles once we hit the Ohio border. I don't think we saw one after reaching Indiana.
• this is the first time I've ever crossed a time zone in a car.

We got into Chicago around 3pm, local time. Not including the overnight stop, I think we were on the road a total of 17 hours including meal stops and potty breaks, which is pretty close to the google estimate. Not too shabby.

The trip back had it's own share of amusements. Up at 6:30am to grab breakfast and get to the airport via bus and train. Didn't want to risk being late because I feared long delays at security because of my one-way ticket. Surprisingly, no problems. Not sure if it was because they hadn't found anything the last time they went through all on my luggage, piece by piece, after taking a one-way flight on Southwest a mere 5 months ago, or simply because I didn't have any carry-on luggage on this trip. I guess the SOOTTAD will find out when she meets me in Ithaca in a few weeks -- she's flying one-way on another airline.

A brief note of irony before I continue: I may have mentioned that we had a few misadventures in Chicago. We didn't really have a plan of things to see or places to visit. It was fine just hanging out at the apartment and walking around the neighborhood, but whatever. I get on the plane, leaf through this months in-flight magazine and what do I spy with my little eye? An article on cool vintage places to visit in Chicago. An article I would have read if I hadn't changed my original travel plan to fly out. Oh well.

Anyway, uneventful flight... to Providence. More residue from the original itinerary -- my car would have been at the airport because I was originally going to drive down to Providence to fly out to Chicago. (Lower fares with parking cheaper than what it would cost to catch a cab into OR out of Boston.) But that wasn't really a problem because I figured I could just catch the Bonanza bus back to Boston.

Except that they no longer run busses out of the airport. Bah.

Of course, we had figured this out in Chicago, so my actual plan was to catch a RIPTA bus to the Kennedy Plaza (as recommended by the Bonanza rep I got on the phone) and then catch a Bonanzer from there.

So I get into the Providence airport and go to the information booth to figure out where to find the bus, and they end up steering me to a shuttle to the train station. Train? Cool -- trains are cool. Completely forgot about the RIPTA plan. Minor snafu: the info people tell me the shuttle leaves at 1pm and will get me to the train station around 20 minutes before the 1:42pm commuter rail up to Boston. And if I miss that, there's a (more expensive) Amtrak train that leaves at 2:20pm. I go to the shuttle folks and the first thing they do is warn me that it'll take 35 minutes, at best, to get to the train station. 1:35. 1:42 train. Well, I've got a backup so I try my luck.

On the shuttle, I meet a few other people who are going through the same issues that I am. When did the Bonanza bus stop leaving from the airport? What do you mean it doesn't take 15 minutes to get to the train station? I get to talking to the woman next to me and it turns out she's catching the 2:20pm train. Cool. "So what are you doing up in Boston?" I ask. Actually, she's heading back down to New York. Hmm. Interesting. A 2:20 train to New York... I find it hard to believe that there are two trains leaving Providence at *exactly* the same time, going in opposite directions, on the same track. (just checked the schedules, there's no 2:20 train to Boston)

So. We get to the station at 1:41pm. I briefly consider waiting in line and then decide to bust a move to the track. Thankfully, I make it and don't have to find out what else the T. F. Green people didn't know. Quiet ride into South Station, T over to Kenmore to catch a ride back to the house from my friend 'Bar.

Closing note: the shuttle cost me nine bucks to get me from the Providence airport to the Providence train station. It only cost me seven to get from Providence to South Station in Boston on the commuter rail; another buck and a quarter for the T ride. Cheaper to go the 50 miles from Providence to Boston than the 9 miles between the airport and the train station within Providence. Typical.

Total travel time Chicago to Boston, door to door: 9 hours.

Oy, tired.

coming and going

The SOOTTAD is in town. Yay.

She's packing up some stuff today and then we're driving her car out to Chicago tomorrow morning.

Things are feeling a little crazy and hectic right now. Her flight got in late last night, and we're trying to squeeze some quality time between packing and her trying to get some work done. But we did get to sleep in this morning (I'm really glad I hadn't planned on going into work today) and we're going to catch Episode III tonight. We're still thinking we'll get on the road early tomorrow, but I haven't even packed yet. Did I mentioned crazy and hectic?

Hopefully, once we get to Chicago, we'll have some time to chill out -- I'm planning on staying over the long weekend and then flying back early next week.

Regardless, it's good to be, and feel, together again.

Judicial nominees -- we lose

"Stakes still high after Senate makes deal"

MoveOn was claiming a victory in the judicial nominee showdown in the Senate today. But it didn't look much like a victory from where I was sitting. A victory would have been Frist putting the "nuclear option" to a vote, and having it fail, because enough Republican senators had the backbone to stand up for the right thing.

I keep hearing that "we saved the right to filibuster," but did we really? And exactly how useful was that if the Republicans still got what they wanted -- their nominees put on the bench? Seems to me they just bullied the minority and got their way. And now that they know that they can get away with it, what's to stop them from doing it again?

We won, but we lost.

It's like a teacher who gets the bully to stop beating up the other kids for their lunch money by making them give the bully their lunch money. Great, so you didn't get beat up, but you're still not going to have anything to eat.

The radical court nominees are still going to get confirmed. And if push comes to shove the next time around, say for a nominee to the Supreme Court, what's to stop them from voting to make the changes then?

We are so fucked.

Attack of the...

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

A few weeks ago, I noticed a small bulge in the asphalt of the driveway. I didn't think anything of it and promptly forgot about it. Some time later I noticed it again, except that it looked like it had risen several inches and was almost a foot across in diameter.

Eventually I got around to peeling some of the cracking asphalt away to reveal... GIANT MUSHROOMS attacking from below.

Scary stuff.

waxing philosophic

the Skills and Dynamics curriculum, despite being a touchy-feely subject, has proven to be pretty challenging. Today it was really "storming," with some of the discussion really putting my sympathetic nervous system into overdrive -- starting innocently enough on the topic of diversity and finding ourselves (or maybe just me, at least) deep in the mire of conflicting belief systems and world views. That's diversity for you, I guess.

But I didn't really want to talk about class. It was just the starting point for a conversation which fed into some web surfing that sparked a semi-random thought process which brings me back here. Thinking. And wanting to write some of it down.

There's an undercurrent of national politics that I've been trying to hide from since November, but I'm feeling like I'm being slowly dragged back into it again, awareness creeping in around the corners. You can't avoid hearing about radical activist legislators trying to brute-force their judicial nominees; I take a peek at the Downing Street Memo after seeing a reference on WWdN. There's always more if you really want to look for it. I don't, but I poke into the Huffington Post anyway; I read something about Warren Beatty versus the Governator, find myself drawn to the headline: "Darwin's theory evolves into culture war." Memories of the PBS series that had one show dedicated to discussing the relationship between religion and the theory of evolution.

And I think to myself: I may not believe in the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent (and let's not forget jealous and demanding) Judeo-Christian God (or His apparently intolerant and megalomaniacal contemporary American counterpart), but I do feel like you can see something of the divine in all the things in the world around us, in the simplest processes of basic life.

We may be able to build machines that can manipulate individual atoms, but even if we could configure the carbon and hydrogen atoms perfectly, the amino acids, all the necessary pieces parts, we still couldn't truly create life -- create the systems that make a leaf grow with all it's beautifully complex structures or even simply make a cell divide. You can call it God and I can just leave it as the mystery of Nature and we can call it even.

I'd be cool with that. Just sayin'.

Ok, bedtime.

check in

Gonna try to keep this short due to both time pressures and fears that Blogger is just going to eat the post again.

Feeling... like something just wasn't right today, but couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe I was just tired, but it didn't really feel like, well, being tired. (Even if I was a little tired.) More out of sync, or something off kilter, like on a metaphysical level or something.

I've noticed that I'm not feeling quite as emotionally raw as I did a few weeks ago, but I'm pretty sure it's still there, just barely skinned over, ever so slightly outside of my perception.

Little things seem to take me down. I'm feeling hypersensitive. Feeling overly needy and then isolating myself because I don't want to bleed my neediness all over my friends and acquaintances.

Thank god the SOOTTAD will be back in town in less than a week.

Unproductive

Not the dreaded ZPD (zero-productivity day), but this morning was the first time at the new job where I've felt listless and wholly unproductive. Managed to get back into the swing of things, relatively speaking, by early afternoon, but it wasn't one of my better days.

I'm going to chalk this one up to missing the SOOTTAD (didn't get a chance to talk to her last night, and didn't get any email from her until after lunch), insufficient sleep, and not taking my vitamins.

Disc makes it better, sometimes

Disc is my therapy.

I've been trying to write about this for a couple of weeks but life has not only been getting in the way, it's been body-slamming me to the mat and leaving me for dead. I tried to take some time to write over the weekend but Blogger ate my post multiple times so I finally gave up, hours and sleep lost. But here I go again -- hopefully it doesn't prove to be yet another exercise that I'm going to regret I didn't spend studying or trying to get some more sleep.

Things have been pretty rough the last few weeks, but I think I'm finally acclimating to things. Either that or it's just a calm between storms. The race is done, as are this past week's quizzes in physiology and anatomy and papers for school. And work. Which is, well, work. Going to have to get mentally prepared for going into the office tomorrow, but things still seem to be operating within normal-ish parameters.

I don't want to get too sidetracked, so I'll just say that work was weird on a couple of levels. There's the usual stuff I suspect about reentering the working world after a five month layoff, but it's also the first time I'm working as an independent contractor and some stuff specific to this job in particular that makes it not really like contracting which just makes the whole thing much more complicated in my head than it should be, and much more complicated than something that I'd be able to write about here.

And I wanted to talk about disc.

So things have been a bit rough the past few weeks, not just because I've suddenly found myself busier than I can ever really remember, but also because of the whole thing with the SOOTTAD moving to Chicago (still sucks, BTW), and well, yeah, actually I think it does have a lot to do with being busy. But let me get to the disc stuff, before this thing gets too long and Blogger eats my post again.

Anyway, as I was saying: I've been using disc as therapy. It hadn't been a conscious thing until a few weeks ago when I was having a particularly bad week. It was the first Monday after the SOOTTAD, and the




FUCK!

blogger just ate my post. Again. This has to be the fifth or sixth time now.

I swear I've been trying to write this fucking post for the better part of 3 weeks.

I could have been studying. Or sleeping.

FUCK.

Ok, I give up. The nutshell: this is about my Monday night BUDA games in JP.

Disc has been been good for me. It's been helping a lot. It makes me feel better.

Life has been sucking. I've been busy. I've been stressed about school. I've been stressed about starting a new job. I've been tired. I've been overtired. I've missed the SOOTTAD terribly.

I've felt depressed, it made me feel better. I had heartburn. It made me feel better. I was exhausted. I still felt exhausted, but it gave me some indications that I WAS exhausted and should try to get more rest. I was depressed and really looking forward to disc and my game got cut short and my emotions went beserk and I felt really stupid about it. It seemed a lot like addiction. I question my overreliance and dependency on any external THING that I use to make things better. THE END.

Fucking Blogger.

Ass Warming

Car equipped with ass-warmers (heated seats): GOOD.

Needing to engage ass-warmers in May: BAD.

Stupid weather.

Big Lake

Just finished the Big Lake half-marathon in Alton, New Hamster, by Lake Winnipesauke.

Run observations:

• After being in the low 60s and at least partly sunny for most of the past week, on race day it's in the low 40s, rainy and windy. F'ing wet and cold. At the end of the race, I couldn't untie my shoelace to remove the timing chip because my fingers had gone completely numb.

• I found it amusing to see the stream of runners (slowly working up the first of the big inclines) passing the "SPEED LIMIT 50" sign. I realize that this is probably only amusing to me.

• The race sponsors a "Big Lake Battle" where there's a competition between the Water stations for the group that is the most spirited. Rain kept most of the fiddlers, banjo and acoustic guitar players playing out of the back of their trucks, which sadly made them hard to hear until you were just passing them.
  Most memorable: scary clown woman juggling to the macarena (and earlier, that weird techno version of Cotton-Eye Joe).
  Most enjoyable: barbershop quartet, around mile 8, singing in the light rain on a quiet stretch of road.

• Speaking of music, for practically the entire race, I had the "horns" from the Ben Folds' song Army going through my head:
  

  Baaaaaahhhh---- ba ba bah-baaah---- ba ba bah-baaah---- bah-ba BAH
  Ba ba baaaaahhhh---- bah-bah ba ba ba bah-- ba da bah-bah ba ba ba-da-dah
  (in concert, the entire crowd will sing the two parts)

  The whole race. Much less annoying than you might expect.
  Actually, kinda cool. Certainly, better than the macarena.
  Although I did try to do the macarena as I passed the scary clown woman.

• Thankful that I bought new shoes before this race. There were a few nasty downhills that would have totally wrecked my knees, I think.

• Despite the hilly course, and the crappy weather, and being stressed with school and the new job, I still finished with a better time than the Boston race. (although I was getting sick at the time.) Chip time: 1:40:33

Ok, now I have to go and write a stupid paper for class.

Bleeding Heart

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

busy, tired

hopefully i'll finally have some time to write within the next week or so.

but right now, sleep is the first priority.

i hope there's time for it soon.

sleep, that is.

Deep in the Darkness

By all rights, I should be in bed. I called the SOOTTAD and left a message maybe twothree hours ago and now it's getting on towards 1am2am. I studied a little, looked at some pictures, and then started surfing around the 'net maybe an hourtwo hours ago, the music of the mix that I'm putting together for her playing in the background.

It's a reunion year -- college reunion, 15-year. I started surfing because I remembered that the notice I got in the mail yesterday seemed to suggest that there would be a list of the people attending this year. No such luck though; maybe it hasn't been set up yet, a whole two months away. Two months. It doesn't seem all that far off.

Anyway, from there, I started poking around the alumni directory and began recognizing names. A roommate from my grad year apparently lives here in Waltham, and it looks like he got his PhD. The guy who lived down the hall freshman year who had the same birthday as me looks to have relocated to Pennsylvania, although it still looks like he's managing the dive resort down in Honduras. There's the friend and neighbor from junior year with the PhD and law degree still living down in New York. On and on the names go. Then I start googling other names I can remember.

I have mixed feelings about going to reunion. I was hoping use it as an opportunity to share some of my memories with the SOOTTAD -- the campus, the town, the diner, Hot Truck. And there are a bunch of people that I'd like to see, but just don't get the chance, despite living just a short drive down to New York, or even in the next town. It shouldn't be so hard, but time creates barriers: calendars get filled, priorities and situations change. We are not the same, and as we change so do are connections. They change, weaken, fail.

It's a chance to try pulling the threads back together... but a part of me doesn't want to look back. I've been a bad friend for not keeping in touch. I want to just cut my losses and move on. It feels like it's already too late.

And then there's me. Compared to them.

PhDs, lawyers, published authors. Families, contributors to society, managers, big shots. People who have their shit together.

And then me in transition. (Hey, at least I have a job now.) Looking for a change, maybe. Just playing. And I know I'm being stupid. That these things are unimportant. It's the life that's lived -- I've traveled, I try to enjoy life. But, it seems so... inconsequential.

So I continue to debate: to go, or not to go? The logistics are already a little tricky with the SOOTTAD in Chicago and having to get back for school on Sunday. I'll put the decision off, see how a feel about it in a few days.

And I keep surfing.

And then, the descent into the bad place. Not this past Sunday's bad place -- different, but in some ways just as bad.

I surf over to the Ex's blog.

It's never a good thing. I still have some baggage from that period, but it's mostly water under the bridge. It's not like we parted on bad terms, but they weren't exactly the best of terms. Civil. We weren't right for each other, and we went our separate ways.

We live on opposite coasts now.

And so I spy, and there's this judge that sits in my head that's constantly making comparisons, evaluating.

Wow, they bought a house IN the city over there. That must have cost a freaking fortune!
Check it: looks like she's a senior manager or director in her company now.
Look, fancy new car!

She seems to be doing ok, I guess. Looks like they go out drinking. A lot. Damn, how many cats do they have?

I have to admit that I'm not always sad when I read about her occasional troubles and frustrations. I have been reassured on occasion that this doesn't necessarily make me a bad person, but I try not to dwell on it too much. But what I usually find the most interesting is discovering the things we have in common -- activities, music, opinions, blogs. (although somewhat troubling.) This shouldn't be that much of a surprise, there were reasons we got together in the first place. But some things you forget, and some you may never know. It's interesting that a blog might give you more insights into a person than actually living and spending time with them for 4-7 years.

Beyond such philosophical meanderings, I don't get much from these covert visits. Usually just yet-another-thing for which to be annoyed with myself. Tonight, a creepy parallel (besides the blogs): she apparently has the same phone that the SOOTTAD just got.

Stupid brain, just cut it out.

Must. Go. To. Bed.