I'm Not Dead ... Yet

It's been a couple of weeks, but I haven't been idle, I promise you.

First, a gratuitous picture of my nephew at the Oakland Zoo, a month ago:


Now allow me to yarnily digress.

I was keeping my fingers busy knitting a sweater to have it done in time for Stitches West ... except it wasn't. All the pieces were there, but then I had to seam them together. And it was 10 pieces that needed seaming. Ten. Those of you who don't knit won't quite understand this, but it's a lot of putting-together. Like, normally you put together Erector sets, but this time someone gave you the pieces to put together a Ford Focus. (That might be an exaggeration there. Maybe.) So I was seaming like crazy the night before and morning of, only to have something that looked like crap. I gave up on it, took out all the seams, and started over when the weekend was done. I've got most of the bits done now, and it looks infinitely better than it did before:



Trust me here. This is nicer than it looked on Saturday.

The weekend was not a complete bust. I had a sweater from last year to wear and collect compliments upon (there were few to be had), and bought enough yarn to make three more sweaters. (This brings my total number of sweaters-in-skeins to 14, for those who care. Holy crap, I can knit 14 sweaters, and still have yarn for a ton of other projects. Fuck, maybe I should actually get knitting instead of writing here.)

Between the knitting, and work, and seeing the Favorite Nephew, I've actually been keeping social. And when I'm not being social, I've been keeping ... happy. At least, I think it's happy. It's not sad, that's for sure. I'm almost afraid of it, not sure what to make of it. The beginning of the year was just so frighteningly low and lonely, I keep thinking I'm either going to wake up to find out this is all a dream, or wake up and find out that I've just made myself completely numb so I won't feel it anymore.

Hoping it's neither of those things.

There have been other things. Like the Saturday that Michelle, Tamica and I did a morning at the Ferry Building to help me bump a few things off my Big Eat list, and then dinner at Little Star to bump off another. And the Thursday evening dates, and the occasional bouts of Krav, and and and.

In a couple weeks I'm going to Disneyland for my birthday, the hotel is booked, Emily is joining me, I hope to rope Billy in, too, and I plan to take Mindy (my new car) on her first big road trip to get me there. Another big quick road trip is planned for April, when I'm heading up to Seattle to work and stay with the peeps and stop in Portland on the way up to see Steph.

I am keeping busy, and keeping happy, but who wants to hear about all of that? Blogs are for angst and introversion and pictures and social commentary, aren't they? I'll try to get more of some of that in soon. I don't promise.

ValentWine

Elements for a good Valentine's Day, when you are single:

1. Texts from male friends wishing me a Happy one (even if they are gay and/or bi).
   
2. Date with my favorite Jeremy.
   
3. Good ramen.
   
4. Wine: three glasses full.
   
5. Greek drama.
   
6. Free creme brulée from my Creme Brulée Cart "boyfriend". (Courtesy of frequent-buyer card — boyfriend does not know of our "relationship" ... yet?)
   
7. Coming home to a package from a good friend living 3,000 miles away.

I hope everyone had a V-Day at least half as happy as mine. Now let's move on and get on with our single lives, dammit.

I Always Know My [Krav] Is Near

Wow. I've felt pretty lately.

Thank you to my friend Nick for making sure I was able to share in the glory of this video:



I can't even begin to say what is my favorite part of this. It's just one whole piece of ... awesome?

On a related note, I was dragged out to a Saturday morning Krav class last weekend by Claire — a sort of bittersweet last chance to use each other as punching bags before she officially moved back to France. I never do Krav on the weekends, in part because I generally don't have a reason to be out that way on a non-work day, and mostly because I'm lazy and like to sleep in on the days I can. Like, sleep in until noon. And the classes are at 10, 11, 12 and it takes an hour to get there from my tiny apartment via MUNI. Incompatible with my personal sleeping goals.

However, I think that I will be going again tomorrow morning. And why? Because after Krav I have a whole range of possible options to cross off my Big Eat checklist.

Is it a bad thing to use food as an incentive to work out? Wait, isn't that what half of us work out for in the first place?

Good. At least I'm on par with everyone else.

It's Complex

Yesterday I went to Krav for the first time in two months. Alone in the locker room, I stepped on the scale, almost afraid of what it would say. Except it read about six pounds lighter than the weight I'd been at my last physical, 30 days ago. Woo hoo! I thought. I must be doing something right! Then I looked down at my flabby belly, bulging out over the top of my workout pants, and realized that I'd only lost what muscle weight was hiding underneath the blubber, not the blubber itself.

Le sigh.

There was a moment tonight when I almost forgot I was in San Francisco and not New York. My not-a-date date and I were wandering around after dinner, trying to find a secluded spot (there aren't many in FiDi SF, and what ones there are have security cameras) and ended up in a public space with benches and weird art, surrounded by skyscrapers. I looked straight up. The sky was clear, framed by the buildings, and the moon shone its waxing gibbous face down on us, and the illusion was almost complete. I am there, this is happening.



Maybe the weight I lost was wallowing self-pity, not muscle.

On a nerdier note, as part of my goal to do as much of the 7x7 Magazine 2012 Big Eat Challenge, I actually spent some time mapping out the locations of all the restaurants.

View 2012 Big Eat Map in a larger map

Sure, maybe someone else is or was going to do the work on this so I didn't have to, but this way I can keep track of the ones I've actually tried. Go me. And go ahead: let me know if you want to join me for any of it. Some of those places are definitely best with a partner in crime.