I’ve been hearing a certain phrase quite a bit over the last few months.
“I’m sure you can find someone else…to go dancing with.”
“I’m sure you can find someone else…to practice your photography on.”
“I’m sure you can find someone else…to go see that movie with.”
“I’m sure you can find someone else…to pet sit.”
So many people said that to me on my birthday, I spent my birthday alone because all of them had something else they had to do and were so sure I’d have plenty of other people to celebrate with that it’d be just fine.
Throughout this year, I’ve been a little quiet, withdrawn. But so many of my friends are so sure I have a broad support group of other friends that no one seems to realize just how alone I’ve been. Every time I’ve reached out and tried to make plans, I’ve been told, “I’m sure you can find someone else…”
I can understand giving me space. I’ve appreciated that actually. But when I’ve reached out, asked to make plans, hearing that phrase over and over. I don’t know how to describe what it did to me.
So thank you to Ryan, who took me to see a movie late at night on my birthday at the last minute once he realized there wasn’t anybody else.
The weather has been beautiful lately. Gorgeous, in fact. I’ve thought about cooking, but it’s not as much fun to cook for one. The last time I cooked was when the Velez family came down for a visit. I had a blast cooking for them!
First up was a fresh mint and roasted pork salad dressed with fresh squeezed lime juice mixed with a touch of sugar and fish sauce, thin sliced shallots and garlic. The key to this salad is the toasted rice, ground up and tossed in there right at the end to add texture and a fantastic roasted flavor. Of course, the huge amounts of fresh mint leaves made it a cool and happy salad.
The salad is called “nam tok” or water fall salad. It can be made with pork or chicken, but I personally like it with pork. Besides, I’d roasted chicken to go along side as well as had chicken as the base of the next dish.
I also made red curry chicken, my way. It’s Thai style, with coconut milk and bamboo shoots, but you’ll find every Thai cook does things in her own way and the curry comes out different for every cook. I use fresh holy basil from my garden in my curry, and probably more coconut milk than most. Plus I add a kaffir lime leaf or two in there and a touch of sugar to balance out flavors. Instead of serving the curry with rice, the way I normally do, I made nom gene or Asian white rice noodles instead. They’re lighter and nicer with the curry for summer time.
I also made “sticky rice” or sweet rice to go on the side with some roasted chicken. That’s a summer favorite as well. You gotta be careful with sticky rice though, stuff continues to expand in your stomach.
See? It’s so much more fun to cook for friends than it is to cook for just one. I get a lot of joy out of feeding my friends and putting my heart into my cooking for them.
Still working on the slimming and toning to a healthier and better feeling me. I’ve reduced my P90X workouts to about 2 times a week, for strength training and cardio rather than following the actual program. Three other days a week I’ve been going to mixed martial arts class – for fun and for stress relief.
I’ve been holding pretty steady at my current weight for a few weeks but I hope to break the plateau again and start losing some more.
With the end of summer coming into sight I’ve had to admit some of my clothes just don’t fit anymore. (This is kind of cool. LOL) So I’ve been going through my drawers one at a time and ditching anything that hangs all loose and baggy with no hope for a decent fit with my new body shape. I’m realizing that most of these garments are several years old anyway and the only stuff that fits at all is even older. I didn’t do much in the way of clothes shopping in the last couple of years and what I did buy was only for work!
Yesterday, Hel met up with me for lunch and a walk through the mall. With her coaxing and a pack of helpful store clerks, I ended up getting quite a few fashionable upgrades to my wardrobe. Not something I plan to do often, mind you, because that could be seriously dangerous to my budget. But this one time, it was worth it.
There’s something therapeutic about ditching the old, baggy clothes. It’s more than cleaning out your clothes drawers. A few lingering emotional cobwebs go with them.
Is love enough?
Sometimes it isn’t. Actually, for me, it’s never been enough for happily ever after.
You can fall in love with more than one person in your life. If life gets really interesting, you might fall in love with more than one person at the same time and then you have to make choices.
Me? Once I love, I never stop. It doesn’t just fade away or burn out. Every love is different, with a different taste and texture and feel to it. But what remains the same is that I will feel it always. I’ll hold love in my heart forever. And I’ve made choices.
When a lost love touches my life again, I remember. I love. Have no doubt of that. And right now, I’m free to pursue love if I choose. I haven’t chosen yet.
But there is always the truth remaining that sometimes love isn’t enough for a happily ever after. Just my love hasn’t ever been enough.
And I deserve a happily ever after.
The schedule is up for Otakon – this allows for a sneak peek into just how little sleep I’ll be getting.
See? Schedule
Anime viewing is a little sparse for me this year, not much catching my attention. I might pop in to watch Ponyo and Helen does love the horribly, truly bad live action such as Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstien Girl. In fact, I think the lil sis and I saw a couple of clips of that at AnimeBoston and thought it was hilariously bad, in an epic kind of way.
I’m mildly interested in the concerts and will go if my buddies attend. There’s also some potentially funny panels such as Voice Actors after Dark. Additionally, WAH and Great SG have their panels and I might attend to give them support.
It’s a fairly light Otakon schedule for me this year, honestly. There will likely be more socializing and possibly photography of cosplay, if the cosplay is good this year. So maybe I will be getting some decent sleep…
I took two major steps this week, returning to two things I enjoy: Dance and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).
Back to dance
Originally, I’d quit both because my ex had felt the money and time would be better spent on doing things together. Not a bad thought, but unfortunately, he didn’t really have a suggestion for what we were supposed to do together. So, I lost those two outlets and the benefits of the exercise without a real replacement for it and the original reasoning was also render non-applicable.
For dance, I decided to try out the Koresh School of Dance in Philly. It didn’t feel right to return to my old dance school, because their curriculum is continuous through a school year. You show up weekly and learn a full dance that’s presented in recitals at the end of the year. With my work and business travel schedule, it really wouldn’t have worked out. Koresh runs stand alone classes – you don’t have to show up every week. The open classes are walk in and learn a combination for the day. Instead of paying for a whole school year, I just pay per class or buy a batch of 10 classes at a time – applicable to any of the open classes available (Hip Hop, Ballet, Jazz, Modern…) Overall, it’s much more affordable for me and the classes are more advanced. The only killer is the cost of parking in the city. >_<
Tony Jaa - Muay Thai
For MMA, I decided to return to the Tri-State Martial Arts Academy. It’s a good quality school teaching the disciplines I want to learn in MMA: Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Jun Fan/Jeet Kun Do, Kali/Silat and various conditioning classes. Again, due to my work and biz travel schedule – I needed a flexibility available in their schedule. Honestly, I needed to get back to this to work off stress, tension and whatnot. I haz rage.
Okay, okay, I admit it was a little insane to jump into both. It might have been wiser to start one, then add the other. That’s the beauty of it though – if I want, I can just go to Koresh once every other week. There’s no set schedule that I need to attend.
And honestly, I needed to get out and take action. I was driven. It was getting too comfortable hiding inside of the house.
There’s a fine line between being driven to work through the challenges life slams down on you and being driven to run away from them. We know I have drive, but have I stepped up to the line?