adding it all up

i am very numbers driven...
at work, i strive to have the highest dollars in sales for the day, the week, etc. when i work out, i like to increase my speed, increase my mileage... up those numbers. i was a very "grades-orientated student" and now, i am still striving to get "a"'s in life. although, quite frankly, it's gotten more difficult, since, now, i am grading myself.

when my thyroid decided to idle rather than rev, my weight skyrocketed.
that's anumber i never sought to increase.
now, i am fixated on lowering my weight, increasing my strength, and untapping my "inner athlete."yesterday, i bought another "numbers device"- a pedometer.
a really nice one, on sale- baby!
my mom wears hers every day. it seems to really help her shed some extra pounds...
that and having a dog! (i am working on getting a miniature schnauzer.)

i am sitting in my mom's bedroom typing this to you.
snow is lightly falling.
i am in my hometown, "mayberry" population 3,500.

last night, i took a walk with my mom, my brother, and their respective dogs.
not havinga dog makes me feel like an outsider in my own family.
the walk was very nice.
they've chosen a varied route but it's always the same route.
it made me yearn to wander down other streets, peek in on various memory lanes,
and well, log on a few more miles on my newly programmed pedometer. i borrowed my brother's dog for a few more miles of walking. his dog, minka, is a terrier-lab mix (a small dog with boundless energy!) in all, i walked 5.673 miles... after attaching pedometer to hip.

good for a nice evening of walking.

the night before mayhem

it's the night before mayhem...
tomorrow, all hell will break loose in the retail world. black friday.
women will push, haggle, argue, nit pick, make piles of clothing, grumble, grouse, and converge on the retail world like a cloud of locusts.

i will be in the clothing store at 6- bloody-am

i've gotten my own bit of personal spending-frenzy out of the way. i am rather proud of my finds...
suede ankle boots- $26
matte jersey dress- $8

there's more but i'd rather not disclose my full frenzy.
i am a clothing addict.
always have been. i am trying to understand why clothing has such a hold over me.

today, i am thankful. i have a home, a family, lots of clothing... and the ability to change my life.

monk

dreams have a way of lingering sometimes....
of leaving a soft impression...
i dreamt of talking to "monk." in the dream, we were "meant to be" together. i had saved myself for him, and he had left the priesthood for me. (how very thornbirds, eh?) well, i've had a faint sense of longing for him for the last day or so since the dream.

dreams like this make me wonder... what is love?

i will always love "monk." i wonder whether my feelings for him "have legs" though. we only dated briefly before he flew off to vatican city to study to become a priest. do i miss him so intensely because he's living in the freakin center of iowa? it's hard to find a reason to drive to the center of iowa! yet, i know that if he lived closer, he'd still be too far away. for a year or two, he lived a mere 90 miles from me. i did not visit. i did not go see him give a sermon. i didn't "cross the line." in many ways, i didn't trust myself. he was too close which is a shame because i'd love to hear one of his sermon's. he's a priest now. a roman catholic priest.

there are boundaries.... no discussions of sex. no more seducing him. (never had sex with him....sigh.... i wish that we had. a pang of regret.)
i find myself wondering whether sex would have changed anything.
would i miss him more? would i love him less?
what is love? did we have a love that would still be fresh today?

love is a malleable thing. relationships require more than just the intoxicating feelings of lust. i wonder whether we had the right combination of lust and love.

a month or so ago, i dreamt of being held tightly in monk's arms... dancing. it felt good. not sexual. just really, really good.

a-ha moment. as much as i would love to hear one of monk's seromons, there's a part of me that doesn't want to see him as a priest. a hindi friend of mine recently asked me why he became a priest. i said, "God tapped him on the shoulder." who am i to step in the way of God? or tamper with monk's happiness?

in my prayers, i ask God to help him be the kind of priest that monk is seeking to be, to give him strength, and to ease my longing.... but not just yet.

as st augustine wrote:
"But, wretched youth that I was--supremely wretched even in the very outset of my youth--I had entreated chastity of you and had prayed, 'Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.' For I was afraid lest you should hear me too soon, and too soon cure me of my disease of lust which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished."

i wonder what monk, himself would make of all of this. part of me wishes to e-mail this entry to him but what would that do? let him know that i'm refusing to let go of my sexual feelings for him? expose my lust? what would he do with that? he has no compunction to react to my feelings for him.

sometimes what seems like exposition is really a megalomaniac need to be affirmed.

sigh... i am growing up and learning to respect boundaries...

certain songs, typically anything harry connick jr would sing, evoke my more sentimental feelings for monk. here is one that has been playing in a corner of my mind...

"WHEN I FALL IN LOVE (Nat King Cole)
When I fall in love it will be forever
Or I'll never fall in love
In a restless world like this is
Love is ended before it's begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun
When I give my heart
it will be completely
Or I'll never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you.
[Instrumental interlude first two lines]
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you."

here's another that tugs at my heart strings...

"They Can’t Take That Away From Me
Written by: George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin
The way you wear your hat,
the way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No no, they can't take that away from me
The way your smile just beams,
the way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No no, they can't take that away from me
We may never never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Though I'll always always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife, the way we dance 'til three
The way you changed my life
No they can't take that away from me
No, they can't take that away from me
We may never never never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Though I'll always always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife, the way we dance 'til three
The way you changed my life
No they can't take that away from me
No, they can't take that away
No they can't take that away
No they can't take that away from me"

*day light savings time sucks!

sam is crawling all over me. nestling his head into my ear. purring as though its been aaaaaaaaaaaages since we canoodled.
my cat is an affection slut. (he is very fond of nuzzling our ears. though less fond of mine since i developed a persistant ear infection... i am soooo looking forward to my new insurance policy kicking in!)

last night, he slept curled around my head. (i put a pillow above my own so he can sleep by my head without monopolizing my pillow. he's a big boy. 15lbs and long...) in the morning, he crawled unto my chest when i woke up. not even an hour ago, he tried to steal my bagel as i held it one hand and read an online article. all of this in the last three hours... now, he's crawled up into my lap and has his paws perched on my shoulder with his butt in my lap. love monkey.

life is moving forward.

one thing is gnawing at my thoughts. daylight savings time. it makes absolutely no sense in our modern world. it makes my skin crawl when i walk outside at 5:30pm to inky darkness. it's really 6:30 pm, i tell myself. i don't appreciate toying with time. as you know, i am temporally challenged. a day is a week is a month is a year. i need to move somewhere sane. arizona is my dream state. hot. dry. and sane enough not to play with time!!!

i also feel deprived of my favourite time of day. dusk. more specifically, golden hour. for 15 or so minutes, the world looks as though its lit from within. a mystical light hangs in the air. anything white glows. my heart expands. even on a cold snowy day, golden hour has the power to energize me. watching the fading of daylight stirs a feeling of well being. the earliest i leave work is 5:30 pm. daylight savings time robs me of dusk. robs me of my beloved golden hour. sure, i go to work in daylight... the stiff grey daylight of winter but when i leave, i walk out into a darkened night. no dieing embers of day. no soft diffusion of light. bam! night. my heart sinks. my mind wanders off to bed.

living with someone is difficult

fred is mad at me.
he has every reason.
i acted like a child.
my cat puked on the floor.
i didn't want to deal with it this morning... and moved the rug to (uh) cover it.
he found it.
he's pissed.
he wants a clean house.... damnit!
i say this as i sit looking at his dirty socks laying on the computer desk.
his dirty clothing, which he slept, in are laying on the floor next to the bed.
the sunday paper surrounds the futon like a wasteland.
heaps of his dirty clothing fill the enrtertainment room.
while another heap of clean clothes (washed by me) waits to be put away.
this is the tip of the iceburg.

living with someone is difficult.

* i am not without "housecleaning sin." i just feel as though he's a slob who has not right to throw stones.

musing over time

dear reader,

i've never had a good sense of time... or direction for that matter. though i love reading about events in history, timelines perplex me. how can i keep track of historical chronology when i am struggling to make sense of how i live relative to actual time?

a day is a week is a month is a year. i am swimming in time. surrounded by it. consumed by it.

i am getting older, even now as my coffee begins to cool and the sun moves across the sky, unseen by me because i am in the basement writing to you. time is moving faster and faster. 60 seconds, a blink.
a week passes over me like a cloud across the sky.

three months ago, i moved into this house.
five years and three months ago, i met fred...

already, i am leaving things out. omitting. forgetting. someday, maybe tomorrow, i will forget what i wrote to you. my mind struggles to move in a straight line. i am constantly in the process of remembering and forgetting. my thoughts move in circles.

counterintuitively, i love making lists, putting things in order, and creating art with a slightly geometric tilt (and many, many cats.)

when i write (on paper with a medium point pen,) my letters are small, consistant, tidy and all in caps. maybe, someday, i'll write you a letter. a real letter.

when i type (for myself, with a computer) i prefer this style (courier, all lower case) for purely romantic reasons. (my first love letters were typed exclusively in lower case. in fact, his blog is written in all lower case.)

with love, jenny lynn

in a day

time seems to have sped up.
my life is flying past me.
yesterday, i was born.
today, i live.
tomorrow, i die.
how will i make the most out of today?
will i be ready for death?

it is easy to make long lists of lofty ambitions and hopeful goals
to read all of the works of oscar wilde, shakespeare, camus, borges, may sarton, mark twain
oh what an endless list of authors i could write
write more letters
study the Bible
journal
paint
draw
walk
kiss
climb trees
laugh
watch films
daydream
take naps
call my grandma
learn how to sew, to quilt, to weave
become fluent in spanish

i could add to this list.
every day cannot contain every goal.
patience is required.
time must be budgeted. priortized.
quiet reflection allows for a greater appreciation.