Just For Now - Imogen Heap

Thanks Gwen, for sending me a link to this video

I Thought We Had More Time

Two weeks ago was the anniversary of my sister Laurie's death. I didn't write anything because it is such a hard subject to think about. Last year I didn't face the difficulty because I posted a story that I originally wrote for her funeral. This year I sat down to write something several times, but the topic was just too sad. I struggled for a few days and kept coming up with nothing. Then I gave up. Since then I haven't felt right about this blog. I felt my heart sink whenever I thought of a new blog topic because I felt like posting some silly story instead of something about Laurie would be disrespectful. It felt like I would just be letting her down. I decided today that I wanted to change that while I still could. Sometimes you make a mistake and you can't go back... like the last time I let Laurie down.

I don't remember many details about that day. I only remember that we were in a hospital room and Laurie was laying in a coma. We had already spoken to the doctors and we knew that we had little hope she would ever recover. Everyone in my family, except for me, was giving her hugs and telling her that we loved her. It seemed like this was our last goodbye and I couldn't bring myself to participate. Instead I asked her if she could squeeze my finger and she did. I knew what the doctors had said, but I didn't want to believe that tiny squeeze was a final effort. I felt hope surge in me and I didn't want to lose it. Worse, I didn't want her to lose hope either, so I made a decision I have regretted ever since. I knew she could hear me and I thought that if I said I loved her, then she would understand that this was goodbye, and that she was about to die. I couldn't tell my little sister she was going to die, so I didn't say anything.

I don't think I had ever told Laurie that I loved her. Then in her final hours, when I knew she could hear me, I purposely didn't say it.
I never got another chance.

Laurie, I am so sorry. I just thought we had more time.

Rethinking

I am often hard on myself for my weight. I can't seem to stop comparing myself to other women - especially the ones I see on TV and magazines. I always seem to notice that the average woman weighs a lot less than I do and this upsets me. It is silly because not only did I develop as a male for 33 years, but at 5'10" I am also in the top 1% of women in terms of height. It should follow that given my prior body development and my added height, that I should have some added weight as well, but for some reason I needed a reminder.

Normally I think it is awful how some people are criticized in magazines, websites and some entertainment TV shows, but right now I am grateful for one popular story. I don't know if you have heard, but recently some bikini pictures of Tyra Banks have made many tabloids run headlines about her weight, specifically about how fat she has become. I saw one TV show that reported she has 'ballooned' up to 160 pounds. I had been feeling fat already, but when I saw that show I felt sick afterwards. I laid awake in bed for hours and I decided to get up and do some push ups until I felt I could sleep.

Back when I was still a guy I weighed 225 pounds, but by Christmas of 2004 I had made it down to 173 pounds. At around that time I decided I needed a weight goal, so I looked up the ideal weight for a woman my height. The ideal weight for a woman of 5'10" turned out to be 159 pounds. I knew I wasn't the 'ideal' weight for a woman, but I felt skinny and healthy even though I never did make it to that goal weight.

In the past two years I gained thirty pounds back. I also lost the notion that I was exceptional in terms of height. I was comparing my weight to those of women that weigh 60-70 pounds less than me and I would feel like it is hopeless. Recently I have lost 8 pounds and even though I was proud of it, I was still feeling overwhelmed. Then today I happened to catch the cover of People magazine and it clued me in that I am not as bad off as I thought. It certainly feels good to know that at 161 pounds Tyra, who is the same height as me, isn't fat at all. She is just at her ideal weight.

Given that I have grew up developing as a male, I certainly have broader shoulders and a larger diameter rib cage than Tyra. I realize that alone probably means I will ever get to 161 pounds. Suddenly I feel like if I just lose 15 pounds more, that I will be at an ideal weight for me. Losing 15 pounds is not overwhelming at all.

Read the People article here: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20009611,00.html

Long Story Short

I bought the World of Warcraft expansion set the other day, yada yada yada, my plants are all dead.

A Withdrawal

It is very late, and I should be going to bed, but I just wanted to write about my night. I went to go have coffee and cake at my friend Jenn's house. After we chatted for a bit we popped in her Supernatural DVDs and started watching. Lately I don't know what it is, but it is like the 'play' button is somehow connected directly to my internal 'sleep' function. It wasn't long before I was out cold.

When I woke up I was glad to hear I had only been snoring a little bit, but I felt bad that once again I had fallen asleep on Jenn's floor. I decided I should get home to bed.

I got in my car and started driving. I got about 1 and a half blocks away and suddenly the car stopped moving. I was very confused because nothing seemed to be wrong, but the car just wouldn't move. Sure the road was extremely icy, but I couldn't move forwards or backwards at all. Out of habit I checked the emergency brake was disengaged and it was, but it seemed different. It felt like it might be frozen in the engaged position. I decided to just sit there for a while with the engine running. I was hoping that it would loosen up as the car heated up. I put on my hazard lights and just sat there in the middle of the road.

People kept driving by slowly, looking in my windows, but I just smiled and waved them on. After five minutes or so I tried jiggling the emergency brake, and this time I was convinced it was completely disengaged. I tried moving, but I still couldn't budge. I got out to check if I had driven into some kind of concave surface in the icy road that was too slippery to get out of. Instead I saw that I had a completely flat tire.

The temperature was about -30 outside, and I wasn't sure what I should do. I wanted to get my car off the road as soon as possible. I knew Jenn and Dave would help me out so I called them, thinking that we'd either change the flat, or push my car off the road.

Jenn came out to me and told me that Dave will change my tire in the morning, and that she can give me a ride home. By the time she got there though I had already decided that the road was too slippery to push my car into a suitable parking spot, and that it might be easier to just change the tire and drive it away under it's own power.

I had the spare and the jack out of the hatch already, so Jenn and I loosened the nuts on the flat. I was trying to remember how to position the jack when Jenn went to get her husband to help me. A minivan pulled up and the driver asked if I was ok. I asked him if he knew anything about changing a tire. He said that he did and so I asked if I had the jack in a good place or not. I expected him to come out and tell me if it was ok or not, but he totally took over the job. I felt bad that I was taking his help, but grateful that he was willing to give it. To be honest, changing a tire scares me at the best of times because I am always worried about the car falling off the jack. Changing a tire at -30 in the middle of the night on a surface of compacted snow seemed like a perfect recipe for the jack to slip out, so I was glad for his experience.

It wasn't long before two more good samaritans showed up. A man in a 4x4 truck came to help, and a moment later Dave also showed up. Dave wanted to finish the job for me, but the other two stuck around anyway. It was the kind of weather where even if only one person can do the work and things seem to be going fine, it is a probably good idea to have some backup around - just in case. Maybe four people changing one tire is overkill, but I am really glad they were all there.

It wasn't too long before my tire was changed. I said my thank you's and goodbye's and got inside my car. It was toasty warm after running for so long, but not warm enough to cancel out how cold I was. Even now, over three hours later, I am still cold. It is very late, and I should be going to bed, but I'm going to have a hot bath instead.