Mice and Men

Happy Birthday to me.

Today I turn 31.

Isn't that something? Nah, not really. Everyone ages. It's a simple fact.

I like to take these opportunities to look back at my life and see how where I am lines up with where I thought I'd be. I guess the thing that's on my mind the most lately is that I made it this far unmarried. I certainly didn't plan to. In my mind 28 seemed like the ideal age, heavily influenced by the fact that that's how old my parents were when they tied the knot. When ExOfNote and I didn't end up together I wasn't worried—I still had a good 3 years to work all that out. Now, I'm three years past the imaginary 'ideal' time. And, you know what? I'm ok with that.

I've found that outside the Mormon community people often don't get married before they're 30. But, more importantly, I feel that as time passes I become a better potential partner.

What else did I not anticipate? I didn't anticipate that at 31 I'd be training for my first marathon. I didn't anticipate that I'd be in (literally) the best physical shape of my life. I didn't anticipate that I'd be contemplating major life changes. And, I certainly didn't anticipate being as satisfied as I am with my life not turning out as I planed.

All in all, no, life didn't turn out as I thought it would. It's turning out better.

Totally Happened

"How is it 4:17 already?!" my coworker asked, shocked that the day had flown by.

"Well, Sally," I started facetiously, "there are 60 seconds in a minute..." then I knew where I had to go.

"You see, Sally, when a mommy earth loves a daddy sun very much she gives him a very special hug..."

Laughter ensued.

The Rule

Ages ago I called Mumsy one day and Pops answered. "Oh," he said causally, "we're just on the way home from the hospital, you mother had a scare..."

Excuse me? What?? THE HOSPITAL and you're just now telling me?! And only because I called??!!

"Well," Mumsy replied to my surprised questioning (I was, apparently, on speaker phone), "it's not like there was anything you could have done."

"Yes there is." I insisted.

"Like what?"

"Worry, mother, I could have worried."

Thus, a new rule was born. Whenever either one of my parents is hospitalized they have to call me while they're in the hospital.

I tell you this now because Monday morning at 5:55 am my phone rang. It was my Dad. I hit ignore. Because, really? Who calls at 6 o'clock in the morning? As soon as I hit ignore I realized that no one calls at 6 am... unless there's something wrong.

I immediately called him. "You're mother is in the hospital. They ran some tests..." blah blah blah.... "and everything is fine, but she told me to call you." Fact: when calling someone at 6 AM start at the end. Especially if it's "she's fine". I spent 30 heart-stopping seconds wondering if I should be booking a flight home.

Turns out she was anemic.

I rolled over and went back to sleep.

All Worked Up and Nowhere To Go

In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, results are in.

The doctor says it's something called a "xanthogranuloma," not of the juvenile variety. I'll be fine, and my scar shouldn't be too bad. Though, to be honest, I'm not loving it.

Moving on...

Walking Out

Saturday night we went out to celebrate a friend's birthday. She wanted to go to a piano bar which happens to be right near the football stadium. It was game night, but since the Seahawks suck no one was really too worried about the crowd. Reservations were made for hours after the game was scheduled to end.

Except they won.

And the victory party lasted very very very long. So long, in fact, that it was still raging when we got there. The whole thing wasn't really my scene, nor was it Brisk's. Who, according to his claims, I guilted into showing up. As he and I sat there trying to have fun, but not really enjoying ourselves too much one of the pianists called up a woman who was celebrating her birthday. As a 'treat' for her he started in on some limericks. Some excruciatingly crass limericks. I was quite uncomfortable, as was Brisk. I have to pause here and admit that I was surprised at how much he wasn't enjoying the humor. Finally, after 4 or 6 verses the 'song' ended and the pianist wished the birthday girl a pleasant evening.

Brisk and I chatted about how that was terribly not awesome, and he confessed that he was trying to think of some place nearby to go while we waited for our buses (to avoid game traffic and downtown parking we had both caught buses in, and we had another 45 minutes before they would be making the rounds). As another birthday girl was cheered up on stage and more crass jokes were being made at her expense Brisk finally came up with some place. "Done!" I said hopping off my bar stool. We made quick rounds saying our goodbyes and headed out.

I felt a little weird leaving a party so early, but more than that I felt relieved to be walking out of a situation which made me uncomfortable. And, I was really glad to have a friend to walk out with me.

Sunday I learned that our early departure had prompted a "medium amount" of gossip and knowing (and, apparently, approving) assertions that we could "entertain [our]selves."

Soups On

I decided in December that I need to start taking my lunch to work rather than continue buying lunch daily. Because making lunch every single day just isn't going to work for me, I have taken to making large batches of soup and bringing jars in to the office.

I started off this week planning on making two different soups, but they both called for veggie stock. I decided to make that from scratch because, you know, I can. I started cooking the stock around 5 or 6 last night and finally went to bed around midnight. Stock done, half of one soup completed, and the other soup not even started.

Today I finished the second soup and left the first one half done. I figured I might as well complete one full soup rather than finish the first one and make it through half of the second before tucking in. It seemed like a good plan in theory. And, now I have soup for tomorrow. Whee. Tuesday night, post-run, I shall finish up the second soup.

Return to Zen

Friday I had an appointment with a dermatologist to have my bump checked out. I anticipated her taking a biopsy immediately and sending it out for evaluation before deciding what to do.

What she did do, instead, was schedule me for surgery this Friday. While she can't tell me exactly what it is (until tests are run) she wants to remove the entire mass that's above the surface and send it for a biopsy and then possibly go back in and remove any cancer after the results are back.

This is good news, either way, the damn bump is going to be gone.

She did promise me a small scar. Boo.

Oddly enough, Thursday night before my first appointment I returned to a state of utter zen about the whole thing. No big deal. It's almost as if I was never worried or freaking out. It's nice to be back to myself. And, the fact of the matter is, there is nothing I can do about it, but what I'm doing, and any amount of worry isn't going to change the facts.

Talk

After some pretty blatant flirting on line Brisk and I were getting an afternoon beverage. "So," he said sitting down, "I have to tell you something, and I think you deserve to hear it in person. You and me? It's never going to happen."

I laughed, "um, of course not!" Because, honestly, what else can you say?

"Ok, I just wanted to make sure you knew."

And, there we are. I guess he, like most of us, just likes having someone with whom to flirt.

Resoloutionists

Once again, no resolutions for me. Amazingly liberating.

However, after taking a week off work and running during the day rather than in the dark I realized how much better it is. With that in mind I've decided to start running over lunch two days a week to see how I like it and if it works. Wednesday as I was out there sweating on the trail I passed a number of notably more fit individuals and couldn't help but assume that they were all looking at me and judging me to be a New Years Resolutionist who were smug in their own self-satisfaction that I'm going to put in a good show for a couple of weeks and then retire my expensive new exercise gear to the back of my closet until next year. Little do all of them know, I've been at this for months. I suck at it, yes, but I'm not throwing in the towel any time soon. And so, to them I say, "Suck it, judgmental fit people. You have no idea what I have under the hood."

Big Scary Internet

In October I thought I had a very boring and unimportant zit pop up next to my eye on the bridge of my nose. I tried to pop it (yeah, I know you wanted to know that) and moved on. After a while said zit kind of scarred over.

And then it grew.

And grew.

And now it's big and scary.

I figured I should probably see a dermatologist about it, and have an appointment on Friday. Initially I figured it was nothing major, just something I should probably have looked at.

Today I started googling images of skin cancer and descriptions. Turns out the internet is a dangerous place. What I found freaked me out. I found images and descriptions which have me worried that what I have is called "basal cell carcinoma".

I am worried. and freaked out. and have no idea what the future holds. But, above all, I'm hopeful that it's nothing. I'm also so ridiculously lonely. It's a scary thing to be facing alone, even if it is nothing, the suspense over the next few days or week is going to be rough.