BEST (short piece of writing) EVER
by V.E. on April 18th, 2008
Guilt twanged his nerves raw. Maybe he shouldn’t. As he watched his wife nurse the baby, as he thought about the sleepless nights they’d shared, he felt like he just couldn’t stand to lie to her like this, like she didn’t deserve to be treated this way. But the feeling passed.
He was a man, dammit. He had needs. Needs that weren’t being met since that colicky baby had entered their lives. Needs that he could satisfy in secret, at that motel room. He looked at his Invicta Racing Chronograph. OK, time to go, he thought to himself. Just pretend like it’s any other day. A mechanical kiss and he was out the door.
From his car, he called the office. He told his secretary he wouldn’t be in today, but that if anyone called, to tell them he was in meetings. Yes, even his wife. Even the woman who bore his child, who so carefully picked out the Invicta with the black dial and the blue face, just for him. Somehow, she’d known he’d love the luminous hands, the Swiss chronograph movement. And now, he was about to betray her.
No, no, he thought. Can’t think like that. He turned the car into the motel parking lot. Swiping the keycard to open the door of the room, he took a deep breath. It’s really happening. I’m really going through with it. In the gloom, the watch’s Tritnite luminous hands told him he had nine glorious hours to indulge himself before his wife would expect him home. Nine hours of sin. He pulled back the covers and climbed in. I’m sorry, honey, he thought. I never wanted to hurt you. But I really, really need some sleep.
W00T
by V.E. on April 17th, 2008
filed under health
I’m down to 16:10 (m:s) today! YAY. Only need to shave off 40 seconds more (per mile) by the end of this week and I’ll be write on track for the Big Day.
Now, I’m going back to (doing) laundry… which I said I was going to do yesterday but my legs got the better of me… Today I’m not listening to the complaining; and believe me, they are complaining.
Diet and Exercise
by V.E. on April 16th, 2008
filed under health, personal, thoughts
Grimy/yucky
by V.E. on April 16th, 2008
filed under health
That’s how I feel right now: grimy and yucky… but in a good, “I just ran 3.4 miles two days in a row” kind of way.
Only problem is that my time hasn’t changed. AT ALL. It’s still exactly 16:45 (m:s) per mile. I was doing okay at the beginning today, but I walked a lot near the end. Plus my legs ached all this morning and last night.
We’ll see if I can pull this off.
I passed the NYPD police exam
by V.E. on April 15th, 2008
filed under work
I took the police exam in mid-February as part of my applying for work… and then promptly forgot all about it. Apparently, I passed it and now have to go in for a medical exam next week. I have to be in Queens at SIX THIRTY IN THE MORNING. [cries] T_T Just getting to Rego Park (in Queens) from where I am now is going to take almost two hours… which means I have to leave my apartment by 4:30 AM that morning. Which means I have to be up by 3:30… Gawd…. And, this is not a dress casual event. I have to dress in “proper business attire” and, if I pass the medical exam, “anticipate spending the entire day.” What does that mean? That I’ll get out 3 PM, or 5 PM, or 8 PM???
Also, can you imagine me as a police officer? O.o
(… Assuming I jump through all the hoops and pass each exam/whatever, I can expect to join the next academy class at the end of July.)
Whew…
by V.E. on April 15th, 2008
filed under health
I ran/walked 3.4 miles this morning in juuuuust under an hour. I signed up for the Revlon Run/Walk at the beginning of May this year (my team’s page is here), so I need to get into shape… more than I am now. Right now it comes out to around 16:45 (m:s) per mile and I need it down around 12:00 (m:s) per mile so that I can start the run at the appointed time (9:15 AM) and end in time to participate in the end-race festivities (10:00 AM). It’s a 5K run/walk, which comes out to around 3.11 miles.
Since I need to run 3.11 miles in 45 minutes on race day, If I can run 3.4 miles in the same amount of time, I’ll be fine. 3.4 miles/45 minutes comes out to roughly 4.5 miles per hour. Today is April 15 (Tax Day! woo hoo) and the Revlon 5K is on May 3, so I need to be down to 15:30 (m:s) per hour by the end of this week, 13:30 by April 26, and 12:00 or less by race day. (12:00 per mile is the same as 5 miles per hour.)
I’m also doing the Miles for Moms run (4 mi. on May 10) and the Melissa Fund Sun Run (5K on May 17). I learned that I need incentive to do this staying-in-shape thing, and PAYING (that is, officially registering) to run in races seems to be a good incentive so far. The Revlon 5K was $30, Miles for Moms was $23, and the Sun Run was $31. This isn’t like buying a book; either I run the thing or not, and that’s the end of it. It’s not like “I can do it whenever” ’cause I can’t; it’s a set date and time, and there will be a billion (well, maybe not that many) people there with me… many in worse shape than I am. It’s a win-win.
Right now, my legs are sore and wobbly when I go up or down the stairs. >_<
Irritating things this week
by V.E. on April 12th, 2008
filed under personal
I am in an easily-irritated mood. I don’t think the incidents below would usually happen… or, rather, I wouldn’t be nearly as ticked off by them in so short a period of time. I’m a patient person, something I can say with relative confidence. But even I have limits.
Man on the Subway
New York subway proselytizers have this annoying habit of waiting until the subway doors have closed before delivering “the Word of God” to the rest of the hapless passengers; with all the exits effectively sealed (at least until the next stop, which can be a while, depending on the circumstances) these people literally have a captive audience to whom they may preach. These subway preachers are invariably men; I’ve never seen a woman proselytizer on the subway, anyway.
Well, this guy was no different. As soon as the doors shut, he started in with “Hallelujah; praise the Lord Jesus Christ, creator of Heaven and Earth” blah blah blah. Normally, it doesn’t bother me, but I was already having a not-so-good day, so I just bit my lip to restrain myself from screaming. But after he’d spoken for a whole three or four stops, he said, “And ‘lo, most of God’s children do not want to hear God’s Word. Shame! For they are shameful and sinners in the eyes of the Lord and listen only to Lucifer, the Devil.”
And I said, “If you think we’re all going to hell because we’re not listening anyway, will you please just let us have this train ride in peace?” Apparently that doesn’t happen often (that is, someone actually responding to him) because he just stopped and looked at me like I was the nutty one. He sorta tried to continue after that, but I think he lost his stride/mojo/what-have-you. So, he got off at the next station to wait (I presume) for another train with fewer back talkers on it.
The Dog, Buddy
Buddy, Eddie’s sausage-shaped rat terrier, has no manners whatsoever. He’s housebroken, but that’s about as far as it goes. Eddie feeds him from his own dishes and then complains when he begs at the table. Everything Eddie eats, Buddy gets to eat some of, too, and that’s fine, I guess, except he (the dog) thinks he can eat my food also. Plus, Eddie has the nerve to complain that Buddy is fat (he is), even though cutting out all the “people food” in Buddy’s diet would pretty much rectify that problem—and Eddie knows it.
Couple of days ago, I was playing Oblivion and I had a drink next to the sofa on the floor. It was cranberry apple something, I think, but that doesn’t really matter. Usually, when Buddy comes near and Eddie or I says, “Buddy, no!” or something, he backs off and doesn’t eat/drink the thing he was eyeballing. Today, not so much. In fact, he wouldn’t stop drinking out of my cup, even after Eddie threatened to hit him (not something I condone, by the way). Buddy’s the kind of dog who understands when Eddie says something like that, but at that time it was all in vain. I just hope the cran-apple whatever was worth it.
Eddie’s Impatience, “Helping” and “Teasing”
I learned in high school that my father used to tease me when I was a kid. I don’t remember this, and my mom told me why. She said, “Well, he was worried that teasing you might negatively affect your development, so he stopped.” And I am so grateful to my dad for that. I think it would’ve hurt me, but he had the foresight to not tease and I grew up to be a less defensive and guarded, I think, because of it.
Well, Eddie, my roommate, isn’t the most patient or sensitive man on the planet. In many ways he reminds me of a friend I had in junior high, Emma. Emma turned me on to HTML and website creation, among other things, but that’s not really why I remember her. Alison, my best friend in late elementary school and junior high, was friends with her first. We all had the same PE class period together, so we all changed into our PE uniforms at the beginning of class (and out of them at the end of class) in the same area. One day, Emma came over to Alison and said, “You should really wash your hair. It looks kinda grimy right now.” She was just trying to be helpful, but Alison was so offended that she refused to be friendly (much less be friends) with Emma for the rest of the year. To be sure, Emma could’ve been more tactful in her delivery of information, but I honestly think that her heart was in the right place. She wasn’t trying to be mean; I think she just cared enough about Alison to try to help her out, tactful or not.
In a lot of ways, Eddie’s like that. He’s well-meaning for the most part, but his style is total crap. He’ll say, “You should vacuum your room”—as if I haven’t noticed that already—or, “When are you going to do your laundry?”—as if him asking me is going to make me go do it. Just because I’m young enough to be his daughter doesn’t mean I am his daughter. In fact, if I were his daughter, I’d much more vocal about all the crappy things he tends to do without realizing that not everyone is like him. But I’m not, so I don’t say anything. I would like the same courtesy.
Eddie is a nice guy in many ways. He’s taken me out to dinner numerous times, paid for a lot of the groceries which I’ve had the luxury to eat, and set up my room and the apartment so they’re actually good to live in. I pay my part of the rent, but I don’t pay utilities, I don’t do much (if any) housework, and I don’t have to tell him where I’m going or when I’ll be back when I go out. The problem is that he knows all that, too, and when he’s angry he’ll pour on the guilt and use that stuff to justify himself. I keep telling him he doesn’t have to do that stuff for me—I am just his roommate, after all—but that doesn’t seem to get through to him.
One of our main rubs is The Dishes. By that I mean: he hates dirty dishes left in the sink. He’s so psycho about it that he’ll clean the dishes before even eating the food he cooked in them. I’m the kind of person who will do the dishes when the sink is full and I can’t find a clean fork. That’s not acceptable for him, and I understand that. For the sake of cleanliness, I get it. So we made a deal that I would do the dishes once per day and he wouldn’t bug me about doing them. Unfortunately, he hasn’t lived up to his end of the bargain. If he gets home and their are dirty dishes in the sink, he’ll complain. He gets home at 2:30 PM… there’s plenty of day left for me to hold up my end of the bargain (which I would, if he just tolerated it and left the dirty dishes there for me to clean, which he never does). So, he’ll go into the kitchen and say, “Viannah, Viannah, Viannah” in a “I’m so tired of this” kind of way and then I’ll hear the water running and the next time I go in there, the dishes will be clean.
My thoughts on this are: Great; if he wants to do my dishes, then great. Less work for me. His thoughts seem to be: Why doesn’t she do the dishes after she’s finished using them? GAH! We agreed that I would do the dishes once per day. I will, if I ever get the chance to do them before he does. I’ve learned from experience that when you’re living with another person (or with other people), the person with the lowest “yuck tolerance” level will end up doing more of the dishes, more of the dusting, and more of the laundry. This isn’t because everyone else is out to get that person, or make him/her angry with them, or anything like that. It’s just because they can tolerate a dirtier house/living area for longer. One person’s “dirty” could be another person’s “seems just fine to me.” If Eddie was patient enough to wait for me to do the dishes, I would do them. Sheesh.
Plus, he calls me “Diana” even though he knows my name and how to pronounce my name correctly and even though he knows it annoys the crap out of me. I hate teasing, especially the kind that’s just meant to piss someone off. It’s one thing if someone says to me, “You’re so nerdy; you actually dress up in anime characters’ costumes??” because I agree with that statement… I am nerdy in a lot of ways. That kind of teasing doesn’t bother me so much because it doesn’t go against something I’ve specifically asked for and it doesn’t hit a tender/defensive spot in my mind. But calling me “Diana” or “Vee-anna” when you know what my name is and how to say it just makes me so mad. It’s not really funny. Really, it’s not.
