More than meets the I

Cliffle and Jeannette are returning home after a trip to Target and Whole Foods, and arrive at a terribly confusing intersection involving train tracks.

NNTT: Uh oh, I think I confused that old guy.
Cliffle: It's okay, you have to throw old folks a head-fake now and again. Keeps 'em on their toes.

Labels: qotd

I have become a jock!

Well, not really. But I suddenly realized the other day that I am more physical than I've ever been in my life. I've been belly dancing for over two years now, which means my abs are in great shape these days, and the rest of me ain't too bad either just from all the activity I get. My arms have always been these crazy muscular things (my bicep is sharply divided from my tricep when I flex, and honestly I don't know why, since I've never worked my arms in my life). And lately I've been working out (with weights and an aerobic step!) trying to buff up my quads and ass to do some serious powerhouse belly dance moves. On top of all this, I started yoga two weeks ago and fucking love it. This is all very strange, since fundamentally I've always regarded myself as physically lazy, and damn lucky that I have remained as relatively small as I am. (Don't get me wrong -- this is still a few days a week, not obsessively exercising four hours a day. But still.)

I believe all this physical activity is costing me, though. I mean granted, I feel great, I eat healthy, this is all wonderful. But I believe my brain has been suffering. I haven't been thinking nearly as much as I used to. I went from posting entries here every other day or so to every two weeks, and it's been a long time since I indulged my blogorrheic navel-gazing. I rarely read. I'm working, exercising, sleeping, or playing video games -- and even the video games have become exercise since Chris left his Wii at our house (thank you, Chris, and also, thanks a fucking lot, Chris). :-)

It might partially be work's fault, methinks. Since I'm staring at a computer screen for eight hours a day, by the end of the day my eyes are tired, and I'm not so inclined to strain them further by reading small print or researching things on Wikipedia. I need to play Brain Age more. ;-) I just find it unacceptable that I'm swinging away from my intellectual roots. Perhaps the work would have killed my eyes/brain anyway, and it's just a damn good thing that I'm doing SOMETHING positive for myself, namely all this exercise?

At least I caught the decline fairly early. My wonderful boyfriend signed me up for Scientific American Mind for Christmas (though it has yet to show up), so I am looking forward to that. And I'm trying to get more intellectual in the time that I screw off on the intarweb instead of doing useful things at work; Google News and Arts and Letters Daily instead of Myspace, you know. ;-)

One of these days I need to read back over this blog and get a sense of how far I've come since I started it. I find myself pensive over my own soul-growth yet again, and though it's the theme of this whole damn thing I wonder if it's starting to become tedious. But I suppose I've reached one of those points people reach in their lives, where I recognize that I am really not a kid anymore, and glance at the road in front of me and think "whoa, where the hell am I supposed to go now?" I'm in a great place, living with a man I love and plan to marry someday (once I can afford to freakin' propose, anyway, SIGH), with a fairly cushy job, and everything appears to be coming up roses for this little girl. But I can't shake the feeling that there's something more I should be doing, or at least should be planning to do. I have the same nebulous set of goals I have always had, namely, "be happy." Ideas for the future come and go, and here I remain, wondering about a destiny that may never manifest itself.

'Course, I suppose I could just continue the slide. There's a Super Bowl coming up, I hear. *pops beer tab*

Labels: navel-gazing

I've been promising to get these videos up for months. I'd been trying to figure out how to get the video from the DVD to my hard drive, with no success. Then, the following happened (dramatization):

NNTT sits at a table delicately dabbing at her eyes.

nntt: O, woe is me, for I have promised unto my friends and loved ones a performance of most goodness and belly jiggery! Whatever shall I do?
Rumplestiltskin: Guess my name!
nntt: Shut up, no one was talking to you.

RUMPLESTILTSKIN exits left.

nntt: As I was saying, woe and all that.

A GIANT PINK BUBBLE enters right and materializes into CLIFFLE.

Cliffle: You've had the power this whole time! All you need to do is beat your head against the wall three times and you will be magically transported home!
nntt: I live here, honey.
Cliffe: Oh. Okay, just download this program and it'll work.

So, I have downloaded the program Handbrake, which has allowed me to take my shows from the shiny flat donuts and put them here in Cyberspace for you to potentially enjoy. I must admit I am not terribly enthused over either of these performances, because I'm a perfectionist dolt who believes for some reason that I should look like someone who's been doing this for 20 years when I've been doing it for two. Nonetheless, I think you can see real improvement from one to the next. As promised!

Student night performance from October 2006:


And the show from December:

Labels: performances

Yesterday was Cliff's and my anniversary. Technically it was a one-year anniversary, this time, but I hesitate to call it that because our history together plays into our relationship enough that a mere year does not do us justice. And okay, we were kinda together before a year ago, but one year ago yesterday was the day we had the conversation saying "hey! Let's call this what it is, huh?" "Okay." So, happy anniversary to us!

This period together seems like more than a year, and less at the same time. More because we have been together for much longer (total), and because our lives fit together seamlessly -- it's like we've always been together. Less because I still get butterflies when he kisses me, still miss him when he's not around.

A year is certainly not much to many people who have been together for much longer, but for me it's special because of the very history I cited earlier. We'd spent that amount of time together before, in college, but it was often fraught with fights and unhappiness. (And then there was the other unfortunate aspect, the cheating, which I am thankful and proud to say is dead and gone forever. Thank goodness. That sucked.) Despite initial misgivings, we have lived and loved together with flying colors. The fights we've had (and I think there have been maybe three of them) consist of conversations like this:

"I feel frustrated because you've been doing ______________ lately."
"All right, I'll stop."
"Thank you, now let's go get some sushi."

(Of course, this doesn't lead to violent makeup sex, but things is plenty good enough that we don't need that sort of boost anyway!) ;-)


Cliff, I am thankful, humbled, and frankly amazed that you were willing to talk to me again a year and a half ago, that you still loved me (and allowed yourself to love me) after everything we'd been through, and most of all that you were willing to trust me again. It was a gift, and I continue to treasure it. Thank you. I love you so much.

Here's to the rest of our lives, darling.




PS -- notice you can STILL see the damn hickey on my forehead?! Siiiiiiiiiigh ... :-)

Labels: anniversary

When Cliff started singing the "I'm Going to Put a Hickey On Your Forehead" song, perhaps I should not have been so quick to laugh it off.



Of course, when he realized he'd actually put a hickey on my forehead instead of just pretending to and immediately tried to sink through the floor, that almost made it all worth it. Personally, I've been laughing my ass off about it ever since it happened.

It'll certainly be amusing when I attempt to explain this to my coworkers on Monday. ;-)

Labels: forehead hickey