dianaschnuth

I’ve been putting off chronicling the events of Friday the 19th in my personal, offline journal. I need to do it, though, even if just for historical purposes (rather than cathartic and psychological ones). I hate it when I go searching for a major life event in my old journals — say, my first period, or when Mom and Tom separated, or something like that — and all I get is a big gap between dates and an entry that starts, “It’s been a while since I’ve written. X thing happened, and now I’m in an entirely new setting, and I’m totally done freaking the fuck out.”

I want to have the option of going back and remembering that hectic and tragic day, and how we tried in vain to take our minds off things later that weekend.

Along the same vein… Aaron and I spent some time thinking about this second chance we now have to do something wild and/or expensive before having kids. Before doing any number-crunching, we thought about visiting Japan, or the UK, or attending DragonCon over Labor Day weekend, or even just taking a cruise or doing the all-inclusive resort thing. When we sat down in front of Travelocity and priced plane tickets, though, we realized that we may just be waaaay out of our league. Plunking down over three grand on a Japan trip would take us in the opposite direction we want to go with our credit card debt.

As much as I want to do something fun and slightly financially irresponsible before we have kids, I know we should really be focusing on saving money and paying down our debts instead. But, damn, when else are we going to be able to drop everything and go on a kick-ass international vacation? Ah, well. We’ve had big ideas that fell through before, and I’m sure we’ll have them again. As for this one, we’ll see where it goes, if anywhere. We might just end up… hell, I don’t know *where* we’ll end up.

Speaking of second chances, I’ve started rewatching my PUSH workout DVDs from disc #2. The first workout on disc #2 successfully kicked my butt this evening. I am highly embarrassed by this, considering that I got seven discs total during my subscription, and made it through four before I started to slack. The thing is, though, that I was forbidden from exercising while I was pregnant, and I really missed it. That last week, I wasn’t even allowed to take my daily walks, and ended up chilling out on a quiet couch during my lunch hours instead. (Not that it helped, of course.)

Now, I have the opportunity to take a few months to tone myself and get myself back into halfway-decent shape, lose another ten pounds, firm up my abs, and do all that physical training that I found myself wishing I’d done before I conceived. It’s like a do-over of sorts.

All right. Enough. I’ll see if I can’t manage to blog about something else in the near future. I’ll at least get back into weekly diet and exercise updates for ya. As always, though, I can’t promise that I won’t randomly sink into a bout of depression. That’s par for the course where I’m concerned. 🙂

I’m the kind of person who, as a general rule, doesn’t have very many enemies. There aren’t very many people who all-out hate my guts, and when I come across a person like that, I don’t really know how to react. I’d like to think that my lack of enemies is a reflection on my lack of judgement on other people. Or, possibly, my non-confrontational and slightly wishy-washy nature. Either way, I’ll take it.

When I do find myself passing judgement on someone, it bothers me on some level. I’m having that experience now.

There’s someone on whom I have frequent occasion to eavesdrop — not on purpose, I swear — but with whom I don’t generally interact. I’ve heard about this person’s personal, domestic troubles, and they’ve come straight from this person’s mouth, even though this person — all right, “he” — even though he wasn’t talking to me directly. I’ve heard about how his wife has treated him, and how he has treated his wife in turn.

Honestly, without going into any sort of detail, I don’t understand either of them. I don’t approve of what she did to him and to their relationship, but I also don’t agree with how he responded. And, honestly, I’m really trying not to pass judgement on the both of them, but it’s very difficult. I’ve never been in quite that situation, so I have no right to say what I think is a valid and reasonable reaction, and what I think is “wrong.”

I keep trying to validate my inner reaction, telling myself that it’s perfectly fine to form opinions about a situation, assuming that I don’t let it color my opinion of him as a person. Thing is, I’m really starting to think of him as an asshole, just from his retellings and reactions to what’s going on in his life. I mean, damn, he’s having a shitty time of it, especially around the holidays and all, but…

It bothers me that I’m spending so much of my own time thinking about someone else’s business. It also bothers me that, somehow, sometime in the future, either a complete stranger or maybe even the person I’m talking about will find this, and comment about what a shallow bitch I am.

I’m not good with making enemies.

An hour-long phone call with a friend is immeasurably more meaningful than any IM session or e-mail volley ever could be.

Although, now that I think about it, I miss my old-school handset with the comfy earpiece from the 1990s. The cordless doesn’t have that same kind of long-term ear comfort. Oh, for the days when all I had to worry about was a sweaty earpiece (and ear). Now I have to think about pressing hard enough to hear the other person, but not hard enough to permanently disfigure the cartilage of my outer ear.

I was reading my daily blogroll today when I came upon Dan’s entry about relationships; specifically, the expectations one has upon entering a relationship. Is this my new best friend? Is this a potential mate? Is this a short-term fuck-buddy? And I felt the need to expound on some of his questions and comments…

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Time was when my Mom and I would go visit my Aunt Sammie, cousin Michael and Memaw every Sunday after church. We didn’t always enjoy or appreciate the visits, but it just seemed like the thing you do on Sundays: go to visit family, eat the lunch they’ve prepared for you, listen to them complain or just talk, then politely excuse yourself to go home and get out of your Sunday clothes.

Thirteen years later, Mom lives with my step-Gary in Texas, Sammie and Michael live in Carolina, and Memaw’s three years gone now. And I don’t even go to church anymore.

Even though I’m all connected with the world and with my faraway friends via the magic of the internet, I feel isolated from my family. I don’t understand how we were once so interdependent and loving and familiar, and now we’re so far apart, both geographically and emotionally. I just don’t get it.