There are not two, but three, certainties in life: Death, Taxes, and the UNC-Duke rivalry, the latter currently being my current obsession. You see, I work with a Dookie – a very nice, Dookie, mind you, but a Dookie nevertheless. And while the rivalry is good natured, I just couldn’t allow my orthopedic surgeon to give me a DOOK Blue Cast.

GO HEELS!

For many of us in the Blogosphere (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence and used that terminology, but alas, I did) Comment Spam is a huge issue. The brilliant Jay Allen and his work on MT Blacklist is just one of many methods to stop this annoyance. As for me, I installed a plug-in that blocks comments from Open Proxies, but I’m thinking it’s also blocking real, desired comments as well as the annoying comment spam ones, leaving me comment-free. But I don’t know – since I’ve switched to MT, my site traffic has gone way down (Google hasn’t fully indexed me yet) and perhaps y’all just don’t have anything to say. It’s definitely possible.

So in an effort to figure this out, will you be so kind to try and leave a comment? If it works, awesome. Yay. Hurrah. If it doesn’t, drop me an email and let me know.

Thanks in advance…I’ll try and not be so needy in the future.

These Southerners…bless their hearts. They hear about a risk of snow or ice, and – God Bless ’em – the city SHUTS DOWN. I mean, what’s a bit of precipitation?

I stand corrected. We’re now recovering from what the news stations were calling “Winter Watch 2005”, complete with ominous music and all-day long live updates from exciting places like Cumming, Georgia. (Can’t wait to see the webstats on that term. And I’m not talking about “Georgia.”) After a going-away party on Friday night where free beer soon got this “all I ate the whole day was a Pop-Tart” gal into Aubrey Drunk Dial Mode&#174, I stayed at my (female) friend’s house, only to awake to a city under seige…by ice.

Her car was coated with a 1/2″ glaze of ice. Power was out all over town, a result of ice-coated downed power lines. Taxis weren’t running; nor was MARTA. I was stuck.

This didn’t come as a surprise; the city was as prepared as it was going to be. Only problem – whereas Cleveland has a fleet of snow removal vehicles, I believe the city has two. There are salt trucks (who conserve the precious mineral by the inclusion of gravel) doing their best to adequately prepare the roads for travel. And yet travel stopped.

Won’t bore you with the sordid details, but I ended up getting home, had a Cleveland-bound visitor en route from Orlando arrive safely (and get to experience the rarity of actually walking to bars(!!) and, minus one little icy spill by my friend Todd, we survived relatively unscathed.

If only my furnace did.

In a Murphy’s Law-esque cruel sense of irony, the five-year old furnace decided to take a respite from working. Despite the fire we’ve had going for the past two days, the temperature INSIDE the house is currently a balmy 46 degrees Fahrenheit. I slept in a stocking cap, glove (note the singular since they don’t make gloves for big bulky dislocated-thumb casts), socks and many more layers than I even wore skiing. Even the cats are cold; Sebastian hasn’t surfaced from under the covers save for one quick trip to eat. (Actually, neither have I…)Anyway, the furnace man is expected within the next two hours, but in the meantime, I’m here, Chillin’.

Literally.

It’s only just begun, and already we’re becoming inundated with messages everywhere.
TV.
Radio.
Even the World Wide InterWeb o’ Goodness.
Everywhere we go, everything we see or hear is revolving around one thing: Valentine’s Day.

Yes, I know, writing about it only proliferates this day, this Hallmark-acclaimed “holiday” where couples everywhere seemingly get all mushy, perfect strangers fall in love, and everyone, everywhere, is engaging in perfect, abundant lovemaking. (Not sex, of course – only luuurrrvvvv.)

Or at least according to the media.

They assert, via one electronic medium or the other, that all women swoon over candy, jewelry, and – the most prevalent – flowers. That this simple token of affection (if you count $80 for 12 roses ‘simple’) will make even the coldest heart melt, sending the one you love (or lust, or perhaps just want to see naked) straight into your arms. Is it worth it? Does this overdone tactic really work?

I wouldn’t know…with the exception of my Secret Admirer flowers last year, I’ve never been the recipient of an overpriced Valentine’s bouquet by a suitor. Birthday? Yes. Flowers from Pops? Yep, that too. One year I even received a drawing of flowers by a beau (made with office supplies of a neon yellow highlighter-filled daisy…at the time I thought it was charming) – but as a wooing effort from a wooer – nilch.

Not that it would have done any good – it’s a defacto standard for women in this generation to ‘pooh pooh’ the idea of flowers on Valentine’s Day…we’d “rather have them any other time of the year, why spend twice as much?” We’d of course prefer something sentimental, something personalized, something unique to us, and our relationship. While, of course, those latter gifts are fantastic and always appreciated, I’m not convinced that we (as a collective group of woo-able 20-somethings) would rather have those instead of flowers.

Because sometimes, reason be damned, us girls are just girls and as cliched as it is, a Valentine’s Day present by any other name…is not a rose.

I promised myself I’d say what I wanted to, speak my mind. An unstated resolution for the coming year(s), I was tired of finding myself unsure as to where I stood or even what happened. “Closure”, that 21st century catchphrase, was what I felt I deserved.

And yet, with my determination set and my mind resolute, I wondered just WHY I had to set my determination, just WHY I had to resolve my mind. Why this didn’t come natural to me was a question – and why am I not alone in this matter? Why are girls so afraid to ask for what they want, to ask the very questions to the people that could provide them with the answers instead of continually lamenting to our friends that we still don’t understad? Why are we so afraid to rock the boat?

It took me months, and in some cases, years, to gather up the courage to intentionally turn the conversation into the realm of the uncomfortable. In my mind, it was so easy to know that I deserved an explanation, deserved better than I got, but saying those words was hard, a lot harder than even I had counted on. And, ironically, it really didn’t matter – asking the question wasn’t going to change anything, the situation was permanent. Still, I nearly hesitated, but didn’t, gathering up an internal courage that I shouldn’t have needed to finally stand up for myself. And I asked it.

It’s funny – people who know me wouldn’t ever think I’m one to hold back, one to contemplate asking for what I want. I mean, I’m quick with the wish list, been known to drop hints (sometimes more subtly than others) about flowers or lingerie (sorry, the Nordstrom catalog just arrived)that I’d love for the big upcoming V-day, and, well, in other such *personal* matters I’m not exactly the silent type. But when it comes to asking what went wrong, what happened, why you broke my heart, well…sometimes the anticipated answer makes me clam up.

Apparently, when love is involved, mum’s the word.

I studied genetics, and within this science the evolutionary benefit of the opposable thumb is often emphasized. And yet, as the evolved beings in reference, we take it for granted. That is, until we lose the use of this brilliant appendage.

I had a little ‘skiing snafu’, if by ‘snafu’ I mean ‘huge, big, snowballing crash in an ungraceful way of dangerous disastrousness.’ Because really, that’s what happened. The aftermath included a lost ski or two, some misplaced poles, and a brief assessment to try and figure out just what was hurt. The later self-diagnosis included a sore bum and a thumb that was pointing the wrong way. That is, until I put it back in place.

Some call me ‘accident-prone.’ I prefer ‘bravely injury un-averse.’ Regardless, this was a non-drinking-related, pretty messy spill that has resulted in a new fondness for Vicodin and a nearly-immobile right hand. Yes, that was my RIGHT hand, and yes, I’m RIGHT-HANDED. Which poses a problem.

I had planned to write about all the trials and tribulations of being one-handed, but found this article instead, and really, my hand hurts. Just know that I’m in the same boat as this lad, and am really, really desolate that I’m not in Sydney like I planned. Sucks, right?

*Sigh* So read away, think healing thoughts to my black & green thumb and potentially injured tendons & ligaments, and leave me a comment (they work again – yay!) And repeat my mantra: at least there’s the Vicodin.

I’m not used to the cold, at least not in the last ten years. Which is good, since I’ve left the now-cold Atlanta for the temperate West Coast and summer-like Sydney. I’ve brought a few jackets, but don’t plan on wearing them.

A bit of sunshine, some warm temps, those are the Prozacs of the winter. A surprisingly warm day can change your entire mood, make the day full of possibilities instead of the requisite, “is it really Sunday so tomorrow is Monday and I have to go to work” days. Instead, we head outside, to run or to train for the 10k that we’re running on March 13th or just to get a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder-preventing Vitamin D. Unexpected warmth…that’s the making of a good day.

As it is with relationships. We’re creatures of habit, of expectations. While expectations are needed (and lowering them is not an option, at least not to this girl), the very act of expecting causes things to go awry. It’s as if God is laughing at us, trying to dictate our life or expect what will happen next. Silly us, we should know better.

Leaving for three weeks throws a wrench in these plans…we don’t want to expect anything to happen, especially when in the midst of a semi-newish relationship, because that will surely send the universe and providence into a tailspin, wreaking havoc on what we do want to happen. And yet the lack of expectations seems somewhat pathetic, as if we’re eager to accept less than what we deserve. Inherent in a trans-continental (and trans-intercontinental) romance comes challenges…keeping in touch, keeping that spark, takes effort. I don’t have any expectations, or at least am trying not to.

So how do I learn how to except the aftermath of my non-expectations?

More to come…

My karate instructor talks about muscle memory. She urges us to pivot when we do a jab or a high punch, over-exaggerating our movements because she says that as we advance, our muscle memory kicks in and it becomes second nature to do the move correctly with the appropriate form.

I over pivot. I trust my muscle memory.

Apparently, my brain also has muscle memory, since it is loathe to break habits and patterns. Patterns including our actions and reactions around certain someones from days gone by, certain someones who – for a reason I can’t yet explain or even justify – still mean something to us when logically, they shouldn’t.

And it’s not that we forget what they did; we’re not forgetful, we’re forgiving. People always want to look back and remember the good times when what we really should be remembering is that he wooed us, dated us, dropped us, then re-wooed, re-(quasi)-dated, and dropped us all over again. I mean, if it happened once, shame on him…since it happened twice, shame on us. And three times? Even I, in the depths of despair and depression when I think that perhaps it’s “meant to be” after all (whatever that means) know better. I just need to REMEMBER that I know better – that’s the struggle.

I need a forgetful muscle memory.