catheroominations

I am not patient. I am an emotional fidget and feel a general unease when I am expecting something. I don’t wait well. If I am told I’ll have an answer/thing/test result by a specific date, and that date passes, I get very…very…well…impatient. I become agitated even before the specific date comes. It’s the waiting. It drives me crazy.

The mail at our house usually arrives by noon. If I’m home on a weekend, and I hear the mailman I will wait until I hear him slam the mailbox doors, and immediately go see what has arrived for me. Even if I am not expecting something specific. There might be a random check in there from someone or something, you know? My husband doesn’t usually bring in the mail. I remember walking with him to the mailbox before we lived together and he had days’ worth in the box. But for me, it’s the First Thing I Do when I get home. I gotta see it! Now!

I regularly order my lunch online from this place, so that when I arrive, it is ready and waiting for me on the pick-up shelf, with my name on the bag. Why order ahead when you have to wait in line once you get there to pick it up? And God forbid having to talk to a person to make the order. I don’t have time for idle chit chat. More waiting for my food! Gah!

I am a busy person. OK. Sometimes not really terribly busy, but I still hate waiting.

Here are four things I am currently waiting for (erm…I mean four things for which I am currently waiting”):

1. My car. I want my baby back, and now would be a good time to return it to me. Cuz remember when you said I’d have it by the 26th? That was last week, Mister. And you had an extra day last month to finish the work, and I still don’t have it. Please hurry. Kthanksbye.
2. An email from JPG Magazine either congratulating me for my outstanding photo or rejecting my sucky-ass photo I submitted for the upcoming issue. In one case, I shall jump around the house and clap and laugh and dance in circles and think I am the Most Awesomest Person Ever in the Whole Wide World. Should the email begin with “We at JPG Magazine regret to inform you…” I will pout and stomp my feet, think my every photo I ever took was a steaming pile of crap, and vow never to take another photo again. Until…ooh, look! Kitties!
3. Confirmation that I am one of the 20,000 registered runners to Run Like a Girl. This even has become so popular, they had to set up registration as a lottery system this year and the chosen few thousand runners will be notified on April 1. It’s completely moronic that I am waiting for this right now because I cannot even register for the lottery drawing until tomorrow. But come ON! Can’t we move this process along? (tapping toes madly)
4. About 35 pounds to disappear from my body. This is taking forever. Possibly because I have not made any changes to my eating habits to facilitate such. (I have no trouble waiting when it comes to starting a diet. Isn’t that funny?) But really, is it that bad that I can’t order my daily sandwich without throwing in the fresh-from-the-oven, big-as-my-face chocolate chip cookie for dessert? I mean, in the grand scheme of things? I only eat ONE per day. It’s not like I scarf 20 of them or anything. Gawd. What do you want from me???

So, where do you put yourself on the patience/impatience spectrum? Are you sitting by me bouncing your knee and biting your nails in nerve-wracking angst? Or are you way over there at the other end (Hello over there!) with the Zen folks, doing meditative breathing and reciting passages from the Book of Buddha?

Because if I have to have a white, dimpled ball in my throat, it had better be a high-end one. Since Monday afternoon, I have been feeling like I am trying to swallow a golf ball every time I…well, swallow. Monday night and Tuesday, I had a fever and was so achy I could barely get up off the couch. Today the fever and aches are gone, but there still seems to be a golf ball trying to make its way down my esophagus. This is not fun because I like to eat and it’s hard to eat when each bite has to battle for space in my throat. The damn golf ball will NOT go down already.

It’s not the kind of sore throat that makes my voice sound hotter, like Demi Moore in her Jackie Templeton days, either. There’s a bit of a dry cough with it, and other than the golf ball sitting back there annoying me, I feel ok. My glands aren’t even swollen.

Because it hurts to eat, I must choose my food wisely. It needs to be worth the pain to eat it. I find that chocolate chip cookies work well. Ok, they hurt a little when I swallow, but they’re so good I don’t care. But even better are Firecrackers. I also think a milkshake would be nice. But Daniel Day Lewis took it.

Now that I think about it, mashed potatoes. Those would be ok, I think. Tiramisu would work. Oh, and crème brûlée. (Are those the correct accents? I pasted it in from Google.)

Definitely out are Brussels sprouts (much too golf ball-like, besides tasting like ass) and anything like vegetables, which offer nutritional value.

I think I need some macaroni and cheese.

And maybe some Maker’s Mark. That’ll erode that @#$%ing golf ball, if I drink enough of it.

Tonight is a big night for Stacy and me. We are taking our passion, our hobby, and putting it out there for all to see. We are decorating her newly painted condo walls with our photographs and have invited our friends to come ogle, swoon, and love what we consider our best work. At least I hope that’s what they’ll do. I don’t take criticism well. Then again, I don’t take compliments well. On my wedding day, people told me I was beautiful. Well, of course I was. I was wearing a dress more expensive than anything I will ever wear again, and had a makeup artist and hair stylist to make me look my best. Every bride is beautiful on their wedding day, so duh. I looked beautiful. Whatevs.

But on a regular day, when I hear, “Your hair looks nice” or “That’s a pretty sweater,” my instant reaction is “Really? You think so?” even if I have left the house thinking “My hair is friggin’ gorgeous today and this is the cutest sweater known to man.” Because even if I think I look good, or my photos are good, I rarely believe other people when they feel the same. Sometimes in fact, I’ll deflect a compliment with a negative reaction. “You think I have a small waist? That’s only because my huge ass makes it look so.” Healthy, right?

As excited as I am to strut my stuff tonight, I kind of want to throw up a little bit. Because who am I to invite people over to look at my photos? I’m not Annie Leibovitz or Ansel Adams or…why do I not know the name of any famous photographers…someone else. Why would anyone want to see my photos? Am I not the equivalent of an overzealous first-time mom, showing off snapshots of her newborn? I feel a bit like Kirsten Wiig and Seth Rogan playing twins on Saturday Night Live, performing their musical talents, thereby interrupting their parents while they entertain guests. Or like when my sister and I would put Donny and Marie records on the record player and lip-sync in front of the grandparents. We thought we were superstars. But they were humoring us.

In choosing the photos for this exhibition, I knew of a few I wanted to include. For others, I looked at my Flickr stats to see what the viewing public liked most. That seems lame, given my propensity to ignore positive comments, but if I based it solely on what I liked, and my choices were not met with similar reactions, well then, not only would my photo be shitty, but apparently I’d also have no taste.

I honestly don’t know what it will take for me to believe that any photo I have ever taken (aside from this one) is fantastic. I hope tonight that someone sees one they like. Maybe it reminds them of something nice. Or they like the colors, or the composition, or the subject matter. Maybe I’ll hear that I’m merely good at picking out frames, or signing my name in a straight line on the mat board. Knowing my friends though, they will admire my work because it is mine and they are my friends. Friends want friends to be successful and happy. And friends are generally proud of their friends.

I need to remind myself that my first photo exhibition is in comfortable surroundings with familiar faces. I should not feel threatened, but confident. Tonight I will not walk behind two people discussing one of my shots and hear, “what the hell is up with that one?” But just in case I do, I will get Jürgen to whack them upside the head with his tail and lick them into submission.

Tonight’s baring of my soul coincides with the upcoming launch of my photography site. I like the idea of being someone else with my photography because a few of my inhibitions fall by the wayside. Because of this, I felt the need to use a name different from what people usually call me because I think Cat sounds more arty and edgy. Stay tuned to see what she/I come(s) up with.

And now I’m going to go throw up.

The body shop called me today and told me that my car is “very repairable.” Squee!! I don’t have to buy a new car and take on car payments, and deal with that whole new car smell and drive something brand spanking new and shiny like a MINI Cooper. Thank goodness I don’t have to do that and can continue tooling around in my nice little Accord coupie doopie.

I have decided to refer to my car as bionic when I get it back. Problem is, my car is clearly female, but I don’t want to call it Jaime Somers. For one thing, I have a friend who has a friend with that name and that would be weird if we were going somewhere and I was all, “Hey, I can drive Jaime Somers,” and my friend who has the friend named Jaime Somers would be all, “WHAT?! How?!” To avoid confusion, I could name it after Jaime’s male counterpart Steve Austin, but my car is a GIRL. (I guess. I don’t know how you tell.) So, I’ll just refer to it as a bionic car. When it is rebuilt it will be able to throw SUVs across lanes of traffic, and leap over them should they get in its way. Oh, and it would be able to see obstacles miles and miles ahead. Because that is what bionics can do for you.

I have to admit that I am now a more timid driver. It takes me days to back out of a parking spot in my Hertz-owned Chevrolet Cobalt, partly because I’m not as comfortable in that car, but also because, Oh please don’t anyone get in my way, or I might hit you! And I look over my shoulder like 10 times before changing lanes. No one there? Yeah? I can go? How about now? Can I go still? All clear? Yeah? OK! Here I go…but is my lane still open? Aaaahhnnd…go!

I was feeling some serious guilt about my accident, and have been anthropomorphizing my car. I keep thinking, Here’s this perfectly nice car that never gave me a bit of trouble, and what do I do? I smash it into a big-ass SUV, just like that. Some thank you. If it turned out to be totaled, I would have been very sad to lose it. I even patted the dashboard and apologized to it after the tow truck dropped it off at the shop, consoling it as if I was kissing a loved one goodbye before they went into the OR. I might need to see a professional about this. Maybe the Honda dealership offers couple’s counseling?

But dude, my car is going to be bionic! Better than he it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Look what I did on the way to work:

I’m fine, aside from a few aches and pains in my neck and back. My car, as you can see, is not fine, and I will not have it for about 3 weeks.

Until today I’d never caused an accident. I looked down for a minute, while I was in stop and go traffic, and traffic came to a STOP while I was still in GO mode. Unlike most days, I was not drinking hot coffee at the time. I was also not talking on the phone, putting on makeup, eating, texting, or adjusting the radio. I was looking at the dashboard. Or something. I don’t even know what caught my attention and took it from the road, but when I saw how close the monstrous SUV was, I slammed on the brakes and watched my hood crinkle up toward me. And then I said fuck. Which was probably louder than the crash.

The girl I hit was very nice and had the cutest red patent leather Mary Janes I have ever seen. I wanted to tell her that…”So, I’m not going to apologize for hitting you because that’s the last thing I’m supposed to do, but I will say that your shoes are adorable. Please don’t sue me or anything, K?” Seriously though, there were just a few scrapes on her bumper. Thank goodness.

We did all our official business, filed a police report, got a tow to the body shop, and now my car is waiting for a full tear-down to see if it can be fixed. If it can’t be fixed, I’m getting an SUV, dammit.

I’m going to Disneyland to run another half marathon!

If I had to sum up yesterday’s Kaiser Half Marathon Typhoon Kaiser in San Francisco in one word it would be awesome. Or cold. Or rainy. Oh, and windy. Hard, duh. And painful. Or far. And exhausting. Yet exhilarating. And exciting. Also emotional. And incredible. Any of those would be the right answer.

Most of this won’t be interesting to anyone, but I feel the need to document it, for me. I apologize for rambling on and on about me, but here I go anyway.

keep reading Catheroo, you just ran your first half marathon. Whaddya gonna do now?

I did it!

I’ll post more detail later. Right now, I can’t think straight enough to type.