Olive Juice

When I look back at that post a few weeks ago about how bad things were going to be at work, I just LAUGH.  I was worried about not knowing how to use the new systems!  I hadn't been trained enough, I feared!  OH NO!  Well, the sad reality is that many things with the new systems that went live mid-October are still not even working completely.  Lack of training has certainly taken a back seat in my giant mental bus of things to worry about.  Our department has been moved into the call center now, which is being taken apart piece by piece and moved to the new call center area, which is around half the size.  People keep coming back from the new area with wide eyes, saying, Well, it sure is going to be... tight.  Whatever.  We'll all deal with it.


Despite waking up with a slightly sore mouth most mornings, my teeth/jaw seem to be basically okay now.  At least, okay enough to wait until next month to go back to the dentist for more x-rays and to have a night guard made.  Ibuprofen and a heated pillow on my jaw for a few minutes before bed helps a lot.  I don't think I was being super paranoid to worry about the intense shooting nerve pain in my back tooth being from a cracked filling or a cracked tooth, but it inexplicably seems to have gone away now.  I will just assume I have regenerating tooth enamel or something.


This past Tuesday was the 10th anniversary of my first date with Greg, and we are planning to go out tonight to celebrate.  We considered a fancy restaurant, but decided instead to go to Rossi's, a casual Italian restaurant that we used to go to pretty frequently when we were first dating.  Since we moved it's farther away, so we don't go very often any more.  Rossi's is a family owned restaurant that's been in Orlando for decades, and it's filled with oil paintings done by the owner's mother.  They'll put green olives on pizza, and it's surprisingly hard to find a restaurant that does that.  Rossi's is like an old comfortable friend.


Sometimes I read something about the craft of writing that really changes the way I think of writing, and this wonderful post did that:  Sean Ferrell - Pathetic Email.  Here's a short exempt that does not do justice to the full amazing insight:  "... anyone who tries to hollow out a part of themselves so that they can give a home to people who don't exist in a physical sense but exist in a very hard and uncomfortable emotional sense. It's not easy giving them a home, a safe place to be themselves, and it will often destroy us in the process. I think it's supposed to. After completing a book you won't be the person you were before trying to write it, not if you've done it right. There's real fear in that... You're supposed to be scared."   Go read the whole thing, and possibly you'll be as inspired as I was.  One person left the comment: "This is the best post in the history of ever". 


FYI:  My blog entry title is from the idea that mouthing "olive juice" looks to someone lip-reading like "I love you".

Thursday, December 6, 2001

Ten years ago today...

I was looking forward to going on a date with this guy.  I knew him because we were in the same circle of friends, and the week before we'd ended up spending a while talking at a friend's birthday party, and we'd kind of hit it off.  I came home and IMed a friend, asking if he was still dating this scary chick I'd heard about, she said:  No, he's not.  Hmmm, I thought. Then the guy and I saw each other online and had our own IM conversation, which led to a phone coversation, which led to him asking me out on a date.  He was cute, and smart, and funny.  He was also 8 years younger than me:  I was 35, he was 27.

My two cats and I lived in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor.  Running slightly late, I got out of the shower and, still naked, started to comb out and blow dry my hair in the steamy bathroom.

I thought I heard a noise.  I turned off the hair dryer and listened:  silence.  I looked at the clock, it wasn't even 6:30, and he was supposed to pick me up at 7.  I turned the hair dryer back on and bent over at the waist, blow-drying my long hair upside down to maximize volume.

I thought I heard a noise again.  I turned the hair dryer back off, and listened. This time I clearly heard a knock on my door.

Oh my god, don't tell me this guy is more than a half hour early!  Who does that?  I already don't like him.  I ran out of the steamy bathroom and frantically tried to pull on jeans and a shirt.  My jeans didn't want to go on, because my skin was all steamy from the shower.  Ugh, ugh.

I ran to the door, and there's no one there.  Good grief, I thought, it must not have been him after all.   I slammed the door, went back to the bathroom and turned my hairdryer back on.

Again, I thought I heard a noise.  I stomped to the front door and flung it open.  There he stood, looking at me with my hair all wild from being upside down, and my shirt on askew.

"You're early!"  I barked at him.

"Oh, sorry," he said, smiling at me.  "I'll go wait in my car."

I rolled my eyes.  "No, you can sit here on the couch and make friends with my cats.  But I'm not going to be ready until 7!"

"Okay."  He sat.  The cats eyed him warily.

Twenty-five minutes later I emerged from the bedroom, this time with actual underwear on beneath my clothes, and found him with one cat on his lap and the other lying next to him on the couch.  Who can stay mad at a guy who makes friends with your cats?

We went to the Orlando Museum of Art for their Third Thursday event and had a great time walking around talking about art.  Then we went downtown and had pizza at a little cafe, and walked around Lake Eola.  I was surprised by how comfortable I felt with him; I am uncomfortable around everybody, so this was unprecedented.  We walked and talked, and I forgot that he was 8 years younger than I.  He made me laugh, and better still he laughed at all my weird sarcastic jokes.  I noticed how blue his eyes were.

Then he drove me back to my apartment, and still enjoying the warm Florida December evening, we decided to walk around my giant apartment complex.  We walked around the three big ponds and the two pools, under the sidewalk lights, and talked more, and held hands.

It was one of those nights described in romantic books that you think are not real until you have one of those nights yourself.  We wanted to find out everything about each other, and we couldn't listen fast enough.  I told him about my childhood in Virginia and being shy and making art, he told me about his childhood in Florida and his time in the military and making music.  We sat on my couch and drank Coke and petted cats and told each other about all our previous relationships and jobs and hopes and fears.

And then we noticed the sun was coming up.  Even after being together for more than 10 hours, I hated to see him go.  He gave me a little kiss at the door and left.

In retrospect, I think we both fell in love at least a little that night, even though it was nearly three weeks before we'd actually say the words to each other.  Today, 10 years later, I love him so much.

Even though, as it turns out, he is ALWAYS early.

Up With Ruts

As I get older and get to know myself a little better, I am beginning to understand one thing about myself:  I  don't like change.

I would really like to be the kind of person who thrives on new experiences, finding new ways of doing things and being adventurous.  But no, I am a stick in the mud old fuddy duddy who really enjoys a nice, comfortable, boring rut.

Things are busy, lately.  Both Greg and I have had some kind of stomach problem that has lasted for around a month and a half.  Not bad enough to call in sick to work, but bad enough to be no fun at all, and it just won't go away.  Greg has had it worse, and he went to the doctor last week.  Hopefully test results will show that it's something very quick and easy to get rid of.  We are, as the saying goes, sick and tired of being sick and tired.

All of those changes that I mentioned earlier are starting to happen at work.  The first of several major changes happened last week, and it's been stressful for everyone.  The second and third major changes will happen at the exact same time mid-October, and we are all extra busy trying to prepare.  The fourth major change, our company moving to a whole different building or our department moving to a different area of our current building, is still hanging over our heads like a cloud of doom.  We don't even know when we'll know.

On Wednesday I'll drive up to Georgia to spend some time with Mom, and on Friday we'll go out to lunch to celebrate her 90th birthday.  Saturday I'll have breakfast with her and then drive home, and will hopefully be home in time to have a nice dinner with Greg to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary.  We took two vacation days to celebrate, so Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will be all about having fun and relaxing.

One good thing is that I'm now old enough to recognize those things about myself that I might have been reluctant to acknowledge during my thoughtless youth.  I can at least plan ahead and make it a point to take care of myself.

Things Rattling Around Inside My Head (Ow, They're Pointy)

• I use three main computer programs at my job every day.  All day, every day.  All three of them are being replaced within the next two months.  The only thing not being changed is that we will still use Microsoft Windows, so emails will still be Outlook, etc.  But that's probably 10% of my day, most of what I do is using specialized, fairly complicated software that has taken years to fully learn and get used to.   But now it's aaaall changing.  I know I am smart enough to learn the new programs (at least eventually) but I kind of hate new stuff just in general, and having all three change completely and at the same time is going to be stressful for all of us.

• The lease is up soon at the office building where my company is located, and apparently there is at least a very solid chance that we will either move, or the company will try to downsize the area that we are renting and we will be reorganized within the same building.  Either way, things will change, and it's certainly possible that my department's isolation in a back room will end.  Anyone who knows me at all know that I am a BIG FAN of being isolated...  

• At home we have an iMac, and we were delighted when the new OS was released last week.  It was only $29!  That's surprisingly inexpensive.  We immediately downloaded it and were horrified to see that our very old version of Photoshop no longer works.  We have CCS2 and it's so old it's not compatible with the new OS.  Oh, this is a huge bummer.  It'll cost $199 to upgrade to the newest version, CCS5.  If we don't upgrade now, the new version of Photoshop (CCS6) will be released (there's no official date yet but it could literally be any day now) and it'll be so far ahead of our poor old CCS2 that we won't even be able to upgrade it, we'd have to purchase the whole full program for $699.  We both love Photoshop, I had been trying to get back into digital fine art and Greg uses it all the time to make the graphics for his site.  This is sickening, we would have been happy with the old one forever.  I guess we will have to pay $199, which will make it even that much longer before we can afford to buy the laptop we've been saving for.

• I had planned to go visit Mom next month, but my brother and sister want to have a birthday party for her;  Mom will be 90 on September 30th.  That's great, and I am excited for her to have a nice gathering, but that means I'll have to wait another month and a half before I can see her.  My wedding anniversary is the very next day, October 1st, so my plan now is to drive up to GA on Wednesday the 27th, spend three nights in the retirement home guest room visiting with Mom, then have breakfast with her on Saturday morning October 1st and drive home that day.  Greg and I took two vacation days on Monday October 3rd and Tuesday the 4th, so we'll have a little three day weekend together to celebrate our anniversary.

• I have to admit, I am slightly anxious to get my blood test results back.  What will they show?  Is my cholesterol too high, do I have the beginnings of arthritis, do I have a thyroid problem?  Gads.  I am trying not to worry about it, because it could be all good news.  I should hear on Thursday.  I mean, the giant bloody purple bruise in the crook of my elbow has almost entirely gone away, so that should mean the results are ready, right?  

The History of the existence: An Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my blog!

Here is my very first blog post, on December 9, 2005:  MY HUSBAND ALMOST DIED TODAY!!.  How's that for a catchy title?  Spoiler:  He didn't, really.

Even though I have imported this entry here onto Blogger, it was originally written on MySpace.  Remember MySpace?  One of the things I liked about it (compared to Facebook) was the option to write and share a blog.  I had seen several friends write occasional blog entries and on that particular day, since something exciting had happened, I decided to do one myself.  It was quick and easy, and unlike setting up an actual blog, you didn't feel any kind of obligation to keep up with it.  A lot of friends posted one single entry and then stopped, a lot posted just two or three times to communicate specific things going on.  MySpace was the casual hookup of the blog world.

Back then I wrote blog entries once or twice a month with personal updates; writing about looking for a house to buy, or turning 40.  Then I started write entries just to be silly or funny.  Then I started sharing my photos.  A lot of my friends would leave me witty and sweet comments, which unfortunately are mostly lost now that people have jumped ship on MySpace.

I started this Blogger blog in early 2007 and imported all my MySpace entries (some of which the formatting went slightly wonky).  My title on MySpace was The Story of e, which I quite liked, but it wasn't available here so I settled for existence of ellen.  For a while I was posting blog entries both here and on MySpace, but as time went on, fewer and fewer people used MySpace, so at some point I bailed on MySpace too and just posted here.

So.  Five freakin' years!  I am simulaneously impressed and appalled with myself.  In the past half decade, blogs have gone from being a fairly unique way to keep a public journal to being practially obligatory.  Corporations use blogs as marketing tools, news organizations use blogs as legitimate sources, blogs are trendy and fashionable.  

Well, MINE is not trendy or fashionable.  A lot of the people who read my blog on MySpace did not make the leap to Blogger with me, and though I do have a few loyal readers, some of whom never leave comments *waves at Jacki* and some of whom leave comments that are sometimes better than my actual blog entry *waves at Angella*, I don't have a whole lot.  I feel like I started on a whim and just kept going, with no real focus.

Five years is a long time, and it makes me think.  Why did I start writing a blog, really?  I missed writing, and I wasn't writing anything.  Writing this blog made me remember how much I love to write, and I think was instrumental in leading me back to a life of writing.  Why do I keep writing it now that I have begun writing fiction?  I do like keeping a web journal, and I do like the friends I've made in the bloggy world, and I do like writing things other than my novel (especially right now, as I am revising and not really writing). 

However, I think I've fallen into a bad habit of only writing about what's easy, and not really being true to myself.  I have been, sometimes unconsciously, afraid to be honest.  I don't want to make anyone feel bad, or piss anyone off, or lose any of the small amount of readers that I do have.

Well, fuck that.  I am almost 45 years old, time is a-wastin', so my new attitude about this blog is NO FEAR.

The Marigold Project: End of Phase One

I will not burden you with yet another visual of my dirt-filled planter, but the latest update is that the teensy little green thing that may or may not have been a weed has disappeared.  I have definitely given Mr. Marigold plenty of time to show up, but he has apparently missed the bus; new arrangements must be made.

One day soon I'll go to the store and buy a few baby marigold plants, and I'll post some actual pretty photos of flowers.

I wonder if now is a bad time to plant marigolds in Florida?  The weather here is gorgeous, 80 degrees during the day and 65 at night.  I guess I'll give it a shot and see how Mr. Marigold Jr does.

Also, Greg and I took a few vacation days last week in celebration of our 7th wedding anniversary on October 1.  One day we spent at Islands of Adventure in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, so stay tuned for an upcoming blog entry with lots of gushing and lots of photos!

Anniversary Gifts

I have a new toy! My husband got me an iPod Touch for our 6th wedding anniversary. It's the coolest thing ever, and it's my new best friend. I'm still looking through apps and figuring out how to use it, but it's seriously an amazing piece of technology.

He gave it to me early, two weeks before our anniversary, either because he was rewarding me for finally going to the dentist after 2 years and attempting to conquer my severe dentophobia, or because he was overexcited (who isn't after a trip to the Apple store?) and couldn't wait.

But this left me with a dilemma: We had previously decided not to get each other gifts, we had planned just to go out for a nice dinner. But an iPod Touch is an amazing and expensive present, so clearly I had to get him something. Plus, this is the most expensive anniversary present he's ever given me, so I am torn between wanting to spend at least that much on him, and wanting to not spend anything at all because he spent so much on me.

I had the next day off, so I sat down at the computer and tried to think. (Why yes, I do think better and more effectively when I am looking at pictures of kittens on CuteOverload.com, so there.) My friend Jacki said that giving an experience of some kind is always a fun gift, and so I thought of concerts. I pulled up Ticketmaster, and who was right there on the main page? The Killers! One of Greg's favorite bands. I look up whether or not they'll be in Orlando, and they are. On our actual anniversary date! WIN.

After an hour of trying to figure out how to buy tickets without using the debit card (so he won't see it on our bank website) and a few misspent moments searching Craigslist to see if anyone is selling their tickets, it finally occurs to me that I can just go to the actual box office, buy the tickets with cash, and avoid Ticketmaster charges. Unfortunately, the concert is at the new arena at the University of Central Florida; a place that I have only been a few times, and every single time I have gotten lost in its incomprehensible and seemingly random streets. Oh, boy.

I called to get directions, with very little hope that that would actually be helpful. I've never been to the arena, but I know it is part of a whole new area of the UCF campus. Trying to psych myself up with thoughts of how I am an ADULT and should be able to handle something as minor as driving to a box office to purchase tickets, I head off with the Black Eyed Peas on the car stereo and the AC on full blast. I can DO it, I can DO it.

Well, I did it, but holy crapmuffins. It was a morass of one-way streets that without warning would suddenly end up in faculty parking lots, huge parking structures that all seemed to be for student use only, and a frightening combination of cars driving really really fast and pedestrians walking really really slow (while texting). After circling the "block" (block = jumbled area of streets) in defeat several times, trying hopelessly to read the signs on the streets and the buildings while still paying a little bit of attention to actually driving, I lucked into a spot on the street. Yay! Parallel parking was easy breezy.

I got two tickets in the fourth row of the first balcony, which seems pretty good (I hope, I've never been to this venue). At $35 per ticket, I am spending way less than he spent, but still getting an awesome gift.

Getting back home was way easier, although admittedly I am pretty familiar with where my house is.

I spent the drive home imagining how best to surprise him. I could insist on eating dinner at the Chinese restaurant that's right across the street from UCF, we haven't been there in forever. Then I could slip the tickets into his napkin when he wasn't looking. What's this? Why, it's concert tickets! For my favorite band! And it's tonight!!

Or I could make it a kidnapping-style surprise, not even telling him where we were going. Maybe we could make it all the way to the arena, and he'd know when he saw "Killers concert tonight" up in lights. Or would there be signs, directing parking, that said "Killers", that would give it away? Well, maybe I could blindfold him.

Honestly, I am not sure he would go for that.

As much as I like surprises, I also love looking forward to things, so I ended up giving him the tickets when he came home from work. Okay, I was overexcited and couldn't wait! He seemed pretty thrilled with his present, and now he has a couple of weeks to listen to the Killers for hours every day in anticipation.