Quote of the Day

"Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly. "

-James Rippe, M.D.

At the Top of My Lungs

Realizing that instead of hauling over the great divide (Lake Washington) to get my exercise at Green Lake, I can get in my three miles on a daily basis by just jaunting over to the Downtown Bellevue Park where 1 loop equals 1/2 mile. For the mathematically challenged that means that I have to do 6 laps. Staying focused and disciplined enough to force myself around that park 6 whole times takes a lot more stamina than I expected. Walking on that dusty trail again and again is just plain BORING! There are only about 5 other people going around and around, so you get to see them over and over - definitely not meeting up with the tens of interesting people that you encounter ONCE when you walk around Green Lake ONCE to get in that three miles.

I was so bored that I became totally absorbed by the music playing on my discman - the CD I am listening to everywhere - Rufus Wainwright's Want One. I adore the CD truly, madly, deeply, but usually the songs are a pleasant background to the people I am watching as I walk around Green Lake. At the Bellevue Park, the music is the main stage. I actually found myself doing the air guitar to my favorite part of "Go or Go Ahead" and had to clench my jaw together to prevent myself singing along to the crescendo with all the fervor it arouses.

I wonder how people (the five there were) would have reacted to the SINGING, AIR GUITAR PLAYING, jogger in the hot pink shorts. Would they have smiled at my exuberant abandon, called the state hospital, or ignored me, pegging me as just another crazy?

Quote of the Day

"Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be."

-W. H. Auden, A Certain World

Quote of the Day

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

-George Elliot

Quote of the Day

"An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind."

-Buddha

Quote of the Day

"The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post."

-George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Quote of the Day

No one but you can make you happy.

SunMaid Raisins box

Quote of the Day

"Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone."

-Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950

The Emptiness Beside Me

Ending my marriage meant that I was creating an empty spot in my bed for the first time in four years. At first going to bed was wonderful - I slept in the middle with my legs spread far and wide, I slept on the left and I slept on the right. It was my bed and I could sleep where I wanted and all of the pillows were mine - no more risk of them being stolen and drooled upon. I could sleep confident that any drool that happened upon my pillows is mine and only mine, which is, in itself, a pretty nice feeling.

But over the past few months my enjoyment of bedtime freedom has faded, and I have parked myself on the left side of the bed and resumed sleeping in the fetal position. I have taken to using only two of the four pillows on my bed - the remaining pillows fluffed, propped and ready for someone to make them his own. In the morning, and sometimes during the night, I wake up, turn over and look at the unrumpled covers and emptiness beside me and feel an emptiness inside me. It isn't of course that side of the bed that bothers me but the absence it represents. Gone are the sounds of breathing, the warmth, the security, the companionship created when another human shares your sleeping space. In their place longing tugs at my heart and fills the room.

There is just something about going to bed alone every night - in a completely empty apartment on those nights when my daughter is with X- that just reeks of loneliness. Waking up every morning without a friendly face beside yours, no warm body to cuddle close to, just you and you only is harder than I supposed it would be to grow accustomed to.

I used to feel lonely while I was married to X. And now I am lonely though with Mr. Slick.

What is this hole that I can't seem to fill?

Quote of the Day

"Fear less, hope more;
Whine less, breathe more;
Talk less, say more;
Hate less, love more;
And all good things are yours."

Swedish Proverb