Crepes

Ben, Jeanne and Nick, my trio of AIDS/ LifeCycle 2 friends and I try to get together as often as we could. Usually we would have dinner and drinks at Ti Cous near my house where they serve wonderful French crepes. So tonight was no different.

Ben and Jeanne aren't doing the ride this year- Ben because he is heading off for the Philippines for vacation and Jeanne because she wants to get in better shape for the ride and her schedule and life has been a bit crazed. Ben was Nick's tentmate and Jeanne was my tentmate. Ben, Nick and I were training ride leaders for AIDS/ LifeCycle 2 and Jeanne was a first time rider we met when we did a training ride together. We've formed a rather close friendship between the four of us.

These are the friends that you find when you do events like AIDS/ LifeCycle, ones that are strong and pure. We're all there for each other and just being together has been really great.

It's friends like these that get you through the roughest part of the storms of life.

Born Again

So here's my latest physical challenge- 5 days a week of Bikrham yoga for 8 weeks. Hey, I signed up for an unlimited 3 month deal for just $250 about a month ago after I finished my 10 day $10 trial run so I might as well make the best of it. The funny thing is that I feel a lot more renewed and energized. It's not just doing yoga but other things as well. I know this was a real good move for me. If I end up fulfilling the challenge, I get two weeks free of unlimited yoga. Now how's that?

Yoga has helped me with my cycling and my overall well being. I remembered being rather cheerful when I worked last. I feel really motivated to do things and plow through stuff. I didn't get really stressed out at the last March for Women's Lives MeetUp when there was a lot of stuff going on. I felt a lot stronger on my bike despite the ill fit (that will be seriously corrected tommorrow). I just feel better overall. And I'm really glad for that.

It's almost like a rebirth. I feel so great. Yes at times I do worry about Joe and I have my moments where I want to cave in and eat everything in the fridge. However, moving forward has been rather great. Doesn't mean I don't love the guy but I'm doing things for me.

If You Are What You Eat...

So the challenge for me so far is to eat healthier. Ever since my trainer pal Jim told me that I had about 36% body fat, that really hit me that I had to eat healthier (plus up the weight training and cardio). OK, so pretty much revamp my health habits. These days, I have been pouring over magazines, mostly Shape, Self, and a cadre of low fat, low calorie recipies that I got awhile back and making meals for myself. My favorite days are actually going to the market and picking out the ingredients for whatever I am going to make. After that, I would usually freeze the leftovers for lunch or a quick dinner, etc.

When I do skip meals, I feel cranky. I don't know how people can function without breakfast but I need to eat before I go. If I end up waking up and running around for 2 hours, I lose steam easily. I found that out as I was going to Mass this morning then headed off to Safeway for much needed groceries. Once, I tried eating the frozen food route ala Lean Cuisine for a week. It just seemed so cold and sterile as I ate the meals. With making food, I know that I put a lot of love and effort behind it. Maybe that's why homecooked food is the best.

I'm also not a major drinker. Maybe a glass of white wine or a gin martini once in awhile but no more than two drinks. After that, I would stick to drinking as much water as I can. Usually I don't wake up with a nasty hangover in the morning. Maybe feeling a little gross but once I flush it out of my system and a little green tea, that helps. As for caffine, there's the Diet Coke fix back in the days when I worked in politics but that has passed. I'm doing mostly water and there are days when I do need the Diet Coke to get me by. Sugar is a little harder to kick but I'm doing really good about not gorging on cake and cookies. It is hard but I'm discovering some good low calorie substitutes and maybe I will get the guts to do some low cal desserts too.

I try not to eat fast food- well not the major chains like McDonalds and Burger King and the like. I know they are trying to lighten up and make their menus healthy. However after reading Fast Food Nation, it wasn't the health practices that ired me to stop eating fast food- it was the labor practices and how the health of today's generation of kids is changing for the worse that made me want to not eat fast food in an act of protest. Now there are some fast food chains that I do eat at- In N Out Burgers which is a popular burger chain that started in Southern Cali now in Northern Cali. They have some real best practices in terms of paying their workers a good wage, having quality ingredients and just keeping it local even though many people would want to buy them out and go corporate. Another one is a local chain only in San Bernardino and Riverside County- Bakers. I'm a sucker for strawberry Bakers milkshakes. Just the thought of fast food makes me ill. I feel really sluggish after I eat it. I remembered seeing a t shirt in New York that said, "If We Are What We Eat, Then I'm Fast, Easy and Cheap." with the W in W an inverted McDonalds M. I know most of us don't have time to have a good healthy meal and our only resort is the local fast food joint. However, I guess because I do take good care of my body and I exercise, having that stuff in my system would just make it go out of wack.

Once in awhile, I go to local joint and get some food. Lately, going to the local taqueria or even the Korean BBQ joint down the street hasn't done it for me. I had to get some food tonight during this crunch of activities. Getting my usual Korean BBQ at Young's just didn't do. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it's because I can get better Korean food at Brother's in the Inner Richmond (I have to find which one to go to since there is two of them and one gives you better food and better service- that is something that Joe knows more than I do) or Koroyo in Oakland (another favorite for Korean BBQ and the site of a more recent fight between me and Joe last December). I just found the kimchee really bland and the food just icky. Maybe because I got it during closing time maybe. Who knows.

Finding ingredients to recipies have been the best part. The grocery strike which mostly affected the Southern California grocery workers but UFCW encouraged those in other areas to support their cause in solidarity by not shopping at the striking groceries stores up there gave me a chance to browse and get food at local grocers. I would usually get produce at the Farmer's Market but because my schedule on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays have been really hectic, I usually would duck into small produce marts like Golden Produce in the Castro and my latest place, Church Street Produce in Noe Valley. I also discovered neighborhood butcher shops, one a few blocks down from my therapists' office.

Food is great but it's purpose is to keep you energized and going. I know that during the worst days so far, sometimes I would find myself eating late at night when I can't sleep or when the sadness gets really hard. I have my days when I do struggle with it. I do have my days when the sadness gets so bad, I want a donut or a stack of buttermilk pancakes or some sort of sweet to pick me up. However, I do my best to stick it out. Of course if I really do need my cookie, cake or pie, I would just get it and just savor it nicely.

So Can You Know That He's THE ONE That Fast and That Soon?

Something for me to really ponder. This afternoon at Banana Republic, I ran into a fellow AIDS/ LifeCyclist pal, Robert. Different Robert than the one that recommended me the cool hairstylist. This one was Gutterbunny Robert aka Band-Aid Bunny. While I was helping Robert select a shirt, he and I caught up on some gossip. Lately, he's been doing the bi-coastal relationship thing- his boyfriend is a physician in North Carolina, someone he met shortly after AIDS/ LifeCycle 1 at a medical conference. At the time I knew Robert, he was in a dating funk and didn't really want to go out. So I asked Robert for more details and he said, "He's the one." I prodded for more info, asking how did he know that his boyfriend is THE ONE. He causually said as he was changing shirts after a month.

A co-worker said the same about her husband after she dated him for a few months, he knew he was the one. Now if you know that person is the one, does it strike you like lightning? Does it slap you upside the head? Or is it subtle?

So if anyone knows, can you let me know?

Friends of Ages and Different Spaces

This afternoon as I was on the 22 Fillmore bus heading towards Potero Hill to meet Jeanne for coffee, I thumbed through my latest issue of Self magazine and read an article about women and friendships. It seems that as women get older, they have different set of friends to meet their different needs. For me that is true as I get older. There is no one person that could be all to me as a friend. Sometimes I wonder how all of them will fit in one room and mingle and mix because they are so diverse from different parts of my life and different stages.

Jeanne happens to be one of those friends. I met her on the last training ride I swept last year. She was a rather slow cyclist and I was with her the whole time. We ditched doing 100 miles and ended up slowly doing almost all of the 75 miles from the City to the Cheese Factory in West Marin. She happened to be my tentmate on AIDS/ LifeCycle 2 when my tentmate failed to show up and hers ended up tenting with someone else. She was my confidant, the one who listened when I told her about my heartbreak with Paul as it come to clear focus on AIDS/ LifeCycle 2 when I saw him and his new girlfriend who was riding that year. She was there to make me laugh when I was totally dehydrated on Day 3. She convinced me to stay and ride and hold my head up. She happened to be one of those people you meet on something like AIDS/ LifeCycle and you two are friends for life. Me, Jeanne, Nick (who happened to fix Jeanne's bike that day that I swept) and Ben (Nick's tentmate) happened to bond together into some strong foursome where occasionally we would meet for dinner and coffee and conversation. Jeanne with her Irish and Mormon background, Nick and his Swedish Midwestern stock always going for Asian men (and jokingly telling me that he would turn all Asian men gay with his Homotron 5000), Ben and I, both of us being the diminutive Filipino hyper folks we are with some differences- me American born and raised stock and him, imported from the Philippines in his early 20s.

So Jeanne and I met this afternoon at Chatz Cafe over smoothies and iced mochas. Mostly we caught up on some things but we talked about the time in a woman's life where she has this angst in her 30s, especially if she is unmmaried and childless where I am right now. She along with my cousin Mercel whom I talked to last night, reinforced that things with Joe will get better, to think positive. I mean at least Joe told me that he would even think of giving me another shot of us being friends. At least he didn't say no and both Jeanne and Mercel said that was a plus. Even my chef friend Charles said the same thing.

Mercel is someone I grew up with. Her parents lived next door to Grandma back in San Bernardino. Technically, Mercel is my aunt since her father was Grandma's oldest brother but because she was literally a year younger than I was, we were more like cousins. She recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Alexander Lawrence but affectionally calls him Xander. I call him X-Ter since Xander reminded me of a college classmate. X-Ter is going on 5 months now. He is a bundle of joy according to Mercel. We spent hours catching up and telling her about stuff. I even asked her if I could come down to Monterey and spend a few days there, to give motherhood a test run. I'm not sure if it would dissuade me of having children in the sense that I would chuck it altogether but maybe knowing what I am getting into. Mercel is one of those women who can be motherly but not cheesy. She is someone I love dearly as both a relative and a friend. As soon as things get a little settled, I'm heading down there to try being "mom".

After hanging up the phone last night, I couldn't really sleep. I read an old issue of Oprah Magazine and read an article about the Central Park Jogger, the woman who was beaten up and raped and left for dead as she ran through Central Park late on night in 1989. Miraculously, she survived and went to testify against her attackers. There was a part where someone sent her his finishing medal for the New York City Marathon, saying that he dedicated his race to her. She did the same when she ran the New York City marathon in 1996, sending her medal to someone that inspired her. I ended up taking down my finisher's medal from last year's New York City Marathon. There it was, the orange and white and navy striped ribbon around the bronze medallion of the Verrazano Bridge stamped on one side and my name and time engraved on the other side. I knew that it wasn't just my own doing but Joe's as well. He was the one where when I called him the night before the marathon, he told me that I would do great, where I would finish and be great. Funny thing was that as I was running the marathon route the next day, Power Bar had billboards dotted along the route with the ending phrase, "Be Great." It was almost as Joe was there saying those exact words to me.

I know I am jumping like a frog on speed from one place to another in this journal entry. At most times, I would have so much to write and think about. But it seems like I am feeling better about things. Slowly I am knowing why things are happening the way they are. And in my own personal journal, I have listed things and I know that they can be all mine...if I just believe.

And I'm doing my best to embrace all those and to have the strength to believe.

Pop and Friends

Ma called me on Saturday night to tell me that Pop came home from the hospital. On Wednesday, Pop went over to Home Depot, his favorite store, to pick up some items. As he was picking up some stuff, he felt a pain in his chest and indicated to a sales associate, "I think I'm having a heart attack." He said. He couldn't grasp what he was holding and soon he wasn't able to talk. Luckily he had his cell phone on him and he mananaged to call home before he lost his ability to speak and grasp things. The staff at Home Depot called the paramedics and transported Pop to San Bernardino Community Hospital. The doctors diganosed that Pop had a lapse of oxygen going to the brain. He's fine now but he has to go to physical therapy to gain use of his right hand and speech therapy since his speech is slurred. A few times, I told Ma during the phone conversation that I didn't want to talk to Pop. I think hearing him with the speech slur would just make me feel sad. I'm really close to Pop and having something like this happen to him really does hurt.

I talked to Ma that same night about Joe. Even though I really don't disclose that much to her about details about my relationships, I asked her if there were times when she and Pop got into arguements and disagreements where there was just no way of getting things resolved, where she felt like giving up. Luckily, even in the worst of arguements, they have never wanted to give things up. One heartfelt thing that Ma told me was, "I'm sorry this had to happen to you." after telling about how Joe and I haven't been able to mend things and just fight lately.

Later, I called Cin for support. I honestly haven't been able to reach out to anyone about the things happening with my relationship. I told Cin what was going on and she recommended a book for me that I'm reading by Dr. Phil McGraw, Relationship Rescue. I managed to get a copy of it at Borders yesterday during lunch and have been reading it and writing a lot in my journal. Just writing down what was going on kind of gave me a new energy and a new hope on things. In one of the quizzes, at least the state of mine and Joe's relationship isn't that bad. It is seriously in trouble but not to the state of a high danger of failing.

Alain called today too. He has been busy these past few weekends organizing conferences for work and he just fininished a major conference where he was pretty happy with the results. He's been flirting with some guy from Washington, D.C. actually a former neighbor of mine. I kind of laughed when he told me who it was and it was rather cute that the two of them hooked up. Funny thing is that all along, I thought Ben was older than I was.

Alain and I caught up on life. He's thinking of moving closer to downtown since being in uptown Manhattan has been taking a toll on his social life. He told me that he might be in D.C. for the March for Women's Lives at the end of April since his organization is one of the hundreds of sponsoring organizations supporting the March. He told me about Ben whom I knew from my Washington, D.C. days (we had friends in common as well as being neighbors for a time). I told him about Joe and my latest baby craze. In telling Alain that there are things I wouldn't mind if I was with Joe like moving to the burbs, changing my last name to his and having kids (things that I would never consider until now), Alain commented, "She's all grown." Yeah, I guess I am. Maybe in the sense that these are decision that would make me so squeamish before now I'm willing to accept. A jogger stroller? A baby seat to put on the road bike? A Baby Bjorn to go with the hoodie and cords? Somehow in the mix of law text books, my road bike, my running shoes, a Honda Passport (no minivans nor SUVs please), a yoga mat and my well worn hoodie and baby t-shirts, I think those things would fit just fine in my own life.

Weddings For $1,000 Please

It seems to be the topic of the day- weddings. I just came from getting a haircut at a new place and a new stylist. Jay was someone my friend Robert recommended. Actually Jay is Robert's co-worker at Partners for Hair near Laurel Village, a little enclave between the Richmond District, Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights. Robert was tending to two older ladies- one getting her hair done with the rollers set with the dryer then teased to perfection and sprayed while the other woman was getting highlights in her frosted hair. And there I was with Jay getting my hair cut a little shorter than usual, especially in the front, a change different than what my former stylist Sarah did. Sarah left Glama-Rama in November of last year to get married. So it goes.

Robert brought up that Tyson, a common friend of ours at American Cyclery (he built mine and Robert's road bikes) and his fiancee Courtney are getting married soon. I've known the couple as long as I have been riding. Then Jay and I got into a somewhat lively conversation about weddings and the hassels and changing names. Yet, secretly inside, I was harboring white wedding fantasies and it didn't help that on the walk from the bus stop to the salon that there was a bridal boutique and a store for baby stuff. More high end scaled but I finally got to see a Baby Bjorn up close and personal. A Baby Bjorn is a little pack that you can hold your infant in front of you hands free, the updated and upgraded Snugli. What was viewed to me some months ago as a straight jacket of domesticity is now seen to me as some fashion accessory I must have with matching cute Filipino baby. Now I must really be smoking crack or something.

What really didn't help was getting my friend Darcy's wedding invite in the mail today. She is getting married the second time around to Terry. I met Terry a few times. He's an OK guy. I think he's just TOO needy for my taste (however, that is for Darcy to put up with, not I). The wedding is in mid-April and honestly, I'm not in the mood to go. I told my roommate Patty about it and she asked me if I had anything against Terry. I said, "No but I don't think I could really handle it." The wedding angst. I honestly separated myself from Darcy after Terry moved in with her after finishing his PhD at Boston University. I knew things would change once Terry moved in. She said that Terry might want to join our activities of our once exclusive "girls only" shindigs. Call me selfish or what but I do want to have that space where I can bitch about fashion and makeup and men (not all at the same time and well, this is something that I do indulge in once in awhile). Plus after my breakup a few months ago, I haven't been really too sociable, especially because I'm still trying to figure out certain things around my relationship (or lack of relationship) with Joe.

A few years ago, I would literally move myself out of the trajectory path of a thrown bridal bouquet to avoid catching it, not ready to be married. Now, has that bridal bouquet has its own flight path, avoiding my arms of wanting to catch it?