06.25.08
Skatingstuff
I spent a significant time at the university library this morning while my husband was at the gym. It’s huge. No, it’s enormous! I could walk around for hours! It’s beautiful and it smells nice. I love libraries.
At a recent competition I know that two of the judges (not any form of judges training) was judging way above their level. Meaning they had to judge the quality of elements they had never even heard of, let alone done. They are on Adult 2 (we are talking the Basic Skills program, not testing level) and are judging up to Preliminary. They just recently learnt their bunny hops…. I know this cause I taught them….
One if these girls is also teaching Freestyle 1 as a substitute, and does regularly teach Basic 5 through 8. The girls have been skating less than a year, most of the kids they teach have been doing it longer. I feel sorry for the rink, I really do. They’ve got seriously under-qualified coaches, and the ones that are qualified don’t show up due to being partying college kids. This wouldn’t have happened with me as skating director, but they screwed themselves on that one, didn’t they? Stupid idiots.
Tomorrow I am skating again. Not at the rink I like, but at the rink “belonging” to my husband’s X-girlfriend. Oh joy. Hopefully I won’t run into her, but I suspect I will, would be just my luck. I will so not be able to focus. And I was going to jump tomorrow, just easy singles, and I will look like a total beginner, not the “hey I have landed a couple of triple salchows, thank you very much”-person, which I am. It’s all about appearances in skating, I know, it’s stupid but true. I do not want to look like an idiot, which I will, since I’ll be overdoing it, which is what I do when nervous. Or I’ll fall on my butt doing a crossroll. Oh joy…
06.23.08
Annoyed at hubby
He’s in a real pissy mood today. In fact, I haven’t seen him this pissy since February. He is agitated, short tempered and even more paranoid than usual. He really thinks the whole world is out to get him, and that the whole world is rude, uncivilized and argumentative. I thought he was over it for a while, but then it came back in full force. I hate it when he gets like this, he’s so unreasonable. I think he probably goes into Marine mode again…
It’s the final hand in of the first summer session tomorrow, and he’s stressed and nervous about it, that’s the underlying trigger behind all this. He needs a good grade on this. Really needs it, since he dropped the other class and made enemies with the head of graduate school. Some days…. I don’t know… He’s away at Aikido right now, hopefully he’ll return home in a calmer state of mind. I don’t know what to do. I’ve kept quiet for four days now. I’ve kept everyone else occupied so this wouldn’t happen. Quietly occupied, I should add, so that he could finish his project in peace.
I just wish grad school could be over. Or that he could take some classes he liked. But I know that we have at least two and a half more years of this. I’m so happy I’m not pms-ing or there’d be some major issues. I’m just tired. I need to take a good shower and watch something on TV.
Oh, yeah, my physical therapist electrocuted me again today. It’s always fun. She told me I was stiffer than usual and asked what was up. After hearing “Husband in grad school” she wrinkled her face and said “ouch”. She’d been there.
06.18.08
ICE! ICE! ICE!
Yesterday was my first day back on the ice after almost five months of doing nothing. My first thought; “I’m home. Finally home.” The air was cold, a dry kind of cold and smelled and tasted metallic. I felt like Bambi, taking my first shaky steps back out onto the slippery ice. It was hard to feel my edges and I was sliding all over the place. But after a while, it didn’t matter. I was back in my element, my blood was rushing, my heart was thumping harder and my soul was soaring. I was back and it felt divine.
This morning I felt like I’d been run over by a train. But God, it felt good. There were muscles I hadn’t used for months and they were shocked into existence again. I have blisters the size of Manhattan and my legs feel like jelly. Yes, parts of my body are hating me right now, like parts of my poor back, but I don’t really care. I am finally skating again. We will go up every Tuesday from now on, my husband will do Kung Fu while I skate. It’s not enough to do it once a week, but it’s a start.
I am still aiming for Adult Nationals in May 2009, but it’s going to take some doing. My back need to heal properly and I have to get some of my jumps back, not to mention get flexible again (not that I was very flexible to start with….), and get back into spinning. Thankfully, we are only allowed to do up to double Toeloop in Adult Gold (this does mean that I have to learn double Toeloop, a jump that I’ve always hated), you used to be able to do up to double Loop, but they’ve changed the rules. This year, there were only two girls in my age group at Nationals, and they didn’t do anything TOO hard. The girl who won landed a -2 double Sal and no Axel. Girl No.2 did nothing over single Lutz. Looking over the protocols, it would feel almost like cheating to go into Adult Gold. Maybe I should do Adult Masters Ladies Novice instead, where they do a little more. I’m going to talk to someone at USFSA about it, and hopefully, I don’t have to test (hah, in my dreams…..).
I don’t think Cathy and our little girl enjoyed skating yesterday. Their feet hurt, and they could probably think of a million things they would rather do than skating. But this was my night, and they just had to bear it. The little one had had fun all day at Tae Kwon Doe camp (I so want to spell Kwon with an A, I think it’s an occupational hazard…) and we skipped skating last week so Cathy could get her fabrics. It was my time to do something I liked. The poor things looked pretty miserable skating round and round out there. They probably did an hour though, which is very good. We’ll do it again next Tuesday. Yay!
06.14.08
General wrap-up
I had my appointment yesterday with a blond southern woman who called me honey, sweetie, darlin’ (no g”, of course) and such all through our session. She killed me, quite literally. She kept pushing down on all my pressure points and commented “yes, that must have hurt” every time I screamed. Then she told me “try to stop yelling, people will think I’m hurting you!” NO KIDDING? I was in serious pain leaving and am now too. I had to take some muscle relaxers before going to sleep, or I wouldn’t have slept at all.
To make matters better (ahem….) my dear husband dragged us all out of bed at 8 bloody AM to play tennis with him. Me, our little girl and my poor sister (since she usually sleeps to about 10, I though he overdid it a bit…) weren’t too thrilled about the idea, I was still a zombie due to the muscle relaxers and hadn’t had breakfast yet. Needless to say, I didn’t really play, and my sister didn’t put any real effort into it either. Hubby gave up after maybe half an hour.
My writing is going pretty good. No really. I had this dream, and I am going to use it for the basic outline for a book (future book, hopefully). I also wrote the first rough (read: very very very rough) draft of the first chapter. Though kinda bad, the chapter is very good. Very good. Though it also sucks. I can’t really explain it very well, can I? I guess you could say that the basic underlining thread is very good, while the current wording and most phrases aren’t that spectacular. It’s also way too short. It’ll need to be maybe 6 pages long, right now it’s almost exactly 2. What I also need is a couple more plot lines. Yeah, I know. However this one could be a keeper. It’s still not the fantasy novel I want to write, but I’m sure that one will pop up later in the future.
Now I am going to go beg my sister to gently massage my back, to get the blood flowing through my muscles. I have already done the exercises the lady told me to do, and they hurt like hell.
06.11.08
Introductions
Alright, well, I checked my stats. Turns out, I have about 35-50 people who read my entries regularly. Which is kinda cool, and kinda scary. I mean, I don’t know if it’s the same people who click on it regularly, but it’s probably the case.
I know for a fact that I have two people who reads my blog all the time, my sister and mother. Other than that, I don’t have a clue. So I came up with this idea. I think we should do a round of introductions. Just so I can get to know the people who seem to find my life interesting. Drop me a comment, that’s all I need, a simple comment if you follow me regularly. That way I can know if the clicks are random or if I have 35-50 stalkers *I’m kidding people…. but not about the comment part*
So go ahead people! Drop me a line telling me about yourself, I’ll start the introductions: Hi, I’m C, a 20something Swede living in the US with my hubby. I read, write more and I’m a recovering skater and am the author of this blog! Now it’s your turn!
06.07.08
Saturday and sick
I am increasingly and thoroughly tired of being sick. First I was just injured and had to take meds. Now I have a bloody fever and a severe cold. How I acquired a cold in 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I have no bloody idea (actually, it was probably the swimming that did it….)
You know what I did last night? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing in the sense that I didn’t even sleep, only sniffled and blew my nose. I didn’t sleep all night but spent it instead lying on the bathroom carpet, trying not to bother anyone with any noise. I was in there from approximately 1:45 AM to about 7:50 AM. Do you know how BORING that is? My brain wouldn’t let my body sleep since I couldn’t breathe through my nose, which would probably have resulted in suffocation (smart brain…), but anyway!…. I am congested. My head feels huge and hurts like hell. My nose is sore from blowing it constantly for the past couple of days. My throat is starting to feel scratchy. I have a fever. I am constantly sneezing. Oh and did I tell you my head hurts like hell? I am in a oh-shoot-me stage right now. Hubby has gone out to get me some more medicine, since the first one he got me doesn’t seem to be working.
Stepdaughter just came out and talked about the nice shower she had and about the blue soap he used that was really funny. We don’t have blue soap. I enquired about it, afraid that she had used my very strong medicated-shampoo (dandruff….) which would not have been nice to rub all over her body, it would probably have caused rashes. The kid went to get me the thing she used and came out holding her dad’s shaving cream, which she had taken off the counter where it stood next to his razor, claiming she thought it was soap. She’s not five years old, nor is she in any way stupid, but sometimes I wonder if she doesn’t do stupid things just to get attention and see my reaction. We have three different kinds of soap, all of them standing around the bathtub. What on earth gave her the idea to take something off the counter that is clearly not soap, I do not know. I am not very patient after not having slept for over 36 hours, and feeling like crap for every single hour of them, so I got mad. Sue me.
But hey, at least I am not feeling my ribs as much, I am to busy remembering to breathe through my mouth, so that I won’t die! We will probably cancel the trip for tomorrow. We were going to go to the historical district, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Friday
Yeah yeah, I know it’s Saturday, but I wrote this yesterday at the gym, so I am going to post it. Saturday’s post will follow.
I spent the early part of the day in the bathroom hurling. I knew it was going to be a bad day after getting nauseous after only one bite of my bagel. But I put that one down and then only had some vegetable juice and I banana, hoping I would be fine. Yeah, right.
After the visit with the physical therapist on Wednesday I’ve been feeling like utter crap, and in a lot of pain. I was only there for half an hour, but she spent that time sort of trying to gently rearrange the muscles, ligaments and tissue in my back. My body hasn’t really liked her since. I’ve been forced to go back onto Soma (muscle-relaxers), Motrin (for the pain) and an anti-inflammatory. Just give a guess how much I’ve been eating lately… Exactly.
But I was being stubborn and said I could deal with it all and go to the gym, which we did, despite my husband’s objections. it was going to be my sister’s first visit to the gym here (she’s not really a gym person in the first place), and I didn’t want to spoil it for her. Needless to say, I lasted 10 minutes on the Eliptical and I am now sitting, watching them, drinking a Sierra Mist to calm the nausea and my stomach.
I feel terrible, stupid, angry and useless. I know it’s because all the medication I’m on but it really… Okay, Cathy is looking like she needs to get off so I am going to go rescue her from the machine and my fitness-crazy husband. She did about 35 minutes on that thing. Good girl.
06.02.08
The way guys think
I was trying to write this short story that has been brewing in my head for a few years (like 5…) and it was going great. Bernard (yes, I know, his parents were mean……) was coming out just the way I wanted him to, and I was really inspired. I had to go take a bathroom break and then I, on a whim, went over to my husband and asked if a guy would use the word “adorable” to describe a girl. He said no and started giving me all these ways a guy would describe a girl. None of them fitted the way I wanted Bernie to talk in his mental voice. It just didn’t fit. Bernie didn’t fit. After telling my husband that Bernie was about 16 years old, the vocabulary got even more limited. Nothing was going my way. I wanted Bernie to be sensitive and apparently, you can’t find very many 16 year olds using the words “adorable” or “gorgeous” to describe the girl he loves (or has the hots for, as my DEAR husband would put it). He just wouldn’t.
My husband pretty much told me that guys think the way they talk, which was rather discouraging. The descriptive adjectives they use are not that great, especially in 16 year old boys, unless they are gay, which Bernie is most definitely not. I would love someone to comment and tell me that my husband is delusional (which wouldn’t really come as a surprise really…) and that some 16 year old guys are in fact very sensitive and uses a vast vocabulary to mentally describe their feelings for the girl they love. However, I doubt it.
I have put Bernard and his story aside again. Maybe in five more years I’ll be able to pick him up again and deal with the words like hot, cool, nice ass and sweet to make a great literary piece about a young man’s first and everlasting love. Right now, I kinda lost the passion for the story.
So girls, if you think that inside your man lives a sweet and sensitive poet, 9 out of 10 of you will be very disappointed. I realised that I had majorly overestimated my husband.
