life

So this is what confidence feels like.

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 13:57 on 15 February 2005

Last Saturday, SFUC had a make-up day. Various teams that weren't able to play during the normal schedule because of rainouts were able to make up the missed games. My team had three makeup games on Saturday morning. Fortunately, Kris' team also had three makeup games and the two of us were able to carpool up to the City.

One of the reasons I've been playing SFUC all these years (I've been playing for I think four years now, might be three) is to become less intimidated by players I don't know. Growing up a non-athlete, I've been known to psych myself out before games even start. Ooooo, look at how well that woman throws! Wow, check out how fast she runs! Look, she carries herself like an athlete, she must be good! It's very easy to assume the other player is better, and give up right there.

Since I've been working out with G at ASA, I've become an athlete (I can say that now. I'm not a geek/nerd/brainiac pretending to be an athlete. I'm an athlete. And the recognition of such is a Good Thing™). And since I've been reading the Mental Game of Baseball, my mental game has also become much stronger. An even better thing.

Because of the workouts G has designed for Kris and I, my quickness has increased. I suspect my top speed as also increased. My core is stronger. I weigh more (also a good thing, actually). And, surprisingly, my endurance has increased. This one surprised me a bit, actually, because many of the exercises are explosive ones, giving more quickness, but at the expense of all day endurance.

But I digress.

I started Saturday morning off playing as hard as I could. My team's record was 2-6 going into the morning, having lost 2 of those games by 2 points, 3 of those games by 1 point. One point. Which means they could have gone either way. I figured, if I played hard and we lost by one point, then there is nothing more I could do. But if I played hard, maybe that would be enough for a win. I think other team members thought the same, because we left the day with 3 wins. Whoo!

The first point I played on Saturday set the tone for the day for me. I marked up against their top woman, but was open on every cut. The second game was against the only team to beat the top team in the league with an 8-1 record. I kept up with their top woman in all her cuts, I caught up whenever I was poaching and had to scramble back to mark up. I was terribly surprised when I was back 3+ yards when my woman went deep, yet still caught up to her after 30 yards.

I threw no turn overs that I recall (though I did have an turn over assist when a teammate dropped a catch that hit him in the wrist), but had two brilliant turn-and-fire throws to brilliant continue cuts by Liz and Nate. Knowing I could go in when I wanted to go in, and stay out when I needed to, and have the confidence to keep up with my players was so wonderful. There was no intimidation. There was no oh-my-god-this-woman-must-be-good. There were no head-cases.

Just run, catch, fake, pivot, throw, repeat. And that feeling made all the 3+ hour workouts worth every minute.

I think George Cooke may have had it right when he told me, "I think this will be your year."

Pulling Up My Pants

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 22:55 on 10 February 2005

Everyone has embarrassing moments. Those moments in time when you desperately want to be some place (any place!) else. Oh, god, they are the worst place to be when they're happening. But, damn, they make great stories weeks, months, years later.

The trick with those moments is to make it through them. Just make it through. Humour helps, if you can manage it.

The other trick is to remember them without the overwhelming emotions associated with the embarrassment. It's easy to let feelings of guilt, anger, helplessness overwhelm the situation.

Talking about the situation will certainly help afterward.

So, here's one:

When I was 3 years old (yes, I have a memory that old, several actually), my family was helping the Brickleys move into the house 3 doors down from our house. What can you give a 3 year old to carry into a house? A bag of something or other.

As I walked up to the house, my pants started falling down. My pants were falling down! So, when I arrived at the front door, my arms full carrying the bag of whatever, I asked Gayle Brickley (the family's mom, the adult! the big person!) to pull up my pants.

Yep. "Please pull up my pants."

Her reply?

"What? What did you just say?"

I was completely mortified. I mumbled nevermind, scampered around the door, and hurried into the kitchen, where I deposited the bag, and pulled up my pants. I'm sure I didn't say "Would you please pull up my pants?" for, as a 3 year old, I'm also sure I didn't have that command of the English language.

Three years old and so embarrassed that the adult was asking what did I just say? The tone she used clearly implied that I had asked something terribly shameful. Oh, so embarrassed!

I carried that memory and feeling of complete shame around with me for another 25 years. Every time I thought about that moment, the feelings of shame and embarrassment overwhelmed me. I couldn't tell anyone about that incident. Too shameful!

Eventually, I did tell Kris about that incident. And what happened? Poof! All the feelings of embarrassment and shame disappeared. How could such a small incident of so long ago have such power over me? Because I let it. Because I let an embarrassing moment be more than it really was. And telling Kris helped me see it for what it was.

Which was nothing.

But a little humour might have helped.

Bad Performance Review

Blog Posted by kitt at 01:03 on 10 February 2005

I received a bad performance review today. I'll admit it to being a bit of a shock, though in retrospect, not surprising.

In the past two weeks, I've had food poisoning (-2 days), a migraine (-1 day), traveled to Virginia for my father-in-law's open-heart surgery recovery (-4 days), and to Pasadena to deal with a condo flooding (-2 days). I desparately want to say, "Look! I'm not making shit up! I'm not making up excuses!" but the end result is that I'm behind in a project and it's affecting not only one client/customer/project, but also other projects.

And I don't like it one bit.

I'm going full tilt (20 minutes work, 5 minutes pause, 14+ hours today) to get this stuff done, but I don't feel like I'm getting any closer to the end. The more I do the more I see I have left to do. Geez, does it ever end?

Ta-da!

I have officially posted my most boring, I'm whining post ever. This is why blogs suck. It's someone whining about a life that is actually pretty damn fucking good, with just a hint of stress in it.

The good thing about today? I didn't cry. I realized that, well, you know, crying isn't going to help a darn thing. When I'm done, I'm still going to have all this work to do.

Nothing to be done about it? Then don't worry about it.

Crouching Agnostic, Hidden Christian

Blog Posted by kitt at 16:30 on 3 February 2005

So, the problem I have with most "devout" Christians (aside from the obvious hypocrisy of the religion and the practice of said religion) is that they refuse to listen to reason, logic or common sense when confronted with thoughts, events or other beliefs that conflict with their "faith." It's almost like becoming religious means you stop thinking for yourself.

Some scientific studies show there are distinct biological differences in the chemistry and makeup of the brains between devout religious persons and the rest of us (heh: I almost wrote, "between devout religious persons and normal people."). Perhaps those differences account for the desire to let someone else think for them, to follow blindly without a critical thought? Of course, the issue could be a brain disorder instead.

I know very few intelligent, well educated people who are also devout religious people. Note I said "few": I do know some. They exist. Though I'm not sure how they balance faith with critical thinking. Maybe early indocrination into the religious cult, er, organization?

Regardless, here's my thought about it: how about starting a blog or website that's nominally Christian based, but with pushes of critical thinking in it? It could have lots of Bible quotes, but a history of how the books of the Bible were selected, and how people should read the other "forgotten" books. And maybe some pointers about you shouldn't dump your money into some televangelist, because even Jesus tipped the bankers' tables over in the church (though it was probably a synagogue at that point). Oh, and how about the obvious-to-anyone-who-isn't-a-devout-Christian observation that being a Christian means respecting other people (even if you don't like their opinions). Oh, and that God gives us all free will. That means each of us chooses our actions and you, Mr. Bible-Thumper, may not choose mine for me.

Eh, we'll see. I could do it free at Blogger (and get some free links/search access to it!). If I do decide to create the site, I'm sure anyone who knows my writing style will recognize the site immediately as mine. Maybe when they do, they'll keep mum about the originator.

Do You Look Back if No One is There?

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 07:25 on 31 January 2005

I took Kris to the airport this morning.

We received a call from his sister yesterday that his father was having chest pains in church. He went into open-heart surgery 2 hours ago. Kris is flying back home today, and should be there when his father wakes up tonight.

I think I've managed to see Kris for 8 days this month. I think that's a new low water mark for us. I miss him.

When I dropped him off at the airport, I went around to park the car as he was checking in. Wade Hellner gave Kris his Southwest Rapid Rewards ticket, so he could fly out on a moments notice (thank you again, Wade!). Wade booked the ticket last night, which meant Kris couldn't check in online. So, I dropped him off, went to park the car, and then went inside to get that last 10 minutes with him before he spent the day travelling back east.

I think when we split at the "Ticketed passengers only beyond this point" spot, he assumed I left. I hadn't. I waited until he was through the line, turned the corner and walked to his gate. I managed to squeeze in an extra 4 minutes there. Even if he was 10+ yards away.

He didn't turn around to wave, though. Didn't know I was still there.

I miss you, Kris. Be safe. Love and prayers to your dad.

Worst. Weekend. EVAR.

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 15:20 on 30 January 2005

This had to be the worst weekend ever. And I mean ever. Kinda gross, too, so if you don't like reading about dry heaves and not-so-dry heaves, how about skipping to last Friday's entry?

Having just returned from Los Angeles and dealing somewhat with my condo and visiting (thankfully at Suzanne's request) Wook and Jon Hartzberg, I fed the dogs, ate some leftovers, and settled down to watch some tivo'd shows.

Around 11 pm, I started having that achy, sore, guess-what-you've-got-the-flu feeling. By 12:30, I was in the bathroom delivering the previously mentioned leftovers to the sewer system. With surprising ease, actually. I haven't vomited in a long time, maybe 10 years? But I don't ever remember being able to do the fake heave and have it trigger a real one.

Let it be known that I eat a lot of apples. When I'm at home, I have probably two a day. And with those apples, I eat a lot of peanut butter. Vitamin E, magnesium (important for day two of this exciting weekend), protein, what's not to love about peanut butter?

Tasting it coming back up.

The dry heaves started around 2:30, when the chicken leftovers wanted to come up, but couldn't quite make it back out of my intestines. Thankfully, they relented and came up. My intestinal tract was completely clear. At some point, when lying on the bathroom floor looking up, I thought about taking a picture of the bathroom from that particular vantage point. It would have made a nice addition to this post, but I couldn't get up to find the camera.

Ah well, at least I could go to sleep now that my stomach was empty.

But I didn't sleep well. I woke up at 3:16, 4:21, 5:38, 6:24, 7:37, 8:29, 9:30, 10:14 (you see where this is going right?), keeping the trend up until around 2:30 pm when I actually felt like getting out of bed.

As much as I wanted to do something with the day (strip wall paper, convert postnuke sites to drupal sites, finish an online rostering system, learn flash, read Reality Dysfunction), it wasn't going to happen. Instead, I watched all the tivo'd shows we had, and all the Alias DVDs we have that I hadn't watched yet. In told, 12 hours in a vegetative state, unable to do much other than wiggle my fingers to fast forward through the commercials.

The good thing of being unable to sleep on Friday night, was that I slept really, really well on Saturday night.

And woke up to a migraine at 10 am.

Up. Feed the dogs. Down a 800 mg ibuprofin. Back to bed to sleep off the blindness.

No such luck. I woke up at noon more blind than when I went back to bed. And really, really hungry. This time, I took a couple magnesium and B6 capsules (as a magnesium deficiency has been shown to be a contributor to migraines), had some juice, ate some toast and vegged for a couple hours hoping the pounding in my head would subside somewhat.

Fortunately, my eyes cleared up within the half hour (yay, Mg!). Unfortunately, Bella spent the whole freaking day with her whine, whine, whine, CHIRP! whine barking. I hate that whining. But the barking! Damned dog, stop the barking! Just shut up!

And Kris isn't expected home for another 5 hours. He's been gone since Friday afternoon on a ski trip. Did I mention that Jessica's breast cancer spread and she's on chemo? Or how about Kris' dad is heading in for triple bypass surgery? Yeah, found those out on Friday, too.

This has to be the worst weekend ever.