back to “normal”

the shots and pills appear to have worked. my sinuses feel as normal as they usually do (which is still probably not quite normal), and my sleep patterns have gotten back to as “normal” as they usually are.
i went back to the doctor on monday morning for the results of my blood test(s). no mono, nothing abnormal except the expected elevated cholesterol levels (overall a bit high, bad cholesterol too high, good cholesterol too low). the doctor was able to utilize his years of experience in studying and understanding the human body to deduce this: i’m overweight and should exercise. i was shocked. shocked, i tell you! however, unlike my ex-wife’s year-old analysis of the root cause of my body weight, he didn’t come to the conclusion i am overweight due to “self-loathing”. he seemed to think it might be because i eat too much of too many rich/fatty foods, don’t exercise, and lead a sedentary lifestyle. what a quack, huh? seriously though, my ex has proven she does struggle with issues directly tying her body in harmful and unhealthy ways to her self-perception, -value, and -worth. unfortunately, i don’t think she can be fair or rational about me regarding this issue. maybe others too, but pretty definitely not me. that may be the way her horse and cart works, but she’s got the cart in front of the horse for me. i don’t manipulate my weight to match the way i feel about myself (either in a rational and healthy way, or an irrational and harmful way). although i would like to weigh less, the “short cuts” are rife with problems (and many of them rather scary), and the legit ways to do it don’t seem as enticing or enjoyable as being able to eat the things i like and not having to devote chunks of time to being bored exercising, even though the end result would be nice, good for me, and help my opinion of how others perceive me. of course, shaving more often, paying to get my hair did, and wearing nicer clothes might do that too. perhaps my cost-benefit analysis is out of whack, but i know i’m not alone in the world. i doubt most people smoke because they hate themselves either…but maybe i’m the crazy one.
completely off-topic: for the last week or two, i keep hearing some bird outside of my house. sometimes when it sings, it sounds just like that bit of the song “peanut butter jelly time” where it goes “where he at, where he at” “there he go, there he go”. (i.e., the tones the bird sings are the same.) then i get the stupid song stuck in my head. thanks, bird.
this past friday evening was the geek gathering. i had to go straight from work, so i didn’t really get to do some stuff for the gathering i’d planned to. but i did drop by the house and pick up kojo’s books and the toothbrush i brought back from taiwan for jamie (it was a hotel disposable toothbrush and toothpaste set, and the toothpaste was called “j. me”). i need to step outside my normal bounds of waiting for people to come talk to me. there are sometimes people i’d like to meet and maybe get to know, but i rarely take it upon myself to make it happen.
saturday i was woken about 9am by brad calling to see if i wanted to go riding. brad and i met up with four other guys and we rode around the tomball area for a couple of hours. then a couple split and the four of us left rode to washington-on-the-brazos. afterward i hung out at brad’s and talked for an hour or two, then we rode around some more and eventually ended up at antidote for some coffee. from there i met the potts at a five guys burgers (which i’d never eaten at, but is good) and then went to their house and hung out until late.
i was planning on buying some new sha sha shoes (different color, same style — i wanted the black flames on white shoes), but once i started trying to buy them i figured out they must not be making them anymore because they were hard to find and i couldn’t find my size. ain’t that how it always is…i search around forever disappointed with my choices until i find something cool, then it’s not available or not in my size or whatever. even my second and third choices were not working out. so i gave up on the sha-sha’s.
i’ll use that as a segue to talk about my recent emotional struggling. you see, this last week was significant for a couple of reasons: [1] friday was the hrc’s birthday, and [2] the same week was a two-year marker of sorts. so those things just gave me extra reason to think about the loss of her in my life, and the current lack of anything new. when my mind is positive (which isn’t that often:) i like to imagine she bailed on me by quietly slipping away because she knew she didn’t have the ability to be the woman she felt i deserve. i mean, after all the things she told me and said about me and such, just ceasing to care about even interacting with me at all seems rather incongruent. but as samuel jackson (as jules…a bit of a coincidence) says in pulp fiction: “and i’d like that. but that sh!t ain’t the truth.” i don’t know the truth obviously, but i imagine it’s not really any reason that’s good to/for me. whatever. the problem for me is i’m not one to cut and run and move on. i’m slow to commit / get into things, but once i do it runs deep. i can’t just move on. i have a hard time giving up, accepting loss, and forgetting about it. (see: the time invested in me trying to deal with and get over tamara and my marriage.) still, i guess it’s probably for the best. it’d just have been nice if something good could have come out of it. (other than the time itself.) i think, like jennifer before her, i was really good to julia. (it’d be nice if i could find someone to actually legitimately appreciate that, and me.) still, as much as there were so many things i really loved about the hrc, she probably would have consumed and destroyed me. (that doesn’t change the fact such a thing is kind of my ideal relationship i guess…watch true romance to better understand.)
back to the shoes…i thought about buying some new vans old skool shoes, but as usual i can’t find color combos i like that much. you can make custom ones on their website, but the end price is about $85. i’m still trying to decide if i can make myself believe having canvas shoes custom-designed (the color choices) by me is worth that. i do think the ones i made look pretty cool though. we’ll see. in the meantime, i did manage to find some shoes that compete with the sha-sha’s so i ordered them. as well as three retro-50’s / lounge / rockabilly / greaser button-down shirts. then i ordered a new pair of doc marten’s. then i ordered a new pair of motorcycle boots, as i haven’t had any motorcycle boots in some time. i’ll provide more info about all of these once they come in.
a couple of days ago when i was looking for vans i went by soundwaves to see what they had in-store. nothing exciting. but i did pick up a couple of cds:

• the beat farmers – van go (curb)
• johnny cash – american vi: ain’t no grave (american)

today i am going into work late, so this morning i called the shop edelbrock had gotten in touch with for me. they told me i could bring the car today for them to look at, so i drove up there this morning. they’re near beltway 8 and 249, pretty far north-northwest. i got there, they came out, i turned on the car, all 3 of them said “yup, it’s the lifters”, i turned it off, i gave them my info, then i made the drive back home. he’s going to call edelbrock and then get them an estimate, so he’ll hopefully be calling me back pretty soon so i can drop the car off to get the work done.