Goodbyes

You know what really sucks? Losing another grandparent in the span of six months and having to say goodbye to your 90 year-old grandmother because she's "ready to go". She's been in the hospital since Monday and isn't eating or drinking and the doctors have called in Hospice. It's also heartbreaking to speak with your bawling father on the phone while he watches his mother slip away.

I remember climbing onto her plump lap as a little girl and using her massive boobs as pillows and inhaling her distinct "Mimi" smell of Avon Skin So Soft and peppermint oil. Where she use to be twice my size, she's now smaller than I am and wasting away.

I know she's looking forward to seeing my grandfather, who died 7 years ago, in Heaven but she will be missed by her four children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Just call me Gwyneth

I just got back from my 3rd ever acupuncture appointment.

Everything was going as usual. Tiny needle prick that doesn't hurt on my back here. Tiny needle prick there. And then holy hell, a sensation that I can only imagine feels like those super sucker fish that suck the algae off of whales and sharks on my lower back FIVE times, with no warning I might add. For the next 30 minutes.

Cupping.

It hurt but also felt really, really good.

I am now sporting 5 round hickeys on my lower back with no sign of them disappearing any time soon.

Now if only I was married to Chris Martin. Sigh.

See you on the flip side

Well hello there. Lots has been happening since I got back from the states a couple weeks ago. Firstly, it turns out that my grandfather has Stage 4 cancer and it is in his lungs, hip and lymph nodes. He is undergoing radiation and chemo and seems to be in good spirits. He hasn't had any bad reactions to the chemo which is good and I hope he starts to feeling better but I know that it will get worse before it gets better. I'm trying to stay positive because I feel like it really is mind over matter.

Secondly, I'm going in to the hospital tomorrow to give birth to my fibroids via c-section. I'm super duper nervous but in the last couple of weeks I've been increasingly more and more uncomfortable. Just want the surgery to be over with and the healing to begin. My mom got in today and will be here for the next 2 1/2 weeks to help me. I'm off work for a month and while that sounds great, I know it will be extremely painful. Ahhhhhh!

Thirdly, on the boy front it's kind of eh... Saf is about to loose his job and then go traveling (as we had already discussed) and can't start a relationship right now knowing that he's leaving. We both handled it very well and he really is a great guy. I know I'll see him in the future because we have so many mutual friends but also because he wants to stay in touch and already has by checking on me before my surgery. Richie and I went out on Thursday night and while I had fun, I just know in the back of my mind that he's a bit of a player. I told him about my surgery and he said he would come over and cook for me so I'll just have to wait and see when and if he follows through. I'm also in the mindset that I can't really start anything right now because I'm going to be on house arrest (not really) but out of commission for a while. So my feeling right now is indifferent. Richie is a very good kisser but he totally gave me beard burn to the point that my lips are peeling like crazy. My mom looked at me funny and asked what were wrong with my lips and what I'd put on them to make them flake. That was an awkward turtle conversation!

So I'm sure I'll be blogging a lot more since I won't be so busy running around trying to get everything done before I'm moving like a snail. Hope all is well and see you on the flip side.

It's not me, it's actually YOU

Hello. Sorry it's been a while. Basically I've been really depressed lately and it's to do with the sad fact that I tried to work things out with Graham again for the past 2 months. I guess I was slightly (read: really) embarrassed that I was being pathetic by wanting to be with him. Then I went to Austin for a wedding two weeks ago and texted with him while I was there but when I got back he disappeared. So after much angst I confronted him by balling my eyes out that he either wanted to be with me or not. Valentine's Day came up and he said he had plans with his friends. He wasn't willing to break them and after I poured my heart out you would think he would fall all over himself to do anything to make me happy. Short story he's selfish and I'm pretty sure talking to other people...he has a match.com account that I found (because I'm a super sleuth and I called him out on it in December that he didn't let me in because he was cheating and dating other people which he assured me wasn't the case while we were dating the first time). I didn't look to see when he logged in this time because that would only make me crazy and plus I trusted what he was telling me although his actions never matched them. I reached my breaking point and walked away on Thursday. I wasn't being fucked but more like mind fucked and those are my last words to him. I looked up his profile that night and sure enough the last time he logged in was 5 days ago. So I'm done for real this time. I still want all of the things he was claiming he would give me but I don't want it with someone like him. This whole time I thought it was me. If I just act this way he'd fall in love with me. If I wear skirts every time I see him he'll treat me differently. But he's never going to change. It's always going to be about him and he will never realize that's he's an asshole because in his mind he can do no wrong. I hope he and his cyber girlfriend* are happy. Although I feel sorry for her that he's going to do the same mind games he did to me and also other girls he's told me about in his past. I've erased every email, text etc. because they are all empty words and lies. I'm just embarrassed that I wasted so much time on someone that would never really appreciate how awesome I am. I promise to not talk about him anymore because he's just not worth it.

I don't want you to think I've been in a cave during this depression. I'm still taking my meds and going out. I just lost my appetite and dropped a couple of pants sizes.

In 2009 so far I:
-went to the New Kids on the Block concert. It was fantastic and I'm obsessed with the "Grown Man" song
-celebrated lots of my friend's birthdays in January and February with lots of dancing
-saw Cirque de Soleil Quidam...each one I see is more and more amazing although "O" still is number one
-went to Austin for a wedding and had a blast. All of my best friends (and their spouses, parents, etc.) were there and it was all very special. I saw how normal relationships work and do exist.
-celebrated Valentine's day with friends watching rugby in a pub then went to dinner (4 girls). There was a singer that was singing love songs walking around the restaurant and we were all singing along and she kept putting me on the mic. She got my details to maybe be a back up singer. I think I just launched a new career!

Coming up I have:
-spa weekend in Brighton
-Snow Patrol concert
-Friends birthdays and parties in between
-Wine club (monthly with girls from Junior League that are down to earth)
-Volunteering
-My mom coming to visit for Easter
-Hopefully get a beach holiday in this summer
-Counting Crows concert
-Bruce Springstein and Dave Matthews concert in Hyde Park
-Madonna
-Coldplay
-2 of my closest friends getting married this year...one in Houston and the other in Mexico in November

So I'm a busy bee. And I've missed you but I'm back and hopefully we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming of Texas Cinderella dating in London sans emotional drama. But in the meantime I'm going to concentrate on me and my own happiness for a while.

*I have nothing against internet dating, I just don't participate. I do, however, find it to be a problem if you're dating someone and they continue to interact on there profile and date other people and not inform you about it. Hence sarcasm.

The Works

I'm back in London after voluntarily torturing myself for the past 2 weeks. It went something like this (note: too much information definitley shared):

May 15th, Thursday - I had my deviated septum surgery and everything went fine until I woke up from the anesthesia and my world was spinning. Needless to say I threw up the blood that had pooled in my stomach during the operation and didn't think I could make it getting into a moving car to go home. I sat in the recovery room for an hour and the nurse then wheeled me to my mom's car. I had to get out of the chair and walk to keep from vomiting more. The nurse kept apologizing for the "movement". She said that word one too many times and I said "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to not say that word anymore" since I was definitely feeling the flipping movement.

I wasn't in any pain, only very uncomfortable and couldn't breathe since there were splints in my nose...this continued for a week before I got them out. I had some bleeding from my nose as well but just kept a tissue handy to wipe it up. I had to take antibiotics the size of horse pills and this then lead to a raging yeast infection. I didn't think things could get much worse down there until my monthly visitor decided to make an early appearance. Awesome!

I kept a low profile during the weekend except for a trip for Mexican food with my old roommate and her fiance with my blood catcher taped under my nose...so cute. Other than that, I felt extremely light headed and stayed indoors.

Tuesday, I had an appointment with the butt doctor. A little back story (no pun intended!), I'm a "strainer" so instead of having an internal roid, I instead had an external roid that was the vain of my existence. Very painful and so I got it removed. The doctor initially walked in with his hot doctor son but quickly exited and came back with a female nurse. Can you imagine spreading my cheeks in front of hot doctor son?!?

Holy mother effer! If that wasn't the worst pain I've ever experienced! I called my mom to tell her I was now bleeding from every orifice! Lovely.

This procedure caused me to walk extremely slowly and I was very cautious of how I sat. I won't even tell you that every time I had to drop the kids off at the pool, I had to brace myself for the pain. Oh the pain. It's now healing nicely, thankfully, and I don't feel like I'm shatting knives.

Wednesday, I shuffled into the dermatologist office to get a few moles removed. He decided to take off 2 extra ones that he was concerned about. This irked me more than it was painful. Just the thought of having 4 sliced off skin areas gave me chills.

I asked him if there was a cream for under eye circles, to which he examined my face with those magnifying glasses and proclaimed I had "lots of wrinkles". WTF? I get mistaken for a 23 year old all the time.

Earlier that day I got my splints removed from my nose which finally let me breathe through my nose instead of being the mouth breather I was for the week. Holy hell those splints were long and HUGE...no wonder I couldn't breathe!

Thursday, I had to sit in the car, with all of the above problems, for 5 hours to go to Louisiana to visit my grandparents. My parents dropped me off in Baton Rouge while they went to New Orleans for a couple of days for a wine festival. Bastards! :)

I was stuck with my 80 year-old grandfather (whom is one of the funniest people I know but was in a bad mood because he had surgery a week before on his heel and was hopping around the house on one foot) and my blunt grandmother. An example of her bluntness: We were shopping and ran into some of her friends. One of them was looking at a pair of pants and my grandmother asked if she was going to try them on and the lady said they didn't have her size. My grandmother picked up an XL and said it would fit her. The lady protested and my grandmother looked her up and down and said she thought they would fit...since they ran small -great save grandma. I was mortified. Luckily she thought I was "tiny" this trip and was force feeding me.

My parents and I came back after the long weekend and I was finally starting to feel much better.

I met up with my best friend for shopping and sushi on Tuesday and did way too much damage!

Wednesday, I went to the dentist (family friend - my mom's best friend's son-in-law) for a cleaning and a filling. I always get the nitrous oxide and for some reason with his stuff I get effed up. He had asked me about a project in Australia that I could some day get on at work before giving me the goods. Five minutes into the gas, I was in the flipping Outback. After a while on that stuff, I started to get nauseous and took the mask off my face. The rest of the day I was out of commission with dizziness. Next time, I'll tell him not to crank it up. Oops. My mouth was so numb 12 hours later. I hate that feeling!

Thursday, I went to my family doctor that I've been going to since I was 7. She hooked me up with my Xanax and called me a junkie.

That night I got my friends together for happy hour at a local bar in midtown since I hadn't seen them all 2 weeks. I loved hanging out and catching up my peeps but I'm super glad about my decision to stay in London. I'm not invisible here. I can't explain it but that's how I feel when I go out there.

Friday, I got a Brazilian wax and told her not to wax the back door like she normally does. Oh the pain that would have caused! Then, like a dumbass, I drove around Houston with the sunroof open to get some sun before I left -my flight wasn't until 10.30pm. (I could have had a killer tan but I felt like crap so I didn't lay out like I wanted over the 2 weeks home). I ended up with my right shoulder and arm burnt to a crisp. So sexy...a one-sided tan.

Then I hopped on the plane (read: passed the eff out and don't even remember take off -thanks Xanax!) and came back to Londontown. I'm looking forward to being back in the office...well sort of... and not working from home anymore...as much as I thought I would like that. I felt so unorganized and out of the loop with my colleagues being 6 hours ahead.

I'm excited about starting my "new and improved" life!

(I got all of my "treatments" done on US insurance before I'm officially on UK insurance July 1st).

ReLENT

Since Easter is super early this year, I just realized today that it's the first day of lent. So I did some soul searching and decided to try that hiatus I was supposed to do months ago and give up boys for lent. No more worrying. No more cheating. No more heartache. Just no more.

For the next 40 days and 40 nights it's going to be me, me, me, and well, me. And of course my friends. And massages. And going to movies. And shopping. And figuring out my career. And still going out in this fantastic city.

But it's about time I start putting my energy into me.

Last Night, I Fell In Love

Last night, while flipping through my 4 channels in my hotel room, I came across a documentary about a boy with Crouzon’s syndrome, leaving him with a cone-shaped head and protruding eyes. Despite Petero's physical appearance, his heart was as big as gold-even when teased by the local kids in his Uganda village.

By chance, he was discovered by a Dallas craniofacial surgeon and was brought over to the US to undergo 3 different extensive surgeries over a seven month period, leaving his family behind. His exploration of America, complete with escalators, automatic doors, "machine for the bread" (toaster), "machine for the food" (refrigerator), etc. reminded me of all the things we take for granted. Some people in the world, like Petero, live in mud huts and sleep on straw mats. We are lucky to have the things we have been granted in life.

Petero, also showed me that when I think I have it bad with my trivial drama, there are thousands of other people that have life so much worse. Petero was so brave going into his surgeries. He even did a little Uganda dance right before them that was prec.

Instead of wallowing that I'm not yet with the man of my dreams on this Valentine's Day, I'll think of Petero in his village, being able to have a great quality of life with his new face.

I'm okay!

Thank you so much for the well wishes and thinking of me. I got the results back and it turns out that it is just breast tissue and nothing to worry about. It was really scary there for a while with my thoughts but I'm glad I can start 2007 on a good, healthy note.

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I'm back in London for a while and up to some crazy antics. More to come-once my computer issues are resolved!