I dressed up a little for work today, since we've got a company party this evening, and I didn't want to bother going home to change. I'm just wearing slacks instead of jeans and a nice top and cardigan, but they're more flattering than some of the other clothes I tend to throw on as I rush out the door most mornings. Not surprisingly, I look a little better than usual. There is a full length mirror in the bathroom at work, which I usually power walk past, but I just stopped and looked at myself closely, and thought "Hmm. I look nice." I don't know why I have to keep learning this lesson. Dressing nicer makes me feel better about the way I look, which makes me feel better overall. The closet is in disarray right now, because of the move (Did I even tell you about the move? Ms. N bought a house in Ballard, so we moved in November, but are still trying to tame the chaos.) but I might have to bump that up the priority list so that I can start dressing better, and hopefully feeling better. I know that I could still stand to lose a pound or twenty, but there's no need for me to feel like crap about the way I look while I'm trying to do that.

I was telling sallysimpleton on gchat yesterday that I feel like I'm finally starting to come back online. Right now it's little things like being able to read books like I used to. For the last half of 2011, it was rare that I read more than our monthly book club selections, and there was even one month when I couldn't even finish that. I think that re-reading The Hunger Games trilogy starting on New Year's Day may have broken me out of that rut, and I've gone on to finish Blackout by Connie Willis, and am about to start on the sequel, All Clear. I truly enjoy reading, and was sad that I couldn't find the time or focus to read much last year.

I'm also slowly getting back into regular exercise, and starting to feel up to making plans socially. I'm still feeling kind of tired, and am likely to want to stay home and go to bed early, but I can tell that things are slowly changing.

A grief counselor from the hospice program my mom was with just called to see how I was doing. She was so nice, trying to explain that mourning someone is a process, and that it's normal to have ups and downs, and that the first holiday season after a loss can be especially difficult, that I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm an old hat at this. My dad died when I was 19, but he was sick for many years before that, and my grandmother died 3 years later. This doesn't mean that I don't grieve, or make having to go through this all over again with my mom any easier, but it does make it familiar and there is some comfort in that. At least on top of the grieving process, I don't have the added guilt or confusion over not doing it "right." For me, mostly it's the little things, like wondering if I should make macaroni salad for Christmas dinner, since she always did, and being bummed out that I won't be getting any socks as presents this year, so I'll have to go out and buy my own. She didn't buy the kind I like best anyway, but still . . . it's a tradition, pajamas or socks and underwear from my mom for Christmas, and this year it won't happen.

Dammit. I am pretty sure that I am officially peri-menopausal. I was hoping that my doctor was jumping the gun when she told me I was getting close a couple of years ago. Maybe she wasn't so off-base. All signs point to yes. When the hell did I get to be so old?

Another reason I don't post here much lately; it's all whining.

I was at lunch with friends after skate practice yesterday, and my phone rang, and I noticed that it was my mother calling. Thinking that something might be wrong, I answered quickly. It was one of the nurses aides at my mom's assisted living place telling me that my mom was being very tearful and missing everybody and wanted us to come and visit. I was annoyed because I was already going to head up after I finished eating, and had just been there for hours on Saturday with Ms. N and my sister and her entire family. I don't begrudge my mom wanting us to come and visit, but I was frustrated because I have been doing my best to go up as often as possible (5 times last week alone, and about 4 times a week on average), but no matter how much and how long I visit, it's never enough. She's always sad when I say that I have to leave, or gets mad because I have to go cook dinner, or buy groceries or do whatever else it is I need to do. But the thing is that I am mad at her.

I'm angry that she spent most of her money on crap, so that she had to move to Everett in order to afford assisted living, instead of being able to find somewhere closer. I'm angry that my brother isn't expected to visit because he doesn't drive, and as my mom puts it, "he works." Yeah, well I work too, and lots of times I have to work after coming home from visiting her, but I'm still able to make it. I'm angry that she expects me to sit there and listen to her complain about how the aides don't come to help her as quickly as she would like while she demonstrates that "as quickly as she likes" means "immediately upon thinking that she needs assistance." I'm angry about lots of things. Mostly, I'm angry that she wants me to be cuddlier and more sympathetic and less sarcastic and morbidly humorous than the way she raised me, dammit.

But whatever. She doesn't have much longer at this point, so I'll go up to sit with her and watch shitty SyFy movies or make her turn off Fox News and talk to me about how she hates the food, and she thinks the aides hate her, and how she's so bored now that she can't do much of anything. She's scared and sad, and I get it, but there's only so much I can do.

Today I am feeling anxious and sad because a sweater that I really wanted is sold out and I don't know if I can survive without it, and there is a show tonight that a friend is going to that I previously accepted that I wasn't going to see, but now am convinced that I really must go to. I know that these are not the real reasons that I'm freaking out, but they are what I am fixated on right now.

I am sad, and stressed out, and not getting enough exercise, and therefore getting fatter and fatter. I know what I need to do to change at least one of those things (the getting fat part, of course), but I lack the energy or motivation to make those changes. I would like a re-do of this year to take out the sucky parts. This is why I haven't been posting anything here. Well, that and laziness.

I'm not depressed, things are just tough right now, and I think that they will get better in time. The only problem is that in order for them to get better, I just have to go through this bad time, and there's nothing I can do to change that part. Lame.

Last month, I went to Martha's Vineyard to visit Ms. N's family. I'd been once before, last summer, although this time we stayed a full week instead of the 4 days we spent there last time. In those seven days, I learned that Martha's Vineyard is not the place for me. It was too white and too affluent for my tastes. That's fine, Ms. N doesn't understand why anyone would want to vacation in Las Vegas, and I had a lovely weekend there with my derby wife Sybil Unrest this past May, so I can totally understand people wanting to have different kinds of vacations. It wasn't terrible, just not somewhere I'm eager to spend time and vacation days to go to again.

I do realize that this makes me kind of a snob, but I'm okay with that.

Recently, I have been seriously thinking about moving back to Hawaii. I realize that this will not solve any of my problems, or inherently make me happier, but still, I've been feeling nostalgic and homesick, and wanting to live there again.

Fucking Hell. I just found out that Mitt Romney will be on Martha's Vineyard next week at the same time as Obama. This is relevant, because Ms. N and I are also taking a vacation there next week. I've never been to The Vineyahd during high season before (truth be told, I've only been there once before for a few days) and this is going to make things even crazier, and I was looking forward to a relaxing time. Oh well, at least I get to take a vacation . . .