Archive: September 2006

“How was your day?” he asked.

JG and I were catching up over the phone as he drove home. He’d been at school for 14 hours – classes, volleyball practice, and the bonus of Back to School Night – so it was the first time we’d really talked.

“Sucky,” I said.

I told him how the lack of an administrative assistant at work made me the default person for ordering supplies and lunch in addition to fielding voicemails and cleaning up common areas, and oh, right, doing my actual job. How trying to train a new employee resulted in a task taking three times as long as it would have taken me to do it myself, especially when he didn’t bother to read the instructions provided. How doing work outside of my normal responsibilities prevented me from meeting a deadline today, and I hate it when I can’t follow through on what I say I’ll do. How this bitterness built up to the point that I snapped at my co-workers and felt awful. How I tried to drown my sorrows in pasta before watching 4 straight hours of straight television, including three episodes of the gem that is Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team. How I sat huddled on the couch with my fingers in my ears as lightning lit up the silhouettes of our trees because I hate thunder so much and I was too scared to close blinds. How glad I was to finally talk to him, even if I did cry a little and it was so late.

And then JG agreed with me that I had had a rough day, that it was ridiculous how tasks fell to me without any acknowledgement, and that it was probably one of the worst days for him to have to stay at school all day. “I owe you a big hug when I get home,” he told me. That sounded okay to me.

I feel a little better now, but I can’t wait for him to come home.

For as long as I’ve known him, JG has always wanted to coach a volleyball team. I missed his glory days of playing, but I’ve come along on my share of siblings’ tournaments. This semester, at the high school where he teaches math, JG is also the head coach of the girls’ volleyball team, and I get to go watch their matches today! I’m really looking forward to it. Whenever JG mentioned coaching a team someday, I was totally on board. I had images of baking cookies, making scarves for the seniors, and schmoozing with the girls’ parents dancing in my head. I was going to be The Supercool Coach’s Wife. JG saw my head drifting into the clouds when we talked about it recently and he quickly pulled me back to earth, saying, “I think I have to tell the girls to call you Mrs. Married Last Name.”

Come again?

His logic is sound and definitely the safe way to go. The girls have to call him Coach Last Name because he teaches at their school, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense for them to use my first name. The parents can call me by my first name, but it’s not appropriate for the players, from his standpoint. Okay, fine. I get that. “But,” I protested, preparing to jump headfirst into the cliché, “…that’s your mother! Or your grandmother!”

Ah, but in the past few months, I’ve finally grown accustomed to signing that name on my credit card receipts. That’s the name I say when I introduce myself to new work contacts. It’s what shows up when people get emails from me. Don’t get me wrong, I was all about having a new name when we got married because mine was annoying in some ways, with mispronunciation at the top of the list. (I was unaware at the time that this new name was equally difficult for strangers to say and twenty times harder for me to spell over the phone.) I guess I was startled by the idea that using my first name wasn’t okay. Even when we worked with our church’s youth group and were summer camp counselors, it was fine to use first names, but I guess we’ve crossed over into Adult World, or something. Being Mrs. Married Last Name just makes me feel older, and not in a sophisticated way. It’s kind of like how I nearly fell over when my grocery store cashier called me “ma’am” for the first time.

Oh, well. JG reassured me that he gets called Mr. Initial at school sometimes (due to the mispronunciation issues), so maybe that will catch on. I’ll go to the game today and take tons of pictures, and we’ll see what happens. Ultimately, I know I have to get over it. JG is going to be a teacher and a coach for a long time, and coercing the players into calling me “Mrs. Coach” just isn’t going to happen. Because that is not supercool.

I bought a dress online more than two years ago from Ann Taylor for several reasons: 1) I had a gift card, 2) it was on sale, and 3) I didn’t have a little black dress in my closet. When I received the dress and put it on, it was clear that it was a size too big, but my mom said that it was easily altered, so I kept it, fully intending to seek out my local seamstress and get the job done.

Cut to almost three weeks ago.

I suddenly remembered that I had to be at a wedding soon, and I intended to wear this dress, but I had never gotten it altered. I went so far as to find a seamstress’s name and number, drive to her house, and try on the dress only to find out that it didn’t need to be altered. In other words, in two years’ time, I had gone up one dress size. In the short-term, it’s not a huge deal because the dress fits. Heaven help me if it had been too small. But if I extrapolate to ten years down the road, I do not want to have gone up five dress sizes. Something clearly had to change.

I’ve taken up what I hesitate to call a routine of working out, because it’s very modest. Three days a week, I walk about a mile and a half around my neighborhood, and the other two mornings feature about 40 minutes of yoga from a set of DVDs. I do a variety of crunches, push-ups, and wall-sits, too. I’m giving myself the weekends off for now, even though I’m sure that doesn’t jive with any known fitness plans. I’ve been eating a bowl of cereal and drinking a glass of orange juice everyday, which is probably the biggest adjustment for a longtime non-breakfaster. I’m trying to drink more water, eat more fruit, get consistent sleep, and refrain from snacking. Even though I miss it, I stopped putting root beer on the shopping list, and I haven’t had dessert in quite a while.

I should mention here that I don’t own a scale, so I have no idea if I’ve lost any weight. That’s not really the goal here; instead, I want to feel like I have some semblance of stamina and I’m doing something to stay in shape. I know there will come a time when my metabolism pulls the bus cord and says, “Well, this is my stop.” If I don’t have good habits already, it’ll be a very unpleasant surprise, and anyone who knows me knows that I do not like surprises. At all.

So far, I’m doing well with this set-up. The variation makes it interesting enough from day to day, and I enjoy the fresh air I get on my walks. I’ve found that it has helped me focus more at work because I’ve had about an hour to be awake and alone, and I’m confident that I’m doing something that’s good for me. As demoralizing as that moment was when my black dress unexpectedly fit me, it was the wake-up call I needed. I’m glad to report that I felt pretty okay about myself in that dress this past weekend, and I’m doing to do my darnedest to keep up with this routine.

When I was learning how to drive, I had a minor accident involving a narrow road, the curb, and a road sign. The basic story is that I was freaked out by a giant truck in the oncoming lane and overestimated how far I should have been away from him. I also underestimated the amount of road left on my side. Alignment fixing aside, it was traumatic mostly in the guilt trip I received from my parents, and I’ve been lucky to avoid any other altercations since then.

And then today, I was rear-ended on the way to work. Everything’s fine, I’m fine – it’s not a big deal. I was on a small, country road that sort of drops onto a busier artery, and as I looked way to the left to see if anyone was coming, I was bumped from behind, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. I unleashed this primitive shriek (probably reminiscent of my mother’s shrieking when I mowed across the curb at the previous accident site) and slowly edged out to the shoulder. Upon examination, my bumper seemed undamaged, with the exception of some blue paint transfer, as the CSI folks might say.

The girl in the car behind me turned her engine off and walked toward me in a turquoise Victoria’s Secret PINK sweat suit, apologizing the whole way: “I just wasn’t paying attention!” She was my age at the most and we both shifted uncomfortably as we surveyed the lack of wreckage. When the girl gave me her information, I realized that she lives in my neighborhood, and it is so strange that I was hit a half hour from my house by a person whose road I pass everyday.

I understand more why whiplash can occur so frequently, even if there is minimal or no damage during an accident. I’m not playing the whiplash card, and I’m not suing anyone, but I have to say that my neck and head feel a little funky right now. The bump to my car felt huge, and I was jostled in my seat; I can’t imagine how an actual accident feels and sounds. I was a defensive driver before today, and let’s just say that I left a lot more space between the next car and me when I pulled back onto the road.

All things considered, the car is running normally, and I got gas for $2.39/gallon, so it’s not all bad.