swimming

I passed the chemo test but I'm a bit disappointed with how I did on it. I should have done better and I messed up on a couple easy questions just by misreading them, I hate when I do that. Oh well.

In other news I've taken an ibuprofen and am getting ready to do my nightly ritual of biofreeze on my hips and thighs because they are aching. Why you might ask? Well because I've decided to start training for a triathlon. It's happening here in Pittsburgh in August so I'm giving myself almost three months to prepare for it. I started swimming again a couple of weeks ago, swimming I've missed you so much and I never remember getting this winded swimming as a child. Although when I was a kid I also wasn't swimming laps. I'm planning on signing up for a mini triathlon which will entail a 700 meter swim followed by a 12 mile bike ride, and a 5K run - why do they go back and forth between metric? I thought it was a 12K bike ride, my thighs are quivering just thinking about the extra distance. I also thought the swim was 600 meters not 700. Well I've been training doing blocks at the gym where I go from swimming to biking to running, which makes for a very sweaty and smelly me even though I shower after swimming so my hair won't be straw form the chlorine. I'm planning to buy a bike next month and get outdoors on some trails, I won't ride in the street what with the way people drive these days - yes I sound like a total curmudgeon, like I could be Ed Asner's character in Up. I'm hoping I don't make a fool of myself and drown in the swim part of the triathlon, that would be embarrassing. I really wanted to do it because I'm sick to death of doing the same old thing at the gym every day, especially when the hot guy has been MIA so long, well I've switched to the other gym location, where there's a pool, so I can focus on this triathlon goal. I've supplanted my eye candy fantasies with a goal, it's so healthy it's gross. I miss you hot guy.

In yet other news, on the romance front this time. I've joined match yet again. Third times a charm right? I'm thinking it's more like three strikes you're out and might as well depend on a battery operated toy for fun from now on. No. I don't know why I even signed up again. I have no free time to date. Really, if I'm not working I have the kids. I mean I have my days free right now but come summer that's gone so there's really no time to meet a potential match. After work you might say, well I'm basically an overtired, blathering idiot after 12 hours shifts, given to vitriolic diatribes on healthcare - not really gonna go over well on a first date. And my ideal match would be a doctor. Not because I want to be married to a doctor, and all the sort of social prestige that goes with that. No I want to get the MD through osmosis by being with a doctor, even if I know I won't really have an official MD. I just want to understand more parts of the massive puzzle that is medicine. Really healthcare is a such a huge part of my life now and I want to learn more so I want to date someone that I can learn more about medicine from, and who better to do that than a doctor, well at least a doctor that wants to talk about his job when he's not doing it, I don't know what percentage of doctors are like this (probably less than 5%?). Oh yeah and I need doctors that excel at their job, you know the outliers on the right side of the bell curve. I'm making the percentage of doctors who meet my criteria even smaller (<1%?). Oh yeah and they have to be compassionate, articulate and attracted to me. Now you see the seemingly impossible dilemma I face. In the interim I can reread Atul Gawande and dream.

But can I tell  you a friend, who doesn't know of this blog (not many people do know of this blog) who I knew liked me but, well, I'd told him a while ago, very clearly, that I didn't have romantic feelings for them. Well this friend wrote me a very long, very detailed letter about how he's liked me so much for so long and that I make him feel like a teenager, all very flattering stuff that was written to me. But what do I do, I do not feel that way about him at all. And I can't make myself feel that way. I wrote back right away explaining as much, because there's no way I'd ever leave anyone hanging after putting their heart out there that way (I mean I write back to everyone the writes me on match, even when I'm not interested to just say I don't think we're a match). It makes you very vulnerable putting yourself out like that, I get it and I wanted to acknowledge that while still staying true to my own feelings. So I wrote Thursday night when I saw the message and then again this morning (because recovering from work takes me days). And he won't write back. And I take it I won't hear from him and I guess he really wasn't a friend but just someone waiting for something more to happen between us? I mean I feel bad for him but I'm also sort of hurt, if I don't like you romantically then you won't interact with me? I know I'm not hurting as much a him but I guess it just makes me feel like I was almost lied to in a way. Like there was a duplicity beneath the friendship if he had an ulterior motive and won't be a friend unless that's fulfilled. Does that make sense to anyone?

I don't know why my romantic pursuits are so abysmal. Honestly the nicest, sanest, most normal boyfriend I ever had was probably the boy I lost my virginity to, my junior year of high school, he was ayounger man, a sophomore, a young born in August sophomore. A younger man who had an incredible five o'clock shadow at fifteen?! Eric was an absolute sweetheart of a boy and I fucking dropped him like a hot potato one drunken night and damned if I can find anyone that can hold a candle to that boy back in 1986.

Please don't misunderstand me and think I'm still carrying a torch for him. I've moved on and out of the eighties and he's a very lovely memory. I just wish I could meet someone I fit with so well who is also, well, solid, functional, emotionally healthy. I met a man I loved so dearly. Someone who was an incredibly good fit for me. He was what I always wanted in a man; someone equal parts funny, smart and kind. He was so loving and gentle and that was incredibly important to me during the point in my life that I met him. But it wasn't enough. His circumstances were, well convoluted might be the nicest way to phrase it. But I also realized after being with him that it's important that I'm with someone who's assertive (not aggressive). I also have to be with someone who is driven. Driven, to me, is passionate and I can't be with someone who is scared of living. I realize there are  people who might view me that way, as scared of living, based on my rather high strung nature but I actually face my fears head on pretty much constantly and doing that consistently has made me incredibly resilient, even if I don't necessarily present that way. I just need to find a kind, funny, smart, assertive doctor that is like tops in their field and thinks I'm the best, and I'm similarly smitten by him. How hard can that be? Until I happen upon Dr. Unrealistic I can fantasize about him while I'm swimming laps in the pool.