Last night I dreamed that the Cool Company sent me back over to work with the new team, and when I arrived at the hotel I found:

-My room was terribly dingy and small
-It had no bathroom
-It had bunk beds
-There was a large pile of horse shit in the corner

I was of course astonished and disgusted. There were people cleaning the room when I arrived. The hotel employee who escorted me to the room said kindly, “Do not worry, ma’am, they are cleaning it up.”

Eyes wide, I shot back “How considerate- what about the rest of the room?! And where the hell is my bathroom?!”

That’s all I remember, but when I woke up this morning I couldn’t help but laugh. Later in the day Bayou relayed my dream to her friend RM, who listened intently and then pronounced:

“Here’s two dollars. You must go buy lottery tickets today.”

Ummmm, ok. RM is Malaysian, if that helps anyone shed light on why such a silly dream should be cause to buy the lotto. I’m dying to hear what made him say this. (Bayou bought the tickets, by the way.)

I just know it was the horseshit.

In what many are calling “India’s Stonewall”, the New Delhi High Court on Thursday decriminalized homosexual intercourse between consenting adults, by striking down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This law labels gay sex to be an “unnatural offense”, punishable with up to ten years in prison.

Drafted in 1860, this Colonial-era law was brought into effect by the British, and was in line with similar anti-homosexuality legislation passed in England at the time. In the past decade, gay rights activists and lawyers have strived hard to abrogate Section 377, calling it “inhuman”, and as the Naz Foundation, which filed the petition to abolition 377 in 2001 argued, a violation of constitutional rights to privacy and equality.

In its ruling today, the Delhi High Court affirmed that claim, saying that Section 377 violated basic human rights. The same court, however, had dismissed a similar petition in 2001. It is clear that this latest ruling is a reflection of increased activism by gay rights groups and high profiled supporters like Bollywood actress and Former Miss World Celina Jaitley, along with a more progressive government.

Needless to say, this is an amazing development for New Delhi. I hope this event is another lengthy ring in the death knell of anti-homosexual legislation everywhere.

And somewhere, this song came back to me from the far reaches of my memory.

Prayer, Lizzie West

“Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that flow
I am the sunlight on my own grave

Do not stand at my grave and cry.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there I did not die.
I am not there I did not die.

She is now the same age I was when we met. It’s almost impossible for me to believe that we’ve been together 6 1/2 years. My life has been infinitely better for having her in it.

So happy birthday, my love. Tonight we celebrate your awesomeness with a good bottle of wine!

-Can’t get my first geocache placed? Patience and incremental steps, research, etc.¹
-Learning my new job? Little bits of knowledge, I can’t learn it all at once.²
-Modifying my diet and exercise? VERY small steps; more water in the AM, eating every two hours, bringing healthier snacks to work, reducing processed foods.³

Lots going on. Never a dull moment!

And if anyone needs a reminder of the human will and its possibilities, check out this lady.

1. It’s driving me crazy. I feel like I’m flying blind
2. Though I keep trying, dammit
3. Will someone please take the beer away? Please?

This brings to a head an ongoing battle I’ve been having with my body and food for the past couple years. My metabolism began to slow down around age 33, and I found myself gaining weight. Two nights a week of soccer have not been enough to stave off weight gain or the cholesterol.

Which leaves me… in this place of frustration. There are things I love that I have to admit I’ve been probably consuming too much of:

-beer
-red wine
-meat in general
-sugar

I think to battle this bulge -I’m 5′2″, 150lbs- and get me to where I want to be (125lbs) the keys will be portion control, continued exercise, and switching out the bad snacks for the good.

All my research has led me to some stories that were both inspirational and maddening. People whose diets and weights were WAY worse than mine (seriously, 6 donuts for breakfast? Pizza for dinner EVERY night?) and they managed to lose over 100lbs and keep it off over several years. I am heartened by their success -all done with sensible eating/exercise- and their determination. So what do I have to complain about, really? I’m just looking to shed 25lbs, that’s nothing, right?

It seems like 100, 200. I guess I skated on my reffing and soccer (4 combined nights of running) for a long time. When I tapered off that and began working at the Cool Company, I really started to struggle. Cube life makes for a rounder middle…and here I am with a belly.

Time to right that imbalance. I think I’ll start small. Get the knee healthy, get back to soccer, change my diet slowly, and take the goldurn meds for awhile to see if they help. God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I may actually meet my goal by the fall.

I feel like my blog has turned into the corner of the universe where I bitch. Which sucks for the 4 of you who still read and comment. My apologies, because here comes another whine.

We’ve been working on a project to honor my Dad that involves geocaching. We’re having some issues getting it started/up and running because of the rules in geocaching- caches may not be placed closer than .10 mi (528ft) apart. Bayou and I went to our chosen location last night and found a good spot.

I emailed the Geocaching reviewer I’d been working with and s/he told me no dice, it was too close to a multi-stage cache’s endpoint. The problem is, if I have not solved a multi-stage cache, I cannot anticipate its endpoint. So this makes placing a cache in Seattle hard- there a LOT here. In my zip code alone within 15mi there are hundreds.

Anyway, that’s my first whine. I can’t get this placed and it’s making me mad/sad. But I am confident we’ll figure it out.

The real whine is that on our way out of the park last night I fell and banged myself up pretty bad. I stepped on a wet bridge strut and my feet went out from under me. I fell off the bridge I was on, and a lot of the impact was taken by my knee. The inside of my right knee hit the wooden strut as I went down and I flipped completely over. I narrowly missed hitting my knee on a sharp boulder.

I’ve lost flexion/extension and I can’t put a lot of weight on it. Bonus whine: both of our primary care docs are closed on Wednesday. Thank god for my awesome Chiropractor, who is going to see me in a couple hours.

Please, please, please let this just be a seriously bad bruising of the bone/surrounding tissue.