Thursday

208.8 this morning, up another bit from yesterday.  I've been going up since Saturday when I was 206.8.  It's TOM.  My calories and exercise have both been on track, so I've got no worries about my weight loss going off track.  Just the general angsty worries about my life being off track.  NBD. 

(TOM-fueled, sleep deprived rant ahead)<rant>I get that it's difficult to be my age living in a new place and make new friends, and tough to find someone to be in a relationship with, but geez!  I've been here 3 years!  I get that this sort of stuff doesn't happen on my schedule, it happens when it happens.  I get that the best thing I can do is work on being happy with myself and my life as. it. is. right. now and everything else will take care of itself.  But crap.  I've been alone for so freakin' long!  Just try living alone and having no friends and having a full time job and animals and owning a house full of things that break down.  It's not easy!  Before you give me advice on how to make friends, I'll tell you that I know how and I'm doing all the right things.  My therapist says that other clients of hers have told her it's extremely difficult here.  People aren't friendly to outsiders.  We've discussed the things I'm doing (the same things that worked great in Washington DC and in South Carolina). I'm confident that what I'm doing will work - hopefully before I die, alone and with no friends! But how much freakin' longer???  PS-I also get that I'm working too hard at it.  Working on that too!</rant>

Woke up at 4:24 this morning to go to a call for chest pain, and then stayed up.  Got another call at 6:48 for a fire at the grocery store.  I'm at work now, but tired!  I'm continuing to fit in better with the guys at the firehouse. It helps that I'm one of the 6 or 7 that go to most of the calls, and I'm right in there doing the hard work with everyone else.  It's one of the aspects of my life that make me feel really good.  Unfortunately, none of these guys are going to be friends. 

Every. single. online dating person that I was communicating with has evaporated.  The firefighter I wrote about a few weeks ago wrote, "let's meet for coffee," and I said, "sure, it'll have to be Tuesday or over the weekend." (week before last) And I never heard from him again.  WTF.  Last Wednesday another person wrote," want to get a drink Saturday," and I wrote, "great idea."  And that was it.  Never heard from him either.  Double WTF.  I'm emailling with one person right now who seems promising, and having the occasional phone conversation with someone else who I'm kindof losing interest in.  Call me odd, but the whole purpose of online dating is to meet people.  Not spend a month talking on the phone. My workplace is overflowing with male engineers and operators.  Besides me, the firehouse is 100% male.  My EMT class is about 75% guys.  You can't tell me to go where the guys are.  I'm already there.  What I need to change is that I need to stop working so hard at it and start being myself, enjoying the things I enjoy and doing the things I like to do.  I get it.  Working on it.

Feeling the need to have something positive going on, I traipsed to the bathroom to take this picture.  I was so focused on hiding my thinning hair up top that I forgot to smile.  These pants are Liz Claiborne size 14s from my favorite store, the Salvation Army. See?  That's something good!  My first size 14s in 10 years.

My plan is to do C25K-ish today, an 8-minute run and then (2) 5-minute runs.  Not sure I'll make it since I'm tired, not in the mood and my knees don't feel great.  But I'll get out there and give it a shot.

Then the girls are supposed to get together for happy hour.  I was thinking that these are the peeps that would turn into friends, but someone posted pics on FB from a dinner party they had that I wasn't invited to.  Maybe it was before I started hanging out with them or something. Whatever. I obviously still have work to do.