Welcome 2012!

I am not much for making New Year's resolutions - it has just never been something I've done. But I'm all about the bright shininess of a crisp, clean new year! And many good things are on the horizon for this year. I've got my one year "surgiversary" on the 11th (I *will* get under 150 pounds before then!!), and my gallbladder/tubal ligation/uterine ablation surgery on the 26th or thereabouts. Throw in my birthday on the 10th (and Cappy's on the 12th) and it's a busy month!

My gallbladder has stopped hurting - knock on my wooden head for luck - so that's a relief. I had been worried about the month between learning I needed to have it out to the surgery date, but I think it will be just fine. I had an iron IV infusion last week (12/27), and it does great things to perk me up quickly. Right now the plan is for monthly infusions to keep that ferritin level stabilized. Just as aside, they discovered my ferritin levels were in the toilet *before* my WLS, so this isn't something that was brought on by the gastric sleeve surgery.

Whew, it was a great weekend! It sounds funny to say, but it will be a relief for the kids to be home this weekend so I can get some rest, haha. This dating business is fun stuff. And while I did have the embarrassment of taking him to see an art exhibit I was interested in, which turned out to the HORRIBLE...so bad I told him I felt like I should give him gas money. I won't even link to it here because I don't want you to have to suffer. What a joke that turned out to be! Hint: it's the current exhibit at the Frye Art Museum. Horrible. Really embarrassing to have taken someone there. Turned out to be giant framed photos of....nothing. Like a pure white background. Argh. Ridiculous, really. Thank goodness for good sports. And I love the Frye Art Museum - but I was physically pained to have visited this exhibit. Bah.

I have been enjoying hanging out with someone fun, though (and especially a good sport about that dreadful exhibit) and we have been spending a lot of time together. A few observations in the WLS vein:

- I have not mentioned anything about my surgery or weight loss. Not because I am ashamed of it, although I am probably more than a little embarrassed, when I think honestly. Nor has he asked.
- It is rather difficult to "explain oneself" about post-WLS eating. Umm, I don't eat a lot. And I don't eat very frequently. It is noticeable. I really should say something at some point. It's something that you wouldn't notice if you ate with me once in awhile, but have a string of meals with me and it's pretty obvious. And I am a total food mooch these days, anyway..."Oh, I'll just have a bite of yours." It really is silly to order a separate entree. I have noticed that Cappy, like my good friends, is at a bit of a loss when it comes to eating with me. We have eaten out together *a lot* over the last several weeks - it really merits some sort of an explanation.
- So what's up with that?? Here I am happily blogging away about my journey - my friends know every little detail, too. But this is somehow hard for me to talk about. I guess it would be just like Sheila said before - "Oh, did I mention I used to be 111 pounds heavier??" Buzzkill. Or, per Arrested Development, my all-time favoritest show ev-ah, which I have been happily watching with Cappy, who also loves it..."Douche-chill!"

Hmm, I am picking up where I left off yesterday - I thought I finished this and posted. Clearly, I have been a little distracted. We'll just go with some other random things:

- My friend gave me a small bottle of Chanel No. 22 for Christmas, along with some Chanel lip gloss and some little sample bottles. I am enjoying feeling (and smelling!) like a rich woman. ;)
- I am heading out at lunch today to buy Cappy a too-expensive-for-the-newly-dating birthday present, but it is something that he adored and I figure, what the hell. It's part of that smelling-like-a-rich-woman-thing, I think.
- He will probably not get me a birthday present because we are newly-dating and (see below) are in the process of killing something which would otherwise be quite great, I think, and I will feel awkward but it will be worth it to see him enjoying it.
- He and I are both overthinkers (Capricorns), so we will clearly run this relationship into the ground before it ever really gets going. But it is very fun in the meantime. I am really enjoying dating again for real for the first time since my divorce. With or without Cappy, it will continue.
- My sugar daddy (optimistically-named but with sadly little follow-through on his part) is splitting with his partner of 30+ years after a long prelude and a very bad New Year's weekend. I am sad for him but TOTALLY GET the "I'M SO OVER THIS" sentiment he is expressing, and I am his self-appointed cheerleader. It is worth mentioning here that my dear, dear, dear friend Kim jumped back into my life after a long absence (thank you, facebook) in the midst of my divorce and cheer leaded, hand-held, supported, slapped around when I needed it, and unequivocally took my side throughout my divorce and I will never forget what it meant to me. Never.
- A gay dissolution of domestic partnership in Washington State is every bit the headache and financial disaster of a divorce in Washington State. I realize and acknowledge I carry some baggage from my own divorce (where I was delighted to escape with my pension plan intact), because as I'm looking at forms and papers and websites with SD (Sugar Daddy), I am genuinely filled with a "why do people do this to themselves" feeling and a very real reluctance or outright resistance to doing it again. And if I do - I will have a pre-nup to protect that pension plan.
- Cappy is twice-divorced, himself, so I dare say neither of us are beating a path to the altar, here. And why is it that when I was looking at online dating sites, a man in his forties who had not been married would give me the willies, and when I think of someone twice-divorced, I am less-stressed than "never married" but still stressed. Can it really be that there is a "right amount" of divorcedness in dating?? Once is desirable, twice is suspect??
- I may be supporting SD's divorce/dissolution so earnestly because I still have lines on moving in with him into his beautiful Capitol Hill home that I adore. I'm just sayin'. Giant clawfoot tub. Loads of gorgeous wood trim. It is one cool house. I picked out my bedroom the first time I saw it.
- Something is a little broke in me because when SD told me about the split, I was immediately in full-support, let's-git-er-done mode, not mourn-the-marriage mode. When he later told Sexy Sabrina while I was there, she cried, then he cried. Umm, I forgot to cry. (Part of that is because I've never met his partner - to me, he's been a faceless energy-suck on my friend.) I think even 2+ years after the divorce (and coming up on three since we split), I am not entirely recovered. I jumped right into Dan Savage's DTMFA (Dump the MF'er Already) mode. Oh, hardened heart. ;)
- I caught the early bus in today and almost had to jump in front of the bus to stop him. The driver said, "Oh, you surprised me! No one ever gets on here!" Uhh, but people stand at the stop waving and ready to board and this doesn't interest you? :)
- I caught the early bus in today because my house guest works early. ;) And that's all I'm sayin' about that.