I was just thinking about the song Life on Mars. I looked up the lyrics and i was just thinking sometimes I feel like i'm the girl in the song and i was scrolling down i couldn't help but notice the large image of smokey the bear pointing at me and i was just thinking about you before i looked up the song and it made me think. Was i supposed to be interrupted by that image just now? that  image of smokey the bear reminding me of your sense of humor? why did you jump out at me just now?

i went to a foodie meetup yesterday and it while it was fun, i felt very out of place. Everyone was older professionals and it was just, eh. The food was good. People were nice, but just. i don't know. i can't seem to find my place.

Going to the meetup meant i skipped my workout. I didn't think it'd be a big deal, but i really felt it today. I had such a short fuse. I think the working out really helps to calm me down. I'm not nearly as angry and impatient. Inventory tonight, so i didn't have one today either. I hope i can get through tomorrow okay. i've got to remember to do yoga when i get home form work tomorrow. i'm gonna need it. I think working out might be my sex replacement. It seriously does wonders on my anger and stress levels.

Saturday i walked up one hill. I couldn't get the dog to keep going. Thursday she walked all the way to fisherman's wharf with me and we ran on the beach at aquatic park (like a real san franciscan, oblivious to the no dogs signs). So, we just went to the park instead. When I got home I realized i was getting bored of the shakeweight routines, so i tried jillian michaels 30 day shred. Level 1 was super easy, maybe because i'd already been working out every day for 2 weeks straight. I barely broke a sweat. Its been so fun doing these shakeweight routines that i don't consider myself to have done anything if i'm not dripping in sweat. So when i was done i felt like, hm, that was kinda lame and i did the shakeweight total body extreme. That was killer, i always forget about that one, it was especially hard after just having worked for 20 minutes. I felt super accomplished after doing both and ready to conquer the world. I ended up talking on the phone late and didn't get enough sleep. I woke up really sore. I ate a bunch of cookies that got deformed during baking and gave myself a stomach ache. I was pretty exhausted when i got home from work. I realized i still had 20 minutes before quiet hours and decided to do the 30 day shred level 2. I was like, yeah, i'm tired, but its only 20 minutes, i can do almost anything for 20 minutes. Level 2 was much better, not nearly as lame as level 1. I like that its a lot of just basic fitness moves, like you did in elementary school, not dance or gimmick, just using your body against itself mostly. (but i still like think the shakeweight latin dance is more fun and hella challenging since i'm uncoordinated as fuck). I woke up this morning at 9 and my calves were throbbing sore, my shoulders were aching. I had a glass of water and thought i should sleep 1 more hour since i got to bed at around 2 am. I had seriously good sleep after that, i woke up at 1:15! I haven't slept that late in a long time and i felt so rested. I wasn't even sore anymore. Only a little when i moved certain muscles, not achey like when i first woke up. I got really tired around 6, so i took a nap. That nap was friggin' glorious. it was only about an hour, but it felt so good. I was even less sore when i woke up after that one. I think my body was like, hey yo go to bed, i got some maintenance to do, you're putting all this excess wear on me, let me fix it already. I was thinking of just letting this be a lazy day, but then i thougt again, what's 20 minutes? So i did level 2 again. I really like the endorphin rush after exercise. it sliek ahhhh!!! i candosomuchmorerightnow!!!! like how sugar makes me feel. but less crazy, more just warm, there's calm after the rush instead of a crash.

Part of cleaning up my life is cleaning up my home. Though my apartment is temporary and i think of it as such, i should still make it a functional home. A place I can have people over to, a place i can relax in. Though its easy to clean because my possessions are sparse, its not very organized and the pet hair is out of control. It is so difficult to not have constant pet smell in an apartment. I am buying a kick ass vacuum to conquer all this pet hair and once that is paid off I think I will get a laptop; my supercomputer is quite cumbersome and loud and the dvd drive doesn't work anymore. And maybe after that is paid off i will get a litter robot. that would be so nice. but on to the smaller things. I don't want to forget to get it together.

• real laundry hampers to keep the hair out of my clothes. Also would be beneficial to sort my clothes so they don't get each other dirtier, the washers here kind of suck. I could use pet stuff separated from clothes separated from sheets, etc.
• more cheap hand towels so i quit buying and using so many paper towels
• a couch or loveseat
• more hangers
• a garbage can and recycling can with lids
• a paper shredder
• small table or coffee table
• one more shower curtain
• a bed frame
• drawers
• a sheet pan
• glass tupperware
• a vegetable peeler (my last one broke)
• an extra chair

Turned out not to be so bad at all. If my future indeed lies at the store i just guested at then i might be just fine. They just need a little guidance, but they seem to have a good handle on things. It also didn't seem as misery inducing of a place as everyone made it out to be. People are haters.

There are a couple of things I'd like to write about. I'm not sure which one I'm going to pick at this moment. I'm working on myself a little right now. My new year's resolution was to treat myself better. I've thought on things and realized i don't talk to myself very nicely. The critic that I have for everyone and everything else is just an extension of the one i have for myself. I also, at the beginning of the year, thinking upon how much I missed my long distance boyfriend, realized that what I liked most about him was the way I felt about myself around him. The person I was when i was next to him. I am always me, but this was such a smiling, giggly, much more positive version of me. I will always be somewhat cynical and insecure, but with him i could see how silly a lot of it was. And I could see all the good things about me too. It was like whoa, yeah, i am a smart, brave, and hot woman. I am very fun and cool. I do know what i'm doing and i am awesome. I can accomplish anything or have fun trying to. I liked that woman. She was cool. Why am i not her most of the time? That's when i resolved to treat myself and talk to myself the way he did. Because when i walked around with that feeling i could do anything. and i did. i fucking moved across the country on a whim feeling like that awesome confident chick. I thought if i stop telling myself all the negative things, i can feel that way on my own too. So. Thats what my resolution was. To treat me like the awesome person I am. It sounds really funny and conceited, but the truth is, people really can be pretty hurtful towards themselves and i was. I held myself back so many times. I feared things for no reason. I often find i doubt things i said the first time around and then they turned out to be right (this happens at work quite often, so much so that it has come up in every one of my performance reviews ever!). Some self criticism is good, but i take it too far it seems. So yeah.anyway. I'm working on that. That's one part of treating myself right. The other part is doing it too. Going and doing nice things because i want to do them. Not talking myself out of it, indulging now and then. Sure, go to a nice restaurant just because, you deserve to do something expensive sometimes. No one has to give me that, i can give me that. And treating my body right. Listening to it. Like the exercise i've been doing lately- that has been amazing. Dude, the backs of my thighs are hard now.. hard. i don't think i've ever had one part of me not be soft. Its really trippy and kind of cool. Those are muscles. I didn't even realize they were there until i felt them in the shower. There is a part of me that is strong and healthy now. How cool is that. Walking up the hills did that. Amazing. Not only that, but physically exerting myself really helps diminish a lot of the frustration and anger i carry around. It gives that energy somewhere to go. And speaking of that, I am starting to get back to healthier eating. That doesn't mean i won't still attend my meetups at swanky or interesting sf restaurants and i won't still enjoy everything sf has to offer food wise, but I don't have to have it all the time. Save it for the meet ups. Save it for a celebration. I'm back to mostly veggies at home and in my lunches. I went overboard during vacation and little after, it was so much restaurant food. I could feel it. I was downright craving greens and ignoring it. My body was crying out for some beets, or asparagus, or cabbage. It got to where i couldn't even enjoy what i was eating even though it was really rich food. It was insane. So I toned it down. I went to the farmer's market and I got my veggie on. I even gave up the blue bottle mochas for refreshing fresh pressed apple cherry cider. And its delicious and it feels great. Sure, I still get an oyster a la cart in the ferry building. I even still have breakfast at one of the restaurant stands, but then i go home and cook my lunch for tomorrow with all my fresh spring veggies. And that lunch is usually pretty great and so colorful and interesting that it makes everyone else ask about it. Everyone's jealous of my healthy lunch and then i'm like fuck yeah, i'm eating this and it makes it even better. On a couple of opening shifts i bought a green vegetable juice instead of coffee and you know what happened? i didn't feel like snacking on the brownie and cookie leftovers. I felt, satisfied, not hungry, not craving sugar. it was nice. And for the first time ever i am walking into a totally fucked up work situation, one that is pretty clear cut going to suck, and i am saying so what, i can totally do it. Fuck it, not only can i do it, but i will do it. Just try..try to make my life miserable!  And I'm putting all of this positive energy into the atmosphere, just putting it out there and its starting to return. its like life is saying "oh yeah? well i can do that too... here have what you want. ha! i'll show you, i'll make things work out!" and that's how its going so far. it might totally suck in two months, but you know what? i can handle it. whatevs. i'm kassi. i'm awesome.

It was too much for me today. Sometimes I'm operating on this rush of euphoria and sometimes it all just catches up. Everyone has been too busy for me this weekend. I'm bored. I have some dirty texts that are under a number that is no longer used. Yup, i saved the dirty texts. hey. they were good. i need them sometimes. don't judge. I've been going in and deleting the rest of the conversation so it just becomes a string of all the great dirty texts. The only problem with that is it causes me to read all of those old conversations. I've gotten all the way back to when i was getting ready to move last year. it was all just... so sweet. so great. i can't even believe how happy i was. I can't even believe how supportive a lot of that conversation was. I was so happy and so scared at the same time. And every second i could i said exactly how i felt. and there was such love and support for response. i can't even deal with that, that it was so wonderful. Lately i've been very good at adopting the 'don't cry because you lost it, smile because you had it" attitude. but this was just too much and it all came pouring out. but i decided crying mess or not, i have to get in my workout routine before quiet hours. and you know what. i feel better... so much better as soon as my heart rate went up. so nice. i want to work out again. stupid quiet hours. I've always hated exercise, but i always used it to try to have control over my weight; i never thought of using it as stress relief. it is really pretty wonderful. I really like this.

I applied for team leader. Its really weird, i've been very nervous about the whole aspect of applying for it, not so much the job itself. Its social interactions that make me nervous, i know i can work. I was dreading the talking about myself and the advice, but so far, its been, well, like nothing. Everyone is just like 'do it' and that's kind of the end of it. No one is like "you need to work on xyz" or "you don't want that,...". I'm not sure why, but I thought for certain someone would tell me no. No one did. Even the regional coordinator was like 'i commend you on taking the initiative to apply"..what? really? That means i really have to do this. I have no one to blame if I don't. Give it a little more time and i'll be nervous about the interview process. But wow. I certainly didn't expect everyone to support me. Even my copilot was like "why?" when i said i expected someone to say no. I guess I just really am not confident in other people thinking i can do my job. ha. So anyway there's that. Sometimes the thought is stressful, sometimes the thought is exciting. We'll see what happens. I did interview for associate team leader like 7 times before i got it, so who knows. Its about time i stop holding myself back though. So here goes. Life, I'm taking you off hold. No more cruise control and playing it easy. Gotta do this. Fore real this time. I'll never get to regional if i don't become tl first.

I walked up nob hill the other day. I was super frustrated the night before and i made up my mind i was gonna conquer the hill in the morning. I walked all the way to fisherman's wharf, which means i walked up two hills, nob hill and russian hill. I was listening to jack off jill on my phone and it was amazing to power up the hill to the angry music. I was giggling as i noticed the lyrics to 'American Made' said, "give me a cake that i can mix and bake in a betty crocker oven that i can break", it made me think of the tiny oven at work that we all dubbed the easy bake. I even got the coordinators calling it that. Then it says, "bake it up and we will stab stab stab" and i thought, wow, this is now going to be my bakery frustration song. I'm delighted to have a song to my specific work stress, ha. Anyway, that workout felt amazing. I was so tired at the end, but also elated, it just felt good. My legs were cursing me though when i had to walk back up the hill to take Holly to the dog park. Also, as i was sitting there, a hot, sweaty mess, just there for the dog, I noticed Holly keep going up to this little brown dog on a leash in a service dog vest. Then I looked up to see the owners and i saw my NKOTB guy. The whole reason that got me going to the dog park regularly was to see him again and i hadn't. I just ended up resolving that it didn't matter, it was good for both holly and my socialization to go there regularly anyway and i gave up on seeing him again. It took me a minute to recognize him, because damn, he looked really good. almost dressy, did something with his hair. In contrast to the day he talked to me and the hippy guy when he was just some funny dude with an ironic button. It took me a minute to register it was him and i had to take a second look at the dog, because i remembered her pink collar, just to make sure. He looked over at me for a minute, probably because i was staring trying to figure out if was him, ha, and he looked like he might say something, but then he rushed on. And that's when i noticed the hot woman trailing him, fixing his sleeves and straightening stray hairs. Ohhh, so that's why he hasn't been around. The dog park is just a pass through now, he probably has to be with her on his work break now.  She's probably why he looked so good too. Go NKOTB button guy, get you a hot girlfriend. Then I came home and cooked myself a lovely dinner. And i've resolved to make walking up the hills a part of at least one of my off days every week.

i've had a notable increase in my stress and frustration levels for the past 4 months. My cursing is much worse, i am complaining so much more. There are a few mental exercises I decided to start using and a lot of letting go, but i still just feel it a lot, the tension. This week I've decided when i get frustrated, maybe not right when, but when I know its been a stressful and/or moody day that I need some exercise. I've exercised daily all week. I almost gave up tonight because its late and my building has quiet hours, but then i figured, fuck it, i need to do something with this pent up energy and i did yoga. I can tell you this I am a much happier and giggly person at work when i've done something that made me sweat the night before. I'm really kind of digging this. It feels good. Let's hope I can stick with it.

i got interrupted by a distraught jeff phone call. hence the weird accidental kepyboard hit at the end. just wanted to let myself know i didn't just go nuts at the end of that entry.