feeling very sorry for myself. what better time to write? so the root cause of everything is probably, once again, not enough sleep. i didn't get enough sleep saturday night. so after church on sunday i fell into a deep dark sleep. the kind that when you wake up you think you've been asleep all night. meanwhile in a land far away that i shall call surrey, my family had a gathering. it was a gathering i was invited to in thought only--not word. one of those "i thought you were going to invite her!" type things. i'm not super upset about this because it's just one of our family's handicaps and i'm used to it. but i would have liked to have seen sarah and kyle and it was the only day to do it.

anyways i slept too long. three hours is too long. so i stayed up too late. 2am is too late. (i was reading the wonderful true love story of this woman) so i didn't go to the gym this morning. and i've been going to the gym every week day for the last two weeks and i was unwilling to give up on my gym going streak. so like one day last week i went straight from work. monday wednesday and friday are pool days. i swim laps. i started with 9 measly laps and the next week 10 and this week i was going to do the obvious and go for 11 measly laps.

the pool in the morning is nice. it's just me and this other guy. we are quiet and focused. we do our thing. his thing is all breast stroke. my thing is a mixed bag of strokes as long as i keep going. and i'm learning tips on how to do better strokes and swim more efficiently. he's in his lane and i'm in mine. one time an old man came and joined me in my lane but it wasn't much of a bother because a) he was slow and b) it was near the end of my measlies. (i'm getting obnoxious with the a) b) listing of things, i know. i even do it in speech and i know it's obnoxious, but the thing is, i have no desire to change)

the pool in the afternoon/early evening has people in it. when i came in there was one person in each lane. a fast forward crawler in the slow lane and a slow breast stroker in the fast lane. i'm not fast. and i'm not as slow as the slow guy was. i thought "well it's after work and i'm not in a big hurry. i'll sit in the hot tub for a while and see if the pool gets roomier in the next few minutes. forward crawler was relentless. she barely stopped for a breath. once in a while she would slug back some water from her bottle sitting at the pool's edge. slow man got out but not before young breast stroker and his girl friend arrived. i couldn't sit in the hot tub and stew forever, so i got out and joined fast foward crawler in her lane.

things didn't go well. i had no breath. i couldn't catch it. i don't know if fasty's presence flustered me into trying to go faster than i could or not, but i think i had a little asthma attack because i was wheezy and heavy in the chest after i got out after only 7 laps. and i'm still heavy in the chest and minimally wheezy.

oh well at least i did something, today i thought and had a shower and did my hair.

i went to save-on to buy some food. it was dangerous because i was hungry and shopping. i bought some stuff for a salad and got a guy to separate a single chicken breast out for me and got some 100 calorie oreo ice cream pops and two cook books. as i told sarah who phoned to invite me over to jord and tracy's "i like to buy cook books and not cook." i have this idea that new cookbooks will inspire me to cook. i had high hopes for the two i picked out and looked forward to an evening in front of the olympics scouring their pages. i told sarah i couldn't come. it was too last minute. if i had known i wouldn't have gone to the gym, wouldn't have gone shopping. as it was i needed to eat and go to bed early. i was already feeling a haze of feeling sorry for myself--lonely and hopeless for no reason. i put it down to lack of sleep and gym exertion. i need to go to bed early tonight--that much is clear.

i waited a long time in the line up, my stomach gurgling and growling, but i was patient. i was happy about my salad fixins and the new swiss cheese and pepper bread i got from the bakery all sliced up in the slicing machine. just as it was my turn i went to get my save-on card and that's when i noticed my bank card wasn't there. why oh why do i not carry cash on me on a regular basis? i took my bank card out for the hockey game, not that it did me any good as they only took visa and cash and only had a visa atm.

i felt like crying. i told the girl what i'd done and walked out of the store to my car. on my way home i squeezed out a few tears of self pity.

now i'm making tuna and brown rice and trying to get on with my life. it's hard to let that perfect grocery cart go though.