Romancing California

The problem with a fresh commitment to work is...now I'm enthusiastic about and engaged in my work. The last two months have been filled with 12-14 hour days of trying to stay on top of two projects with looming deadlines. My downtime has been spent mostly in complete exhaustion or battling colds that I refuse to allow to take hold during the week, because I can bend even a virus to my will for a very brief while. What little spare time I do have, I've used to help friends with their personal projects, such as building a yurt - A YURT, by gods! Because I'm in California and that's the way the goddamn hippy engineers roll out here.

Nothing says "off-grid" quite like a yurt muffin.

A few friends from North Carolina wound up in Seattle for a supercomputing conference last weekend. For at least seven years, I have been promising other friends who moved to Seattle that I would come say hi. Work be damned, I needed to spend some time with the tribe of my heart and make good on some old promises.

Friday morning, I was out of Sea-Tac by 9am with a shitty rental car and no where in particular to be. I don't think I've felt so free in years. I drove around aimlessly for an hour just admiring the gorgeous autumn scenery before opting to visit the doll museum in Bellevue. After three hours of a fairly comprehensive history of dolls from the last few centuries, I meandered to lunch with friends. Saturday, S., Z. and I rattled around the LeMay Family Car Collection for well over three hours, viewing several hundred of the mostly American cars on display. My little collection of five seems so reasonable in comparison.

There was a failed attempt to visit the Snoqualmie Train Museum, but overall, the weekend was simply spent enjoying the company of dear friends.

There's a certain comfort in being surrounded by people with whom you have a bond and a history. Unguarded moments are few and precious as you become more experienced with and jaded by the world, but here, I had a weekend filled with them. I reluctantly flew home Tuesday morning and went straight into work on a mere three hours of sleep. All of the joy and ease of the weekend immediately undone, I found myself clenching teeth and hands by mid-afternoon.

I should probably romance Seattle a little more often. I still have a lot of California to get through, though.

And yes, comments are STILL broken; feel free to "Like" Romancing California at https://www.facebook.com/RomancingCA and leave comments there. I'll get to porting the site over to Wordpress one day...

Two weeks ago, I bought a red 1991 Mazda Miata. My favorite mechanic got tired of me limping my project cars around and sold it to me. It's very red with big blingy gold tires. The engine compartment is clean. Very clean. Cleaner than any car I've ever owned, much less worked on. I have promised my friends that I will have one car, just one single car, that I do not touch, that is not a project, that will reliably work. Within twenty-four hours of ownership, I had scraped a tire rim, left the top down in the pouring rain, and plotted out a supercharger and exhaust upgrade (which I promise I will pay Paul to do...honest!). Yep, this Miata, she's mine all right!

So in the last two weeks, I've put a thousand miles on the odometer as I've tooled gleefully about the Bay Area. I've been such grins and giggles that folks have accused me of finding a new love. They're right, of course. Whether that new love is the Miata or finally rekindling my flame with California remains to be seen. But, this shiny little Miata is like a sparkling ruby commitment ring. Yes, California, I am staying in this relationship. For now.

Work is as frustrating as ever, but after a lot of thought about leaving, I have made a fresh commitment and am focusing on dealing better with grating or conflicting personalities. Six Sigma training was surprisingly helpful, mostly in that it gives me a common communication tool that grating personalities cannot ignore. Now I can say things like, "By doing it that way, you're adding operational overhead without increasing value to the customer," and map it out in little squares. Technically, I could have said it before, but it's funny what a difference those little squares make.

Home life with awesome roommate B. is awesome. Our little blue house is filled with love and friendship and books and car parts. Really, who could ask for more?

My apologies - comments are still broken; feel free to "Like" Romancing California at https://www.facebook.com/RomancingCA and leave comments there.

Sorry for the silence…the pain from the breast reduction ruled my life for all of May and June…and now here we are in August?!  Oi.

Having contended with kidney stones for much of my adult life, I can say that both the intensity and duration of the post-breast reduction pain were absolutely the worst I've ever experienced.  You are told you will hurt after the surgery, but there's no real way to convey the utter constancy and misery of the pain.  The worst of it at the beginning is somewhat negated by the swelling, which imparts a certain numbness.  As the swelling goes down, new worlds of pain is introduced.  I didn't even realize how much pain ruled my life until about week six or seven, when I sat at my desk at work and thought, "Oh, HEY!  I'm not in pa…oh, goddamnit!" as a new wave of agony hit.

You are told that the skin is fragile, and that you shouldn't lift more than five pounds for three months.  You have no idea just what fragile means until you pull open a door and tear the skin beneath or above your healing incision, because almost everything in this world is more than five pounds.  The scars on the left Frankenboob are significantly more impressive than the right Frank' for this reason alone…I must have torn the skin on the left side six or eight times.

Even with the pain, your breasts are new and exciting - it has been like freshly discovering my body without the angst of teenage hormones.  It was also a source of infinite entertainment to my friends.  My roommate, B., said to me, "I had never in a million years dreamed that I'd have 'Hooterectomy!' as an entry on my calendar"

One morning, B. walked into the kitchen to find me standing with my hands beneath my breasts, wrists against my chest and palms up.  "What…the hell….are you doing??" she asked.  I exclaimed, "My breasts don't go past my fingertips anymore," and then cupping them with joy, pronounced, "they're SO TINY!"  I should confess here that I have gone from a J-cup to a D.  Tiny is, shall we say, relative.  My roommate laughed, "Do NOT let a small-breasted woman hear you say that."

And once the pain subsided, finding that I still had sensation in more intimate moments?  Joyous.  Who knew that, "Want to see my scars?" would be such a great pickup line...

With the exception of some recurring waterblisters across the incisions  from the recent heatwaves, I am mostly healed and pain-free.  My back and neck are much relieved, and I am thrilled to finally be working my way back to a normal life.

I had planned for my next entry to recount my trip to Hong Kong for you. It would have been filled with pithy observations such as, "After spending a day traversing Hong Kong, my dislike of San Jose finally crystallized: It is not a real city. Like the crown rhinestone in a tin tiara, it is only glamorous until you've seen the real thing." But then, Life Got in the Way (TM), and here we are in April. Let me assure you that Hong Kong is fantastic, and should you ever have the opportunity, you should definitely experience it for yourself.

In the meantime, I've been consumed with Work and Life. Several things at work have finally gelled and things are moving forward at a good clip. Not as fast as I want them to, but Progress Will Be Made (eventually). As for life, I have moved from the soulless hotel-like condo near the San Jose airport into a spacious house with a good friend in Alviso.¹ It has a Damn Big Garage and this alone makes me deliriously happy. Devilman spent a month helping me paint and arrange my bedroom and spare room in such a way that I am quite simply the happiest I've been in years.

Most importantly, though, I've finally done something that I've been wanting to do for a very, very long time: I've had a breast reduction.²

Now, laying yourself out upon a table and letting someone chop you to pieces and stitch you back together is not something you do on a whim. I started researching ten years ago by talking to lots of women who had had it done; every woman with whom I've spoken has said it was the best thing they'd ever done for themselves. What amazed me was the lack of negative feedback; what little negative feedback I found online primarily came from what seemed to be negative people.

Of course, thinking about it and doing it are two different things. I had to find the right plastic surgeon. Let me just state now that I have no faith in any medical "professional" who cannot look me in the eye while they are describing a procedure they are expected to perform on me, nor am I interested in someone who doodles the cuts they plan on making on me on the white paper covering the examination table, nor do I want to hear the words, "Well, I've never lost an entire nipple" leave a surgeon's mouth when I ask about the risks associated with my possible surgery.³

When I first moved to California three years ago, I thought that if I was going to find a good plastic surgeon anywhere, it would be here. I voiced this to a former coworker over lunch one day; it turns out she had had three friends who had all had reductions, all used the same surgeon, and all were deliriously happy with the results. That surgeon said things like, "I never cut off a woman's nipple! One, it takes longer to heal, but mostly, it's just too psychologically damaging." That surgeon is the surgeon I chose.

Prior to my surgery, I asked a photographer friend of mine in San Francisco to take tasteful nude portraits of me. In reviewing the pictures last week, I was stunned by the loveliness of my Venus de Willendorf figure, but excited that those heavy, pendulous breasts would finally be gone. While beautiful, they were clearly too big for the frame I inherited from my short, stocky half-Filipina mother. My paternal grandmother, from whom I inherited these breasts, was of good Dutch or German stock, taller and heftier by far. I knew that in looking at those pictures that I would not regret this decision.

Amazingly, having your breasts reduced is an outpatient procedure these days. A friend dropped me off at Sequoia hospital Thursday morning; I was so excited I practically skipped to the second floor Short Stay Unit where I would be prepped for surgery. I joked with nurse weighing me in that I expected to leave a few pounds lighter. It turns out I was correct - the doctor managed to remove almost two pounds of tissue from each breast.

So here I am, three days post-op. I hurt like hell. My breasts are bruised and boxy⁴ and oozy⁵ and mostly look like something stitched together by Doctor Frankenstein. But, they are as much mine as they ever were. Despite the swelling, oozing, bruising and squareness, they are beautiful and will only become more so as they heal.

¹ Technically, Alviso was annexed by San Jose forty-some-odd years ago. It is, however, in denial about this and maintains its own quirky identity. I love it for that reason, alone!
² To the men in the audience that are morally opposed to this, I can only say, "SHUSH!"
³ These were actual things done and said by surgeons I had interviewed.
⁴ Because you tend to be mostly flat on your back for the first 24-48 hours after surgery, the blood and plasma pool and your boobs take on this kind of rounded-box shape. This is normal.
⁵ Oozy is also normal. It's just the excess blood and plasma finding its way out between the stitches.

Yes, I am slack, the comments for the blog still don't work. I have no idea why - they're enabled. I'm working on finding a new host for the blog, preferably on WordPress rather than the current Movable Type install.

In the meantime, please feel free to email me at dollraves [at] gmail [dot] com with your faint praise, requests for relationship advice, recipes for meatloaf, car parts for sale, notification of shoe sales, etc.

-Doll

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I promise.

Okay, I kind of have. My friend A. gave me World of Warcraft before Christmas and I've rediscovered the world of Azeroth. One of my friends declared the gift "the ultimate dick move," but really, what's a guy to do when he's getting more attention than he wants from a female friend? Give her something she already loves to obsess over, of course. It was an elegant solution to a potentially delicate situation.

Fortunately, my friends have been extremely tolerant of my re-addiction. I greeted Christmas morning in the hot tub in the rain¹ with friend D., after which we cooked a huge brunch as folks trickled in to share in an atheist's Christmas. After a nap, I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch or at the kitchen table playing World of Warcraft as friends drifted through to enjoy the festivities.

New Years was much of the same. Friends pitched in and rented a fabulous estate in Sonoma, CA. For me, there was more hot tubbing, less rain, more World of Warcraft than Christmas. I even spent one morning outside in the Cabana in forty degree Fahrenheit weather to get a wireless signal so I could run dungeons with real and virtual friends scattered around the country. T. brought me a blanket and friends D & M started a fire in the fire pit for me, making me feel adored and throughly spoiled. It was the best New Years I've had in a long while; quiet when I needed it, raucous when I needed it, relaxing and reinvigorating at the same time.

I paid for it all the next week with an ear infection.

Next Romancing Installment: Hong Kong.

¹ If you've never heard me say it, I love California when it rains...it's like watching Barbie cry. Constant sunshine, like that perky plastic smile, wears thin quickly.

Despite the title of this blog, I used to not be a romance novel kind of girl. I have had a long and enduring friendship with romance author Sabrina Jeffries, knowing her for years before ever reading one of her books. Once someone pointed out that I would go into an adult toy store and buy myself a means of pleasure without thinking twice, but I would not buy a book written by a dear friend simply because it was a romance novel. "Of course," I explained, "the first implies that I am having sex, even if it is with myself, while the second implies that I am not."

A few years ago while visiting my brother, I observed his wife reading a book, turning page after page, unable to put it down. I asked her what she was reading and, embarrassed, she showed me the cover. Upon my declaration of knowing the author, my sister-in-law gushed over how Sabrina Jeffries was her favorite. That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I picked up the book and read it.

Now, Sabrina writes a damn good story, so I called her the next day and told her so. Once she got over the shock that I'd actually read one of her books and thought it was great, she insisted I sample other authors and try to give an unbiased opinion. Fair enough, I was game. That week, I became something I never dreamed: A consumer of romance novels.¹

Friends and strangers both will admit their dirty little secret of also enjoying romance novels when they see me with a book. Unsurprising, given that romance is the largest selling genre of fiction in the US. I can't help but wonder why reading a romance novel is still a dirty secret?

While romance novels are not necessarily erotica or porn, they do fill a similar niche: the fantasy that we will get what we want. If I am to believe the romance novels, women want to be loved, desired and needed by someone who can fuck them silly.² Maybe that's the problem. Modern women are either encouraged to embrace, explore and fulfill their sexuality (in or out of marriage), or encouraged to be virgins until married. We're supposed to choose whether we're going to be the Madonna or the Whore. In reality, most of us are both.

Yes, women, embrace your sexual fantasies and develop your sexual identity! But don't neglect your emotional fantasies and identity while you're at it. Read science fiction/fantasy AND romance to be a better, more rounded woman. In fact, you can get both with Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart series.

And when you're done with those, let me also recommend my friend Sabrina's books... :D

¹Granted, I often found myself yelling things like, "That's creepy! GET A RESTRAINING ORDER NOW!" or "Maybe he's just not that into you..." at the heroine. I'm still working on that whole "suspension of disbelief," both for romance novels and romance in real life.

²Personally, at this point in my life I just want good company that doesn't mind sharing the garage.

Nothing sets the holiday mood quite like a burlesque done to "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." Yes, that's right. The Grinch. In a Christmas burlesque. You absorb that, I'll be over here reveling in the memory...

San Francisco and Oakland enjoy vibrant counter-culture and underground art scenes, including burlesque. South Bay generally suffers from its proximity to these two hubs of activity, as all the interesting things happen north, thus all the interesting people wanting to do such things tend to migrate that way as well. But the Sin Sisters Burlesque has taken up residence in Santa Cruz, and I don't think the South Bay will ever be the same again.

This is, of course, a very good thing.

I will confess, I have always considered myself a hopelessly straight woman. However, the SSB ensemble had me doubting that last night. Witty, wicked, gorgeous women teasingly removing clothing and dancing provocatively in an intimate setting will do that, I suppose. From classic burlesque to SteamPunk to Goth to futuristic space explorer to the Grinch to whirling whips and fluttering fans, the show opened with bang and just kept wowing the audience. Go. Just go! Keep an eye on the events page; I hear there's another show mid-January.

With Glamazon Madam Chartreuse swinging hips and whips to lead the way, Sin Sisters Burlesque will no doubt carve itself indelibly into South Bay's art scene. I, for one, am thrilled!

A few weeks ago, Devilman brought me a bucket of apples from his trees in the mountains. It brought to mind a snippet of bad poetry I wrote almost twenty years ago:

Sitting in the shadows of the leaves of the trees...
won't you come and sit with me?
Bring me pearls and shiny things,
like apples red with temptation.

These apples were not a shiny red, nor were they symbolic of temptation, but they still made a damn fine apple cobbler.

Omnomnom!

It's funny how we find things we did not even realize we had lost. Granted, losing bad poetry is not necessarily a bad thing. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Internet (and this blog in particular) will preserve many of my writings - good, bad, or just plain mediocre - for as long as Google caches and archives it. It's kind of exciting to think that one day my nieces and nephews, or even their children, may be able to read through this text and get to know me in some small way long after I've returned to the earth.

Ideally, I would like to leave them more than bad poetry. Sorry, kids, but some days, bad poetry is all I am.