Winter gloom

Daylight savings time has ended and for me that marks the beginning of the long, gray, depressing slog through winter.

I don't do well with short, dark days.

To make things even darker, NASCAR's season ends this weekend.

I don't know what it is about NASCAR, but it makes me happy. Just about nothing else does.

This season isn't even over and I'm already counting down the days to next season's Daytona 500. It falls on Valentine's day in 2010, and that's just 89 days from today. By then the days will be noticeably longer and brighter.

89 days to go. I think I can tough it out.

Most embarrassing moment of my NASCAR weekend

Check out that massive camel toe.

End of summer purge

I'm sorry to see summer come to an end. It's been a good summer. It's the easy time of my calendar. Soon financial aid season will be upon me and I'll be at my laptop for hours upon hours, days and weeks at a stretch. Not looking forward to that. In fact, I'm dreading it.

I had my annual physical last week and though I don't have all the lab results yet, I don't expect any surprises. I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. The coughing that had me down during spring (likely allergies), is long gone. The nausea that began last year and worsened this past spring is also gone. It left with Celexa.

Speaking of Celexa, I think I'm finally through the withdrawal. Looking back on it, the process probably hit its apex when I was in Oregon in June. I was so miserable that weekend I wanted to die. I wasn't depressed or suicidal. I just wanted to die. Hard to explain. It's all behind me thankfully. I feel great, both emotionally and physically.

I think my thyroid may be off kilter a bit, so I half-expect to get a call from my doctor to change my Levoxyl dosage. I say half-expect because if my thyroid was off like I think it is, I'd be dropping a lot more weight. I have been dropping weight, but it's because I've been working at it.

After a seven month stretch when I took a break from weight loss and rarely exercised, I picked it up again, in earnest. I came off a stressful winter/consulting season with a serious case of cabin fever. When work wound down, I busted out. I've spent every possible minute of every day this summer outside (or in the pool), doing something.

The batting cage is the perfect compliment to Frisbee golf [I throw from left-to-right and swing from right-to-left]. Just saying.

I've had a lot of time for the outdoors because this is my off season. I've not been especially busy with work. I do a different kind of modeling in my off season. I do these cookie-cutter, assembly line, predictive models. I get a fixed price per model, and there are enough to do that I earn half of my year in my off-season. Yet I hardly work at all.

Unfortunately, the rest of my year doesn't come so easily. I haven't figured out how to adapt my econometric models to an assembly line system so that I can get the same price-to-effort ratio. I need to work on that.

When one can't work, one must play. Playtime aplenty has had its rewards. I dropped 10 pounds over the summer.

I've dropped 50 pounds since quitting my day job 14 months ago. My knees are a lot happier and I no longer suffer from GERD.

I'm working hard to drop 25 more. Then my plan is to clean up the rest of my act just long enough to pass a physical for affordable health insurance. The difference between Fat Trop and Lean Trop is about $200/month in premiums. Cha-ching.

I've blogged enough for now about banjo, except for this cute thing. The kid in the lesson before mine is an 8-year-old girl learning guitar. She's just starting out and already she's doing a respectable rendition of Walk the Line. When her lesson was wrapping up, I overheard her tell the instructor "They're going to make a movie about me, just like in Walk the Line." So. Cute.

If there was a movie about your life, what celebrity would play your part? No clue who would play me in a Trop biopic.

Another reason I'm sad to see summer end: Amanda. I enjoy being home with her through the day. I'm so lucky to have that. We'll still have it after school starts, but it won't be the same.

Amanda has been pumped for school after her first two orientation classes; her full schedule starts tomorrow. I hope she takes to college the way I did. I hated high school so much that I almost skipped out on college. As it was I delayed college until I was 20. That was the right thing for me. I hope this is the right thing for her.

I am so desperate to see Amanda blossom.

Courtney and I spent a lot of date nights this summer at city stadium, where the Hillcats play. Minor league baseball is a lot of fun. We went to the game last night and saw a great fireworks show afterward. I'm going to miss nights out at the stadium.

NASCAR has been SO much fun this summer because my guy has been at the top of the charts most of the season. He had a bad night last night though. Hope that's the last one. NASCAR lasts until November, so there's a lot of racing left.

Finally, I'm sorry to see summer end because with fall comes another birthday (October). I'm going to be 49 this time, and that's hitting me HARD.

I can't stand it

Despite a few setbacks, it's been a summer of joy for me. I'm having a great time lately.

Among the things bringing me joy this summer is racing. My guy, Tony Stewart, is having a Cinderella season. Only he's no Cinderella.


He's a been number one in the point-standings for weeks. He needs wins. Every win earns Tony 10 bonus points in the Chase (playoff) standings. Two drivers have more wins than Tony.

Tomorrow they race at the famed Brickyard in Indianapolis, Indiana, Tony's home state. I want him to win tomorrow so much it hurts.

If life is a fairy tale, Tony Stewart will win and Ryan Newman will place second in tomorrow's race. A NASCAR- obsessed gal can dream, right?

If Tony can't win, then Ryan just must. He's an Indiana boy too, a graduate of Purdue. Though Ryan is likely to make the Chase, he's not safely in. He needs a good race tomorrow.

If Tony or Ryan can't win, then I hope Junior wins. He needs a win more than anyone.

Excitement is giving way to nervousness. I'm getting so that I can't stand myself. I may have to walk this off.

I hope it's a good race tomorrow.

I'm feeling a surge

This withdrawal is the strangest thing. I'm at a place now where half the time I am a basket case, and the other half of the time I'm feeling better than ever.

My appetite is back. I'm not nauseous all the time. In fact, I got a hankering for favorite of mine and made the most excellent meal the other night.

I've been exercising again, and spending a lot of time in the sun outside (I have the poison ivy to prove it).

I'm staying ahead of my work. I'm back to cranking out cookie-cutter models. It's easy money compared the financial aid models I do in the fall and winter. I have better concentration too. I'm less ADHD-like when working; I actually stay on task and am less easily distracted by twitters and blogs and email. Sometimes my workday, which starts at around 7:00am, is wrapped up by 11:00am. It used to be, for lack of focus, that the same amount of work got stretched over the entire day.

On the down side, I find being around people a challenge. I am exceedingly impatient and crabby. I am prone to meltdowns. Conversations frustrate me. I also have frequent days where crying comes way too easy. I could do with a lot less of all this. I don't like being a bitch.

I keep coming here looking for a new post

Then I snap out of it and realize I need to write a new post if I want to see one.

I haven't had much of a muse for blogging.

The truth is, I haven't felt particularly well. I've seen my doctor and we're working on a few things. I'll see her again in a month for a more thorough assessment.

Emotionally, I've had some really bad days lately. This is to be expected, I suppose, given that my brain is adjusting to no antidepressants. On a bad day I'm not nice to be around, and I know it. I'm hoping this rough patch is just a phase of my withdrawal.

Yesterday was Amanda's last day of school. I've never been so happy to see a school year end. Though she just completed 10th grade I'll be enrolling her at the community college in the fall as a regular freshman. She tested into college English and math, so she's good to go. By the time her high school classmates are getting their diplomas, she will have, hopefully, completed her first two years of college. I hope it's a good move for her. High school just wasn't working out.

In other good news, my chapter 13 bankruptcy, stemming from my first marriage and subsequent divorce, was discharged (paid in full) on June 1. I am debt free. I cannot describe how free that feels.

Living the good life

Not much to blob about. Things end up on Twitter, and what's the point of blogging them later? The things I tweet in the sperm spur of the moment, however... I need a twitter muzzle.

For the first time in fourteen years I'm not taking a prescription crazy med. Along the way I'd been on Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor and finally Celexa. I think consuming all those drugs over all that time permanently altered my brain chemistry, and not in a good way. No doubt they helped me, especially early on when things went to hell in my life for a while.

Life's not a living hell anymore, and it hasn't been for years. To the contrary, my life is fanfuckingtastic.

Why me? I've done despicable things. I have not earned this happiness. No matter, I'll keep it while it's here.

So I'm going to give it a go, to see if I can lick my demon with exercise, diet, semi-retirement, and lots of sex (a particularly fine benefit of not being medicated).

In the meantime, I've been a lot loopy lately. I've probably acted inappropriately. Hell, I went shopping the other day and bought stuff!

I'm not necessarily apologizing by that admission. I'm just sayin'.

I'm hoping that a prescription-free me, Kimberly, can be like my moniker, the smooth un-turbulent air that jetliners surf.

Aside from being an occasional asshole (ok, frequent) all seems well so far. Some things are way better (Hotter. Than. A. June. Bride.); other things concern me (buried things are bubbling up); and the rest is too early to tell.

Truthfully, I suspect it could get bumpy ahead. I might dredge up a lot of shit. And I'll probably blog it.

Consider yourself warned. And please, friends, talk me down if I get ridiculous.

Here comes the sun

We've had a long stretch of gray dark days this spring. Darkness kicks me in the ass.

This weekend, finally, the sun is back.


I am so much better now.

Overheard @Trop's

Court's been sick and at times delirious from fever.


Trop: [reading headlines] Has it been 20 years since the Exxon Valdez spill?

Court: I don't know the question to that.

The exorcism of Trop

I have an annoying, self- destructive trait. I am an avoider. A procrastinator. I function in the last minute.

Most of the time this doesn't present a serious problem. I'll back myself into a corner and then stressfully get a thing done with not a moment to spare.

Of course, with the not-a-moment-to-spare stress comes the adrenaline rush.

It's the adrenaline I need. That's why things get delayed. I can't seem to move without that adrenaline. Can I get it in pills?

It was like this with my dissertation. I knew I should be writing daily; this wasn't something that was going to get done at the last minute. But I function in the last minute. It's always been that way with me.

It's a fucking curse.

About my dissertation, a wise person told me "When the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it, you'll get it done." So I focused on the pain of not doing it, and that drove me forward.

Back then my pain threshold was a lot lower than it is today.

I have a project with a client that's been weighing me down since last October.

I could have finished it off before things got really busy, but I just couldn't make myself work on it. Then things got busy, and it was the project that always got bumped down in priority. What was supposed to be a three week timeline stretched into three months. Then four. I started losing sleep. I lost my appetite. Yet I still couldn't work on the project.

It became like a toothache that had gone on for so long and hurt so bad that I wanted to grab the pliers and yank it out myself.

On Wednesday, I finally did it. It took me all of 10 hours.

I feel like I've been through an exorcism.


Had I done that 10 hours of work months ago I could have avoided so much agony. I've done it to myself so many times. And I'll surely do it again.

Little known Trop fact

Do you recall that tennis match, where Pete Sampras became so dehydrated he got sick on the court [not for the squeamish]? Or that marathon in the Olympics, when the runner, a woman, practically crawled across the finish line?

That happened to me once, at this lake, Lake Miramar. One trip around is five miles. The mile markers start at the parking area, and go counter clockwise back to the parking lot. I was on my third lap, and just past the point-of-no-return. That is, I was just beyond half-way around, so the shortest distance back meant going forward.

I got dehydrated even though I'd been hydrating all along, alternating water and sports drinks. I had been through marathon training two years earlier, so I knew a 15-mile walk would require a lot of water and powerade. I'm not sure how it happened.

But it happened. And I had about two miles of walking to get back to the car.

It is really bad when you are seriously dehydrated. It's scary. You start losing control of your limbs. You get disoriented and can't think. And you are really sick.

I made it about a mile and a half before I had to get off the path and vomit for five minutes. That actually rejuvenated me, and gave enough of a boost to make it the last half-mile to my car, where I had more water and gatorade.

Not sure what triggered my memory of that day. I never, ever want to get that way again.

Obama Derangement Syndrome in full force

My favorite spectator sport of late is watching "real Americans" get consumed with Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Read their comments. You can't make up shit like that.

How to handle the bitter cold

It's been unusually cold these past few days.

I spend all my time in this house now that I work at home, and it's as energy efficient as a tent. Making matters worse, I've had a persistent head cold all week. By yesterday I had a serious case of cabin fever and mild hypothermia.

So it should not have surprised Court last night, as our evening out with friends was about to end too early, that I suggested we spend a few hours at a jacuzzi suite at one of East Jesus' better motels. I just couldn't bear to go home before 9:00pm to a cold, cramped house.

We know from experience this place has an hourly rate. We checked in at 9:00 and checked out by 2:00.

After a week of layering on the clothes because our house can't get any warmer than 58 degrees when the temps outside don't top 20 degrees, it sure was nice to bask naked in a spacious, 75-degree room.

Very. Nice.

And the jacuzzi tub? Ahhhhhhh.... positively steamy.

It's January 9th

and for the first time this year, I finally got off my fat ass and exercised.

Pathetic.

Of all the things to get me...

I dropped out of boot camp for fear of injuring myself. Today I discovered that little, everyday things in life are just as capable of doing you in.

This morning I threw my back out-of-whack while reaching up to turn off a ceiling fan.

Doing the walk of shame

We dropped out of our Sunday boot camp at the Y. The tipping point was Thursday, when we decided to try out the stairs just to test our limits. (FYI: that's our church there in the upper right side of the stairs).

We did them twice. I'm not sure which is worse, going up (hard on the heart) or coming down (hard on the knees).

Bottom line: We're too heavy for the condition our knees are in.

I need to shed a lot more heft and strengthen my flabby body before I can enroll in a boot camp without risking major injury (or heart attack).

OY! It sucks being old, fat and wilted.

In other news

It's four days since boot camp and I can finally squat without crippling up in pain.

Boot Camp: Week 1

We were last in everything, and some things we couldn't do; but nobody worked harder on that field than the two of us. We're the fattest in the class (by far), and I'm probably the oldest. I was doing relays with a women's track athlete currently at Liberty University.

OMFG.

It was HOT (80). Not a cloud in the sky. I was sorry to be without my hat.

We did running, push-ups, jumping jacks, squats, relays, squats, stepping up on picnic benches (we did a very modified version of that), push-ups, squats, running, squats; followed by mat and medicine ball work indoors.

It was too hot. But we did it.

I almost hurled in the dressing room after. I was way overheated. My HRM was beeping at me to SLOW DOWN most of the 75 minutes we were at it.

The pool afterward felt great. I know I sizzled when I made contact with the water.

Next week, we're doing these stairs. I kid you not.

If heart rate monitors were cattle prods...

...I'd be toast.

I recently started wearing a heart rate monitor when I go to the pool. All along I thought I was giving myself a good work out. As it turns out, I haven't been working hard enough. This explains why, for all my pool time, I did not see a corresponding weight loss.


The monitor beeps at me if my level of exertion falls below where it's supposed to be, given my age and weight. Every time it beeps, I respond as if prodded, intensifying my kicks and strokes. It's hard to keep that up for a long time, and the second I slow down, it starts beeping. The thing beeps at me a lot, prodding me to work harder during my time in the pool.

On the bright side, the bathroom scale is moving again.

Tomorrow Court and I begin a six-week Boot Camp at the Y. Can you believe it, I'm giving up my Sunday afternoons (sacred NASCAR time) to sweat it out at a boot camp!

I just hope I survive.

I swear I'm pregnant

I swear I'm pregnant. I even have morning sickness.

Moody much? One minute I'm gay and flirty, the next minute I'm downright mean.

Amanda called me "catty."

I have moments of real confusion. Fleeting moments when I sometimes don't know where I am.

This is what my pregnancy was like. I was not a person you wanted to be around.

Of course, I am NOT pregnant, so WTF?

I was taking a high dose of Effexor and it is finally out of my system. Maybe it's replacement isn't enough and depression, which causes many of my symptoms, is gradually taking over. I'll need to watch that.

Or maybe my thyroid levels need adjusting (the morning nausea is a clue).

Or maybe I'm just heading into The Change. I'll be 48 next month. Does menopause feel like pregnancy?

Whatever it is, I guess I ought to get my old self to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor.