Mother and child reunion

Thanks, everyone, for your support, and keeping Asian Green Beans in your thoughts for the last few days. Unfortunately, my mom didn't win anything, but the trip was so much fun, she was happy just to have been nominated. No, really!

I arrived at the hotel around 4:00 on Monday, and just checked email and worked a bit (um, even though this was technically a vacation) until my mom came back from her "prep day." She was excited and happy but also nervous - apparently, there were a few "surprises," like lack of space and prep time. But all of the other contestants were lovely - fun and nice and friendly women - and she practically danced her way into the shower. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and we eagerly met the other contestants for dinner downstairs.

Day 2 was the official "cook-off", so while my mom left at the crack of dawn for the contest kitchen, I slept off my jet lag. I woke around 10, got some coffee, checked some email, and then, oh, laid by the pool for four hours. Now that is vacation!

Tuesday night was the Awards Dinner, and we were all shuttled to a very nice restaurant in a tony suburb about 20 minutes away. (I should mention, the shuttle drivers were the pretty young things from the magazine's staff. From Birmingham, Alabama. They didn't know the New Jersey Turnpike any better than I did. And yet they navigated through the dark highways with a Southern grace that I will certainly never possess.)

I digress... This was where my world got smaller. It turns out that the company who handles PR for the magazine (and the one who got my mom's name in our local paper last week! What - did I forget to mention that?) is a company I know very well; my old roommate worked there for four-plus years. I asked the publicist if she knew him, and then she giggled, "No, but he's kind of a legend around here." Why? I asked. "Because he's so good looking she said." Oh. He is good looking, I'll give him that, but a legend? Wow.

Anyway, while I was processing that bit of information, I learned that she also went to Syracuse! Of course she did. When we started talking "sorority" it came out that her colleague, who, Oh, by the way, happens to be right here! - is actually my sorority sister. Albeit, seven years younger. Man, I felt old. We couldn't even play the name game - I had graduated long before she was even a freshman. And of course, they are doing exactly what I was doing five, seven years ago; living in the City, working in PR, slaving over events to ensure they function flawlessly. It was like looking in a mirror at a younger version of myself.

But then I turned around and caught the opposite in reflection.



And I like what I see in the future.

My top chef

Bright and early tomorrow morning I am hopping a flight to the east coast to cheer my mother on as a finalist in a national magazine's reader recipe contest! Everyone, please think good thoughts for the Asian Green Bean Salad!

I'll be back in LA on Wednesday, hopefully with good news, but definitely well-fed.

Energy, yes; vitamins, not so much

I've mentioned before that, when I was 19, I went on a teen tour of Europe. On our second or third night overseas, we had plans to see Les Miserables in London, and, to keep up with the time difference, started the night with a round of cappuccinos. Never mind that I was barely a morning coffee drinker at the time; cappuccinos in a London cafe seemed like an entirely "Euro" thing to do, and I thought nothing of it.

Until, hours later, I was tossing and turning in my hotel bed, staring at the ceiling and at the numbers on the clock turn every hour until it was time to wake up. So much for adjusting to my jet lag.

That's pretty much how I felt last night, only this time, the culprit wasn't cappuccino, but Vitamin Energy, the new energy drink from otherwise-benign beverage maker Glaceau. Let me share: I'm not big into the energy drink market. I've had my share of Red Bulls with vodka, but most of that was back in New York, and I quickly learned that a hangover compounded with a sugar crash made for very bad mornings-after, indeed. And now if I need a mid-day pick me up, I'll get a coffee, or a Diet Coke. The Coke is cheaper, and the coffee, healthier, than anything else found in a can.

But last night I had plans for a date with the Wactor, and then to go a party which started at 10. Ten on a Friday? I had been dreading that since Tuesday. Nevertheless, I committed to go, so I figured I needed to put on my party hat and rally. I drank the drink from 4 PM to 5 PM at work, thinking that, with a few cocktails later and my internal clock set to "old lady," I'd be ready to crash by midnight.

Well, the party plans got canceled. I went on my date, but didn't drink. So when I got home and into bed at midnight, I again found myself staring at the ceiling, listening to my heart beat, wondering why my hands were clenched into fists. I think I fell asleep around 4. And woke up at 8. To the rumbling of my stomach, which reminded me that I hadn't eaten much last night, the energy drink numbing my appetite for dinner.

Not at all competitive

Just one more thing about the gym and then I promise I'll quite posting about my exercise habits. For a little while, anyways.

My hip hurts. In what I think is my hip flexor. I'm not even 100% sure what a hip flexor is, but that's what I started referring to this as, back when I first started running 10 years ago and noticed it then. That was way before Google or Wikipeda or anything, but I heard the term once, and it sounded about right, and now it's just stuck in my brain.

Let me clarify: my hip hasn't hurt for ten years straight. Both hips alternately hurt for maybe the first two (three? five?) years as a runner. Just a dull, harmless ache that would remind me to stretch and sometimes take it easy. And then, one day, they just magically didn't hurt anymore, no matter how much running I did, and I chalked it up to luck or strength or the treadmills at my gym. Eventually, I forgot that they were ever a problem. And so it ceased to be a problem at all.

I've spent at least the last five-plus years pain-free, save for minor shin splints which tells me that it's time to get new sneaks. Even back in April, when I was running 10 miles at a time, it was without incident. But shortly thereafter, when I cut back my mileage and upped my speed, I started noticing the familiar ache.

It has never really been a problem until today. I can't blame Barry's Boot Camp. While it felt like a fabulous workout, it didn't do much more for my body than make me tired. So last night, when I was at the gym, I figured I would run for 30 minutes or until my body resisted - whichever came first. Thirty minutes is a pretty standard/basic run for me; I'll do shorter runs if I'm concentrating on weights that day, but if I'm doing cardio, usually aim for at least 40-45 min, if not more. But when I started the treadmill, a really good song came on the iPod. So I raised the speed just a bit. Then I noticed that I was doing well at the speed, and kept it up, thinking that as long as I was exceeding my average, I could stop sooner. But before I could realize that thought, SHE got on.

There is this girl at my gym, who, bless her, is adorable. She is perky and blond and friendly and knows everyone there - essentially, because she works out for two hours a day, every day. I haven't actually met her yet, usually because I am that bitter, surly girl who doesn't make friends with bubbly blonds with better bodies; but it's only a matter of time until I befriend her and ask her what kind of energy drink she injects into her bloodstream to make her so impossibly perfect.

Anyway, she got on the treadmill next to me, and I couldn't see her screen, but I was sure she was running faster than I. And yes, she may be five years younger and in better shape from her marathon workout sessions, but I refused to amble along beside her. So I raised my speed. And fell easily into that groove. But then - she saw my raise and raised me! She tried to win at my game! Since I was doing so well at 7.2, with only ten minutes to go, I raised her again to 7.4. I still couldn't see her treadmill, but I could see her hitting the speed button every few minutes, as did I, until I was at 29:30 and 7.8 and then she hit the Stop button and quickly walked off. (Her Spin class was starting. Natch.)

I was disappointed that she didn't stick around, but I was satisfied I had won that match, the one I was playing by myself in my head. Hey - I'll take pride where I can get it, even if it is completely fabricated. I headed to the mat, did a ton of extra stretches, and then grabbed my gym bag and left, feeling fabulous.

That feeling lasted the entire 35 minute drive home, until I got out of my car and found a meatball where my hip had been only an hour before. I limped upstairs, and applied my muscle cream, but that did nothing to ease the tension. All day today, it hurt to walk, and while I would love to blame it on my delicious Prada heels, the problem lied within my hip. I took the night off from the gym, and am hoping to feel better tomorrow.

I have a feeling someone might want a rematch.

And yes, that someone might be me.

Boot Camp

This is the second Sunday in a row that I am writing this while forcing my body to sit upwards; I am just thoroughly exhausted. I took my third nap of the week just now. That's three more naps than I have taken in the last year.

Anyway, enough complaining. I went to Barry's Boot Camp this morning and it was awesome! My friend recommended the 10 AM instructor because she was fairly "easy" and wouldn't yell at us like some of the other instructors are known to do. That sounded great to me, except, that, even on the best of days, I am not a morning workout person. I can do it if I have to, but I usually prefer to have a day's worth of food digested in my belly and a few liters water to hydrate me before doing anything grueling. I wasn't going to wake up at 5AM for that, though, so I made sure to take it easy last night on the town, and woke myself up at 8 this morning.

The workout itself was challenging, but not not to the point where I thought I'd pass out, which, based on other stories I'd heard, was what I had been expecting. What I hadn't been expecting was how small the room was, and how overwhelmingly hot and it humid they kept it. The website shows a wide-angle photo of the room, that, with the mirrors, looks pretty big and spacious. In reality, it was just a typical exercise studio - no bigger than the ones at my gym - that hold maybe 30 people, max. When we hopped on our treadmills, the fans were blowing a nice cool breeze. As soon as the music started, however, the fans went off. The room temperature suddenly went up about 25 degrees, matching the 90 degree day outside. "Let me know if you need the fans," the instructor said. "I'm not one of those teachers that won't turn them on." Thank God. She did turn them on, but not until after we finished with the treadmills. Thanks.

The workout structure basically went: Treadmills, weights (arms), treadmills, weights (legs) followed by abs and a cool down. The hardest part for me was the second round of weights, when we did tons of leg lifts and glute work, and I realized how much I overlook that area in my regular workouts. Sitting at a desk all day can't help much, either. But the whole thing was over before I knew it, and I signed up for a few more classes to go back for.

After the class, Diana and I met Nicole for brunch, and then Nicole and I did a quick Target run since we were on that side of town. I got home around 3 PM, and have alternated between my couch and bed since, only sitting up long enough to write this post.

I picked up some vitamins at Target, thinking maybe that will help keep my energy up if I'm going to be amping up my workout routine like this. The irony of all this is that Diana, who I went with today, was up at 6:30 AM with her son; after she left us, she was heading to a fantasy football draft, and then, tonight, to the Beastie Boys concert. Compared to that, I have absolutely no business complaining about being tired.

But you know I will anyway.

Busting a move

Wow. It has been a busy week. I don't think I have gone this long without posting in a while. And rather than write from the comfy confines of my apartment, I am cramming this post in at work, well before 9 AM, in part to procrastinate tackling the mounting piles of work on my desk.

Let's see... I still don't think my body has still recovered from the hike we did on Sunday. Physically, I feel fine - no sore muscles or anything, but I have been exhausted all week. Monday night I made myself go to the gym, but came home, ate dinner, and went to bed at 8:45! Tuesday night I went to the gym and then over Tracy's just to catch up. Last night I had a date with the waiter-slash-actor (wactor?), and dare I say it, it was actually fun! It was the first date that I have been on in maybe two years that, after dinner was over, we were both like, what's next? (That's not to say that John and I didn't have a good first date last year, but our first date was three days long, so it's not exactly comparable.) Tonight I have a work event until 9 PM, which is here in Pasadena, which means I won't be getting home until close to 10. Tomorrow night I plan to go to the gym and then go to bed early, and hopefully sleep late on Saturday morning. I need it!

Oh, and in the meantime of all this social activity, work has picked up to the point that it practically makes up for how slow I've been for the last six months. Fortunately, I thrive on activity and moderate stress, so I couldn't be happier.

Saturday night I am hanging out with a friend I haven't seen in a while, and I am very exited to catch up. It can't be a crazy night, however, because I am going to do my first class at Barry's Boot Camp at 10 AM on Sunday, and I have heard that I am in for the workout of my life. Yay!

In other fitness news, I signed up for this race on September 15th. If you live in the LA area and like MC Hammer (or would at least like to relive 1989 for a morning) sign up! I am considering busting out the Skidz just for the occasion.

Reasons I love my life: Friday through Sunday

This was one of those weekends where I feel like I must be reading about someone else's life in Los Angeles, rather than actually living my own.

My weekend kind of started on Friday, at least in the sense that I didn't have to drive into Pasadena for work, but only 20 minutes in the other direction to Shutters on the Beach, where my company had planned our first ever corporate retreat. I had expected that it would be equal parts team-building and strategizing for the future, and I was not mistaken. We kicked off with an ice-breaker (even though we have a small office and know each other pretty well) and then launched into individual presentations on our departments. We worked through lunch, and then our "team-building activity" was announced: we'd be going on a scavenger hunt! Through Santa Monica! On bicycles built for two!

Huh?

Let me tell you: I haven't been on a bike, other than a stationary bike at the gym, for about 20 years. I was never a good bike rider as a kid. I never had much coordination or balance, and it scared the crap out of me, to be honest. The year I grew out of my pink Huffy 3-speed and didn't have to make any more excuses as to why I didn't ride it, was a very good year, that.

We were each teamed up with someone who normally, we wouldn't work with or get to know. I was paired with our warehouse manager, an older, slower, quiet guy, whose hearing only catches about every fifth word spoken. I've known him since I started at this job more than two years ago, but have never really "talked" with him. I learned quickly that in what he lacks in hearing and conversing, he more than makes up for in bike riding, and I let him take the lead, steering us across Ocean Blvd and down Main Street as I wobbled fearfully on the back, gripping the brakeless handlebars with every passing car, essentially trusting my life in his hands.

It was a blast. I had so much fun. Running around town, racing against the clock, and having so much fun with this person that, until Friday, I had never bothered to get to know. How silly and sheltered and snobby I can be sometimes. What a waste, I think. It was an awesome, educational, inspiring afternoon. We came in third.

The retreat ended around 4:00, and I had only a few hours to relax and catch up on actual office work before Miya's birthday party on Friday night. A handful of us went to dinner at Canal Club in Venice, and then met a larger group out at a bar after that. I stayed out until the bar closed at 1 AM, and, exhausted from my day, was thankful that the bar actually closed that early, unlike when we both lived in New York. It was a fun night, but I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Saturday I woke up and rushed around to do my errands so I could head up to Malibu in the early afternoon. Lauren and I had planned on doing a hike near her family's house on Sunday, and so would stay up there on Saturday night. It turned out that another friend of hers was hosting a work event/party nearby, so we stopped by that for a little while. It was definitely a Hollywood scene. Some B-list celebs, but mostly people like us, just regular folk, looking around to see if anyone was "someone". It was a little depressing.

We left after only an hour, grabbed a quick dinner at nearby Duke's, and then just went back to the house and watched a movie. I was in bed by midnight, and I don't know if it was the wine, the ocean air, the comfy guest bed, or the waves crashing against the house, but I slept so well, so soundly. (I also dreamed that Jack Wagner was making breakfast in the house I grew up in, singing All I Need, and I told him how I had seen him in concert in fifth grade. Because I loved Frisco.)

I woke up to the sun streaming in my window at 8 AM, and sat on the deck for a while, watched the waves roll in, and just got lost in my pre-coffee thoughts. The last time I had been up there was Memorial Day, and the May Gray fog had settled over the ocean until burning off at noon; now, however, the sky was clear blue and the sun was warm enough for me to sit without my sweatshirt, in only thin pajamas on this clear summer morning.

It turned out that Lauren had forgotten her sneakers, and so we took a detour to the Woodland Hills DSW before getting started on our hike in nearby Solstice Canyon. I had, just that morning, been reading an article in Shape which advised to "beat the summer heat" by working out either before 10 AM or after 6 PM. Are they that out of story ideas, I thought. Surely their readers must know to do so. And yet, I found myself sweating though a mid-day hike, directly under the burning noon, summer sun, as what we thought was a four mile hike turned out to be closer to an eight-mile one.

It was a beautiful hike, but it was hot, and uphill. Both ways. I realized we were going the wrong way only when we were practically vertical on the side of a cliff and the only thing to hold on to was an electric tower, it's sign warning: High Voltage, Do Not Touch. So we turned around, and retraced our steps, but the base was a lot further away than either of us had anticipated. Lauren's new sneakers looked like they had been purchased months, if not years, before. I had been wearing older trainers and thick, ankle-high gym socks, and yet the dirt of an 8-mile tropical desert trek still managed to seep it's way in over the course of our three hour tour:

I drove home around 4, stopped at Whole Foods, and threw myself in the shower within two minutes of walking in my front door. I ate my salad, and then fell, heavy and horizontal, onto my couch, where I napped for an hour and a half.

I need another weekend.

Playing games

Just when I was complaining that I don't meet many guys in my daily life, I got hit on last night by a very cute waiter. Or actor. Waiter-slash-actor.

I'm not typically into either type (I prefer men with stable jobs that don't keep them working past midnight) but he won me over the second he slipped me his um, business card:

(I wrote the "maybe" on there, with the heart, in case you couldn't guess. Apparently I like to be difficult.)

I may have mentioned before that when it comes to dating, I often take the playground approach, meaning I would much rather tease a guy or kick him in the shins than ever make the first move. In fact, just recently I was telling a friend that my only reliable pick-up lines were when I point to a guy's chest so he looks down, and then I flick him in the nose; when I stand behind a guy and tap him on the opposite shoulder so that he looks the other way; and when I knock a guy's knees out from behind so he loses his balance and sways forward.

I'm sure you must be mystified as to how I am still single.

In any case, this guy spoke my language! We talked and flirted for a bit, but I guess I felt the need to show him how alike we were in our approaches, as I asked him to get me a piece of notebook paper. He came back with a print-out of his work schedule, and I went to work, doing what I thought was only natural: I made him an origami fortune teller.

(Yes, I do find it amusing that I can't remember most of what I learned in high school, but the childhood game of paper-folding-with-a-purpose, I can pull out of my head with no problem.)

If I were a natural flirt, I probably would have thought to make the fortunes something fun, like "You must kiss a pretty girl in the next five minutes." I'm clearly leaning towards the Rain Man side of things in the boy department, however, and I kept most of the fortunes pretty basic and boring.

I think it enamored him nonetheless. We chatted via email all day today. And after a stunt like that? I'd totally date me. But at the very least, I'm thrilled to have a new pickup line.

Swimming (or wading) in metaphors

One night, my junior year of college, a very drunk senior boy grabbed me by the arm, looked straight into my eyes, and delivered an impassioned plea: "Lori, never settle. You are one of a kind, I hope you know that. Just promise me that you will never settle."

Back when I was only 20 years old, I took a lot of things to heart, and this was no doubt one of them. But long after I realized that much of what was said back then was done so under the veil of intoxication or, at the very least, with the self-importance of late adolescence, that statement, that demand, has stuck with me. Maybe it helped that the person who said it later became more than a bar crush, but a good friend. Someone whose opinion I valued, though never fully understood. And while most guys who whispered sweet nothings in my ear that year surely wouldn't remember what they said, this guy not only remembered, but reiterated the same sentiment to me for years after that first night. For reasons I will never know, he always really believed it. And that helped me believe in myself.

I haven't talked to the guy much since I moved to LA, but his words haunt me now more than ever. For the past two months, I have forced myself to do Match. Forced myself to open my mind, give guys who I wouldn't normally look twice at, a second glance, a first date. It's not that I'm so picky - at all. Please let it be known that a lot more guys pass me over than the other way around. But I tend to have a type, and I know it when I see it. I didn't see too much of it online. This time, though, I changed my rules: I allowed myself to make the first move, I corresponded with guys whose pictures I wasn't attracted to. I expanded my search options for age, height, education, distance, etc. But when it came time to save it as an official search, to come back to later, I had to call it like I saw it: "Lower Standards."

And that's where I wonder: At what point did "opening my mind" become a delicate euphemism for "lowering my standards"? Am I being too judgmental, or simply maintaining my integrity? What's the difference between taking pride in yourself and being so full of pride that you can't get past your own big head? Is it still considered "the dating game" if I'm not having any fun?

I've had so many people tell me to give the guys a chance, that they fell in love with their boyfriend/fiancee/husband only after they turned off their initial, discriminating judgment. But then on the other hand, I've watched as countless friends have fallen in love in an afternoon, in the blink of an eye, without having to turn off anything but their vibrators. I can't help but believe that when it happens, I'll know. And until then, I guess I feel like it's just not worth compromising my time.

Time, of course, is the one thing that won't compromise with me.

In my daily life, I don't meet a lot of guys. I meet even fewer guys that I am attracted to. And of those, I meet even fewer who are single, straight, and equally attracted to me. Bottom line: my dating pool is more like a puddle. In a desert. It doesn't exist.

Which is why the online stuff keeps sounding attractive at the outset. For a small monthly fee, I can splash in all the puddles I want, get my feet wet and hope that one of them will turn out to be deep enough to take the plunge, dive head first into cooling relief. Except that I can never get past the murky water to see how deep it might go; because when it comes down to it, I don't want a piddly puddle. I want the grand Pacific Ocean, and that, I have to believe, I will recognize when I see it.

Or I will die alone, dehydrated in the desert, my last thought regretful for not taking a drink when I had the chance.

Out to lunch

I spent a portion of my lunch break today on the phone with a good friend from high school. I caught her as she was leaving work, and we spoke for about 15 minutes as she walked the mile or so home.

We were in the middle of some gossipy high school banter when I suddenly heard her gasp. "I don't believe this," she said. "I just walked all the way home, and just now realized that I drove to work today."

Flat (and) broke

I'm sorry - was I just mentioning Triple AAA? Well, that turned out to be aptly prophetic, as about three hours after I wrote that last post, I experienced my very first flat tire.

No, I've never had a flat tire before, but keep in mind I lived in NYC for seven years without a car. Before and since then, well, I just got lucky. And even now, it turned out, I was very lucky indeed, as I wasn't alone, wasn't on the freeway, and in fact, was already parked before I realized what had happened.

Thursday night I went to the gym after work, and then had plans to order dinner in at a friend's house. Halfway there, I heard a noise coming from the rear tire, sounding possibly like something was caught in it, like a paper bag or maybe a stick. With every rotation I heard a clicking sound, and while I considered that maybe something was wrong, my car seemed to be running just fine. As I exited the freeway, I heard a loud bang on my rear window, and figured that whatever had been lodged in there must have come out, because the noise stopped thereafter.

It didn't even occur to me that my tire might be flat. I've always figured that when it happened, I would know. I figured wrong. I pulled up to my friend's house, parked on her street, and got out to check to make sure that all was well. And that's when I saw that my rear passenger tire was slowly deflating.

I called my friend to come downstairs and look, to confirm that this was, indeed, the problem. (Slow learner? Yep.) So then I called Triple AAA and while they were very helpful, they said it would take an hour for the tow truck to come. That struck me as scary. I mean, I was fine with my friend and happy to burn that hour with a beer and picking up our food, but if I WAS alone on the freeway? Or in a weird part of town? That would suck.

The tow truck ended up coming within 40 minutes anyway, and they put on the spare in 10. My friend had to explain to me what to do next. "Go to a tire store tomorrow, see if they can patch it up, and if not, you'll have to buy a new tire." A tire store? What's that? I honestly really am lacking when it comes to cars. But then I remembered that there is a Firestone practically across the street from me, and then about three other tire places nearby. It's funny how you can pass things every day and not even notice them.

I ended up going to Firestone the next morning, and having to buy a new tire. I had comparison shopped online beforehand, because I didn't want to seem as uneducated as I had been the night before, but I still ended up spending a few hundred dollars I would have much preferred stay in my bank account.

Imploding

A friend of mine had a group of us over to her house after work on Friday. As I drove us there over a windy, spiral-like exit bridge off the freeway, I commented to my friend Kim that, "I hate bridges like these. They just, I don't know..."

"Make you think of earthquakes?" she finished. "Yup," I said. "Exactly."

Two weeks ago today, I was ruminating over another not-so-natural disaster, calling and emailing with my friends in New York to make sure not just that everyone was safe, but to see how they were holding up after the fear of it all. Some better than others, it turned out, but they were all quick to remind me of how random it was, that it could have happened anywhere.

And now it has happened again, a "structural deficiency" in Minneapolis. I used to know a ton of people in Minneapolis - clients from my last job, a few years ago. With the exception of one, who I last talked to more than a year ago, I haven't kept in touch with any of them since shortly after I moved here. Odds are, they are all okay. Part of me wants to start emailing them at the last known address I have, just to relieve my doubt. Another part of me feels that is foolish, selfish, as they are likely fine but know someone else affected by it. Who am I to impose my worry? Or better, my sudden remorse for not keeping in touch? I have to remind myself that this isn't about me.

Isn't it weird that after 9/11, we're all so programmed to fear terrorism, and yet these things keep happening that we've pretty much done to ourselves? Steam pipes, bridges, The Big Dig, New Orleans levees? What's next? What's the answer? I don't propose we start a massive overhaul on the entire country's infrastructure; but where does it stop? And why does it seem to be happening more and more? IS it happening more often, or am I just more aware of it because I am older and pay more attention? I'm starting to wonder if we're our own worst enemy.

I've been thinking of that phrase a lot lately. I don't think I ever truly understood what it meant to be one's "own worst enemy" until I met someone who was exactly that. I have a good friend here - a normal, fun, intelligent girl; but once you've spent ten minutes with her, you realize that she is all of those things despite herself. This girl has an enormous talent, a quick wit, a huge heart, and so much freaking potential; yet I have watched for a year now as she has sabotaged jobs, friendships, relationships, and in general, her own happiness.

She knows she needs help, she wants to get help; but she's intermittently either too depressed or literally gets in her own way too much to make it happen. What do you do? I can't walk away, but at this point, there is very little I can do to help her. It's like just sitting and waiting for the bridge to collapse or the steam pipe to burst and all I can do is hand her the number for Triple AAA.