love myself better than you
HUMANITY WAITS FOR INVENTION
Are there any dental hygienists in the house? Because I have a question. Are we sure that in The Year Two Thousand And Twelve there is no better way to give someone a tooth-cleaning than with a little pointy scraper? There is no hypersonic ultrathin propulsion thingy that can do the job as well as an Eastern European lady with a sterile crochet hook? It certainly seems we should have better technology by now. It also certainly seems that we should not be subjected to John Cougar Mellencamp while undergoing the pointy scraping, but that is another matter.
ELEVATORS (ME AND YOU)
The elevators at my office have been broken this week in a very strange way that meant you could not go down from our floor. Signs advised people to take the stairs or go a floor up in order to go down, and that last piece of advice annoyed me in two ways—first, it had me singing Coolio pretty much all day (get your woman on the floor, gotta get up to get down) and second, the fact that some people actually did get up to get down. That made my brain ache because it is INEFFICIENT. I used to get similarly irked to see people walk to the previous stop to get on the bus earlier. I know, it is not up to me to Taylorize the whole world or distribute productivity apps on the street. Sometimes I forget though.
I WILL RESCUE YOU
Next month, I start being a Girls on the Run coach. I went to training last week, which was about being supportive and encouraging and so on, and NOT about how to run as fast as possible, as Nora thought. When I was getting ready to leave she asked me all kinds of leading questions about my fastest mile and if I felt ready. Eventually I had to say that I was not getting time-trial-tested, for heaven’s sake, I was going to watch a PowerPoint presentation and learn some group-management skills. I think she and I will both enjoy Girls on the Run, and the curriculum is good stuff overall, but I hope Nora is not disappointed that it is more like “Girl Scouts With Exercise” than the hybrid of CrossFit/Warrior Dash/Special Forces boot camp that is the extracurricular activity of her dreams.
Getting CPR certified was one of the coaching requirements. I think I have done this about three times in my life now, because I never remember to recertify before the card expires. My favorite bits are the flat spots on the back of the baby dummies’ heads (that’s some serious craniosynostosis you got there, baby) and the yelling HEY ARE YOU OKAY for the adults. I love that part. Hey are you okay. I mean besides the no arms no legs just a torso problem. And the weird plastic dental-dam thing hanging out of your mouth hole.
ALMOST FORGOT
I think I promised to wrap up the Bloomington-Normal blog reading thing but there is not too much to wrap up. Nobody died, threw up, or screamed in terror and fled the room, holding their hands over their delicate college-student ears, when I took the stage. Or platform. Or whatever the hell it was. There was some crazy professional theater lighting though, so I think it counts as a stage. I felt a bit like a rock star. A very short, middle-aged, foul-mouthed rock star. A rock star who responsibly drank red wine at a post-reading reception, foreswore any college-girl bathroom makeout (responsible!), and was responsibly driven back to her Hampton Inn enclave at a responsible time of the night. I put the espon in responsible, man. Or something like that.
THE THING I HAVE NOT SHUT UP ABOUT FOR WEEKS
Oh my god, therapy penguin! How sick do you have to be? I feel an attack of some sort coming on. Roast Beef, help me! (Is the name a web comic shout-out? I wonder.)
—mimi smartypants can’t complain.