He was kind of a geeky kid, and he had a huge stack of papers, a stack so big that one of those extra large binder clips was stretched all the way open and it was hard to open it far enough to get around them, and when it did, it just barely contained them.
There was an orange sheet of paper acting as both a separator page and a cover page after every four or five pages. With a red pen, he looked down a list of things on the cover page, and then he wrote some comments underneath the list. I wondered how good his handwriting was to begin with and then what effect a moving bus ride would have on it.
For the first five or so sets of papers, when he was done with them, he not only moved them to the bottom of the pile, but flipped them to face the opposite way when he did. Then, on a subsequent one, he moved the set to the bottom but didn't flip it, and I thought two things in quick succession: 1) No! No! You've put it the wrong way! and then, 2) Let it go. You have nothing to do with this.
As he got close to his stop, he reached into his soft-sided briefcase and pulled out a huge 3-ring binder that said IBM on it.
I only had one work meeting today, which was in the afternoon, was our regular 1.5-hour working team meeting, but we cut it short, so that was good.
At lunch time, I went over to the CSLEPS office to pick up my university-issued credit card, which will be good only next week while I'm in Thibodaux as a co-advisor for NC State's Alternative Spring Break Habitat for Humanity trip. I'm hoping to use it only as back-up if I'm not with our other co-advisor, Tierza. Whenever we're together, or if it can wait, we'll use her card to minimize the amount of accounting we have to do when we return.
At about 4:30 I walked down and across the street to Tompkins Hall for the SIGDOC Launch Party. It was pouring the hardest I think I've ever walked in the rain, and in spite of having an umbrella I—as well as my laptop bag and my soft-sided briefcase—got soaked in the short walk. Not to mention (okay I'm going to) cars driving by either splashing huge puddles of water up into the air or over the sidewalk in a wave deep enough to cover my tennis shoes. When I got home papers inside my briefcase were even wet. Crazy.
With that said, I had a great time with the small group. I joined the professional chapter of SIGDOC while there, and toward the end of the gathering, after some most delicious pizza from Sylvia's, we had a fun, fun, fun game of Pictionary whose players included:
- Sarah (who in addition to taking a turn held the white board while people drew and erased it between pictures)
- Nicole (who drew "The Sun Belt" in no less than four geographical locations from as far east as Florida to as far west as California)
- Jen (who had a "photo finish")
- John (who drew a bicycle with a man next to it with one of his gonads X-ed out)
- Brad (who unfortunately for him followed John from whose drawing everyone had sex organs on their mind so first guessed his drawing as ovaries and then a uterus, before successfully arriving on "handlebars")
I feel like I'm missing someone here, so if I have, feel free to comment about it. The important thing is that the people have been covered to whom it's important to be mentioned in my blog whenever they're a part of my day.
I spent most of the night updating the website and the blog for our spring break trip. I met Alex at Flex for Trailer Park Prize Night, well more accurately, for time between I arrived and the time the show started as I left shortly after it did.
Phil and Joe came in later in the evening and that always ups the fun factor by a magnitude of order.
On my way out, some kind of nasty fight was being mitigated by Matt, one of the muscular bartenders. I was happy to be getting out when I was.
- Mood:Content
My work day started off with a 9:00-10:00 meeting, which although is not my favorite way to start the day, this one wasn't bad.
At lunch time, I ran to the Coastal Federal Credit Union and then went home for lunch.
I took a Wolfline bus back to work, as I was going directly to class after work and there are more university bus options to get home at 7:15 than there are city buses.
Social Media and Technical Communication class was interesting enough tonight. We discussed Surowiecki's chapter about trust in The Wisdom of Crowds, throughout which I thought of Covey's posits about trust, of which there are a couple:
- From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership, this notion: "When trust is high, we communicate easily, effortlessly, instantaneously. We can make mistakes, and others will still capture our meaning. But when trust is low, communication is exhausting, time-consuming, ineffective, and inordinately difficult."
- So key to communicating is trust in Covey's mind that I see he has another book now, The Speed of Trust, based on this notion: "When trust is high, speed goes up, and cost goes down. When trust is low, speed goes down, and costs go up."
I don't think Surowiecki did a good job of—okay I don't think he did it at all—explaining the part trust plays in contributing to the wisdom of crowds. He spent most of the time making the point that, although it might be counterintuitive, trust plays a large role in a capitalistic society.
Since he couldn't be bothered, I'll take a stab at it. It seems to me, particularly if you accept Covey's assertion that it facilitates communication, trust is key in the wisdom of the crowds, because it facilitates the communication necessary to meet one of the four critical criteria for a wise crowd—Aggregation: There must be a mechanism to change private judgments into a collective decision.
Chatham presented on virtual reality tonight, and did a good job with it. I would have liked to have heard her cover mixed reality a little, but in fairness to her, that really wasn't explicitly stated as part of her topic in the syllabus. I appreciated her calling on me at the end of her presentation to share my (very little) experience with virtual media.
Jen did
- She had two Starbursts waiting for me at my seat when I got to class. They were red, which was a signal that she'd moved on from her Orange Dinner of March 8th.
- She volunteered to switch our presentations during the week after spring break. I was supposed to be presenting on the Monday we get back and she was supposed to be presenting that Wednesday. She volunteered to go Monday, so I wouldn't have to worry about my presentation over spring break. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jen!
- She volunteered to drive me to my car at the Park & Ride at the Food Lion instead of my having to take the bus home. Thanks, again!
Thank goodness dancing was better this week than last. We had about eight dancers there, with Joe (of Joe & Phil) back for the week, Chris (
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
zinnian) making a surprise appearance, and a guest appearance by Joe (Judge) and his boyfriend.With Joe & Phil wanting to take a lesson and two other bar patrons, Carl taught Cruising. And then he taught a dance. Badumpbump. We're here all week folks. Try the veal.
- Mood:
content
The bus today turned out to not be the expected #9 Greek Village, but the intermittent "GV to DH Hill" bus instead. Today, I looked down at shoes (truth be told: landing there after checking out some hairy legs in shorts) and checked out what "these kids are wearing these days."
The boy across from me, a white boy, had on Nike tennis shoes that had the Nike swoosh on both the outside and the inside of the shoe around the heel end. The swoosh on the outside of each shoe was green and the swoosh on the inside of each shoe was red. Most of the shoe was brown, but it had a white trim around the soles, and white in the upper part of the back of the shoe and on the top of the shoe at the toe end. The shoe laces were yellow, green and red.
A black guy got on that obviously knew him, as indicated by a fist bump and hello. The black guy said to the white guy, "I like your shoes man." The black guy's shoes were also tennis shoes, but not Nike's. They had some kind of logo on the tongue of them that looked like airline wings (like the pins warn by flight attendants) to me. They had white soles, with black, turquoise, and gray mixed throughout the rest of the shoe. On the right shoe, connected to the shoe by a clear plastic wire through the unused top left shoelace hole, was a big silver charm that reminded me of the Twitter bird.
I was so busy checking out the shoe wear that I hardly noticed Logorrhea get on. You might remember that a few entries ago I wondered if she talked as much when she rides the Wolfline bus as she does when she rides the city bus. Well, I'm here to tell you that I heard not one peep out of her the entire way. Plus, she got off the bus three stops before where she normally gets off the city bus. Interesting.
First thing in the office this morning, I went to Jen's office where we weighed in on a new scale. We've replaced my old one with a newer one of hers, which is digital. When I first got on it, it said I'd gained four pounds. When I got on it again, it registered the same thing I weighed last week. I went with that reading. It was traumatic enough switching scales mid-diet.
I attended the staff meeting of one of the departments on my "reporting beat." They always have a fun meeting.
At lunch time, I walked over to the student center, where I bought tickets to Wonderboy, a performance going on in Stewart Theater this evening. I was about to purchase a ticket as a faculty/staff member, and then remembered that I'm a student this semester, too. The price of my ticket went from $19 to $5. Woohoo.
From there, I stopped by the West Dunn building, where I had my student badge made, as it was necessary to pick up my ticket later on this evening. I've been meaning to do that, so it was good to have an impetus and to get it done. And it's valid until 03/2015. Woohoo again.
I had an afternoon meeting with the Creative Services guys and Mike Giancola, director of CSLEPS, the organization that sponsors the Alternative Spring Breaks at NC State. Good people. All of them.
We went over how the official NC State blogs are going to work, which four—of the eight or so—spring break trips are going to be keeping. I was thankful for being in ENG 583a this semester, as the university blog is hosted on Wordpress, which I now am familiar with thanks to ENG 583a.
Since the weather was utterly fantastic today, I chose to get my exercise in with a walk around Lake Johnson.
It's been quite a while since I've done that three-mile walk, and I could definitely tell that I was 20 pounds lighter doing it this time. I did it in 50 minutes, and burned off 358 calories according to dailyburn.com.
At about 7:40 when I arrived, the lobby outside Stewart Theater was teeming with queers, many of whom I recognized if not knew. While I was in line to get my (student) ticket, someone approached me from behind keeping my head from turning and started ragging on me. I couldn't reconcile the voice, and when I turned around to look, it was Steve Nelson. Long time, no see.
After getting my ticket, I was going to say hey to him, but he was talking with someone I don't particularly care for, so I just went in and took my seat.
There were two major parts to the performance—one about ten minutes at the beginning and followed by a pause that was too long, and the second one taking up the remaining 50 minutes.
The first part, 29 Effeminate Gestures, didn't really work for me, but I loved the puppet performance after the pause. In addition to being highly homoerotic, it was just very well done.
- Mood:Content
These ladies were tiny-framed, and like the boys (almost eerily so) the article of clothing distinguishing them from one another was about their necks. You might remember with the boys, the last two times it's been one red t-shirt and one blue t-shirt sticking out at their collars under the coats. The girls both had on the same brand/style boots, black leotards, brown zipped up jackets with a little pink heart over the left breast, and both had spring-curled dreads, black-framed glasses, with one wearing a blue scarf and the other wearing a gray one.
They had a text book opened, with the left side of it resting on the one's right lap and the right side of it resting on the other's left lap. I wondered if they share all of their text books, essentially getting through college at half-price in terms of book expenses. At one point, the girl on the left turned the page, and the other one said, "Wait, I'm not done."
"Ooops," the other one said turning back the page.
A young girl, who uses a walker, sat to my left and she was on her cell phone, talking rather loudly. Every time the bus swerved or turned, her walker rolled out toward the twins across from her. After about the third time, the twins stopped reacting as by then they realized that she was going to catch it with her foot before it hit them.
Because she was speaking so loudly on her phone, I could hear that she had a speech impediment, too. She was evidently talking to someone in the Disability Services Office about issues she's having in a particular class.
"I am not able to complete my assignments on time. It seems that I'm not understanding the instructions."
Pause for conversation on the other end of the phone.
"No. He doesn't seem to care. Aren't I allowed more time?" she asked.
And indeed she does. Every course at NC State has this item in its syllabus:
| Students with Disabilities Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 mandate that the faculty provide reasonable accommodations to students with disabilities. These accommodations are based on the premise that students with disabilities need an equal opportunity to acquire information and demonstrate what they have learned; not have an advantage over others in the class. This does not mean lowering class standards, but it may mean having students learn and express knowledge in a different mode. All students registered with the NC State Office of Disability Services for Students (DSS) will provide the instructor with an accommodation letter. This letter verifies that appropriate medical documentation is on file and that the student has a substantiated disability requiring effective reasonable accommodations. Accommodations for which the student qualifies will also be included in the letter. If you have not registered with the DSS and have a learning disability, you should register in Suite 1900, Student Health Center. If you have a documented disability, please schedule an appointment with the course instructor to discuss academic accommodations. |
I had a decent workday with one morning meeting and one afternoon meeting.
I left at a little after 4:00, as I'd received a call during the day that my glasses were in, and I wanted to get them before heading to class and then dancing, as they would have been closed by the time dancing finished.
You may remember my glasses saga: originally $509 for just lenses at the optician in my eye doctor's office, canceled that order and got a refund for those, ordered a pair that included new fames for $198.60 from LensCrafters. One of the things that made them cheaper was that I didn't get the extra $50 charge to make them "featherweight."
When I arrived, I watched the person helping me get my glasses out and before trying them on me, put them under this scope-type machine to presumably ensure they were the right prescription. As soon as I saw them, I thought, "Oh my god! Those things are like Coke bottles. My glasses have never been that thick before. I can't believe taking the 'featherweight' option off them made such a difference in their thickness!"
"What's your name again?" the lady asked me.
"John Martin," I said.
"Oh, I've grabbed the wrong pair," she said.
Whew.
Social Media and Technical Communication class was okay tonight. We discussed our two reading assignments and then Jessie did her presentation about User Profiles.
Jen and I took immediate leave of the class as is our M.O. now, since we have to be across town to shag lessons within 30 minutes of the end of class.
On the way, I listened to an incredibly interesting interview by Fresh Air's Terry Gross of Melissa Febos, the author of a new memoir called "Whip Smart: Memoirs of a Dominatrix," which "details the four years she spent working as a dominatrix. Febos enacted fantasy sequences, spanked grown men and verbally humiliated them for $75 an hour in a dungeon located somewhere in midtown Manhattan."
During the time she did that, she worked on an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and she currently teaches writing at SUNY Purchase College. I would really like to read her book after hearing the interview. You can listen to it here.
The shag lessons tonight were a little frustrating, as we spent too much time learning and not enough time practicing what we'd been taught. With that said, it was a ton of fun dancing with Jen whenever we did dance. I do think if we were to continue with lessons, we'd be pretty darn good when it was all said and done.
Alas, though, this was the last class for me. Next week is the actual last class, but I'll be in Thibodaux, so I'll miss it. My overall reflection of the experience is that there is a lot more to shagging than I'd thought, and I'm not crazy about how the beat count changes for different moves in the dance. Every other kind of dancing I've done, the beat count stays the same, I mean that's what makes the dance the dance. Two-stepping is: quick-quick slow-slow, the waltz is 1-2-3, and so on.
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home, and after a couple of moves in online Scrabble and a short instant message conversation with Robert, I had an incredibly delicious salad, which in part was so good because I was so hungry and it was so late.
At a little after 11:00, I hopped in my bed and wrote up Sunday's blog entry, and most of this one. I'm running about a day-and-a-half behind on my blog entries, and I don't like that. Oh well.
- Mood: content
We went to the 2:00 showing of Crazy Heart at the Carolina Theater, which later in the evening earned an academy award for Jeff Bridges.
| Movie Synopsis: Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. |
This movie was engaging enough, but I sure didn't think Jeff Bridges' performance was academy award-winning. That aside, I'm glad I saw it. Thanks for initiating seeing it, Robert.
I forgot to mention yesterday that I was briefly excited about mail from the company that administers my Flexible Health Spending Account, thinking it was going to be a check from them.
Instead, it was notification that three (of the 8 or 9 claims that I submitted to reach my total of claim amount of $750) needed more documentation in order to be successfully processed. I thought all I had to send in were receipts, but for the three items noted, they also wanted to see the associated Explanation of Benefits sheet sent by the insurance company. What a pain. Now I have to try and dig those up.
Oh well, now I know to throw those things, too, into the envelope I keep the receipts in throughout the year as they come in.
We had our final Alternative Spring Break Gulf Coast Trip group meeting tonight, and at the beginning of the meeting, Jackie (the student leader) noted that she didn't think everyone still knew each other's names in the group, and people nodded their head in agreement. She asked if anyone wanted to take a stab at naming everyone there, and I volunteered when no one else did.
I actually made it all the way through, which was a relief. Shanequel gave it a try right after me, and she was embarrassed to not know my name when she got to me, as of course, I hadn't said it when I went around the room. I assured her that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, and thanked her for taking a stab at everyone's name after me.
When I got home, I lay down on my bed to do our two homework readings for tomorrow night's class. I kept nodding off while reading them, but forced myself to finish them.
- Mood:Content
I spent an hour at the gym, where I did an upper body workout with a couple of increased weights again. I know I will feel that work tomorrow. I concluded with 300 (15 sets of 20 reps) ab crunches.
I met Joe at Hibernian between 4:30 and 5:00, where we enjoyed two Bloody Marys each. Our waitress was loud. And way too perky.
From Hibernian, we went across the street to The Diner (owned by the same people who own Hibernian) to have dinner. We took seats at the bar, and in retrospect maybe it wasn't the best decision. There was an off-duty employee of the place sitting next to us, and as soon as we sat down she was in our conversation. And stayed that way.
I made the mistake of saying I couldn't decide on what I wanted, and she jumped off her barstool, and came and stood next to me. She flipped my menu to the back and pointed to the Blackened Catfish. "That's what I had for dinner, and it was delicious," she said.
It did sound good, and I ended up ordering it, substituting the beans and rice with mashed potatoes, and it came with creamed spinach, which I like. I do have to say, it was most excellent.
From there, we went across the street to Helios, where Joe and I fired up our laptops and went through some travel options with regards to our upcoming trip to Key West in April. We "bookmarked" or "penciled in" a couple of options and set up some fare watchers. We hope to book some time in the next week.
On the way home from there, I heard an old, old Jackson Five song, The Love You Save, and I really listened to the lyrics for the first time since I was a kid, I suppose. I mean, I know the lyrics, but I just sing them without paying them any mind. This was the first time (D'oh!) that I caught the allusions to all of the inventors in this stanza:
| Isaac said he kissed you Beneath the apple tree When Benjie held your hand he felt E-lec-tri-ci-tee! When Alexander called you He said he rang your chimes. Christopher discovered You're way ahead of your times! |
While I waited, parked, for Joe near Flex, Rob walked around the corner. I rolled my window down, and he said, "We're not dancing tonight!?!"
"Oh, no. We've been fired, girl. Hadn't you heard?" I said.
He hadn't.
When Joe arrived, he and I walked over to The Borough, where we saw only a couple of people we knew, Juan and Todd to name them. We had two drinks there and then headed over to Flex.
It was mildly festive there. Carl and Bill were there, and Bill found it necessary to tell me that my outfit was "all wrong, didn't look good on me at all. The shorts are too long and too baggy."
Being the classy person that I am, I refrained from commenting on how his ball cap turned backwards looked on him at his age and being bald. Click here.
- Mood: content
Or most students don't schedule early morning classes on Friday. Or, it's late enough in the semester that they're just skipping early morning classes if they have them.
I met with Noah for that postponed meeting from yesterday, which morphed into just getting together 15 minutes before the 9:00-10:00 with the full team of people who are involved in the project we talked about during our 15 minutes pre-meeting.
Noah brought in two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts for the full team meeting, which was basically a wrap-up meeting of a project all of us have been working on for several, several months. It was a good project in that we accomplished our goals and produced the deliverables asked of us. All that is to say, it was a reflective and celebratory kind of meeting. Yay.
My standing Friday 10:30-11:45 student e-mail meeting was a frustrating one for me. We had way more on the agenda than we could ever get to, which always frustrates me, as to me that just sets us up for failure from the get-go—at least that's how it feels to me. The other frustrating thing was that it was front-loaded with technical agenda items that ended up taking up 60 out of the 75 minutes, and were delivered and discussed so quickly that, as the minute-taker, I certainly wasn't able to keep up with. Oh well, this too shall pass. In fact it did. 15 minutes later. Now I dread doing the minutes.
My 3:00-4:00 meeting was just plain fun. Jen and I interviewed a potential candidate, who is actually someone who is in our Social Media and Technical Communication class. I think she's a good fit, and we hope to make an offer to her on Monday.
Once home, after a quick Weight Watchers Smart Ones Bistro dinner:
I was hungry and I needed some more protein in my calories left in today's allocation, so I boiled some shrimp and had that. Delicious.
After that I got back in the bed and caught up my blog from the last two days. I've been in catch-up mode the last week with my blog. I don't like it when that happens, but all I can do is catch it up when it does.
- Mood: content
Due to that 4:00 meeting, which was in the Talley Student Center, which is most convenient to a slew of Wolfline buses but only one city bus, I took a Wolfline bus in this morning.
It wasn't jammed packed on the bus, but it was crowded enough that a couple of people had to stand. The guy sitting across from me peeled back a banana as he ate each bite—I always think of monkeys when I see people eating them like that. But I digress... He sat half-facing forward, and he had his legs open so wide that he took up half of the seat next to his as well as his own. No matter how crowded the bus grew, even as people had to stand, it either never entered his mind at all to sit up straight to make the seat next to him available, or as that country song says, "His give-a-damn was busted."
As it turned out, Noah, the requester of the 1:00-2:00 meeting, moved it to tomorrow, so I had a slight reprieve there. Of the two over-lapping meetings between two and three, I attended the 2:00-3:00 Web Developer Meetup in the library. I sat next to Jen and we pretty much behaved ourselves while we listened to Saroj's presentation on the recent changes to the section 508 guidelines for web accessibility.
My afternoon meeting with Jackie (our student leader) and Tierza (my co-staff advisor) about our alternative spring break trip, which is imminent now, was good. Jackie is so organized and so experienced as a student leader, and Tierza is such the consummate advisor pro that these meetings are always easy and über productive.
We scheduled our meals for the week, which included making a list of some group dinners we can cook "at home" and purchase at the grocery store on the cheap. The list included: grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with soups, hot dogs and hamburgers, spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, tacos, and "breakfast for dinner" one night.
We also reviewed, and contributed to, Jackie's reflection plan for the week.
I met Jen, Mike, and Sarah at TJ's, a dance bar out in North Raleigh, where we went to practice our shagging. I got there about 20 minutes before Jen arrived, and I eavesdropped on everyone coming in. Yenta.
The place was full of older people, and by that I mean older than me. I was really impressed with the staff there. They were friendly and very welcoming, in spite of the bartender trying his best to make Jen and me a couple.
"What's the lady drinking?" he asked me when I ordered my drink even though she was way over at the pool table racking for our game.
"I don't know what she drinks," I said, handing him the money for mine.
Later, we were both up at the bar at the same time, and he rang up our two drinks together, to which I turned to Jen and said (but, to him, really), "He's bound and determined to make a couple out of us."
Jen and I took a seat at the bar-type seating that was all around the dance floor—the place reminded me a lot of the now defunct Long Branch Saloon—and when Jen left for a few minutes to go greet Mike and Sarah whom she saw coming in the door, this platinum blond woman, with deeply-tanned skin, and a lot of make-up on took the seat next to me that Jen was sitting in.
She said, "So, you dance a lot?" and although she didn't say, "Hey baby..." I immediately thought of my very first prompt of my very first prompt-writing session of the four I attended:
| The facilitator said, "The first prompt is, 'Hey Baby.' Begin." This is what I wrote, and subsequently read aloud as the first volunteer to read his work. |
| "Hey baby." That's what she said to me, and then asked me to two-step. After one trip around the floor, the next, by now inevitable, line came from her, "So, you come here often?" "Not, too, really," I smiled back. I had trouble negotiating her while talking and dancing, because the truth is I'm not much of a lead when it comes to this dance. She persisted, "I don't ever remember seeing you here before; I'm sure I'd remember you." "Off and running," I thought, and I took a deep breath and said, "Actually, I'm just here to learn how to lead, as I usually two-step with men, and somebody has to lead," ending with the kindest smile I could genuinely produce. Again, the inevitable, "Oh," followed by a silent remainder to some song about someone's mother getting run over by a train the day before she was to pick up her son at the end of his prison sentence. We exchanged polite thank yous, and I watched her return to her group of friends, where as they are prone to do, she bent over to whisper the recent goings on with her pals. Usually, I'm not too concerned about what they say to their group, but this group contained two men, who looked mean, and I briefly thought about my safety. I stood, alone, along the rail to the dance floor waiting for the next line-dance, which I could do partnerless, and get lost in the endless appeal of a prescribed dance to an anal-retentive person. Not only that, it would keep my mind engaged until those next, inevitable, words were spoken to me again. "Hey baby. You come here often?" |
Over the next 10 minutes or so, I learned this:
- Her name is Joanne.
- She's just recently back to dancing after about a year's hiatus.
- Her hiatus involved having to get her parents moved into an assisted living place to which they didn't go willingly.
- She'd taken shag lessons at this nightclub back when she first took them.
- Her first husband died.
- She's recently divorced from her second husband. It sounded like there turned out to be more doors than windows, so to speak.
- He was so nice while she dated him for two years. He was a builder. She's a real estate agent. She thought it was a match made in heaven. After they got married, "things changed."
- She's back on the dating scene.
- She's on singles.com. Perhaps since she's into real estate and builders, she should be on shingles.com instead. Badumpbump. We're here all weeks, folks. Try the thermal-paned windows.
- She was going to meet someone there tonight who she's been talking to online, but he has a girlfriend.
She asked me a bunch of questions, including where I lived, and once they joined us, I explained to her that I was there with Jen, Mike, and Sarah. She did not get up and offer Jen her seat back, although I'm not sure she really knew Jen was sitting there when she took the seat. They were to her left, and she turned and faced them when I introduced them, but then turned right back to me. Body language.
She asked me to dance. I said, "Oh no, really, I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm working up the nerve to dance with my friend, Jen," I said indicating Jen with a nod.
"That's okay. I'll warm you up, then you can dance with her." Persistent little devil.
"Oh no, really," I laughed, "But thank you for asking."
She eventually moseyed away in search of that guy (and his girlfriend) she was going to meet.
We had a ton of fun dancing and experimenting a little. My favorite part was doing the stutter step a few times with Jen. We pretty much practiced all of the things we've learned so far: the basic step, the belly roll, the pivot, and the stutter step. We also added our own variation of the basic where we remained in the closed position, and gussied it up a couple of times with Jen doing a double twirl on the one-and-two step of the basic.
We also did some two-stepping, during which I enjoyed watching a few people from the sidelines observing us looking at our feet as if to say, "What the hell? That's not the shag step." Heresy.
They did a couple of line dances, including the Electric Slide, which of course I joined in on. Love that dance, and about the only time I get to do it is at straight peoples' weddings.
At one point, they said, "And now the Tush Push," and I rushed out there only to find that they did it with a slight variation, which actually really surprised me. I mean the Tush Push is a pretty standard line dance. In all of my time traveling and dancing, I've never been to a place where that dance was done differently.
Anyhoo, I hung in there, and watching the people around me, I caught on enough to get through the part that was a variation in such a way that I was back on track and in step when it returned to the steps I knew. Toward the very end, the lady to one side of me messed up while I was watching her to try and mimic the variation, and she laughingly apologized for messing me up, which I thought was sweet, as she had absolutely no obligation to keep me on track.
I met Alex and Bill at Flex for Trailer Park Prize Night, after a quick stop by home to change into shorts and a t-shirt. I'd actually worn khaki pants and a long-sleeved black t-shirt to shag in.
I hadn't seen Bill and Alex in a while, and it was good to catch up. I always get my laugh quota in with Alex, 'cause he's just fun like that.
- Mood:Content
Sci-Fi Fantasy Man was reading a small hard-bound book today whose pages were yellow and looked brittle. Is the science fiction genre old enough to have been published that long ago?
Passing by the McKimmon Center stop, I had a Doublemint Duplicates déjà vu moment, as they were both bookended around a couple, dressed exactly like they were the last time I saw them this way—both in jeans, both in the same style of blue jacket, but one with a blue t-shirt and the other with a red t-shirt, and their backpacks which differ (from the front anyway) only by a white stripe in one of the straps leading to their backs.
Izod Shoe Man was not in Lacoste shoes today, nor was he in his Nike sneakers. Instead he sported some other black leather top tennis shoes. I think he's just getting back at me for naming him Izod Shoe Man. If he keeps it up, I'm going to change his name to Imelda Shoe Man.
I had a 9:30-10:30 communications subteam meeting for the Postini project, which Sarah led, and in which we saw a demo of Postini.
From 1:00-2:00, I attended an information session about changes in the State Health Plan for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Basically, this year the "Dope's Smoke" clause goes into effect and next year the "Fat-as-Fuck" clause will be invoked. This year, if you don't attest that you don't smoke or that you're in an approved smoking cessation program, you will be forced into the most expensive plan, the 70/30 plan. Next year, if your BMI isn't under a certain range, you'll be forced into that plan as well.
Since the meeting was in another building, and I had minutes to work on all afternoon, I worked the rest of the day from home.
Social Media and Technical Communication class was fun tonight. After discussing our readings, we listened to a presentation by Aisha on presence-sharing sites. I was talking to her about her topic before class, and I mentioned the currently-in-the-news website pleaserobme.com, which she ended up talking about in her presentation. Cool.
Dancing was not really fun this evening. We had just a few dancers, Carl and Bill didn't show, and Rob left early. We definitely put more energy into doing the crossword puzzle from the Independent Weekly than we did dancing.
Tom was there, who keeps saying he wants to take lessons, but was way too inebriated to have taken them even if Carl had showed up to teach them. He insisted on me teaching him the two-step, but basically he just hung all over me while I manipulated him around in a circle.
I was quite ready to leave there at 10:30, but stayed just a few more minutes to work on the crossword puzzle with Michael. At some point in the evening, Brigner walked by and made some snide remark about an exciting night at Flex doing a crossword puzzle.
Yes, line dancing at Flex is definitely participating in a slow death march.
- Mood:Content
Once again, there was a mini-bus convention at the intersection of Gorman and Conifer streets, with our city bus, a Wake County Public School bus, and a Wolfline bus.
Logorrhea got on at a subsequent stop and had the most nonsensical conversation with the bus driver for the first several minutes. She talked about missing this city bus on Friday (you read it first here in my blog, folks) and running to the Wolfline bus to catch it. She said at least three times that the reason she missed the city bus is because she keeps her clocks set five minutes fast. That makes no sense whatsoever.
At the next stop, two African-American women got on that she knew and they sat next to her. One of them started complaining about her last haircut, and I captured these snippets, all from Logorrhea:
- Yeah, girl. She got to get out the triple row stimulator.
- She gotta get degreaser now.
- Yeah, that flat iron and that blow dryer gonna get it.
- I mean even if it start gettin' nappy she gotta do it.
This whole conversation reminded me of that hair salon we pass on the way to Carolina Beach: The Curl Up and Dye.
Today was weigh-in day, which I did first thing in the morning. I just stayed the same this week, which I didn't even get discouraged about. I exercised all seven days this week, and my clothes are feeling better than ever, so I'll just wait for the scale to catch up with me.
I only had one meeting, our department meeting, and it was first thing in the day. I spent a lot of my day cleaning up minutes from our Student E-Mail meeting of last Friday.
I also went through a bunch of Twitter follows for @ncsu_oit, did some follow-up work for the upcoming UITC meeting, and did a little work for the Internal Communications subcommittee of the Campus Communicators group.
I caught the 5:30 city bus home, upon which I found Temporary Alice and her daughter (formerly known as her sister) Word Search Lady. At about five minutes into the ride, TA noticed that there was a camera mounted on the ceiling of the bus up by the bus driver. I hadn't noticed it, but ironically, I had just read a sign that I thought was new that said something to the effect of, "For your safety and protection, audio and video surveillance of this bus may be in progress."
A man sat in the seat between Temporary Alice and Word Search Lady, who was doing her usual talking out loud while she was doing her puzzle. "Six. Letters. Going. Across," and "S. T. R. A. T. E. G..." I could see the guy sitting to my right and in the seat in front of her sort of rolling his eyes back to try and nonchalantly see who in the hell she was talking to.
On the way to the gym, I stopped at K-Mart, where I exchanged a reusable coffee filter that I bought weeks ago (might even be months now) for one that actually fits my coffee pot, three greeting cards, and some dishwasher detergent.
I did a 60-minute cardio workout on the cross-trainer machine, during which I burned 1187 calories. A few things of interest during that time:
- I started off listening to my iPod, but the ear buds were already starting to slip out due to my sweating as I'd not put in the ones that clip over my ear specifically for working out, when I lifted the ear bud cord too high, and it pulled my iPod off the ledge of the machine and it went flying onto the floor.
- I turned my attention to the TV in front of me on which I think Lost was on. They never said it, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. While reading the subtitles at the top of the screen, I suddenly noticed what looked like an intermittent commentary running along the bottom of the screen, which reminded me of "the Twitter backchannel." It was giving backstory to what was going on, saying things like, "Jack found this out in Episode Four," and stuff like that. How interesting. It was a lot of reading, though, by the time you read the subtitles of the conversation and the backstory on the bottom, you barely had time to watch the video part of what was happening. It's so interesting how television technology is evolving.
- There were two African-American girls on the two machines in front of me, and they both had the typical "woman figure" with fairly normal sized waistlines, but huge hips and asses. I had to laugh at one point when on one of the TVs a commercial came on for Pizza Hut (all pizzas $10) and the one tapped the other one and pointed up at the screen all excited about how delicious all those pizzas looked. I was right with them. That shit looked killer.
After my workout, I dropped into the grocery store where I bought a cucumber, some celery, some sliced mushrooms, and two granny smith apples, none of which were specials if you had one of their VIC cards.
At the checkout, the guy had two items left that he was going to put in another bag, and he said, "Okay to put this all in one bag?" to which I replied, "Yes."
The cashiers there always say, "You saved $2.50 [or whatever] with your VIC card today," and tonight mine said, "You saved..." then looking for the amount, continued, "...nothing today."
"Well, I saved a bag," I retorted as he handed me the one.
At home, I had a killer, killer salad of cucumber, onion, celery, carrot, mushroom, Italian (four) cheeses, and topped with some diced boiled chicken breast that I had poured some Teriyaki marinade on before I left for the gym. It was so delicious.
I made a couple of moves in a couple of Scrabble games, and missed a chat with Robert, although he was logged into AIM all evening. I hope everything's okay.
I did my homework readings, and actually got to bed at a decent hour.
- Mood:content
I've only ever taken that bus before to take it all the way into campus. I made a mental note that next time, when getting off at the AFTC, I need to sit near the rear door instead of near the front of the bus. That's because, by the time the bus gets down to Mission Valley, it's so jam-packed with students standing in the aisle that it makes it hard to get off the bus, as on the Wofline buses, you have to exit from the rear door.
For some reason, I had in my mind that my colleague Twanda was teaching the PowerPoint class I was taking from 9:00-12:00 this morning, but it turned out to be my friend and colleague Jen. Yes, Jen, the very one in my Social Media and Technical Communication class and with whom I'm taking shagging lessons.
This morning's class was on PowerPoint, and although I've done tons of PowerPoint presentations in my time, Jen knows a lot of the advanced features and nuances about PowerPoint, so I took advantage of the opportunity to learn some of those things in the class.
It was a fun class, which included four guys in there from facilities or housing—guys you wouldn't expect to be doing presentations in their job. We were encouraged to choose a "fun" topic to make a presentation about it, and those guys came up with some very good ones, making very good use of images, actually.
I felt compelled to use the time to start creating a presentation I'm going to have to do in my class in a couple of weeks, and I'm glad I did, because now I'm off to a very good start on it.
I worked with my officemate and teammate, Rhonda, on a communique that we're going to have to send to some people to "evict" them from one of our network domains, and it involved a short meeting with a bright, fun guy up a floor from us in our building. After our meeting, Rhonda did most of the work on the communique, and I added my two cents to it, before she forwarded it to our manager.
I worked on an edit of four other communiques that will be sent to students: 1) when their request for a Google Gmail invitation is honored, 2) when the migration of their e-mail from our old e-mail system to the new Gmail system begins, 3) another when the migration is completed, and 4) one welcoming them to Gmail.
As the day came to a close, I glanced at my calendar to see how many meetings I have tomorrow, and although tomorrow's schedule is fine, I nearly screamed when I saw Thursday's schedule. I don't think I've ever had that many work meetings in one day. It'd be ridiculous even without that little problem between 2:00 & 3:00.
Tonight in Social Media and Technical Communication class, we briefly discussed our reading assignments, as we had already posted about them in a discussion forum, and then we moved on to two presentations being given tonight, since last Wednesday's class was canceled. Kate gave hers on SMS & MMS (i.e., texting), and Neal gave his on Video.
Right at 7:15, Jen and I beelined it out of there and rode out to the Bond Park Community Center for our shagging lessons. I called my mom on the way, who turned 78 today. My dad answered the phone, and he sounded in great spirits. Mom had had a good day, with a nice birthday lunch at O'Charley's.
We spent the entire hour of dance lessons tonight pretty much reviewing the belly roll and the pivot, and practicing transitioning in and out of them and into and out of the basic step.
At the very end of the night, actually in the 15 minutes we ran over, we learned the stutter step. We weren't perfect at it, but both Jen and I caught onto it and didn't have any major issues. Yay!
At home, I:
- took my blood pressure—112 over 66 with a pulse of 66
- had a late dinner
- had an instant message chat with Robert
- made a few Scrabble moves in the three games I'm currently playing
- paid my auto insurance online and signed a form to renew my homeowners insurance, both under duress as I really wanted to change insurance companies, but can't due to an issue with my homeowners association that I'm not going to get into here, but that I'm not happy about
I really needed to do a little work tonight, but I was too tired. Just capturing these recent blood pressure readings:
- Mood:Content
I did a load of laundry while I worked on those.
I did an upper body workout today that is definitely going to be talking back to me tomorrow, as I increased the weights on most of the machines. I followed that up with 300 (15 sets of 20 reps) ab crunches.
I ran into the Harris Teeter afterwards, where I picked up a bag of pretzels, a bag of reduced fat potato chips, and a dozen-and-a-half eggs. That's the first time I've ever bought an 18-pack of eggs, but I'm eating them very regularly now and even have two every now and then, since I'm only eating the egg whites after hard boiling them.
I've started taking my blood pressure at least once a day again, and it has been surprisingly low, averaging 117 over 71 over a week's period. I'm curious as to how my next lab work will turn out, as it was off the charts in a bad way the last time I had them done back in May of last year. Presumably, after exercising an average of 5 days a week for 7 weeks and losing 20 pounds, things will be looking a lot better.
I had a most delicious salad for lunch consisting of onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, hard-boiled egg whites, Italian (x) cheeses, and Durn Good-marinated ground turkey topped with Kraft Free Thousand Islands dressing. Yum. Yum. Yum.
I played some online Scrabble, as well as chatted, with Robert over the course of the evening.
I did a couple of hours worth of homework, which included two reading assignments, and discussion forum postings about them.
- Mood:Content
They had a shortage of pens there, and to that end they grabbed ours just as soon as we finished signing our credit card receipts. Perhaps it's time for a trip to Target or something. I mean pens are kind of a critical tool in running a restaurant business.
After lunch, I stepped across the street to Helios, where I intended to devise my Friday's blog entry, but that ended up not happening.
Most of my friends know that I hate talking on the phone, and a because of that, a couple of them either forwarded to me, or pointed me to, 10 Reasons to Avoid Talking on the Phone. Surprisingly, only one of them really resonated with me—#9. I guess, but to a much lesser extent, #3 did as well.
As I mentioned in a recent post, my Mostly Social Book Club is reading Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, and today this passage explained something I've always wondered about:
| Most of the different types of cells in our body die and are replaced every few weeks or months. However, neurons, the primary cell of the nervous system, do not multiply (for the most part) after we are born. That means that the majority of the neurons in your brain today are as old as you are. This longevity of the neurons partially accounts for why we feel pretty much the same on the inside at the age of 10 as we do at age 30 or 77. The cells in our brain are the same but over time their connections change based upon their/our experience. |
At around 4:00, I ventured out to Cary Towne Center for my first visit to a mall in 2010. It could very well be my last, as twice or three times a year is pretty much the most I ever do. Actually, I'll have to go back in ten days to pick up my new glasses.
So, those of you who've been reading a while know that in January I had an eye exam, after which I ordered new lenses to be put in my same frames, and that totaled to $509. In writing about it here in my blog, a couple of people commented about what a rip off it usually is to get glasses at your eye doctor's office, and as a result of that discussion, I canceled my order and got a $509 credit back to my credit card. About a week later, I requested that my eye doctor's office send me my prescription.
I'm happy to report that today, at Lenscrafters, where they were having a 50% off sale on a lot of frames, I promptly picked out the only pair I saw under $100. They were $99, and I didn't see another pair around them for less than $200, if not $250. I turned down all of her upselling attempts, and when I told her I didn't want the "featherweight" option, she said, "Well, we only stock those. I'd probably have to order them if you wanted the regular ones."
"How long would they take to get here, and what's the cost difference?" I asked.
After pushing way too many buttons on way too many screens, with nearly inch-long bright-red painted fingernails that slapped against the keyboard above the letters the pads of her fingertips tried to mash, she said, "We can get them without that option. They'll take ten days to arrive, and they'll be $50 cheaper."
Let's see, $50/10 days is $5 a day. "Perfect," I said, "I'll wait for those to come in then."
I walked out of there paying $198.60 for a new pair of glasses. That's over $300 cheaper than what I was going to pay at my eye doctor's office, and these include new frames. Sweet. Thanks Dan and Scott. :-)
On the way back from there, I stopped at the gym, where I first spotted Bubba looking around at the people next to him, pretty much deciding on who he was going to talk to. He pounced on the guy next to him on one of the free-weight machines, and I timed over ten minutes that he usurped that guy's time. I mentioned recently that one of my dad's favorite sayings is, "That's an accident waiting to happen." Well Bubba is, "A conversation waiting to intrude."
I did a 40-minute cardio workout on the cross-trainer for a 830-calorie burn.
I met Robert in Durham at 7:00, and we had dinner at C&H Cafeteria, where I had baked ham, fried zucchini, home-fried potatoes, and a salad. Yum.
We saw the 8:15 performance of Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom at Manbites Dog Theater. I actually got two comp tickets, which I don't think I've ever done, even though I'm entitled to them all the time as a member of the board of directors.
Although I'm not a gamer, I have studied the effect on the Internet and society of massively multiuser online role playing games (MMORPG) as well as the newer mixed reality games. Blast Theory is a group doing a lot of work in the area of mixed reality games, in which an online game uses the real world as its "board." A couple of their games include Can You See Me Now and Uncle Roy All Around You:
To that end, I found the ideas explored in this play congruent with the types of questions that came up while studying in grad school the implications of playing out virtual games in the real world. Good job, Jeff!
If you're a gamer, I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy the play. More about it and ticket information are available on the Manbites Dog Theater website.
I met Joe out at Flex after the play. It was blackout night, which pretty much wasn't blacked out at all due to one of the TVs left on, which pretty much lit up the majority of the main bar area.
It got fairly crowded, as tonight was the HRC Gala in Raleigh, featuring these speakers and entertainment:
after which people were out and about. And I mean out.
When I got home, the townhouse across from mine was having a party and there were two cars parked in my parking spots. I walked across the street and up to two guys who were standing out front, I asked, "Would you take me to one of the people who lives here, please?"
To which one answered, "We don't know who lives here, man."
I asked, "You don't know who lives here? You just came to this party without knowing the people who live here?"
"Yeah, man. It's a college party, and we're college kids," he replied as if I were stupid for not surmising that of my own volition and it explained everything. It explained them, that's for sure.
I opened the door to the house, which was wall-to-wall with people with cups in their hands. Their kitchen is the first thing in the door to the right, and I stepped in there and tapped the nearest person on the shoulder and I said, "Hey, who lives here?"
The guy stood up on his tip-toes and pointed to someone way in the back of the living room, whom I couldn't see, and he said, "That guy right back there in the corner."
"I can't see who you're pointing me to. Would you take me to him, please?"
The guy was behind a long table set up with a bunch of equipment like you'd see in a DJ booth and I guess he was "spinning or mixing tunes" for his "college party." I said to him, "Hi. I live across the street, and two people are parked in my parking spots."
He started following me out to the front door, and I continued, "I just want to park in my own parking spot. And I really don't want to have to get the police and all that drama involved, so if you'd..." Before I could finish the sentence, we were at the front door looking across at my place, and one of the cars was pulling out of one of my spots."
"That's great," I said, "Thanks."
"Did you want me to find out who's in your other spot and have them move?" he asked very politely.
I said, "No, that's fine. You guys carry on."
- Mood: content
As we went around a stopped Wolfline bus, I saw Logorrhea running to catch that one. I wondered if she talks as much on that bus as she does on the city bus.
At the next stop the guy getting on fist-bumped someone sitting in a front seat as he passed him and said, "What's up dog?"
Sci-Fi Fantasy Man sat behind me reading. He's due for a haircut.
Izod Shoe Man got on at his regular McDonald's stop. He was cross-branded today—wearing Nike shoes.
I had only one meeting today, my standing Friday meeting from 10:30-11:45, our Student E-mail Initiative Implementation Team meeting for which I take the minutes.
I joined Anna, Kim, and Sarah (who had adorable little Jonah with her), at Cup A Joe's on Hillsborough Street for Coffee Klatch Friday, and I spent a nice hour-long lunch there with them.
Toward the end of the day, I spoke to my manager about my upcoming vacation time (at the end of April), and while I was in her office she told me that she was going to nominate me for an award at work, for which there are several categories. She's entering me for the one that recognizes community service.
To that end, she asked me if I wouldn't mind putting a quick list together of the things I've done in that realm as she knew some of them, but she also knew there are some I do outside work that she doesn't really know the nature of. That turned out to be quite an affirming little exercise, and this is the list I turned in to her:
| Date | Organization & Event | Description/Contribution |
| March 13-21, 2010 | NC State Alternative Spring Break Gulf Coast Trip, Thibodaux, LA | One of two advisors chaperoning 10 students to do post-Katrina Habitat for Humanity work. |
| January 23, 2010 | Alternative Spring Break Local Habitat for Humanity Day in preparation for our March trip. | Part of a day-long retreat in preparation for our March trip. We worked from 8:30 in the morning until about 1:00 on a deconstruction site in North Raleigh, where we mostly removed nails from boards all day, and then met afterwards to reflect on the experience. Details of the day. |
| December 2009 | OIT Holiday Giving Project for Love Wins Ministry | I nominated, and then spearheaded, one of the 2009 OIT Holiday Giving Projects. Results of the project. |
| June 12, 2009 | Habitat for Humanity Day with the NCSU Web Developers | For most of the day, I did trim painting work. Details of the day. |
| August 21, 2009 | Stop Hunger Now at NC State | Our group helped set up for the big food-packaging event which was happening the next day. For most of the time, I unfolded boxes and taped the bottoms. Details of the day. |
| May 3, 2008 - Present | Manbites Dog Theater Company Board of Directors | As a board member, I do not hold the office of secretary, but I do that kind of work for the board. I schedule the board meetings, help create the agendas, and take the minutes of the meetings. |
| April 30, 2009 | Night Owl Service at NC State | At the end of each semester, during exam week, the faculty and staff of the university "take over" the staffing of a couple of the university dining rooms to serve the students. Details of the day. |
| April 2, 2009 | NC State GLBT Speakers Bureau | I participated in a speaker panel to the College of Natural Resources, on which I talked about my coming out experience, and why it's important to me to be out at work. Details are here. |
| October 20-31, 2008 | People to People Citizen Ambassador Programs: Technical Communication Professional Delegation to the People's Republic of China | This trip consisted of professional exchange visits with Chinese Technical Communicators, as well as "cultural days," from October 20-31, 2008 with stays in Beijing, Guilin, and Shanghai. During our visit with Peking University, I gave a presentation on my experience in my Master's degree program in Technical Communication at NC State. Blog of the trip. |
| March 5 through May 16, 2008 | Equality North Carolina | I participated in volunteer work around helping to pass The School Violence Prevention Act. Details here, here, here, here, and here. |
| 2000-2004 | Triangle Community Works | I was the board secretary for those five years. For several months of one year, I was also the acting Programs Director, and for two years during that time I volunteered on the Gay & Lesbian Helpline a couple of times a month. |
| September 29, 2007 | Service-Learning Day at MEDWorld | With NC State's NC State Center for Excellence in Curricular Engagement, I participated in a service event at MEDWorld, an environmentally responsible alternative for our hospitals to re-use disposable recyclable materials to save lives across the world, during which we filled several boxes each with 100 items of the scissors/clamps/hemostats variety, 100 tweezers, and 20 instruments, and body drapes. Details are here. |
| August 24, 2007 | Service NC State | While I was in grad school at NC State, as part of my membership in the student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, I participated in Service NC State, where volunteers packaged 300,000 dehydrated, fortified rice-soy meals containing over 20 vitamins and minerals especially formulated for the undernourished. 150,000 meals were sent to Petit Goave, Haiti with an organization called Haiti Vision, and the other 150,000 meals to Senegal. Details are here. |
| June 19-22, 2003 | Tour de Friends AIDS Ride | I rode my bike for 330 miles, from Raleigh, NC to Washington, DC after four months of training and raising close to $4000. Details are here. |
It was still cold late this afternoon while I waited for the bus, and once again, it was on the late, rather than early side. I was relieved to finally get on board, well at least until the man sitting directly in front of my started hacking.
I was in the first front-facing seat and he was in front of me in the center-facing seat, so that I looked at his profile. He started hacking, and to his credit did put his hand up near his mouth. Unfortunately, he didn't cover his mouth, nor evidently has he gotten the word that we no longer cough into our hand, but into the inside of our elbow.
As if that wasn't bad enough, at one point he did one of these deep pulls that you knew was going to result in some kind of expectoration. He held his mouth a certain way, while reaching into his stuff and pulling out a plastic grocery bag, into which he proceeded to spit. Klassy. (Pronounced "classy with a k.")
At the gym, where I did a lower body workout, followed by 300 (15 sets of 20 reps) ab crunches, I saw a guy watch the person using the machine he was going to use next wipe it down (with a disinfectant spray and paper towels available in the gym at several stations strategically placed throughout the gym) and then immediately wipe it down himself again before he got on it. It made me wonder how said person would have reacted to the hacking expectorator on the bus. But I digress...
Once again, during my ab crunches, I was subjected to MTV's 16 & Pregnant.
I met Phil out at The Borough again this evening, and later on we went over to Flex for just a little while.
- Mood:Content
I put on a pot of coffee, fired up my laptop, logged into work, and sent an e-mail to my manager, copying my officemate, that I'd plan on coming in after lunch, in time for our 2:00 meeting.
After lunch, I caught the Wolfline bus into work in order to have more options home at the end of the day. I actually parked at the Avent Ferry Food Lion Park & Ride, nabbing the last available spot on the "outer wall"—the only place you're allowed to park without getting towed. The sun was shining and any remnants of snow totally gone by then.
Our weekly 1.5-hour working team was productive. Food on the table included a choice of Golden Oreo Fun Sticks, Caramel Delights Girl Scout Cookies, and almonds.
I caught the #1 Avent Ferry Wolfline bus home, and after putting my laptop bag and my briefcase in my car, I stopped in the Food Lion for a couple of things. "Welcome to Food Lion," initiated my first "Josh sighting," since he started working there.
Josh is my good (Mostly Social Book Club, and former IBM colleague) friend Sharon's son. I went through his checkout line as much because I wanted to as because there was no line for it. He was both polite and efficient. Two qualities I like in a checkout person.
After a killer salad for dinner, consisting of cucumbers, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, shredded Parmesan cheese, and Durn Good-marinated ground turkey, I went to the gym.
I arrived at about 8:15, and although it was still fairly busy for that time of night, it wasn't nearly as bad as Tuesday at 8:00. I did 60 minutes on the cross-trainer, with a total calorie burn of 1077 calories. I listened to the Parent Trap episode of This American Life, whose first of two acts was absolutely fascinating.
It was about a woman, who knew she was dying, who had a young daughter and in the final month of her life decided to write 13 years worth of letters to her, to be given to her every year on her birthday, with one special one just for her wedding day. "At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects." Very, very interesting.
The prologue was quite good, too, about a boy whose mother set nice traps for him. The act two story, was okay, but didn't engage me as much as the prologue and act one did.
| Parent Trap [Click to listen to the episode.] Stories about parents setting accidental traps for their children, and sometimes for themselves, including a story from WNYC's Radiolab about a chimp raised twice—once as a human child, and again as a chimp. Prologue. When Dave Hill was in his late 20s and still basically living at home, he hung out with his mom a lot. But once she used particularly sneaky tactics to get him to attend a church fundraiser. (9 1/2 minutes.) Act One. Letter Day Saint. Rebecca was 16 years old when her mother Elizabeth died of cancer. But before she died, she wrote letters to Rebecca, to be given to her on her birthday each year for thirteen years. At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects. David Segal tells the story. David is a reporter for The New York Times. (14 minutes.) Act Two. The Opposite of Tarzan. Lucy was a chimpanzee raised in captivity, who adopted a surprising number of human traits. But this proved problematic—in quite unexpected ways—when her adoptive human parents decided that Lucy should be released in the wild. This story comes from WNYC's Radiolab, which is distributed by NPR. Radiolab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich tell the story. (29 minutes.) |
I checked out Trailer Park Prize Night tonight, which was extra to get in due to some "out of town trade"; did I say trade, I meant entertainment. One Sherry Vine out of NYFC.
The lines for drinks at the bar were unacceptably long, and evidently some people thought that the notion of first come, first served, and what a line is actually all about, didn't apply to them.
I got there at about 11:15 and left just as the show started, pretty much wishing I hadn't wasted the five bucks to get in, but glad I only had two drinks worth of calories. That, and seeing Henry, were the saving grace of the evening.
- Mood:Content
Today was at least the second—if not the third—time the "odd couple" boarded at a stop on Gorman Street. They are two women, one white and the other African-American, and their relationship seems to be one of the black lady as mentor and the white lady as mentee. I say that, because in previous instances, I've heard the black lady sort of "orienting" the white lady on how the buses work in terms of various places they had to be around the city that day.
Today I heard this snippet of conversation, as they had walked up to the bus stop just as the bus pulled up:
Black lady: We made it right on time!
White lady: We sure did, girl!
Black lady [to the driver]: You know what time the connecting bus pulls up to Cameron Village?
Driver: Usually 'bout on the 45 of the hour.
Two-Stop Man got on the bus, rode for two stops, and got off the bus. That's what he does.
At the McKimmon Center stop, the Doublemint Duplicates were waiting for the Wolfline bus. They both had on jeans and matching blue jackets. The only thing assuring me that one of them wasn't just standing by a mirror was that one of them had a blue t-shirt visible where their coats were a little unzipped at their necks, and the other one had on a red one. They also evidently had on different backpacks, but that wasn't as obvious as I could only see the straps over their shoulders leading to their backs. One was solid blue and the other one was white and blue.
Whew, that plus-sized lady got on again today with another one of those all-stretch-type outfits. She had on the same calf-length white boots as yesterday, but today's tights (she puts the tight in tights) were blue instead of lime green, and her top, again was one of those pieces of clothing that looks like a long, long shirt also being used as a skirt. Just one big long, tight (did I say tight?) shirt that comes over the ass and hips and has an elastic hem clinging the hem to the thighs. It had a swirled pattern of pink, purple, gray, black, and white throughout it. She had her adorable little girl again with her, too, who got on the bus with a track down her cheek from what obviously must have been a crocodile-sized tear.
I had one work meeting scheduled today for late in the day, and by the grace of somebody, it got rescheduled to next week.
I got hungry for lunch really early today, and ended up eating my sandwich at 10:30—right after I tweeted this:
We had possible light snow predicted for this evening and maybe tomorrow morning, and to that end my 6:00-7:15 class was canceled as was a scheduled "Tweet-up" of people who tweet for the university. Although, I thought it was a little lame, I was happy to have the time back, as I had dancing to go to after that, and it would've just been running from one thing to another all night long.
On the way to dancing, I stopped by the Cameron Village Library, where I had the large print version of Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight waiting for me as a result of a hold request I put in a couple of days ago. This is Mostly Social Book Club's current book. I'm looking forward to reading it, as her 19-minute TED presentation about it was pretty riveting.
Dancing was pathetic tonight. There was no one in the bar, and we only essentially had four dancers. And the night started out with Brigner standing at the bar when I got my first drink upon arriving and saying, "I've cut out the line-dancing on Saturday nights."
We stopped dancing at about 10:50, and I went with Micheal and Carl to The Diner. Fortunately, I had only one drink all night long, so only 69 calories (bourbon and Diet Coke). I had allowed for four-to-six drinks, so I still had enough calorie room to have a turkey burger and some cottage cheese.
When our waiter came to take our order he said, "Did you guys have fun at Flex tonight?" One of us finally managed to answer, "Uh, yes we did," not surprised that we were so easily "pegged as homosexuals" per se, but that he specifically said "Flex." I mean, why not Legends or CCs?
Later in the meal when the waiter returned, Carl asked, "How'd you know we were at Flex?"
"You're the line dancers," he said, with a "D'oh" type tone. "I've been there a lot on Wednesday nights over the past couple of years."
"You have?" Carl asked incredulously, since none of us recognized him.
We convinced him to come back next Wednesday, when we'll make him take a lesson. He comped us a huge bowl of apple cobbler, complete with whipped cream, three cherries on top, and three spoons. I left him a 33% tip.
- Mood:Content
There was a perfect storm of buses at the corners of Gorman and Conifer streets: a CAT city bus, a Wake County Public Schools bus, and a university Wolfline bus. A vision of a bus convention came into my mind.
Evidently I didn't get the memo that today would be an odoriferous day, instantiated once in the morning and twice in the afternoon—the morning instance on this bus and one of the afternoon instances at work, with the other on the bus on the way home. This morning's instance involved someone sitting in my immediate vicinity sporting cologne or perfume that I can only describe as either "Eau de Coppertone," "Banana Boat Bouquet," or "Hawaiian Tropic Tinge."
Logorrhea got on, and immediately pumped up the volume speaking to the person sitting across from her. "I ended that flu before it got started. My head felt like someone was pounding nails through it. But I wouldn't let them go through. Wouldn't let it go through."
And later, "You know you got to wait two weeks to get your driver's license now? Down at the DMV, you can't even get it there. Got to go through the mail. Got to keep checking your box for it. I have a new UPS man. He stay out where I live." And leaning forward in a whisper, which for her means as loud as regular people speak normally, she added parenthetically, "He a Mexican!" I immediately glanced around to see if anyone of Hispanic descent was in the vicinity. Too bad Grumpy Boy wasn't around.
On she went, "Yeah, my boy caught him trying to get into our boxes. My boy say to the UPS man as he tried to take my mail, 'That my mama's.' That's right. Gotta wait for your new driver's license and get it in the mail, where someone might take it."
In a bold fashion move (I said bold, not smart) the very plus-sized woman with the Dolly Parton-sized breasts to whom I've referred before, boarded the bus wearing lime green tights (stretched to the max) and one of those tops that is like a shirt, but comes down beyond the hips almost to the thighs and is gathered around the bottom. Hers was bright, bright yellow with swirls of lime green in it. She toned it down with calf-high, white boots and a tannish-brown vest that was a little furry; it looked like a lining that had been removed from a jacket or something. She had her absolutely adorable daughter, complete in pink, in tow.
First thing at work this morning, Jason, Jen, and I weighed in. I returned back to the biggest loser status, with a 5-pound loss for this week, which is really not as big a deal as it sounds, since I'd (technically) gained three pounds last week, when I thought there was no way I could have. With that factored in, this week's loss was essentially a two-pound loss, which I'll take. Who's counting and rationalizing. Oh, I am.
That's a 20-pound loss since starting this endeavor on January 12th. That averages out to 3.3 pounds-per-week, which is better than the 2 pounds-per-week I'd planned on.
I had two work meetings today, both in the afternoon, and back-to-back. The first was my department meeting, at which the only food appearance was Golden Oreo Fun Sticks, which I brought. They're fairly decent for a 90-calorie treat, although the reviews of them aren't stellar.
The second meeting was an hour-long call with one of the Google Apps Education Edition reps about a communications plan around the launch of our move of students at NC State from NC State Unity Webmail to Google Apps @ NC State, which is imminent.
In the middle of that meeting, we received a broadcast e-mail to all occupants of our building. It was the second odoriferous instance of the day, and it went like this:
| Subject: Bad odor in building All, Sorry about the foul odor in the building. Facilities staff are already here working to track down the source of the problem. Seems to be in the plumbing. More information as we receive it. -Tony- |
I caught a late bus—the 6:30—home, where I experienced the third and final odoriferous instance of the day—someone around me smelled like they'd been working at the King Burger all day.
There was a guy, who I've mentioned once before when I rode a late bus home, who is totally family (or if he isn't, he exhibits every stereotype associated with the phrase "gay as a picnic basket" anyway) who sat with a lady friend of his, with whom he got to just a-cackling and to that point of laughing where you have to put your palm up as if to say "Stop!" while you catch your breath.
This happened a couple of times, and when they'd just stop laughing, one of them would add some other little retort that would send them both into hysterics again. They were quite amusing to watch. When she got off (the stop before him), she said, "I so enjoy talking with you. Have a good evening."
I had a late dinner, as I was late getting home, and then I went to the gym. I stopped at K-Mart on the way to pick up my Nexium prescription, which wasn't ready. Turns out my insurance company is requesting an authorization from my doctor because I'm not using a generic brand instead of Nexium. This would make sense if I hadn't already refilled this prescription once and they didn't ask for an authorization then. Also, if they checked my history before my last Nexium prescription, they'd see that I tried both Protonix and Omeprazole, having success with neither. Gotta love our health care system.
It was unbelievably crowded at the gym for 8:00 at night. I did my upper body routine, not in my usual very prescribed order (let me put a look of surprise on your face), but randomly as various machines came empty. Otherwise, if I'd've waited to use my machines in order, I'd've been there an extra 15 or 20 minutes, I'm sure.
Following the upper body work, I did 300 (15 sets of 20 reps) ab crunches. I've mentioned before that I use the five televisions in the vicinity of the ab crunch machines to help keep track of my set count. While doing set one, I watch the TV set labeled "1," while doing set two, the one labeled "2," and so on. I can only really see five sets from the bench, so on the sixth set, I start back at "1," as I do for the 11th set.
At tonight's time of night, the third TV set, which is tuned into MTV, has their show on called 16 and Pregnant. I'm in simpatico with the girl of the week when my stomach bloats out while I lift up for the crunch during sets three, eight, and thirteen and see the gratuitous shots of the 16-year-old's stomach two weeks before delivery.
Back home, I had a nice, albeit short, instant message conversation with Robert, and then a somewhat arduous one with Joe, not because Joe's hard to talk to, but because we were doing frequent flyer point balance comparisons and checking various flights for our April trip to Key West, and between trying to coordinate using points for a flight, arriving and departing at acceptable times, and the ridiculously varying flight prices, it all gets complicated.
Speaking of "problems of coordination," tonight's homework reading for The Wisdom of Crowds talked about that very issue. What defines a coordination problem according to Surowiecki, the book's author, is "that to solve it, a person has to think not only about what he believes the right answer is but also about what other people think the right answer is. And that's because what each person does effects and depends on what everyone else will do, and vice versa."
Our Conversation and Community reading was about "real-world" events associated with social media, with way too much time (in my humble opinion) spent on Book Sprints, which I'd never heard of. I mean, I appreciate learning about them, but the topic went into detail about organizing them that wasn't specific to organizing book sprints per se, but just event organization in general, such as things to think about with regards to transportation, accommodations, and food. It came across as "filler" to me.
One thing I liked about this chapter was the reference to "the gift econmy," which I knew of, but hadn't thought of in quite a while.
I finally got to bed at a decent hour tonight, which was definitely needed. I've been somewhat burning the candle at both ends lately.
- Mood:Content
When the bus arrived, they let me on first, and I walked on to a completely empty bus. I don't think that has ever happened before. It was the 7:45, instead of 8:15, bus I took today.
At a subsequent stop, three African-American ladies got on, one a plus-sized girl and on the phone. She talked walking up the stairs of the bus, while putting her money in the fare machine, and continued on while taking a seat right under the sign of things not to do on the bus, the first being, "Please refrain from cell phone use while boarding."
I must have missed the memo about it being National Ask the Bus Driver a Question Day today. Both an Indian woman and an Asian man had involved questions for the driver, presumably around where to get off to catch connections and that sort of thing.
When the lady on the phone finished her conversation, she moved across the aisle to the seat behind the two ladies she boarded with, whom I was sitting in front of, so her voice had a clear channel to my ears.
"I'm so glad my kids got me out the bed and made me go to church on Sunday. Oh, girl, I didn't tell you, I got asked to speak there on the 21st. Yeah, girl, it's been 7 years, and they want me to talk about it. I was at their worship and praise service, and girl, they was singing." And then referring to someone they all knew, she continued, "Girl, she can sing! People were shoutin'! Babies were shoutin'! Girl, it was powerful. The power of faith!"
I am so not a fan of 9:00 meetings, and even less of a fan of 9:00 meetings on a Monday. The only thing worse than that would be a meeting right after that one, which is what happened today. Actually, they were scheduled kind of oddly, the first one from 9:00-9:45 and the second one from 10:15-11:15.
Both meetings had the potential to be explosive, but they both actually went relatively smoothly, and were what I'd consider productive.
Class was interesting enough this evening. I had a nice chat with J.D., who was tonight's presenter of the topic of "Tags and Tagging," as we were both in the English department's computer lab, having arrived too early to get in the room for our class.
After our discussions about tonight's readings, J.D. gave a very organized, and well-delivered presentation, which is always a plus coming from someone studying to be a technical communicator.
Jen and I beelined out of there at precisely 7:15, as we had to be out in Cary for Shag Beginner II lessons starting at 7:45. Jen took the prerequistie Shag Beginner I classes, in which she didn't have a partner and got stuck dancing with the instructor, but only when he was teaching. While he walked around and assessed everyone trying to learn the dance, she'd sat out. For these lessons, she was determined to have a partner, so she talked me into going and faking having the prequisite.
I was parked near the Bruegger's Bagels on Hillsborough Street and I waited on the side of the road until I saw her car coming up Hillsborough Street so I could pull out and follow her. There was a Wolfline bus behind her, so I had leeway to pull out between them, but needed to do it quickly. Just as she passed, I gunned my car only to find it in reverse, but stopped before hitting anything behind me.
I slammed it into gear, and peeled out (yes, including making the noise that goes with that activity) determined to get behind Jen, but ahead of the bus. I successfully pulled that off, but once my heart stopped moving so fast, I noticed that my car wasn't, and that's when I noticed that not only was it in Second gear instead of Drive, but my emergency break was on as well. Bless my aggressive driving mess.
Jen is a totally aggressive driver, and we both drove way faster than we should have out there, and at least two—but I think it was actually three—times, I had to go through an "orange light" (way more into red than leaving yellow) to keep up with her.
I had a great time taking the lessons after getting over my initial nerves at being discovered as a "fake" who really hadn't taken shag lessons at all, but had simply watched "tapes" of "Sue and the heterosexist Randy" a mere 18 hours ago.
It was a lot of fun both laughing and dancing with Jen. She's a good dancer, and I caught on well enough to complete the steps in and on the beat, if not as elegantly as a more experienced dancer might.
Our biggest accomplishment was learning "The Pivot" tonight, and next week we're going to learn some fancy schmancy leg work, well at least on the part of the lead. (That would be the "men's part" for those of you living and learning in the majority paradigm.)
Walking out, one of the ladies in the class made a comment about my:
t-shirt saying, "Wow, I haven't seen one of those shirts in years. You must have found that way in the back of your closet."
To which I responded laughing, "On no, this shirt hasn't been in the closet for years," which I'm pretty sure went right over her head.
I stopped by the grocery store on the way home, the Harris Teeter by my gym, and I used the self-checkout scanners, which I rarely, rarely do, especially when I have produce, which I did tonight. However, there was only one staffed register open, and the person that I'd've had to have gotten behind in it had a full cart full of stuff.
At home, I had a short, albeit nice, instant message chat with Robert, played a little online Scrabble with him, had an on-and-off chat with Joe, and then had a delightful phone conversation with Sarah about our upcoming Salonathon.
I saw this video referenced in a tweet today. Actually I think it was one of Ellen's tweets. I just love her.
- Mood: content
I had a most delicious bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, along with some coffee, of course. I had 14 items on my to-do list for this weekend, and I knocked out a few of them today.
- Completed submission form for my Flexible Health Spending Account reimbursement for 2009. I dropped it in the mail, ready to enjoy my $750 reimbursement when it arrives. I hate the guessing game that is involved with estimating that amount every year. I had a bunch more eligible receipts to submit, but to no end as I'd estimated $750 and that's the max I can get back. I upped my 2010 estimate to $1000.
- I went to pay my vehicle registration renewal online, but after reading how it's tied to my required annual NC Vehicle Inspection, I decided to wait until I pass the inspection first. I plan to have it inspected the first week in March. Assuming it passes—there is that little issue of the brake light that continuously burns—I'll submit the registration renewal as soon as it does.
- In anticipation of our 5:00 Gulf Coast Alternative Spring Break meeting, I worked up an activity that we can do during our "free day" in downtown New Orleans at the end of our week-long post-Katrina Habitat work that we'll be doing in Thibodaux, LA. My proposal is that in three or four groups (so either three groups of four or four groups of three, and one with one extra person, since we're 13 all together) we'd do this:
- Make a note of the funniest or most interesting thing you see on a t-shirt while walking through the French Quarter.
- Check out a total of three menus in the windows of nice restaurants you pass by and:
- Write down the names of all three restaurants that you check out
- Note the most exotic, unusual, or unexpected item across all three menus (i.e., so pick one menu item overall, not one from each menu)
- Write down the name, what’s in the dish, and the price of the most expensive item across all three menus (i.e., again, that's one item overall, not one from each menu)
- In one or more of the Voodoo shops, can you find anything that is designed to keep hurricanes away? If so what was it? If not, what's the most surprising thing to you that people might want to use voodoo on?
- Glancing at ads for the jazz (or any music) clubs, what's the most famous name you saw of someone either currently headlining or has played in the past at any of them?
- Make a note of the most interesting piece of art or street performance that you encounter while visiting the French Quarter.
- I refilled a prescription online.
- I wrote Saturday's blog entry.
- I attended our penultimate Gulf Coast ASB group pre-trip meeting, where we played a game of Jeopardy devised by Jackie, our student leader, filled with facts and statistics about Hurricane Katrina, which was followed by a quick review of three important information sheets: a packing list, a contact sheet with everyone's information on it (how we can contact that parents or guardian in the event of an emergency), and the group information sheet about our whereabouts during our trip (how parents or a guardian can contact us if they need to reach their student).
- I did a bunch of homework in the evening, including reading assignments from The Wisdom of Crowds and Conversation and Community, devising a blog entry called, "The mother-of-all passwords and a taxonomy, a tweet about the blog entry, and then just a little bit on what our group ("The Geeks") is responsible for in developing the Classmate wiki.
- I studied a few shagging dance lesson videos (with Sue and Randy, who keeps calling the videos "tapes" throughout the series). I watched: The Basic Series, The Female Underarm Turn Series (which includes how the male is to lead it), and The Belly Roll. This is all in anticipation of jumping into Shagging for Beginners II with my friend Jen tomorrow night, where they will expect the participants to have learned all that in Shagging for Beginners I.
It's always interesting to listening heterosexist language in dance lessons. Instead of referring to "the lead" and "the follow," most (unenlightened, in my opinion) instructors refer to "the man" and the "woman," respectively. Of course, the gender of the person fulfilling the role is actually totally irrelevant, which all you have to do is watch two men dancing together or two women dancing together to realize.
Here's another very heterosexist (if not outright homophobic) remark made by Randy, while explaining how the belly roll got its name. "It's because while doing steps 5 and 6, the woman can roll her belly (although 'hips' is more accurate if you ask me; rolling your belly just sounds fat), just to add a little flair to the dance. Now men, it's the women who roll their belly. Then men don't do that. If you're out there and you start rolling your belly, well, you're going to get some looks from the others that you might not like." Yeah, god forbid you should do something outside society's uptight gender norms, or possibly get a second look from someone of the same sex. How horrific that would be.
It's so "interesting" living in the non-majority paradigm sometimes. But I bitterly digressed as I was shagging the "man's part" by myself in my kitchen at 1:00 in the morning.
That last sentence would be so much better if it were read in the UK.
- Mood: content
I had lunch with Joe out at the N.C. State Farmers' Market Seafood Restaurant, where I had intended to get a shrimp burger, but once there decided to try the Cold Boiled Shrimp Plate instead. In retrospect, this was a bad idea on two levels:
- The cold boiled shrimp was a platter, which means it came with steak fries, coleslaw, and hush puppies of which I ate all, of course.
- The plate contained a good portion of shrimp, but most of them had way too much dirt/crap/waste showing in their veins to be appetizing. I actually threw half of them away, only eating the "cleaner" ones. Even though I couldn't "taste" anything bad, the thought of it just grossed me out.
From there, we drove out toward south Raleigh to the Montlawn Cemetery, where I wanted to visit Jeanie-baby's grave, since today was her birthday. It's been over a year since I've been out there, and I had a little bit of trouble finding her grave, but with Joe's patience and help, we walked around in the general area that I thought it was in, and we found it.
A few interesting things of note about our visit there:
- Someone (or some people) had hung three chimes in a tree not far from Milton's, Jeanne's and Marti's graves, and it made me wonder if they (not the people who hung them, but Milton, Jeanne, and Marti) liked chimes.
- The ground around the perimeter of Milton and Jeanne's grave marker was what Joe referred to has heaved. I'd never heard this term, so learned something new.
- In looking around to make a mental note of their graves to more easily find it next time, Joe pointed out that the marble bench beside a nearby tree, was in loving memory of someone with the last name of "Martin." How interesting.
- On the way out, we drove by a lake that's in the cemetery that neither Joe nor I had ever noticed before. Parked down there, there was a lone car with only one person visible in, sitting on the passenger side, however. Joe thought he saw another head pop up after we passed them.
- As we were exiting the cemetery, Joe noticed two tall headstones, one with the family name of "Ward" on it and right next to it, one with the family name of "Marcom" on it. What was interesting about this was that his boss recently passed away and her married name was Ward and her maiden name was Marcom. We got out and looked at the graves in that family area, but none appeared to be hers.
- As we were walking back to our car, that car that was down by the lake passed us with two guys in it.
Back at home, I sent an e-mail to Jeanne's daughter, Phyllis, just to let her know that I'd been by the cemetery. I had mentioned the chimes and my wondering if they liked chimes, and I'd mentioned that there were flowers on Marti's grave. This was her response, which contained an implicit affirmation:
| Hi back at you. I wish I could be there visiting their graves. I sure do miss those good people. There should have been flowers on both their graves - I may need to call the florist again. Re: the chimes - I know Mom and Milton liked them - they had a huge set hanging on the balcony with a real deep tone. I think that's why Milton liked them so. I have about five sets of chimes hanging from our grapefruit tree amongst the orchids that hang there too. I remember the Martin bench - we took some photos the day after Mom's service and the bench was being put to good use. We're doing fine. If you're ever in or around the 'hood you'd better carve out some time for us. We'd love to see you. Thanks for thinking of me, and mine. Love, Phyl |
I took a two-hour nap before dancing in which I had a nightmare about being kidnapped in a van.
I have the ability to "intrude into my dreams," if you will, when they get too scary. While a bunch of hands were trying to pull me into the dark back of a van, I started screaming (in the dream, and eventually out loud as I woke up), "Wake up! Wake up!"
Dancing was great tonight. We had about eight dancers, and it got quite festive in the place as our 10:30 stop time approached.
Tonight's theme after dancing was "Underwear Night," and there were actually people in the bar tonight in their underwear other than the bartenders and whom you didn't look at and go, "What is he thinking?"
Of course, there were a few about whom you did wonder that.
- Mood: content
