Category Archives: Randomness

Unaccustomed Life Forms

Randomness

Walking from work to my car this evening, black spots floated in front of my eyes. I’d been ill the last couple of days and was still kind of wobbly, so I figured I’d better get to my car and sit down for a while. Then I realized that these were actual physical black spots, and they were flying, not floating.

It has been so long since it was last warm enough for life of that kind to exist out of doors that it took me well over a minute to recognize the gentle swarm upon swarm of lake bugs meandering through the spring air. They looked as confused as I felt.

Small Realizations

Randomness
I realized this week that I make certain assumptions about social dancing that may not make sense to people who don’t do it often (or at all): I assume that it is a generically social action that it’s just as generically social as dinner conversation, and I assume that because this is the case, it’s not something that should induce stage fright (not like singing karaoke might, just as a totally and completely random example).
Some people are amazing conversationalists, others aren’t. Most dinners involve many small conversations, some with people you know and like, others with people you don’t know at all, and some with people you don’t actually like but put up with for the sake of a congenial dinner. Most conversations include at least a couple of missed cues, most of which aren’t important enough to notice, some of which are hilarious, and only a few of which are actually embarrassing (though most of them may feel embarrassing at the time). There’s give and take, lulls and crescendos, excitement, boredom, grace, awkwardness….
In fact, laid out this way I guess that, for me, the only real difference between the two forms of socializing is that dancing is better exercise.
I forget that most of my formally trained dancer friends got stage fright before performances while I never did. I forget that my palms would sweat before piano performances while another student carried on as if it were the most natural thing in the world to press music out of the keyboard. And I hadn’t yet experienced the utter shock of realizing that I can barely even stand up while holding a microphone while others held it as easily as they’d hold a spoon.

Notes to Self

Randomness

Buy fruits and vegetables. Really. Even though that involves shopping after work and all you really want to do after work is either go home or go to the coffee shop. Fruits and vegetables won’t take that long to buy, and you know you want them.

Write more. Practice makes better, and thinking out loud can be fun. Remember, you were going to write about your day last Sunday? Do that before you forget the details. Remember especially “When do you think kids lose their sense of mystery…. 4th grade.”

Pace yourself tomorrow. Maybe this will be the day to break your long no-swing-dancing streak. Has it really been a year since the last dance? That’s far too long.

Being popular isn’t actually important. You’ve never been popular, and you’ve never really cared, historically. Why start now? There’s really no point.

Buy cat food. Sure wish that weren’t 10 miles down the road. Why is it that the cat get such specialized food, again? It’s not convenient.

Also, finish those things on your task list that are marked in red. They wouldn’t be red if they weren’t important. And tomorrow’s Friday, which means those things that were going to be done “by the end of the week” should get done. Tomorrow.

Go to bed soon. Like maybe now. Staying up isn’t helping, but listening to an iPod-icized book in bed probably will.

High Five

Randomness

On November 17th, frustrated with the inaccuracy of my memory and spurred on by my doctor, I did geektastic thing: I started a private blog in which I chronicle every last thing about anything that might have a bearing on my energy levels. It lists everything I eat, copied & pasted weather information from Weather.gov, and a little narrative about, well, everything else. Then I attach categories. These are key. These are what make it function like a mini-database. Tthere are categories for things like headaches or the weird throat pressure that seems to predict bouts of extreme tiredness, and every day gets assigned one of 5 energy levels. Energy Level 1 would mean “can’t function.” Thankfully, I’ve never used that one. Energy Level 5 means “Feeling completely normal.” So far I’ve used that designation 7 times since November 17th.*

The really good news? Today seems on track to be a 5, and if it is it will be the first time I’ve recorded two 5s in a row. I’m so excited!!! If I didn’t have to work all afternoon and evening I’d do something crazy like spend the day walking around a lake or taking up Japanese or opening the windows to the cold February air and cleaning the house from top to bottom.

In a way, I’m glad that the last week was so hard because it makes the contrast starkly wonderful.

* I know this seems really low, especially since I’ve been doing much better since about mid-December. But you see, a 4 is pretty good, too, and I’ve recorded 21 4s. So all in all, 28 pretty good days, which is pretty good!

In Other News

Randomness

Minnesota may never have its full complement of senators. The country may decide that all the ruckus Coleman and Frankin are causing is reason enough for their fine state to forfeit one senator from here on out. Think of it as an eternal time out.

Taken is a pretty awesome movie. Think of it as a Bourne movie, only with Bourne being quite a bit older and motivated primarily by love for his kidnapped daughter, and without the CIA, and no amnesia, and set in France, and without a guy named Bourne. So, not like the Bourne movies at all, actually.

I have some pretty amazing friends. In related news, I routinely curse the stubbornness of geography and look forward to the advent of teleportation.

I was asked today if I had kids, and if I would therefore know about modern shifts in written language brought about by texting, IM, and LOLcats. I gave the questioner a withering look.

The fact that the latest winner of the Westminster Dog Show is named Stumpy cracks me up.

I apparently shook somebody’s perceptions of me this morning by quoting from the movie So I Married An Axe Murderer. Yes. I love that film. I hated it the first time I saw it, but the second time it suddenly transformed into one of the funniest movies I’d ever seen. I quote from a lot of movies, but that and The Princess Bride probably account for most of my random movie quotes. I wish I could quote Euripides or Shaw with as much ease, but I can’t.

My neighbor (the one who had the medical emergency last Sunday) hasn’t come back to her apartment yet. Her mother stopped by earlier this week to let me know that the daughter had had a seizure before going into her diabetic coma and was still in the ICU.

My friend apparently dreamed that my mom gave birth to octuplets and that this ruined my sister’s wedding. Apparently everyone was mad at everyone. I’d like to make it clear that my mom has not, in fact, given birth to octuplets.

The End.