Today, I was carrying two paper cups filled with Starbucks coffee as I approached an obstacle standing between me and my destination: the heavy glass doors of the campus center, the Little Building (which is oddly enormous). Hmmmm, what to do. I did a quick assessment of the situation in my head. I could either 1) stack the two cups on top of one another and use my free hand to open the door, 2) put the cups down on the sidewalk, open the door, and pick them back up again, 3) wait for someone to come through the door and quickly duck in, or 4) keep both cups in their respective hands and open the door with my pinky. Practicality not being my strong suit, I chose the option involving the most useless finger on my hand.
Here's what happened: my pinky didn't have the strength to open the door on its own, so as it strained, the other fingers clenched in commiseration. The pressure the other fingers exerted on the paper cup caused it to cave in the middle, and the caving caused a rising force from within, which in turn popped the lid off the coffee. Which spilled all over me. Don't you feel sorry for me?
This might influence your sympathy: I've made this same exact mistake about five times over.
So here's my thought. If, after several hot, sticky messes, I can't learn that option #4 will have the least desirable outcome, how long does it take for us to learn from the other mistakes in our lives which don't have an immediately correlative consequence? How often do we repeat self-destructive patterns despite our conscious or subconscious understanding that no good can come? Experience is a powerful tool - its purpose is to prevent us from continually making the wrong decision in the critical moment. But how often is our ability to learn from experience temporarily on the fritz?
I used to imagine that experience is the secret recipe for an untroubled life. If you've been through something before, you're bound to handle it better the second time around. Maybe even flawlessly. And certainly there is some supporting evidence to back that theory.
But it would follow that if we haven't learned from a mistake, which we then repeat, we obviously didn't recognize it as a correctable mistake in the first place. We can't trace the events leading up to that particular personal calamity back to its critical moment. We can't define the instant when things started to go wrong. And so we self-inflict pain, frustration, failure, or sadness, again and again. We can't locate the point at which we discarded options #1 through #3, and chose to go with the pinky plan. And so, we can't sidestep the result.
I've spent the past half hour pre-treating, rinsing, scrubbing, and cursing, trying to get the coffee out of my favorite khaki pants. But it won't come out. It's just another stain - an unerasable reminder of lessons, as of yet, still not learned.
Fool me twice
My genes, your jeans
Yesterday I had the perfect night - I left work around seven, drove to my gym, worked out in the near desolation that being at Healthworks late on a Friday will guarantee you, showered, went home and put on my pjs, crawling into bed with some kettle corn and a good book. Before I started reading, I decided to call my dad for a chit chat. I knew Mookie would probably be home. How did I know? Because of my genes.
I remember my stepmom Betsy sighing as she'd leave the house on a Saturday evening. My dad and I, stretched out on our separate ends of the L-shaped sofa, would look up from our books to say goodbye. "You two," she'd say "are never going to be happy if you don't get out more." We'd look at each other, shrug, and return our noses from whence they came. After Betsy would leave, we'd call the dogs to the couch to join us.
I'm never home. Weeknights I manage to clammor through the door at around ten o'clock. On the weekend I'm out catching up with friends, running erands, with Boyfriend, with my roommate - just around. So I live for those moments of downtime. I always have. I'm the center of attention more than I'd like. I'd like to never be the center of attention. I'd like to be wallpaper. I prefer to go unnoticed. But that rarely happens.
My dad and I share many qualities - we look surprisingly alike: same teeth, same nose, same hands, similar lean lanky build. We both read feverishly and exercise religiously. We're both compulsive, in our own ways. We work hard. We're fascinated by cars, gender and sex roles, careless liberalism, and canines. We would prefer to live life in jeans and a t-shirt, but don't. And we've been known to pull a hermit every once a while, and usually couldn't be happier than when we're tucked up in our shells.
So the fact that we were both in on a Friday evening is not surprising. The fact that talking to each other didn't seem like an intrusion in our solitude makes sense - we don't harp on one another for being curled up with some good fiction on date night. We support the occasional reappearance of the inner geek. It fits in our universe, because it's in the genes. Congruent with who we are. Which, when you sum it up, is two people who occasionally pull a shut-in, and share an affinity for worn out, broken-in denim.
'Tis but a scratch
Last night as we waited to convene a group meeting, I sat at the end of a conference table munching on a Subway veggie delite. One of my students, J, plopped down in a chair next to me. "Did you know that some people are allergic to bandaids?" she asked me.
I raised an eyebrow in response. "Doesn't that suck?" she continued. "Something that's supposed to help them ends up hurting them."
I cocked my head. "J, are we really talking about bandaids?" I asked, thoughts of therapists, drugs, lovers, friends, parents, teachers, police, politicians, nutrasweet whirling through my mind. I couldn't tell if she was being metaphorical or simply presenting a bizarre, unsolicited piece of information.
"Yeah," she responded. "I just think that sucks."
I chewed thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess it does."
Crumbling
Given my current state, I'm feeling a little melodramatic today. But why does biscotti have to crumble all over the place when you try to eat it? Why? I love biscotti, but it's impossible to have a crumb-free experience. Does everything in life have to have a catch?
Is it cold in here, or is it just me?
Okay, this is beyond embarrassing. But today I left for work without any underwear on. You're probably wondering how you could leave the house forgetting something as simple as undergarments, but it's easier than you might think. And as awkward and uncomfortable as you might imagine.
When I get dressed in the morning, I oftentimes try on a few variations per outfit, so I don't put on underwear at the outset. Because I never know what type/color of underwear/bra I'm going to need, since I'm not yet sure which outfit permutation will prevail. Today, I chose the first outfit I tried on. It didn't require a bra because it incorporated a camisole/sweater combination. So that just left remembering to put on some skivvies. Which you'd think wouldn't be so hard to do.
At one point, as I mulled over accessories, I thought to myself, "Better put on underpants before I forget..." but I quickly followed that thought with, "What's the rush? It's not like I'd ever leave the house without them."
Cut to 8:15am on the t, when I suddenly got that unsettling feeling that I'd forgotten something. At first I couldn't quite figure out what, and then I felt a breeze blow up my skirt in a way that you shouldn't feel a breeze blow up your skirt. And it hit me. The breeze, and the very very unhappy realization that I was unintentionally going commando. Because there is soooooo nothing hot about going to work commando. That's just unnecessarily skanky. And kind of chilly.
Don't worry - as I write this I'm not sitting here sans panties. As soon as I got off the t I pitstopped at Boyfriend's place on the way to my office and grabbed a spare pair. Thank god for emergency supplies. But I just can't believe it's possible to do what I did this morning - I feel so vulnerable. It leaves the door wide open for all those things I've dreaded, things that make my blood run cold but that I thought could never actually happen. Suddenly that nightmare where everyone is staring at you and you look down and realize that you've gone to class completely naked has been given new credence.
The pointiest little elbow ever
"Oh, god, are you okay?" I asked, watching as Boyfriend cupped his head in his hands, doubled over in pain. "Was that your eye? Are you okay? Do you still have two eyes? What part of you did I hit? Please tell me not your eye!"
For a minute Boyfriend couldn't answer, but slowly he removed his hands from his head to reveal a bright red swelling bump above his right temple. "Owwwwww," was all he said as he headed toward the freezer to get the vegetable medley. Never a good sign. I hate the vegetable medley. Instead of dinner, I now only associate the vegetable medley with runner's knee and sprained ankles - the most typical reasons I get handed the frozen bag of brocolli, cauliflower, and carrots.
Last night after dinner downtown I begged Boyfriend to make a quick swing by the apartment - I wanted to change out of my work clothes before we headed to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose. We only had a few minutes, so we scurried up the stairs and I quickly undressed and redressed. I was in the living room where my overnight bag was thrown into the corner as Boyfriend came up quietly behind me to give me a hug.
I have a very sensitive startle reflex. I get scared when there's nothing to be scared of. I can go from zero to full panic in seconds - I'm definitely what you'd call jumpy. And since at that moment I was gearing up to go see a movie about an exorcism, I was in full-on heebie-jeebie mode.
When Boyfriend grabbed me, I let out a blood-curdling scream and kicked backward. My knee bashed into something, we still can't figure out what. And with a sickening crack, my elbow connected with his face with surprising force.
Have you ever hurt someone you love? It's a terrible feeling. Last night, after Boyfriend went to bed, I stayed up reading. I turned my book light toward him periodically, monitoring the egg on his forehead. I worried that he had a concussion, or that the bruise would continue to worsen throughout the night. I wondered if he had a headache, or if the bump had anything to do with how sleepy he seemed all of the sudden when we got back home. I checked to make sure his breathing sounded normal. Emotional pain is inevitable in intimate relationships. But to elbow your partner in the head just seems like adding insult to injury, no pun intended.
