Skip to main content

While the record goes 'round.

It feels a lot like I'm losing my struggle against every day. All my time just sort of disappears and I never really feel like doing anything. Like drawing or writing. And those are things I need to do. Also, studying. The year is just catching up to me, I guess. I can feel it in my increasingly slouchier posture. I thought I already fixed that, too.

Just a few more weeks.

I tried to pee the other day, but I had a problem. I couldn't find the fly to my boxers. So I searched, frantically, to find it. It's certainly normal for it to shift one way or the other during the day, but I couldn't find it. Oh no, I panicked. My boxers don't have a fly anymore. In the end I had to pull everything down to go about my urgent business. I later found out that I had been wearing them backwards the whole day. And I realized something.

If you take something for granted long enough, you are bound for disappointment.

Clothing yourself is a lot like maintaining a relationship. You have to be active about it. You have to choose a complementary ensemble. Things have to fit together stylistically. They have to fit you. Your clothes have to be appropriate for whatever it is you're doing. It's easy to be predictable. Wear the same wardrobe all the time. Fall into a routine. Continue going about your business with glassy-eyed contentment. But that is not a mélange that screams success. The important thing is that you have to be aware of what you're doing when you put clothes on your body. Because if you don't, they'll break up with you.

And by break up with you, I mean it was not a very good analogy.

I overheard a couple breaking up next door the other day. They were both sobbing and pleading with each other. At least, she was pleading with him. I couldn't understand anything he said because it was just unintelligible sobbing at different pitches. I even opened the door to improve my eavesdropping experience and still couldn't understand what he was bawling about. She was apologizing for cheating on him more than once and also upset because he had also cheated on her. Her main point of contention was that she had cheated on him once, told him, and recently cheated on him again with a similarly alacritous response while he had secretly cheated on her between those two incidents but only recently admitted his transgressions. From her incredulous and desperate responses, I was able to gather that he was breaking up with her.

Outside of Wendy's the other day, I came across another couple in the middle of a tearful breakup. Here I mean that he was crying. But he was also trying really hard not to cry. Also, he was trying to maintain his posture so that people wouldn't be able to notice his please don't break up with me slouch. So we got to see his please don't notice my 'please don't break up with me slouch' slouch. From her belongings I assume she had just come from Relay for Life and had been stopped by her recent ex-boyfriend desperately trying to salvage a relationship that had obviously fizzled out. After some pleading and begging and sniffling, she agreed to let him come into Wendy's with her and make a case supporting the reestablishment of their relationship. She made some snide comments about him to her friend as they ordered and smiled condescendingly when he choked out a teary-eyed list of reasons why it would work out.

And, of course, you know. It was over.

Comments

Carolynn said…
It's funny, the way things like that go.
May 23, 2010 at 11:41 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm a geologist, not an alcoholic.

I thought I had seen people drink before. Hell, I thought that I had drank before. But, clearly, I thought wrong on both of those counts. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reason to justify all of the drinking that transpired down there last week. There was no rhyme or reason to it, it just was. Field work just makes a man thirsty. Taking this class was easily one of the best things I've ever done. We worked hard every day out in the field. Wake up at 7, leave the beach house by 8, hit the water by 9. My first three field days were in service on the R/V Acadiana , a 58 foot vessel that towed the CHIRP fish , the air gun, and the streamer to measure all the seismic data--looking at the subsurface of the seafloor we drove over. My second ship was the R/V Itasca using the multibeam , sidescan , and grab sampler --getting seafloor surface bathymetry. They were long, exhausting days and we returned to the docks around 6 or 7 every evening. And then, drinking. So much ...
1 comment
Read more

Finger pointing good.

When I was on the boat doing science at Galveston, I saw a lot of dolphins. It was a significant experience for me because I have never actually seen a wild dolphin in real life before. It was sort of a dream come true. And in the middle of the shipping channel, no less. They really are amazing animals. It really kills me to realize I'll probably never see dolphins in Galveston again because of what happened to the Gulf. What is happening to the Gulf. It really is a tragedy. On a much lighter note, I started this Insanity workout program and it was so intense that I threw up before I finished the first workout. That is a good sign, I think. It is certainly an incentive to complete the entire thing. Anything that makes you feel that bad so quickly must be good for you.
3 comments
Read more

Just an exercise in aesthetics.

Today was just one of those days. One of those days where you wake up and everything and everybody is against you. These days happen to me more often than I like, but that comes with being a relapsing surly, cynical bastard given to frequent and extreme mood swings. Everything just got under my skin today. Maybe it was waking up early before my alarm clock. Maybe it was the laugh they made when they messed up the first time. Maybe it was the look they gave when they thought they were being funny. Maybe it was the inflection they took when they got cranky. Maybe it was everything. But I think I did a pretty good job of playing it down. Of not taking it the wrong way. Of not letting it get to me. I mean, by now I'm pretty used to the routine. And I know it's not being fair to people. It's not them, it's me. I'm the one who's blowing up. So, you know. It's all over. For some reason I thought that the meteor shower was tonight. It was what I was l...
Post a Comment
Read more