Over-Easy

Today I watched (from the bus window, while paused at the red light) a man sing to himself in the car. I continued watching even after getting the creeping sensation that I was invading his privacy.

On the train. One guy wearing a shirt that says “Jesus University”; one guy wearing a shirt that says “WWJD: for a Klondike Bar?”

The doctor commented on my high socks, blue with pink robots.

You seem to have a lot of.. kid-type things.. Your backpack [pink plaid], your socks…

…and my Hello Kitty shoelaces, I added. Yea, I do, and that’s just… (here I shrugged, unable to come up with a concise reason).

Walking me to the front desk, the intern told me that they had some Hello Kitty stickers, perhaps I would like some? (she asked, as least half seriously)

Oh, that’s alright, I said. I covered my mouth as if to tell her a secret and whispered, I already have some Hello Kitty stickers back home…

(she started laughing)

…that came with my coloring book.

(and continued laughing)

I received an “Ovation” award at work today for my effort and hard work during June, which was a very busy and important month for the insurance agencies I work with. This award can be exchanged for prizes of an even greater monetary value than the Dazzle award I received on Monday, including two even higher quality waffle irons. I haven’t chosen anything yet because the “choose your award” screen overwhelmed and confused me – want chocolates? an iPod shuffle? an electric wok? kid’s bike? coffee maker? jewelery? ack! [and yes, this was pretty much the entire premise of my undergraduate thesis.] While I’m happy that the work I do is being recognized and appreciated right now (since I’m not actually eligible for a raise until the end of the year, by which time I’ll be far, far away from this company), I just really wish that the white collar/middle class culture didn’t have such a sickening attachment to stuff.

I received a “Dazzle” award at work yesterday at work for enthusiastically doing not much of anything during a very important visit from very important people on Thursday. I hadn’t realized before that these awards were not just of the feel-good variety and could actually be exchanged for tangible prizes. The items to select from weren’t very interesting at all – ranging from crappy DVDs to Starbucks coffee to ugly bowls and glasses. The choice finally came down to a waffle iron, which I didn’t need at all, and an electronic sudoku game, which I needed even less.

Today was all about smells. A man at work smelled like (stunk of) tuna fish. A woman on the train smelled like peanut butter (and cigarettes, but only faintly). The humid night air after class smelled like fried dough.

Fridges.

They’re found in single-person and single-family living quarters, but they’re also in any shared environment where one might conceivably eat or store food. The first shared fridge I encountered was in my freshman year dorm. Some of the food was communal, but most was not. The “owned” food, from eggs to ice cream to frozen dinners, was clearly marked as such, but due to some combination of familiarity and anonymity, convenience and laziness, the dorm fridge was dangerously insecure. Stolen food led to nasty notes on the fridge and a general disruption in dorm order, but using the fridge was a necessary risk – a small, personal fridge, if you had one, could only fit the most essential, non-frozen items.

I moved out of the dorms after freshman year. I still use group fridges, both at work and at massage school, but they don’t worry me. The company I work for is large and impersonal, but so much so that stealing food would be more of a crime than an inconvenience. Everyone’s mature enough to know better and they have more productive things to do than dig through fridges. I figured that the same rules would apply at school: the kitchen area is a shared space, but no one actually lives at the school. I don’t know any of the students in morning classes, and they don’t know the night students. The fridge is for holding meals that you’ll eat between classes, or at the very most, storing leftovers to eat the next day. The students at the school are almost all my age or older, and primarily women (although, upon further reflection, stealing food is a pretty passive aggressive act, so the gender bias may actually be more hurtful than helpful). Still, when I put my salad in the fridge at 5pm, the thought of labeling it didn’t even cross my mind. But two and a half hours later, it was gone.

The prepackaged salad was obviously more appealing than mysterious leftovers in opaque boxes (which is usually the type of food I leave – overnight – in the fridge). But why did someone have to steal a meal at all?

I fumed and ranted, and my classmates joined in a discussion of this theft. After all, the school is small – only a few hallways and rooms on the main floor – I could very easily have walked into the kitchen while someone was taking or eating my salad. Who would have dared? My classmates spoke of my need for revenge, maybe by offering up a salad packed with laxatives or chili sauce, but I tried to quiet down their zeal. I didn’t want to take revenge. It isn’t that I believe in karma, but I do believe in not being an asshole. I thought about writing a threatening note on the next salad, but then I might just be tempting someone to steal it out of spite. There was no satisfying solution.

By the time I came home, my grumpiness had been been replaced by the sugar jitters (thanks to the candy bar I ate as a dinner substitute – my first candy bar in years), and by then all I wanted to do was stop twitching.

I assume she enjoyed the massage; she fell asleep halfway through. She snored softly while I worked on her legs and feet. By time time I moved onto her head and neck, the depth and volume of the snores had become more pronounced. I casually rotated her head to one side in hopes that her nasal passages would quiet down and for a time, this was successful. When her snoring came back, I rotated her head to the other side. My massage strokes were softer now, more self-conscious, proceeding with a sense of guilt that this woman’s relaxation might disturb the other clients in the clinic. Her snoring continued and even if it wasn’t bothering others, it was beginning to distract me. I looked at the clock, one minute left. I took a deep breath, touched her shoulders, and woke her up.

Today at work I stumped the technical support people. I always get a strange satisfaction when I have an issue that they can’t immediately figure out.

Today I had my first client in the student massage clinic!