What were you expecting?
On my way out of the office, I sneezed as I stepped off the elevator. My eyes watered, and my nose tickled because I was suppressing a second sneeze, and I could swear people were looking at me like I was Patient Zero. Dudes, it’s allergy season! Besides, I didn’t sneeze ON you. I didn’t even sneeze AT you. Maybe I should have. Next time. Watch out, starers. I’m coming for you.
Slowly, with lots of wheezing and sniffling.
Like a zombie.
And just as terrifying.
I went to Starbucks this morning, the one with the drive-thru. I like this one for a couple of reasons:
Today was one of those days. I got to the window, and the cashier (is she a barista?) told me that the woman in the car in front of me paid for my coffee. I handed her my card and asked her to ring up the car behind me, and when the cashier handed me my card and my receipt, she said, “She also wanted you to have this,” and handed me a CD. A music CD, in a sleeve, like many of the others Starbucks sells. How exciting! That’s different – maybe that woman just wanted to make someone’s day (more than buying their order would)! I’d never heard of the guy on the CD, but I’m open to new music. This could be cool. Happy Monday!
Well, I got into the office and googled it. Surprise! It’s Christian rock. I don’t think that should be allowed. I mean, Christian rock should be allowed to exist (I guess), but proselytizing* via the Starbucks drive-thru is not cool.
Hm. It just occurred to me – I don’t think she bought it at Starbucks for me. I assumed she had, but I doubt Starbucks would sell it. I think she gave it to them to give to me. Weird and weirder. Well, it’s not working. I’ve spent half the day wondering how I should get rid of it. Do I know anyone who might appreciate it? Not really. I don’t want to just leave it somewhere or give it to some unsuspecting stranger – that’s how I got it, and it didn’t make my day. And I’m hesitant to just throw it out. Maybe John knows someone. Or I can always leave it at a church. I know where I can find some of those.
*Maybe she wasn’t proselytizing. Maybe the guy on the CD is her boyfriend or husband or son or cousin, and she’s helping him gain a wider audience.
I’m uninsured right now because SOMEBODY doesn’t know how to do her job. Irritating. On the bright side, an uncooperative jerk in customer service who refuses to do his job gave me the opportunity to learn how to do something more technical that I used to have to rely on others to do for me. So there’s that.
Come on, people. You get paid to do a certain thing. Is it really too much to ask that you just do it?
Update: She did her job (finally), so I’m covered again. Nothing to worry about. It’s just ridiculously annoying.
Tonight we will discuss Before I Go to Sleep, which I enjoyed. I’m sure we’ll only spend about ten minutes talking about the book and the rest of the time chatting about schools and kids and teaching at schools and teaching kids. (Every single person there (except for me) is either a teacher, a mom, or both.) Not that I mind. They’re not boring. Here’s the only scary thing about tonight: they put me on the rotation. That means that in a few short months, I will have to host the book club. I’ll need to pick a book (I’ll accept suggestions!), but that’s not so scary. This is: all of these women (who live in very large, very nice houses) will be in MY little house. And they will be judging me. I know they won’t be mean (certainly not to my face, and possibly not at all – they seem very nice), but still. Having a large group of strangers (practically) in my house is not anything like having a large group of friends over. So I’m a little nervous. Several months in advance.
People are dumb. Also mean. Not everyone (obviously, you are an exception), but most of us. Can I be a hermit? Would anyone mind (or really notice) if I just stopped dealing with people? I don’t mean that I would stop talking to everyone (I would certainly keep talking to you), but it would be nice to have an access list. I will only talk to people on my access list. And I reserve the right to add to and subtract from my access list at any time.
I just killed a mosquito that was flying near my head. In my house. Which means it probably already got me because that’s how it always works with mosquitoes. Can I get hermit insurance that covers escape from mosquitoes, too? That would be helpful. And spiders and scary bugs (like centipedes and millipedes). And snakes.
If I decide to become a hermit, I’ll keep going to yoga. Even if my yoga instructor does try to kill me with sun salutations for 35 minutes straight because that’s just what you do at the summer solstice. Who knew?
I think I just joined a book club. I went Friday night to my neighbor’s book club to meet people, drink wine, and talk about The Snow Child (we certainly talked about it, but that was far from the main event). There were 9 other women there, and all of them have known each other for a long time, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. Four people in this group started the book club FOURTEEN years ago (one of them is my neighbor), and three of those four (the three who are not my neighbor) have known each other since high school (which for me was 15 years ago, so longer than that for them. I think). Thankfully, it was not at all awkward. They were so welcoming, really friendly, and despite the fact that I was the only one there who does not work for a local school district in any capacity and who doesn’t have kids, I didn’t feel like an outsider. It was fun. Really pleasant. I’d like to do it again.
It could have been a movie. All of these women, all gorgeous in cute but casual clothes, clustered in ever-changing groups around the island in our hostess’s beautiful kitchen, chatting, drinking wine, snacking. I can just see a camera swooping in from an upper angle and swirling around to follow snippets of conversations. Later, the camera would follow our move to the family room to talk about the book. We sat in a circle around the coffee table (some on the floor, on the couch, on ottomans), and the camera would shift from the middle of the group to an over-the-shoulder shot and back until it lifts out of the center and off to the side.
I think I’ve already seen this movie.