Me, My Big Mouth, and I

Last week I only had class on Monday since I don't have Tuesday classes and the rest of the week was Thanksgiving Break.  Yes, it was pretty sweet.  Some of the the students in my last class of the day were debating whether they would attend their Tuesday classes or just head home for the break instead.  I pointed out that the vacation portion of the week didn't actually start until Wednesday and they run the risk of missing something relevant or at least graded.  Just call me Professor Buzzkill.  The students said that they wished their professors would just cancel classes which would let them off the hook.  I told them that doing this was kind of unprofessional.  As a bonus bit of wisdom, I gave them the advice that calling in sick after a long weekend looks pretty sketchy and should be avoided.

Not to sound arrogant or anything but I'm pretty sure the universe listens to me and thinks it's funny to mess with me.

Having said that, it should come as no surprise that at about 7 p.m. on the Sunday of Thanksgiving break I started to become sick.  So, eating my own words (and little else) I called in sick for Monday.

So, I'm going to try something:  I want you all to know that winning the lottery is really sketchy and should be avoided.

Reason #47 To Get LASIK

I wear glasses.  I wear them for every waking minute of my life.  I own contact lenses but only wear them when I am swimming or something similarly fraught with danger.  Glasses are a big part of what I look like when I imagine myself.  If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a fan.  Sure, there are downsides:  they slide down my nose at the first hint of perspiration (this translates as anywhere from 20 to 100 times a day depending on the season), they fog up when I come in from the cold, they get smudged even though I'm sure I'm not touching them, and then there's the haircut problem.

The first thing that happens when I sit down in the spinny chair to get a haircut is that they put a superhero cape on me but backwards.  That part is cool.  Then they make me take off my glasses.  This means that I never, ever get to see anything other than the Before and the After.  So, I must trust the person wielding the scissors completely - I have no chance of knowing after I've told them what I want if they've gone rogue.

Today I discovered a new reason why I wish I wasn't a Spectacled-American on haircut day.  I've been going to the same two people for haircuts for the last several years.  One of them is a hairdresser with an in-house chair massage person who is 2 hours away from my house and the other is a no-frills barber a mere 2 minutes away from my house.  I went to the barber today for probably the 10th time.  Thanks to this no-glasses-during-haircuts thing, it took until the 10th visit to realize that my barber is missing an entire finger.  Damn you, nearsightedness!  All this time I had a mental image of what was transpiring around my head and it was only 90% correct.

I might have to add haircuts to the list of contact-lens-necessary activities.  For all I know my other hairdresser might have an eye patch.  Or only one ear.  Or a mime performing in the background.  ANYTHING could be happening during my haircuts.

It's Elementary, Right? Right?

They are showing a new series on PBS called "Sherlock".  It's a re-imagining of the Sherlock Holmes stories that takes place in modern day London.  Sherlock is a self-admitted high-functioning sociopath and Dr. Watson is a veteran of Afghanistan with a psychosomatic limp.

Based on hearing good things about the show, I set up a series recording on the DVR.  The HD channel, of course.  When we started to watch the first episode, we noticed that the show had a weird feature in the form of a narrator.  Narration is not itself strange but this woman was thorough.  She told us everything that was going on to an exhaustive level of detail.  I thought it was a little annoying but, hey, I figured it was their schtick.  Huppy, on the other hand, couldn't stand it and stopped watching.  I started looking on message boards to see if anyone else found the narration to be a little overwhelming.  Apparently not because there was no mention of it anywhere.  I found this to be puzzling since anyone who has spent any time on the interwebs knows that everything is mentioned at least once.  Everything.  Since we definitely weren't hallucinating her, I realized that she must be a service provided for the visually impaired.  OK, cool.  I'm sure it was just a mixup but I recorded the next episode on both channels (HD and SD) just in case.  The narrator was present again when we started the show but when we switched to the SD version she was gone.  The episode was much easier to watch without all the extra nattering.

Now, I'm glad they have these services for the visually impaired, I really am.  But am I a total jerk to think maybe it's not necessary to for them to do so on the high definition version?

This Isn't What It Looks Like

So when I got out of class at 10:50 today I moseyed over to the caf to wait for lunch (they start serving at 11:15. At about 11:08 I go over to the sandwich making line and casually lean against the counter reading a book while the sandwich guy did all of his prep work. By the time he was ready there was a line of about 15 people but I was first. I triumphantly headed to my table with my sandwich and was happily eating when one of my students came up to me and we had the following interchange:


Her - "Um...I just wanted to let you know there's something brown all over the back of your pants"

Me - "Really."

Her - "Yeah, it's brown."

Me - "Was it there during class?" (Visions of three hours of teaching with brown stuff smeared on my butt flashing through my head)

Her - "No! No, I saw it when I was in the sandwich line but I didn't want to tell you in front of all those people but, yeah, um it's on the right hand side."

Me - "OK, thanks for letting me know"


I sidled to the bathroom and sure enough there is about a 1/4 cup of peanut butter smeared across my right ass cheek. As I'm sure you're aware, peanut butter looks an awful lot like SHIT so I was obviously really happy and not at all embarrassed. I cleaned it off as best I could, went back, and gave that student a thumbs up. I mouthed the words "peanut butter" at her lest she think I'm incontinent.


My current fear is that peanut butter is like toothpaste in that you can clean it up and it seems to be totally gone until the fabric dries and it gets miraculously resurrected in all its glory. Toothpaste is like the Easter Jesus of stains. I still have another class to teach so I'm going to go now and see if there's peanut butter leavin's on my bum.
 
Also, I stapled my sleeve to a test the other day.  If I get any more suave I'm going to need a permit.

I've Got The Moves, Baby

For the past few months Huppy and I have been working out once a week with a personal trainer.  Often when we meet in the basement of the Y, Shane (the trainer) has us do some ladder drills.  This week the Y was pretty crowded due to some renovations at the downtown Y so we went outside to play.  Shane put two ladders down side by side in the grass and we got started.  We soon learned that the ladder on grass is slightly elevated and it's very easy to catch it on your feet and yank it out of place.  This doesn't really happen inside on the floor so this new wrinkle took some adjustment.  In between ladder drills we would do some kettle bell activities and planks.  Somehow on one of my ladder drill segments I managed to get my foot caught in the ladder, spin around a few times hog-tying myself with the ladder, whirl even further out of orbit, then crash down to the gorund, roll over, and hit my head on a kettle bell that I swear had been 15 feet away from where all this started. 

After asking me if I was OK (which was nice of him considering how hard it must have been to actually talk with all the laughing he was doing), Shane said he really wished he had a camera.  I'm glad he enjoys our sessions as much as I do.

More Like PURRicane Earl

So we here in New England were recently under threat of a hurricane.  The news reports were full of hurricane tracking and helpful hints as to how to prepare for it.  School hasn't started yet so I took it on myself yesterday to do the hurricane preparations.  I moved a bunch of yard stuff into the garage and what I couldn't move I strapped down.  High on a sense of accomplishment, I next went to Target to get supplies in the event we lost power, water, or both.

When Huppy got home she looked through the Target bags to see what I'd gotten.  This is what she found:

2 two-gallon containers of water
1 package of toilet paper
1 box of chocolate chip Fiber One bars
1 Wii pistol
1 package Double Stuff Oreos
1 bag kitty litter

Based on her reaction, I don't think I'm in charge of emergency preparations anymore.

I. Can. Tell.

A while ago I posted an open letter to my students and in it I mentioned that I can tell when they are texting during class.  Texting secretly from a classroom desk requires the phone to be held in the lap which means the neck and upper back are held at a particular angle in order to see the screen and operate the keyboard.  This angle is unique to texting, it seems.  I'm pointing this out again because people seem to honestly think they are being subtle about it.  I'm here to say that this is not possible.  Not.  Possible.  So stop because I and every other instructor who has their very own cellular telephone knows what you're doing and we're making a mental note and it may bite you in the ass at a later date.

This got me thinking about other things that people do that are impossible to misinterpret.

For example, I was at a sandwich shop the other day sitting at a table waiting for my oder to be ready.  A guy came in and was standing at the counter ordering his food.  He had his hand in his pocket and from behind his shorts started kind of jiggling a little.  No, he wasn't doing that.  What he was doing was either scratching himself or, I dunno, fluffing his "pillows"?  Disclaimer:  Now I do not now have nor have I ever had male genetalia so I am not an expert as to what sort of care and maintainence is involved.  However, based on how often I see men jamming their hands into their pockets and making adjustments it must be an area that requires a lot of fine tuning.  Is it super itchy?  If so, is it naturally that way or are the super itchy guys less than fresh?  If it's not itchy, are they in pain?  If so, is it so excruciating that it requires immediate and public redress?  I only ask because women experience discomfort in personal areas as well but it seems to me that our way of dealing with it is to, well, deal with it.  We endure until we have a chance to fix it without putting on a show.  Most women would risk a punctured lung from a rogue underwire bra than start meddling with their girls in the middle of, say, ordering sandwiches.  (See how I did that?  Full circle, baby.)  Perhaps they aren't itchy or in pain and are merely touching base, if you will.  Like Monk needing to touch all the parking meters, perhaps it has a calming effect.  My point, because I have one and I should probably get to it, is that a hand in the pocket to jiggle coins or something else strictly genital-free looks nothing like a hand in the pocket intended to scratch and itch or lift and separate or whateverthehell is happening.  So, guys, people can tell you're doing it.  Maybe other guys can't see it happening because if they could then they would have to admit that their own forays into personal shipping and handling are visible as well.  Women notice it, though.  The next time you hear a women mutter, "Ugh, seriously?!?!", under her breath look in the opposite direction of her gaze and you'll see what I'm talking about.


Nose picking.  This one is particularly relevant to me because I had to ride the train with a guy yesterday that literally picked his nose, rolled it on his fingers, maybe dropped it onto the floor, maybe touched it to his mouth for the entire 45 minute ride.  I don't know exactly what he was doing with it because I was too busy craning my head around far enough to keep him out of my peripheral vision.  I must have looked like the girl from The Exorcist I was trying so hard to spin my head around and away from him.  Honestly, if I had been on that train much longer I would probably have spewed pea soup all over as well.  And I didn't eat any pea soup.  So, anyway, this guy clearly thought he was being stealthy about it.  He seemed to be trying to do his digging quickly and with purpose so that he could remove his hand for phase II, The Rolling.  What he didn't realize was that any amount of time with finger in nose is A) really, really obvious and B) an eternity for those nearby.  It doesn't look anything like nose scratching.  I don't know why but it just doesn't.  Thus, I would like to add nose picking to the list of things that can not be mistaken for something more innocent.  Also, the reason I had to endure the Booger Show was that I was in the window seat and The Nose Goblin was in the aisle seat.  In order to get away I would have had to look at him, ask him to let me out, and then pass through is boogerified air space.  As it was, I had to do this anyway because he was riding the train aaalll the way to the end of the line in Providence.