People give me crap about my flossing habits. I appreciate the feedback, really. However, I find my method hard to change despite the ridicule I endure. I have been using little bits of Scott's floss because ever since I moved, I haven't been able to find mine. I enjoy flossing. It really makes me feel clean, in the same way washing my hands after mushing up a meatloaf mixture makes me feel clean.
In elementary school, we had two healthcare perks: head lice checks and fluoride day. They each happened once a month, but not on the same day.
I was neutral about head lice day, it had its pluses and minuses. I loved it because the school nurse would open up the bends of a paper clip and poke around in our hair with it. It was like grade school massage therapy.
I hated it because, well, I usually had lice.
Dental days were good because we got fluoride rinse. "Swish and spit!!" It had a nice flavor. I felt like it made my breath smell fresh. And, we got flossing lessons. Here is where my trouble started. A little container of floss held endless wonders, we could pull the waxy stuff out of it all day. Forget about multiplication tables. It would pile in curls around our feet and we were a tangled minty mess, more joyful than any playground had ever made us. But, we were kids, so they gave us boundaries.
The rule they taught us was this: hold the floss container at your chest, and pull out an arms length of floss. I respect boundaries. Maybe a little too much. I'm still using this rule!! No one has suggested any other procedure for proper flossing, until recently. Friends have witnessed my technique and their mouths fly open. I interpret this as a request for some floss, so I politely offer them a helping. Generally the response is something like, "Well I don't think there'd be any left anyway!"
I then share fond memories of dental day, and they point out that my arm has certainly grown a bit since the 4th grade. This is true, but I have developed a bit of a complex because I'm used to having so much floss. It gets wrapped around my fingers so many times, to where they're nearly purple at the ends. What this amounts to is that I don't like to use the same spot on a piece of floss more than once. I will, reluctantly, if I have to use someone else's stash of string. I don't want to appear greedy. But, with my own paid for floss, I use one section between two teeth, and move down to a spot that has not been used.
I'm probably not what comes to mind when one thinks "germ-o-phobe," which makes this next confession all the more ironic. But, if I could, I would be one of those nuts who only uses a toothbrush once and then discards it.
10.30.2005
10.24.2005
Go west, young pumpkin, go west.
The last two hours of work today were filled with pumpkin guts. Our department went to a lake/park nearby and carved out the orange globes in an attempt at quality time. I think we were successful. My partner was my supervisor. The parts she worked on looked the most precise. My cuts were jagged and shallow. It was my first time, a good practice. Next time I will approach the situation much more gingerly.
Pumpkin guts smell like sour tomatoes. The stringy insides are indeed slimy, as most everyone tried to tell me they were. I wanted to believe they weren't. I will have to study up on pumpkins and find out what makes them...pumpkins. I had never seen the inside of a pumpkin before, and looking into the cavity of our gourd my first thought was, someone gathered up a bunch of spider webs and soaked them in orange sherbet.
It was a crisp afternoon that grew into a blustery evening. I drove my pumpkin home and sat it on the porch, proudly. Later on I went out to pick up something for dinner. Scott got home shortly before I returned. I was getting the food out of the back seat when I saw him hop out the front door. He crouched over the pumpkin to shield it from the wind. When he stood up, I saw my pumpkin glowing. He probably didn't know it, but that made me really happy. He's a good friend.
In two weeks or so, I will discover Southern California. I think I had figured that in my life I would never see California. It seems like an utterly fictional place to me. People tell me it's there and that it is wonderful and I see what I believe are pictures of it, but I have no first hand proof. Shortly, I will make it real, and I will make it my own. Yes, I love grimy, crowded, gray cities. San Diego, I gather, is the complete opposite of my beloved New York. Because of the blatant irony, my reluctance to believe that I could love anywhere else more, California just could become my new favorite. But, we'll see. There's a lot of America to explore, I can love lots of it all at once, right?
Pumpkin guts smell like sour tomatoes. The stringy insides are indeed slimy, as most everyone tried to tell me they were. I wanted to believe they weren't. I will have to study up on pumpkins and find out what makes them...pumpkins. I had never seen the inside of a pumpkin before, and looking into the cavity of our gourd my first thought was, someone gathered up a bunch of spider webs and soaked them in orange sherbet.
It was a crisp afternoon that grew into a blustery evening. I drove my pumpkin home and sat it on the porch, proudly. Later on I went out to pick up something for dinner. Scott got home shortly before I returned. I was getting the food out of the back seat when I saw him hop out the front door. He crouched over the pumpkin to shield it from the wind. When he stood up, I saw my pumpkin glowing. He probably didn't know it, but that made me really happy. He's a good friend.
In two weeks or so, I will discover Southern California. I think I had figured that in my life I would never see California. It seems like an utterly fictional place to me. People tell me it's there and that it is wonderful and I see what I believe are pictures of it, but I have no first hand proof. Shortly, I will make it real, and I will make it my own. Yes, I love grimy, crowded, gray cities. San Diego, I gather, is the complete opposite of my beloved New York. Because of the blatant irony, my reluctance to believe that I could love anywhere else more, California just could become my new favorite. But, we'll see. There's a lot of America to explore, I can love lots of it all at once, right?
10.16.2005
Lists
Snappy reasons for not accepting coitus from face painter Rocco, whom I met at the State Fair this weekend:
- He's been around the block a few times. I'm just sitting on the stoop looking at the sidewalk.
- One face painting from him, albeit quick, is enough.
- His name is Rocco.
- "A Day Like Today" - Tom McRae
- "Green Eyes" - Coldplay
- "Hello Tomorrow (adidas Version)" - Karen O. & Squeak E. Clean
- "Weary Blues" - Madeleine Peyroux
- "Y Control" - Yeah Yeah Yeah's
- Wear fashionable clothes.
- Break some hearts.
- Go to the grocery store in a bikini and a short skirt--and sunglasses--to pick up some sunscreen.
- Rock a pair of high heels.
- Do it with the lights on.
- Ballerina
- Teacher
- Lawyer
- Hair model
- Some species of "writer"
- Adult novelty inventor
- A ghost
- Somebody's mama
- Being hit in the head with things-especially hands and pillows.
- Teeth scraping on silverware.
- Salads with water sloshing around underneath the lettuce--(Yes YOU! Wendy's.)
- Dropping the soap in the shower-it leaves a dent and it makes me feel dirty.
- Summertime sniffles.
- Accidentally buying the same magazine twice.
- Moustaches-just moustaches.
10.12.2005
Bibliorebel
I left work tonight and was pleasantly surprised by the cool air that hit me as I opened the door. I decided to go downtown and visit the library. I parked a few blocks away and walked to enjoy what the near middle of October feels like. I skirted along the edge of a giant church (all churches smell the same--old--I can't believe anything else--I could smell this one from the street,) small brick homes that were slightly overeaten with weeds, and apartments for the elderly, to name a few landmarks.
The Cary library is not so pretty. It looks like a ranch-style house; unforgivingly one level and lengthy. I suppose what matters are the books inside the guts of it. I shouldn't judge my library by its cover? Ah-HA!
The vestibule of any library is almost my favorite part--after the books. Tonight on my way out I picked up an Independent Weekly and the Catalog of Spring 2006 Classes for Wake Tech. If I were a senior citizen, an African American, a woman over 50, or looking for a job, I would have hit the jackpot. Or if I were really lucky and was a really old black woman who needed a gig, I would have had more free info-odicals that I would know what to do with.
But, my two appropriate picks and the four books I got was plenty. The library almost seems too good to be true. Maybe it's because I really like information.
I think I've always been that way. My most vivid childhood memories are not of family vacations or broken bones or slumber parties; they are of taking off on my own, usually ending up on the cool tile floor of the library. I think the most upset my mother ever got with me was when she sent me to the grocery store for ice cream and I didn't come back for a few hours. The library was right next to the grocery store. I was five, there were rows and rows of books to be looked at...who cared about ice cream!? She sent a neighbor to look for me. I hid well in the back corner of the library, sitting with legs crossed Indian-style, the cover of the book on my left leg, it's back on my right. It sat just perfectly and so did I. When I got back to the home, sans ice cream, my mother said she was not mad at me, just very disappointed. I think that hurt worse.
I upset Karen at a library once. I must have been 11 or 12. She dropped me off at the library in downtown Durham for a few hours during summer break. While sitting outside waiting for her, I noticed a rat. He wasn't moving very much. He looked sick and his breathing was labored. I picked him up and tried to care for him through good thoughts. He seemed paralyzed except for breathing. I thought he needed water so I pledged to take him home and make him well. When Karen arrived, she told me to put the nasty rat down and go wash my hands. I hated to leave him, but it was clear that he wasn't coming home with us. I lay him in the shade where it was at the least, cooler.
Happily, tonight's library outing did not result in discovery of diseased rodents, or angry mothers upon return. Just Marshall, rolling over, belly up, as soon as I opened the door.
The Cary library is not so pretty. It looks like a ranch-style house; unforgivingly one level and lengthy. I suppose what matters are the books inside the guts of it. I shouldn't judge my library by its cover? Ah-HA!
The vestibule of any library is almost my favorite part--after the books. Tonight on my way out I picked up an Independent Weekly and the Catalog of Spring 2006 Classes for Wake Tech. If I were a senior citizen, an African American, a woman over 50, or looking for a job, I would have hit the jackpot. Or if I were really lucky and was a really old black woman who needed a gig, I would have had more free info-odicals that I would know what to do with.
But, my two appropriate picks and the four books I got was plenty. The library almost seems too good to be true. Maybe it's because I really like information.
I think I've always been that way. My most vivid childhood memories are not of family vacations or broken bones or slumber parties; they are of taking off on my own, usually ending up on the cool tile floor of the library. I think the most upset my mother ever got with me was when she sent me to the grocery store for ice cream and I didn't come back for a few hours. The library was right next to the grocery store. I was five, there were rows and rows of books to be looked at...who cared about ice cream!? She sent a neighbor to look for me. I hid well in the back corner of the library, sitting with legs crossed Indian-style, the cover of the book on my left leg, it's back on my right. It sat just perfectly and so did I. When I got back to the home, sans ice cream, my mother said she was not mad at me, just very disappointed. I think that hurt worse.
I upset Karen at a library once. I must have been 11 or 12. She dropped me off at the library in downtown Durham for a few hours during summer break. While sitting outside waiting for her, I noticed a rat. He wasn't moving very much. He looked sick and his breathing was labored. I picked him up and tried to care for him through good thoughts. He seemed paralyzed except for breathing. I thought he needed water so I pledged to take him home and make him well. When Karen arrived, she told me to put the nasty rat down and go wash my hands. I hated to leave him, but it was clear that he wasn't coming home with us. I lay him in the shade where it was at the least, cooler.
Happily, tonight's library outing did not result in discovery of diseased rodents, or angry mothers upon return. Just Marshall, rolling over, belly up, as soon as I opened the door.
10.11.2005
Theme?
Is there a theme developing in my blog? A newfound love for a town (city?) in my own North Carolina? Should I change my blog to IlikeCarylights? As exciting as that seems, probably not. I'm just experiencing the joys of living in a new town. I didn't make such a distinction in my head because it's not like I had never been to Cary before; it's not far from my previous residence. Still, I am discovering and observing new things constantly.
I had always wondered where over 100,000 people were kept stashed in Cary (perhaps where they keep all the wild animals.) Actually, I now understand that spaces that appear to be plots of empty vegetated land are scads of domiciles hidden by a thin layer of greenery between the community and the adjoining road. This is foolery, but I am okay with it because I like green. I also like lots of people being around, so it works out.
As autumn moves in and the leaves begin to fall, I suppose I will notice more houses and less trees. Finally, exposed suburbia, traced in naked branches.
I do enjoy having the train nearby. Feeling everything rumble around me and hearing the siren voice of the engine lets me know that things are as they should be. We are humans, moving on the earth, transporting goods. I imagine what things are in the trains roaring by, and sometimes I imagine what it would sound like if a car were on the track. Not often, I think only with the trains carrying heavier loads; I sense them before they arrive and long after they've passed. As I hear the train get closer and closer, I can't help it. It just sounds like it's aiming at something with fierce umbrage, and when I don't hear a crash or an explosion I am of course relieved, but also a little disappointed. The noise of an oncoming train has the sound of something building up, like a sneeze or an orgasm. When nothing happens, I feel cheated and unsatisfied. I don't want anyone to get hurt or there to be any damage done, but a train is quite the tease. There should be something else, like an exclamation point, that will appease my desire for a locomotive climax.
I had always wondered where over 100,000 people were kept stashed in Cary (perhaps where they keep all the wild animals.) Actually, I now understand that spaces that appear to be plots of empty vegetated land are scads of domiciles hidden by a thin layer of greenery between the community and the adjoining road. This is foolery, but I am okay with it because I like green. I also like lots of people being around, so it works out.
As autumn moves in and the leaves begin to fall, I suppose I will notice more houses and less trees. Finally, exposed suburbia, traced in naked branches.
I do enjoy having the train nearby. Feeling everything rumble around me and hearing the siren voice of the engine lets me know that things are as they should be. We are humans, moving on the earth, transporting goods. I imagine what things are in the trains roaring by, and sometimes I imagine what it would sound like if a car were on the track. Not often, I think only with the trains carrying heavier loads; I sense them before they arrive and long after they've passed. As I hear the train get closer and closer, I can't help it. It just sounds like it's aiming at something with fierce umbrage, and when I don't hear a crash or an explosion I am of course relieved, but also a little disappointed. The noise of an oncoming train has the sound of something building up, like a sneeze or an orgasm. When nothing happens, I feel cheated and unsatisfied. I don't want anyone to get hurt or there to be any damage done, but a train is quite the tease. There should be something else, like an exclamation point, that will appease my desire for a locomotive climax.
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