Nonattachment

One of the many chores that we did over the weekend, which was in fact mostly chore-oriented in case that wasn't obvious from other posts about it, was to drop a load of things we do not need off at the Goodwill.

I both love and hate giving things to Goodwill. On the one hand, I find it very freeing to let go of what I no longer need, of material stuff that longer serves me. And what a bonus that by doing that, other people can get things for cheap, and a third-party can serve the poor in the process. It's all good. On the other hand, what if you end up needing it again someday? Then what?

The load we dropped of on Sunday included:

• an old fan
• six or seven blankets, most of which were old and very worn and a couple of which were new but made of that poly fiber stuff that makes your skin crawl when you touch it
• the stuffed animal turtle that our friend Greg won at the county fair we went to for my birthday last year and then gave to me
• an old suitcase of Eric's that was referred to as "the dog" because the handle had broken off and been replaced by a leash. Eric found that giving it dog commands was effective at increasing its obedience and could be seen quietly shouting "Heel! Heel!" at the suitcase when it was falling over as he tried to lead it down the airport corridor.
• some flower pots that I picked up for free at a moving sale and that we determined were simply too hideous to keep around

See? None of this is stuff that I will ever ever need again. Except for maybe the blankets. You never know when you will need a ratty old blanket to wrap up an injured, bleeding animal or to pad something fragile in transport. But for now, the extra closet space is worth it.

Too sexy too cute

We play a lot of games. Often, they are made up on the spot. Like on Sunday, as we were just taking a walk around and Eric channeled the emotional state of statues that we came across.

Indignant indigestion:
Surprise:
Hrumph.
Then, we walked past a shop that was so overwhelmingly pink we had to go in. It was full of cheaply made fashion jewelry and accessories and the new game was that Eric would choose the ugliest earrings he could find and I had to wear them for the rest of the day and one time out with friends without a disclaimer.

He chose these, for $4.99:
I am nothing if not vengeful. My retribution:
I paid $1.88 at a shop in Chinatown for this beaut. Eric was convinced for the rest of the day that he was getting a rash from it wherever it touched his skin.

Then we went to see Up in digital 3D.
It is great and I highly recommend that everyone see it.

Profiling

On Sunday, as Eric and I were relaxing at home after lunch, we heard a small commotion on the street below. We headed over to the window to see what was the fuss and saw two guys attempting to break into an apartment across the street: one of them was supporting the other as he tried to climb onto a second floor balcony. There was significant grunting involved.

We thought for a moment about calling the police. But one of them was wearing a pink polo shirt and flip flops, and the other one was carrying a bag of Subway sandwiches. So we figured they were probably OK.

Critical, motorized

Riding my bike to yoga this morning, I unintentionally timed my trip perfectly to coincide with the Pride parade, which routes a few blocks past where I live. I tried to navigate around it when, suddenly, I found myself in sea of motorcyclists.

And these weren't just any motorcyclists: they were Dykes on Bikes.

And there were many hundreds of them!

It turned out they were turning right in front of me, trapping me in the elbow of the turn. All I could do for over 10 minutes was stand there and watch, and cheer, and be delighted and just a little scandalized at what I saw, which ran the gammet from women in full leather to women in nothing but leather thongs* and boots, and covered a lot of ground in between: leather corsets and garter stockings, topless women in tutus and bright pink fishnets, and even a couple of women dressed as bumble bees.

It, also, was quite wonderful. And just as unexpected. The mood was spectacular and it was hard not to feel, well, proud.


*I said "thong."

Critical

On my ride home from work yesterday I was on my usual route at the usual time when suddenly I found myself in a sea of bicyclers. Traffic was completely stopped as hundreds - maybe thousands? - of bikers did the equivalent of strolling down the street.

I had heard of this before but never come across it. This phenomenon is known as Critical Mass.

It was started in San Francisco (of course) in 1992 and now happens in more than 300 cities every last Friday of the month. It might be to draw attention to biker's rights in the city. Or it might just be fun to stop traffic. I don't know. But they happened to be going my way, so I joined the throng* and let them escort me the rest of the way home.

It was quite wonderful.


*I said "throng"

Stroking

This morning I went back in time to my freshman year of college. I did this via: the Erg.

The Erg is a medieval torture device, the modern incarnation of which you will recognize as the rowing machine you've probably seen sitting unused in some dark corner of your gym. It looks like this:


Unless you've been on a crew team at some point you've likely never been on one of these. There's really no good reason to get on one unless you are a rower or a masochist.*

I was not in a particularly self-punishing mood this morning, so it remains a mystery why I hopped on and started pulling. The pool just looked so...wet. And all the good Elliptical machines were being used.

I think I was partly just really curious to see what it was like after all these years. How much less strong am I now than I was then? It was time to find out.

The first 25 strokes were glorious! I was amazing! My splits were fast and I was feeling great. I started to think this could become a viable part of my regular workouts.

My sudden super-rower abilities quickly faded, but I was actually able to hold my own for a full 2000m, which is the length of a the races I used to do. For good measure, I did another 3000m after that but not at quite the same intensity as that first one. Would it be weird to admit that it actually felt really good? It felt cleansing somehow; there was an element of relief.

I believe that memory is stored not just in our minds but also in our bodies. When I started swimming again recently I found myself recalling people and experiences I haven't thought about since my days on the high school swim team. This morning was similar but this time taking me back to my freshman year of college: faces, moments, images all came flooding back as I cruised up and down, up and down the slide. Like when I tripped in the college cafeteria and did a slip'n'slide through my chicken curry.** Or when I lost a few teeth when I got ejected from a boat mid-race. Or like when I put Clarence Carter's "Stroking" on the Erg room mix as a joke to my teammates. It just seemed so apt.

I might even get on that old horse again sometime.


*Rowers are really just a subset of the larger masochist community.
**So weird that I ate meat back then!

Unstacked

On my way home from work on Tuesdays I stop at the Ferry Building to pick up our organic fruit CSA box at Frog Hollow, a wonderful farm just outside of San Francisco. And every Wednesday morning on my way in to work, I stop there again and get a much larger CSA box for my office. Biking with 20lbs of very delicate stone fruit is just the sort of challenge I enjoy on a Wednesday morning.

When I get to work, I very carefully (but also usually very quickly as I am running late for a meeting) lay all the fruit out on the table, each peach and apricot in it's own little spot, not touching anyone else. It's for their own safety.

For context, I need to tell you that the office is kept on high tidiness alert at all times. Neatness counts here. Violators are summarily berated, and, just for good measure, our Office Manager is regularly berated on their behalves in spite of the fact that she is awesome and takes really good care of the office.

Knowing that the urge to stack the fruit in a bowl to look neat and tidy would be practically irresistable, I was very explicit via office-wide email that this would not be advisable.

"If you're wondering about the non-hierarchical presentation, it's because the tender flesh of the stone fruits does better in a single layer rather than stacked in a bowl."

Given all this, I'm sure you will find it easy to understand my reaction walking by the fruit table later in the day only to find, to my shock and horror, the fruit had been stacked in the bowl.

"Ahh!" I cried out, loudly. "Unstack the fruit! Unstack the fruit!"

I paused and stood there for a moment. No one responded.

"Who did this?!" I shouted some more. "I was very clear! No stacking! The tender flesh! Oh the tender tender flesh! It can't take it! Unstack the fruit!"*

Nada.

I walked over to one of my teammates who wasn't going to the meeting that I was now very late for.

"Would you please unstack the fruit? It's all going to rot if it stays in the bowl like that." I used a much nicer voice. She humored me. And I'm pretty sure Emily didn't get yelled at (um, other than by me...)


*I did, in fact, literally shout this in my office.