The Meet Market

I got asked out at the grocery store the other day.

I could see it coming from the moment he followed me into the organic food section where he collected zero items for his cart, but fixed his hair a few times and readjusted the sunglasses on his head. He wore a suit coat with a white button-down buttoned down to show off his hairy chest and gold chain. My Birkenstocks should have been a magic shield, but no luck. Later, I cut in front of him at the deli counter because he was talking on his cell and the kind lady working there had better things to do than wait for him. And so did I. I couldn't shake him though. He bumped into my cart in the coffee aisle, approached the lotions just as I left them, and moved into checkout aisle number 12 right after I did.

"Hey. How's it going?"

Classic.

"Fine."

"How much do you think you saved today?"

"Um. I don't know. Ten bucks?"

"No way. I bet I can get closer to my number than you can."

"Great. Go for it."

"I think I'll save $9."

"Oh."

"What does the winner get?"

And there it was. An opening for an invitation to coffee, dinner, a movie, or other such tortures.

"I guess, the winner gets . . . well. . . nothing. Sometimes that happens." Even if he wasn't reading the hint, my checker was. She gave me a knowing look and speeded up the scanning process. My hero.

"You cut in front of me in the deli line, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well. That's not very courteous."

"Yep. I'm an awful person." I moved down to begin bagging at what I hoped would be lightening speed.

"So. You saved almost exactly what you guessed you would and I was way off. How could I not save any money at Cub Foods? Impossible. What do you say I buy you some coffee or tea to celebrate your winning?"

I was torn. Should I tell him that I can't go out with him because I have a boyfriend which would lead him to think that that was the only thing keeping me from saying yes? Or do I tell him that I just don't go out with men who follow me around grocery stores, demonstrate their rudeness, and reveal more chest hair than I'd want to see under any circumstances?

"No thanks," I replied. "Consider not buying me coffee as your savings for today." And with that, I left.

Worlds Collide

During our discussion of cultural models and genre ecologies last night (note: scholarly terms I don't quite understand), the professor (picture your father or grandfather here) decided to read to us from the genre of the romance novel to exemplify his point about the patterns that go along with particular identities and spaces. A good choice. But I couldn't help noticing how reading the particularly steamy scene -- one that involved kissing and undressing while waves crashed upon the shore in a color that matched the blue in the hero's eyes -- disrupted this otherwise academic space. No matter how dry his tone -- enough to soak up that ocean, mind you-- we were all quite aware that those words did not belong in this room or in that mouth.

Later, he showed us the proposal scene from High Fidelity as the modern alternative to the proposal scene in Emma. Another good choice, except when he decided to give us our instructions and handouts for next week -- something about identity and improvisation -- while Jack Black sang "Let's Get It On" in the background. You can probably guess which one had my full attention.

Can't Get the Spell Check to Work, but It's Still So Pretty

I'm writing this on my new Dell Inspiron 640m. It let's me do

block quotes,

italics, bold text, and make font changes with a simple touch of the mouse pad. It's very shiny and pretty too.

Jodi saw it and said,

"I've never wanted anything of yours like I want that laptop."

• Functional
• Attractive
• Enviable.
  

My sad, sad Mac is collecting dust already.

Phantom Housemate

She moved in one week ago.

Signs of her existence: Bedding on the bed. Clothes in the closet. Pictures on the dresser top.

Signs that she's paying rent for me to store these things: No underwear in the drawers. No toiletries in the medicine cabinet. No towels in the linen closet. No mail in the mailbox. And most telling, no housemate. Hide nor hair. Not a single sighting all week.

Initial findings from my detective work: This is a kick-ass living situation.

And so it begins.

Perhaps the best thing about being a full-time graduate student is that I can go to work in my pajamas. Already I have a fair amount of studying to attend to, but sitting on my couch with a book and a cup of coffee doesn't seem so bad. After talking with my advisor yesterday and collecting opinions from other graduate students in my department who offered sideways glances and boldly called me crazy, I ended up dropping one class to preserve some sanity this semester. I'm not very good at making such decisions and the guilt of it is still sitting in the pit of my stomach. Having a life was an argument I couldn't dispute, however, and three weeks from now, when I'm complaining that there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done, it's going to feel like the right decision. Or so I hope.

The Training: Week Fourteen

Just four more weeks until the ole' 26.2. Due to lack of drinking fountains along the trails in Bismarck, I opted to postpone my twelve-miler until I returned to Minneapolis. A good decision. After sitting in the car for over six hours, I was actually looking quite forward to my run. Sadly, the first two miles involved some of the most painful steps I've ever taken. IT band. With only four weeks of training left, I'm not really willing to give up altogether, so I hobbled along until the pain subsided as it commonly does. Good thing too, because just as I was getting into the groove, I happened across a similarly paced runner who seemed to be in his own modicum of pain.

"You training?" he asked.

"Yeah. Twin Cities. You?"

"No. I used to run it, but I was hit by a car in the spring. I've just started running again."

"Wow. How does it feel?"

"Good now, but I may not be able to walk too much tomorrow. Lower back trouble."

Poor guy. We chatted for a while and I learned that he had actually saved his four year-old daughter. Pushed her out of the way of the car and took the hit himself. He runs despite the pain because he just can't give it up. "You've got a strong stride," he told me. "Use it. You can go faster than you are right now." He made his turn home and we waved farewell. Then, I kicked it into a higher gear. IT band nothing. I'm running this marathon

Primary Sources

Since I have my own house now, my mom asks me kindly each time I'm visiting if I'd like to relocate my stored boxes of belongings that age back to my elementary school days. Each time I'm here I organize them a bit, throw a few things out, take a couple of photos or writings with me, and then leave the rest for the pleasure of perusing the next time I'm home. Tonight, mom and I opened the door to the closet at the end of the stairs, the one where all memories are stored and things not remembered for years come to life. There I found treasure after treasure. My parents high school diplomas. My mother's "Neither Tardy Nor Absent" certificates. My kindergarten report card. A second grade story published in the Young Author's booklet. Physical fitness awards. A report on the jack rabbit. Birthday cards from my sixth grade classmates. And my sticker book. My beloved sticker book.

Two other items of interest to me were the bibles that my older sister and I had used for confirmation. Both with red leather covers and gold edging on the pages. Both used and worn. In the front of my bible, I had practiced my name three times. Within the pages I located my catechism, a filled out visitor's card, the 1990 Twins schedule, and a church envelope with New Kids On The Block and each members name written in block letters across the front. Likely evidence of how I passed the time during confirmation class.

In Becky's bible, I found no pieces of paper. No doodles, notes, inserts of any kind. Instead, written on the first page was Becky's name along with the names of six of her classmates. Under each name, a phone number. Evidence of how she passed the time. And one basic difference between us.

Supernova

I have a theory that we all have superpowers, just not the kind that send us flying into flaming buildings where we bend metal to save screaming children. Our superpowers are something more mundane at which we are unusually adept. Like catching wine glasses before they spill or never having trouble sleeping on a plane. Mine has to do with running errands with the least possible distance between stops and the least amount of gas used. Nothing worth wearing a cape for, but it's my power, take it or leave it.

Yesterday, as I drove home to visit the parents for the weekend, I listened to the first third of Bill Bryson's a Short History of Nearly Everything. While doing so, I learned about Robert Evans, a reverend and amateur astrologer who has spotted over 40 supernovae to date. He has no training or elaborate equipment, just small telescopes, but his uncanny skill for memorizing sky fields and noticing exploding stars his given him more discoveries to his credit than any of the large, automated telescopes now used. Evans told Bryson, "There's something satisfying, I think, about the idea of light traveling for millions of years through space and just at the right moment as it reaches Earth someone looks at the right bit of sky and sees it. It just seems right that an event of that magnitude should be witnessed." Amen to that.

Evans had me thinking as I drove along, now this, THIS is a superpower. Some have called Evans a savant, an autistic savant even. Certainly he has some exceptionality of vision and memory, but don't all of the real superheroes have that? It's a safe bet that I'll never witness my own supernova, but Evans has me thinking that maybe, just maybe there's another superpower out there for me. One "why me?" superpower that will reveal itself at just the right time and place. Extraordinary and ordinary all at once. And I like that thought.