After a good, early night’s sleep, I was up at 6:00AM and out to the bus by 7:30. I’m going to introduce a new feature starting with today’s entry, it’s going to be called BUStle, and it’s going to capture my musings on my bus rides—both to and from work. I don’t know if I’ll have something to say every day (Quit laughing!), but it will be a recurring item.
Starting today, I’m also going to stop embedding my Twitter stream in my blog. I’m not tweeting near as much as I used to, and if you want to see that you can always got to http://twitter.com/nematome to see the latest updates.
| I’m starting to identify some “regulars” now, and by that I mean people who ride the bus regularly and who tend to ride it at the same times I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t see them, now would I?
There are two men who always sit together. They are, perhaps, Middle Eastern, and I’ve moved from originally imagining them as possibly father and son, to older man with a young interpreter, back to either father and son or just two friends. Today, I ruled out interpreter as I observed them each departing the bus at a different stop. A guy got on the bus, maybe three stops after me—a good-looking guy, nice build, dark brown, thick beard—and his t-shirt said “Cheerleading” on it. Gaydar alert. (Not that there aren’t straight cheerleaders. But, if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, and sleeps with other male ducks…) My initial thought, after “he’s hot,” was “how refreshing that he can wear that t-shirt without worrying about being harassed.” At the next stop, a big guy, not huge, but a big enough belly, got on with a t-shirt that said, “NC State Cheerleading.” He at first didn’t see the hottie, who much to my pleasure had taken the seat just to the left of me, but as he passed by, he spotted him, and then stood in front of both of us and they chatted the rest of the way. On the way home today, there were at least three conversations in three different languages within three different groups on the bus. I really like that. |
We had a department meeting, which consisted of (and will always consist of, as we’re all there is to our department) me, Rhonda (my officemate), and Jude (my manager). The meeting was scheduled from 9:00-10:00, and at 10:05, with no acknowledgment that we were running over or with any end in sight, I stopped the meeting to talk about calendar integrity—one of my hot buttons.
I had lunch at Charley’s Grilled Subs, just down the street from my office on Hillsborough Street. It was good, but I have got to start getting up early enough to pack a lunch, so I can make healthier choices.
Mid-afternoon, I walked over to Reverie Coffee Den, which is the coffee shop closest to our office, and which Sarah told me about on my first day there. The guy behind the counter who is usually there is very, very nice. He has great rapport with his customers, and I’ve already noticed that he knows a lot of them by name.
Much to my delight, when I got there, there was a guy (a different guy) out front giving away free coffee! Bonus!
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned (and obviously I don’t feel like looking back) that my right knee has been killing me since Wednesday night after dancing. My mother’s knee replacement surgery is so present in my mind now, as is the keen awareness of my age. Today I stepped down off the bus onto that leg, and I almost collapsed to the ground.
It’s the same soreness that I had the first time after dancing for two days back in April at the two-day Hoedown in Charlotte, after the two-day Rodeo in DC a couple of weeks ago, and now after an inordinate amount of dancing (especially two-stepping) this past Wednesday.
Not a good sign. In my memory, the soreness from the other two times was gone after a couple of days. Of course, I’m thinking about all the walking I’m going to be doing in China in a few weeks, and I can’t afford for my leg to be feeling like this during that time.
I got an e-mail of apology from Liz over at The Borough for my customer service incident, noted in last Friday’s blog entry.
I wrote up and submitted my “Presentation Proposal” for my China Trip—a presentation on my grad school experience getting my Master’s in Technical Communication from NC State.
My mom was supposed to come home from the hospital today, but when I called my parents for their 55th wedding anniversary tonight, dad answered, and told me that he’s picking her up in the morning.
I assumed Joe was going out tonight for our regular Friday night shenanigans at Flex, but I was wrong. I went out alone, and after watching three videos and asking myself, “Are these funny?” someone pointed out to me that although the website said tonight was “Comedy Videos” night, the white board over the bar said, “Music Videos.” Thank goodness. I was beginning to think I had completely lost my sense of humor.
Over at Legends, I ran into Victoria “Porkchop” Parker, and I told her about seeing her in Pageant, and how I loved her rendition of And I Am Telling You, and now had a whole new respect for drag queens. She was genuinely touched, and said as much, concluding with, “Thank you. You made my night.”