I Sleep in a Big Bed With My Wife
Having been well-trained, academically, to predict counterarguments and prepare rebuttals to them, I would like, for the record, to note that tropical storms are not hurricanes, and despite Betty's coming ashore a mere 40 miles south of Miami, my three-years-and-running record as a one-man hurricane repellent stands (so sure am I of my record/ability, that I'm even comfortable blogging about it (despite incidences in the past of blog-jinxes flattening tires and breaking spokes)). This is actually the second Tropical Storm I've encountered in my time in South Florida, though I slept through most of the first. But, the point is, while I'm on such brazenly personal matters, it was raining really hard this morning when I left for work.
At first, when the morning started, I decided that the rain outside must be an effect of the aforementioned tropical storm, so I slept in for an hour. Then, when I finally did decide to go to work, it was raining even harder (I was hoping to sleep through the worst of it). So, like any good former resident of Portland, Oregon, I donned my rain suit and headed for the bus. Right before leaving the house (right after finding a rather large number of what I presume were fruit fly larvae have a gay old time amidst the dates with which I was planning to supplement my lunch of spinach-and-sprouts--it's interesting the kind of instinctive revulsion one can get from seeing even little maggots hanging out on your food. I more or less got over it, and managed to watch them crawling about a bit before putting the container in the garbage, without feeling totally repulsed anymore (and it's also interesting to note that even if humans had always been vegetarians, we still would have, at some point, decided on the notion of spontaneous generation, even without raw meat sitting about for flies to appear from).), I looked at my pair of flip-flops and ever-so-fleetingly considered the notion of bring a second pair of shoes with me to the office. Which I didn't do.
But should have done. This is perhaps the second time that I've blogged about how much I like to go out in public in my truly ugly rain suit? Just the looks you get when you step onto a bus in sopping wet goldenrod duds: awesome. But my feet, my feet, soaked seven times through. So here I was at the office, having removed my shoes and socks and dried of my feet with a paper towel, wanting to go get a mug of coffee from the kitchen (we humble poets rent a very small office in a perversely air-conditioned large floor-large office of other people doing much more normal things than typing poems about posters of elks and trying to talk entirely in iambic pentameter whilst teleconferencing with a poet in Massachusetts (who, initially impressed, finally accused me of doing "that Bob Dylan thing," to which I acquiesced)), and unsure exactly how uncouth it would be to walk to the kitchen and back while barefoot.
I decided that walking barefoot, though preferable to me, might in fact cross some line for some of these office-normals, so instead I wrapped my feet in paper towels, and then tied plastic bags over my towel-wrapped feet. To which, the one other person in the kitchen responded, "Quite the fashion statement, there, huh?" And I explained my situation, mostly focusing on the cold-and-wet aspects, and the not-wanting-to-offend-any-one pleasantness, and had a fine mutually sympathetic conversation about wet feet. And had my coffee. Then, later, returning from the men's room in my bag-wrapped feet, another nice office person gave me a space heater with which to dry my shoes and socks! Super nice! with the added bonus of demonstrating that it actually is perversely cold in this office, and it's not just me trying to be at least vaguely counter-cultural-whilst-mostly-selling-out! She had not one, but two space heaters! So it's totally normal for me to be in a hooded sweatshirt and knit cap here in this office!
And my socks, now, are nearly dry, though the shoes have a long way to go (another day in the life).
At first, when the morning started, I decided that the rain outside must be an effect of the aforementioned tropical storm, so I slept in for an hour. Then, when I finally did decide to go to work, it was raining even harder (I was hoping to sleep through the worst of it). So, like any good former resident of Portland, Oregon, I donned my rain suit and headed for the bus. Right before leaving the house (right after finding a rather large number of what I presume were fruit fly larvae have a gay old time amidst the dates with which I was planning to supplement my lunch of spinach-and-sprouts--it's interesting the kind of instinctive revulsion one can get from seeing even little maggots hanging out on your food. I more or less got over it, and managed to watch them crawling about a bit before putting the container in the garbage, without feeling totally repulsed anymore (and it's also interesting to note that even if humans had always been vegetarians, we still would have, at some point, decided on the notion of spontaneous generation, even without raw meat sitting about for flies to appear from).), I looked at my pair of flip-flops and ever-so-fleetingly considered the notion of bring a second pair of shoes with me to the office. Which I didn't do.
But should have done. This is perhaps the second time that I've blogged about how much I like to go out in public in my truly ugly rain suit? Just the looks you get when you step onto a bus in sopping wet goldenrod duds: awesome. But my feet, my feet, soaked seven times through. So here I was at the office, having removed my shoes and socks and dried of my feet with a paper towel, wanting to go get a mug of coffee from the kitchen (we humble poets rent a very small office in a perversely air-conditioned large floor-large office of other people doing much more normal things than typing poems about posters of elks and trying to talk entirely in iambic pentameter whilst teleconferencing with a poet in Massachusetts (who, initially impressed, finally accused me of doing "that Bob Dylan thing," to which I acquiesced)), and unsure exactly how uncouth it would be to walk to the kitchen and back while barefoot.
I decided that walking barefoot, though preferable to me, might in fact cross some line for some of these office-normals, so instead I wrapped my feet in paper towels, and then tied plastic bags over my towel-wrapped feet. To which, the one other person in the kitchen responded, "Quite the fashion statement, there, huh?" And I explained my situation, mostly focusing on the cold-and-wet aspects, and the not-wanting-to-offend-any-one pleasantness, and had a fine mutually sympathetic conversation about wet feet. And had my coffee. Then, later, returning from the men's room in my bag-wrapped feet, another nice office person gave me a space heater with which to dry my shoes and socks! Super nice! with the added bonus of demonstrating that it actually is perversely cold in this office, and it's not just me trying to be at least vaguely counter-cultural-whilst-mostly-selling-out! She had not one, but two space heaters! So it's totally normal for me to be in a hooded sweatshirt and knit cap here in this office!
And my socks, now, are nearly dry, though the shoes have a long way to go (another day in the life).
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