Also, my humming improved.

What a bizarrely chipper mood cycling puts me in! I loathe to imagine that I'm on the road to becoming one of those hardcore enthusiasts with the neon spandex and special gloves, but who knows. I might be. I made pretty good time this morning, too. I would have arrived even sooner had the bike not tipped over while I was wrestling with the front door on the way out. The basket on the back, into which I stuff my work clothes, lunch, purse and all of the zillion items those things entail, snapped completely off and I couldn't figure out how it had been affixed to the back in the first place. I stood outside, still half asleep, staring at the fallen bike for a while before I managed to get it together enough to go back in the house and find some bungee chords. I probably could have made it in by 7:30 had I not been forced to faff around and conjure WAY too much problem-solving, analytical brain power for that hour of the morning.

Oh, and I swallowed a bug. It was on Five Mile Drive. That doesn't happen as often as you might think, especially when you consider that I have to go through some areas that are positively rainforestesque in their insectiness. In fact, it has only happened one other time--a couple of years ago, but I will never forget that day because I was cruising down Jordan Hill, which is the only truly fun part of the trip (a very long, steep decline--very "WHEEEE!" and welcoming, especially on a hot day) when a bee...a freaking BEE...slammed into my tonsils with such force that the impact killed it instantly. At least, that's what I choose to believe. I swerved madly, sputtering and gagging and amusing the passing motorists, screeching to a stop on the overpass and desperately trying not to swallow, but it was too late. I ate the bee. I was totally disgusted and shuddery for the rest of the day. However, I did not suffer any negative gastrointestinal consequences, so there's a survival nugget for you--if ever you find yourself starving in the jungle, feel free to eat bees.

This morning's bug wasn't as big of a deal. It was a little gnat or something. It wasn't actually that disturbing. I think the bee incident made a woman out of me.

Awesome House of Big, Happy Fun

He's been on my blogroll forlikeever, but I wanted to give a proper shout-out to the Bighappyfunhouse today because it's one of the best dern destinations on this whole confounding internets. Apart from my own lifelong fascination with vernacular photography (which,until Ron came along, I thought was just some weird and possibly unhealthy voyeurism issue involving other peoples' old pictures--who knew it was an actual thing!), what I love about this site is its simplicity. It's totally without prentention or wizardry of any annoying kind. They way he assumes that his hypnotically beautiful found art will showcase itself proves that he is, on a very crucial level, a true genius.

I could (and do) spend hours rifling through his treasures. It's impossible for me to comprehend how anybody could let go of their souls like that. At the same time, though, it warms my heart to know they've found a loving home.

Thing I discovered on walk today:

There are certain items on my iPod that I have no choice but to skip over if I am in a public place. Added to that list today is anything off of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" album.

I was meandering down one of the (normally deserted) residential streets, running a finger along the low stone wall separating the houses from the pavement when, convinced of my solitude, I gave in to the unbearable temptation to (ever-so-softly) sing along with Jimi when he got to the "some people say...daydreamin's fo-hor the...lazy minded FEW-EW-HOOLS" part in 'May This Be Love'. I had my earphones blasting, though, so it was probably more like a moderate and hideously off-key shout, because I looked up from my reverie just in time to see a guy sitting in his parked truck, eating his lunch and laughing his ass off at me. Then he gave me a thumbs up. I can only hope that meant "Right on, Hendrix girl!" and not "Your assery on my behalf is much appreciated!"

Eh, either way. Let them laugh, laugh at me. Right Jimi? I wove you.

What the fuck is "workflow"???

The fact that I was born missing the soft chunk of gray matter essential for allowing me even the most rudimentary understanding of corporate politics is something that I've always been proud of. Even after jumping ON the corporate bandwagon, which I was too mired in the muddle and existential panic of the mid-20s to properly think through, I always approached meetings and seminars and those infernal obligatory-by-implication, let's-everybody-get-wasted-and-sexually-harrass-each-other office social outings with a dismissive wrist-flick and the conviction that my ignorance simply illustrated the purity of my soul or some such dude-man bullshit.

Now thoroughly ensconced in the early-thirties rite de passage of receiving a daily skull-thwack from the crowbar of reality, however, I am growing ever more alarmed at my overwhelming ineptitude. My plaintive battle cry of "I will never understand you people!" has gotten less haughty and more panicked with each passing year, and I've come to realize that I most likely will never understand it, and not because I can't be bothered with spiritual mundanity of it all. I will never understand it in the same way that I will never understand nuclear physics or organic chemistry, and that might even be all right because lots of people don't understand those things, but that's why said people leave the nuclear physicsing and organic chemistrying to those with the capacity to deal with it. Right? One doesn't flunk basic chemistry in high school and then think, "Hey! This could be a career path!" Right? Of course not! Usually.

It's not that I simply disagree with corporate philosophy but, like so many of my colleagues, recognize that 99% of people in this world do what they gotta do and that's life, baby. My lack of understanding goes so, so far beyond that. I mean, that is what I aspire to. That's the physics. I can't even clearly define what it is about the corporate environment that I so strenuously disagree with, apart from the fact that it sucks the soul right out of my body and vomits it 40 hours per week closer to death. But doesn't it do that to everybody?

It's all very well and good to heroically suffer the indignities like a line-toeing martyr until you realize that you've been doing the same job for five years and people far stupider than you are making a lot more money and hey! Let me try that! and you come out of a meeting with Production Department upper management feeling like you've been listening to Ronnie Wood recite Japanese poetry though a voice modulator and all you can wonder is who, in fact, is the real member of the idiot masses.

The Shat In the Hat

Because I'm currently struggling to produce more substantial wordsmithing and yet I still long to share my innermost being with you, I embed a Youtube treasure that is particularly close to my soul.

99.89996% of everything I love about life is contained within its five minutes and two seconds, not the least of which is The Shat himself.