mekka lekka hi, mekka hiney ho

the beginning of yesterday was terrific. i had a pretty fun time at work. some laughs, some encouraging people to see the prestige, you know. also, some delicious little cookies. then, i went to the y and had a great swim, and i managed to avoid naked people in the locker room. anyone who has ever met me, even for like five minutes, could probably tell you that i am the kind of person that's made uncomfortable by naked people. where do you look? the ceiling? obvious. your feet? you might trip. their eyes? weird. i also really like swimming. it is pretty much the most low-impact kind of workout you can have, and it gives you a lot of time to think. i'm pretty nervous about getting older. i think deep down i believe i'm just going to fall apart. i set up my 401K a while ago so hopefully i'll be okay financially, i do crosswords every day to stave off alzheimer's, i go swimming because a lot of other activities can screw up your joints and lead to arthritis, and the biggest deterrent to living on sweets (i have an extremely demanding sweet tooth) is the ever-growing threat of diabetes. i've pretty much given up on trying to avoid cancer - you can get it from almost anything, and i really like going outside and eating red popsicles.

i think i might be misusing my swimming-thinking time. here is a list of the things i usually think about while swimming:
ludacris (and not just recently either. this has been pretty consistent for a while now.)
whether or not the other swimmers are looking at me underwater (i don't care)
whether or not the other swimmers are allowing bodily functions to occur underwater (i definitely care)
whether or not another swimmer will want to share my lane with me if the pool gets crowded
if yes: whether or not my strokes will get out of control and i will accidentally tag them, whether or not they will look at me underwater, whether or not they will perform bodily functions underwater and whether or not i will be able to tell
if no: why not?
getting a new swimsuit, like a real swimsuit and not my all girl summer fun bathing suit
getting new goggles, like real goggles that don't leak and aren't pink
getting a swim cap so my hair doesn't smell like chlorine all the time
whether or not there might be naked people in the sauna, steam room or whirlpool
if yes: how can i look in and then walk away and maintain my dignity
if no: then i can use one, what can i read while i'm in there (whirlpool only - no paper in the steam room, gets soggy, no paper in the sauna, catches on fire)
the lifeguard
it is usually this older jewish guy with a terrific moustache. i know he is jewish because he used to lifeguard at the jewish community center when i swam up there because the y was redoing their pool. he is a great guy, the kind of guy you wish was your grandfather. well, not my grandfather, because i'm crazy about him and wouldn't trade him for anyone. but maybe if you had a jewish friend growing up and you were really close to their family and used to go over on friday afternoons and eat challah and he was their grandfather and would tell you stories and maybe pinch your cheek and give you a dreidel on chanukah or something. he is really nice and always tells me it's nice to see me, not in a creepy way, but in a way that makes me feel like both our days are a little better because we chatted with each other. anyway, yesterday we chatted about how we used to see each other at the jcc, and that was part of why yesterday was good.

if you have ever lived or stayed in southeast portland, then you probably know that during rush hour, people who are already almost on the ross island bridge will take turns with people waiting on the on ramp. it's a really nice thing to do, because they really don't have to. it's a very portland thing to do and it always puts my faith back in humanity a little. well, yesterday i was the first one to do it. i let the person waiting go, and then in my rearview mirror i saw the person behind me do it, and then the person behind them. that felt pretty good, like something that should have gotten written up in the paper. then i saw an enormous bird fly over me when i was on the bridge and that just made me feel even better.

then jake and i went to see the illusionist. it was ok, i love ed norton and jessica biel was just fine, but the whole time i wanted it to be the prestige and it just wasn't. i kind of coerced jake into going out to do something with me instead of staying in and renting a movie or staring at the walls because every once in a while i need to do something that makes me feel like i'm not a crappy bag lady. i'm not really sure how going out in public gets rid of that feeling; maybe it's just that when i go out i feel obligated to brush my hair and not wear the falling apart sweatshirt i stole from my roommate that i wear everywhere else. anyway, it did make me feel better. but jake has a terrible habit of behaving poorly in the movie theater, especially during the most important or touching parts of a movie, and then he really did not want to discuss the movie afterwards. i guess there wasn't really that much to say, especially since all i wanted to do was talk about the prestige, and he got kind of touchy when i kept pressing him about it. then he went to the big party and i stayed home. every time we go to the big party, it's disappointing, but every time friday rolls around it's an appealing prospect again. he wanted to get hammered and go see our roommates play, and i didn't want to stand around with a bunch of people i didn't know and see a bunch of crappy bands (our roommates admitted that the other bands would be crappy) and have at most one beer because i was driving. so, my attempt to spend some quality time and not feel like a crappy bag lady was pretty much a bust. i went to bed early and the bag lady feeling is once again in full swing. but today is a new day. i got myself some cookies and maybe i'll go see the prestige again.


next on the list. does this guy look like the genie from peewee's playhouse or what?