A Story About Walking to Work, or I Am A Big Fat Narcissist

Now that I'm gainfully employed once again, I find myself wanting to walk to my job on nice days. My job is located several blocks away from where I live. Many, many blocks. 14ish or so. I'm trying to count in my head. Anyhow, when the weather looks delightful, I usually don a pair of flats (so I don't murder my feet by trying to walk in heels).

Yesterday the weather looked delightful, so I took a pair of brown flats (that had never before caused me grief or pain) out of my closet and slipped them on. They were perfect, because they coordinated with the brown accent stripe of my red dress.

Then I proceeded to walk. And walk. And walk some more. The longer I walked, the more often I noticed people looking twice at me. Periodically, I would feel something cold and wet hit the back of my right leg, but I just assumed I'd walked by sprinklers then.

I kept walking. People kept looking.

As I rambled down South Temple, several people honked. And because I am the narcissist I am, I thought, "Man, I hate it when people do that. But I do look good in this dress." Then, as I stopped to wait for a signal so I could cross the street, I happened to glance down at my right foot.

And was dismayed to realize I'd rubbed a good deal of the back of my heel raw. Not only that, but that periodic cold wetness I felt? Most definitely not sprinklers. Nope. It was my own blood. After realizing the situation with my right foot, I looked down at my left foot to find that it was having the opposite issue: the blood had run downward into the back of my shoe until it had started to run over. (Yes, my shoe ranneth o'er)

Once I arrived at work, I calmly requested a couple of Band-Aids and nicely asked that they call my manager so he'd know I'd arrived on time, but I'd been held up by the teeny tiny detail that the back of my feet were bleeding like crazy and I needed to please take care of it, thank you. And then I washed, cleaned, and bandaged.

They have stayed safely covered since then, and I have learned my lesson: next time someone honks at me, I will check myself for injuries before congratulating myself on how good I look.

Carless in Centerville II

There are very few times I rue my transportational inabilities. Today was, sort of, one of them. But not really. I regretted the bus ride today because it was dreadfully long due to some bus stick-age that lasted nigh unto a half hour. However, when I stopped and thought about it, I didn't regret that half hour at all--because I read for all of it. And people driving cars don't have chances like that to read books. And, let's be honest, if I got home quickly, I would not have devoted that half hour to reading. Instead, I would have cleaned my room, practiced the song I should be perfecting in my position as choir accompanist, written in my journal, and performed any evening duties that needed to get done. And then, if I had left over time, I probably would have felt tired, crashed, and watched TV. Actually, that's a slight lie. My dad and I are going to see the Young Ambassadors (quite the opposite of what Chichikov peddles) perform at the Conference Center Theater tonight . . . but still, you catch my drift.

In other news, I have done the unthinkable. Nothing that unthinkable! Pull your mind out of the gutter. What I have done is this: I have romanticized my job. Not in a particularly effusive manner on this blog (at least, I don't think it was that effusive), but often in conversation with other people. Perhaps it began because I was so ecstatic to get a job that didn't involve sitting at a desk for the entire eight hours. Or because I was delighted to see a certain lack of monotony. But, like all jobs, my job has its imperfections: hours of mapping out HR statistics on Excel, a cantankerous copier--older than I am--that the company refuses to replace yet because it still shows some signs of functionality (every time I use it, I swear I can hear it saying, "I'm not dead yet" . . . and in a Cockney accent too), a co-worker who does not know the meaning of the words "shower," "breathmint," "deodorant," or "lotion" . . . It's not perfect. And I've recently stopped myself from over-romanticizing it. Otherwise I get disappointed when my day at work is less than excessively interesting.

But there's one thing that I could not possibly be over-romanticizing: I have my own office! With a window!