Live backwards

Time for another potpourri post.

1. Being a creature of habit, over the past couple of years I’ve settled on three shirts that I cycle through each week (excluding Sundays). One is blue with white stripes, one is solid blue, and one is solid green. Usually I wear #1 on Monday, #2 on Tuesday, #3 on Wednesday, #1 on Thursday, #2 on Friday, #3 on Saturday, and white on Sunday. But this week I’ve decided to mix things up a bit — #1 M, #2 T, #3 W, #2 Th, and #1 F. Do you see it? It’s chiasmus. I never thought I’d dress chiastically, but it’s happening. And yes, I realize that this is weird. ;)

2. In my Aeneid class (Latin 301), we talked about meter and scansion yesterday. (Scansion is “the analysis of poetry’s metrical and rhythmic patterns” — thanks, Wikipedia.) We’re supposed to read aloud from the poem using the correct rhythmic patterns, which are made up of dactyls (long, short, short) and spondees (long, long). All rather interesting, of course, but during class I was certain that I had no idea how to actually do the scansion. It seemed like there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to deciphering the meter. And then last night I sat down and pretended like I knew what I was doing, and suddenly it all started coming together, kind of like when you get to the last 10 boxes in Sudoku. It’s incredibly fun to overcome challenges. :)

3. From Meridian Magazine I came across this quote from Lloyd Newell on Music and the Spoken Word:

Think about what you want people to say about you at the end of your life, then live backwards. Be that person now.

Amen.

4. I like the larger stalls in public restrooms, because there’s more whitespace. But every time I use one, I worry that someone in a wheelchair is going to show up and have to wait outside until I’m done. It’s never yet happened, but I’m sure someday it will, and then I’ll resign myself to the smaller stalls.

5. Something I don’t like: wedding receptions. I don’t know why, but they’re like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. And so I avoid them. Religiously. The only exceptions I make are for roommates or siblings, and even then they’ve been awkward as all get out. Part of me kind of wishes I didn’t have such an allergic reaction to them, since it’d be nice to show support and all that, but I really, really, really can’t stand them. So if I don’t show up at any of y’all’s wedding receptions, you’ll know why. :)

Amen to #4 and #5.

Though it will largely depend upon the bride-to-be, wherever-she-be, I don’t want a reception at all. I’d rather have an intimate dinner that night w/ family and close friends. I feel that receptions are blown way out of proportion, detracting the focus and emphasis from the wedding/sealing itself.

Here’s the reason you don’t worry about #4:

There are other handicapped people in the world.

A handicap stall is “handicap accessible,” not “no-wait-guaranteed.” And they’re not like the parking spots. You don’t have to have a pass to use them.

There’s an old episode of Seinfeld where George parks his car in a handicap spot while the gang goes to the store. When they come back, there’s an ambulance on scene because a handicapped woman was so tired from having to wheel herself from a far away spot that while going up the wheelchair ramp of the building she lost control and rolled back down and into a wall, injuring herself. The angry mob proceeds to destroy George’s car out of righteous indignance, who won’t fess up that he’s the owner.

That, of course, is just a sitcom (and a funny one at that). But what would the crowd have done if it was another handicapped person who had taken up the spot?

There’s also an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (from Seinfeld creator Larry David, as it happens) where Larry uses a handicap stall because the regular one is full, and a wheelchair-bound person “catches” him, and they argue about it, and general hilarity ensues.

At the movie theater I worked at throughout college, a patron saw an employee come out of our handicap accessible bathroom and complained to the management. We have no policy that says anyone can’t use the handicap accessible stall, but it resulted in a big brouhaha which the employee eventually quit over. The person who complained was not handicapped. There was no handicapped person waiting to use it. Maybe they watch too much TV.

So here’s the deal: Use it. Enjoy your right to use it. But don’t go around in fear that someone will call you on it. And if they do, deal with the situation and continue to live your life like you want to.

You’re entitled.

1. Ben, you are so odd. And yet amusing.

5. That’s because you’ve never been to my family’s wedding receptions. Never a dull moment. :D But then again, my extended family is get-together central, so a wedding reception feels like just another extension of our semi-weekly gatherings.

But it is true that it’s awkward to go when you don’t really know anyone but the bride and/or groom . . . .

I’ll reply to these comments sometime soon, but in the meantime I wanted to link to a rather humorous quote that popped up in the comments on Terrah’s post with the Lloyd Newell quote:

There was an article in the celeb gossip section on MSN today about Angelina Jolie.

Jolie says that while their biggest parental problem these days is terrible-two-suffering Zahara tossing a tantrum whenever Pitt boogies in front of her, they’re already thinking about the day the kids will rebel.

“They’ll go against us one day,” she sighs. “We were trying to figure out how, because we shoot guns in movies, we have motorbikes and planes, and Mommy’s covered in tattoos. All that’s left for them to do is become Mormons.”

LOL. :)

1. Now, I don’t know how your school is, but at the University I go to in Canada there are some classes on Mon, Wed, and Friday, and the others are on Tues and Thurs. This means, if you do wear your shirts:
1 2 3 2 1
M T W R F
Then you are wearing the same shirt to the same classes which are on both Tuesday and Thursday, AND you are wearing the same shirt to the same classes which are on both Monday and Friday.

Just a thought.

Connor: Same here. I would be overjoyed if I could get away without having one myself. Here’s hoping that my bride-to-be’s mother doesn’t care for receptions… :)

Rikker: Good point. But while I’m entitled to it, I would still feel bad if someone in a wheelchair needed to use the stall I was occupying. It’s not as if there aren’t other stalls, perfectly usable though claustrophobic. :) For me it’s more of a compassion issue. I’d rather inconvenience myself so that someone else can have it easy. (If there’s no someone else nearby to have it easy, though, I don’t have any problem with having it easy myself. :))

Liz: Oddity is the soul of wit. Wait, that’s not right. :) Anyway, I think it’s the structure of wedding receptions (the line, the guests eating food elsewhere, etc.) that somehow grates on my soul. Shredded soul. But I digress.

Alyssa: Yes, this is true. :) Wearing the same shirt on Mondays and Fridays wouldn’t really be a problem, but Tuesday/Thursdays would be too much, I think. And so I will probably stop dressing chiastically. It was nice while it lasted. (Since I don’t really do anything sweaty in the course of a normal day, there’s usually no problem wearing the shirts a second time before sending them to the washer.)