Like, one time at this party we were all laughing about how back in the day the teachers and nuns at school would warn us of the dire condition called scoliosis and recommend we be checked frequently and consistently lest we soon end up with a hump to rival that of the doomed hunchback of Notre Dame himself. As if scoliosis was this common ailment, like lice, that could be spotted with a quick check by some lay person, undoubtedly a student’s parent, who came in to volunteer for the “scoliosis check.”

Then someone in the group mentioned that she had had a relative that had been afflicted with scoliosis and that it had been this extremely debilitating, horrible and basically just this terrible thing and as she spoke our smiles slowly faded, our voices were silenced, our gazes were averted. It was if I could almost hear the record scratching and the crickets start to chirp in my own mind’s soundtrack.

I have been thinking about what I would use as my totem…

I am debating whether to drop this class with my favorite professor.

Pros:
¤ Taught by my favorite professor

Cons:
¤ Class topic itself seemingly without personal utility and sounds uninteresting
¤ Book is a 2010 edition and obscenely expensive

I have never previously considered book costs in selecting classes, but this may be the pivotal factor in this case. However, I really like this professor even though her tests rank as the longest and most difficult in my own personal ranking system.

What to do.

Just thinking out loud. Not interesting. I know. Witness what I have to endure everyday inside my head?

My sister, my niece, and I spent last Friday night at the W on Lake Shore Drive. I like when the three of us take mini-vacations and stay in different hotels or travel to the MOA. Good times.

The W features a bar area in the lobby of the hotel so I sort of felt like I was walking into a nightclub when going to check-in. The problem being that it was a sort of place I never would have gone to even in olden times when I may have gone places. I do not ever recall being surrounding by so many men drizzled, doused, and draped in cologne.

I saw this petite man wearing a white, three-piece suit. He wore his hair in a Mohawk which made it somewhat cooler. {*Weird to think there was a time people thought John Travolta was “cool.”}

While my sister worked out, my niece and I sat in the air-conditioned gym playing Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch on her computer. One of our “things” is playing Nancy Drew computer games, but we have just expanded and included the Mystery Case Files. I am definitely the greater addict (not surprisingly). Last night I started playing the Return to Ravenhearst and the next thing I notice is that it is 11:00 PM and almost time for Jimmy Fallon. Good times. Much better than having to read cases for classes. So tired of that gig. Maybe, though, in years to come I will view these times as “good times” once I acquire the advantage of time and hindsight to reach that epiphany.

So when my sister gets done with the elliptical trainer, we proceed back to our room. The gym area is quiet as it is almost 11 PM. There were two other guys using the treadmills and we surmised that they were members of the Mexican National Soccer Team. We were told that the Mexican national team members were staying in the hotel and we were not simply making random assumptions based on appearances. Some of the alleged players were taking pictures and signing autographs and I thought, why? If these guys weren’t wearing uniforms no one would have given them a second look. I was particularly taken by the fact that the players I saw were relatively small in stature, not unlike the petite man discussed previously.

The elevator stopped at the lobby and picked up some people who are going to the Whiskey Sky Bar on the 33rd floor. I feel uncomfortable in my clothes as I had been wearing them all day and a good part of that day was spent driving for several hours in my air-conditioning-less car. I should not speak ill of my car as she/he/it has stuck by me for twelve years, but come on, give a sweaty person a break. Her/his/its dark coloring sucks in even more heat than that which is provided by a ninety-plus day in urban traffic and I suffer the consequences, such as having to stand inside this elevator with fancy people smelling like the outside and feeling like an outsider. All that sweat and no physical benefits seems like such a waste.

Gratefully, we arrive to our floor, and walk to our corner room. The room smells great. Even better than the perfumed men discussed previously. The W provides the Bliss brand of toiletries and they make the room smell wonderful. The bathroom, though, is small and the architects placed a shuttered window in the wall which separates the sleeping area from the bathroom. Why the hell would anyone do that? I do not want to see or hear people using the bathroom nor do i want to be seen or heard. If the idea was one of aesthetics, just place the shutter on the wall and refrain from cutting out a chunk of wall shared by the sacred bathroom. the door to the bathroom is also shuttered, so seemingly, the W frowns upon bathroom privacy and has an affinity for shutters. Keep this in mind if you are staying here and act, behave, eat according to your own particular issues.

Hidden within this overly-long narration is my admission that I recognize how fortunate I am that I have these opportunities to spend precious time with my sister and niece and that I am very appreciative of this fortuitousness. She’s a good kid and an interesting person and she has made visible to me things my obscured vision has either hidden or made impossible to see due to my jaded perspective and current frame of reference.

I was parked by a vehicle whose personalized license plates spelled “CHACHI.” Joannie needs to move on.

Countdown for JF regarding the goal I set for her (and to Mr. T’s wedding): 85 days

The Onion gets it right

This reminds me of the boat song.