Due to the heat, ants are appearing en mass in various parts of the house. While performing extermination a few days ago, some ants crawled up my legs in an unsuccessful attempt to escape their fate.
Since that time, random ants have appeared on my legs. I'd kill the one I see and conduct fruitless searches for others. A few hours later, in a different part of the house, another ant would appear without any cohorts in sight.
I am confounded by how a single ant would find its way onto my leg without a line of others in view. Did it drop in on a solo kamikaze mission? Or have a group of them somehow set up camp between my toes?
24 August 2008
15 August 2008
gymtiquette
I joined a gym. Now I have access to all sorts of machines and equipment, 24 hours a day. That last detail is really important because there are times when I jerk awake in the middle of the night, and all I want to do is hop on a treadmill or work my deltoids.
The gym is its own world, with its own set of rules. There are the obvious ones. Don't stay on a machine for 2 hours when others are waiting. Don't leave your towel and gym bag and water bottle all over the floor. Wipe up after yourself. Then there are the less obvious, unspoken ones that I, for one, believe should be strictly enforced. My personal addendum to the posted rules:
Thongs are wrong. The whole point of being at the gym is to move rapidly and create friction with your parts. Thongs are especially wrong when you're a male aerobics instructor and an entire class of innocent people can't help but notice the sweat tracks on your backside.
Apply makeup after the workout. Foundation + eye shadow + blush + perspiration = swirly colors. Impressionism belongs in museums.
Apply cologne after the workout. Your sweat is stink enough. Don't make it worse.
Learn to read headphones. If you speak to someone wearing headphones and he/she removes them to listen to you, chat away. If he/she listens to you but keeps the headphones in, wrap it up ASAP. If he/she keeps the headphones in and squints and gestures and points to the headphones to suggest he/she is unable to hear you, stop talking and scram.
Swallow. I'm nearly certain this rule is only necessary at gyms frequented by immigrant Asians, but do not -- doooooo NOT -- hock loogies into a cup while you walk/jog on the treadmill.
The gym is its own world, with its own set of rules. There are the obvious ones. Don't stay on a machine for 2 hours when others are waiting. Don't leave your towel and gym bag and water bottle all over the floor. Wipe up after yourself. Then there are the less obvious, unspoken ones that I, for one, believe should be strictly enforced. My personal addendum to the posted rules:
Thongs are wrong. The whole point of being at the gym is to move rapidly and create friction with your parts. Thongs are especially wrong when you're a male aerobics instructor and an entire class of innocent people can't help but notice the sweat tracks on your backside.
Apply makeup after the workout. Foundation + eye shadow + blush + perspiration = swirly colors. Impressionism belongs in museums.
Apply cologne after the workout. Your sweat is stink enough. Don't make it worse.
Learn to read headphones. If you speak to someone wearing headphones and he/she removes them to listen to you, chat away. If he/she listens to you but keeps the headphones in, wrap it up ASAP. If he/she keeps the headphones in and squints and gestures and points to the headphones to suggest he/she is unable to hear you, stop talking and scram.
Swallow. I'm nearly certain this rule is only necessary at gyms frequented by immigrant Asians, but do not -- doooooo NOT -- hock loogies into a cup while you walk/jog on the treadmill.
11 August 2008
love thy enemies (or become them)
About two years ago, I met and chatted with a woman who was finishing law school and looking forward to using her degree and skills to serve the poor, to do justice. Her idealism and enthusiasm were infectious. Naivete be damned, I thought. I felt excited with her and for her.
I talked with this woman again recently, after she had been working the job she had wanted. She seemed unable to speak of her opponents in an inherently adversarial system with anything short of venom and judgment. In stark black-and-white terms, she raged against her opponents' inability to see shades of grey. She depicted the truthfulness of her clients as a given even as she railed against her opponents' failure to doubt the honesty of their witnesses. More than anything else, she appeared tired and frustrated.
The extent to which her passion and idealism had taken on such angry and bitter tones surprised and saddened me. As I replayed portions of our conversation, this passage (and this movie) came to mind. Perhaps we are called to love our enemies not because God has a particular penchant for group hugs; nor is it a challenge for its own sake. Perhaps we are so called because our hate for our enemies has the tendency to make us in their image, to cause us to use noble ends to justify questionable means, to transform us into the object of our own wrath and judgment. Hate begets more hate and, ultimately, defeat. Love - as both the means and the end - frees us to simply do right the best we know how, and surrender judgment of good and evil to the One who causes the sun to rise and the rains to fall on both the same.
I talked with this woman again recently, after she had been working the job she had wanted. She seemed unable to speak of her opponents in an inherently adversarial system with anything short of venom and judgment. In stark black-and-white terms, she raged against her opponents' inability to see shades of grey. She depicted the truthfulness of her clients as a given even as she railed against her opponents' failure to doubt the honesty of their witnesses. More than anything else, she appeared tired and frustrated.
The extent to which her passion and idealism had taken on such angry and bitter tones surprised and saddened me. As I replayed portions of our conversation, this passage (and this movie) came to mind. Perhaps we are called to love our enemies not because God has a particular penchant for group hugs; nor is it a challenge for its own sake. Perhaps we are so called because our hate for our enemies has the tendency to make us in their image, to cause us to use noble ends to justify questionable means, to transform us into the object of our own wrath and judgment. Hate begets more hate and, ultimately, defeat. Love - as both the means and the end - frees us to simply do right the best we know how, and surrender judgment of good and evil to the One who causes the sun to rise and the rains to fall on both the same.
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