Dichroic Reflections

daily dissonances and delights

Dissonances

• People who leave public toilet seats wet. (Ewww)


• People who don't care about spelling and grammar in professional documents. (I knew one woman who'd sit there and correct spelling and punctuation in every defect report when she ran the review meetings. I have a sneaking sympathy, but I'd have just fixed the darn things, rather than make 6-10 people sit in a meeting and watch me do it.)


• Wakes from coaching launches, when I'm rowing in a tippy single. It's even worse when they nearly run us over because they aren't looking where they're going.


• People and systems who try to shoehorn the infinite variety of humanity into a few labels.


• Anyone who holds meetings at 8AM Monday or 4PM Friday.


• People who joke with me then think I'm taking them literally when I respond with a straight face to continue the joke. (Apparently my straight face is *too* straight.)


• A certain occasional coworker who always seems to be implying I'm useless and incompetent. (I might be misjudging him but the phrase that keeps coming to mind is "Grrr, there, go. Water your flowerbeds, do."


• People who have long or frequent cellphone conversations while driving. I understand you might need to call and say "There's a horrible traffic jam here -- don't take this road," and that it's difficult to pull off for the call in said jam, but that's a 30-second conversation, with no hand-waving required, which is not what I'm seeing on the road.


• Extremely hot weather, especially when it lasts for months and months and months.


• Cats who sit on the mouse or walk over the keyboard when I'm on the computer.


• Sports bras whose designers didn't take the possibility of having to fit over & around actual muscles into account. Because really, who would think a woman might be doing sports in her athletic gear?

Delights

Sunrises over water. (Sunsets, too, but I'm less likely to be on the water for those.)

The view over the desert I gat on my way to work.

Rudder's skin.

The feel and smell of baby hair

Books good enough to reread imediately after the first reading. Seems like I used to find a lot more of these, probably a combination of being less critical and having more free time.

Online journals/diaries/blogs, which I see as windows into other peoples lives and thoughts.

Online discussion groups, because until I joined my first one (late 1980s) I only knew a few people in real life who shared my more obscure interests. Then I left college and "only a few" became "no one local", even when the obscure interests were not really all that obscure (books not on the bestseller lists and folk music, for two), so the discussion groups became more important to me.

Empathetic cats

Full bookshelves, especially when they contain things I haven't read yet

Getting my hair cut, especially the scalp massage part.

And speaking of massage.... er, massages.

My pretty boat

Public libraries. What a civilized and brilliant idea.

Driving with the top down.

The rumbling of a low bass voice, like Stan Rogers or Gordon Bok.

Wind. Water. (As in large bodies of, not running from the showerhead. Then again....)

Hot showers when I'm cold. Hot tubs are even better. With snow around.

Thunderstorms.

The smell of the desert after rain.

Posted by dichroic at May 13, 2004 03:18 PM