Dressing Like a Pro

(sidebar: A google search for 'dressing like a p-' leads to autocomplete suggestions of dressing like a professor, prostitute, and playboy bunny. What is this world coming to?)

The past few days has been the annual research meeting for health services research. At the sessions, I try my best, like the rest of my peers, to act professionally (wear heels), to network (gross), and connect with former colleagues (ask Doc Query about his kids' birthday parties). It all starts with the idea that if I dress the part, then I will act and feel the part. Unfortunately, looking nice in dresses seems to be the only thing I'm successful in.

Scenario 1: On the way to the restroom, I spot Advisor Who and Doc Nice, each engrossed in separate conversations. I mean to say hi to either, but seeing that it was too complicated to butt in, merely walk around them to head for the restroom, only to be called out:

Who: Is that who I think it is? You didn't just sneak by your mentor- your two mentors- without saying hello to either of us?

Moi: Uh... hello. (introduce myself to person he was talking to) 

Who: Were you heading somewhere?

Moi: Uh... bathroom? But I'd much rather stand here and talk with you two.

Person: The moment has passed?

Who: It depends.

(a thousand eye rolls)

Scenario 2: A group of us pile into the hotel elevator.  Half of us are heading up to a Hopkins reception, the other half, including Former Prof Not Atul, are not.

Moi: Sorry [Not Atul], this is a Hopkins-only event.

Not Atul: That's OK.  I understand.  It's for the few and the proud.

[Ilene commentary: This is where you should have stopped, but no, you had to mumble.]

Moi: (largely to myself and Ilene)  I'm starving.

Not Atul: What's that?

Moi: Oh... nothing.  I just said I'm starving.  I didn't mean for everyone to hear.

Not Atul: (loudly, to the whole elevator) She's starving, you guys, did you catch that?

Scenario 3: To meet up with Whitecastle for lunch, I patiently wait for him to field many questions and meet many people after his session.

Moi: I feel like a groupie.

Whitecastle: You sort of are.

A Case of the Tuesdays

Let's make this easy and just run through a list of graceful things that I did today:

-During a conference session, dropped Laura's poster tube on the ground, thereby causing a loud "thud" to reverberate throughout the room.

 -Got slightly lost leading Whitecastle to Alewife, causing both of us to walk an extra 3 blocks in the 90 degree weather (he was wearing a suit, and constantly aired his displeasure-- as he often is).

-Lost my grasp of the cabdriver's change, leading a dollar bill to fly away from my hand and down the sidewalk (and was luckily saved by a nearby construction worker).

 It has not been a smooth morning. In fact, it has been a hectic few days. Walking around with Laura's poster (while I didn't have anything to present myself) certainly didn't help.

 Whitecastle: So you had a poster here?

 Moi: No.

Whitecastle: You were just carrying a poster?

Moi: I can see how that would be confusing to you- but yes.

Thomases

This morning, I met up with Dwighters at what he described as "the courtyard on Dartmouth."  Having walked down Dartmouth Street a hundred times, I knew that there was no courtyard there.  Just a few paltry trees outside the mall where people sat and milled around as they waited for rides.  However, considering that Dwighters would be attending graduate school at Harvard this fall, I took him at his word and believed that maybe, just maybe, a new courtyard had sprouted on Dartmouth since I moved away 2 years ago.

That was not the case.  I found Dwighters sitting by a lonely little tree, sans bench, sans flowers, and right by the busy street. 

Moi: This is not a courtyard.

Dwighters: (motions to sign next to him)

(sign reads "Dartmouth Courtyard")

Moi: This felt like a set up.

Courtyard designations was the only thing we cast doubt on this morning.  There were lots of things to be skeptical of.

(later, leaving breakfast)

Moi: There was a long line for the bathroom.  This dude came out and apologized, he said, "I'm sorry I took so long in there.  I had an emergency-

Dwighters: I don't want to know-

Moi: Exactly.  But he said, I had an emergency contact situation.  I was so relieved.  It was the best possible emergency to have in a bathroom.

Dwighters: Likely story.

Moi: But he had a solution bottle and everything.

Dwighters: You carry around a bottle and suddenly everyone's gullible.   

Silent Alarms

My Big Cousin, who has moved all the way across the world (back) to Taiwan, brought his brood back for a rare visit to the east coast last week.  I've been lucky enough to spend some time with them all the past few days (and my own folks).  They left early this morning, at 3am, to catch a flight to Cali.  The Parents set their alarm for 3am to send them off.  

The first trouble with that logic is that they left at 3am.  

The second trouble is the assumption that one would be able to wake up at 3am to send them off.

Father has just roused himself out of bed, minutes after the departure, to check out what has transpired.  

"I guess they were pretty stealthy and quiet."

And Mother is still asleep.

Spreading the Clap

My wonderful big brother has done gone made this video.  It's hard not to smile at this.  It's even harder not to be proud of him.  The goal is that this video keeps spreading so that he becomes famous enough to score me some Parks & Rec connections.  He is not aware of this plan yet.  Watch and enjoy.

Mission Accomplished

Every summer, I feel compelled to go through what I term "Operation Attention Span."  After too many skimmed abstracts, half read papers, and Times articles read during lecture, after too many decompression sitcoms and youtube videos, I feel the need to learn how to behave like a proper, educated adult again, to read magazine pieces in one sitting, hold proper conversations without chatting on instant message, and perhaps read a book or two.

With a cold to nurse (thanks, Immune System, you have the best timing!) and no work this weekend (rather, no motivation to work), I dipped my toes of the endeavor yesterday afternoon and managed to read Much Ado About Nothing in one sitting.  What little progress that slim play was though, took a step backward in the evening as I managed to simultaneously keep my eyes on the Sox-Yankees game, the Bruins-Penguins game, a random movie on Comedy Central, as well as several games of Sudoku.  Not attention span's best moment.

Still fighting the cold today, I decided the gradual approach wasn't going to work and instead, since I was taking a sick day anyway, devoted myself to the copy of Cutting for Stone that had been sitting on my shelf the past few months, waiting for a moment such as this.  I finished all 657 pages today (paperback version- I imagine the hardcopy has fewer pages).  Congratulations.  I think my attention span is back.  I also think I need a more exciting life.