You’re the reason why scooter and motorcycle accidents are up in Nashville. I hope you made it to work a few minutes early as you sped around me with tires screeching. Seeing how I was only going the speed limit or 5 mph over, on a residential thoroughfare, I could see how I was really holding you up. However, I have my doubts that it did you much good because a mile later you were still only 2 cars ahead of me. Too bad those cars weren’t skinnier, because I’m sure that would’ve given you room to cut the corner around them too.

Seriously people. I understand that it sometimes looks like scooters are going slower than the speed limit, but unless I make a mistake and head down Franklin Rd (which I’ve done once), I’m always going the speed limit or above. I could barely see this bitch in my rear view mirrors because she was so close. I was really hoping I’d see her pull into my same parking building, so I could say this to her face, but she sped by the entrance heading to West End. I purposefully stay away from the main roads to avoid jerks like her, but she was on my turf this time. It just really pisses me off.

And besides, who wants to be the woman on the news who hit a girl on a scooter because she was following too closely, or was so impatient she had to speed around her while making a left-hand turn? That move may have saved her 20 seconds on her commute, but I highly doubt it was worth it. Amazingly enough, I wasn’t the only one going close to the speed limit in a residential neighborhood and she just had to get up on someone else’s ass a few seconds later. Well done.

Some relatively distant co-workers told me today that I gave a good presentation in our Operations Meeting. Yay!

As I mentioned in a recent post, I take the shuttle back and forth to campus multiple times a day and there are sometimes some very interesting conversations going on. Usually about people’s weekend activities or the buzz around campus, but nothing ever too private. To add a little perspective, the seating in the shuttle is two long rows down each side of the bus, so its not like people sit in their own rows and can control how loudly they talk. Pretty much, if you have a conversation, you should expect that everyone can hear it.

So, on the way back to my office today, a couple people were talking about their grad school classes and other benign topics, but then switched to talking about some interviews the man had recently conducted. The woman obviously knew what the position was and had an option about who should fill that spot. Then, they actually start using FULL NAMES of employees who have interviewed and how they think they would do. Normally I wouldn’t say anything, but after they mentioned a friend of mine’s name, I really couldn’t help myself. After all, we are supposed to uphold a certain “credo” at Vanderbilt and you really just don’t need to be talking like that.

I leaned over and said, in what I thought was a nice, quiet voice, “this probably isn’t a conversation you really want to have on the shuttle”. Well. You’d think I’d asked the woman to take off all her clothes and dance around the parking lot. The look she gave me was a mix of incredulousness and shock. I felt like I had to defend myself immediately and I just said, “you know, about interviews and stuff”. And she goes “Oh, well, we work on the same team so….”. I thought for a moment and then said, “Well, you never know who is listening and all I’m saying is you probably don’t want to mention people’s names in this kind of atmosphere”. She continued to look at me like I was completely out of my mind and “who was I?” to say something to her.

I can understand the defensiveness one instinctively gets when someone you don’t know challenges whatever you’re doing. Even if you’re in the wrong, you feel like somehow the other person as wronged you. That woman is probably telling all her office mates about a nosy goodie-two-shoes who chastised her on the shuttle. And I thought far enough ahead to consider that might actually happen, but ran the risk anyway. This really was inappropriate! If they hadn’t used people’s names, I wouldn’t have said anything, but, come on! Right!?

It doesn’t seem like a whole year since I wrote this post, but it appears another year has passed. In keeping with my little tradition, here’s another story about my dad.

My dad was a member of many social groups, one of them being the Elks Club. Yearly they would have variety shows at Christmas time. I don’t remember everything but I remember this one skit where my dad played the part of this guy who was peeing in the bathroom and ran into one of those typical awkward situations while peeing. Like I said, I don’t remember the details, I just remember being very embarrassed that my dad was supposed to be peeing on stage, like it was a really shocking event. He didn’t mind making a fool of himself, though, if it meant it would make a room full of people laugh till they cried.

Another small memory: my dad’s impatience for wait staff was on the verge of embarrassing. If he felt like we weren’t being served fast enough or given enough attention, he would take his napkin and wave it over his head to get the server’s attention. Yeah.

It does make me a little sad that I only have a few select memories. On the upside, almost all of them involve laughter, culture, charity or the mix of all three. If I leave lasting impressions on my future children, I hope they are made of the same components.

On a 2nd (or 1st or 3rd) date, don’t mention my obsession with “Gossip Girl”, either the TV series or the books series. Noted.

Some times I do stupid shit, not because I think I’ll enjoy it, but because deep down I know I’ll be able to tell someone who appreciates how stupid it was. Well, now that I work in an office of one instead of eight, I don’t really have anyone to tell! So I’m going to bore the general public with my stupid story.

It’s really not that exciting…that’s why it’s stupid.

My new office is about 1 mile from the main campus, so I take a shuttle back and forth multiple times a day, depending on how many meetings I have on campus. The shuttle ride takes about 10 minutes to get there, but like 20 minutes to get back because of all the stops. I had just missed the 12:15 shuttle from campus and decided, you know what, I’m gonna walk. I know its hot, I know I’m wearing business-casual attire, but I have on comfortable shoes and I don’t have another meeting until 3pm so I can handle being a little sweaty for a bit.

So, I did. And I am. Sweaty. Very. Like a slick pig. And it only took me 25 minutes, only FIVE minutes longer than the shuttle. The cool, air conditioned, cushy seated shuttle. Yeah….