Pursuit #66: Going to Iran. Brb.

In this blog entry I described a warp zone (aka weird place) that I visited in the city of Mclean* for laser hair removal.

Well, it truly was a warp zone after all - I just noticed on the business card provided to me by the salon that the city name Mclean is misspelled as "Mclran."

Yep, we're talking q-u-a-l-i-t-y.


*technically it is spelled McLean with a big "L," but close enough for, you know, a business card and all.

Pursuit #65: Need to go on a diet?

Go to Mexico!!!

A little "Montezuma's Revenge" + scuba diving off a dingy in Playa del Carmen's choppy waters with strong current = everything inside of you will come outside!

Remember that scene in Stand By Me where the kid throws up after the pie-eating contest, starting a barf-o-rama of everyone throwing up all over? Yeah, that basically happened in Mexico on our dive boat. We like to call it "feeding the fish."

Pursuit #64: I'm a loser

I used to pride myself on the fact that I never lost anything. I was a vault. I was Sticky Fingers, in the non-klepto sense of the phrase. Now, I'm donning a "Michael look:" 

Michael Jackson cause I'm down to one leather glove

M.J. says all you need is one [glove]. I disagree. My other hand is cold.

  

and George Michael cause when I looked in the mirror today at work, I realized I only had one dangly earring on...in the left ear no less.

Unfortunately, G.M., I've lost faith that I'll find my other earring.

Maybe I'll invest in one of these. Or a velcro vest.

This all reminds me of something Molly once brought up. Haven't you ever wondered how a lone shoe on the side of the highway or a sock in the bushes ends up there? Where are the owners of these random articles of clothing and how did they end up in the Pollo Campero parking lot on a rainy Wednesday afternoon? "Clothes Not on People" is an interesting phenomenon. However, my recent loser-ness is helping me understand the lonely existence of such items and their plight. And I bet their owners are probably just as lonely without them...

Pursuit #63: Do all dogs really go to heaven?

I agree that (most) dogs are wonderful creatures. They are sweet, innocent animals that love you unconditionally and just want to be loved. But sometimes they are completely psychotic. I don't readily have access to Cesar Milan (aka The Dog Whisperer) or the British lady dog whisperer who looks like Sporty Spice. So what do I do?

I was told by the owner before she left town that one of her two smallish dogs doesn't like other dogs, so she just avoids other dogs. What she didn't mention was that this dog not only doesn't like other dogs, but doesn't like other humans, fire hydrants...or sounds for that matter. 


This morning's walk was going swimmingly, until a small unsuspecting toddler walked by with her father. The way the dog leapt at this small child and her father, you'd think they were made out of ham. There was gnashing of teeth, uncontrollable barking and me apologizing to the father while simultaneously trying to quell this furry beast that probably weighs all of 10 pounds. Another dog walked by on the other side of the parking lot, leading to another bout of insanity. At this point, I aborted the walk. 

When one lives in a giant apartment complex, how does one avoid any and all living things and inanimate objects? Something tells me this is impossible. Maybe these are just the classic symptoms of doggy cocaine use?

Looks innocent enough

When the crazy is unleashed

Pursuit #62: A whole lotta weird

today in a nutshell:

I also wouldn't be surprised if he speaks Klingon. My 4th visit to the chiropractor. He's quite the character. Mostly I just smile and nod as he quotes the Hippocratic Oath in some accent or says strange cliche phrases in other accents. He likes accents. 

Where the clippings went were of no concern to her...My daily visit to feed this lady's cat. The lady is at home recovering from surgery and can't bend over to feed the cat etc. which is where I come in. Some days she speaks of her crazy cousin who ransacked her apartment while she was in the hospital and bemoans the horrific threats that said cousin made towards aforementioned cat. Today she wanted me to clip her cat's toenails while she held him...in her bed.

We're talking Pantene Pro-V commercial silky smooth + KFC Colonel white. I had my first Albino sighting - an Asian albino child with the shiniest, whitest hair I'd ever seen. As Molly pointed out, not unlike that of Hulk Hogan (according to Sweet Dee on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

Not exactly the poster child for sound financial advice. I encountered a friend of my aunt's coworker who has done odd jobs for their office over the years. This nomadic (veritably homeless) man wearing a camouflage jacket and a long white scraggly beard (think Gandolf) told me about a "dog with a big vocabulary" and proceeded to dispense monetary advice to me as he watched the TV for the stock market update and discussed his plans for starting a fishing foundation in upstate NY. Also, he lives in his van.

Pursuit #61: Sigh. The trials and tribulations I must go through to preserve my vanity.

Sometimes when I go to restaurants or businesses in McLean, I feel like they are warp zones that whisk me away into some alter-reality. Like you walk inside and the people, atmosphere, scenery, and well everything just seems so un-McLean like and not AT ALL what you expected when you saw the outside of the building.

I entered one of these warp zones recently to undergo the cosmetological procedure of laser hair removal. Thank you, Groupon! But perhaps I shouldn't thank you just yet...

From the moment I walked into this warp zone, I knew my visit would not be normal - something about the smallness of the place, the lady who handed me a clipboard and showed me to the waiting room without asking me who I was or what I was there for, to the mother talking on her cell phone at eleventy billion decibels (in baby talk and Spanish no less) while being shushed by her high schooler daughter. It appeared that because of the popularity of their Groupon, this establishment is basically herding people through like cattle.

After everyone else in the waiting room had been cleared except for me, I was visited by the doctor slash owner. After awkwardly hovering over me, he joined me on the couch. He asked me my age, where I was from and what I was coming in for. Next, he gave me an egregious sales pitch about the other procedures they offer...based on my appearance. As he studied my face, he said I needed some injections under my eyes and around my mouth, as well as a laser to shrink the "really large" blood vessels under my eyes. Now I'm not a doctor like this guy, but I'm pretty sure the blood vessels near my eyeballs - you know the part of my body that helps me SEE - are pretty important and probably shouldn't be tampered with. He peppered in some additional remarks about some "red" areas ("Are those pimples?") on my face. It must have been Double Bonus Day in this warp zone: the deal on my procedure + an unsolicited/invasive free consultation! 

In addition to the above, there were uncomfortable bodily noises coming from this man during his speech and an awkward moment in the treatment room involving an open window and onlooking office buildings. Oh, Groupon, you sure know how to pick 'em!

Pursuit #60: Brain Wars

The psychiatrist asked his patient if he had trouble making decisions. The patient responded, "Well, doc, yes and no." That is me more often than I'd like to admit.

I am listening to a book on CD (aka the most convenient way to read these days). It is called How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. As someone who has OFTEN suffered from paralysis by analysis of mundane things like which cereal to buy (as the author mentioned prompted him to research the topic for this book) or difficult things like what to do with my life, I felt I needed to read this book. From it I found that in its "default" setting, your brain is basically at war with itself.

This is not a regular self-help book. The book discusses how the brain is ever soooooo complex, and therefore what goes on in it during different decision-making moments varies based on the type of decision you're trying to make. So there is no one tried and true method to decision-making that can be used across the board.  Our brain wars pit emotions v. rationality, our gut instincts v. our reasoned thoughts. However there are lots of different emotions involved coming from different brain areas. Our prefrontal cortex often tries to mediate and integrate all these emotions plus all the other information the brain is sending, so we can make a rational decision. But when we try to quiet the disquiet in our brains by shutting off one area in order to make a decision, we ignore certain emotions or override them completely and over-rationalize. And actually, it's our EMOTIONS that we should really be listening to when making complex decisions.

Our prefrontal cortices can only take in about 7 pieces of information at one time (7!), so it easily gets overwhelmed. No wonder I get stalled in trying to pick out cookies and cereal - there are waaay too many options for my brain to handle.

"Our emotional brain is actually much better at taking in lots and lots of information. Summarizing lots of data very efficiently, and saying, 'Here's a feeling. Don't worry about all the details. Here's a feeling. We've already taken those details into account.'"

The trick is trying to figure out what emotions to listen to in which situations. But armed with this information about the mechanics of my brain, how easily overwhelmed it can become by too much info, and how to trust my emotions then should make me a better decision-maker, yeah? Well, in reality it did - I actually was able to apply some of this self-knowledge of my brain and emotions to decide to make a big change in my life (grad school!). And for once, I really think it's the right one!


Q&A with the Author on Amazon
NPR interview with the author
CBS News article about the author/book