Day 96 Scary Eyes
Sniffy Snifferson was back in class today. Really, there’s something wrong with a person who’s so oblivious. Lest you think I’m psycho-reactive, I wasn’t the only one annoyed, as I heard a few other pointed huffs and ahems. To no avail, though.
As I attempted to reach a Zen-like state of non-attachment to my sniff-free existence, it occurred to me that I probably have habits, tics if you will, that annoy others. “No!” I hear you protesting. “Not you!”
Nonetheless, I have to consider it. Unlikely, to be sure, but within the realm of possibility.
“I thought I saw you in Home Depot today,” said Randee as I swiped my pass card. “I tried to say hi, but you looked… busy.”
Why is it always that just when you’re at your smelliest, dirtiest, wearing garden-clothes and that horrible hat, that you run into someone you know? Of course, they recognize you despite the hat, sunglasses and the massive grunge, which makes you a little nervous because shouldn’t that be just a bit of a disguise? Or is that your baseline and you just don’t realize it?
“You looked a little… intense,” Randee added.
And there it was, the thing I do without realizing it. My kids call it “scary eyes” and it happens when I’m in a hurry and annoyed with people who have mnemonics up in their staff room to improve their customer service, but cannot in fact, put their snazzy little rhyme to practical use.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “I was trying to buy bark mulch and it wasn’t going well.”
No less than six people attempted to assist me in putting a bulk order through, a procedure we’d been assured a few months ago would be “no problem.” In the end, after about fifteen minutes cooling my heels, I was told they’d have to look into it and call me back.
So yeah, I had my scary eyes on. What can I say. At least I wasn’t sniffing.
Day 93 What’s That Smell??
Hot yoga is hell on the laundry schedule. Every class means one large towel, plus a hand towel, and one entire outfit – top, bottom, underwear, headband. Also I usually have a third towel for the car, so I don’t soak up the upholstery.
On the days my daughters join me it means an instant mountain of drench-n-stench in the laundry room. Of course, I toss it in the washer right away – when I can. But I’m not the only one who does laundry in the house (thank god) so sometimes the machines are in use. Then, the towels have to sit there, emanating their funk. Imagine those cartoon wavy lines of stink rising up into the air, creeping up the stairs, ghostlike, until they’ve infiltrated every room in the house.
Now, I’d like to point out that one of the lesser-known side effects of menopause is an increased sensitivity to odours. Which is fine when you suspect a gas leak. But it seems I’m always asking “What’s that smell?” or “Can’t you smell that?” until people just tell me to shut up. Which makes me doubt myself.
I should know better.
Back to laundry. Since the laundry room also houses the litter boxes (two of them; we’ve also got another set upstairs. Four cats, sigh.) it’s not a happy room for me. To make matters worse, the garbage cans into which the used litter is dumped is just around the corner, in the garage. It’s a trifecta of gag-orific odours congregating in about 25 square feet. The girls are very good about staying on top of the litter boxes, rather than face the wrath of my nose. But still.
So, yesterday I noticed that the mat in front of the stairs just outside the laundry room looked a little murky. I got down on my hands-and-knees, turned it over and picked up the unmistakeable slap of ammonia.
Cat piss. I knew it! I knew I’d been smelling something more than my own mouldering, sweaty yoga duds. The cat in question has a history of such transgressions, but she’s been good lately. Or so we thought. Or maybe it’s one of the others, letting her take the rap.
I got out a bucket of Mr. Clean and channeled my disgust into adiosing every iota of cat urine out of the tile. And the grout. And the wall. And that thing at the bottom of the door that keeps out drafts. And the baseboard.
But it’s like trying to unring a bell. Once cat urine gets in a wall, can you ever really get it out? Even if I succeed, I’ll have the olfactory memory forever. Is it real? Is it my imagination? Does it matter?
So I’m employing a product called Nature’s Miracle Urine Destroyer, Just for Cats. Nature’s Miracle is a staple in our house, and it really does work. But the cat urine variation was news to me.
I’ve soaked the affected area and you know what? It smells better already.
Day 91 Q: Who’s the Hero of Your Story?
A: Obviously, each of us is the Hero of our own story. When I say Hero, I mean Heroine, Protagonist, Main Character, Star of the Show, Point-of-View Character, Dude, The Big Guy, Harry Potter. The one who owns the story.
You, in your show. Me, in mine.
But some of us forget that sometimes. We get stuck in Best Supporting roles. (Not really, of course, because the camera of our lives is still focused squarely on us. It just seems that way in our own dumb little minds.) What happens, I think, is that it’s easy to slip into a passive role, to let events happen, rather than take action to direct those events.
Good stories have main characters we root for, because they are active, decisive. They act on their own behalf. (That’s why they call them “actors.”)
We can’t help but be the Hero of our own story. Whoever owns the show is the main character. Period. Real life heroes are also active; they live on their own behalf. (Yet we don’t call them “livers.” Hm.)
As you may have guessed, I’ve just returned from another day with Michael Hauge, talking about story structure, the inner and outer journeys traveled by characters over the course of a movie or novel. After the talk concluded, he challenged us as writers – and as evolving human beings – to ask ourselves the same question we must pose to our characters.
What is the next specific, significant step I can take
on my journey to my goal?
Then, fill in the blank:
“I’ll do whatever it takes to (insert the step identified above)
but just don’t ask me to ________.
This blank is the thing that stands in our way, it’s the thing keeping us from finding our True Selves, going from Identity to Essence, from immature to differentiated, child to adult, asleep to awake, pathetic orphan to best-ever wizard, etc. There are all sorts of psychological explanations for this process, but I think we all understand the concept. There’s the ordinary people we are in our ordinary lives; and then there’s that potential to be extraordinary that lies within each of us.
Hero material. We’ve all got it.
We just have to get out of our own way.