You know who I feel sad for?
The guy who sits in the office across from me, who keeps leaving the bowl of chocolate candies unattended on his desk, always returning to find the combined height of the candies significantly lowered.
I’m sorry, Matthew Calder.
You know who I feel happy for?
That tall guy I had sex with two weeks ago, who has officially managed to sidestep the fatherhood of my child.
Congratulations, Nick Last Name Unknown.
The leaves are changing color here in Seattle. It’s my first time living in a city with seasons; it’s my first time watching the leaves change. I’d always imagined that all the leaves on a tree changed together. As the leaves on the top yellowed, so would the leaves on the bottom, on the right and on the left. That’s not the case. The leaves change in patches. Little clumps of the tree ripple into pure yellows and oranges and reds while the rest of it stays green, waiting for its turn. I assume this has something to do with the sun, but I can’t pinpoint what. For the first time in my life, I wish I’d paid more attention in biology. Mental note to ask smarty-pants biologist sister about the leaf patches.
I went running with Trisha today. It’s cold now, the kind of cold that changes the way your lungs feel when you breathe. It happened quickly. Overnight, really. We’re on mile one of a three-mile jog around Green Lake. I tell her what I noticed about the leaves and how fascinating I find them. “It’s nice that the leaves change,” says Trisha. “It kind of helps ease the transition into winter.”
We’re approaching mile two when I feel my legs start to give out. They’re weakening in the thighs and calves, burning and threatening to quit altogether. I can still breathe fine. Not easy, certainly, but my aerobic system is holding its own. My legs are giving out before my lungs.
I’m fourteen years old and I play on my high school’s freshmen girls basketball team. It’s a huge high school and the athletic teams are fiercely competitive. The coach kicks our ass every day. He makes us run up and down and up and down and up and down the court until we don’t think we can breathe anymore. I complain to my dad about this, and, in a style typical of my father, he consoles me by determining that we will now be going on long runs each weekend. “I’ll make those practices seem easy,” he says. And he drags me out into the Arizona sun time after time and jogs me along the gray faded tar of our neighborhood’s streets. “The goal,” he tells me, “is for your legs to give out before your lungs.”
A month later, I transfer high schools and have to quit the basketball team. It’s too late for me to get a spot on the team at my new school. I replace weekend jogs with weekend partying and eventually take up smoking cigarettes. Over the course of the next decade, running will play a periodic role in my life. It will pop in and out unexpectedly and in varying degrees of intensity, like a long-estranged parent. There will be months when I run miles and miles without stopping and there will be years when I don’t run at all. Cigarettes will remain a steady and dependable source of nurture. At no point will my legs give out before my lungs.
I quit smoking cigarettes at the beginning of August, diligently applying nicotine patches to my chest until I felt I could go it alone. I haven’t had a single cigarette since. And today, for the first time in my long and bitter relationship with running, my legs gave out before my lungs.
I stopped and walked for thirty seconds to give my legs some time to heal, then started up again. Trisha and I ran the three miles in around half an hour. The goal, eventually, is to complete a half-marathon. There’s obviously some room for improvement. My legs need to get stronger, and probably my abdomen, too. I need to be more focused mentally and prepared to deal with physical discomfort and pain without panicking. I need to make huge improvements to my aerobic capacity. In short, I need to transition from the person I am today into a person who can run thirteen miles. But it doesn’t all have to happen right now; I can change in patches, too, and each patch will help ease the transition.
Took a friend to her mammogram this morning. Her gyno had found a lump and asked her to get it checked out. She’s been freaking out about it, understandably, and asked me to tag along for moral support. When we entered the lobby of the medical office, they had a copy of some old-people magazine like Adult Living or some shit, and I tried to distract her while we waited by making up amusing stories about all the photos of geriatrics arm-wrestling and what-not.
This is the text message conversation we had after she went in to see the doctor.
Emily: Mammo done waiting for them to come talk to me … K now I’m a lil scared.
me: It will be fine baby!!! Whatever happens is exactly what is supposed to happen. U will get thru it no matter what.
Emily: Okay you’re right but this sucks.
me: Just picture old people having oral sex & you’ll smile
Emily: THANKS SASH!!!!
See? I always know the right thing to say in a crisis.
The good news: Her scan was clean. She’s fine.
The bad news: The lump is the result of excess fatty tissue in her breasts. I have changed her name in my cell phone to “Fatty Boobs,” and that is what I will be calling her for the remainder of our friendship, which I expect will, consequently, be brief.
Ya know, whether or not he’s the right man for the job, he does have a daughter named Sasha. And it occurs to me tonight that if lands in the White House, my name might become all trendy and shit, and every knocked-up 17-year-old from the projects is gonna be all like, “Ya know, I’m gonna name her Sasha. Like Barack’s baby girl,” and every fancy-pants Democrat yuppie starter wife is gonna be all like, “Ya know, I’m gonna name her Sasha, like Barack Obama’s daughter,” and every suburban housewife who dreams of something bigger is gonna be all like, “Ya know, I’m gonna name her Sasha, like Michelle Obama did with her daughter,” and then Jamie-Lynn Spears is gonna be all like, “Ya know, I’m gonna name her Sasha, because it’s spelled just like it sounds.”
The whole country’s just going to be suddenly saturated by Sashas, little Sasha toddlers in too-big bows and bleached-white booties, lugging around blankies and bottles and the rapidly moribund dreams from their fathers, every drop of them diluting my name.
I’m gripped by a sudden panic.
This cannot be allowed to happen.
He has to be stopped.
McCain ‘08.
… appears to be a wise course of action, at least from a financial standpoint. After this incident, I got this in my Yelp message box (my first Yelp message! I am such an involved consumer!):
Sarah,
I am so sorry to hear that you were not happy with our recent carpet cleaning service. We strive to do quality work and it is very disappointing when we do not meet a customer’s expectations.
I realize you have said you would not use D. A. Burns again but if you ever were to change your mind we would gladly apply the money you have paid us toward that future service, whether it be carpet, area rug or upholstery cleaning. Please feel free to contact me if you choose to take us up on that offer.
Thank you for your consideration.
Mike [Last Name Removed]
General Manager, D. A. Burns & Sons, Inc.
206-[removed]
[removed]@daburns.com
My name is not Sarah (not even in my Yelp profile!), and he’s correct in that I’m not going to use their service again, but if you live in the Seattle area and want a free (and ineffective!) carpet cleaning, go ahead and give Mike at D.A. Burns a call, and let him know you’re that pissed-off girl from the Internet. No, no, not the one from Match. No, her lawyers have advised her not to contact you further. You’ll get your anal beads back once the evidence room is done with them.
Very impressed with DHL’s telephone customer service.
They detected my phone number from my phone call, and, although I talked to multiple people, I was never asked the same question twice. All the information I’d provided to person one transferred, along with my call, to person two. When I made a simple, easily implementable request, it was immediately agreed to. I never once had to repeat myself.
Honestly, that was all it took for me to describe the entire customer service experience as “blissful.” I was blown away. Stunned. I felt like I was floating, weightless, through customer service heaven. Like, “Wait a minute, you don’t want me to repeat my phone number? And my address? And confirm the last four digits of my social security number for the 18th time? And sing the second verse of the Full House theme song or else?”
It all worked just the way it would had it been designed by a rational person.
Why is this model so difficult for every other company to replicate?
