My friend Erin recently spent 6 weeks in China and Tibet doing an internship in oriental medicine. She had a fantastic time, and came back with one main piece of advice:
Don't take yourself too seriously.
Just to be sure I got the message, life conjured up a lovely little reality check for me last Thursday. My friend Carlos and I had plans to see this tokaido japanese drumming group perform at the Texas Union ballroom. We were waiting to cross Martin Luther King, one of the main streets near the UT campus, when a truck full of construction-type guys drove by and honked. I automatically assumed they were honking at me, and started complaining about how people have no respect for pedestrians and we are not just nice pieces of ass to be gawked at on the street.
Carlos cracked up and said, "Ali, they were honking at the bus." Apparently a city bus was taking forever to move and I missed it all because I was facing the oncoming traffic and ranting about the men in the truck.
Sigh. Nothing like a good, sound reality check every once in a while. I did laugh really hard, though, to the point that my stomach hurt. And I think Carlos was entertained as well.
Well, I'm running around today trying to do as many errands as possible before it starts to rain. Highlights on my list include:
- buy lots and lots of moving boxes
- drop off dry cleaning
- apply for health insurance in Mozambique
- find a fax machine to use now that I've quit my job
- return a million phone calls and e-mails
- go to Nia
- walk to the convenience store on the corner in hopes that somebody will honk at me and my self-esteem will be redeemed!
2 comments:
Ha ha ha! I do that all the time - and I really mean it - NYC is full of the honker. And sometimes they are honking at me... to get out of the way! -- Colleen
Its times like this that Dr. Dre, the prophet, takes my breath away w/ his future telling music videos:
"Man, that's not the po-lice. That's a bus."
"Man, that's a bus full of po-lice."
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