Prom Dress Magic

If you think wearing a prom dress to prom was exciting, try wearning one today, out to a party. i went to a costumish-party last night with two other prom queens and six cowgirls. Heads turned. My theory is that 98% of us all got pumped through the same spaghetti factory during our high school education. Prom happened to everyone one of us -- less as an event than as a set of ideas and expectations. People see you in a dress from 1997 and all that comes up again. However, my junior year of high school I was a tee-tottaler and I wore silver sandals instead of flip flops with my dress. I had also bothered to go out and get one of those tape on bras, which arose the continuous curiosity of my just-as-friends 6'7" date who kept looking down my dress to try to figure out what the heck was going on. There is a gleaming slick spot on the ceiling of my parents' family room where this date, along with my friend Lisa's (the one who had told me about stick-on bras) date had uncorked a rambunctious bottle of alcohol-free champange. After prom some of us came back to my house and took the purity test until another friend's date answered "no" to the question, "have you ever had an erection," at which point things got awkward.
Which is all to say, wearing a poofy yellow taffeta dress with rhinestones on the shoulders to an adult party last night was amazing. No silly theme to abide by (my senior year was, "My heart will go on," blech!), no "him" to worry about, no corsage to lose its pertness, and friends who actually know how to do an updo. All the frolic without the fuss, and as I am a fan of frolic and an enemy of fuss it did me well. Maybe I'll even put some pictures on my blog, who knows.

Some Awards to Hand Out

I spend a lot of my commute time on Seattle buses between my apartment, downtown, and the U-district. So do a lot of other people. Quite a few of these people are strange. On my bus home tonight a man turned to his female friend behind him to say it was time for them to get off. In answer, she placed a handful of off-the-carcas cooked chicken in his gloved and beckoning hand. He flung the chicken chunk at the wall of the bus. They got off the bus and I watched them make out in the bus shelter as the rest of us rode away with the scent of a slow grocery store roaster.

This vignette reminded me that I can't say goodbye to the old year until I have paid tribute to some of my most memorable Metro experiences of 2005. So here goes:

Most Heartwarming

I got on a nearly empty seventy-something to go home after a late library night. No one was in the front of the bus except for a boy who looked younger than the 11 o'clock hour. My public health paranoia instantly sent shivers of, "this isn't good" up my instinct. Turns out, the kid was just along for a long transportation tour of the town. I had sat close enough to both boy and driver to hear their conversation. "Mr Driver, can you tell me again about how the buses have such big tires?" "Well, Little Fella, bus tires weigh more than twice as much as regular tires. And we have to have a special wrench at the bus shop just to put them on!" "Really? Wow!" They kept this up in same '50s prime-time sepia tones for my full 10 minute ride. Maybe it was bring your little fella to work day. Anyway, made me happy.

Most Heartwrenching

Going to work on first hill I sat in front of two girls with lots a piercings and lots of ragged layers of clothes. One girl was telling the other about how she had tried to stay in rehab, but she didn't see her friends when she stopped using crack. She knew she was hurting herself, but doing drugs was so much easier than anything else how could she ever change her life. When I get my MPH I might just ride the buses and when I hear conversations like this, I'll introduce myself, ask a few triage questions and recommend what stop people should get off at to find the services they need, and I'll go with them if they want. Of course, this is in my fantasyland where one doesn't have to worry about the presumption of being paternalistic and so everyone is happy to have my help. Anyway, her life sounded awful and it made me pretty sad.

Best Animal

To conclude with a favorite: The squirrel guy. He takes buses near UW. His squirrel, or I am guessing multiple squirrels, wear little ferret or iguana sized harnesses. A lot of people have seen this guy, I have only seen him once. He was talking to himself with his hand in the pouch of his winbreaker. Pulls out his hand and squirrel he was actually talking to lunges out on his knee, as far the harness will let him.. The guy announces to the bus, "He just loves a ride, loves the bus, loves the people." Meanwhile, the squirrel is freaking out trying to jump on people as they get off the bus in order to escape. Someone else on the bus has a dog, too, so that doesn't make the squirrel's stress levels any calmer. I think it has to multiple squirrels because I don't think the critters do well when confined to windbreaker pouches on buses and they probably run away when they get the chance (harnesses must make for decent chewing). If they stay with the guy, it's only cause they think he's nuts. He he.

Rabbit Rabbit

At some point growing up someone told me that it was good luck to say "Rabbit, rabbit," the first thing in the new month. My interpretation over the years was that one has to say it first thing in the morning because saying it at night if you are up past 12 is too easy. The challenge is to remember to say "rabbit, rabbit," before you say anything else. There is an increased challenge when you are waking up not in your own bed -- at summer camp, or a new year's slumber party (I am talking about being a kid, here) because waking up your unitiated friends to "rabbit, rabbit," or even to silent-lip mumblings of same, is odd and as I kid I did not always like to be odd. Still, my take on luck superstitions has always been no pain no gain. If I was waking up with people who might judge me for my rabbit utterings I understood that I would have more luck the louder I let the rabbits out.

But when I think about it, the pain/gain philiosophy shouldn't work for luck. The whole point of luck is that you don't have to work for it, you don't even have to deserve it, it just happens. Maybe there are a few pennies you can pick up to help the cause, but all in all, luck is just beyond control. Then I guess I should not feel bad about forgetting the rabbit ritual 94% of the time. It's not like I have missed luck that was out there. Because that would kind of take the wind out of my sails to know that if I had just said rabbits a little more often all my wildest dreams would come true simply by chance. Why I am writing a thesis if just saying "rabbits" can get me my dream job? You see?

I tried looking up this superstition to get connected to its mythical or mystical roots. There isn't much there. Some people say different variations of the charm, three rabbits or rabbits of different coloring, or rabbits on the night of the last day of the month and hares in the morning. The UK seems to figure heavily in the history, but not because of a particular incident where a blazing luck rabbit appeared in the sky at the new moon or anything. Rabbits are percieved as lucky (think of all the lucky three-footed rabbits out there) and at some point somebody told a bunch of kids that chattering about them on the first would be lucky. I can see a parent using this to get someone to go to sleep just so they could wake up and rabbit in the morning.

Regardless, I rabbited this morning. Twice actutally. Once when I first woke up, and then again when I actually got out of bed -- just in case. So we will see what the new year brings, and maybe next year I will undertake a randomized controlled trial of rabbit-years verses non-rabbit-years. And that is silly because: A. How would I ever set up the experiment? and B. I am certain I would never find a positive relationship between luck and rabbit, rabbit. Still, I do it. I have taken multiple statistics courses, and yet I rabbit. Darn that person who ever told me about it. Or maybe thank them? Anyway, these things are viral, so when you are saying "rabbit, rabbit," on Feb.1 you can blame me.