Meccanized

As a kid, I loved to jump in leaf piles.

Ok, let’s be honest. As an adult, I love to jump in leaf piles. And because of my stature and general adorableness, I can…whenever I want…and it doesn’t seem weird. If people see a 6’2” guy jumping in a leaf pile by himself, they might think he was crazy…or they might look around and try to spot his white, windowless child molester van that clearly must be nearby. If people see me jumping in a leaf pile by myself, the worst people think is “man, that 8 year old has big boobs.”

Bottom line – I’m always up for a good leaf pile romp. But this morning, the leaf piles of the world united and took their revenge.

There were three men blowing leaves outside of the gym around 9 am. Two of them had simple hand-held leaf blowers but one had, like, the mother of all leaf blowers. It looked like a Zamboni with a giant fan on the back of it – no leaf was safe from that thing, let me tell you. Clearly they had been working for a while, because there were already several piles of leaves right by the sidewalk where I was walking. Perhaps that should have been my first clue to walk on the other side of the street, but I was distracted by Toto blessing the rains on Pandora and wasn’t paying much attention.

I can’t really tell you exactly what happened next (it all happened so fast!), but this is what I remember: I saw the Zamboni-esque machine hurtling towards me at the speed of light and then turn suddenly, about 4 feet away from me, heard a loud “WHUMP” and then everything went dark…

…because I was fucking COVERED in leaves. Millions of tiny pieces of leaves. Wet. Dry. Everywhere. In my face, in my mouth, on my clothes, in my raccoon wounds. As the dust settled, I heard the laughter of a few law school students on the other side of the street (assholes). But no one was laughing louder than the three leaf blowers, all of whom were doubled over in hysterics. To steal an expression I recently learned from a very charming young man “Graaaaaaahhhhhhttttt.”

I didn’t really know what to do, so I stuck out my arms and took a little bow, pieces of woodland glory falling from every inch of my being. I then gathered what was left of my pride, went inside and composed this post on my phone.

Leaves. Leaf blowers. Law students. All Meccanized.

When I was a freshman in college, I was set up on a date with a very handsome sophomore. Like, be still my beating heart handsome. Like, I have never seen anyone so beautiful handsome. Like, I might soil myself if you even look in my general direction handsome. So yeah, I was nervous.

We went to an Italian restaurant with a few of my friends and their dates prior to a formal dance. The group started talking about hobbies, and my beautiful, beautiful man turned to me and asked, “So, Lindsay, what do you like to do for fun?”

…

What did I like to do for fun? I had no idea. My brain was completely blank, erased by the lush, rolling blue waves of his eyes. I became extremely aware of the seconds passing after this very basic question was met by my complete and utter silence. My friends were slowly growing mortified on my behalf as I struggled to come up with anything to say. I was holding a breadstick in my hand, and in a moment I have not yet lived down, I said the first thing that came into my head: “Uh…I like to eat…a lot.”

That’s right, boys….form a line.

I tried to laugh it off, but the sense of embarrassment for me and about me at that table was palpable. Wah wah!

But now, 10 years later, I am comfortable with my gluttony and am in no way ashamed to admit that, yes, I in fact like to eat…a lot…and prefer to surround myself with people who  find that charming and only mildly disgusting.

Which is why I am writing about an epic journey I took today with six
worthy companions with one goal in mind: to eat ourselves into a stupor at the world famous Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie.

There were nachos!

And pizza!

And Pepsi! (rookie mistake. LOVE THE BRAND!!!but I should
have known better than to suck down a carbonated drink on top of pounds of nachos and pizza)

Oh My!

I took one of the boxes of leftover pizza home and immediately put it on my bathroom scale – 4 slices weighed just under 5 pounds. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pretty impressed with myself.

Of course, I am now sitting on my couch, one eye half closed, pants open and breathing really heavily.

Seriously boys…form a line.

A few years ago, I was riding the 22 Muni in SF en route to some crazy adventure or another. I stood from my seat in anticipation of getting off the bus (hello, neurotic) and apparently caught the eye of a few…oh how to say this nicely…horizontally-affluent, Crabbe & Goyle-looking lady bullies across the aisle. They started laughing, whispering and pointing at me. That progressed to hollering across the bus aisle at me, calling me a “little mini midget” (department of redundancy department, much?) and asking if I had trouble reaching the pull cord to stop the bus. (I don’t, for the record.) When I continued to ignore them, they came over, got in my face and the bigger girl said “you must be so embarrassed! I can’t even believe you go out in public when you’re that short.” The other snorted “good one” and basically drooled with laughter. Mmm…yummy. I continued to ignore them until we all got off at the same stop. Now, I can’t really explain how I grew such big balls so quickly, but when their teasing continued on the sidewalk, I turned around and shot: “Look, I can wear heels. There’s no quick fix for being fat, ignorant bitches.” (Oh, my mother would be so proud of me…) Then, fearing that I would get the snot kicked out of me in front of the line of homeless people on Haight Street, I basically turned and ran.

Lame as it is, that’s a defining moment in my life. I don’t usually seek out confrontation, and I rarely have zingers at the tip of my tongue, but somehow in that moment, the stars aligned and I felt really proud that I stood up (though not too tall) for myself.

I was reminded of that 22 trip just now. I was at the gym, elliptical-ing like a fiend, and one of my favorite songs came on. What do you think I did? Smile a little and bop my head? HELL NO. I rocked out! Singing along, dancing around as much as you can on the elliptical and generally looking like an idiot (and how!). There was even a little air guitar in there. And then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two girls huddled together staring at me and giggling. Now, I honestly have no idea what they were laughing about, and it most likely had absolutely nothing to do with me, but I started to feel embarrassed. For a second, I quieted down and tried to look more like a normal human and less like Richard Simmons on crack.

And then, something magical happened. The old dude on the elliptical next to me started singing…loudly…to the Jefferson Airplane song he was listening to. I looked over at him, he looked at me and big grins broke out on both our faces. Then came the nerd-tastic high-five. Seriously, movie moment to the Nth degree! The only thing that would have made it better were if he were about 30 years younger, looked like Jeremy Renner and asked me to do some squat-thrusts with him…but now I’ve ventured into a whole different kind of movie.

There is no shortage of things that make you feel bad about yourself. As someone who categorically says the most awkward things at the most awkward times, I know. But these little moments are gold and remind me that the days are way more fun if you just be yourself without worrying, and the people who are worth a damn are the ones who not only appreciate your weirdness but are more than happy to sing along.