What a fox: 9.25.06

In an effort to drown out the ungodly chewing in the cube next door, I've been listening to kexp all day. Loud. Without headphones. But, you know. There are paybacks in life. I know that John Chew (as I have termed my masticationally talented neighbor) can't help the cultural forces that have gathered over the last several thousand years and have made it so it is a sign of satisfaction and happy, full tummies to eat heartily, and with gusto, and with a great deal of CHEWING and SLURPING. But it really drives me batty. And, he's a snacker. All through the day with the chewing.

There's no way to really broach this issue with someone, tactfully I mean. So I went with the radio instead. It's not that loud, but sort of does the job. Not entirely though.

Luckily, I got to take a break from my desk and go to a meeting in which a researcher from a very fancy organization spoke about his findings in the area of adolescent relationships and their bearing on marriage and childbearing in the adult years. Yes, it's no wonder I think about marriage--I am PAID to think about it, sigh. But worse than that, my VERY big whig boss was in the meeting, and I was sitting directly across from him. Quite a thrill, my workplace being of the general size and dimensions of the state of Rhode Island.

But then, of course, the researcher had to get all technical about how to define an "adolescent sexual relationship" (which, trust me, thousands of sophmore girls are currently doing while passing notes in the back of fourth period.) Then he actually said something like, "It's when two people have a mutually recognized ongoing commitment to eachother and experience an erotic charge." Gulp. Wha? Very rarely do I ever really want to hear the phrase "erotic charge," but 2 o'clock on a Monday afternoon when I am sitting across from MY BOSS certainly qualifies as a time when I most explicitly (in all manners of the term) do not want to hear it. Naturally, a few of my colleagues smirked and waggled their eyebrows.

And I so wanted to be among them, but instead I sat straightfaced and serious so that my boss would not think that the idea of two adolescents experiencing an erotic charge was making me think of Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High instructing dorky Mark Ratner to always, always put on side 1 of Led Zepplin IV when getting ready to make out.