The Beholder

"I have an eye for spotting men with designs. I have a sense for all the obvious signs. And pal, I know when someone's feeding me lines! Don't feel too bad; you had your try. You have the touch, but not with me! I have an eye." -- Lucie Arnaz

That quote sums up yesterday morning, and as such, it was a pretty amazing morning. Then I went to make copies. Scanned my document, asked for 60 collated and stapled copies, wandered away, wandered back, found the thing jammed and beeping on copy 47.

I'm unnaturally gifted at fixing copiers, so like any engineer with too much time on her hands, I peeled off my sweater, dropped to my knees, and popped the casing open. I twisted knobs, I flipped switches, I slid trays, and I found all the usual problem areas blissfully clear of paper. Then I noticed that one of my documents had been shredded in the narrow crevasse between the stapling tray and the output tray. And after a few moments of fruitless exploration, I realized that the machine manufacturers didn't account for paper ever getting jammed there.

I have thin arms and long fingers, so I was able to carefully reach inside the machine to tease the paper free in pieces. The jammed area had lots of sharp parts and little room for error, though, so I emerged from the experience with my right hand bleeding in four places. Open wounds aren't a good thing to have in my work environment, so I washed, treated, and bandaged my hand before returning to clinic. It looked pretty strange, but I swore off handshakes for the day and trusted people to not draw attention to it.

Then I got the hiccups. Big, scary, near-constant hiccups that refused to go away even after several hours. I held my breath, I swallowed three times, I drank water upside down, rightside up, and with a spoon in the glass, I endured countless colleagues jumping out of the shadows to spook me. Nothing worked, so I just came to terms with the fact that I'd have to talk to people around hiccups all day.

I perfected a little speech: "Hi, my name is Ashley. Before we speak about the research, you'll have to excuse me if [hic] I need to pause every sentence or so. I've had the hiccups all day [hic] and they won't go away." People tolerated it for the most part, surprisingly -- they laughed if I laughed first, but they had the grace to ignore my hiccuping if I didn't draw attention to it.

Then, at the very end of the day, after I had been speaking for several hiccupy minutes, one woman burst into hysterics. "Oh my god, this is terrible!" she said between giggles. "I can't believe you've been working like this all day!"
"It's been an interesting day."
"And if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your hand?"
I flexed my heavily bandaged appendage. "I had an altercation with the copy machine."
"Oh boy. You know what you need to do? You need to go home and go to bed before anything else happens to you today. Just get rid of August 20th a little earlier than usual and hope that August 21st is better."

I'm usually the one who sits in exam rooms and dispenses information to people, so to have it turned around on me was a peculiar change. Her treatment plan worked wonders, though -- I decided not to work overtime, declined happy hour with my colleagues, went home, changed into my oldest nightgown, and watched hours of Project Runway in the air conditioning. I woke up this morning with no hiccups and four beautifully formed scabs on my right hand.

Living Proof

"Almost cut my hair; it happened just the other day. It was getting kind of long. I could have said it was in my way. But I didn't... and I wonder why I feel like letting my freak flag fly. I feel like I owe it to someone." -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

I have ridiculously thick, riotously curly hair -- the kind of hair that a person can lose a hand in. When it's cooperating, it flows over my shoulders and halfway down my back in loose, glossy ringlets. When it's not cooperating, my head is covered in a vaguely triangular cloud of brown.

For the last few months, my hair has been more cooperative than usual thanks to Living Proof frizz products -- and as a result, I praise them to anyone who will listen. Developed by a team of biomedical engineers, they contain a novel polymer that seals the hair shaft against moisture better than silicone does. I don't have fierce loyalty to many beauty products (cough except for Tarte Flush, Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme, Hope in a Jar, and Kiehl's leave-in conditioner cough), but Living Proof's curl-making cream is an essential part of my daily routine. I've been able to ditch my arsenal of serums and treatments as a result of it; I get out of the shower, comb in my leave-in conditioner, smooth on a little frizz, and let my hair air-dry. Et voila.

The stuff works miracles, but having great hair in mid-summer in New York City in the rain needs more than a miracle. Thus, while my curls looked okay yesterday, they didn't look as good as usual.

I arrived early for an 8PM dinner reservation, so I killed some time by wandering around SoHo. I browsed through Michael Kors, J. Crew, Banana, Victoria's Secret, then eventually found my way to Sephora. Directly inside the front doors stood an enormous display of Living Proof products, and I approached the pyramids of bottles to see if they were offering anything new.

Almost immediately, a salesperson swooped down on me. "This is a fantastic new line, and you have the perfect hair for it! It will tame your flyaways and frizz, define your curls, give you shine..."

I let the guy ramble on for a few minutes, then when he paused, I gave him my most brilliant smile. "I actually use these products. I'm wearing that one right now."

"Oh," he said after a moment's pause. "Sorry?"

I thanked him, left, and headed back towards the restaurant. I had a good story to tell my dinner companions.