Have Answers? I Have Questions

I ride the metro to work each morning.  Despite the jostling, packed cars, sick riders (mentally and otherwise), it’s a great adventure.  It’s the only time in my day when neither the phone nor BlackBerry work which means I get 45 minutes of uninterrupted bliss.  Usually, I have my nose pressed against the Kindle, happilly ignorant of everything around me.  But once a while, I look up and enjoy the circus.  Today’s ride brought with it the following questions:

1.  (Apologies in advance if this offends anyone, but I TRULY want to know the answer to this question.)  Why do teenage girls that go to Catholic school wear skirts short enough to function as napkins?  Again, I honestly don’t meant to offend, but I would think a religious institution would insist upon something that covers the cervix.  The gals on the metro this morning looked great.  Cute ribbons in their hair, no garish make-up, clean white polos and then short.. and I mean SHORT little plaid skirts.  So short that every girl was either wearing leggings or shorts.

2.  What would posses a woman to stand in the middle of a pretty full train, in dress pants and shirt, and perform yoga?  And I don’t mean the yoga where you stretch your neck from side to side.  I mean full-on laughing dog (or whatever the heck it’s called), something on one leg that looks like a tree and that sideways half crouch where the knee touches the chest.  I’ve done yoga a few times (as you can guess by my techno lingo) but both times, it was in a dimly lit room with a lot of sighing and moaning.  Not in the middle of a train with the conductor riding the brake.  What was that all about?

3.  Why do I STILL take snarky comments on contest entries to heart?  I tell and tell myself over again, as I fill out the entry, I WILL NOT TAKE COMMENTS TO HEART.  Bad or otherwise.  And each time, I do.  Is it insanity (i.e. repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting  different results?)  Or simple masochism?

As I waited for the doors to open to let me out of my underground pod, I realized:  1) good for the woman doing yoga.  I wish I had the guts not to care.  2) too bad for me that I still care about snarky comments and take them to heart.  Maybe if I did more yoga in the middle of a packed train, a less than gentle comment would simply be a flesh wound rather than a gnawing burr.  3) I still don’t know why Catholic girl skirts are so short.

7 thoughts on “Have Answers? I Have Questions

  1. Ha. This cracked me up. I don’t know the answer to your questions, either, but one very WISE mermaid said something to me a couple weeks ago, so wise in fact that I went home and wrote it down and I look at it when I start to take something to heart that I shouldn’t: “Who gives a rat’s a$$?” Remember that the next time you encounter a snarky comment.

  2. In my youth, girls rolled up their skirts to make them shorter. Maybe they are taking a stand against the uniform. Fight the power, girls! As for the yoga, give her room. Anybody desperately in search of bliss or a good neck stretch deserves some space. Ignore all negative remarks. Pretend they are your children frowning at the meal you’ve prepared for them. Don’t like it, don’t care.

  3. Ah Pintip. Wish I had access to that wise Mermaid. But I did write down the rat quote. And it sunk in. Maybe I should buy a rat and pet it while opening contest entries. Thank you for the reminder.. 🙂

  4. Ha.. loved “fight the power”.. Interesting take. And yes, don’t like it, don’t care is a good motto. Thanks!

  5. Oh, Masha! This post made me laugh so hard. Good for you that you actually decided to look around and enjoy the entertainment value of the metro. Lol. We learn by our observations, and with everyone on devices all the time, it’s truly hard to look around and actually observe anything.
    I would have loved to see that woman doing yoga. I say good for her! Maybe she’ll start up a new movement: Yoga on the move. Lol.
    I gave up on entering contests because of the comments. It never fails that you receive completely opposite feedback, and then it just confuses you. It’s even worse with editors. One will say the romance was wonderful, but there wasn’t enough action. The other will say they loved the pacing and plot, but the romance wasn’t up to snuff. Go figure. People have different opinions. Sometimes we agree, and sometimes we don’t. So, maybe just take the comments that you actually feel are beneficial and make the changes. The others, just ignore.
    As for the Catholic girl skirts…no answer for that one. Good question though.
    Fun post, Masha! Love observations.

  6. Masha, you have both me and the hubby cracking up. I mean seriously cracking up. Thank you for sharing the ponderings of your wonderful mind. Now I kind of want to know what you see on the train tomorrow….and the day after that…and the day after that…. 🙂

  7. Masha, thank you for an absolutely charming post on the unanswerable questions of this universe. Why do girls roll up their skirts? Because they can. Why do my students forget their ties? Or jackets? Because they do. Hail to yoga on the train, I do stretching exercises (discreetly) on the platform at Mount Vernon West. It feels good.

    I also gave up entering contests, being too frustrated by the innanity of the comments. However, when I saw a two star rating on MY OWN BOOK on Goodreads, I didn’t even blink. “Idiot,” I muttered, and moved on. Wait… Maybe all those crummy confusing comments were training wheels!

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