Moojinorbit

Sometimes the Divine just clearly wants us to be happy. This morning with my iHome alarm on shuffle (what I like to call The God Mix) I woke to Johnny Cash singing “Danny Boy,” followed by Kenny and Dolly’s “Islands in the Stream,” and polished off with Justin Timberlake, “Cry Me a River.” Ooh, that freaky combo just makes me roll out of bed giggling.

I’ve been lax on the blog lately, despite the fact that I have much I’m wanting to post about. I cannot miss the chance, though, to tell you a little story about my first day back in classes. This is dedicated to Jen, Caryn, and Viv, my fellow female professors and occasional pump-wearers.

So, I’m midway through my new Comparative Race Politics class yesterday afternoon. For a starter discussion about race in the U.S., we’re watching Obama’s historic March 18th race speech (about which I hope to post soon) via streaming video on YouTube. My MacBook is on a table at the front of the classroom, wired to a wall through both a power and an audio cord. I’ve also handed out copies of the transcript of the speech so folks can follow along.

I thought I’d disabled it, but at one point my screensaver starts, obscuring the video, so I go up to fix it. I should mention here that I’m feeling pretty cool for the first day of classes. I’m wearing my cream colored, inside out Banana Republic turtleneck under my (now vintage) Knit Wit blue blazer, Seven jeans, pointy brown leather pumps. I like a sassy outfit for the first day of the quarter; makes me feel confident on an otherwise mildly nervous day.

Casually paused, then, in front of the room, my pen and transcript in hand, I decide to take the short route back to the seat I’m watching from, which means stepping over the cords. I think to self something like, “careful: note hazard, maneuver delicately” –and I do, my right leg gracefully clearing the cords, which are a couple feet off the floor. What I hadn’t properly estimated was the long point of my left pump, which catches on the audio cord behind me and sends me lurching forward in horizontal slow-mo. Somehow I catch myself, sort of, with one hand against a desk, my right leg balancing me precipitously, like a fat gymnast on a balance beam, but there is a hell of a racket as the cords yank the computer off the table and everything is strained and literally dangling from my left leg. We lose audio and video, of course, the screen goes projector-blue, and all eyes are on me, embarrassed for me as I struggle to untangle myself from the attack-by-computer-peripherals. This takes many long, clumsy seconds and I try to laugh it off, but all cool I might have thought I embodied had has been instantly drained off. Now I know how pole vaulters feel when they fail to clear the line. In this dazed, this-is-not-happening mode, I somehow free my appendages and reattach the umbilici, the video continues, and I sheepishly sit back at my seat trying not to reveal that the top layer of epidermis on my left foot feels like it’s been scraped down with a razor.

Katie reminds me that this is a really good reason to get back into adult gymnastics and practice that back handspring I dream of busting out in the middle of class someday. Anything to redeem myself.