50 shades of awkward.

I had the most awful awkward encounter in a bookstore this afternoon.

After reading three actual physical books on vacation (rather than kindle books), I came home and found another one in the mail as a gift from a friend (thanks Shannon!!!), and I am devouring it (The Night Circus, I recommend it). I decided that I liked this trend, so when I found myself in front of my favorite local bookstore this afternoon I felt that it was an omen, and that I was meant to pick up this months book club pick, Defending Jacob. Crutched on in, and ran immediately into my least favorite Yoga teacher from my gym. (This is the one who made remarks on my pregnant belly size after I completed a regular 90 minute class IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE CLASS at like 35 weeks pregnant.) Yeah. Clearly she is good at getting her foot to her mouth, this one. She is about 60 years old and has children of her own and one would simply think that she knows better.

Anyway, she launched right into the classic "What HAPPENED to YOU?!" bit and I gave her the "Oh I broke my hip, stress fracture from running *sad face*" as I kept moving as I really had no interest in talking about it. She, (as predicted) cracked a "that's why I"M never in a hurry to get anywhere!!!" as man-at-counter parried with a witty "That's why I NEVER exercise!" hardy har har. Everyone is a comedian when someone breaks a hip. Witty little buggers. I chuckle my most friendly fake chuckle and keep on limping as quickly as I can. Turns out my book is only available in hardback, so I decide to get it on kindle, and leave.

Yoga teacher is outside. Goes down like this.

YT: "Oh, they don't have your book?"

Me: "No, only in hardback so its way cheaper on kindle".* Sweat and look for an escape from unwanted conversation in hot heat of 1:00 afternoon.*

YT: "Do you know blah blah blah from the gym?" no pause "You know what she told me to read that I just finished? It was really good? I couldn't believed I liked it but I did?" *me, eyes getting wide in panic as I fear I know what is coming* "Well, my first marriage was abusive"       *)(&*)&(&#)$$)(#&$(#@*&$()$(@#*$_#@*()# *that whole part I missed because my ears started to ring ~ stranger TMI really, really scares me as my empathy buttons go all out of alignment when I hear people oversharing and I go into complete shutdown, I missed how this abuse related to the ass plug book because I was in temporary fight or flight mode, since I very literally could not flight due to the crutches, I came back into focus right when she triumphantly said very loudly, "50 SHADES OF GREY! IT CHANGED MY SEX LIFE!!!"

ME: "Nervous high pitched throat clearing Oh, yeah, I've heard that that is very popular! It's not for me, but I'm very glad you enjoyed it! I've got to be going! I'm running REALLY late! See you in yoga once I'm better, it probably won't be for like a year or two, its a REALLY long recovery! Have a nice summer!"

Now. If you have read this book, great! If you have read it and you really enjoyed it, great! If you have read it and you really enjoyed it and you are very easily offended, you may want to stop reading.

I admit, I have not read it. My opinion is totally my own, and totally formed by that of the few friends who have read it, or what I have heard/read about it. And you know what, I think that it is garbage. And I think that it is the sort of thing that makes people dumber. Like 'reality' TV. And while I am the very first to admit that not every part of my day is spent on something academic or something excellent or something praise worthy......I do believe that we as humans are better off when we spend more hours of our day spent on that which IS excellent, than on that which is not. And I do believe that we have choices in what we invest ourselves in, and that our entire lives boil down to a cascade of choices, and the vast, vast majority of them are the small ones. The big ones are really few, when you think about it, I can't even come up with all that many: Truly some of the biggest decisions (Who we are born to, and what we are born looking like or what talents/smarts we are born with are decided before we are born) : Who we marry (Maybe, but we get second or third chances on that, thankfully)?  Who our best friends are? (that can change a lot in our life, or not) How many kids we have? (sometimes, but not always)  Where we live? (and that may change many times?) Our career? (also malleable) How we care for our health is comprised of a ton of small, daily choices, and is one of the hugest things that impacts our quality of life, in the end. How we care for our relationships is a daily thing, also one of the biggest to impact how happy we are, ultimately. How we nurture our spirituality (if we have any) is a daily thing, also huge. Its alllll daily stuff, really. And if we are stuffing our daily moments full of shitty TV and shitty food and shitty books and no exercise.......well, is it any wonder why we (as a nation) are shitty feeling, shitty looking, and increasingly shitty acting people? We are getting poorer, and falling farther behind other nations, and getting fatter, and working longer weeks, and on more medication, and are more depressed, and are increasingly dumber, and are suffering from diabetes and high triglycerides and sedentary lifestyles and increasingly shitty quality of lives.......yet we are all sucking down stupid 50 SHADES OF GREY like water.

And that is just stupid.

Sorry, yoga teacher, but you won't be seeing me in your class any time soon. Some things should just be kept to oneself. Some things should just be avoided. And while I can't claim to sit around reading Aristotle all day long......at some point one had to draw the line. And I've drawn mine.