Trapped

Last night, I went to this lecture about urban sustainability and landscape with Carrie and this other dude at some random warehouse in Fishtown. I had no expectations, except that I thought it might be interesting to learn a little more about saving the planet somehow. Unfortunately, the building we met in, though cool in an Andy Warhol aesthetic, didn't have any heat. And then secondly, the first person who lecture was very nervous and not at all a public speaker. He kept pausing....These really long....painful...pauses. The longest pause was 21 seconds. I counted. Carrie said later that she had to turn around to look back toward the projector at him because she thought he had narcolepsy and was possibly asleep on his biodegradable laptop. The only real sustainable thing I learned was that if I contorted my body, I could manage to keep from suffering from hypothermia, but just barely. It also occurred to me that I don't fit in with hippie hipsters (a particular brand of hipsters that meet the following criteria: (1). Live in Fishtown or No Lo in a house they are rehabbing that their parents helped them pay for (2). At parties, the guy hippy hipster can be found playing a musical instrument and sitting too close to the bonfire, almost singeing his beard; (3). Dresses in loose fitting, raggedy shirts, tight jeans or flowing, long skirts, and cowboy boots. Hair is messy, as if they've just rolled out of bed; (4). Gardens and recycles and is conscientious about the environment while still driving a not environmentally sound car and remaining a highly functioning addict of some kind). I can get behind their politics and their desire to save the planet, but I'll never fit in. I haven't smoked enough grass. I'm too mean or tidy to high strung to be able to manage. I don't own enough hoodies.

Anyway, the first guy was not a good public speaker and his piece was very academic and long and I knew there would be someone else on after him and that I was stuck there, so I started to try to think of ways to make the time go by faster in my head, such as:

1. Attempting to unravel the thread on my coat button without completely popping off the button, especially since I seldom sew them back on.

2. Trying to keep track of each slide so that I would know how much closer we were to the end of the presentation (I had astutely noted the number of slides at the beginning of the lecture).

3. Imagining what might happen if I did any of a number of inappropriate things that crossed my mind such as standing on my chair to look over the top of the wall to see if I dog I had spotted earlier was still around, yelling out "Borrrrinnnggggg!!", or faking a seizure.

4. Counting out the number of times the guy said, "sort of." Total=534 in 40 minutes.

5. Reminding myself that I was lucky to be in a cold warehouse and not starving in a foreign country or trapped under a heavy object or in the hospital awaiting a liver transplant or strapped to a lit rocket.

None of these helped and the lecture stretched out into infinity.