Process (Slowly)

April 4, 2011

I started the day not firing on all cylinders.  Perhaps I was emotionally exhausted from watching the Lady Aggies come-from-behind, final-seconds victory over Stanford in the Women's NCAA semifinal basketball match up last night.  Maybe I should blame Teddy, who commuted around the bed continually during the night as she got too hot then too cold then too hot again.  I also dreamed vividly about Walter and I getting married last night (not a re-play of the original, but instead a new wedding ceremony being held at Kyle Field). 

 
I spent much of my dream running up and down the ramps to the various decks, visiting with friend and making sure they found their way to their seats.  I was also having a hard time finding where I left my gown.  Luckily, I discovered it all laid out for me in one of the women's bathrooms under the west side lower deck.  I had multiple styles of each item of clothing to choose from, each hanging from one of the stall doors.  I quickly picked bikini underwear (TMI?), but couldn't decide on which gloves or hat to wear.  I also couldn't remember whether I had my hair and makeup done before I arrived at the stadium, and there were zero mirrors anywhere for me to check my look.

You can imagine how sluggish I was when I popped up to walk the dogs this morning.  I actually felt like I sleep walked my way around the lake.  A shower left me feeling soggy groggy.

I thought I felt livelier by the time I left the house for the ten minute drive to work, but clearly I was still processing at subspeed.

As I slowed to make a left turn, I glanced into my rearview mirror and noted the car behind me following a tad too closely.  I also noticed a pert, youngish woman driving the car and that the car had vanity plates.  I usually appreciate vanity plates and try to make a connection between the message and the driver.

Admittedly, I was reading the letters backwards in my mirror, but I was puzzled by the disconnect between the driver and BL INKR. 

"Inkr, inkr, inkr," I thought, "Does that mean tattoos?  Does the woman I see really get into tats so much that she bangs out the bucks for a custom license plate?  And if she does love tattoos that much (and given the non-black color of her car), wouldn't she prefer color rather than black?"

"Oh," I tell myself, "I got it wrong.  She's really a banker or accountant, who prefers black ink over red.  I must really be processing slowly this morning to have missed the obvious, particularly consiering my profession and the fact that I'm approaching the business school building."

I started my left turn, and she passed by on my right, so that I could see her license plate once more, this time forward rather than backwards:  BLINKR.

"????"

And so I just accepted my brain was still on impulse drive while the world moved on at warp speed.