A Fistful of Toe

April 26, 2026

• In college I took a night class about monsters, robots, and cyborgs in media. Big lecture hall, something like three hours long, and often boring. I definitely fell asleep during our viewing of Ghost in the Shell. (Sorry.)

  Despite my frequent boredom, this class was also the setting of the most enigmatic occurrence of my entire college experience.

  It happened on a spring night near the end of the semester. It was cyborg time; we'd just read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The lecturer was doing his thing. He often walked up and down the aisles as he spoke, I assume in an attempt to scare people into wakefulness.

  I admit I was fighting sleep myself. (Years later I also fell asleep during my first viewing of Blade Runner. Sorry.) But I was doing OK in comparison to the person across the aisle from me. She was fully sprawled out with her sandaled feet propped up on the seat in front of her.

  The lecturer came up the aisle slowly. He was talking about Masahiro Mori (or something). And then he noticed her. Never pausing from his speech, he reached out, took hold of her big toe, and shook it.

  Obviously, this woman was instantly awake. Feet on the floor. Toes relishing the waning freedom of what was now surely their last day of public nudity. She looked around like "WTF?" and all of us who witnessed the incident looked back at her like "WTF?" The lecturer just continued on his way.

  I still think about this. What would possess a person to grab a fistful of a stranger's toe? The mystery remains to this day. Perhaps he was a faulty model.

• Speaking of college, I also took an introduction to music concepts class. It was required for the (non-music-related) major that I quickly abandoned. I learned how to play a "song" on piano called "Five on Black," which I performed for the class like a four-year-old at their first piano recital.

  I also learned my life expectancy. One day the professor took out a little chart from his wallet and went around the room telling each of us how much time we had left based on age and sex. He was about 1400 years old, so I guess it was on his mind. (Maybe our piano performances were a way for him to steal our youth.)

  At the time I had like 64 years to live. Today, the SSA Actuarial Life Table says I have 46.

  That's fine. What's weirder is this: I recently realized that I've been an adult for the same amount of time that I was considered a child. How did that happen?

• While we're on the subject of perplexing happenings, here's another one: I went to a concert on New Year's Eve. Everything started out normal: the openers did their thing, people danced, the floor became progressively more sticky.

  The headliner went on shortly before midnight. They played a song or two, and then it was time for the countdown. Everyone cheered, confetti fell, and then... "Viva la Vida" began to play. As in the 2008 Coldplay song.

  It was not a live rendition. Somebody just pushed play and forced us to ring in 2026 with the bland soulless almost 20-year-old musical stylings of Chris Martin and company known as "Viva la Vida."

  Five months later, I'm still perplexed.

  (I wrote 500 more words about this but realized no one cares about my "Viva la Vida" musings. Not that anyone cares about any of my other musings. Whatever. All you need to know is that I don't know why you'd play "Viva la Vida" at midnight on New Year's Eve.)

• I think I could make a whole list of Perplexing Things That Have Happened at the Armory (where this "Viva la Vida" situation occurred). One time a couple came over and asked me and my husband if they could have the limes in our drinks. My husband's lime had been in his mouth. He told them this. They accepted both limes anyway.

  This was not long before the COVID shutdown. Given their willingness to consume used limes, we can only hope that they made it through the pandemic.

• Recently someone told me that they were pleasantly surprised by the content of my site because the title and design seem like something a teenager would make. A stinging barb for the person who is rapidly approaching 40. Also a completely valid critique.

  It made me think about the types of sites I'm drawn to. Usually they're simple, clean, and light on graphic elements. You know, the type of thing that this site is not. So yeah, I guess that person had a point.

  To be clear, I don't mind that comment. I know they weren't being rude. It's just that the backhanded compliment made me chuckle. It is always fascinating to learn how you are perceived by others.