The Ink-Pot and the Palette

...the one that unwinds this coil of tension between my shoulder blades?

Good god, I've discovered a new circle of hell. It exists on the 14th floor of the World's Tallest Basement. It is overseen by Norm, whose instruments of torture include Rev-Proc 2010-26 and data transfer files for the Internal Revenue Service that have to be analyzed--by a highly-paid human being (such as myself, for instance)--in detail, across rows 175 columns wide.

I was ready to tear my hair out--I mean, I was literally clutching at it. We're too slammed to take time to develop a more efficient way of getting done what needs to be done, and I suspect that Norm really likes to work this way. I don't mind detail work, and I don't mind a little drudgery, but I hate the kind of gross, slogging inefficiency baked into the system by a workaholic who needs to feel important.

My temper got the better of me around 6:00 this evening after losing my place for the fifth time in the Rev Proc 2010-26, and I said, "God! There has to be a better way of doing this!"

Norm: "I haven't found one."

Me: "Yeah, well, that doesn't mean one doesn't exist."

I'm not the world's most courteous person, but really, I try to be more contained than that. I'd just had enough. Since October 17 when I started eating 2000 calories a day, I have not been tempted to eat 3000--or 4000--until today. This evening I want to eat the world. The whole wide world, which I understand has a creamy truffle filling.

I'm giving serious consideration to a 140-calorie double shot of Laphroaig as a moderate alternative.

I try not to use my LJ as a rant receptacle, but this needs airing. It's about people's assumptions.

I've made no secret (anywhere!) of my decision to start cycling. I hang my helmet on my cubicle wall, right above my "Bike Commute Challenge" poster, and today my front wheel was stood up in my in-box because I had to take it in at lunchtime and have it looked at. At work, I talk about road conditions, new challenges, the experience of joining the Portland cycling world, and my progress in terms of time and endurance and skill-building, pretty much the same as on LJ.

So today at about 4:30, knowing I had two more hours of work in front of me, I ran down to the little store and came back up with a Haagen Dazs coffee almond crunch ice cream bar. My cubicle-colleague, on beholding my treat, said, "I see you've decided to undo all the health benefits of bike-riding."

I can't even begin to unravel everything that's wrong with that comment, but let me start by pointing out that it was uttered by a straight, skinny, college-educated white guy perhaps five to ten years my junior. Let's call him Norm, okay?

This comment is not the same as "Ooh, that looks yummy!" or "I love those things!" This comment is "Do you think you really should be eating that? YOU? THAT?"

The assumptions implicit in the comment are that "health benefits" equals "losing weight"; that I'm cycling for health reasons at all, and that the REAL health reason is weight loss; that one serving of good-quality ice cream has the power to "undo" health, that my bike-riding is a kind of lie unless I follow some standard path of health righteousness; that it's okay for him to even make such a personal comment; that he knows what my personal priorities are and that they are different from what I've said they are.

The only response I could think of was a mildly sarcastic, "Yeah, you know, Norm, I love it when people comment on what I eat."

Six hours later, I'm still annoyed.