Two hours to kill

One thing I know about myself is my ability to have very meandering thoughts when I'm sitting idle with nothing to distract me. This happens when I forget to bring a book with me and I have to wait somewhere in excess of five minutes or in every and all business meetings. I had an extra long one today and I took notes. I transcribe them here, on the eve of my final blog post for Blog Every God Damned Day in August. (BEGDDA)

At nearly all meetings, someone makes the pretense of health and brings something sugar free or a couple pieces of fruit. They almost never get eaten, due to all the alternatives. The unopened container of stale looking sugar free sugar cookies sits lonely in the  middle of the conference table, having just been used in a threat.
"So and so is late to the meeting. Make them eat one of those as punishment."
This is said in jest but there's a whole slathered on layer of truth to it, as we'll later find out. Throughout the meeting I see everyone in the room at some point staring at the sealed box. I think about daring someone to eat one.

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss conferences and the myriad things we learned at said conferences.It is only partly true that I learned a thing or two of value. It is more true that I did many other things that I would never tell anyone there. I sigh in the memory, indulge for a moment in reenactments and return to that windowless office while someone is speaking and for some reason think: "She has an old English judge's face and I wonder if she ever tried on one of those white curly wigs."

The entire two hour proceedings appear to be mired in thinly veiled hostility from one particular person towards another.Observing the interaction between them, I envision him holding a bouquet of roses and offering them to her. She snips the buds with large garden shears and smiles smugly to herself. I feel badly for this newbie, on the receiving end of arbitrary dislike.

This precipitates me eating one more cookie than I intend to. The cookies taste like the boredom that inspired their consumption.

There is a space cadet present, the unknown stellar journey she appears to take is not to the stars but rather to the innumerable particles that have gathered beneath her nails. She does not once lift her eyes to feign listening. No one seems to care.

A woman I have dubbed "trouble" makes snide comments under her breath, forgetting that in a small room of ten people, everyone notices. Trouble always appears in a room and looks and sounds as though she's just woken up. Her perpetually sleepy face and sore sounding throat belies the endless amount of shit talking she actually does. Maybe it makes her tired.

When it is my turn to speak, I try to look everyone in the eyes. Only two people return the look. I hope they are not listening to anything I'm saying. I hate being heard saying nothing.

I must look very studious, writing all this down. I wish there was a more covert way to take character study notes.