Inspiration

Two things:

At hip hop tonight, as people were getting tired and frustrated with not getting it right, not being as smooth and sharp as we all wanted to be, our teacher watched us from the front, sitting on her haunches against the mirror. "Think of when people tell you, 'no, you can't,'" she said quietly. "This is when you say, 'oh yes, I can.'" There was a murmur of assent, and then we did it, tight and razor-sharp. Turning over her words in my mind, thinking about how the last few weeks have been, I almost got a little emotional, somehow.

Later I was at Chipotle picking up some dinner on my way home. I was sweaty but jubilant. As I stood in line one of the girls behind the counter was talking about me casually to a coworker. "I like him," she said to her colleague as she cut lettuce or something. She saw me looking at her and smiled. "You look like you're on a talk show!" This was perplexing. "Like, 'General Hospital'!" Apparently my devastating combination of bland good looks and big teeth adds up to a possible career in daytime television. That's cool, though -- I'll take it where I can get it.

Oh yes, I can.