All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men show fear and fear is the most devine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
- Zora Neale Hurston    

Reason #30,882 why I am destined never to look cool at a gym:

My new tattoo is now a little over a week old, which means I'm still having to lotion it several times a day to keep it from drying out. (As an aside, I'll be posting some pictures of the final result shortly. It looks awesome.) (As another aside, and for my future reference, the best tattoo lotion by far of the many I've tried has been Lubriderm.) On Monday afternoon I planned to work out, shower at the gym and then run errands, so I brought a change of clothes and the lotion with me. On the drive to the gym, though, the bottle slipped out of my bag and down between the passenger seat and door. Once I found a parking space I wedged my fingers down to try to pull the bottle out by its neck; naturally, the top popped off, gushing lotion everywhere. I couldn't pull the bottle loose without forcing even more lotion out. Once I finally did, my hands and much of the car were splattered with it... and inside the bottle was one huge, curly pubic hair. And so, sitting in my car in the gym parking lot, with my lap and hands covered in gobs of lotion, I had to sit with a lotion bottle in my lap trying to fish out a big ol' pubic hair, which, being covered in lotion of course, constantly slipped out from between my fingers and down further into the bottle. During this struggle the people parked on either side of me left the gym and actually stopped to gawk at me before getting in their cars, though to their credit I can only imagine what all this must have looked like. Having just started going to the gym my confidence and ease there are still very shaky, and going through mishaps like this doesn't help. I love working out, and I hate the fact that I feel so damn awkward there.

Speaking of anxiety, my boss is going on vacation all next week, which means I'll be head honcho. The longest I've ever run things on my own has been two days, and the prospect of going for five is making me lose sleep. I never really notice just how many decisions and bizarre situations fall in the manager's lap every day until it's me who's in the spotlight. At the same time, though, it's also a little exciting. I'm going to ban all bottles of lotion from the office just to be safe.