Did the same fails as last time, so the question is, what have I learned? What have I really learned from this?

It's so useful having this blog, because now I don't need to describe the two things that happened this morning because I already described them, to a concerning level of detail, when they happened the first time around which was some months back. Or maybe it is not so useful after all, because if anyone had ever asked me why I write all this stuff down* I would possibly have attempted to answer that question by making out that it's a way of reflecting on and learning from my experiences, and yet here we are, evidence that it doesn't matter how many thousands of words I spill on something, I don't reflect or learn. I just keep on doing it the same way as before.

Today kicked off with a double feature of reruns of past episodes of humiliating and stupid. A man came into the changing room at work while I was in there naked (different man from last time though, so that was ...different. I can't decide whether it's good or bad that it was a different one), and after that was over and I'd finished doing the mandatory finish-of-sitcom laugh-and-shrug about it I discovered that the items of clothing I'd brought to change into didn't include a bra. Honestly I should just put a fluoro sticker or something on any post I find myself writing which does not involve some pitiful, infantile instance of incompetence at getting, or remaining, dressed.

So for this round I did actually go into town and buy a bra, this wasted time that I could ill spare today but the thin jumper and thin silk slip and the very cold wind meant that it was a necessary gesture towards workplace decorum. Trustees of yore were so desperately unhappy about women wearing slacks in the building (completely justified of course, only thing worse than women in slacks trying to go into a war memorial is gay returned soldiers trying to go into a war memorial, but at least Bruce Ruxton put a stop to that) that it would not be good to provoke their ghosts, lest they step up their already considerable activities in the odd tapping noises and mysterious openings and closings of doors department. But this is by the bye. Forty minutes and ninety dollars later I was back at work, wearing a strange undergarment which was the only one I took into the changing room that approached a correct fit, and which contains what seems to me frankly a dishonest quantity of padding (I mean really, who is ever deceived by these ruses? Are people really that stupid?) and actually kicking myself for not having had the simple foresight to always lock the changing room door and always keep an extra change of underwear in my locker. I had thought about doing this. I had discussed it with friends who also ride to their workplaces. I knew it was a good idea, easy to do, and also that one day I would forget these items again. But I didn't follow through.

What is that about then, the not learning a lesson well enough to actually pay attention to and put to use the insights derived from it? I was thinking about it on my way home today, not so much about today's irritating but minor stupidities but about the big and consequential errors I've made, and worn the consequences of, and then made again almost without alteration bar the small adjustments and corrections which it is possible to make, mid-catastrophe, when you've ridden it out before and you know how it's going to unfold.

"finish-of-sitcom laugh-and-shrug"








*is it not kind of amazing that nobody has ever asked me this