You dropped the bomb on me, baby.

I've been noticing lately that when I go to the gym, people have not been flushing the toilet after they use it. I'm not understanding why because flushing the toilet is one of the things that's really emphasized during potty training. Most often, it's urine and decomposing toilet paper I encounter. Occasionally, it's a turd. However, yesterday, it was a bloody tampon floating so nonchalantly in the bowl when I opened the stall door that you'd think it's a pretty typical occurance. What the hell? What is so freaking difficult about flushing the toilet? I mean, come on. No one wants to see that. Not even other women. It's bad enough we have to deal with the gross realities of our own periods. I don't want the evidence of someone else's monthly terrorizing me from the creeping depths of the gym toilets. FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET, YOU LOSERS!!! OK, now that I've got that off my back...

Since I'm talking about the gym, I saw this girl running on the track, and she had a huge bruise on the back of her thigh. I found myself staring at it while I jogged because you don't often see bruises that large and I wondered what had caused it. I tried to make out if it was shaped like anything, like a hand or a shoe or something that would indicate someone had hit or kicked her. It did look something like a sneaker, but I can't be sure. Anyway, you would think if she got the bruise as a result of someone beating her, she would have hidden it, right? Because victims of abuse often try to hide the evidence of their torment. In general, I like watching other people jog because it's interesting to see the way their bodies move. I've got to tell you, some people look really goofy when they run. I'm sure I'm one of those people, but since I can't see myself, I like to think I look really cool and sleek when I jog. I also get to see a lot because most of the people running on the track are young undergrads, so they all pass me and I spend a lot of time behind other people. I recently discovered the importance of having good running shoes. I've always bought my running shoes at places like Shoe Carnival or Shoe Warehouse or whatever so that I don't have to pay an arm and a leg. However, I would notice on the the days that I ran, I'd have really deep muscle pain in my legs for the rest of the day. So, on the advice of a coworker, I went to a running shop and had them set me up with a proper pair of shoes and I couldn't believe the difference it made to have shoes that correctly support your foot. The first time I ran with the new shoes, there was no muscle pain and my feet didn't hurt the way they normally do. So my advice for all you would-be runners out there, drop some cash and get a good pair of shoes. It makes all the difference in the world.