Three secret pleasures

Hello. In an effort to cultivate my public persona, I am going to reveal three things that I do, that very, very few people know I do, that all give me immense pleasure.

1. I am training for a triathlon right now. I spend a lot of time with my head under chlorinated water, with nothing to do but paddle left, paddle right, paddle left, kick kick kick kick kick. So, to entertain myself, and to keep track of the number of laps I swim, I play a little alphabet game. I start from the letter A, and I try to think of twenty-six words that begin with the letter A whose second letter is the next successive letter in the alphabet, starting from AA, i.e., "Aardvark, abacus, accept, adjutant, aeroplane, after, aghast..." and then continue on through ZZ. When I finish a lap, I move onto the next letter. The challenge is not only to think of 26x26 words (something naturally prohibited by letter combinations like "vx" or "dd") but also to list all twenty-six words in the span of one lap. If I swim more than 26 laps, and I usually do, I play the game again and try not to repeat any of the words from the first game.

   
   

2. When I go to the bathroom at work, I sit on the toilet and usually pull out my cell phone to entertain myself. But I can't check messages, because my cell phone gets no reception in the bathroom. But my cell phone is set up so that the keypad plays piano tones instead of phone tones. So every time I pee, I play the melody of Sonny Rollins' "Saint Thomas," which always makes me think of white sand beaches and blue cocktails. For those interested in trying it, press 5-8-7-6-5-6-3-4-5-8-7-8. (Another personal favorite is "Joy to the World," which I learned in AP Music Theory has a perfect "bowl" melody (starts high, scoops low, then reascends): 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-5-6-6-7-7-8.) You have to have your phone set up to piano tones for this to work. My Samsung phone has this feature. If your phone has only regular tones, you can play the first few lines of "Do, A Deer": 1-2-3-1-3-1-3-2-3-6-6-3-2-6-3-6-9-3-9-3-9-6-9-#-#-9-6-#-9-1-2-3-6-9-#." That only takes you from "Do, a deer" to "So, a needle pulling thread."

   
   

3. I like reading the Nerve Blogalog. I feel like Girl Gone Mad could be a pal.