THE Article

A co-worker gave me the self-help article below. By "gave" I don't mean that she forwarded it to me in a mass e-mail, with me as an annoynmous person on her list, I mean that she printed it out, stapled it, brought it by my desk, put it in my hands and with a knowing look in her eye, said I should read it.

Here's the link...the link she could have sent in an e-mail...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/personal/10/03/self.consciousness/index.html

It highlights a study about what people notice about other people, which is, quite frankly, not much. I wanted to get defensive about being given the low-self esteem, self-help article and say that I wasn't anything like the vain person who it...uh, then I remembered last week...

I was walking down the street after I had just finished swimming at the gym and I saw comedians that I know. Not one random person that I know, but several. I slowed down and was about to say "Hey! How's it going!" But right when I paused, I flashed back to what I looked like when I left the gym minutes before - wet hair tangled into a pony tail, no make-up, crazy racoon circles around my eyes from swim goggles and the look was topped off with a layer of thick greasy gym lotion on my face. So I kept walking and didn't speak.

Now, after reading the article, I've adopted the attitude of "So!" Next time I'll say hello, then confidently sashay away as they say things like, "Holy racoon, what the hell happened to her?" or "Did she swim across the Hudson to get here?" But I won't care, because I'll proudly hold my wet head high!

I hope you find the article, the article that I'm pasting for the masses, singling out no one in particular, interesting.