The Power of Suggestion

Photo courtesy of Craig Blankenhorn, New Line Cinema

Do you ever have those times in your life when just the suggestion of something causes you to HAVE to do it? You know, like when you first saw "An Inconvenient Truth" and you ran right home to change your light bulbs from the regular Thomas Edison kind to the compact fluorescent kind (or did Edison invent those too?). And while we’re on the subject of Al Gore, once you saw his movie, did you also begin taking public transportation, catching your shower water in a plastic bucket to later water your plants, brushing your teeth with the water turned off, and setting your heating and air to a temperature just a few degrees above or below what it is outside?

We did, and is it ever inconvenient – check this out:

1. MARTA public transportation is now my BFF, second only to my heavily scented, deodorant. Ever since the temperatures hit the 80’s, I role it on thicker than Chicago style pizza in an attempt to outdo the nostril shattering aromatics on the train.

2. Doc B. and I have plastic buckets everywhere, advertising everything from Home Depot to Ace Hardware to Lowes. To tell you the truth, some are in very inconvenient places, like hanging from the shower caddy, while others are simply not our preferred décor.

3. And the brushing your teeth with the water turned off really messes up my 40 year old routine – that’s a hard habit to break I tell you. At least I got some practice with this while in Guatemala since there were some not-so-pleasant repercussions if you accidentally brushed your teeth con Agua de Lake Atitlan.

4. And finally, the air conditioning. It’s so dang hot in our house that the cat has taken to sleeping on the cooling granite kitchen counter tops and, from shear heat exhaustion (or is it pure laziness?), even lays down to eat from his food dish (see photo for proof). But don’t worry, if you come to our house for dinner, we’ll wipe down the counter and feign a scolding if the cat happens to jump up there right in front of your face.



So, would you believe that this blog was going to be about the new "SITC" (Sex in the City) movie and "BRAG" (Bike Ride across Georgia)? Yes, I’m sure you knew that’s where I was headed when you read the title of this blog entry.

What I was going to write about is how the power of suggestion can really make some changes in your life if you let the idea sink in. For example, baby sis and I recently went to see SITC on the big screen. There’s a scene (pictured above) where Carrie Bradshaw is in bed with Mr. Big and is reading him love poetry from a New York City Public Library book. She’s reminding him of how cool it is to check out books for free and then of course there’s that familiar smell of a library book that just adds to the experience. I’ve spent a ton of money in our local Barnes and Noble bookstore (managed by our good friend "Davemus") and I know he’s appreciated our business. But after seeing SITC, the library was calling to me…

A few days after seeing SITC, Doc. B. and I went to pick up Kali and Tequila in St. Simons Island, the finish line for BRAG. This was the culmination of a week-long bike ride that covered about 400 miles during a week’s time. It was so cool seeing all those people of diverse backgrounds cross the finish line on bicycles of all different cost categories. Pretty much every age, race, body shape, fitness level, and sex (I’m not certain if there were any transgendered but I bet there were!) was represented in the group. We stayed at a hotel for the night so we could rest up for the drive home the next day and spent some time at the pool. I could easily tell by the tan lines who had participated in BRAG and who had not. And some of those tan lines were on people that you’d think hadn’t ridden a bike since 8th grade. Witnessing all of this made me want to get on my bike.

So the day after we got back to Atlanta, I put the power of suggestion under my bike helmet. I rebuffed the car and MARTA, emptied the water-catching buckets into the plants, swished my mouth with Listerine and headed out into the Atlanta heat on my 20-year old bicycle. Destination: the DeKalb County Public Library where I renewed my library card that had been deleted from the system for non-use. And as soon as I finish the last two books I purchased at Barnes and Noble, I’ll be riding my bike back to the library to stand in line with all of the other women who saw SITC and check out some musty-smelling books wrapped in plastic.