passion for plaid

Why so many checked (plaid?) shirts?  Is it in your boys' nerd manual along with the highly recommended, but not quite mandatory, goatee?  In case it wasn't clear, the male to female ratio here is completely overwhelming.  I guessed it at 40 to 1, but my white, male co-workers thought more like 10 to 1, until they looked around in surprise.  We agreed on 20 to 1, but I still think it was higher.  And they still think it was lower.  Probably because I'm such a force of nature with my own gravitational pull, and it feels like 35 women are nearby.  Talk about overwhelming.   :)   Fortunately, my managers are awesome and hire women, so my department isn't nearly so unbalanced.

I saw three black men here, two of which I knew previously.  I met the third when he said to me, "You walk like you hear music the rest of us don't."  Doesn't everyone play internal music when they want to?  That's why I have theme songs, one of which my newest co-worker said he woke at 2am with it playing in his head.  (Coincidentally, I also woke at 2am that night, but it was due to drunk fkrs outside being loud.)  We had briefly talked about that song the night before and then did an impromptu karaoke session (mostly him because I can't sing) while walking to dinner.  He found and played it on his smartphone during a meeting break.  People were humming it all day.  It's a vicious, but fun, ear-worm.

Why are hotels so poorly sound-proofed?  I can always hear the man in the room above me peeing.  And yes, I can tell it's a man because you guys sound different.  There was also a horrible grinding noise, which was intermittent but plaguing enough that I dreamed I had tinnitus.  I woke up just as it switched off again.  And my whole body relaxed and started to drift back to sleep.  And two minutes later, my alarm sounded.  Motherfucker.