personal policies

[dichroic]

kiwiria tagged me with a personal policies meme:

"My Personal Policies

I think it would be safe to say that we all have personal rules that we live by. Surely it's not just ME. I'm not talking about moral rules, like "Do not kill." I'm talking about the silly policies we impose on ourselves, like "Never eat anything you can't identify," or "Don't step on sidewalk cracks." For some reason, I started mentally listing the quirky rules I follow and got curious about other people's personal rules."

It turns out that my own policies are not so much entertainingly quirky, but are a collection of methods evolved to avoid feeling bad, one way or another:


1. Pretzels are so a food group: not (too) fattening, light but just filling enough, salty rather than sweet, not greasy, gets the blood sugar up enough to avoid crashing. Empty calories? With attributes like those, who cares?
2. Always take a handkerchief when rowing: because tissues would get wet and shred, my nose runs when I'm rowing, and if I just try to sniffle instead I either get a headche from stuffed sinuses or get queasy from postnasal drip.
3. Visit the loo last thing before rowing or flying: there are no restrooms in rowing shells or small airplanes.
4. No food early in the morning: trust me, it's better for everyone if I don't eat too much too early. Instead I bring food to work for breakfast; my current standard is a mandarin orange and a fruit bar (fruit-filled type).
5. For any travel or long excursions (even running multiple errands in the car), bring water. If there will be sitting, bring knitting. If there will be sitting still (not in a car) bring a book.
6. No coffee: not unless I'm willing to feel very awful, several hours later.
7. In a public restroom, just wipe off the seat and plunk yourself down - this both makes sure you don't sit in something nasty and verifies that there is toilet paper. Wash your hands afterward, but don't worry too much - we all encounter gazillions of bacteria every day.