Do You Hear What I Hear (Six)

Technically, this one should be titled "Do You Read What I Read," but let's just go with it, shall we?

I want you to think way, waaay back to when Facebook was but a glimmer in social networking's eye and MySpace ruled the internet universe.  Back in the day (which was about two years ago) I had a MySpace page, and I would periodically receive messages from random men looking to hook up with me.

Remember how I only get hit on by crazy/drunk men in real life?  Well, in cyberspace my demographic seems to be middle-aged black men.  I don't know why.  I'm an equal opportunity dater, but I don't skew my profile to appeal to any race in particular.

In any case, I received the following message, which I have copied and pasted verbatim below. I haven't altered this in any way.  Please keep in mind that the guy's screen name was Big Boom and his picture featured a cartoon of George Bush as a vampire sucking on the Statue of Liberty's neck.

Subject:  "You have the deepest dimples."  (Again with the dimples!)

Whatz up pretty young misses? I like your height. You look super hot and tempting. Your smile and dimples are eating away at my sould as we speak. You look like a business woman and I'm loving it. Can I talk you you? I know you are busy doing your thing and all that, but you gotta squeez me in. I'm a cool fellow. You wanna have fun then come with me. I keep the blueberry Smirnoff on deck and the VSOP lately, I’m a homeowner and I have a car too so we can do whatever. I don't need to play gamez. I just wanna have fun shit.... can I know you? Iz that too much to ask? Um just sayin though for real..whatz up..can I get a number or give you mine? I'm a young, honest and fun King looking for a proper Queen. Can you handle that?

I honestly don't know what's better -- all the z's or the fact that I had to google VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale cognac).

What can I say?  You learn something new every day.

Do You Hear What I Hear (Five)

Let me start this one by sharing something that I think is important for you to understand:  I don't get hit on by non-crazy men.  Never, at any point, in a restaurant or at the movies or at the library or at the grocery store, has a respectable, sober man randomly complimented me or expressed in any way that he would like to make sweet love to me at some point in the future.

But while waiting for the bus?  Frequently.  And by drunken and/or homeless men?  Absolutely. 

I would like to think this is because I'm so stunningly beautiful that males need to be in a generally addled state to work up the courage to make advances on me.  I'd like to think that, but it's not true.  I'm not what you'd call a "looker."  I'm about as average as you can get. 

However, something about me must attract attention.  Sometimes it's the dimples, which I typically forget I have, but which are a source of endless fascination for some people.  (Obviously I haven't learned to "work them" to get what I want, but I'm looking into that.)  I don't have junk in the trunk.  I'm an A-cup.  But for whatever reason, crazy guys love me.

Just the other day, as I hurried to my stop, I passed a man who surveyed me and proclaimed emphatically that he would "hit that."

Thank you, sir.

A couple months ago, as I waited patiently for the bus, a disheveled man staggered up, complimented me on my hair, and asked me to the movies.

Thanks, but no thanks.

The best was the drunken man who approached me asking for money.  The conversation went like this:

HIM: "Can I have a dollar?"

ME:  "Sorry, I don't have any cash."

HIM:  "How bout some gum?"

ME: (Oh what the hell, I actually have the gum.)  "Sure."

HIM:  "How bout your phone number?"

Yes, because you meet all the right criteria for someone I want calling me.  And I don't see how asking me for money is the best segue into asking me out.  But I see where I unintentionally gave him a glimmer of hope -- if she's willing to give me gum, what else will she be willing to offer?  If I can reach out and touch her over the phone, maybe I can do so in person as well.  You never know.

Do You Hear What I Hear (Four)

This one is short but sweet ... in a dirty sort of way.  Parental advisory.

I was standing at the bus stop, and off to my right this guy (pretty clearly hammered) was just ranting aloud to no one in particular.  I wasn't paying much attention until he said this:

"I tell you what I'm gonna do!"

To which I thought, well, this should be interesting. I expected the next sentence could go any number of ways.  Here are some examples:

1.  "I'm gonna deal with my rage by shouting incoherently!"

2.  "I'm gonna get myself arrested!"

3.  "I'm gonna not remember any of this tomorrow!"

Yes, all viable options.  But, drunken free will being what it is, he went with this:

"I'm gonna eat me some good, old-fashioned, down-home pussy!"

He could have ended that sentence with about a billion other words that would have been less offensive but certainly not as funny.  And I guarantee you none of them would have required me to lean against the bus shelter while I shook uncontrollably with laughter. 

Well played, sir.  Well played.  You managed to catch me off guard.  I thought for sure you were going to say "ribs."

Do You Hear What I Hear (Three)

Okay, this was a great one.  As often happens after a long day of staring at a computer screen, I nodded off on the bus ride home.  Typically, this is an uneventful little nap that's punctuated by brief spasms as I'm startled awake every time we hit a major bump.  No doubt my head lolling around and my limbs jerking every which way are hilarious to observers, and that's why I do it, really.  For the entertainment value.

Anyway, on this particular day, I snapped awake in the middle of a catfight between a black woman and a flamboyantly gay man sitting across from me in the back of the bus.  Why anyone would tangle with such a woman, I don't even pretend to know.  Maybe he thought he could out-diva her.  

In any case, it's important to note that not only was she holding her own in the on-board verbal exchange, but she was also giving a play-by-play to whomever she was talking to on her cell phone. Here's what I awoke to in my foggy stupor.

Woman: "You need to shut your mouth!”

Me:  (Shit, I can't believe I missed the first part of this!)

Man: “You better shut YOUR mouth!”   

Woman:  “You saw I was on the phone when you sat down.”   

Man:  “You need to be more courteous to the people around you.”  

Woman into phone:  “Girl, I know he didn’t just tell me to get off my phone.” 

Me: (Oh, it is ON!)

Man: “I’m going to get you kicked off this bus.”   

Me:  (You and what army?)

Woman into phone:  “Girl, something wrong with him!”   

At this point, the man exited the bus in a huff, and I quit worrying about how I was going to revive him before the paramedics arrived.  But just as things were settling down, this skinny white teenage boy who had also overheard everything thought it was the perfect moment to interject.  He leaned over to the woman and said very casually, "He's probably just racist."

[Insert uncomfortable silence as the woman looked the boy over, deciding whether or not to end him.]

Woman into phone:  “Girl, he’s probably just racist.”

Do You Hear What I Hear (Two)

For about a six-month period on my morning commute, there was a girl in her early twenties who would talk the bus driver's ear off for the entire half-hour ride downtown.  From what I could gather (because of course I was listening ... how could you avoid it), she and the driver had previously butted heads and then mended fences, and now were absolute besties.

I know this not because he brought her homemade jerky or regaled her with stories about how he traveled to Mexico every year solely to buy cheap T-shirts, but because one morning they compared prison time. He also cautioned her that, although it warmed up her apartment quite nicely, she couldn't simply leave the oven door open all night long for extra heat during the winter.

But my favorite tale was the one she told from her childhood, when her dog got hit by a car.  According to the girl, her mother completely flipped out and crawled into bed, hugging the dead dog, and animal control had to come and take it away.

Now, this is one of those disturbing gems that makes your own life seem infinitely more normal by comparison, but what really stuck with me was the girl's final commentary on the situation.  After some commiserating about pets and our attachment to them, she stated very seriously, "Yeah, I don't see myself curling up with anything dead."

She then added,  "Animal or human."

Words to live by.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

So I've been MIA for about two weeks, and for that I apologize.  Heavy workload + vacation to help retain sanity after heavy workload = burnout narrowly avoided but replaced by apathy.

Today's word: eavesdrop.  Definition: To listen secretly to the private conversations of others.

I'm going to come right out and say it.  I am a HUGE eavesdropper.  I don't know if this stems from riding the bus and being surrounded by ridiculous conversations, or whether I'm just curious about others' lives, or whether I just get an enormous kick out of people in general.  

Whatever the case, rest assured that if you're on your cell phone or engaged in a heated discussion and either of these things is at an audible level, I'm going to be listening.  Not only will I turn down my iPod, but if the exchange is good enough, I will most likely take out a paper and pen and write it down so I can laugh about it later.  I firmly believe that if you keep your ears open and your yapper shut, you will be endlessly entertained.

There are several unwritten rules to eavesdropping.  Actually, I almost hate to call it that, because the way people talk on their phones these days, it's like they genuinely want everyone within earshot involved in their conversation.  

Rule #1:  Never look like you're listening.  This means leaving your headphones in, even if you've silenced the music in favor of hearing the chatter around you.  It also means never reacting to what is said.  See Rule #2.

Rule #2:  Never laugh out loud.  I have been reduced to tears on the bus because I'm trying so desperately not to burst out laughing.  This is paramount because of Rule #3.

Rule #3:  Never make eye contact.  Typically, the most amusing incidents are ones in which you do NOT want to be involved, even remotely.  Acknowledging that you're listening and have passed judgment on the situation is inviting yourself into the chaos.  Thus, I would highly recommend not turning and looking if there's something going on behind you, unless you want to be called out and become a new target for craziness.

I have so many hilarious eavesdropping tales, but so few of them are repeatable in mixed company.  I'm adding the disclaimer that I'm not making any of these up ... I'm simply repeating them ... so I can't be held responsible for the language or the content.  

Today's story, overheard in the bathroom at Macy's about three years ago, just before Christmas.  The woman across from me was in the stall on her phone, and I stayed in my stall much longer than necessary out of sheer joy.  Her end of the conversation went like this:

 

"Don't you take that ham out.  Don't take that ham out! . . . .We gon' cook it up.  You don't want ham, you go shop for yourself.  You go buy cheez whiz when you get paid . . . Cain't shop for himself . . . never have no mutherfuckin' money . . . . Shit.  Do your own shopping. . . . .Girl, I'm just playin' wit choo! . . . .I gotta go, they holdin' a pair of shoes for me downstairs."

  

And . . . scene.  I'll have another one tomorrow.

52-Card Throw Up

Today's word:  little slam.  Definition:  The winning of all tricks except one in bridge.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that this refers to the card game.  And then I'm going to go even further out on that limb and admit that (please don't judge me) I hate cards.  Yes, that's right.  If I'm ever at your house and you suggest a rousing round of this activity, perhaps after we've consumed a lovely meal and are enjoying a glass or two of liquor, know that this sentence will strike a bit of panic in my heart: "Let's play cards."

Ooooh, yes, let's not and say we did.  It's not that I think card games are stupid. On the contrary, I believe there's a great deal of skill in playing them well.  Skill that I do not possess and have proven myself incapable of acquiring. I've been shown how to play poker and hearts and whist, you name it.  Nothing stuck.  When it comes to strategy and playing the odds and figuring out how much to wager and learning all the rules and all the hands ... well, I just don't get it.  My brain doesn't work like that.  I'm pretty much an idiot, and not in a Rain Man sort of way.  If it's not solitaire or spoons, forget it ... definitely, definitely forget it.

So cards, not so much.  But I'm all about board games.  Love 'em.  Anytime I can get a group of people together to shout out words or roll dice or draw pictures while an hourglass runs out, I'm a happy camper.  

This joy, of course, does not apply to the game "Sorry," which is just pure evil and designed to make you almost punch your best friend's husband, and "Monopoly," which lasts too long and frankly has never once ended well in my experience.  In gradeschool my sister and I finished a heated game by hurling the pieces at each other across the living room.  The houses and hotels I could take, but that little Scottie dog smarted.  Do not pass the emergency room, do not collect your copay.

My absolute favorite board game is one called, simply enough, "The Barbie Game."  I grew up playing with my mom's original set, circa 1960.  It's based on the doll, and it goes thusly:  You have four main requirements.  You must earn money, buy a dress, become a member of a school club, get a boyfriend, go steady, and finally, the ultimate goal ... become queen of the prom.

I'm guessing that this embodied the pinnacle of what your average girl thought she could strive for in 1960, so I'm not knocking it.  There was some strategy involved.  For example, don't blow all your money on the Solo in the Spotlight dress.  You can get by well enough with a cheaper one and be on your way to the malt shoppe quicker.  Also, you definitlely want to date Ken.  He's the hottest of the four boyfriends.  Tom has a Clark Kent quality about him that's mildly appealing, and Bob will do in a pinch, but you don't want to end up at the dance on Poindexter's arm.  No, that simply won't do.

Two years ago on Christmas Eve, my sister's friend Tyler came over (as he does every year, since his family is Buddhist and doesn't care that he's getting his Santa fix).  As we always do, we drank heavily and ate all manner of sweets and played a game.  We chose "The Barbie Game," largely because my dad was pouring us shots called Grandpa is Alive, I think. 

Tyler was a good sport about it.  But he apparently felt so emasculated that he found it necessary to pretend not that he was a high school girl purchasing a dress, but a pimp, buying up women and blinging them out.  This seemed to work for him, and I thought it was probably an aptly updated version.

As I recall, his strategy worked, and he did indeed become Queen of the Prom.  Or, in his case, King of the Playa's Ball, depending on how you look at it.  In a way, he achieved a kind of "little slam," winning all tricks except two -- my sister and I, who were left with only our memberships in the Scholarship Club and the Music Club, doomed to pursue terribly boring lives in academia rather than cherishing a tiara. 

But I didn't care. I had Ken.  And not only were we going steady, but I had mom's car and an extra ten bucks.  Screw you, Solo in the Spotlight.  You wouldn't have made it past first base anyway.

Stop, Duck, and Roll

I just have to share this, because it truly was one of those gifts from above that I will treasure always.  The other morning I was waiting at the bus stop, and I saw this group of ducks fly overhead.  There are always tons of them hanging around the pond at the nursing home nearby, presumably plotting their escape from this soon-to-be frigid wasteland.

So a few of them come in for a landing on the grass right in front of me, except the lawn slopes downward pretty steeply.  And one of the ducks apparently misjudged the incline, because instead of gliding in gracefully, he crashed.  This isn't the funny part.  The funny part is that after crashing, he rolled, about three or four times, down the hill, and all I saw were these two little orange duck feet splayed in the air, going end over end.

And then, when he finally skidded to a stop and righted himself, I swear he looked around to see who was watching . . . and saw me, doubled over laughing.

I wanted to say, "Dude, how could you screw that up?  Landing is like your only job in this world.  Fly, land, quack, swim, eat, poop on unfortunate people and objects, and look good stuffed.  We don't ask much from your species.  Hell, we didn't even make Donald wear pants!"

But I think it was Mother Nature's way of saying, "Eh, we don't always get it right, either."  I find that reassuring.  I'll try to remember it the next time I have my own crash landing on the ice.  That duck will hopefully be long gone by then, but if he's not, I hope to look up from my crumpled heap and see him giving me mad webbed props from across the street.

Sole Train

No word today, just a topic.

So I'm having a bit of an obsession right now with Golden Grahams.  The cereal, not some funky new street drug.  I can't seem to eat enough of them, and I put away about three bowls a day over the weekend.  I do this pretty often with food, just get on a kick and consume something constantly until that undefinable moment when my tastes swing from "Hell, yes!" to "Never again."

The worst time was when I got a quesadilla maker for Christmas. For about four months, that was all I ate every night after work.  Of course I haven't even been able to look at the thing since, but it was fun while it lasted.  Oh, quesadilla maker, don't feel sad.  It's not you, it's me.

I wonder if I'm able to get in these habits simply because I live alone. If I'd felt I needed to justify my dietary patterns to anyone, I might have made an effort to include some variety, or at least felt a twinge of shame at the monotony.  As it is, there's no one to judge me for anything I happen to do.  Eat cookies for supper?  So what.  Fry an egg at 2 a.m.?  Try to stop me. Make brownies and cut out the very middle piece?  Suck it, I'll do what I want.

I once had this conversation with my sister, who also lives alone:

Sister: "Would you judge me if I told you I made a cake yesterday and it's almost gone already?"

Me: "No."

Sister: "How about if I never even put the slices on plates and instead just ate it right out of the pan?"

Me:  "Of course not."

Sister: "What if told you I just left the pan by the side of my bed with a fork in it?"

I say, your house, your rules.  And it doesn't just apply to food.  Does anyone ever close their bathroom door when they live alone?  Or get dressed immediately after a shower?  Or not have the TV, radio, and computer on while talking on the phone? .... they do?  Well, as Bobby Brown so eloquently put it, that's my prerogative.  If I want to keep the thermostat at 75 or stay up till 4 a.m. watching old movies, who's going to complain?  That's the beauty of independence.

I have a sneaking suspicion that my friends with kids secretly hate me for this.  Since I have yet to find that special someone to start a brood with, I have the luxuries of sleeping till noon on Saturdays, discretionary income, and the freedom that comes with virtually no major responsibilities.  Does that make me spoiled or selfish?  Perhaps if I'd turned down several serious marriage offers in favor of carefree living. In reality, my lifestyle isn't decadent or somehow less valuable because I'm single ... it's just different.  I'm working with what I have at the moment, and I'm good with that.

On the downside, you have to learn to keep yourself pretty entertained.  This might have been a problem for me before I lived in Japan for a year -- not so anymore. With almost no one to talk to or anything in English to read, I was forced to be creative.  When I wasn't killing cockroaches or avoiding my topless old lady neighbor, I spent my evenings trying to decipher crazy gameshows on TV and attempting to bake banana bread in my rice cooker. When that failed to amuse, I once resorted to choreographing a routine to the theme song from "Shaft." 

I soon decided that the equation for a tolerable single existence is this:  happiness = the amount of time spent dancing in your living room ... in your underwear.

I honestly don't remember the last time I was bored.  I can't stand hearing someone whining about not having anything to do, because there's always something to do.  What they're really saying is, "There's nothing I want to do."  Did I want to learn the katakana alphabet, or how to whistle the Himi High School song, or every single line in "The Naked Gun," or all the lyrics after "He's a bad mother --shut your mouth?"  No.  But I did it, and now I own it.  Forever.

  
Sometimes, you gotta make do with what you have.  You gotta find that happy place to escape to in your own head.  You gotta shake what your momma gave you. And you gotta do it to music, alone, wearing as little as possible. Preferably eating a bowl of Golden Grahams.

Nocturnal Admissions

Today's word: dreamcheater.  Definition: I don't think this is actually a word, but it should be.  One who engages in imaginary romantic affairs in their sleep, despite being attached in their waking life.

OK, so halfway through today I remembered that I had a great dream last night about George Clooney.  I love it when I don't recall things like this until mid-morning.  It's like Christmas.  Only instead of a crappy holiday sweater, I got to unwrap God's gift to women.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a steamy dream.  Here's the scenario:  I was outdoors, I saw his adorable little dog running wild, and I snagged it off the sidewalk so I could return it to him.  I'm pretty sure this was premeditated; although I am a dog lover, I loves me some Clooney even more.  Anyway, I then got to lounge around on his couch with him while he thanked me and flirted with me.  Dammit, even in my dreams I'm not easy!

You know, I have a happily married friend who dreamcheats all the time.  It's unbelievable.  And it's not even with movie stars or made-up men .. it's with actual boyfriends from her past.  I'm not passing judgment.  As long as these guys confine themselves to REM, more power to her.  I'm just disappointed that, as a single girl, I rarely take the opportunity to get freaky even when I'm asleep.

Of course, my dreams are freaky in all sorts of other ways.  I dream every night, without exception, vividly.  I may not always remember every moment, but I never wake up without having undergone what felt like hours and hours of either an adventure or an ordeal.  I dream in color.  I have recurring dreams.  I can still remember ridiculous dreams I had as a kid.  And though I'm 31 years old, I cannot seem to dream about any house other than the one I grew up in.

Sometimes I have nightmares.  But this, I think, you'd have to expect.  Take the bad with the good.  If I get to occasionally wake up actually laughing, I have to pay my dues by jolting awake short of breath, my heart pounding through my shirt.  My nightmares typically revolve around being chased, and wouldn't you know it, I can never run at a normal speed, because my legs feel like they each weigh 200 lbs.  I'm just glad I don't have my mom's recurring nightmare of being in someone's house, though you know you're not supposed to be, and hearing them come home.  Shudder.

So what do they mean?  Beats me.  I don't think that subconsciously I'm trying to run from a haunting past or that my mom is secretly a cat burglar . . . although she does own a suspiciously large amount of silver and ski masks.  I'm not sure there's too much value in deciphering the junk our minds spit up and play around with at night. But it sure can be amusing.  Here's one of the funniest dreams I've ever had (I've never been able to tell this story in person without crying laughing, so I hope typing it goes better.)

Sidenote:  I had this dream while living in Japan, and you'll understand the references soon enough.  It occurred about five hours after having a horrifyingly slimy and gelatinous meal with all the teachers at my school, and about a week after watching "Jurassic Park" on English TV.

 

The dream:  I'm in a shopping center, and Godzilla is attacking the city. (I'm not making this up.)  Everybody is screaming, and I head out of the mall to run for my life, but not before pausing to convince two teenage boys to stop looting an electronics store and run for their lives.  I burst out into the street and look up, and there's Godzilla, looking suspiciously like the T-Rex from Spielberg's movie.  And then, right in the middle of all the chaos, he sweeps his head down low over the hordes of shrieking people, and he growls very loudly and slowly, "Motherfuckers!"

I don't know what's funnier -- that he can talk at all, or that it came out like a roar, or that of all things, that expletive most perfectly expresses his feelings at that exact moment.  Whatever it was, this dream was similar to my dream last night, in that I didn't remember it until halfway through the next afternoon.  Everyone looked at me funny when I doubled over laughing in the teachers' room at school (for no apparent reason), but then again, they looked at me funny most of the time.

Isn't it crazy how dreams, or just the sense of them, can stay with you?  Sometimes you get up and go to work and just feel weird all day.  It's even worse when you've dreamed about someone from work.  And it's downright awkward if you've had a sex dream about them.  It's also strange to still be mad at someone for something they did in a dream. My sister once couldn't talk to me for two days because I'd done something unforgivable in her subconscious ... completely made up and entirely untrue, but unforgivable.

But we can't help it, can we.  They seem real, our feelings are real.  We have no control over what pops out when we shut our eyes. If we did, I'd be flying all night every night.  With a layover at George's house. Pun intended.

Dance Party US

Today's word:  lazy.  Definition: me.

I didn't actually look this one up, since ... well, I'm lazy.  Not all the time, but in select moments, shockingly so.  For instance, about two minutes ago I was lying here on the couch, and something caught the corner of my eye, and I looked up to see a gigantic spider scurrying down the wall, just as fast as its eight enormous legs could carry it.

And I did nothing.  Granted, I am lying on a heating pad, having done something inexplicable and annoyingly painful to my hip, and killing this thing would have required cat-like reflexes that I simply do not possess at the moment. But it unnerves me a bit that not even the threat of that same brazen arachnid scurrying over my bare feet within the hour could induce me to get up.

Because that's what they will do, surely.  It is our greatest fear.  Those creepy creatures that inhabit our homes always -- yet are only sporadically driven into the light, much to their embarrassment and our horror -- harbor a secret desire to do only one thing:  crawl on us.  Their secret agenda is to dance across our skin, preferably in the middle of the night, when we cannot feel their multiple feet tap-tap-tapping away, like a little Fred Astaire with a thorax.

Otherwise, why would we be so scared of them?

There's nothing worse than attempting to kill a bug and failing.  This means that, not only is it still lurking somewhere in your bedroom, but it saw your face as you tried to squish it.  And now it's pissed.  This is why I'm a fan of sprays rather than shoes as weapons of death.  You can't really "miss" with a spray. Plus, you don't have to hear anything crunch.  As an added bonus, nothing escapes the tissue and scurries across your hand as you screech like a schoolgirl.

Which I have done, despite psyching myself up and trash-talking whatever's hanging on my wall. I don't know why I turn these encounters into a battle royale, as if I'm playing out a confrontation foretold in an ancient legend.  I half expect whatever it is to turn to me with a steely glare and growl, "It's a good day to die."

Sometimes, with spiders, I live and let live, depending on their proximity to my pillow.  There are moments when I hope they will cry out "Salutations!" and spin a delightful web with the words "Some Pig" in it.  I should stop doing this, assigning insects human traits. It would make flushing their bodies so much easier.

Centipedes are another story.  I am literally distraught if I miss one of those bastards.  Cockroaches?  That's a whole other blog and likely a lifetime of psychological counseling.

For now, I'm going to pretend that I never saw that spider.  I'm going to let it go.  And against all my better instincts, I'm going to assume that I will not wake up at 3 a.m. with tiny dance cards strewn about my sheets.

Yeah.

TMI

Today's word: mediatrix.  Definition: A woman who is a mediator.

I've never thought about this before, but I'm guessing that the suffix "trix" can only be added to words that end in "tor."  As in "dominatrix" is a female "dominator," and "terminatrix" is a female "terminator."  This is a shame, really, since adding "trix" makes everything sound so much more badass.

For example, if I told you we were going to resolve our differences with the aid of a mediator, you would think, "Okay, fine. A calm, unbiased third party will help us gain perspective."  But if I told you our session was being conducted by a mediatrix, you might assume there would be whips and chains involved.

Because of course "trix" has gained the scandalous reputation as being associated with sado-masochistic sexual appetites and conjures images of a leather-clad seductress in stilettos spanking a submissive.  At least it does for those of us who had cable growing up.

I think it would be interesting to combine mediatrix and dominatrix as a profession, and to send this woman in to broker the vote on healthcare.  I'm willing to bet we get an acceptable resolution much faster if the threat of being hog-tied and doused with hot wax looms large over the senate chambers. Would "death panel" be a good safeword? Then again, we are talking about Washington, which seems to be a veritable breeding ground for disturbing nocturnal extracurriculars, so maybe this effort would backfire.

I once heard the phrase "With great power comes great libido," and I wonder if that's true.  It seems to be.  It does appear that the "L" in "election" immediately transforms into an "R" the minute the polls close.  But I also wonder if we would be equally shocked, if not more so, to learn what our neighbors do behind closed doors. 

Not that I intend to pry.  I really do think I'm better off not knowing -- ignorance is bliss when it comes to learning embarrassing secrets about people you need to talk to every day.  I will probably have a difficult time interacting with you if I automatically picture you in lacy underwear. Especially if you're a dude.  That's a keep-it-to-yourselfer.

Here's another example.  When I was in college, my friends and I lived on the top floor of our dorm, and the antennas on the roof often interfered with any electronic equipment.  Stereos, computers, you name it. They sometimes went on the fritz.  For a few days, this phenomenon affected my friend's cordless phone, and she could pick up other people's conversations.

One night, she happened upon two people who were ... how shall I put it ... enjoying each other verbally.  Toward the "end" of the conversation, (let's call it the climax, for lack of a better word) the man took it upon himself to call out the woman's name.  Her FULL name.

a.  Who does that?

b.  Why did it have to be someone I knew?

c.  Why did I have to sit next to her in Biology 110?

These are all valid questions, I think.  Suffice it to say that I found it hard to share notes without inquiring if it was good for her.  Maybe we could have been lab partners with the help of a mediatrix.

Judy, Judy, Judy

Today's word: oreodont.  Definition: Any of various extinct sheep-sized ruminant artiodactyls of the family Merycoidodontidae, widespread during part of the Tertiary in North America.

Cross-referenced sub-definition for those of us who understood nothing after sheep-sized:  artiodactyl means a hoofed mammal that has an even number of toes on each foot.

I'm was trying not to get hung up on the "oreo" part of this word, since I dwelled on doughnuts in my last post, but I've really been on a kick lately with "milk's favorite cookie."  Oreos hold a special place in my heart, largely because I spent every Saturday morning as a kid with a huge stack of them, a cold glass of milk, and Muppet Babies on TV.  

I'm a bit of an Oreo purist -- I don't do double stuff or mint or peanut butter or golden or whatever the hell else they have out on the market these days.  I like 'em simple and I like 'em a little soggy, and I especially like 'em in ice cream.  Every time I go to Dairy Queen, I intend to try something new, and inevitably I walk out with an Oreo Blizzard.  If I could have one of those and a mocha frappuccino every day, I'd be in heaven. I'd be 400 lbs. and broke, but I'd be in heaven.

So there's the first part of "oreodont," but I should probably address what it means.  I don't know much about sheep, other than I've heard they're super dumb and just will not stop screaming, despite rigorous analysis by institutionalized cannibalistic psychopaths.

But my first memory is actually of a sheep, a stuffed lamb that someone gave to my sister when she was born.  It might have been the fact that she was ill that cemented this memory in my head, because I also remember the little oxygen tent and standing on our driveway when my dad came home from the hospital.  Is 2 years 11 months too young to have a memory?  

In any case, getting a sister seems like as good a time as any to start remembering things, although I don't recall walking into her room while she was sleeping and flipping on the light in protest.  Evidently I was quite the little shit those first few months. Apparently I told my mother I was going to lock myself in my bedroom until I got a brother.  I would still be there.

The story my family and friends love to tell about me, and the one I will share with you now, involves me wanting, and I quote, "a little black baby named Judy."  I don't know where I got this idea, but according to my parents, when anyone asked them what our new family addition was going to be, I responded with this phrase. This declaration must have seemed perfectly reasonable to me, and I proclaimed it joyfully to whoever would listen.  (I talked early and coherently ... and I talked a lot. I'm quite sure I'm getting several motormouthed offspring in retribution.)

But alas, when delivery day arrived, out popped yet another white kid of German-Russian heritage, to be named not Judy but Meghan and who would never sprout an afro.  I, on the other hand, would rock the 'fro from second grade until seventh, courtesy of bad perms.

I'm not sure this dream of mine has completely died, however, since I've always wanted to adopt children and would be delighted if they were of a different ethnicity.  And I'm not alone.  I was recently talking with a friend about how beautiful multi-racial kids are, and she confessed that she's always wanted an African-American baby ... with apologies to her husband, who is as white as she is. Since they plan to conceive the old-fashioned way, I asked her husband what he planned to do about that.  His reply: "Work late?"

  
I don't think my dad spent too many neglectful nights at the office, judging by the fact that my sister looks just like him, and I look just like my mom.  My sister and I look nothing like each other, and though I've always been curious about how it would feel to be instantly recognizable as siblings, I've never truly lamented the fact that we each have our separate identities. (I've also never held a grudge against her skin color, which would have been an instant conversation-starter for awhile there.)

In the end, what binds us together isn't eye color or bone structure -- it's knowing someone who's known you since the beginning, the person you made your first memories with. Mine started with a lamb.

You Blinded Me With Pastry

Today's word: tokamak.  Definition: A doughnut-shaped chamber used in fusion research in which a plasma is heated and confined by magnetic fields.

Okay, you had me briefly at "doughnut," and then you lost me.

I'm the first to admit that science is not my strong suit.  My strengths lie in the verbal region, not so much in the quantum physics area ... or maybe even basic chemistry.  Wouldn't know, never took it.  Avoided physics like the plague.  I can't read a periodic table for shit, but I can knock you out a quality limerick in about five minutes:

There once was a girl with a blog

Who kept her kind readers agog

With quick random thoughts

Some not quite for tots

Her daily life became a log

There you go.  Is this a useful talent?  Probably not.  I'm not going to discover a cure for cancer via wordsmithing, and I haven't yet been able to turn these skills into anything remotely marketable or profitable. 

Maybe I should have concentrated on the sciences in school.  I did enjoy biology, but that was largely because my high school teacher showed us controversial videos and conducted a class urine lab, before which my friend Josh's sample leaked in his shirt pocket. And also because my friend Rachel danced her fetal pig across the table for me just before we dissected it.  Good times.

In college, I took the bare minimum science requirement, putting it off until spring semester of my senior year.  In fact, I ended up taking it with my sister, who's two years younger.  Just before our final exam, she tried to persuade me to put in a long study session with her.  I chalked this up to sophomore zeal and, suffering from a terrible case of senioritis, did the one rebellious thing of my liberal arts career and blew off preparing for it. 

The next day, as I paged through nine terrifying pages of test, realizing that I knew almost none of the answers, I glanced over to find a tiny smile on my sibling's face as she breezed through it. She aced it -- I passed.

Despite those two hours of panic, I don't necessarily regret that decision.  Honestly, if I had college to do over again, I would have blown off more study sessions and had a bit more fun.  As it was, I worked my ass off for four years, and none of it was easy.  Well, except for "Shakespeare: The Movie," which was perhaps the greatest class ever invented.

But you have to go with your strengths, right?  I mean, I'm reasonably intelligent and have a pretty decent memory, so I'm fairly confident that I could have prepared for a completely different career path and been at least competent in my field. Case in point:  I'm not good at math, but I pulled straight A's in high school simply because I went in 45 minutes early every morning and got help from Mr. Smart ... who was, indeed, very smart, although Mr. Patient might have described him better.

Would every day be torture if you weren't doing what came naturally to you?  Maybe.  But it might be the kind of torture that comes with a much higher salary, and that would make up for some of the pain.  Don't get me wrong -- nobody is more surprised than me that I can actually make a living with an English degree.  Excerpt from every career conversation I had during college:

Small-minded person:  "What are you majoring in?"

Me:  "English.  With minors in history and religion."

Small-minded person:  "What are you going to do with that?"

Me:  "Correct your grammar, remind you that all this stuff has happened before, and debate whether there's anyone up there who actually cares."

(Sidenote:  I never correct people's grammar.  I find it insulting and pretentious.  Just so you know.)

So I guess we take the talents we're given, even if they seem as minuscule as fixing misplaced modifiers and run-on sentences, and we run with them, and hopefully spin them into something we can stand to do for 8 hours a day and sometimes beyond. We all have our little niche. Some of us are ridiculously amused by misspelled words, and others geek out over doughnut-shaped tokamaks.  But we shouldn't try to pretend we're something that we're not.

Mmmmm ..... doughnuts.

Deep Woods On

Today's word: mosquito.  Definition: If you don't know what a mosquito is, please visit Minnesota in July for a complete and painful education.

I have to go on record here by saying that, luckily, I am one of those people who don't attract these little buggers in droves (much like single straight men as well, evidently). In fact, I just read an article that was devoted entirely to the study of why mosquitoes are attracted to some people and not others.  It might be chemicals, or hormones, or pheromones, but some of us can gallop through a field at dusk and come away with just a few nibbles, while others can wave an arm out the car window and pull it back covered in red welts.  My dad is the latter.

If my dad even thinks of venturing outside in prime mosquito season, I'm convinced that's the signal for the half-dozen rogue insect agents who have been hiding inside the house to attack him.  Nothing works to keep them at bay, but he has found a product that eases the irritation following the assault.  It's a skinny white tube called Skeeter Stick.

I don't know what's in this magical medical wand, but whatever it is, it's strong enough to nearly knock out a full-grown poodle when sniffed.  How do I know this?  I plead the fifth.  And before you cry animal cruelty, you should know that that dog suffered no long-term ill effects and lived to be 17.

So my father spends the better part of the summer girding his loins and every other part of his body against creatures whose only purpose in life is to feed on human blood.  You know what else does that?  Vampires.  

And yet, somehow we don't romanticize mosquitoes in the quite the same way.  I have yet to pick up a series of teen novels that feature handsome, brooding, misunderstood mosquitoes who are hopelessly attracted to the lonely, edgy girl in school and can't help embroiling her in the mayhem of evil ticks and fleas.

I really don't get this vampire obsession that has sprung up in the last year or so.  Sure, it's sexy to fall under the spell of someone irresistible who wants nothing more than to devour your neck . . . as long as they don't also intend to drain you of life-sustaining fluids and transform you into the undead.  Leave a hickey if you must -- I can fix that with a turtleneck.  But nothing they sell at Old Navy will cover up an eternity of insatiable thirst for human blood. 

Maybe I'm simply too old to swoon over the delicious danger of cavorting with parasites, even if they do look like Robert Pattinson.  But I guess if Hollywood can romanticize vampires, it could probably work similar magic with West Nile.

Eight is Enough

Apologies. The last two weeks have had me working overtime at the job that actually pays my bills, and I haven't had enough mental energy left at the end of the day to post.  What's that?  Yes, I think I would like some cheese with my whine.  Here we go.

Today's word: octosyllable.  Definition: A word of eight syllables.

First thought: Isn't it odd that the word octosyllable only has five syllables? 

Second thought: How many words out there really do have eight syllables?

Like any person today with a healthy amount of curiosity, I naturally pulled up my search engine and typed in "eight syllable words."  Here are some that I found:  unconstitutionality, electronegativity, (you can keep on counting them on your fingers, I know you're doing it) unidirectionality, autosuggestibility.  I'm not sure whether these are actual words, although they seem legitimate enough.  I would have opened yet another tab to check, but I was stopped by the following suggestion to the eight-syllable question on Yahoo Answers.  

Yes, Yahoo Answers, that bastion of intellectualism (in-tel-lect...damn, only seven) that beckons to the desperate and downtrodden.  This was an "answer" (we didn't say they would all be right, now did we) posted by someone:  antidisestablishmentarianism.

Now, I don't know if I should be comforted by the fact that this "answer" (I have to keep using quotes, because the term is so loose) received zero votes on the site, presumably of confidence in the future of mankind, or if I should be even more disturbed by the fact that someone out there either doesn't know what a syllable is or mysteriously has twelve fingers on which to count them.

But really, shouldn't we expect to receive some ludicrous responses when we essentially ask thousands of complete strangers to weigh in on our issues? You'd have to imagine you'd get a cross-section of the population, which includes morons, dimwits, and your general idiots.

We don't do this in real life.  When I have a question or a problem, I don't think to myself, "Who's the dumbest person I know?  Let's get that perspective.  Yeah."  No, I go to someone with either expertise in the subject or life experience, someone whose opinions I respect or whose views are valuable. This is not to say you might not find a similar guru on Yahoo Answers ... but the law of averages says that most of the really quality minds are busy elsewhere.

Unless, of course, your question is potentially embarrassing, in which case, the Internet would seem to be the greatest invention ever.  One of my friends recently told me that there's nothing sadder than going into Google, typing in "can you" and seeing what autopopulates to finish the question.  Go ahead, do it.  It's an interesting window into what's foremost on the minds of America's youth. 

If you're not up to it, let me summarize by saying that there are countless young girls out there who are unnecessarily confused by all the ways in which a person can and cannot become pregnant.  I couldn't help but be reminded of a conversation I overheard on the bus about six months ago between two girls.  I'd estimate their ages at about 16.  It was slightly dramatic and vulgar, and the end went like this:

Girl #1:  "I ain't worried bout gettin' pregnant, cause I'm on the pill."

Girl #2:  "Girl, the pill don't keep you from gettin' pregnant.  It just kill yo baby."

I don't know what was said after that, because my ears were bleeding from the sheer ignorance.  I was engaged in an internal debate about whether to turn and correct them when I almost missed my stop.  At the time, I wasn't sure it was my place to intervene.  But in light of the internet question forum phenomenon, which dictates rightness by popular opinion, maybe I should have.  Perhaps we've been leaving them to Yahoo Answers for too long.

Spellcheck, Shmellcheck

Today's word: unprofessional.  Disclosure:  I didn't actually look up a word today, since I had something else to post, but that word most accurately describes what I'm about to tell you.

About a month ago, I sent an email to a personal banker at a large financial institution.  I'm going to stay away from actual names in this post, but let's just say that if we stopped shipping souls into the underworld, it could be called Hell's Embargo.  Wink.

The email went like this:

Hi there.  I talked briefly with a teller last week when depositing a check into my business account, and she mentioned that I could upgrade to an account that would not charge a monthly service fee. Is there a minimum balance I would need to maintain?  Please let me know.  Thanks!

The response I received went like this (I'm not making it up, this is word for word):

Hi I just get your email let me know when u wan come and set down whit me  so we can see what options we have for u 

  

Now, I will say that this person's name did appear slightly foreign, so English may not be her first language, and I'm willing to dismiss misspellings and iffy grammar.  Since I'm an editor by trade, I assume I'm overly sensitive to these kinds of things.  But it was the abbreviation of "you" that absolutely blew my mind.  Although I realize we live in a world that operates on text messages, I was pretty sure she was on a Blackberry somewhere, forgot she was answering a work email, and instead thought she was tweeting.  

However, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, as I really wanted my question answered, and I replied thusly:  I don't have a lot of time during work hours, but I could do 15-20 minutes on Friday if you're available. 

This is the response I received: 

What time so I can ready for u 

Yes.  Really.  This person was hired, presumably, to interact with customers and convince them to put even more of their hard-earned money into the bank's hands.  I honestly thought I might be getting punked, but by then, my curiosity was really piqued.  I decided I had to meet this person in the flesh.  So I wrote:  How about 11:00? 

The reply:  Hi can u meet me at 12:00pm I have 

And that was it. At this point, I closed my laptop, because I wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream.  Strike three!  I'd given her several chances that I probably shouldn't have, and I finally decided I would just have to live with the mystery of what her problem was.

About four days later, I got another email from her, to the effect of what happened to me, she was waiting.  I was still debating whether to call her supervisor and let them know exactly the kind of business communication that was leaving her desk, but since I had an opportunity to tell her directly, I did.

I told her that her last email was incomplete, and that I had solved my issue online (sidenote: it took two emails and was even intelligible!) I also said that, in the future, she might want to be a bit more professional in her email messages, since using abbreviations and not completing sentences didn't present her skills in the best way possible.

I tried not to be a bitch about it, because I really hoped she would take it as constructive criticism. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she came across as challenged in some capacity, or that I am now reluctant, if not adamantly opposed, to meeting with any representatives from this institution.  Oh, who am I kidding?  They have all my money.  And it's being held hostage by people who can't put sentences together.

  

Witchy Woman

Today's word: water witch.  Definition: One who claims to be able to find water by means of a divining rod; a dowser.

I thought this word was super appropriate this afternoon, since it was raining when I got off the bus.  I felt my mood go from "You know, work was pretty good today . . ." to "Motherf*#king rain!"  This reaction wasn't because it feels like all it's done this fall is piss down water, and it's not because I feel like we got cheated out of autumn leaves, when it's my favorite season.  It's because, for lack of a better term, I think I could rightly be called a water witch.  

Meaning, in an altered definition, that as soon as I get rained on, I become ill-tempered and slightly hostile.  There are very few things I hate more than being wet and clothed.  Aside from just feeling generally icky, my wavy hair responds schitzophrenically to moisture and it's difficult to navigate through raindrop-splattered glasses.  One of the most miserable two hours of my life was the morning I got caught in the rain at the Twin Cities Marathon, waiting for my sister's shitty boyfriend to run by and cursing, cursing, cursing myself for being too much of an idiot to bring an umbrella. Completely my fault, of course, I'm not saying otherwise.  I only wish she'd broken up with him before the race and not four months after.

I'm typically a good sport about most things.  I go places and do things I'm not super jazzed about, I eat places that are "meh," I rally from being dog tired, all because the people I'm with want to do stuff.  I hope my friends would say that I'm not a complainer.  But the only times you'll probably encounter a rather grumpy version of me is when I'm wet.

Or cold.  For as much as I'm cat-like in a downpour, I'm almost reptilian in my inability to regulate my body temperature.  One of my friends once told me, "We could wrap you in a buffalo-skin robe and set it on fire and you'd still be cold."  It's true.  I'm a shiver bunny.  My family claims that I was never this much of a wuss until I spent a very long winter in a bone-chilling 34-degree house in Japan. All I know is, if it's below freezing and you've planned an outdoor activity, count me out.  I went to the winter carnival about six years ago.  It was 15 degrees outside. As I watched the deliriously happy ice skaters, I could barely restrain myself from yelling, "What's wrong with you people!?"

It's not that I don't admire the hardy Minnesotans that surround me on all sides.  I do.  And it's not that I don't like snow.  I do.  But I like snow when it's outside and I'm inside, warm and toasty with my free heat, drinking a hot chocolate, curled up in a blanket with a book.

When people ask me which I would rather be, too hot or too cold, I always choose hot.  Because although I sometimes feel angry and a bit crazy when it's sweltering, when I'm cold, I lose all hope that I will ever, ever be warm again. (By the way, have you ever noticed how much people swear when it's freezing? You rarely yell "Dammit, it's hot!" But walk outside in the middle of  February and I dare you not to shout "F*#k it's cold!")

So evidently we've established that I have about a 10-degeee window of physical comfort. Maybe that makes me a snow witch in addition to a water witch.  Or maybe an ice queen.  If you want to bestow frigid royalty on me, I'll take it.  Just don't make me live at the ice palace.

Personal Problems

Today's word: personally.  Definition: 4) In a personal manner, took it personally.

I'm inclined to think people take themselves a little too seriously these days.  Maybe it's because the world is becoming increasingly bent around our individual convenience, and technology is designed to "belong" to us in increasingly smaller and more responsive forms.  Maybe it's because everything sleek and cool now starts with "i."  Or maybe it's because everyone has more of a voice online and can create exactly the life they want to present virtually -- Facebook profiles that are all about "me," Twitter updates every four seconds detailing the most inane snippets of daily life, blogs where anybody can write whatever's knocking around in their head and send it out for public consumption.

Author's note:  Yes, I realize I just lambasted the medium I'm currently typing in.  I can't deny it, and I can't even say that this blog is an exception, because that would be taking myself a bit seriously, wouldn't it?

But I think it's this warped sense of self-importance or entitlement that causes people to take ridiculous things too personally.  In the interest of full disclosure, here are two ridiculous things I take personally.

1.  Traffic.  Well, not traffic in general.  I don't assume that the universe is out to make me late to an appointment or that the road construction is some kind of punishment from God (although it feels like it sometimes).  It's not these larger concepts I'm concerned with; what I take personally is mano y mano ... when someone cuts me off or honks at me.  Irrationally, I assume that this person has somehow singled me out to pick on me, and that from that moment, we'll be engaged in a not-so-friendly give and take of vehicular tag.  

Of course, I don't act on this thought, partly because I think road rage is unbecoming, but mostly because I have no desire to get shot.  I remember that, in reality, that person has already moved on (literally and figuratively), and beyond being momentarily annoyed with something that may not have even been my fault, they will not be stewing over the incident ten seconds from now.  This doesn't apply to the time someone roared past me and gave me the finger out their window the ENTIRE length of the Mendota bridge, but I had just moved to the city from a town with three stoplights, so they probably had a valid point.

2.  Movies.  If anyone knows me even remotely, they probably know that I love movies.  I don't mean in a common, casual, "Oh, yeah, I think I saw that one" way, because if you can't remember it, there is either something wrong with you, or you weren't in the theater.  I'm not saying my attention to storyline and detail makes me a better person, I'm just saying that for me, movies do exactly what they're suposed to do: transport you to a world of their creation.  

So in my mind, movie viewing is serious.  It takes some effort (and silence) to stay engaged.  Therefore, it absolutely blows my mind when people talk during a film.  I don't care if you're in a theater or sitting at home with the latest from your Netflix queue ... if you have a comment or thought, keep it to yourself.  We're all still going to be here when the credits roll and discussion time begins. IMDB will be available to answer your burning questions about the last place you saw that actress. If you think the movie's too long or too boring or too stupid, maybe just leave.  But don't sit there and complain, ruining it for the rest of us. To me, that is the height of rudeness, and few things you do will tick me off more.

Naturally, those rules don't apply if we're watching something silly that we've mutually agreed to trash all the way through.  Oh, you didn't know the rules?  That's because they're crazy, just like all the things we get worked up over when we're taking things too personally.  I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

The problem with taking things too seriously is that by doing so, we're assuming the universe gives a flying rip about our personal issues, which seem enormous to us but are rather infinitesimal on a cosmic scale.  None of the things that happen to us are truly earth-shattering -- very few are even ironic, despite what Alanis Morissette would have you think.  (Rain on your wedding day?  Coincidence.  Rain on your wedding day when you're marrying a meterologist who predicted 75 and sunny?  Ironic.)

So next time I'm getting a horn blast on the interstate or resisting the urge to shhhhsh someone at AMC 14, I'm going to give that person, and the cosmos, the benefit of the doubt.  Most likely, neither of them intend anything malicious.  I guarantee they're not giving me even a fraction of the attention I'm giving myself.

Beelzebud

Today's word: devil's advocate.  Definition: One who argues against a cause or position simply for the sake of argument or to determine the validity of the cause or position.

Is there anything more annoying than people who find it necessary to constantly play devil's advocate?  I'm not talking about those who interject in a helpful, well-meaning, "Hey, but think about this ..." kind of way.  I'm referring to the people who are compelled to just be contrary, no matter what the subject is -- the people who might secretly agree wholeheartedly with whatever is being said, but who would never in a million years admit it.  

Why not?  Who knows.  Maybe they don't like the person who came up with the idea.  Maybe they need to appear smarter or more worldly than everyone else.  Maybe they automatically resist anything mainstream. Or maybe their underwear's too tight.  I'm not a mind reader; all I know is it drives me crazy.

And yet, I have to admit, there have been one or two people in my life who have unintentionally brought out this quality in me.  For whatever reason, I felt compelled to disagree with almost everything they said.  I knew I was doing it, but I couldn't help myself.  Call it passive-agressive if you must.  I grew up South Dakota Lutheran, we practically took lessons in it.

However, I'm generally a very agreeable person.  I'm even-keeled, I'm pleasant, I'm empathetic, and there are shockingly few things that I have strong enough opinions about to dive into arguments that would lose me friends.  Sometimes I think I'm even too "live and let live, to each his own."  My dad once said to me, in all seriousness, "I hate to break this to you, but you're what many would consider a liberal."  If by that I'm labeled as someone who recognizes that everybody's just trying to get through this world the best they know how, then I suppose that's true.

Almost more than any other quality, moodiness really bothers me.  I don't like not knowing what I'm going to get every time I see someone.  Because then I have to adjust my life to accommodate their mood, and I don't think it's fair to make everyone around you suffer because you're angry or tired or insecure or whatever. I'm not saying people have to be all sunshine and puppies all the time, but I could do my best to help you out if you'd just give me a heads up about what's really going on.

What bothers me is that, when I played devil's advocate with people in the past, I was becoming the thing that I hate ... and I hate that. Don't they say that the qualities that trouble us in others are really our worst qualities, the ones we aren't willing to admit we possess?  Is that what makes it so easy for us to recognize them in others?

I guess, in the grand scheme of things, being slightly grumpy and disagreeable isn't the worst thing I could have done.  I mean, I wasn't really advocating for the devil.  Come to think about it, that's probably one of the few issues that I would feel strongly enough about to make or break a friendship.  

Because if someone actually came up to me and said, "Have you heard all the wonderful things about Satan?" ... well, I would still be an agreeable person.  But I would be an agreeable person running like hell in the opposite direction.