I once went to Europe with little notice and very little money.

Someone told me they were going overseas with a backpack and no agenda. Of course, I asked if I could go along. I got back a little while ago. I went to England, Belgium, Germany, and France. I’d never been out of the states before.

I believe it is my duty to tell anyone who’s never been overseas the simple truth. Europe stinks. If you’ve been to London or Paris, you know what I mean. You come back with all your pretty pictures and show them to everyone and tell them everything was beautiful and the food was amazing, but you don’t tell them the whole story. You don’t want them to know how bad it is over there. How the streets smell like urine worse than the dirtiest public bathrooms in the U.S.. You don’t tell them that Paris smells like urine and dog poop. How the major cities are decaying before your eyes. You don’t tell them that there are very, very pungent people everywhere. You don’t want them to know that you spent thousands of dollars to go to cities that have a few historic structures, but smell like a restroom you wouldn’t use no matter how badly you had to go. You don’t tell them that. I will.

Seriously, don’t ever go to Paris. I have the choice here of spoiling your dreams of romantic Paris, or letting you make your own mistake and finding out how bad it is first-hand. I think it would be reckless and wrong of me not to let you know. It’s disgusting. Paris is neither romantic nor beautiful if you have any sense of smell what-so-ever. London smells like millenniums of people (okay, men, at least mostly) peeing in the streets. It has all built up over the years and the sun hits it and it is horrible – truly horrible.

Please, heed my warning. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend over there, so I don’t have to pretend or try to impress people. I can tell you what I saw – and smelled. I would never go to Paris again. I would go through London to other places, only because it’s cheaper to fly in there. I would never go to Brussels again. Brussels is a post-apocalyptic city. It was dirty, smelly, and decaying. I told someone I was going to post that, and they said Belgians would come and kill me. I seriously considered it. It was a very dangerous-looking city.

There, that’s my warning. I don’t know what else I could say to stop you from going to those places, so let’s move on to the good part.

Like I said, I didn’t have much money. I wasn’t planning a vacation this year, but when the opportunity popped up, well… I jumped. I bought all those tiny bottles of things, dug out a backpack I’ve had for years but hadn’t used, took out my never-used passport and left. We traveled by train so much it felt like the ground was moving for days after we arrived in a city. We stayed at a couple hostels and a few hotels. In Europe especially, the hotels are just about as cheap for two people as a hostel would cost. We had an amazing time, despite the smells. The London Underground was so easy to use, it was like it was designed for children. The trains were fairly inexpensive and went nearly everywhere.

I loved Germany. I went to Frankfurt and Cologne. I went to Salisbury in England and loved it. I would highly recommend any of those cities.

Would I ever go overseas again? That’s a tough question. It was an interesting trip, but I was genuinely shocked with how dirty and smelly it all was. After I came home, someone told me the most they can take of Europe is ten days, tops. They couldn’t tell me that before I left? I was there longer. It will probably take me a while to get over it, or forget just how bad it is over there.

About the title of this post, I’m not Chinese. As a baby, however, I looked Chinese. Strangers would ask my mom if I was adopted, seriously. I had very slanted eyes. I don’t now, so I don’t know why I did then. When my first teeth came in, they were my fangs (incisors?). Until more teeth came in, I was a Chinese vampire baby. I’m sure my mother loved it.

I once owned an iguana. I know what that makes me sound like. I’m not one of those crazy reptile people. I do like reptiles more than birds, but I never wanted to have a reptile.

I’m not great with pets. I go from over-protective to ‘how long has your water bowl been dry?’ I treat pets like people. That doesn’t mean I dress up my dog. It means, my dog understands terms or concepts that are necessary. She doesn’t know ‘sit’. She doesn’t know ‘beg’ or ‘stay’ or any of the things people teach dogs. She knows ‘wait’ or ‘one minute’ – either words or holding up one finger. It means, I can’t take you out just this second, but I acknowledge the request and will get to it in a minute. She knows ‘mine’. That means whatever I am eating, I am not going to share it with her. I use this for things she’s not allowed to have. She knows ‘bad bone’. It means whatever I have (like chicken) has bones she cannot eat. She doesn’t like those phrases, but she knows what they mean and will sulk away. She knows ‘this way’ ‘that way’ ‘mailbox’ ‘later’ ‘short walk’… terms that make both our lives easier, because it puts us both on the same page.

I was talking about an iguana though, wasn’t I? The sister of a friend got an iguana from her friend. Her friend had let her dogs chase the iguana through the house, then didn’t understand why it wasn’t tame. She couldn’t handle it, so she gave it to my friend’s sister. My friend’s sister had no idea what she was in for and after the second time of getting a tail-lashing, asked my friend to please take the iguana. It was wild. It would bite and lash, constantly. My friend already owned an iguana and thought she could handle both of them. She couldn’t handle the wild one. I like reptiles. I’m pretty good at taming animals, but iguanas live about 9 years and require a lot of space – they get about five feet long. She had to ask me a few times.

I took the iguana. I named her… damn, I can’t put that… after the dog in the movie The Lost Boys. I built her a cage. I fed her and ignored her for about 3 weeks to give her a ‘chill’ period. Then, I cut a hole in the top of the cage and put a stick coming out of it. After a while, she started climbing the stick and hanging out on top of the cage. I would pet her occasionally, but ignore her mostly. I wanted her to get used to not being hassled. Eventually, I built her a stand. It was a leveled ‘home’ with lighting, a heat rock, a bed area. We had a few fights, but they were fair fights. She would climb on my desk and throw everything off of it, to claim it. I would put her back on her stand, rub my desk and bob my head. The iguana form of ‘mine’. I only had to do that twice and she got it. My friend would come visit sometimes. One time my iguana bit her. She tried to pet her while she was sleeping. I was so proud. That meant, I hadn’t broken her spirit to tame her. She wasn’t submissive. She was confident. Good for her. I gave my friend some antibiotic cream, but couldn’t help beaming.

I once broke a million in Robotron. Some day, I hope to have a real Robotron machine. I loved that game. I just realized recently that the theme to Futurama has sound effects from Robotron. The theme is based on the song Psyché Rock by Pierre Henry. If you know Robotron, listen to this and you’ll hear the level changes from the game.

I once appeared to have the power of resurrecting the dead. I was at a friend’s house with her kids. A bird flew into the sunroom window. We all ran down to have a look. I picked up the bird to show the kids. They all gathered around and petted it. Yes, I know the bird could have lice, but how often do kids get to pet wild birds, even dead ones? I let them pet it. Then, I felt it wiggle a little and closed my hands. I opened them, and the bird flew away. The kids watched it, then turned to me and stared like I was magic. It was magic. The whole thing was magic.

I read a few blogs, not many. I read one by a science fiction author. Someone sent me the link to check out, and I like it. I read Hollywood Actor. That blog has a lot of drug references. I’ve never done any drugs, don’t plan on doing them. Coffee. Coffee is my drug. I used to have a fascination with heroin but, like gambling, I wouldn’t go near it. I don’t know that I’d have a weakness for either of them, but I’m not going to find out.

I also read the blog of a musician. I hope there are a lot of blogging musicians, because I don’t want this to point right at him. He seems a decent fellow, and the blog seems genuine. I usually enjoy finding a new post on it. Last night, I read his most recent post. There were a couple paragraphs that stuck in my craw. They were followed by a sentence that didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense. It seemed vague and random. I went away from the post a little confused.

It probably wouldn’t have meant too much to me. Some guy I don’t know saying things about girls he dated. Sometime this afternoon, that changed. I realized his post had the scent of the same thing my brother does wrong. Like my older brother, he seems to be a smart man. He dates girls and doesn’t understand what went wrong, why they don’t get what he’s offering. Why don’t they take him seriously? Why don’t they see things the way he does?
He last dated a woman who withheld some pretty important information and, after thinking they were boyfriend and ‘girlfriend’ found a picture of her making out with her boyfriend on her blog. What does this tell you? If you’re a guy, you probably just think he got burned – big deal. If you’re a girl, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion I did. He was dating a much younger woman.

He’s in his thirties… let me wiki him… yeah, 37. What woman in her thirties would post a picture of her making out with someone on her blog? What woman in her twenties? That’s a very teenager thing to do. That’s what you’d expect to see on a glitter-pink myspace page, not an adults page.

My older brother? That’s the same kind of thing he falls into – dating younger girls who aren’t emotionally mature. Not teenagers, mind you, just a lot younger than him, in age and mentality.

I can’t make too much of a fuss about it to my brother, because he knows I’ve only dated younger guys since I was in my mid-twenties. But, I go for youthful, not juvenile.

The musician goes on to say he won’t date women outside of his area. So, he’s not really looking for someone to fall in love with, someone to really connect with, the [blank] that will end all [blank] – he’s looking for someone convenient.

My brother does this as well. However, my brother travels a three-state area almost daily, so he has a little wider ‘girlfriend range’.

The sentence at the end of everything he said? The sentence that seemed random at the time? That’s what really bothered me, once I realized what it meant. He describes how he sees marriage. Hold on ladies, you might not be able to get this concept. It’s so complicated and different from what we all know, our pretty little coral brains may pain us. His concept? The whole ‘in love’ phase of a relationship goes away after a while and a strong bond forms. The couple becomes a team, a unit. Love, replaces ‘in love’ and the relationship is the better for it.

Personally, I’ve always referred to it as someone who I’m willing to bury the bodies with. Sure, I’d chew the guy out while I helped dig. Question his reasoning. Tell him if he does it again, he’s digging his own holes, but I’d break a sweat and cover the mound. I have had people look at me strangely for saying that, but that’s only because of the whole ‘dead body’ part. Geez, can’t a girl kid to make a point?

He ends his unique and rare description of marriage that, from what I make of it, would better be called… well… marriage – in its most basic form, with a sentence that explains everything.

“I think I’m looking for a genius.”

Translation: the majority of women are so stupid they don’t understand the concept of marriage as a partnership and are giddy girls hoping for flowers and sunshine all the rest of their lives. Only a genius would know otherwise.

Argh! Only emotionally immature people would think ‘in love’ is a relationship. Only very young girls. If you pick green tomatoes, you have to expect them not to be fully developed.

For [musician] and my brother – neither of them will ever see this – for ALL GUYS – date women closer to your own age. Don’t date immature girls. If you do, don’t expect young girls to be loyal – they have oats to sow, and you’re going to get hurt. You don’t have to date old women to find someone who’s emotionally mature. Hopefully, you’re smart enough to know better.

Yes. Yes, I know why this bothers me. Yesterdays post is not far from my mind. I’m self-aware enough to get it… thanks. The point, is still valid.

In mine, sometimes I’m the main character, sometimes a bit player, sometimes a viewer – like I’m watching a movie. I’ve been a young boy, an old man, just about any character you can imagine. Last night’s dream involved a school bus, a steep incline, kites and a really cool globe device that you could think of images and they would appear in the globe. You could zoom in on the image, move it from side-to-side, etc. – just by thinking it. It was very cool, but the goal was to find an image you like and set it into the globe. The image I wanted was a lake with trees. It was all grey and misty. I couldn’t figure out how to get the thing to ‘save’ the image. I would back away, and the image would pan out. It was frustrating, and might say something about me that I’m unaware of.

Psychics, be they real or not, often say they can’t foresee things in their own lives. It’s a legend like vampires can or cannot be around garlic. I can’t decipher my own dreams. I can decipher other people’s dreams very easily. Sometimes, it’s totally embarrassing when someone is telling me a dream they had, and I know what everything in the dream means and what that means they are thinking/feeling. I know this goes against the whole ‘I’m dense’ that I profess. I guess I just have a minor layer of complexity. Maybe, my brain is cautious, so I take personal things at face value so I don’t risk too much?

Last night, I looked up my first boyfriend. I didn’t really date till I was out of high school. I went on a date or two, but never had a ‘boyfriend’. I was too busy goofing off with my friends and causing trouble for the authorities that be within the school environment. I looked him up, because he’s playing in a few weeks, literally down the street from me. I was going to go to the show to see how he looks now and check out his wife. The wonderful tool of the internet made that unnecessary. His wife has set up a website for them. I should mention, by ‘play’ I mean perform. He’s a musician. I’ve only dated musicians and musicphiles. Not on purpose, but I have so many mixed tapes… I always thought I would date a sarcastic, sullen, literate fellow. I don’t think I’ve ever even met one.

Anyway, my first boyfriend is old. He looks like a ‘grown-up’. His wife is old. I don’t understand how that happened. We were the same age. Now, he’s old. It would seem logical that I would, therefore, be old as well. I don’t think I’m old. I’m not overweight. I’m not wrinkled. I’ve been dying my hair since I was 9, but I don’t think I’d be grey. I should explain, nine is young, but I wanted dark brown hair, and I had light brown. My mother said, ‘If you want darker hair, dye it.’ So, I did. I’ve had almost black hair, black and blonde hair, burgundy hair, streaked hair… I tried to dye it green once, but it wouldn’t take. I guess that’s where my hair drew the line. I thought it would look great to have hair the colour of my eyes. I once saw a guy with blue eyes and hair and swoon!

I don’t look my age. That’s not vanity, that’s from the reaction I get when I tell some new friend my age.

I work part-time at a library. After 9-11, my business sales slacked, horribly. I decided to get a part-time job, just till things picked up. I’ve always wanted to work at a library. After business picked back up again, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Books! Books everywhere! New books! Classic books! Authors I’d never heard of! It’s like a hungry person working at a snack shop. Which reminds me, I saw a book called The Boy Who Ate Books and forgot to get it. Argh!

Yeah, so I work at a library, and I told a new girl my age. For the next two weeks, all I heard about was my age. She had told everyone how old I was. I wasn’t keeping it a secret. I would have told anyone who asked, but apparently it was big news. Geez, I almost put my real name. “[my real name] you’re how old? That’s impossible!” Two weeks of me assuring everyone I was as old as I said. It made me cautious about telling people. I’ve never cared about telling my age. Suddenly, I had become one of those coy women, but I imagine for a different reason.

I’ve been waiting all my life to get old. I was rarely taken seriously when younger. I was ‘cute’. Cute overrides anything you say. The internet was my salvation. I could write under a genderless name, with no photo and be taken seriously. God knows – He really does – how much I love that. I’m thinking maybe my time has finally come. If my ex is old, then maybe I’m finally old enough that people will listen to what I’m saying and not stop me to tell me I have pretty hair. Except, yesterday a stranger told me I have pretty hair. ::sigh::

Friend: I think you’re going to want this…

Me: I have a desk.

Friend: It’s solid wood, about 50 years old, stained Mahogany – you like Mahogany.

Me: I have a desk.

Friend: It’s left-handed.

Me: I’ll be waiting outside.

I’ve mentioned before, I’m left-handed. I don’t search out left-handed things, but when offered I’ll take them. Thing is, I don’t get how a desk that’s atleast 50 years old could be left-handed – it is, but I don’t get it. We’re talking the 1940′s. In a book I read recently, the author said there are still parent who will discourage their child’s use of the left-hand for writing. Growing up, there weren’t many left-handers in my classes. Our school had, maybe, two left-handed desks. The desk my friend gave me is a huge (executive) desk with glass on top. Being very old, that means some professional likely had the desk custom-made. Even more unusual, there is a smaller (though far from small), dropped area. I suppose it’s for a typewriter, but it fits a keyboard wonderfully, with the monitor sitting on the area above it. It’s almost as though the desk was custom-made for me.

I once filed a patent. It is for a [adjective, adjective] photo frame. I have to leave out that key part, not for fear someone would steal my idea, but because I could be found through it. Prior to filing the patent, I filed a Provisional Patent. The design garnered the interest of [major corporation], but after talks they decided it would be easier to take it. They told me they didn’t believe the patent would be approved, based on ‘prior art’ – meaning, it seemed a logical step in development. I had a search done. No similar prior art. I filed the patent. It will probably be a few years before I know if the patent is approved. I’m sure [major corporation] has looked over my filing. It showed up in a Google patent search recently. Kind of neat.

I once cleared a dance floor. Seriously. Like you see in movies. I have no idea how or why it happened. I can dance, but most everyone can. My sister can’t. She has this odd way of dancing that looks like dancing, but is completely off-beat. I’ve tried to imitate it, but it’s very hard. The beat calls you to it, so I can only do it for a few seconds. It’s really an amazing talent on her part.

I was at a club with a friend, and we were dancing. The song started, Mony, Mony – Billy Idol’s cover. It was an old song, but upbeat. Since I usually went dancing with him, we were in-synch on moves. I could change styles mid-song, and he would be right behind me. We were dancing a little jazz-era fun thingy. I don’t have dance training, but I can usual imitate anything I see dance-wise – idiot savant. I was laughing, because it was fun popping around, then I looked up. Everyone had left the dance floor. It wasn’t like the way everyone leaves the dance floor when Straight Up is played – that song is totally undanceable. They were all lined up around the railing surrounding the dance floor – watching us. It was completely, utterly frightening. I’m shy. Seriously. I don’t like attention. This was a wall of eyes. I thought my legs would just stop moving. My body would freeze, but the beat was going and so was I. Another guy I knew leaned over the railing and yelled, “I wanna dance with you!” and pointed right at me. Yes, it’s interesting, several years on, but at the time? Horrifying. Honestly.

I once dated a guy who claimed to have the ‘girls’ handbook’. He described it as a translation dictionary for what girls say, and what girls really mean. Problem is, I never got my copy, so I didn’t know I was supposed to talk in code. I don’t know the usual games. If I’m mad at someone, I tell them why. When I say, ‘I’d like to be alone.’ That’s what I mean. I don’t mean anything else. He was very, very confused by me. I hope he threw the damned thing out.

do

not like

the onslaught

of coincidence

including this fib you read now

With the world shut down, I like to tie up loose ends at night. Do the things I didn’t get around to during the day. Several of them are on my toolbar right now. I’m working on a networking site project. To find out what applications are fun, easy to use, and reliable, I’ve signed up on a few social networking sites and have some blogs on other sites. (Don’t hate me, but LiveJournal is not fun to use) I do NOT have a myspace page. I simply cannot bring myself to have one.

Okay, that’s kind of not really the truth. I have two myspace pages. Oh God. I can’t believe I’m admitting that. Neither page is really mine. One is… a silly, mocking page for [that which cannot be named]. The other is in my pen name. I have pimped them, but my author page is marked private, and I only did it at the urging of my publisher. I don’t log into them very often, monthly at most, sometimes months go by…

I can’t put my opinion about myspace here, because my friends all know it by heart, and it would definitely lead them here. I have one sentence that shows exactly what myspace is… come to think of it, I may be able to dance around it so it won’t show in a search engine. If you’ve been on the net a while, you’ll remember there were users of a certain bulletin board service that thought it was the internet, who were mocked for their poor social skills and lesser degrees of intelligence. They all migrated to myspace. I think I’ve worded that safely enough.

For having pages on social networking sites, I’m not very social. I’ll accept almost any ‘connection’ offered, but I don’t search people out. I’m testing the applications. I don’t really have the time to put too much effort into each of them. Some sites, like Gather, are crazy busy. It’s like no one on there works, and they all send me email all day long.

I don’t belong to any dating sites. I have dated… I’m thinking it’s three right now, but I could be wrong… guys I met online. One I dated a while. Two I went out with once. I like the concept of online dating – what if my perfect man lives in another state/country? – but I haven’t pursued it. I write back to everyone who emails me on my domain. I’ve made some good friends that way.

I realized recently I don’t have dating as a priority. I checked my to-do list. Checked my extended projects list. Nope, forgot to write it down. I met a guy recently online, and we wrote to each other for a while. It was like a slow first date. Instead of realizing we had very little in common in a few minutes, it took me a few emails, spread out over more than a week. By that time, he wanted to meet. I thought ‘what the heck’, then couldn’t figure out when. I finally gave him a date and time. I saw it as an appointment, he could tell. I felt bad about that. I only went, because I felt like I owed him a face-to-face. He seemed uptight even in email. Uptight and I don’t go together. A friend recently said I remind her of Dory in Finding Nemo, because I’m astounded and amused by the dumbest things. (I was giggling about a blurring css code on a webpage – she didn’t find it as amusing)

I have a TV rule for late night. Do not stop on PBS. I don’t have cable/dish, because I would spend all day watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island. I would. I would watch Dobie Gillis, just to see Maynard. No, I don’t have a crush on Bob Denver. I like the Professor on Gilligan’s Island. So smart, yet so easily confused! I would watch Bewitched. I would watch just about any black and white movie. I would watch SciFi, Discover… I would never leave the house.

I won’t stop on PBS, because I will get stuck there. I watched some of Ken Burns’ War series. I watched a documentary about Typhoid Mary. The best thing I’ve watched was a version of Hansel and Gretel. It was scary and wonderful. The trees in suits were the best. I thought they might give me nightmares, but I couldn’t look away. The worse I’ve watched, when I made the rule, is a documentary about some world hairdressing competition. I tried to pull myself away from the TV. I told myself it was a stupid thing to watch. A waste of time… I could not care less about hairdressing… I watched the whole thing. I try very hard now not to stop on PBS.

I do some real work late at night as well. I work on updates for my domain. It’s in dire need, but rather large, and I like playing with the code and graphics. Seems I never get anything finished. I have a few writing projects I’m working on – on which I’m working? One is a play. I’m stuck 3/4 of the way through it. I love the characters. I love the setting. It reminds me of a poor man’s Iceman Cometh, but I don’t know where it’s going.

Usually, I just let the characters tell me. They are mum. When I write, I don’t outline. I sit down and write. I finish what I’m writing. This one is beyond me. I think it’s safe to tell you (yes, only you) the working title is Tattoo. It’s not a shocking, pushing the envelope play. Like I said, Iceman comes to mind. I tend to write with a masculine voice, probably because I’m not a big fan of female writers and draw from what I’ve read. Most of my writing is taken as a man’s – a lesser Lethem.  A reviewer compared my writing to Philip K Dick. – don’t I wish.  A friend said my writing reminded her of Richard Matheson.  I asked her if he’s known for misspellings and bad grammar.  She didn’t think it was funny.

I use genderless names for screenplays, fiction, articles, etc. – pieces of my real name that can be used without gender, except for on my book. That was strictly a pen name. Well, not strictly. Actually, it was a neoist take on my real name. ::laugh:: I never realized that. [Neoist I used to share mail art with] would be proud.

So, that’s what I do at night while most everyone is sleeping. Not very exciting. But the quiet gives me time to think without the energy of others around. Everyone needs time to think.

thoughts.txt

Original file date: 08/01/07

Bill Gates killed intelligent software by saturating the market with left-brained, unintelligent software. See: Lotus Agenda

Though I didn’t like it when it was released, I’ve come to realize Master of Puppets is the best heavy-metal song ever written.

Imagine, fifty to a hundred years from now when our current time is mocked for the belief in evolution and global warming. They’ll laugh at this time like we laugh at the ‘flat earth’ people.

Sometimes when I’m listening to music, it strikes me as odd that people write words and music and perform/record them for other people to listen to. There’s an entire industry built around the concept of, “Listen to this song I can sing.”

I don’t get spring fever. I get fall fever.

If you name a product ‘Chocolate’ it should be brown. A dark brown would be nice.

After posting, WordPress found THIS.

There are a few once things I can never post. There would be too many [blanks]. I once wrote a website [genre of webpage] to [can't even dance around it] that spawned numerous other [similar webpages]. Mine was first, and the Wayback Machine proves it. My best friend said I was crazy for making [that specific type of page to that specific thing], but the flood of copies proved I’m not… well, either that or there are a lot of other nutcases on the net. Oh, and no, it had nothing to do with bizarre culinary tastes of internet icons.

Incase you haven’t noticed, there are a few [blanks] in this blog. Everything in it is the truth, that’s why I’m a little vague on the specifics. Okay, everything is true, except my last name isn’t Moonlight, but is it really necessary to point that out?

I was once asked to write a short piece for [insert semi-famous magazine here] for an article about what people do on an average day. Some of the people were very famous. I am not. I sold my 15 minutes on eBay to an anonymous bidder. (Damn, I should really do that!) My piece was about being the tech for [my domain name] and things I do on the net.

No, I’m not famous. I just leave things out that people I know might find. Not like crazy stalkers, they all know my website. One of my friends is sure I have a blog somewhere. Problem is, I can’t lie. She knows I can’t lie. I’ve never had a good enough memory to be able to lie. I would get caught very, very easily. An hour later, they could ask me the same question, and I’d have no idea what I just told them.

It is very hard to get around answering, “You have a blog somewhere. I know you do.” Luckily, that wasn’t a question, so I answered it with, “You’re crazy. I blogged for years before it was even called blogging. Why would I go back to it now?” Unbelievably, she bought it. If she seriously wanted to know, she’d just ask me directly.

While I can’t lie, I can avoid a vague question. If the asker (whatever spellcheck, you don’t recognize the word ‘internet’ either) isn’t paying attention, this will work, and people often aren’t paying close enough attention. However, I find it entirely impossible to lie when the answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I can think the answer I would like to say, but it won’t come out. The truth pops out, and there’s not stopping it. See, that’s the kind of thing I don’t want people who know me to find out. I could be put into awkward situations by anyone armed with that knowledge.

I recently saw a report about children lying. The report said, lying is part of the emotional development of humans. They learn emotions through lying. Learn to judge people’s reactions and guess what the person wants to hear.

If the report was right, look around at your friends. The highly emotional ones, those are the liars. The more reserved, they are the honest ones. Out of four of my friends, this holds true. They are the extremes. My other friends fall somewhere in the middle, not too emotional, not horrible liars. My one friend, who has no idea what truth is, is also the most emotional person I know.

My friends often comment on my… lack of emotions. I’m a little stoic but, oddly, I am also easily amused. So while I may not cry about something they would, they don’t get excited about the silly things I do. I can talk about an unusual bug like I saw the face of God, but that doesn’t count if you don’t cry when your dog gets hit by a car. I didn’t see the point. It wouldn’t bring the dog back. I was more concerned with how I was going to get him home to give him a proper burial. I had to console my friend. “It will be all right. He didn’t even know what hit him.” Everyone thought it was her dog.

Now, I’m afraid I’ve painted myself as a horrible monster who doesn’t care when her dog dies. I did care. I was sad about it, but there were details that needed to be taken care of at that moment. Which would be better, to sit on the curb and cry my eyes out, or get my dog out of the street, home, and buried? It would have been wrong to leave the dog lying there in the street and selfishly cry about it. He was a good dog. He deserved better.

I really need to point out that I’ve only EVER done anything like this once. I liked the results, but not that I had resorted to it. No one knows I have this blog, so this isn’t an apology. I’ve just never had the chance to explain why I did it.

I once kissed my boyfriend’s best friend.

Yes, it was only a kiss. That part’s not so bad. As far as terrible things girls can do, it’s a bit minor, but it is the worse I’ve done, and I still consider it pretty bad.

Now for the backstory. Remember that Friends episode where Ross cheated, but said they were, “On a break”? Me and my boyfriend were ‘on a break’. He… hooked up… with a skanky, ‘I’m an aerobics instructor’ chick. She was very proud of the hook-up. She hinted about it in my presence. I’m not good with hints, but I got what she was saying.

After the ‘break’, she moved in with my boyfriend’s best friend. Of course, I still wanted nothing but daggers and dust for her.

My boyfriend went out of town. His friend was having trouble with the girl. He came over to talk to me, ask me what to do. I was suddenly Snidely Whiplash (OMG! I actually spelled that right!). I listened intently to the problems they were having. Quelle surprise! She was slipping out behind his back.

I asked him, as sincerely as I could, if he thought they could work things out. I told him, finally, that he should simply take all of her belongings and toss them out on the lawn of his house. I cared about him. I was looking out for his best interest. Then… I kissed him. It wasn’t a huge makeout session. It was like an underlining of my suggestion. I apologized immediately. It was a mistake. How could I? I really liked [boyfriend's name] and would never do anything to hurt him.

He told his friend – my boyfriend. We had a huge argument about it, but come on, he slept with that girl, so he really couldn’t get too mad.

It was a bad thing to do. I’ve never done anything like that since. I’d never even consider it. Honestly, I can’t believe I pulled it off. If a guy ever slept with someone while we were ‘on a break’, I’d just call it quits then and save myself the trouble.

But you know what?

He put her stuff out on the lawn.

I once saw Bob Newhart in person. It was like seeing a long-lost uncle, except I pretended I didn’t recognize him. He was at an art exhibit, and I didn’t want to ruin it for him by gushing.

I once met John Lee Hooker. Well, met him, sold t-shirts for him, got pulled from the crowd to sit on the stage with my mouth agape while he played – all that in reverse order.

I once found a rock with a string tied around it, and everybody wants a rock to tie a piece of string around. I still have it. It amazes and delights me every time I see it.

I was once showing my friend a very old picture of my grandmother. My friend looked at the picture, then me, then back to the photo. “Are you wearing the same shirt?” …I was.

I’d like to step aside a second here. No one – NO ONE would have ever worn stone-washed jeans with a Members Only jacket – ever. This did not happen in the 80′s, even though it’s quickly becoming ‘the look’ of the 80′s. Members Only jackets were very early 80′s and stone-washed jeans were late 80′s. If you wore a Members Only jacket in the late 80′s, you were beyond a dork. You would have been laughed at by strangers en mass. Seriously. I hope this doesn’t become the poodle skirts and bobby socks of the 50′s. My mom said no one wore those together. Bobby socks with long, straight skirts, heels with a full skirt – yet it persists.

Since I’ve already drifted away from ‘once’ (but hey! I gave you a bunch up there!), here’s what I’ve been thinking. Wait, here’s what I used to think, first.
I used to think coincidences were like… guides. Coincidences were good. They told you, you were on the right track. If you follow a coincidence, more usually crop up. This would mean they are guiding you in the right direction, right? People even say, ‘I don’t believe in coincidence’ or ‘There’s no such thing as coincidence’ meaning they are things that happen for a reason.

I believed that, until about a week ago. I keep getting hit with coincidences – oh, I forgot to mention, I did a series of paintings titled Coincidence. Yeah, four paintings that fit together to make one large painting filled with coincidences. Anyway, so I’m getting all these coincidences, and I was following them. Then I realized, they weren’t leading me to anything. It was more like they were taunting me. “Look at this! Isn’t it amazing? There are more! Keep looking!” …and then an evil laugh. Okay, there was no evil laugh, really, but it would have fit.
I now believe coincidences are the devil’s play-toy. They are a distraction, shoved in your path to lure you into following them, tempting you with more, the more you follow. They are there, solely, to lead you astray.

I feel like a Democrat who just realized the Democrats actually have more money and care less about poor people than the Republicans and are trying to create a dependent, lower class that will keep them in office.

Disillusioned.

That’s the word.