Manners

After filling out the slightly amusing questionnaire at humanforsale.com (mentioned by winged elf), it seems that I'm worth $2,425,890.00, dental cavities and all. Half a brain must count for something, by their formula. I was a bit surprised to find that there was no difference in the result when I checked "White" instead of "Other". (Yes, I was bored.)

It's been a strangely dull day, with the constant war reporting settling in like a toothache. I don't understand how my dad can sit and channel-surf through the looping coverage without gibbering. No, he just feels the need, every half hour or so, to give everyone else in the house his condensed version of the "news", heavily interspersed with rather cryptic but biting comments. I hate to think what cranky messages he's composing right now, and I've been accused of going overboard myself! I'm not even sure if he didn't have any classes today or if he stayed home to watch television and get even more worked up.

Frankly, I've been avoiding going off on tirades here because I don't need to get myself any more worked up, either. It's not only that everything has been said, and likely expressed with more elegance than I could manage right now. I have to say, though, that I am extremely tired of being confused with my (sometimes not-quite-) elected government officials. Only one of my Congresscritters is at all likely to do what I want; besides his showing a rare degree of competence, this is mainly a coincidence of views. While Mr. Boucher may be one of the few vocal proponents of fair use doctrine, he's hardly controlling foreign policy. Yes, this sounds absurd in a point-out-the-obvious sort of way, but there's more general absurdity than abdication of responsibility from this end, from what I can tell. (I'll certainly admit that I'm never likely to know half of what I want or need to.) And abdication of responsibility is one of the main charges I am seeing levelled at us citizens, aside from the shriller-than-usual cries of Gratuitous Americanness. This has not been as big a problem some places I frequent online, but I am still horribly tired of hearing it, and am still appalled at the needless rudeness some people seem to need to throw around. Commenting as much as you like on other people's governments is expected, but veering into personal attacks based on nationality is something I'd have thought people would have learned not to do before they started school. This falls within the domain of simple manners. (As my 7th-grade choral teacher kept yelling at some little monsters, "You just don't do that!") There is also the matter of kicking people while they're down. I'm not even addressing the underlying thoughts; think whatever you like, but please do give some consideration before you speak. Again, this is normal courtesy.

Ah, the first mini-rant...I can't really say it helped clear my thoughts, which is not too surprising, as it could be summed up as "Some terribly ill-mannered people get on my nerves". Hardly a revelation; that's been a recurrent theme for probably 25 years. Couldn't even quite slip into the proper porcupine/wolverine persona today. :) It's been an antihistamines and aspirin sort of day, anyway; perhaps I can blame it on that.

Brooding

Note to self: learn some self-control. Chomping on even very yummy rock-hard pretzel nuggets is a bad idea when you have TMD problems. This should be particularly clear when a few days ago you ate a bowlful late at night and woke up feeling like your jaws had been closed with a rusty spike. How wise is it to do exactly the same thing again, and so quickly? Probably about as wise as it was, in retrospect, to push hard for totally unnecessary orthodontic work over one slightly winged front tooth and have your bite screwed up so that your jaw doesn't work properly now. Feh. It's probably time to learn something. (And stop fretting over a sore jaw, but well... )

This seems to be one of my problems. I do try not to take things too seriously, in general; considering my nature, though, I think the best I can aim for is reacting strongly but moving right along to something else. I seem to overreact to things--just the way I'm wired--but my attention span is also a bit odd. WhenI actually have trouble seeing humor in a situation (or it is such black humor that there is little difference over a longer run), this is a particularly bad time to brood. Unfortunately, I think I sometimes choose to do so instead of moving on--as I would usually do swiftly, the way my attention wanders-- though I can't figure out what reward it might be giving me other than just being a too-familiar pattern. Yes, I can manage to brood about brooding, which slightly concerns me. Being in a family full of champion worriers and seeing its effects makes me less inclined to want to fall into this pattern myself. I don't put myself into the fits I used to, but could still check myself more often.

This comes to mind because I am having a bit of a worried day. It's just the usual swarm: money (or lack thereof), my love life (the same, at the moment), general loneliness, what to do with my immediate future. Sometimes I think I use these little worried spells to distract myself from other things that are going on; this became more obvious when I was having problems with an ex and began worrying incessantly about everything but. At this point, it's more annoying than anything; it's not like the same ground hasn't been covered a number of times approaching the national deficit by now, and it's difficult to put completely to the back of my mind and get on with other things. Before too long, it gets distracting like an out-of-tune radio muffled by a blanket. (OK, poor analogy, but it almost works.) It's not that bad right now; I'm mainly irritated at not quite being able to figure out how to stop doing this.