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Neens, yus, you’re so priddy!

So I feel really strange sitting down to write a journal entry today, because even though this huge thing has happened I can’t talk about it because if I did I’d be telling someone else’s private business. And after getting in the habit of writing entries in my head whenever anything of even slight interest is happening, I even know what I’d say if I could write about it. But I can’t, so I should get over myself and talk about something else. (Don’t worry, it isn’t anything horrible and it isn’t about me or Todd.)

Speaking of Todd, he dreamed last night about not wanting to smoke a cigar but doing it anyway and finding out that it tasted absolutely disgusting. Freud would be proud, tee hee.

We’re seriously considering going to the Boston Science Museum this weekend. We’ve both been quite a few times, but enjoyed it so thoroughly that we want to go again. For those of you living in the godforsaken straits of weatherless California, it’s like the Lawrence Science Center. But better. And yes, I know that nothing compares to the Exploratorium. There are a few obstacles to going, the biggest one being that we’d need Sarah to take care of the cats while we were gone. There’s no one else we would trust to come within ten feet of them. Unfortunately we’ve fallen out of touch with her, not for any reason, just because this periodically happens, she gets busy or we do and eventually we call or she does and we’re social again. This is one of the big advantages of having friends that are as uninterested in social contact as we are. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to call her for over a month but haven’t, and of course I can’t call and say, “Hi, I’ve been thinking about you and would you please take care of the cats?” so I’m not sure the trip will happen. It’d be nice if it did, Boston is a wonderful city and besides, we have Al Franken’s Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot to read together on the way.

Three different people who don’t know each other have told me I’m harsh and/or judgmental in the last two days. I’m glad.

I like being thought of as judgmental. (I seriously considered making the word “harsh” a link to a sound clip of me talking to the cats because I like irony, but I figured no one would believe I’m actually that mushy.) I was talking to Todd about it two nights ago, saying that I’d hesitated before talking about an opinion I had about someone’s hypocrisy in an email message and decided to say what I meant instead of worrying that it would be misinterpreted or that the person would think less of me. Because if I wasn’t honest about what I thought and they didn’t think less of me as a result (stay with me, I know, that’s a, like, triple negative) — in other words, if hypothetically I’d said “X is a hypocrite” and the person had said, “Yuck, you’re a jerk,” then they’d be having an honest opinion of me, and not the person hiding behind not saying what they meant. Which isn’t what happened; I just got called harsh again. Hell. I’m a writer, I should be able to explain this concept clearly — so far what I’ve said doesn’t even make sense to me.

Here. This is what I want to say. I don’t believe in pretending to be non-judgmental so that people will think I am. Because, in the end, the person they like and enjoy talking to isn’t me — it’s some false version of me who isn’t at all similar to the person typing these words.

As I said in the course of our conversation the other night: I may be harsh, I may be judgmental, but take a look at the high-quality people surrounding me and ask yourself if that’s a bad thing.

Blue Socks

Oh Doug, little did you know…