2. We watched the episode of “The Big Bang Theory” last
night where Koothrappali had a texting date in a library. Other than the fact
that I can’t text very fast because two left thumbs, that’s how I feel
sometimes—I am much better in writing than I am in person.
3. Which brings me to something I think about now and again.
I should write up a complete post about it sometime, but here’s something to
think about next time you read a newspaper article, book, or blog post: people
who are good with words can make anything sound authoritative, or slant a story
the way they think it should go. Maybe
that’s why I don’t necessarily believe news stories tell the whole truth—I know
how easy it is to slant a piece, because I’ve done it. I’ve managed to crank
out authoritative-sounding articles based on three 15-minute phone interviews by
stringing together “good quotes” in an organized manner. I once wrote a very
peppy-sounding memo for improving practices at a company I worked at, based on
my and others’ ideas. A week later I wrote an irate e-mail about mistakes made
on one of my projects. I was called into my boss’s office and reprimanded for
the tone of the e-mail. He said it was counterproductive, and look at the way
this memo is written, you should try to communicate like that. He didn’t know I
wrote that memo, too. The difference was, the memo was slanted to the way I
knew he and the troubled section of the company would respond. The e-mail told
the same truth, just stated baldly and bluntly. Both, of course, were written verywell.
4. Got an allergy workup yesterday. Nothing terribly
significant. “Luckily” for me, they were extremely thorough. When I came up
negative to everything on the scratch tests on my back, they re-tested for
environmental allergens with stronger solutions. With about 30 syringes, injected
under my skin and good heavens, that hurt. Came up weakly positive to cats,
dogs, horses, cockroaches (!), and a couple types of mold—but weak enough that the
doctor didn’t think I needed to do anything about it, unless I had stronger
symptoms. So I started my prednisone today. My adventure in pharmaceuticals
begins.
5. Is it a bad thing that I hope the prednisone gives me
some burst of manic energy? That might be the only thing that helps me get the
house in half-decent shape. Of course, I already want to kick K. out of her
room for a few days and do some major crap removal. (Expensive crap, mind you.
Only the best toys-that-will-be-played-with-briefly-and-then-thrown-into-the-closet-until-mom-tries-to-donate-them
for my kids.) She complains that she can’t clean her room because she has no
place to put things. But then refuses to part with one.solitary.item. because “It
is mine, mine, my precioussssss.”
6. Now that I’ve complained about K., I must brag about her.
She’s been having some minor troubles with the boy who sits next to her in math
class. From what I can tell by her description, the kid is trying to shock
and/or impress her. ‘Cause telling a girl that you can curse in various foreign
languages (and then proceeding to demonstrate) may just be the most
sophisticated pick-up line a 5th grade boy can think of. In any
case, it’s been annoying her. She asked me to call the teacher and ask her to
separate them. I told her that she should talk to the teacher herself,
privately if possible. We rehearsed a sentence or two that she could say. She
was nervous the next day before school, but I put the ball in her court: it was
her problem to solve, and her decision whether the boy was distracting enough
to brave talking to the teacher about it. She came home that day and said she’d
made the request, and the teacher moved her immediately with no fuss. And that
now she could concentrate better. Yay for K. solving her own problems and
speaking up for herself.
7. I’ve been reading through the Gospels backward (John
first, and now Luke), and this evening I read Luke 6:45. “45 A
good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil
man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth
speaks what the heart is full of.” Usually, I would skim right over this—good
fruit, bad fruit, any good church girl has heard this a thousand times. But
tonight I thought, What am I storing up in my heart? Maybe I should
choose more thoughtfully.
