Solution:

I will now respond to exceptionally stupid posts on Facebook with a cheery comment that said poster should enjoy a very happy birthday.

Because people who reduce complicated issues to a single sentence deserve to live in a more confusing world.

Agreeableness

The pop psychology personality profile* I currently favor has a trait called Agreeableness. It doesn't measure how pleasant a person is so much as it measures how kind that person thinks everyone else is. It's an interesting inversion- it's oddly satisfying to think that one of the foundations of self is an unshakable belief in the wickedness of the world.

*It's called OCEAN or CANOE or FFM or Big Five, and there is some nebulous scientific evidence that it's valid. Eat it, Myers-Briggs. Another advantage over the MBTI is that no one has put much energy into defending being very Neurotic as a good thing.

I'm from a small town and I grew up cute, white, and well mannered. Thus, on some cellular level, I think that everyone else is probably a better person than I am. Every single prudent, street-wise behavior I possess is an aftermarket feature.

My abstruse point is that most media sources don't share my faith in humanity. I assume it's because they're better informed. Well, I assume that the people who are newsworthy are statistically more unpleasant and that journalism is a very competitive field and very competitive fields tend to reward random chance and nepotism and that is bad for trusting others. This is why I'm not better informed: I tune out as soon as it seems like one party is acting like Snidely Whiplash.

My only hope is media created by similarly entitled people. Thank god for This American Life.

The Corner of the Internet I am In Right Now.

"Frankly, while I know my cats’ biological sex, I can’t truly say I know their respective gender-identities anyway."

"My mother pierced my ears at a month old because she was tired of me being ‘confused’ for a boy. Now I have unprofessional-looking holes in my ears that won’t heal, and on top of it, I ended up being male anyway. "

Quotes from Us at Tonight's Dinner Party.

"So it's like five humans from all different cultures, and an Argentinian?"*

*Said with innocent intent, by C.

Me, to dog: "Yes, it's pork liver pate with bacon. I am enjoying it. It's so much better than anything you've ever tasted."

Passing man: "It's not better than anything my dogs have ever tasted. I feed them exclusively on raw, organic meats and free range eggs."

Me: "Is this your dog?"

PM: "No..."

Me: "Then excuse me, we're in the middle of a conversation. So tasty... so much better than kibble... "

Mmmm, steak

There's a Sizzler ad on Hulu right now. The cook takes a tri-tip off a plate, grills it, and returns it to the same plate. All I can think is, "Cross contamination! E. coli! Poison!". Although I am not really the target market, I figure that's a terrible image to have in a commercial.

But Y'all Should Vote.

Y'all have probably not read an entire cookbook by Alice Waters, doyenne of California Cuisine. I have, because I have issues. When you read her cookbooks, it seems really easy to cook the best, healthiest food all of the time- as long as you structure your entire life around living like Alice Waters. Two farmer's markets a week, spending 1/4th your income on food, learning to haraunge the butcher and the baker- I do some of these things, and my mother and law does more- but Ms. Waters presents it as the simplest possible thing, because that is what her life is.

So- there's a giant freaking election Tuesday, with light and justice directly opposed to evil and also evil. I have just discovered that once again, C will manage not to vote. It is not hard, and if you don't care about local issues, there's no reason your absentee ballot can't follow you from city to city forever. It's just- civil duty is not something he builds his life around. Feh.

Quotes from C

"I don't have enough Skinner's boxes."

The 's is important, because it means he's short on the thin cardboard from his cereal boxes instead of experiencing a lack of operant conditioning chambers.

Boo.

My office is all in a fluffle, because the lady who decorated for each holiday doesn't work there anymore. Halloween is coming, and there are no decorations!

Well, OK, the produce exchange table is overrun with pumpkins from the Michelle Obama fire garden.

And there are orb weaver spiderwebs on all of the balconies.

And one of the biologists has an office full of skulls.

And the entryway has a bookcase with jars of salamanders, frogs, and newts.

The same bookcase has a stack of dried turtles.*

So it's not that we aren't decorating for Halloween, it's that we're always decorated for Halloween. They'll have to wait for Thanksgiving to complain. (Though probably the pumpkins will still be there, possibly some Indian corn, and maybe the turkey specimen will return from the taxidermist.)

* I mentioned this to C.
"Sack of turtles?" he asked.
"No, stack." I replied
"Why does your office have a stack of turtle shells?" He said
"You know, I never asked. But's not just shells- their feet, tails, and heads stick out, and their little mouths are slightly agape."
"You work in a strange place."
"You should talk. Your office has that really old couch. That's pretty creepy."
"Yes. An unsanitary couch is just as unsettling as haphazardly stacked preserved animals. Good call."

Not as Conscientious as I make myself out to be.

So I was reading a back issue of a Wildlife Periodical and found the region by region reports from Game Wardens. It paints rural Northern California as a places where people smoke meth, hook some makeshift spotlights up to their truck, and then cruise slowly through orchards and fields, looking to shoot pigs. It describes people who hand dug the 600 pounds of razor clams in the back of their pickup. There's more than one story with someone who is real ashamed about shooting a doe- he never wouldna done it normally, but he was high.

One suspect attempted to bribe the game warden into issuing a citation with an equal fine and jail time that wouldn't make it so he was mocked for the rest of his life. Shooting a doe. My word.

My subconscious is not subtle.

Last night I dreamed that I was eating a plate of radishes. Around the table were many people who are near and dear to me, eating fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

I was trying to solve a math problem, but everyone else insisted it was impossible. Insurmountable. Then they ate more cookies and told me how tasty my radishes looked.

Why I'm on Facebook

The guy who I sat next to in Botany meetings years ago ewwww! dog hairs in the coca leaves!

My best friend when I was eight wants a fox squirrel.

C's roommate from college spent three days decapitating lab wasps and will probably have to do more of this in the future. Anyone know of a place that sells insect-sized guillotines?

R's college roommate All sex, all the time.

Has anyone else noticed an upswing in junk sites on Google? Like, visible in the top three, you go to find an address and they try to sell you jokes, recipes, and porn?

Fun with the next blog button

For some reason, blogspot is full of Québécois.

I think this is a fetish page for people who are into long nails? Or a lookbook? Or both?

I balanced the budget, and all I had to do was destroy the economy.

Seriously though- it was tough. I tried once being fair, rational, and prudent: I exceeded the budget by 20%. The second time I had two goals: prevent as many deaths as possible, and enact legislation that would irritate the Conquistador Lord. Worked pretty well, aside from the worldwide depression.

It's not a secret if you post it on your blog.

Some time ago I returned from work to find the following note:

"I found your mail from this week. It is under this note. I will be back at seven. Don't spoil your dinner. -Mom"

I rifled through the mail, and then responded:

"Off buying ice cream cone. Back soon."

Feeling that might be deliberately inflammatory, I felt compelled to add a short vignette about the tragedy of the alligator lizard. You see, the alligator lizard lives in environments that are only tolerable if one has ice cream, but the lizard lacks both the ability to purchase ice cream and the ability to leave said environment. It is very sad. I drew a short comic on the backs of various envelopes and cards, detailing the quest for ice cream of a disturbingly anthropomorphosized alligator lizard. I believe at the end, sated by ice cream, he walks into the light- here represented by the gullet of an eagle- able to face his fate with equanimity. Then I bought and ate ice cream. Then I sent back RSVP cards for two weddings.

The next day I realized that parts of the alligator lizard saga were on the back of the RSVP cards.

But I seem to have gotten away with it- I've since talked to the brides in question, and there was no comment about my artwork. Ha ha! Awkward explanation avoided! Illusion of sanity maintained!

Unless they read this post.

I remember watching this at Jeanie Turner's with persistent viral pneumonia, age 4. I got to stay inside because I was always sick. And, um, she's dead now?