Note. 7-18-12

I sent a note to my friend M, thanking her for mailing me the last batch of clothes from little E. She emailed back that she had been reading my posts, especially the one with the homeless man, and said that she had no idea that I could be that funny. Well, I guess I am due--after she's known me for about 15 years, being roomies in grad school for 3 or 4 of those years. 

Secretly, I do amuse myself a bit with my mental comments sometimes. To the extent that I'm able, I try to monitor myself, perhaps too much. In fact, I was a little worried about suggesting the man was homeless with a psychiatric issue. What if this guy reads my blog and is, in fact, a perfectly normal guy? Then, I checked myself. Well, he did offer a container of partially eaten Nutter Butters to me and my 6 month old. That is, at least, a bit exotic, if not off the mark.

And then, I was thinking of my years in the northeast in grad school, and it reminded me of something someone said once. We were at a research meeting and one of our fellow students said something to the effect of, "Well, you know, I find that the rate of speaking is a reflection of the rate of mental processing." You hear some gems about southerners from yankees. As soon as she said it, I bit my tongue. A million responses came to mind; none of them at all flattering to her. Thankfully some of them amused me enough that I was mentally able to diffuse the situation. You see, most of the time, self-monitoring keeps me from saying too much, before I can get myself into trouble. (Unfortunately, some have even less success with self-monitoring.) Hopefully, I have not raised the ire of Nutter Butter man and will not be receiving responses on my blog like the ones I had for mental-processing woman.