Get in on the John

Hoo-ha! I have just now created new posts on my blog every day for a whole week!

And how does it feel to have been and gone and done it?

Uh, tired. Tired is how it feels.

• I think I started out pretty good with Stop trying to hit me, and hit me! which felt creative and new with the "Slap me" idea, and started the whole post-a-day thing.

• Monday's Oompa Loompa thing was less awesome, but that was to be expected, it being, you know, Monday and all.

• I am particularly proud of my Cars Review which came next, but then I did start on it almost the moment I got home from work, and then didn't stop until it was time to go to bed.

Seriously. Time = Quality.

• That being a hard act to follow, and with me spending only an hour typing it up, I was sure that the "page out of my life" post would suck pretty bad. Surprisingly, I went back and read it, and it wasn't all that terrible.

I would like to take this time to honor all the heroes who actually read my big stinking huge posts like that. You know who you are, both of you. Give yourselves a big mountain of gold on the back. Because that would be so much cooler than just a pat on the back.

• The Superman post came next, and was my first "throw the pretty pictures at 'em" entry. I had actually planed a Kitty Cat themed picture throwin' post for that day (and I'm not kidding) but I discovered the shocking news and had to post about it.

• Yesterday's post I just felt terrible about, it being another "throw away" entry and all, with just a few links I found at random in my collection, however, I read back through it, and, eh, not so bad.

Regrettable personality defects.

Has anyone else noticed that I use a lot of commas? I have. And it annoys the heck out of me. But it just doesn't feel right without the commas!

And then just recently, in the Cars post, I discovered the magically delicious semi colon. So awesome. I am in love. The way it connects two slimly related sentences together: Genius!

You know another of my habits that gets on my nerves? Saying "sorry" too often. I tell people "sorry" all the time. Like just yesterday an older man was walking past the entrance to my work place, and he misinterpreted the swinging, lanky, yet inherently graceful way I jumped down the stairs as if it was a disaster narrowly averted.

"Woah, looks like you almost fell." he said.

"Sorry." I replied.

Like I had almost killed him or something. And then there are those times where I am extraordinarily going out of my way to help someone, and they thank me for it, and my knee jerk reaction is to mumble something about being sorry I didn't do it sooner, or sorry that I didn't do it well enough.

You might think that being too polite is a laughable annoyance to have, but it can sometimes make other people uncomfortable. Like I am killing myself to move all the furniture on an entire dorm floor into the right places so the house keepers don't have to move them afterwards (it's not my job), and then I tell them I am sorry for some reason, and it makes them think to themselves "What kind of jerk does this guy think I am?" and then go into all sorts of trouble to reassure me that I did good.

And being too polite also makes it hard to joke around with people.

It's like politeness is just some sort of a padding we use to make our interactions with strangers more comfortable, before we get to know them. Different people have different tolerations for different things, so by using the rules of politeness we are able to avoid any misunderstandings or inadvertent insults we might have otherwise made by just being ourselves, until we get the chance to know the person, and therefore how to interact with them comfortably.

So when you are constantly too polite, like me, people see you as still using the "stranger protocol" around them, as being distant and aloof. It sucks. I listen to other people playfully tease each other with insults and repartee, and I see the closeness that arises from such familiarity, and I am saddened that I really can't join in.

But I shall make efforts in that direction, insulting everyone I meet as if I was afflicted with a particularly bad case of tourettes syndrome.

That'll fix it! You idiot. Oops I'm sorry, I didn't mean... darn it. Got to work on the apologizing.