Guys! I’m so excited by the response to the PO Box! I got lots of great comments and emails and, once I have a few days to make logistical calls, expect an email from me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about or aren’t sure if you might be interested (in using it, even if you don’t want to make a donation), then check it out here.

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, check out a few split-second decisions that tempt me on a daily basis but would undoubtedly ruin my friggin’ life.

NTKOG #229: The kind of self-confident master of her own domain who is good enough, smart enough and, goddamnit, will tell off a jerk who has it coming.

I am: kind of on the meek side. One of those people who convulsively apologizes just for walking in your path or — heaven forfend! — accidentally breathing on you.

I am not: meek because of any great gentleness or sweet nature. Perish the thought. I usually just have a hard time realizing when I have the right to be angry.

The Scene: My apartment, at a quarter past eight, booking it for the bus to work. Because I’ve been waking up early to clean my apartment, I’d spent the past hour or so attacking all the nebulous to-recycle junkmail and magazines that had accumulated in every crevice of my apartment. So I was feeling mighty accomplished to bustle out the door, carrying two full trash bags of rejected papers.

On the way out, ran into my super. “What day is it?” he barked at me.

“Wednesday,” I chirped, positively seething virtue.

“And do you know what day the trash gets collected?” he demanded.

“Uhhh, Wednesday, I think?” Not even nine in the morning and already, in the eyes of the world, I was faltering.

As my super stared at me with scorn and pity, I swear I could see the blood floating up like lava lamp bubbles to the swollen anger-vein in his forehead.

“Then why are you putting your trash out now?! It’s already been picked up! What are you thinking of?!” As he lathered himself up to righteous wrath, he leaned his whole body into the doorway separating me from the staircase — and the world beyond, the one where I needed to get on a damn bus. And then he really launched into it.

A word about my landlord. Dude is, for starters, super-Soviet. And while he’s a generally nice man, because of some combination of my age and gender, he seems to assume my life is the epicenter of some moral depravity the depths of which he can’t even fathom. I mean, me! Sure, I may have cut a few lines of fleur-de-sel in the bathroom once but, dude, I donate to charity! I eat organic! I go to the library every friggin’ day.

Then again, this is the man who blames every broken thing in my apartment — from broken locks to leaky faucets to burned-out lightbulbs — on my “many gentleman visitors”. Like, heads-up, sir? The only man who’s been in my bed this year is PG Wodehouse. And seeing as how he’s been dead for forty years, something tells me he wouldn’t be too interested in my faucets, leaky or otherwise.

After the super had screamed “inconsiderate” twice, I put the garbage bags down and settled in for the long haul. When he started yelling so loudly that two neighbors poked their heads out the door to see what was going on, I pulled out my iPhone and hit the stopwatch.

Five minutes and thirty-eight seconds. For five-minutes and thirty-eight seconds, he accused me of being inconsiderate, ungrateful, lazy, a secret basement-hygiene saboteur.

Normal TKOG would have started apologizing ten seconds in and — in all honesty — probably be out on the street already. Sure, I did nothing wrong, but an apology is cheap and doesn’t hurt anyone. But, dude, is it so very wrong to admit when you’re not in the wrong?

Finally, when he’d reached the greatest swell of his rage, he paused for breath, and I cut in:

“Hey, you know how I pay rent every month? Well, if you want me to keep on doing that, you need to let me go right now so I can get to work.” He sputtered angrily, as I passed, then turned back: “And next time? You should probably calm the fuck down.”

The Verdict: Dude, I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever cursed at an actual (non-parent) adult. Crazy. Not that I’d do that part of it again, but the rest? Okay.

A coda to the story: a few days later, I ran into him in the foyer, and he apologized for losing his temper. And normal TKOG would be so thrilled by the spirit of reconciliation that she’d be practically heimleiching out all the apologies stuck in her throat. But stuck to my no-apologies rule.

“I understand and I accept your apology, but I think you’ll find I’m a reasonable person. Next time you want me to do something, please ask nicely.”

Frig yeah! No apologies! Not ever! Except, actually, still probably sometimes! Or even most of the time! But I think I’m going to make more of an effort to apologize when I’ve done something wrong, and not just continue my current path of ceaselessly apologizing just for being alive.

My apologies, but two posts today to keep us on schedule. For more correspondence-related thoughts, though, please do read today’s post proposing a communal PO Box for writing to inmates.

NTKOG #228: The kind of honestly-trying baby do-gooder who, having put her money where her mouth is, spends a little time for good measure.

I am: trying to do the right thing more often than not, but my attempts are often thwarted by my myriad personal failings. Laziness being chief among them.

I am not: even remotely happy about this.

The Scene: My imaginary Austen-style writing desk, on the heels of my week of sending birthday cards to various prisons. And if you, like I, are imagining one of those old-fashioned roll-top desk numbers with fancy scrolling and various cubbyholes, then may I let it be said: no cubbyhole was bursting more than the one filled with neglected correspondence from one source.

Save The Children.

After an inspiring encounter a few months ago, I started making monthly donations to this excellent charity. And while I’m always pleased to see my meager donation taken out of my monthly bank statement, I’ll admit, I’ve been an absolute beast about opening their correspondence.

Dudes send a lot of letters!

A few months ago, when I finally slashed open the dozens of envelopes they’d sent, it became apparent that they wanted more than my money. They wanted my time. Specifically, they had matched me to a specific donor recipient — an adorable fourth-grade boy in New Mexico — and wanted to make sure I was an active participant in their donor writing campaign.

Just think! they told me, With a letter or two a month, you could form a lasting, life-long relationship with a child who would truly appreciate it! A great idea. I’d get right on it. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

After two months, I’d still written nary a word to the little dude, and my normal routine would be to think, “Welp, I’m just an awful person” and recycle the whole reproachful pile of papers. Because after so many months, there were many great excuses not to continue.

Obviously the kid was doing just fine without me. How useful can I be to someone who doesn’t talk about Nabokov or Shakespeare? If I were a kid, I wouldn’t want the burden of writing to an aimless twenty-something. Since I’e waited so long, it would be awkward and maybe even offensive to start now.

But frig excuses and frig habitual self-loathing. Picked up one of the last few sheets of my extra-luxe resume paper and, in my best hand-writing, wrote a one-page note asking him about the desert and his favorite subjects in school, describing my first time seeing snow in Boston, telling him I hoped we could enjoy our future correspondence. Tucked in two sheets of stickers (jungle animals and anthropomorphized fruits & veggies) and, in twenty minutes, dispelled two months of guilt.

The Verdict: Isn’t it funny how simple and non-intimidating the things we fear are, once we actually get them done? And, in related news, I really need to invest in some sort of functional mail-sorter so I can stop inviting at least some of these endless excuses to my TKOG-is-an-awful-person party.\

Updates if and when I hear back from the little dude, though! Slash hopefully pictures of an adorably decorated envelope!

NTKOG: The kind of frugal, level-headed domestic goddess who takes yo’ Depression-era grandma for a run for housekeeping money.

I am: at least a solid half-level above Microwave Gourmet in the kitchen. Isn’t that enough? No? You beasts!

I am not: secure enough with the essentials of domesticity to even begin considering thrift, frugality or any of those other Laura Ingalls Wilder motivational cross-stitch staples.

The Scene: My postage-stamp Brighton apartment, which is just about big enough to hold one — as long as you don’t have big dreams.

Let me level with you a bit, kittens: Ignore the number in the description up there. I haven’t just done 222 or 250 or even 300 of these NTKOGs — I’ve done more than I can easily count. The problem? Not all of them make good stories. In fact, half of the things I do specifically for this blog end up getting scrapped because there just isn’t 500 words of content in ‘em.

I’ve taken to thinking of these failed NTKOGs as didn’t-kill-me’s. ’cause that’s all there really is to say. Wore a too-short skirt work? Didn’t kill me. Told off a homeless dude for sticking his arm in my shirt up to the elbow? Didn’t kill me. Sat up until 3am drinking boxed wine on the curb with a Jordanian immigrant? Well, you get the message.

Unsurprisingly, many of these didn’t-kill-me’s are stories that take place in the privacy of my own apartment, where I try day by day to take on the non-glamorous task of finally becoming an adult. Still, in the spirit of frugality (and saving you having to read a post every single day ’til August 23), let us indulge for a moment in a compost heap of domestic-themed NTKOGs.

NTKOG #224: Washing and re-using various disposable household goods. This one was brought on by my year-long spurning of paper towels. Heck, if I can save a tree or two, how many casualties could I save in the plastic rainforest?

Cue many weeks of rinsing and reusing plastic cutlery at work, using old wine bottles as water carafes (’till they crowded out my fridge, that is — whoops), and painstakingly washing and drying my old Ziploc bags.

The Verdict: Oh man, this made me feel like the special guest star of a Hoarders prequel. With the exception of the wine bottles, which felt a bit roguish and debonair, it’s just — it’s just so much effort to save something that costs mere pennies. Plus, I’m not convinced it’s environmentally useful, what with the massive water consumption it entails. Voting this one a thumbs-down with a double serving of, dude, I am not my grandmother. (Which is probably a good thing, or else my fridge would be too crammed with decades-expired cans of lard to have room for wine in the first place.)

NTKOG #225: Eating expired food. See what I mean about the non-glamorous thing?

Let me be straight with you: I’m such a paranoid culinary princess that I can’t even eat leftovers more than 24 hours later. And the second we approach the expiry month of a food product? See ya.

Nonetheless, conquered my revulsion by working through two half-gallon bottles of month-expired soy milk. Which, unlike moo milk, tasted exactly the same as they did the day I bought them.

Later, growing riskier, I cleaned out my seriously limp crisper drawer into a pot of chili that tasted — what’d'ya know?! — exactly like my usual recipe. But my craving for zombified produce reached its pinnacle when I prepared and ate, of my own free will, banana-nut dinosaur muffins out of these:

I generally have a rule against foods that can be described as "sludgey," but even three weeks old, organic bananas are too $$$ to throw away.

The Verdict: The first didn’t-kill-me I’ve been delighted and surprised to find actually. didn’t. kill me.

NTKOG #226: The kind of gender-neutralized toolbelt-wielding lady who fearlessly handywomans her own environs. By which I mean. I scraped and re-grouted the crusty tiles in my bathroom. For fun.

The Verdict: Okay, this one actually did almost kill me. Because my Roomba was running in the other rooms I, like an idiot, closed myself in the bathroom for three hours with the caulking solution, then hyperventilated and passed out very briefly in the bathtub. Which is a lot funnier in retrospect than it was at the time.

Oh whatever. Like Bob Vila never had a bloopers reel…

Meta-Verdict: One doesn’t like to brag but — this guy? Totally not dead yet. No, no, hold your applause.

Correction: I might have died of cuteness after eating these.

NTKOG #222: The kind of excessively perky meddler who goes around heckling slash jekylling other people’s life choices because she simply can’t bear to leave her opinions unheard.

I am: constitutionally incapable of not staring at people in public, running wry mental narration over the actions I observe.

I am not: doing it because I think I’m better than everyone — or even anyone, really — but because I’m genuinely curious about the thousand worlds inside of us that strangers never get to see.

The Scene: Public thoroughfares and hubs of commerce the whole city over, where I took it upon myself to become a Public Validation Station. At least as much as I could without getting beat up. Because it occurs to me: some poor, deprived people out there don’t have blogs where scores of strangers can tell them they’re not crazy for drinking alone in the bath, or lovingly (and fairly) chastise them for dumping gin in their eyeballs. Some people probably don’t get told they’re great all that often, or at least not often enough. And surely I can’t let that kind of injustice stand!

As I looked for victims — er, recipients! — of external validation, I realized how very many opportunities there are to say something nice instead of sticking with the tried-and-true, y’know, nothing. I complimented women on their sundresses (I do this anyway), flashed enthusiastic thumbs-ups to humidity-braving joggers, held cashiers’ and clerks’ eyes while I told them just what exactly they were doing right. Heck, I waited twenty minutes at a TJ Maxx just to tell a manager that one of her employees was doing a particularly good job restocking the shelves.

And no one can really know how much good these things do. Maybe they’re an annoyance, maybe they come at a good moment — all I can tell you is that they didn’t seem to hurt anyone. People across the board smiled and said thank you. A few people stopped to talk to me a bit, about the weather, or what kind of day they were having.

I like it. It won’t realign the path of the planets, sure, but it’s simple and it’s nice. Of these countless interactions, though, there’s one that stands out:

The Whole Foods in Brighton, buying cereal and organic toothpaste because, dude, this girl knows how to party. As I waited at the check-out lane, the healthy-mommy shopper ahead of me clicked quickly through the credit card machine — then stared at the clerk with rapidly souring confusion when she wasn’t rewarded with the whine of a printing receipt.

“You accidentally hit cancel,” he explained, then, as she began to complain, “No, don’t worry about it. The screens look exactly alike. I’d guess that 30% of people do this. It’s a silly system; it happens all the time.”

And it’s impossible to convey in just words, but you know how some people possess that rare gift of radiance? Something about this guy — he was as vast and placid as a country pond reflecting the sunrise. The immortal guru of the express lane.

After he’d apologized, her face slowly unpinched, and she even cracked a tired smile as she wheeled her cart to the parking lot.

When I resumed my place in the line, I felt suddenly shy. Who was I to intrude on his job, even if it was just to tell him he’d done it admirably? But as I packed my groceries into my messenger bag, smiled up, “Hey, I like how happy you are. I mean, I think you made that woman’s day better just because she made that little mistake.”

“Thanks,” he said, and smiled big but kind of pitying, like why wouldn’t someone dispense peace of mind along with change for a twenty-dollar bill.

The Verdict: I think — I think I just met an honest-to-god guru. The kind of guy who’s so nice that he doesn’t even realize that niceness is an exceptional habit in the modern world. As I never seem to stop learning during this project, not only is it nice to be nice, but it often takes less energy than being negative or even than being neutral.

Man, though, Whole Foods Guru, he’s just a whole different level. He reminded me what I’m striving for: to one day — maybe not in this lifetime or the next, but one day – make the world a better place not by doing, but by simply being.

NTKOG #219: The kind of virtuous schedule guru who wastes nary a second in her busy schedule of work, fun-work, more work and, y’know, generally making people feel bad about themselves.

I am: lazy by nature. Oh god am I lazy. My only complaint about escalators is that you can’t sit down on them.

I am not: going to achieve my dreams that way, eh?

The Scene: Back in Boston after a lovely weekend in New York a few weeks ago. The trip was the occasion of the infamous twelve-mimosa brunch – an afternoon that, delightful as it was, served as something of a wake-up call to me: in a few days, I’ll be twenty-four, and officially out of the realm of “young rising superstar.” Doubly sucky because, uh, “young” was the only part of that phrase that ever described me.

If I am more or less a third of the way done with my life (no complaints here), it might be time to invest more prudently in setting a solid foundation for the last long, hard haul. And the problem with long mimosa days, it seems to me, is that you lose yourself.

And maybe now it’s just for a few hours at a time afterwards, but if I have enough of those days? I may just find myself waking up twenty years from now in someone else’s life, a life I never wanted.

Lately I’ve been consumed with the idea of living in a secular monastery. A safe, rigorously structured place where I would be forced to constantly aspire to virtue and maintain an exacting schedule.

Then it hit me: I’m 23 years old. I have no significant other, no kids, no pets, not even very many friends. I have (barely) enough money to sustain me, and a perfectly serviceable little cloister of an apartment, just waiting for me to give it order.

So, for the past few weeks, I’ve been trying.

There’s nothing too amusing about trying to live a virtuous life, so allow me to bore and appall you with my weekday schedule of the past few weeks:

6:30am: Wake up
6:45am: Exercise or clean (alternating days)
7:15am: Enjoy oatmeal while reading theology or Wodehouse (same thing)
7:45am: Shower
8:15am: Leave for work
9:00am – 5:00pm: Actually work at my job (novel concept, for me)
5:15pm: Dinner, while writing
5:45-9:00pm: Boston Public Library, writing
9:30pm: Get home and clean or read until sleep
10:30pm: Sleep that I’ve actually earned, for once in my life.

Saturdays follow a similar schedule, with an hour or two of Hulu time thrown in. Because of necessary social obligations (well, necessary if you don’t want to die alone – a commitment I’m not ready to make just yet), I’ve left some wiggle room on my Fridays and Sundays. But honestly? I kind of look forward to the other days more.

The Verdict: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this up forever, but oh man do I hope I try. It may not make me a more interesting person, and it certainly isn’t making me a more popular one, but I think it might be making me more worthwhile as a human being?

I think the monastery obsession comes from the pretty normal human fantasy of having discipline enforced on us by someone else, so we don’t have to dredge up the discipline to do it ourselves. But as I’ve always said in re: discipline, look, you don’t have to want to do it. You just have to do it. So here’s to many, many more years of doing precisely that.

Guys, I was set to announce the Ask Me Anything winners today, but then something happened last night that I wanted to write about right away. Winners are going up tomorrow, though; I wrote a whole post about it. (ps: thanks for bearing with my oafish self. You guys are totally boss and I hope you get let out of work early today.)

NTKOG #202: The kind of fussy busybody who takes it upon herself to mediate your relationship woes — or bring in a third party, if necessary.

I am: no Montel. (Though I did stand next to him in an elevator once. Surprisingly bad skin.)

I am not: perfect in my own relationships; why would I hold you to a higher standard?

The Scene: Around midnight in Chez TKOG. I’m just turning out the light to curl up with my latest library find when, out of nowhere, a barrage of atomic F-bombs explodes through my open windows and right into my apartment.

Break-Up Couple.

Break-Up Couple lives in the apartment building across the courtyard from mine, and has been breaking up every week or two ever since I moved in. I’ll admit, at first I found it endearing: she would shriek accusations, his plaintive “baby! baby!”s would gradually bellow into counter-accusations, she’d throw him a few good slaps, then transition into an hour of primal screaming “I hope you get chlamydia!” Back in the good old days, I used to open the windows while they fought and gather every snatch of drama. In fact, I wouldn’t be prepared to swear I didn’t settle in to enjoy the proceedings with a big bowl of popcorn.

Lately, though, the fights have gotten more intense. Two weeks ago, they kept me up until four in the morning while she threw dishes at him and screamed, “You’re a fucking toolshed! Go back to your hoes!” When he’d finally stormed out for the sixth or seventh time, there was blessed silence for a few moments, followed by a series of loud cracks. Confused, I pried open the shades and caught a glimpse of her silhouette in the bathroom. She was hunched over, smashing her head again and again into the wall, as hard as she could. The impact rang out like gunshots.

Warm weather has brought out the worst in Break-Up Couple. Because everyone’s windows are open, their voices detonate right into your living room. Which brings me back to last night, for twenty minutes my apartment echoing with hundred-decibel “fuck you!”s, oozing acid.

Although I try to hide my nosiness, and certainly understand that all relationships are different and should be left to themselves, the lack of sleep has started to get to me. As she slapped him last night, I considered heckling out the window or even threatening to report a noise violation.

Then, a different sound than usual. Her slaps rang out as usual — weak but triumphant — then were stopped all at once with a veritable thunderbolt of flesh on flesh. She gasped. I picked up my phone and dialed.

To their credit, the police weren’t racist this time. The second the (very nice) dispatcher picked up, though, I became immediately ambivalent about calling. On the one hand, there is nothing okay about regular domestic violence; on the other, I can’t be sure of what I hear, and anyway, people’s relationships are whole universes with their own governing laws. But after I explained the whole situation to the dispatcher, leaning heavily on the fact that I could in no way be positive that anyone had laid a hand on anyone else, he warmly explained that they ought to send over an officer anyway, if only to address the noise complaint.

For five minutes after I hung up the phone, Break-Up Couple continued their intricate dance of taunts, shrieks and screams. Then: silence, punctuated only by the barely audible rumble of one of Boston’s Finest, restoring peace to the night.

The Verdict: My conscience is gnawing away at me for involving myself so thoroughly into what is obviously a private affair. After all, they are Break-Up Couple. They must break up; it is in their nature. But I need sleep and some quiet and to know I’m living in a world where domestic disputes don’t escalate, some strange drunken night, into a violent tragedy twenty yards away from my own home.

Ambivalence. Guilt. Silence. I guess this is pretty much my default state.

NTKOG #176: The kind of impulsive total masochist who — facing the perfectly normal issue of pubic hair grooming — acts on the unthinkable impulse.

I am: often seized with irrational desires to do things that are somewhere between SUPER-APOCALYPTIC (jumping into subway tracks) or merely very, very bad ideas (huh, what does paint taste like?).

I am not: sure which category this fits in.

The Scene: My bathtub, where usually only good decisions are made. After an extremely lackluster Wednesday, headed home early from writing to take a marathon soak with a glass of Beaujolais. Confessional: once I add even a drop of wine, my bathtime becomes a little surreal. Enter TKOG, singing Mountain Goats, staining the mounds of bubbles pink with Beauj, creating a whole sudsy universe. This time, though, I was arrested by the site of my catastrophic recent Brazilian, where hair again grew lush and unencumbered, with no consideration to the bone-melting pains I took to remove it.

Considering I promised y’all a vajazzling post, this simply wouldn’t do. Brainstormed a few methods of hair removal. Trusty ol’ razor (trusted primarily to incite ingrown-hairs); Nair (with its chemical smell and insidious capability to fire-ravage sensitive skin); self wax kit (and run the risk of spending the rest of my life with a strip of wax glued to my nethers). Then I was seized with a weird urge that’s been with me since high school and that, for once, I allowed myself to act on. I chose the unthinkable option.

I plucked.

Okay, I’m going stop for a moment while you grab a pair of tweezers and pluck one of your pubic hairs. Now try that again roughly ten thousand times, over the course of two hours, two listens to Tallahassee, and the rest of a bottle of Beauj.

I don’t really think I need to tell you how painful this was. Though midway through, I remembered the time I accidentally bit out one of a guy’s pubic hairs. He had curled up into a protective ball and banished me from the room — something I thought was a bit of a friggin’ over-reaction at the time. A quarter of the way in, I wanted to call him and apologize. By the time I got to halfway through, realized that on the strength of that episode alone, he’d probably never want to hear my voice again.

But I finished what I started, and frig it if my skin isn’t mega-smooth. In fact, because I could take my time and control the pain, I actually found this more pleasant (though significantly more time consuming) than getting a Brazilian. Which is probably only a sign that I should get plastered before my next waxing session.

The Verdict: Dude, you know what I’m afraid of now?

NOTHING.

On Secret Society of List Addicts, some things you might be saying wrong, even if you’re really, really smart. (Warning: graphic depictions of begging the question.)

On Life As A Human, a belated Mother’s Day tribute to TKOMom, featuring some of the sage advice she’s given me over the years. (No, it’s not a sex column.)

NTKOG #174: The kind of throat-clearing passive-aggressive bitch who scrawls poisonous little missives for all in her surroundings.

I am: aggressive-aggressive.

I am not: even amused by d-bags who leave passive-aggressive notes. Unless they’re on passiveaggressivenotes.com, obviously, the best photo blog on the internet.

The Scene: My apartment, 2am, on a Tuesday. Oh lovely. The night was unseasonably hot and my apartment broiling, but as I attempted to throw open the windows, was smacked with two hundred and fifty raw decibels from the Bon Jovi All-Nite Rehabilitation Conference apparently being held by my upstairs neighbors.

Don’t get me wrong — I like my upstairs neighbors. Not that I’ve ever met them, but often when they have sex, they sing together, which I find funny and heartwarming in the few seconds before I crank my music to cover it. And, hey, we share an affinity for the Gin Blossoms classic “Hey Jealousy”. That said, I’m a cranky old lady with an unquenchable thirst to get all Captain Planet on noise polluters’s unconscionable asses. So. Problem.

After forty-five minutes of torture, I violated the one sacred covenant of apartment living (dude, do not talk to your neighbors! not even if their unit is on fire!), ran upstairs and jackhammered the door. For ten minutes. Before they could hear me over their music. Eventually, when one of the party guests stumbled to the kitchen for more Smirnoff Ices, she noticed me and called her hosts over.

If there is a noise more subtle than three wasted undergrads trying to be completely quiet while hiding behind two inches of plywood, I think I’d need earplugs to withstand it.

“Ssssssshhhh,” the girl hissed. “Turn down the music and pretend we’re not here.” If she hadn’t been whispering this through the keyhole and right into my ear, maybe it would have been a good plan.

Still pissed, still awake, for the very first time in my life I wrote a passive-aggressive note. Considering that during the past few years I’ve lived with a girl who left her hidden alarm clock blaring for hours every afternoon, a space-case stoner who hotboxed our entire bedroom while I was sleeping in it, and a house with four dudes, a statistically significant portion of whom were total jerk-offs, and never once written a passive-aggressive note, I’d say this was a pretty big lapse in character.

Rejected first draft of the note.

The actual note was a sprawling six-Post-It affair explaining that dudes with 9-5s can’t get behind early-hours music and, dude, if you’re going to blare yo’ shiz to the populace at large, you need to close your damn window or else everyone else has to leave their humid little oven-apartments shut to try to buffer the noise. Because, seriously, dudes who open the windows when they’re listening to loud music are bad people and I loathe them.

For the next two days, angsted that the residents would post a succinct rebuttal (I’m thinking something in the two-word range?) on my door. Even momentarily regretted signing the note with my apartment number. But in fact, the only result is that they’ve learned to temper their love of Miley Cyrus to normal human levels. Success!

The Verdict: Even though having to actually communicate with my neighbors just about gave me a dang heart attack, I’m glad I did this. I have a pretty simple theory of conflict resolution: If someone’s doing something assholic, they’re the problem. But if you don’t bother to actually tell someone they’re bothering you, then you’re the problem, chump. It amazes me how often people will stew for significant periods of time over a problem without even once politely but firmly notifying the other party that their behavior is unacceptable.

This stewing leads to the soul-sucker that is passive-aggression. Doing things like trying to talk to people and leaving clearly and politely worded (and signed, obviously) notes nips the passive part of the equation in the bud. And while I’m very good at being open and direct with people I actually know, I’m glad I took the extra steps to apply my usual policies to people outside my normal comfort zone.

Check out this week’s post at Life As A Human, in which I reenact a scene from When Harry Met Sally. No, not that scene.

NTKOG #173: The kind of discomfiting child-at-heart who indulges in public tête-à-têtes and tea parties with the stuffed set.

I am: usually in the process of trying (slash largely failing) to hide the most distressing of my eccentricities from human view.

I am not: ever going to be accused of excessive maturity. Just look at my bookshelves, in which new, un-dog-eared volumes of Sachar and Pinkwater mingle with Chekhov and Chabon.

The Scene: Amtrak, hurtling to New York. Started out all business: staked a window seat, plugged in my computer and cell charger, tucked my copy of Brideshead Revisited in the seatback in front of me. Then, to the intense discomfort of my seatmate, fished into my bag and pulled out a stuffed elephant, whose ears I kissed a few times before settling into a four-hour writing session.

This is Nichka. Despite the care-worn appearance, she’s only four years old. And if you have a problem with her, then I have a problem with you.

For context: Nich came into my life during the shitty summer I spent in Vermont (phtooey!) when I was 19. As a kid, I was generally pretty aloof with my stuffed animals – after brief stints of fascination, I’d inevitably abandon them belly-down in sandboxes. For whatever reason, though, Nich is real in a very veleveen rabbit way. Any time I know I’ll be spending the night elsewhere, she comes along in my purse; we often pass a pleasant half-hour chatting about world events, peanut farming, and reading aloud chapters of Wodehouse. Seems normal enough to me, but in our jaded modern world, the innocent love between a girl and her stuffed elephant is not to be.

By the time I’d written a paragraph on my computer, stuffed elephant nestled between ear and shoulder, my seatmate had pretty much gotten ceased the incredulous side glances. I was neither especially ostentatious nor reserved in my stuffed animal canoodling: the occasional stroke, a kiss here and there. No big deal.

However, when said seatmate exited in Providence, she wasn’t easy to replace. My train car was 85% full, and most of the free seats were rudely stuffed with bags and jackets. As new riders strolled the aisles, their eyes would lock hungrily on the empty seat next to me, then, once they took in my pachydermal lesion of etiquette, snapped up their heads and kept gazing into the distance. One gentleman got so far as stowing his luggage above my seat before he took a closer look at me, hoisted his bag back down, and moved on — eventually sitting beside a woman holding a tiny infant.

A bit over halfway through the train ride, I got a little peckish, so Nich and I worked our way up to the snack car. After some deliberation, chose a packet of peanuts, and cuddled Nichka while I ordered them.

The clerk gazed at me with genial embarrassment. “Are they for your little friend?”

“Uh, no, dude. They’re for me.”

The Verdict: I truly didn’t think this was that weird, but when the Amtrak snackette straight-out accuses you of being touched in the head, you’ve got to admit that you’ve been making some dang life choices and, uh, maybe not all for the best. Guess Nichka is doomed to spending daylight hours cooped up in my purse. Good thing she has the leftovers of that bag of peanuts to snack on while she’s in there.