We get to talk penguin talk tonight. A Finnish woman who was on the Antarctica
trip with us is in town for business. Since she knew the trip was coming up, she
asked for our email address while we were all on the boat. (They're supposed to
send out a trip diary with everyone's email addresses but haven't gotten around to
that yet. I'm assuming this is related to the fact that the tour staff usually
have about three hours of free time between trip, literally. Strenuous jobs.) SO
Rudder has loaded up the slide projector, I've cleared all the remaining software
boxes and installation instructions away from my desk in the front room, and she's
bringing a DVD with her pictures. It ought to be fun.
I slept very
well last night, but somewhere in the middle had an odd dream. I was hanging out
with a few people at a pool that had a big slide, and someone wanted us all to
slide down in close timing so we'd all be in the pool close together. The woman
behind me in line crowded and pushed me down the slide so that I was too
close to everyone else when I hit the water and my brother scolded me for being
unsafe. I explained it wasn't my fault and she sort-of-but-not-really apologized.
I refused to forgive her and stepped out of the pool by stepping on her head, not
hurting her but causing her to go down in the water and splutter a bit. Then I was
sorry and kept trying to get her to forvie me, but she wouldn't. Since it was a
dream, by then there was some entirely different issue between us. Then I sat by a
nice older woman, a close aquaintance whom I trusted, but not really a friend, and
we talked about the whole thing. I wondered whether I should just try to be
friends with the older woman instead.
I woke up with a revelation --
I mean, in my just awoken state, this was clearly the Solution to Everything --
that I'd be better at making friends if I just acted as if I like everyone I meet,
most especially the people I really do like.
OK, so it's probably not
the Solution to Everything. It's amazing how convinced you can be of something
when you first wake up. On the other hand, this one makes sense, so .... if you're
on my DLand buddies list, or you know I read your journal, or I gave you this URL,
please assume I like you. In case you were wondering.
P.S. Brownie
points if you know where I stole the title of this essay.