A conversation with Terri led to this:

Yes, there are times I'm more grumpy than is necessary, at times I'm really hard to read, and I need to work on being a little less grouchy sometimes, and I need to stop being so mean just because I'm in a bad mood, and I will do so.

On the other hand, my friends need to bend a little, too. Realise that I am not like you. I'm not really into useless small talk (by which I mean "the weather's nice" and stuff like that), and I'm not particularly enamored of the phone as an instrument of non-purposeful communication. No matter how happy I am, I will /never/ display that happiness as you do; I will never be like you. My sense of humor is not always the same as yours. Just because I don't think your joke is funny doesn't mean I don't like you. To be ultra geek for a moment and quote a B5 character: "I may sometimes look like you, but I am not you. Never forget that."

Yes, I am cynical. Yes, I'm a little bitter over my childhood. If you don't know why, then you've never heard the whole story. Yes, I'm moving on, but I still carry scars. Instead of trying to change that, learn to deal with it while I learn to mitigate it. I'm not some poor soul for you to save, I'm your friend. And if I'm your friend, you'll accept my idiosyncrasies as I accept yours.

And yes, I love my friends dearly.

And now, the part no one will like.

Sometimes I'm silent because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. As I've said before, if I told people what I /really/ think all the time, they'd probably be upset with me. One of my friends recently said he feels sometimes I'm just tolerating him, and I'm unimpressed with him. Well, sometimes I AM just tolerating people, because yes, sometimes I'm annoyed as hell with them.

Show me people who never get annoyed with each other and I'll show you someone who's hiding something. Real boats rock.

I've often wished my friends would focus less on my moods and more on what they might be doing to /cause/ those moods (just as I have to learn to focus not just on my mood but on how that mood might be affecting my friends), but that hasn't happened, so I'm forcing the issue. I've removed names because there's no sense in embarassing anyone. If you're angry, I'm sorry. I really am. But I need to say these things in this kind of forum, where hopefully it won't hurt as much as if I said it to your faces. Some of these are aimed at more than one person. If you ever want to talk about them, that's fine. If you'd rather not, that's fine, too.

EDIT: REMOVED THAT STUFF. BEST LEFT TO THE FUTURE AND ONE-ON-ONE CONVERSATION, I THINK.

Want to know what's wrong with our country?

The biggest problem in America is that our education system produces people who write things like this for public consumption(Pulled from Amazon.com):

LOTR is a whole century masterpiece! Tolkien's writing is magnificient! No doubt about that! I'd say his genre is so much better than of Rowling's but who's to compare, right? It'll be like comparing down to who's the better teen performers in the music business: Aguilera or Spears and we'd end up BOTH! I'd read the trilogy and was so fascinated at the story and the genre Tolkien had created (like I said it was magnificient and may I say that again!) BUT then again it's the quite poor quality of this book: The Collector's Edition, the publisher thought by converting it to look like The Bible would trick the monks into buying it. The side title already deceiving enough let alone thinking what sort of magic rings the Lord is wearing... queer? (NOT to the Pope! News heard that the Pope bought this edition and read through it and spoke to the Vaticans of the threat by some satan's relative named Sauron and they bought it with one gulp!). So I'd say buy this book if you fancy The Bible and before you leave the house for church on one fine Sunday, make sure you grab the right book or else enjoy reading it while everyone is singing a Gospel. DUH!

I realise I'm a snob, but... ew!

10 Things I'm Looking Forward To

In no particular order:

1. Lord of the Rings. Tonight. BOUNCIEBOUNCIEBOUNCIEBOUNCE!
2. Vamp LARP.
3. Moulin Rouge on DVD
4. Christmas Morning
5. The Next Big Event in my Star Wars game
6. Star Wars Episode II
7. The next Arcanum plot
8. Big battle against Cylons tomorrow
9. The next 7th Sea session
10. [CENSORED]

BTW...

To the three people I was chatting with via AIM last night... sorry sorry sorry! I lost power for about 20 minutes and didn't turn the PC back on when it was done.