Yay me! Heh. I'll have to get that book back next time I see the friend I lent it to, because now it's really bugging me.

I think there are types it's easier to recognize online, because you do get a sense of how someone thinks from how they write. It reveals different things than body language, and some people are better at presenting an image, and some are better at interpreting it -- which is how you get the hoaxers, and the people who uncover them. But yeah, there are a lot of people I've never met that I'd happily give a spare key.

I completely trust my immediate instincts when meeting people because they have served me well both in personal and business relationships.

This part of the equation so important:

If you've got a pattern of forming abusive relationships, you may have to override your instincts, and see feelings of attraction as a danger sign until you learn to look for a different set of traits in other people.

How I wish some of my dear friends would figure this out. It breaks my heart when I see my friends making the same mistake repeatedly. My GF has a strong attraction to a particular male type that just never ends up well. She knows it and tries to find the exception knowing full well it ain't gonna happen. She claims to be unable to find or be attracted to the good guys that I have had in my life. We debate this all the time.

Hi, Buffistas, skipped like a MoFo, since I am sitting in the green green hills in southwestern Massachussetts in my best friend's GLORIOUS house. She has dial-up, though, so I won't be around here much untl next week.

Off to go sit on the porch and look at purty nature.

I am jealous of Robin now. It's going to be 98 degrees here today, so I would have gone to the beach, but it's my one chance to see an old friend who lives in France now. I think a movie after lunch, though.

Edit: And in light of the conversation about first impressions and whatnot, I just got the "Lie To Me" quote:

Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.

I agree that immediate impressions upon meeting are sometimes true, but not always.

It is disgusting outside.

I left my keys at work (I think, I hope) and had to stay over with my brother last night, which is not so bad, but what a loser for leaving my keys. Got into my place this morning with the super's key.

Today is brunch downtown, then shopping in Queens and then hopefully lounging at home and knitting.

Has anyone had trouble buying cold medicine with pseudoephedrine lately? While at my sister's in Indiana this week, Owen got a cold. So I sent my sister to Wal-mart to get the children's cold medicine my ped recommended. I asked her to get two bottles--one night time, one daytime formula and she was DENIED her purchase. They said she could only buy one bottle at a time due to the fact that they both contained pseudoephedrine.

I've been trying to look up to see if this is an Indiana law or just a Wal-mart rule. It it seems to me that the limit is set ridiculously low, no matter whose rule it is. I'm all for preventing some meth addict from cooking up a batch next door but when you're making life difficult for people with sick toddlers, that's enough to piss me off.

I've heard some stories about that, although it hasn't happened to me yet.

I've always purchased two packages of cold medicine at a time--I usually get a non-drowsy for day and a kick-the-cold-in-the-ass version for night time. This just completely gobsmacked me.

Thankfully, my mother was shopping there at the same time as my sister, so she bought the other bottle for me and Owen and the crisis was averted. But I'm still confused as to the extremely low limit.

At the CVS around the corner from me, any medicine that's just pseudoephedrine, without any other drugs, is kept behind the counter and you have to ask for it, rather than being out on the shelves. I don't know if there's any limit, though.

From way back:

In sum: I suspect that romantic love may be a subset of sex with a lot of higher cortical function dancing around madly trying to distract us from this unflattering truth.

I don't think it's as clearcut as that. I suppose definitions vary on something so ephemeral, but I do think there's an emotion that's different from lust plus the affection one also has for close friends and family. I consider the first time I was in love to have been at the age of 16, with a girl in the class ahead of mine. At the very least it was limerance, with the characteristic basing too much of one's self-worth on the other person's opinion, thinking about them all the time, and—for me—featuring the person in my art. And as I've never had a moment's confusion about my orientation, I can assure you that there was exactly zero sexual attraction mixed in.

I think romantic love is a separate thing that very frequently overlaps with sexual attraction, but not always.