I am perfecting the art of making small talk by getting other people to talk endlessly about themselves so I can smile and nod and chuckle in the right places while thinking about my grocery list.

libkitty, my sister! I too have not met any of society's goals for me. No kids, no husband, no house, no money, no "career". Even while I reject all those societal imperatives, I'm still trying to convince myself I'm not a failure. I'm happy, society! Leave me alone. What a bitch society is.

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Zenkitty, my sister!

I didn't mean for my post to come across quite as sad as I think it did. I, too, am happy most of the time. I have great friends, both meatspace and virtual. I don't have much money, but I don't owe and I have a job that I usually find fun and fulfilling. I miss having that one person to share it all with, but I'm glad I didn't settle. I love kids, but I really believe that it takes a village, and I have played my role in that village. In other words, Zenkitty, we rock, and I'm proud to be part of the band that has you in it.

But I still am working on arranging that CA trip. And I still really want a tablet pc.

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the NY Times has an online feature called "The Lede: Notes on the News"

I love that feature. And the word lede. It's a good word.

But what often happens is my on switch goes from "social chitchat" into babble, inane babble, and gods help me I can't shut up. I'm getting better at hearing that pitch in my voice when the word velocity and voice intensity starts to climb and shutting the system down. But sometimes I'm sure it seems like I just...stutter to a stop, to people who have no idea what the idiot strange woman is on about.

I do this.

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I think I'm fairly good at small talk, I seem to get on with people fairly easily-most people anyway. I am an ass in that I'm horribly judgemental, and will usually decide in pretty short order if I want to continue to talk to someone. If I'm in a good mood, I can sometimes offset it by finding one thing to genuinely like about someone. If not, I'm totally thinking "Dear lord could you be a screechier, stupider cow." Not. Nice.

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I don't mind smalltalk, or silence. I do mind people that panic at the silence and make awkward small talk. I don't like talking to jittered people. I will happily hop from tangent to tangent and from shallow topic to the next. No big deal.

In fact, I kinda sometimes make small talk when the other person isn't. I just try and do it so they don't notice. A coworker called me on it once, saying that we'd talk for hours in any given week, and he didn't know much more about me than what movies I liked. Took him months to work it out, though.

I also used to offer up what seemed like confidences in order to establish a connection--but it was a seeming intimate nugget about me that I cared little about sharing.

Yeah, sometimes I'm a bad person, I guess.

And then there's my sister. I will certainly talk about her at great length, and watch carefully for reactions to what I've shared, and assess my chatting partner based on them.

Not sure why she gets the honour, but she's been very useful to me.

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I will happily hop from tangent to tangent and from shallow topic to the next.

This is a good way to talk though. To me.

I am a bad person. My tv recorded the wrong channel and I don't watch American Justice, which is what it mistaped, but I am going to right now. Why?

The intro had a woman talking about a sexual deviant saying, "I don't think there's a word out there to describe what he was having her do." in a shocked voice. And all I am thinking is, "Honey, there's *always* a word..."

So I have to watch to find out what the deviation is. Then I will have to find the word if I don't already know it.

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And then come back and report to us.

Cramps have me exhausted and yet, unable to sleep. How is that fair?

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Oh absolutely. Unfortunately we're going through all of the murder stuff first.

Don't they know I am only watching for the unnameable deviancy?

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Perhaps the woman didn't have the fetish map. Or maybe she has an older version, like old world maps where there are only like 5 territories and everything else says "Here be dragons."

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Oh dear, it seems that golden showers are the unspeakable. Depending on if that was the excretion in question. The woman, a prim and proper Texan, was less than specific. She could barely say "going to the bathroom..."

Frankly, I was kind of hoping for something I'd never heard of.

That's not really enough to whitefont but I know most people will read early in the morning and who knows if golden showers are morning talk.

Perhaps the woman didn't have the fetish map. Or maybe she has an older version, like old world maps where there are only like 5 territories and everything else says "Here be dragons."

Here be fornicators!

eta: The case is that of Bob Fratta. Fratta sounds like it should be something perverse.

eata: Oh. Turns out it was defecation . The prosecutor was less squeamish about saying it.

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