I think the difference is you seem to assume that all compulsive behavior is initiated by the perception of something being "not right" and I think there are instances where it is initiated simply by the perception of the pattern.

Why complete the pattern, is my question? In the scenarios to which I've been exposed, I've seen people's deepening distress at not being able to finish up, so, yeah, they looked like something was not right to them.

Lots of time was spent figuring out whether the patient was neurotic

Oh, we're all neurotic. That's what too much free time'll do to ya.

For Tep - breakfast pizza.

*I* was the one who wanted breakfast pizza!

*I* was the one who wanted breakfast pizza!

Your names both start with S! How am I supposed to tell the difference, huh???

Anyway, it's too late now. You'll have to ask Tep if she's willing to share.

After each "sip" he's giving an exaggerated refreshed-sounding "Aaaah!"

Ow, my heart! I'm slightly afraid of what will happen if we get Dylan and Matilda, or, really, any two or three Buffista babies and/or toddlers in one room together--whether the resultant devastating levels of cute will cause, well, devastation. The only reason I can see that Southern California has survived the combined presence of Grace and Noah so far is that maybe their siblinghood somehow harmonizes the cuteness vibrations to achieve some measure of equilibrium; get them both together with even one unrelated Buffista baby/toddler, though, and it'd be a galactic death ray of cute.

There are apparently quite a lot of people who claim to be skeptics who clearly have no real understanding of how to be skeptical.

CASE. IN. POINT: [link] (link is to CNN video stream)

I want to write something witty and sweet. But my will to live has been zapped by 60 high school students.

Way late but I had to clarify my stance on "tourist pizza". I mean deep dish is where we'd go to eat when we had friends visiting from out of town. I love tourists, they are an essential part of Chicago's economy and I (mostly happily) drove them around for 18 months when I was a carriage driver.

Maybe I should have called deep dish "special occasion" pizza. What I crave is the everyday stuff, thin crust with plenty of tomato sauce that has actual flavor. (not that thin smear of paste that passes for sauce in California) You can have all the corner pieces, I like the middles. I actually miss that moment when you can't wait for the thing to cool down so you take a bite even though you know the sauce is going to ooze up through a hole in the cheese and burn the crap out of the roof of your mouth but it's worth it!

*I* was the one who wanted breakfast pizza!

Your names both start with S! How am I supposed to tell the difference, huh???

Anyway, it's too late now. You'll have to ask Tep if she's willing to share.

NEVER!!!! Oh, wait. You probably already clicked the link, didn't you? Dang! Also, YUM!

Maybe I should have called deep dish "special occasion" pizza. What I crave is the everyday stuff, thin crust with plenty of tomato sauce that has actual flavor.

Well, what you crave doesn't really define what kind of pizza Chicago is known for. And that sounds snotty, but I don't mean it to be; I can't think of any other way to word it, though.

Chicago is known for deep dish pizza, touristy or no. I'm sure lots of Chicagoans crave and eat thin/regular-crust pizza, but people outside of Chicago, when they think "Chicago-style pizza," think deep-deep-deep-dish, like Uno's or Giordano's.

Anyway. Now that I'm talking about pizza, my stir-fry is less than appealing. Bummer.

Luckily yesterday's Thai food stood up to yesterday's pizza cravings. Don't know about leftovers, though, because the cravings haven't palled at all.

Watching Taboo about Extreme Entertainment--they posit that people who go to sideshows with sword-swallowing and the like go because they want to be there on the one night someone dies. Really? Don't you want to go and see how far they can go and *live*? Dying's pretty easy.

Yes, I think I'd have long since resorted to yelling "That's it! I'm putting a lock on the toilet and you're wearing diapers until you can drive!"

The way I'm figuring it, is that the money I'm saving buying pull-ups is now going to the Roto Rooter guy. I'm comfortable that this will eventually pass. I would LOVE to be able to patrol the bathrooms but it's all but impossible.

Till this phase is over, RR is on speed dial.