Zen the problem is you can't quit getting mail if he says no! Awkward. Though I guess you could just stop answering the door and let him leave mail in your box or something?

meara, I know! He always brings mail that doesn't fit in the mailbox up to my door, that's how I've ended up chatting with him. I could just stop meeting him at the door if it gets awkward, I suppose.

So, we should send you things that don't fit in the mailbox? Dimensions please... Make him cookies, don't use wax paper.

Standard mailbox size... "oh wow, I'm getting so many biiiig boxes...! Good thing you're here, handsome redheaded mailman!"

Today I found out he lives in Richmond, which is about an hour away. Not ideal, but not a dealbreaker. I also discovered his regular day off is Thursday. I could just happen to be going to Richmond on a Thursday, to peruse antique shops, like I do. I'm sure there are coffee shops in Richmond. Right? I could say, I'll be in Richmond antiquing on Thursday, do you know a good place to get lunch?

Sounds like an excellent plan, Zen.

My mantra for the foreseeable future is to focus on being effective, rather than right. This unfortunately will require writing a very conciliatory letter to my roommate to try and convince him that I am not, in fact, his mortal enemy and that mediation would be preferable to ten months of silent hostility.

Zen, is it wrong that I'm enjoying this new saga of you and Mailman, given how you got to partake of my Comic Book Store Guy ramblings when you were here? Hope not. (Fingers crossed for you, BTW).

My mantra for the foreseeable future is to focus on being effective, rather than right.

Very mature, smonster. Not sure I could do it. (Fingers crossed you're better at being a grownup than me).

This attempt at maturity brought to you by many years of therapy, chiefly DBT. Had a session this morning, thank god. She recommended listening to the Hamilton Mixtape to cope with today. She gets me.

In happy moments, I just finished a delicious hot sandwich, saw my beloved former roommate, and have decaf coffee to get me through this (relatively) cold and rainy afternoon. It's supposed to freeze here tonight and not warm up much tomorrow, which means I'll be working the job I suck at instead of the one I love. But I needs the moneys, and we are behind schedule.

Thank god I can afford to live alone.

So, Slinky is very old, and she's messy when she eats, which results in her walking away from her food/water with food all over her mouth, or water dripping, or whatever. And we try to remember to keep paper towels around so that if she hops up on us we can wipe her little face off. But sometimes we don't have a paper towel, and that results in us (or me, at least), shooing her away. Which led to me telling the kitty, when she walked in the room just now, "If you're all nasty, don't come over here!"

And then I thought, damn, when did my pickup lines change? t /rimshot

(But really, I *did* think that about my pickup lines. Because I am a dork. An old married dork.)

You could go the "Miss Jackson, if you're nasty" route.