Yesterday, when I got out of the shower I grabbed my glasses, dressed, and left the house. Only when I was half-way down the street did I realize that I had grabbed the wrong glasses!

I use my old glasses when I am dying my hair, because I don't care if the arms get stained, and since I had dyed my hair a week ago, of course they were still out on the counter (shut up!), so I put them on accidentally.

It's amazing--I wore these frames, or this style of frames, for fifteen years and I have only worn my new, smaller glasses for two, but I swear, I felt as though I was wearing goggles. They felt so huge, like I was in disguise.

Of course, no-one at work noticed, and if they did, they didn't comment, but I felt completely different.

Work was impossible yesterday.

I've been alone all week, as you will read if I ever get those back entries written, though I have been getting more alone as the days pass. It's The Raccoon's vacation week, and then our temp was fired on Monday, so that left just me, the part-timer and the new guy. On Thursday, the part-timer went to a convention for her other job, so it was just me and the new guy. Yesterday, the new guy's daughter was sick, so it was just me.

Of course, he's so slow that even when he is there, he's not much help, that still means that I'm way behind for this week and I'm going in today to catch up. Bleh.

So, I was on the phone with a guy from the Arizona office, and he was talking me into cutting a check for a girl that he works with, she really needed the money and it was from a couple of months back and blah blah blah, so I said that I would, and we were joking around, and he asked for his own check and I said, "Aw, you're such a pain in the ass!" and then his voice completely changed, and he said, "I don't allow language like that to be spoken around me, I find it extremely offensive!"

I apologized, because of course I was just kidding him and I didn't mean to offend him, and he accepted my apology, and he explained that he was easily offended and said "How many movies do you think I have seen in the last two years? None! I watch the Andy Griffith Show!" and then we went on, joking and laughing and everything was fine.

And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

What must it be like to be seriously offended by the word "ass"? I mean, I'm not making fun of the guy, he seemed very nice, though I'm certainly glad that I don't have to work anywhere near him, and he has the right to get offended by whatever he likes, but it's as if he is from another planet. What must it be like to think that way? In the year 2000? In America?

There's something in a book that I don't remember, about someone understanding animals talking, and how sheep are constantly being startled, and they never remember anything, so they get startled by the sun coming up every morning, startled by the grass, startled by all those other sheep being startled, and I thought that it must be that way for him--constantly walking around being offended by every single thing that he sees or hears. It must be exhausting.

I filtered everything I saw or heard all day through the idea that I was him. I guess if all that he watches are old shows like Andy Griffith, he must have to pretend that it is thirty or forty years ago in order to get by, but then I heard Jerry Lee Lewis sing "Shake Rattle and Roll" on the radio, and realized that that would be offensive, too, because it couldn't just be words that he was hung up on, but also concepts.

I wondered, if he was in bed with his wife, would he go down on her, or could she even ask him too, or would he find that offensive? How do you have sex at all, if the word ass is stricken from your vocabulary? I'm not making fun, I really do wonder how he lives his life, and where that line is emphatically drawn.

I realized that I felt really sorry for him, that he couldn't read a book like Catcher in the Rye or see a movie like The Sixth Sense or listen to an album like Randy Newman's Good Old Boys or go to a play like Angels in America because all that he would see or hear would be one or two words, and because of that, all the rest would be meaningless.

How much he must miss.

Obviously, there is a happy medium between being him and being me, a person who uses the word "fuck" like other people use the word "the", but I can enjoy things with language that is either blue or clean, I have no problem with either (though I must admit that when I see people write "f_ _ _ " or "sh*t", it really gets on my nerves), and I really feel that my life is fuller because of it. Am I wrong?

I cannot imagine that any of you would be here reading if you had a knee-jerk problem with language, but I'm wondering, how do you feel about dirty words?

And we're still talking about our parents before they were parents, hair disasters, accidentally writing or talking like other people (see my answer revealed!), being slobs, our top ten songs, conversations, and Hugh Jackman (anyone see him on the Tonight Show the other night?).

Today's horoscope:
Today you need tangible output such as projects can satisfy. Try pottery, drawing, carpentry, cooking, crocheting, or creative acts.

One year ago today:
"Company That Must Not Be Named Staff--Do not use this floor to gain access to 6, go via the street instead."

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