My Self-Monitor Broke Last Night

Not to unload inappropriately, but this is after all a personal blog: Some very unfun things have occurred in my life in the past couple of weeks, and I hear that Mercury has been in retrograde and I'm happy to blame that for the crappiness of my recent life. Mercury goes direct tomorrow, if that matters.

I was in a funk and it culminated in a dinner with friends whereat for approximately three hours I didn't have the energy OR the inclination to monitor myself like I usually do. Here's a choice moment:

• MB to waitress: Do you have frog's legs? (Thinking that would annoy Mary.)
• Mary to waitress: Do you have Shih Tzu legs? (MB has 2 purebred Shih Tzus.)

Then there was the completely unsolicited, yet short, description of shark finning (Shark Fin Soup was on the menu). Oh, and check this out. MB and his wife are expecting their first child, so they're buying a new house. Because, you know, you can't raise a child in a 3,000 square foot house; that would be cruel!

• Mary: Do you really need 7,000 square feet? Do you know how many Planet Earths we'd need if every three people lived in 7,000 square feet? Do ya? Huh?

Now, I didn't say that in a tone as obnoxious as it may sound. Everything was, as always with them, fun and games. But my message got across.

Guess what the message was?

• MB: Wow, Mary, you're really bearish on like, everything today. Why are you so angry?

Meanwhile, I'm thinking that for sure my message was that there's no difference in eating frog's legs or dog's legs, and that over 2,000 square feet per person isn't a good decision for the environment.

I have decided I am not going to allow the past--meaning everything before right now--to affect me. After all, if it does, it's entirely my fault and my doing, as the past is gone and being upset about it is unproductive, not to mention destructive.

So, onward. There are lessons to be learned from everything. May you live in interesting times, and may you learn your lessons the first time you have the opportunity to (unlike, say, me), thereby saving yourself days of potential headaches--or worse.

And may you remember that self-monitoring can help you send the message you really intend to send.

Comments

[Alex C.]

I hope you were kidding about the astrology. Sure, astrology "works", but only because the human mind is programmed to find patterns -- even if there are not any patterns there. Also, ambiguous or noisy signals get interpreted in such as way as to reinforce one's preconceived notions (hence the false belief among hospital personnel that things get more crazy during a full moon.) One should remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

To put it another way, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves" (Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2).

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=astrology

[Mary Martin]

Alex,

Had I found out about the mercury thing BEFORE all of the sucky things that happened, I'd agree. But that's not how it happened.

I have in fact seen extraordinary things when it comes to Jyotish, which comes from the Vedas. I wouldn't say I "believe" in it, as I don't know what that means. But I certainly have been mighty surprised at its accuracy about things that have happened in the past that the person doing the interpretation of the chart would have know way of knowing.