I have a minor terror of strangers talking to me. Not like, asking for the time, but violating the urban code of ignoring. Making eye contact in elevators. Cheerfully saying hello to people at the bus stop. Acknowledging other pedestrians in some other way than moving to avoid walking in to them. Desmond Morris has elaborate theories about this, but then his best-seller is about how to interpret your cat, so I'm not too sure about him.

Anyway. There's a guy at my new morning bus stop who is TERRIBLY cheerful. I keep finding something to fiddle with in my bag, or a reallllly fascinating part of my book to look at about 15 feet away from him to avoid having to learn his name. Usually The Man In A Suit shows up sooner or later and gets sucked in to a conversation with him instead - he had a golf bag with him the other day instead of his globe & mail business section, which fascinated Cheerful Man, so they're already acquainted. It's strange how much I notice about these people without wanting to talk to them. Speculating about their lives on the internet is no problem, nor would I be worried if they speculated about mine, but talking would seem like a violation of some primal boundary.

Elevators are worse, though. I can stand half an inch away from anyone and not be bothered until we make eye contact - then we could be on opposite sides of the box and it would feel oppressively close. I'm apt to switch shops if people in one get to know me too well. When you know what I'm going to order, it makes me nervous. I think the key to urban ignoring is the extension of personal space it gives you. I can't cope with all these people around me, I cannot possibly get to know them all well enough to want to share, but if I don't acknowledge them, I don't have to count their presence in my territory, so I can keep a big enough bubble to live happily.

Oh aren't I the sociobiologist. I shouldn't smirk so at desmond morris.

All these teen girl medieval knight books I'm reading are getting me RILED to do something. I want to be a knight! Bust my back for 8 years of hard labour! I'm kind of sad that the main outlet for this type of urge in the real world is joining the army. Unlike the magical fantasy land in these books, the army has no particular claim to being the indisputable good guy, which is troublesome. Maybe I could hook up with pharmaciens sans fronti�res after I graduate. Reducing the number of deaths from parasites in third world countries has got to be in the higher percentiles of unambiguously moral deeds. Well anyway. Years away. I certainly don't feel inspired to say, go tree-planting for the summer to build up my knightly muscles, so I expect I'm the proof of heinlein's assertion in "tunnel in the sky" - the best place for a romantic is an unromantic world, where they can live boring lives and pine for romance. Actual romantic situations call for practical cool heads - romantics would be eaten alive in a real adventure.

I do feel very energetic. I'd like to blame the iron. I've been eating 2 chicken livers a day since quitting weight watchers and I'm starting to feel like a magnet would stick to me, although in reality I'm probably still safely in anaemic territory. I don't really like the taste or texture of chicken liver, but every night without fail I think of what to have for dinner and chicken livers & seafood mix in lemon juice and butter sounds AMAZING - I must be craving the iron, like when I need roughage and shrubs and kale start to look good to me, or pregnant women who want to lick clay.

Well I'll put it to good use and keep lifting weights. I need heavier weights for squats already. Maybe I'll ask for that for my birthday, or a chin bar. If it's not too late. My birthday is tomorrow and birthday dinner is tonight and my parents haven't done the usual asking me outright what I want. My family is very boring about gifts. No one wants to give a badly received gift, so there's lots of very unsubtle asking, or else cash & gift certificate giving, except between my sister and I, who enjoy weirding each other out. (This christmas: I gave her a superhero cape, she gave me poofy fish slippers with giant lips. I think I got her a book about graffiti for her last birthday, and she got me a guinness book of world records picture book, with a bookmark at the page with graphic pictures of parasites and skin disorders. But we both get chocolates and gift certificates for our parents.) Anyway. Maybe they had an inspiration and are getting me a year's supply of fish food or something, you never know.

As I left the starbucks this morning I could hear the employees say "Yeah BROOKE is the FRAPPUCINO GIRL!" I did a double take, since I just bought a frappucino, but no one was looking at me. I think one of the new girls there is named Brooke too. Whoever she is she is VERY excited for 6 am. She did a little dance and shouted CHOCOLATE BROWNIE FRAPPUCINO! at me when I got my order. I would make her a frappucino superhero cape, except then we'd know each other too well and I'd have to switch coffee shops to indulge my anonymity neurosis.

I had an unexpected dentist appointment yesterday. I mean, booked for 6 months, but I wasn't expecting it because I keep forgetting to check my palm lately. I'm thinking of switching to a wee paper date book and a wee paper birthday and address and phone list, but I expect they'd just take up the same about of room and involve more labour, so enh. Really I need a palm with the feature "can use keyboard for data entry" but lacking the feature "..only if I carry around a bulky palm keyboard." Like one of those laser sensy palm keyboards you see on slashdot, only for free and magically. I hate writing these days, have hated it ever since I was able to type faster than I could write.

Anyway. I was at the mall after the dentist appointment (no cavities! the dentist loves my teeth and compliments their hardness every time I go there. "Thanks! Made 'em myself." I say, also every time, usually shortly after the following exchange: "How's the stock market?" "Damned if I know!") and went to the bookstore. This month is apparently "spend fat wads of cash on books" month. I went to my favourite used shop earlier in the week, getting two sacks of books, and then yesterday got two stacks of books from the new shop, and also between those two trips I got some music books. Next week: harry potter. This is not healthy for my budget, but while I will wear underwear with holes in it and unhemmed pants for months to avoid spending money on clothes, I can never quite convince myself that book binges are an even worse fiscal misbehaviour. Well, this should keep me sated a while anyway. I have a bunch of new sci-fi paperbacks including some heinlein juveniles I've somehow never read (and sixth column! it looks like a right-wing jerk-off fantasy, from the back cover anyway, but now I can finally find out what a "sixth columnist" is,) a wagonload of the tamora pierce books I've been reading (all but one of the tortallan books, the one being the first one of the second quartet. I hate it when bookstores & libraries have everything in a series except book one, so annoying.), a book about sewing, a richard feynmann book I'd meant to give to dad for father's day but which looked too mathy for him when I got it home, "the bedside torah" which looked intriguing - I love generalized love-centred interpretations of scripture, they light a fire against narrow hate-centred ones, a book about small towns I meant to give boy's father for father's day but which has been emergency diverted to be my own father's gift, a battered babar book, a quartet of welsh children's fantasy (where have I heard of the mabinogion before? did susan cooper mention it?), and what else.. ah, the two radiohead songbooks. I knew it was time to leave the bookstore yesterday when I briefly considered buying "the prophet." I hate kahlil gibran with a passion, although mostly only because he is so commonly quoted in unitarian or secular ceremonies. I've heard the bit about "let love be the ocean between you" blah blah blah so many times it makes my blood boil. I am vetoing gibran at my wedding.

ANYWAY. That's quite enough book buying for now, although it does make me the happiest out of just about any buying I could do. Maybe my guitar has a better happiness per dollar spent ratio, but it's got to be close. Still, it's good to save money for FOOD and RENT and piddly things like that.

Assortiment de grande vaisselle en plastique transparent!!!! What an awkward translation that someone totally got paid $100 / hour to do.