The polite thing to do would be to censor myself, but polite to whom?

The thin string connecting the scattered dots that are these blog posts is that they are all vaguely connected to what I've been reading.  At first, this was by accident, then I decided to go with it.  I worried this would be hard to keep up, but it's really almost too easy.  Once we know how to read, we can't not read.  

In The Stuff of Thought, Stephen Pinker gives this example:

Out loud, say what color this word is: red.  

Eh? Eh?  Did you say red or blue?  

My favorite real life example of this phenomenon happened to me when I was finally getting comfortable navigating between homeless people in downtown Portland.  Comfortable, actually, is the wrong word, but without such a large mass of knotted guilt in my stomach that accompanies my small town habit of making eye-contact with everyone I walk past.(1)  Like a stealth Frogger player I'd made my way through many maneuvering people when I read I cardboard sign that said, "Bet you $1 you read this."  I was impressed.  I almost giggled at how clever the sign was.  I looked up at blonde girl avoiding my eye contact.  Eventually, since I had come to a sudden stop right in front of her and was fishing through my pockets, she met my eyes.  I shrugged and said, "I read it," then handed her the dollar I'd lied about not having earlier. 

Not only do we read without meaning to, we seek out more to read all the time.  On social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, that's all we're doing is reading.  And the links from one page to another invite us to be sucked into more reading, like a good book.  I've recently realized that more people read this blog than my sister and best friend, possibly from the link on my Facebook or from just scroll-strolling through different blogs.  To you who read this blog, read this: THANK YOU!  There are so many things to read just by accident, and that you take the time to read this with some degree of purpose is an honor.  

That being said, I once read a bumper sticker that simple read: "Sorry."  Brilliant!  I thought.  Whenever I inadvertently cut someone off I always wish I had something like this.  It's better than a student driver banner, because it's not making excuses, it's just apologizing.  Not only that, but it's a blanket apology planning ahead for all future blunders.  That driver knows she isn't perfect, but a least has a sense of humor about it.  So along with the thank you, I should lay out a blanket SORRY!  Especially to people like Roommate's Boyfriend who may someday read this.  And just because I'm too nice of a person(2) to mock his muppet voice and terrible conversation skills to his face(3), I am obviously not too nice to vent about it behind his back.  Perhaps the actual nice thing to do would be to delete that post.  I can't stop myself from reading something or take something back once I've said it out loud, but I could stop him from reading it.  This really should be a more difficult moral dilemma for me, but it's just not.  Portland has hardened me a little in that I don't give to every homeless person I meet(4), but it's hardened me a lot by introducing me to so many people I just can't respect, as hard as I try.  This is probably just indicative of any postgrad working in customer service in a city just a little too big for her.  And if I were still living in a small town, I still wouldn't respect RB, but I would be pretending to.  Balancing on that thin line between self-respect and just being mean is a difficult trick.  I can't tell RB to shut up and get out when I wake up in the morning and he's alone, eating my bagels.  But I can keep some self-respect and sanity by telling Roommate not to feed RB my food, and by bitching about him online.

So, THANK YOU for being my sounding board, dear reader.  And SORRY if you started reading this, and now regret being sucked in.  It's bound to happen again...

(1) Homeless people in a city the size of my homestate are usually the only people who reciprocate my search for friendly faces.      

(2) Nice person, also known as coward.

(3) Watch for further posts about grocery lists he just needs to share with me.  

(4) Really only because I can't afford it now that I live in Portland.