I actually had a spat with my boss yesterday, which I think is a first. I got unusually frustrated with trying to translate his variant of English into something I could understand, and for whatever reason, I got annoyed with the lack of progress in the conversation and kept hammering on things he'd just said in an effort to clarify or confirm that they actually meant what I thought they meant. (My boss, while smart and articulate, tends towards malapropisms and lack of specificity in his speech, which is fine except for all the times he's trying to tell me to do something complex and specific. I tend towards very specific, detailed technical language where I generally use the right words on the first try. Communication between us is an ongoing project.) Well, however I veered, I breached his "You might want to think about not using that tone with me" threshold, so he said as much and walked off for a bit, which was a good idea. I'm not really inclined to apologize or otherwise talk about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes up later.

So my boss comes over later in the morning and asks if I knew an A.B. (real name redacted) from a previous job. I thought about it and remembered she was the receptionist/office manager at my first job. Turns out she's my current boss's sister. She stopped by today and we talked for a while. Interesting...1999 was so, so, so long ago.

Remember: when setting your goals, ambitious is good.

Nicholas Kristof wrote this delightful article about gay marriage for the New York Times back in March, and I'm just getting to read it now. (He's also being sued for libel by Steven Hatfill, the pseudo-suspect in the anthrax incident shortly after the September 11th attacks. I say pseudo-suspect because he hasn't been charged and the FBI has been investigating him for maybe 2 years with no results, but he's the only name that's ever come up.

I'm still working on the puzzle of how to shake up my life without moving or changing jobs. Not much luck so far.

Someone once said that the real problem with marijuana, the thing that can catch on a person's psyche and induce dependence (it's a psychological addiction, not physical), is that marijuana can make you okay with boredom. It can make sitting around all day doing absolutely nothing seem like a reasonable alternative to living your life. So marijuana addicts, who stop there and don't have the psychology that drives them to more exciting drugs (like alcohol), is the opposite of Reefer Madness: people smoking too much pot can barely motivate to get off the couch, let alone leave the house and expend a lot of energy being criminals. Well, somebody finally wrote a really neat song about it. I'll get the mp3 up tomorrow.