You are what you email

I sometimes wonder what people think of me, you know, what they say about me when I'm not around---how they'd describe me to another friend---the things they are afraid to say to my face. I've noticed a lot of my friends are intimidated by me (note: If you're easily intimitated, don't chat me up this Friday night). It's like looking in the mirror, seeing basically the same thing every day, and then when you see a photo you don't recognize yourself.

I did a work test to tell me what sort of employee/co-worker I am, and it was eerily correct. A few months ago, I got the idea of a personality poll from a friend of mine, and the results were half spot-on and half mysterious. The compliments I'll take, but a couple of the negative traits left me perplexed: one person called me "rash,"another "lethargic" (aren't those contradictory?) And who thinks I'm "overdramatic"??? I think that was the only serious boyfriend I ever had break up with me---and let me tell you, the most dramatic thing I did when he dumped me was quit speaking to him after a pretty calm discussion. Harumpf.

If all you knew about me was what's in my inbox today, you would get a very different picture of who I really am---different from any of the things above. I have recipes from Epicurious (no time to cook these days whatsoever---haven't tried a new recipe in months, I'd guess). Also, NWA (not that NWA) is writing to me about international travel (unfortunately, my passport expired last year), and a vitamin store is advertising horse chestnut to cure spider veins (fortunately, I still have pretty nice legs). I almost took an internship at an online vitamin place located here in town, incidentally, until I realized they were selling snake oil. MoveOn.org notified me of their Monthly Partner program, which is just a nice way of saying: "We'd like access to your checking account, please!" Rounding out today's batch of impersonal mail is one from The Atlantic, which makes me feel guilty that I haven't even read the May issue yet.