h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am just writing to inform you that I think you're one of the most entertainingly intelligent persons I've found on this ol' site in quite a while. I especially enjoyed your take on spirituality vs. religion. My father is an ordained Baptist minister, and I've long believed that those who are steeped in religion at an early age turn out much the same as those who are raised without any religious influence in their lives--they both tend to seek out the spiritual and have a deep seated dislike of all things "religious" or "organized". I looked through Baha'i, Buddhism and Hinduism in my search for spirituality (was even going to write an entry on yoga until I discovered that there are nearly as many branches of the practice as there are Hindu gods!), and then I finally settled on being spiritually unsettled. I think it suits me.

Anyway, just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that you're appreciated. You've been warned.

Goodness gracious, thank you. Frankly if only more people IRL would say such nice things to me, life would be a lot more like a grand Busby Berkeley musical. You know, everyone erupts into song and a cascade of dancing girls kick their way down a series of staircases. Anyway...enough of the rambling.

I appreciated your coming to my defense in both the exchange with Sporty (who has yet to even respond) and using the term Afro-American. I may live in Montana, bastion of whiteness, but I know my PC termonology. Probably because I'm dating one of the few black men in the state..

Oops, call it a "brain fart". What I meant was terminology and African-American men.

*goes off to get more sleep*

LOL!

I moved from Moore, Oklahoma (about as whitebread as you can get) to St. Louis... there's a pretty tenuous relationship between the different racial factions here, so after a while you have to be VERY conscious of what's PC and not. I'm not one to notice a person's color to begin with, so living in a city that's rather race-oriented has been an interesting experience to say the least. And having a low threshold for people with ignorant attitudes (as you've seen) has made it damn near intolerable at times... but such is life these days, I suppose.

"You know, everyone erupts into song and a cascade of dancing girls kick their way down a series of staircases."

That doesn't happen to you? I must have gotten lucky.

It was six months before I spotted a person of color after I moved to Montana. Until that time, I did not realize what was missing. Funny, considering I spent my entire public school career being in the minority.

Pardon me for taking liberties, but after you dropped me this note I went on over to snoop around your personal space. I suffered from severe depression as well--triggered by a number of situational factors. My doctors put me on Celexa, which is one of the newest drugs. While it helped ameliorate the uncontrollable mood swings, it also destroyed a lot of my short-term memory. This is a common side effect of many anti-depressants. I finally got off Celexa earlier this year. I may be relatively normal now, but I often forget to pay bills on time, set things down and forget where I put them, forget telephone numbers and appointments, and generally behave like I have Alzheimers. Ah, the joys of mental illness.

Yes, a lovely trade off. You can either be a punctual raving loony -or- a sweet and cuddly convalescent. Beautiful.

I'm starting to think I have a very slow-cycling case of bi-polar disorder. I'll be fine for months on end (half a year, for the most part), then I lose my cottonpickin' mind for about a week. Which is fine, as long as I don't have to be around people. So I'd pretty much decided against going on medication... then I've had to confront this upcoming plane trip and have become a slowly unraveling ball of nerves. I'll prolly go on Xanax at the recommendation of friends in order to handle the flight, but afterwards...we'll see.

Okay, this is getting weird. I was sure I was the only one who knew about Car Talk. Hmmmm....

Actually I'm more like a sweet and cuddly loony. People love me because I'm (only slightly *now*) daffy. You're a Click and Clack fan too? They're the best. In fact, all the jokes but one that I have contributed to Bluebottle's Joke Directory are courtsey of their weekly e-mail newsletter. I used to have a Subaru 4x4 with problems, and I called in for their advice, but they did not choose my particular issue to put on the air. Oh well. At least I got a letter back from Dave Barry when I, as an alert reader, sent him a couple of articles. One was about a employee of the US Forest Service whose job it is to blow up (literally, with dynamite) dead cows on public lands (in reference to that he wrote "moo") and the other was about a squirrel who took out power for an entire region in the western part of the state when it broke into a transformer box and electrocuted itself. Kamikaze attack? You decide.

Oi, I fell off the face of the earth for a little bit, sorry. I did finally go to the doctor and I'm back on BuSpar now, which makes me decidedly woozy and makes typing and staring at tiny print rather difficult, but it's getting better.

The Tappet brothers are my sunday-drive-to-work companions, and I'm regularly laughed at for listening to them because my car is such a heap of junk. I was rather surprised to discover that they're both MIT graduates/professors. Would make for an interesting guide entry, dontcha think? *wink wink*

That sounds like an excellent idea---perhaps a collaboration? There are so many people in here with a great sense of humor I think adding Tom and Ray to the Guide would be a good thing. More exposure and more fans! Consider it a mission.

BuSpar, huh? What is that doing for you, if you do not mind me asking?