10:19 a.m. - Friday, Jul. 18, 2003
MsLeslie Lives (but a fly doesn't)
OK, I�m no Einstein, but I AM discovering some universal truths.

One of the latest is that it takes more than mere happy thoughts and deep breaths to get through life. It takes a private folder.

When scientists design an experiment or a study, the good ones always keep in mind the fact that their own actions can have an influence on the process they are studying. For instance, if they take too many samples, or samples too large, they might take away all of whatever they were studying in samples.

Dumb example, but I hope it makes the point.

Keeping a totally public diary is kinda the same thing. I can write honestly about a lot of things, as long as they concern only me and no one else. But if I write about people who are close to me, either geographically or emotionally, then I run the risk of influencing the very relationship I am writing about.

And yet� I often feel the need to write about my relationships. And sometimes I feel the need to write about private things that concern only me, but which I don�t think those closest to me are ready to know. So then I don�t write, and when I do, I�m not writing honestly or about what�s really happening inside my head. I�m not so courageous after all. I am afraid to offend.

I�m finding that people fall into some general categories. The biggest one is the category called �strangers�, of course.

The others are:

Blood Relatives, to whom I�m forever bound by genetics.

Virtual Relatives, to whom I�m equally bound, although no bodily fluids are involved.

Hugged Friends, who are, as you might guess by now, the people who are my friends and who I have met for a real hug.

Un-hugged Friends, namely those people I�ve grown closer to than acquaintances, but haven�t yet met for a hug.

Hugged Acquaintances, the people I�ve met a few times, but with whom I am not entirely close.

Un-hugged Acquaintances, which includes people I know online in a casual kind of way, but have never met.

There is another category, but it�s empty.

It�s called �Lovers�, and it�s reserved for now. There is very little room in it.

I find it ironic that the very people who are highest on this list are the same people I most often need to keep at arms� length. They�re the same people from whom I must keep some of my most inner feelings. It�s for their protection and mine.

So�.. enter the private folder!

Thanks to Andrew, there�s a place where I can lock my room and get under the covers with a flashlight and maybe one or two of my best friends and talk about what�s in my heart:

My slowly evolving sex life

My family

My dreams

My hopes

My fears

But, who am I kidding here?�. Mostly about my sex life and my family.

You�re welcome to ask for the password to my private folder. Unless you�re my family or hugged friend, you�ll probably get it. You can trick me by getting a hotmail account and pretending to be a stranger. If you do, then you have to be prepared to read whatever you read there. As a matter of fact, I suppose that goes for everyone. If you ask for my password, you have to know that YOU might be the subject of my writing. Can you live with that?

BTW.. Is it just me, or is it really true that most often, when we solve a problem we create another one?

I just saw a fly resting on the cabinet right over my garbage can. I really have this thing about bugs in the house. Or any living thing, I guess. But especially bugs of any kind. So, thinking it was a brilliant stroke of luck that he was right over the garbage can, I sneakily took my can of Bengal Ultra deadly bug bane out from under the cabinet and from a distance, sent a fatal dose wafting his way.

Now ordinarily, the very first place a fly will go is to the kitchen garbage can. To paraphrase some famous bank robber who, when asked why he robbed banks, said �because that�s where the money is�, flies go to the garbage can because� well�that�s where the garbage is.

But does a dosed fly seek the shelter and safety of a beloved scrap of chicken skin deep in the shadows of the garbage can to spend his last agonized moments?

No. He has to buzz crazily around the room, dive bombing me, landing on his back on my clean counter and spinning in circles so as to spread the maximum amount of germs and other fly cooties everywhere before, in a last flight, zooming straight up and then diving headlong into a brand new pound of soft butter.

So as usual, the universe hangs in equilibrium. Problem solved, problem created. And a crummy fly finds a way to give me the finger defiantly with his last act.

You know, I really respect that.

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