H: 1/6/03

Work Diary, 1/6/03

Not too long ago (indeed, not long ago enough), one of my employees
came into my office and told me she had a doctor's appointment.

"I can't stop crapping myself," she continued, un-prodded. "I even have
to take an extra pair of underwear with me when I go out to eat."

What do you say to something like that?

A friend of mine once told me that he met a guy on the internet. "He
sounded so hot, even if his hair was kind of Barbie-esque." When the
guy showed up, my friend discovered his quickie had a glass eye, which
had a tendency to pop out when its receptacle was excited. "We kept
going," my friend continued, again un-prodded, "Because it was late
and, really, neither one of us stood a chance of getting back on the
web and finding somebody else."

My aunt calls it "TMI," or Too-Much-Information. I've heard others
using the term, and it's always accompanied with a sigh and a slightly
feverish look. People, it goes without saying, volunteer the most
interesting facts, never stopping to think that the recipient
just?doesn't?want?to?know.

Other gems I've heard or overheard:

"He is so good at giving head." Said by a man's girlfriend to the man's
own mother.

"I have a beautiful dick!" A non sequitur delivered to me by another
co-worker, apparently excited by a new love interest.

"Once the boils go away, they're thinking I can wash my own dishes."
The meat counter girl at the supermarket, who thankfully did not help
me next.

"There I was, getting my feet done, and the pedicurist looks up at me
and say, 'That's fungus, honey, no two ways about it.'" Another
co-worker, bless her little East Coast heart.

"I'm so sick of him and his piles (re: hemorrhoids). I just want to sit
him naked in a wicker chair so I can snip 'em all off." A lady at
Fantastic Sam's, where I go to get my hair cut.

Where, as a society, did we go wrong? Was it really okay for the woman
at the movie theater, responding to my glance at her wheelchair-bound
husband, to say to me, "It's all right, honey, it's just his poop bag.
He's been like that for years. Eventually you get used to it"? I smiled
politely, of course, but unlike the crappy (ahem) movie, the image of
that woman's husband will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I ask you, is that fair?

The dudes at my office (i.e., the single men, or even the married men
who still have their roving eyes) have a saying: "More mystery, less
history." By this, they mean that they don't want to hear their
girlfriends' anecdotes about past lovers. They don't want to know how
good he was in bed, or how much money he made. They don't want the
specifics about that night in Las Vegas, when the cocaine and champagne
ran as freely as?well, you get the picture (I certainly did).

I'm guilty myself, of course. One of my favorite pastimes is to catch
people talking about their parents. When questioned, I say, "My parents
are dead." Then I wait a couple of beats, looking at the mock-sad
faces, and say, "But it's okay. It's been over a month since they died.
I'm over it."

To my credit, I don't reveal too much in person. I don't even hug
people unless it's absolutely called for, and even then there's
probably a great deal of alcohol involved. Still, I like the idea of
more mystery, less history.

Although, there's a small problem: How do I reconcile "less history"
with being a writer?