Real World

Today was a long and tough day, bookended by two difficult conversations.

In the morning, I confronted a dear friend about my perception of a possible conflict of interest (her: "Niniane, are you questioning my ethics????" Me: "Uh ... honestly, yes."). She gave me some additional info which satisfied my worries, but I walked away with a heavy stone in my heart. It had to be done, but surely now our bond is damaged!

Fortunately, in an impressive demonstration of classiness, she emailed me afterwards to say that she wants to protect the friendship.

Evening-time, I performed a social reminder. I won't say what it is, but it was equivalent in difficulty to telling your manager that she's had broccoli stuck in her teeth all day. Fortunately, again, extreme classiness.

I came home, sat on my couch as a worn-out shell, and spent the past hour flipping through my MTV Real World book.



Reading celebrity gossip and watching reality TV can be so relaxing. It's just delightful when the facades come down and you see the real-life arguments and anger and tenderness! The stuff that I wish I could see in my regular life, but cannot due to silly things like privacy and personal boundaries and window curtains.

Whenever I'm asked to fill out an online survey on my purchasing habits and periodicals, I wonder if my info is going to throw off the results. "We've discovered how to target to Google engineers! The preferred periodical turns out to be People magazine!"