The downside to a college education

I've become too analytical for my own good.

Yesterday, I was reading a perfectly good book... in fact, it was better than most fiction I've read recently. Believable, well-done character development, interesting secondary characters, witty writing, believable conflicts and reactions, fleshed out scenarios with an ending that was sweet and optimistic but didn't hand me everything neatly wrapped up with the proverbial bow or make me gag with the perfection of it all...

And yet, there was still one niggling little detail of timing that annoyed me through the entire book, and sadly, I think it's the one thing that the author should really have picked up on... The basic plot of the book is a mother of two who finds out that her husband is gay and has been cheating on her (for some reason it sounds campy here, but when you think of the news lately, it's actually rather relevant). The rest of the story is how the mother, her two kids, the father, and other close family members cope with the sudden change in their lives...

And like I said, the story is well done. EXCEPT, the author would have the reader believe that this woman who has been married for 15 years is able to pull herself together, forgive her at-the-end-ex-husband, build a new home for her kids, reconcile with her mother, and find a relationship that has serious potential of being "it" for her within the same year of walking in on her husband making love to a man! I'm sorry, but I have a close family who was married for 17 years before finding out their spouse had been cheating on them... And let me tell you that it was well over 2 years before my relative even thought about seeing another person. They were devastated... for a long time and I think that anyone who goes through that kind of situation would probably agree that the 6 months of crying in the book just isn't a realistic time frame... never mind finding what's hinted at as true love within the same year...

Overall, I have to say that it's often frustrating reading these days (romance novels aren't even safe) or watching some movies because my brain does what it has been taught to do and analyzes the content as if I was going to write a paper on them... Sometimes I wish that I could just turn my brain off, but alas, I haven't been very successful thus far.

This may mean that I'll have to stop demanding perfection from everything I read or see... bah! We'll see about that...

Anyone know what I mean?

Cheers.

Do I have a sign on my forehead?

So apparently I have some sort of friendly metro aura because it seems that random people just talk to me while I'm riding the metro. And I'm not talking about the crazies out there, the ones who try to convert you to some strange religion or get you to repent your sinful ways or just yell explitives at you... no, my people are the completely normal ones who just seem to talk to me.

For instance, this summer I met a guy on the redline coming home from work when the train we were on decided to stop working. Everyone on the car was loudly grumbling as the train stopped and started as if it was having convulsions... needless to say we got kicked off at the next stop where I promptly had Tom, forever known as that guy from the metro, chat me up... six metro stops later and I had his business card and a verbal agreement to try and get together with him when I got back from Ireland. Completely nice, normal guy (and quite good-looking) who I did actually go on a few dates with. Now only if we had had more in common...

Another occasion I still remember was again coming home from work when I randomly sat down next to a young female who I kinda guessed would be getting off at our dear olde CUA stop. As we got closer to Catholic, she suddenly starts poking around in her purse, bags, coat, pockets, etc. trying to find what I assumed was her metro card. And, of course, the longer she couldn't find it, the more frantic her search became. Now mind you, I wasn't particularly watching her, but rather quietly doing the crossword puzzle in my Express. But again, as she finally found where she stuffed her card, she turned to me to make a comment about how she's always losing her metro card... to which I responded that "if it made her feel any better, I once used my potbellys gift card to get on the metro thinking I was swiping my Smartrip card" (true story). And I ended up in a short conversation about misplacing metro cards as the train rolled into CUA's stop and she got up to leave...

And of course, there was last night (i.e. what prompted this post), where not once but twice I had people talk to me while on the metro. The first guy was on my way down the long Gallery Place escalator, which stopped dead just as me and the guy started to walk down. After that quick panic-y moment where I felt like I was going to pitch over or swoon or something, I once again started walking down the now stopped escalator... however, the guy who had been in front of me was still standing dead still and as I evened up with him he made a comment to me about how that had scared the crap out of him and then went on as we walked down the escalator together about how he had actually fallen down an escalator last year and got all cut up (hence the scared rabbit look on his face when I originally came up behind him). What's even more ironic for this post is that he even apologized for complaining to a stranger. I, of course, said I didn't mind, which I didn't. But yet again with the people talking to me...

And the second incident last night happened on the bus back from Michelle's apartment where after the first bus I got on got into an accident and forced us to unload and wait for the next bus, I ended up standing on the next bus in my heels, which let me tell you, is not the easiest when the bus it completely packed and you're already quite tired. After the guy in front of me got up to get off, I grabbed his seat and promptly buried my head in my crossword puzzle trying not to be too outwardly grumpy that it was going to take me over an hour to get home instead of the usual 35-40 minutes... Eventually, the guy I was sitting next to had to get off so I stood up to let him out and as I went to sit back down, he definitely turned around and complimented my skirt... totally random since he hadn't so much as looked up from his document before then...

So there you have it, a sampling of my interesting metro encounters... I will let you all decide whether or not I have some sort of friendly metro aura. I'm convinced there has to be something since no one else seems to come home with these kinds of stories. Maybe it's because I'm the just about the complete opposite of scary or intimidating... maybe...

Any of you have theories?

Cheers.