1% cashmere is not cashmere

I'm skimming through Sierra Trading Post's online catalog for gift ideas, and I come across a "moon wool cashmere windowpane throw". I was vaguely contemplating getting my parents some sort of cashmere throw, so I click on the description.

The description reads, "Windowpane throw blanket from Moon is made in England with the finest wool and cashmere. Chilly mornings are best enjoyed wrapped in the soft luxury of a warm wool throw, coffee in hand."
So far, so promising.

Then I scroll further to look at the fabric contents, and it's 99% wool and 1% cashmere.

Why bother listing something that is 1% cashmere as a "cashmere throw"? I mean, I don't call my 98% cotton/2% spandex buttondown top a spandex top, even though it has twice as much spandex as this throw has cashmere.

It's like a certain cereal company that calls its cereal "honey'd" raisin bran, even though honey is listed lower than salt as an ingredient.

Is it too much to ask for more reasonable labeling guidelines? Such as not calling something "honey'd" this-or-that if it contains less than a teaspoon of honey in an entire box of cereal, or not calling something a "wool/cashmere throw" if it contains only 1% cashmere?

Dumping my friends

I think I want to dump my friends this week. Well, not all of them, and not for real, but part of the point of a blog is to vent, and I don't know what is up w/ people this week. Is it let's-be-quintessentially-Californian-flakes week or something?

Here is a scenario that has happened multiple times this week, but also seems to happen recurringly with certain people. Now if this is your nature w/ everyone, then fine.

It's a variation of one of these (and if the shoe fits, wear it, please):

A. I attempt to make plans with or catch up w/ someone. I email/call them. Like a zillion times. No response.
Comment: I can't be making all of the effort, here. Last I checked, friendship is a 2-way street. I know I sometimes blow people off b/c I'm busy/tired, but if the other person is exhibiting attempts to contact/get together, at some point, I start feeling guilty, and even if I can't give them a full email/call, whatever, I give them a quick call/email to say sorry and will talk longer sometime soon, sort of thing. As for making plans, it takes 15-seconds to draft an email that says "sorry, I can't." I find it hard to believe that you can't occasionally take the 15-seconds to draft such a reply.

B. I make lunch/dinner/rendez-vous-type plans with someone. We set a date to do something in advance. The day of, I check in w/ lunch-plan-friend to confirm, and I get a reply of "sorry, I can't. I have to pick so-and-so up from Zimbabwe.
Comment: You surely must've know about this earlier than 2 hours before our lunch plan when you write back to tell me that you can't meet for lunch. Besides, I don't mean to be a courtesy-fascist, but in my books, this warrants an email from your end. Would you have even let me know if I hadn't thought to confirm? Again, another less-than-one-minute ordeal that can go like this:

friend: "Hey, Y, I need to cancel the lunch plans we made on x-date. I have to pick up a friend who is visiting from Zimbabwe. Sorry."
me: "No worries! We'll try again some other time."

Wow. Look how simple and uncomplicated that is. 15 seconds of effort to not piss me off. That's all I'm asking.

B2. (Variation of B) I make other outing (opera, symphony, etc.) plans with someone. We make this plan in advance. We put it on the calendar. I buy tickets. I email you during the week to "confirm plans/figure out carpool, etc.", but I hear nothing. Finally, the evening of, I get a VM telling me that your roommate doesn't feel like going, so you're reneging as well.

Comment: Again, I'm not objecting to your last minute change of mind, even though I thought we committed to doing this thing and I already have tickets for this event we planned to go see. In the east coast, this wouldn't happen, but here, I'm not terribly surprised that this happens. But if you suddenly don't feel like going, instead of my sending you multiple VMs and emails "to confirm" and you telling me that you're not going 2 hours before on the day of, how about letting me know earlier? Especially, since I've been emailing/calling you these past few days to figure out plans for this particular evening?

This doesn't annoy me so much as confuse me on the notion of "making plans". You're obviously free to cancel, change your mind, etc. But if we make plans to go see an opera in the city, and we set a date well in advance, I buy tickets (and assume you do the same), etc., can you just change your mind and decide to hang out with your roommate, b/c she "doesn't feel like opera tonight"?

I'm not complaining about the cancelling of plans per se (even though this happened enough times this week to warrant a blog entry). Your kids/boyfriend/pet iguana gets sick, or some emergency happens, or in my case, I'm about to cancel plans myself, b/c I feel really run down and can't talk for more than 30-seconds. I'm not trying to be a plan-nazi, and often times, I prefer to make nebulous plans, too.

Nor am I complaining about the oft-nebulous plans I make w/ people. (e.g. I might bike down to the south bay, in which case, I'll give you a call and we'll meet up. Or, if we have time, let's get together and do somethingthis weekend. Or, I might go to Jammix tonight. Maybe we can meet up.)

But if you are cancelling longstanding plans that we made--like lunch at a certain date, a show for a certain evening--and you realize that you have to pick up your Senegalese lepidopterist friend from the airport or whatever and it conflicts w/ our schedule, or you decide to cancel plans for something I thought we planned months in advance, b/c your roommate/SO doesn't want to go, I have a suspicion (from my unreturned multiple emails) that you knew about this way in advance.

Instead of me doing the tracking down to confirm things, why can't people be proactive about letting me know? Not 2 hours before, but as soon as you figure out that you can't stick to the original plan. This doesn't piss me off. Even if 5 people do it all in one week. Things happen.

Personally, if I make plans to cook dinner for someone or go to an opera or go see a recital that someone's in, unless something is dire (illness, emergency babysitting, or other reason), I try not to cancel on people. Like I won't cancel plan A w/ someone, just because a better plan B comes along. Much as I wish people would reciprocate and not double/better deal, I'm not even expecting this of people.

However, is it too much to ask people to exercise common courtesy?

I've often felt like cancelling plans like shows, etc., perhaps b/c I'm not feeling well, or I'm suddenly not into the idea, but I don't, b/c I don't like backing down on my word. I like to follow through on things I said I'll do.
I've been to many shows/recitals/concerts that I sometimes didn't feel like going, just to support you.

Well, from now on, I think I'm just going to be selfish with my time.

My delusions about pristine organics tainted

Now, I'm not one of those people who insist on everything organic. Personally, I'd rather buy "not necessarily organic" things at the farmer's market, where veggies have traveled 50 miles, than organic avocados from Whole Foods that have come from Chile or Turkey. I also don't care if my eggs come from chickens that don't eat organic feed, and are therefore not organic.

The idea of insisting that my chickens eat organic feed when a large percentage of the world population doesn't have access to food period is a bit odd to me, but that is another blog entry.

However, the one thing I do get organic is salad greens. Not only organic, but triple or quadruple washed as well. I know that it's fallacious to associate "organic"--and even triple washed--with "clean", but for years, I have been buying organic pre-washed salad greens just so I don't have to wash them.

I will pre-cut fruit to bring to work, shell fava beans, peel chestnuts to make chestnut rice, occasionally make vegetable broth and ricotta cheese from scratch, but the one thing I really can't be bothered doing is washing my salad. (Unless I have people over.) I don't mind the washing part so much as the letting-it-dry part.

I don't like soggy wet greens, and I don't want to wait for it to dry or take the time to pat it dry, so this ends up being a big barrier to eating salad greens.

(And yes, I am aware of the existence of salad spinners. Every time I go into a kitchen gadget section, I stare at it and weigh the pros and cons of owning one, but the simple fact is that I do not have room to store it anywhere. Also, I do not believe in buying gadgets that can only do one thing. Not economically efficient. As soon as they invent the salad spinner that also chops and kneads dough, I will buy it, but for now, it's not worth owning one.)

Enter prewashed organic salad greens--well, prior to September 2006. This was my answer to my dilemma and utter lack of interest in washing salad greens.

However, thanks to this recent spinach E-coli scare, my delusions about organic prewashed salad greens being exempt from harmful microbes have now been completely shattered.

I think that I will eventually default back to my original state of not washing organic pre-washed salad greens, but for the past few weeks, this has been my pattern at the farmer's market.

0.5. I go to the farmer's market with list in hand. At the top of the list is always "salad greens".
1. I think "oh, I want some salad." as I linger over the organic (still pre-washed) salad greens at the farmer's market. (usually my very first stop.)
2. I think, "wait. I bought salad greens last week and ended up not having salad, b/c I have this hangup about washing my salad greens."
3. But I'm really craving salad, so this week, I resolve to make an effort to wash them.
4. With this determination, I buy the salad greens and move on to the next stand.
5. I get home.
6. About 5 nights out of the week, it occurs to me to have salad with my dinner. However, I neither want to risk getting E-coli if I don't wash the greens nor deal with washing the greens.
7. I end up not having salad, b/c I'm hungry and want instant gratification. Instead, I opt to spend an hour cooking something else.
8. Somewhere towards the end of the week, I discover a bag of brown wilted salad greens that I bought weeks ago and toss it in the trash.
9. Another week ends. It's time to go to the farmer's market again.

And thus, steps 0.5-9 become a sort of recursive function.

This morning, though, I was finally able to break this vicious cycle and not purchase any salad greens. It took me several visits to the salad place and every ounce of self control to not get them.

Who would've thought that I'd ever feel "virtuous" for not buying salad greens?

Asians do not have "slanted" eyes.

I have dealt with comments such as this throughout my childhood while growing up in a semi-metropolitan area in Northern N.J., but in my nine years of being in the Bay Area, have never really encountered the sort of comment that my co-worker made the other day that had me quite riled up.

This woman, ordinarily a really nice woman, keeps telling people that she has "slanted eyes like those Asians", b/c Genghis Khan raped her ancestors and so she has Asian blood.

Where to begin my rebuttal/rebuke. . .

First of all, I have asked a bunch of people at work about whether this woman looks "Asian" at all, and there seems to be unanimous consent that she doesn't look the least bit Asian.

Second, I thought Genghis Khan only made it to around Russia, but assuming he or his descendants made it to Switzerland or thereabouts, this was in the 13th century. 800 years ago. Now, perhaps, it's very possible to lose all other Asian features but have this one feature remain over the course of 800 years, but I find it highly suspicious that someone can have "slanted eyes", just because back in 1200, one of their ancestors was raped by Genghis Khan. Sometimes, it is even difficult to discern "Asian" features in someone who is one-eighth Asian.

Third, there are many studies out there that suggest that Genghis Khan may not have been a mongoloid.

And most importantly, we do not have slanted eyes. Back in the early 80s, maybe to some ignoramuses (such as my high school classmates), we had slanted eyes. At the turn of the century, we had slanted eyes, and during World War II, we were yellow and had slanted eyes, but come on lady. This is the 21st century. Actually, we never really had "slanted" eyes in the past either.

Let's be precise here. We have epicanthic folds, and perhaps smaller eyes, hidden eyelids, or "almond-shaped" eyes, but my eyes are neither slanted nor mere slits. They are straight like Caucasian eyes. They are not at an angle, as portrayed by many cartoons, which cause people to think that the proper word to describe our type of eyes as "slanted".

This woman's comment wouldn't piss me off so much if she didn't act like this was a defect. In fact, she said she had eye surgery done to "fix" this, as if this were a problem that needed fixing.

Thanks to the pervasiveness of mentalities such as hers, I've spent most of my childhood and part of my adulthood thinking that these epicanthic folds and my "flat nose" are ugly. I never learned to see Asians as pretty or in the case of men, handsome, probably until these last 10 or 12 years of my life.

Whereas this was unfortunately a ubiquitous attitude in the east coast, thankfully, here in the Bay Area, this attitude is almost non-existent, but every once in a while, I meet people like this and wonder-- damnit, are these people here--underneath their shroud of multiculturalism and tolerance and all that kumbaya stuff--actually no different from people from my home town?

Oh, and btw, on a similar note, I really don't need to be told that so-and-so is black, but is smart. (What do you mean but?) I know that you're saying this to be complimentary and respectful to so-and-so, who is black, but it's really not at all complimentary. Think about it. You would never make qualifying statements like that about caucasian people. Why do people automatically assume that we are going to think that someone isn't smart just because of their race?

Why sixty degrees?

Chocolate--it is probably among my top five favorite foods, but. . .

they didn't perfect it quite enough, imo. The only thing I have to complain about this otherwise divine creation (well, ok, other than the fact that one can't stuff oneself silly with it and not gain weight. . .) is the utterly impractical ideal storage temperature it demands: 60 degrees (F). Neither room temperature nor fridge temperature, but vexingly and elusively betwixt these two.

How about 70 degrees, or better yet, 68 degrees? That is room temperature. My apartment, which is on the second floor, may be 68 degrees on a cool day, but hardly ever 60 degrees. Actually, in the winter, I think it may be this cold. But even then, it's usually more like 63 or 65 degrees. In the summer time, however, it may get as high as high 80s or low 90s, and perhaps even hotter on the warmest days. Thus my bar of dark chocolate is banished to the fridge, where the temperature is not 60 degrees either, and where one is not really supposed to store chocolate, if one is a true chocolate afficionado.

You would think that given where cacao beans are grown, and considering the climates of civilizations where cocoa was first used/consumed, that chocolate would be more conducive to storing at higher and more reasonable temperature ranges. Didn't the Aztecs and Mayans live in subtropical climates? (Granted, they used the cacao beans in an entirely different way than we do, and it was actually the Europeans who tweaked this product to make it sweet. . ..)

I wonder if it is coincidence that red wine, which goes splendidly with chocolate, also has similarly impossible "ideal" storage temperatures--as does cheese (which doesn't go as splendidly with chocolate, but goes splendidly with wines, or by itself).

The fine line between academics and propaganda

There really shouldn't be a fine line between academic research and propaganda, but every once in a while, I read something that starts out sounding seemingly scholarly, and then get to the punch line and wonder whether it is actually propaganda.

Take Japan Focus for example. Its articles are posted in serious academic newsgroups. The subjects are academic. I often recognize at least some of the contributors. The list of associates are all reputable people. All of these traits point to the makings of a solidly credentialed scholarly journal, which for the most part, I think this journal is. Although I have read some articles I did not agree with, I have also read some insightful ones.

I don't read all of the articles, but the one that struck my eye this week was an article about Japan's and China's oil activities in Africa.

The article started out neutral enough-- comparing the two countries recent pursuits for fossil fuels in Africa and some background info about the consumption/production of oil for each country.

It then goes into an explanation of recent deals Japan has made with countries in Africa-- Libya, Ivory Coast, Egypt, and Congo. (At this point, I start to wonder about the ethicality of oil attained from potentially war-ravaged countries or countries that are politically unstable, but I confess that other than keeping relatively abreast of current events, etc., I do not know too much about individual African countries, and sometimes lose track of which country is or was in a civil war.)

It also mentions countries that China is pursuing deals with--Nigeria, Angola, among others.

The article carries on like this--comparing the two countries and expounding on some of the key oil deals.

It was mostly fine until I got to this paragraph: "China does not seem to be fussy about where its oil comes from. It gets oil in Sudan, for example, despite the international uproar over the Darfur crisis. To be sure, Japan won concession rights for oil and gas in Sudan in June last year. But the winner, Systems International Group, is a company newly established by a Japanese non-governmental organization, Reliance. It plans to use the profit from oil development in eastern Sudan to finance humanitarian support in Africa."

Hmm. A negative statement about China. Do I detect a bias? It doesn't help that the author is Japanese. Furthermore, Japan isn't exactly dealing with model nations in Africa either, so who is he to point fingers? However, I continue on, willing to give him the benefit of a doubt. Perhaps he is an expert on this topic.

Then I get to this penultimate paragraph: "Unlike China, Japan, the self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia, cannot turn a blind eye to poor records on democracy and human rights in many African countries. Japan has applied strict criteria for aid provision to developing countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere in the world, with democracy and human-rights protection as basic conditions." (emphasis mine)

I stalled for a moment on "Japan, the self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia". Ok, perhaps more than a moment, since I'm taking the trouble to blog about this questionable phrase.

Who the heck--other than wartime propagandists--in this day and age would dare to refer to Japan as a "self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia"? Does Hisane Masaki actually believe that Japan is a "self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia"? Surely, he must know the implications of making such an assertion. Even if this happened to be true today, given Japan's history, it's really stupid to make a statement such as this in an article that criticizes China's lack of concern for human rights.

Appalled by this statement, I googled him to find out more about him and found this page, which also lists more articles by him. His credentials seem solid enough; he has worked long enough in international journalism, that one would expect him to be culturally sensitive and understand the implications of calling Japan a "self-proclaimed champion of democracy" --in Asia of all places.

Of course, it is possible that he sincerely believes this. However, if that is the case, given Japan's history in Asia, he really ought to qualify what he means by this loaded phrase. Perhaps he means that Japan is the highest contributor of humanitarian aid in Asia. (note: I don't actually know this; I'm just proposing possible scenarios of what he meant.) But then, wouldn't it be less ambiguous to just say that instead?

It's amazing how one phrase can shatter the credibility of an expert. I was ready to dismiss this article as an "informative but biased piece" on China and Japan's oil pursuits in Africa, but with this one phrase, it reads more like a propaganda/PR ad for one of these oil companies.

While I understand the idea of intellectual freedom and the importance of reading viewpoints that are contrary to one's own, reading something like this that treads a very fine line between scholarly and propagandistic made me question the editorial discretion of this journal.

Mourning Pluto's banishment- a perfectly good mnemonic ruined

When I first started writing this post, there was talk of there possibly being 12 planets. I was against this idea, b/c it would totally throw off the ingenious mnemonic that generations of us learned our planets with:
My very educated mother just showed us nine planets.

I mean, how could you beat that in terms of a clever mnemonic? What do you do with the three extra planets?

But then I read this op-ed in the NYT (which you may not be able to read if you don't have access to Times Select--in which case, read it here.), and I was relieved.

The op-ed author proposes this silly mnemonic:
"my very energetic mother just served us nine pizzas, sans xenophobia"
which makes no sense whatsoever, but I was ready to accept this as a perfectly legitimate mnemonic. After all, how can you reject a non-xenophobic pizza (although it is unclear whether she is serving sans xenophobia, or whether the pizza comes without xenophobia. Of course, it could be that the energetic mother is without xenophobia, in which case, the grammatically correct way to rephrase this is: my very energetic mother, sans xenophobia, just served us nine pizzas. But we are kindof constrained by the order of the planets and thus must throw out any notion of grammatical scruples out the window. Alas.) ? Though this one only accounts for the possibility of 11 total.

Just when I convinced myself that I could live with this slightly bastardized version of the original mnemonic, I found out the very next day that Pluto is no longer a planet. Now, I know that the planetary commission has better things to do than to take mnemonics into consideration when voting on whether or not something is a planet, but this is just wrong.

So now we have neither non-xenophobic pizzas or nine planets, but:

My very educated mother just showed us nine

Nine what? You can't just leave us hanging.

My very educated mother just showed us nothing.

Ok, that completes the sentence, but that's so anticlimactic, and not nearly as thrilling as non-xenophobic pizzas or nine planets. I mean, what's the point of having a very educated mother, if she isn't going to show you anything?


My very esoteric mnemonic--just skewered, undid, (and) negated.
My very educational mnemonic just showed up nonchalantly.

Ok, does anyone have a better mnemonic sans pluto?

8/29 update:
So I posed an email query, and the best one so far (though it is off by one letter):
Mean vitriolic educated mother just shit-canned (o)ur ninth.
Thanks to Betsylan for this clever one!

Mozart was six when he composed this!

This was one of my favorite quotes during my recent travels to Central Europe. During a dinner conversation, one of the spouses who came along mentioned that when he was in college, he had a roommate who either played piano for fun or was a music major. One day, he overheard his roommate slam his music down after hours of practicing on the piano, and say, "Damnit. Mozart composed this when he was six, and I can't even play it right."

Well, join the club.

I shudder to think of all of the music that people composed when they were of a single digit age, that I cannot "get right" after hours and hours of practice.

I guess this is why some of us compose; others of us just play what others have composed; and then there are some of us who can't even proficiently play what others have composed (that would be me). . ..

I would just love to have a conversation with people who can compose such intricate things at the ripe young age of six. (Though actually, of the two, my preference is to meet Bach.)

More on fair-weathered diplomacy

Sometimes, you come across an op-ed that summarizes exactly what you are thinking, better than you could summarize-- which I guess is why some people write op-eds, and others just blog about these things.

This op-ed by Dan Froomkin in the Washington Post pretty much sums up my attitude towards this administration's non-diplomacy diplomacy. You know, the kind where they only talk to people they are on good terms with.

At a press conference devoted to the Middle East crisis, asked why Bush isn't pursuing direct talks with nations like Syria and Iraq, he comments:

Q Many strategists say that we'll never get to the bottom of this crisis unless the U.S. engages directly with Syria and Iran. Why not talk to them directly about this, and have a back-and-forth conversation?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, that's an interesting question. I've been reading about that, that people have been posing that question. We have been in touch with Syria. Colin Powell sent a message to Syria in person. Dick Armitage traveled to Syria. Bill Burns traveled to Syria. We've got a consulate office in Syria. Syria knows what we think. The problem isn't us telling Syria what's on our mind, which is to stop harboring terror and to help the Iraqi democracy evolve. They know exactly what our position is. The problem is, is that their response hasn't been very positive. As a matter of fact, it hasn't been positive at all.

And in terms of Iran, we made it clear to the Iranians that if they would honor previous obligations and verifiably stop enrichment of nuclear materials, we would sit at a table. And so there's a way forward for both countries. The choice is theirs. Now, I appreciate people focusing on Syria and Iran, and we should, because Syria and Iran sponsor and promote Hezbollah activities -- all aimed at creating chaos, all aimed at using terror to stop the advance of democracies.
(Italics and emphasis mine.)

You know, if the world successfully operated based on what other people, countries (heck, your own parents and kids) "knows what we think", there wouldn't be a need for dialogue, diplomatic relations, etc. This is kind of an inane way to operate. I'm sure North Korea "knows what we think", just like parents must "know (what their kids) think" when then have that difficult conversation about not trying drugs. Does that deter them from testing missiles? Should the parent simply not have this talk with their children simply because they "know (what their kids) think?" Is knowledge ever legitimate grounds for not pursuing talks? Evidently, it is with this administration.

And it's not like this administration's knowlege has been terribly impressive thus far.

Then there are the faltering talks with Iran. The precondition for talks with Iran is for them to stop enrichment of nuclear materials. However, it's like the chicken and the egg argument. Iran is unlikely to stop enrichment, or answer to our government's quasi-ultimatums. "The choice is theirs," says both an impervious and imperious Bush.

But is it?

As this excellent article states, with a U.S. that is hell-bent (or at least it seems this way to the government of Iran) on destroying Iran, present in four of Iran's bordering nations, it's going to be a bit difficult to convince Iran to give up on uranium enrichment. I mean, let's imagine a world order where the U.S. weren't the superpower that it is. Instead, Iran is that superpower. Canada and Mexico own nuclear weapons and are both hostile to the U.S. Iran just waged war on the Christian minority living in Canada. In such a situation, were Canada or Mexico to demand that U.S. stop developing nuclear weapons technology, "or else", would the U.S. listen? We've just destroyed Iran's neighboring country, and we keep selling weapons to nations that are hostile to Iran, Syria, etc.

It doesn't really seem like we are giving Iran much of a "choice". And if he is indeed giving Iran a "choice", then what a dumb choice that is. Essentially, Bush is accepting no talks as an answer.

How is this productive diplomacy? Or even still, how does this constitute diplomacy at all, to return to the point made in Froomkin's op-ed?

The OED defines diplomacy as:

1. The management of international relations by negotiation; the method by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys; the business or art of the diplomatist; skill or address in the conduct of international intercourse and negotiations.

Well, according to this definition, what the Bush administration is doing hardly constitutes diplomacy. You can't reason with terrorists, but it seems like you can't reason much with this administration, either.

Hallmark friendships

A few weeks before leaving for Hungary, a "friend" from grade school called and left a long message about how she recently got engaged. I'm supposed to call her to catch up with her, but am finding it difficult to call her. Not that I'm not happy for her-- that's wonderful news, and I am excited for her. However, ours has lapsed into what I will term a "hallmark" friendship-- meaning, we--well, she-- seems to only want to be in touch when there is some sort of "big news", whether good or bad.

It wasn't always like this. But I made the mistake of speaking my mind.

I don't always do this, but every so often, either my friends irk me to the point of my needing to express annoyance, or a series of unfortunate combination of events lead me to be sensitive about things that alone wouldn't ordinarily bother me.

So in this particular case, this "friend" kept on forwarding me annoying emails. I really dislike excessive forwards. The list of 101 ways to annoy your roommate really stopped being funny after the 10th person sent it to me during freshman year in college. (I also hate when I have to ask for something more than three times.) Plus, all too often, I find that people use this as a substitute way of seeming to keep in touch, instead of taking the time to occasionally write me an actual email with substance.

I asked her once to not send me every single forward she got. And when I say forwards, I don't mean getting a joke or something silly every now and then. I forward these too. No, it was more like getting inane jokes several times a day. The first time, I used the tactic of nonchalance. (Hey, no big deal, but please XYZ.) She stopped for a while, and then resumed. I asked a second time. This time, I used humor. And then another time. (This time, I asked directly.) When it still didn't stop, I think I sent her a sarcastic email about the kinds of forwards I really don't like to receive. It was right after she or another mutual friend had sent me the forward about if you send this email to all ten billion of your friends, Bill Gates will give you two thousand dollars.

Not to sound disdainful, but in addition to being already annoyed about my multiple ignored pleas, I think I was more annoyed that someone would be stupid enough to send me a forward about Bill Gates doling out $2000 to people. Did people not take Econ 101 in college?

Anyway, the outcome of this was that my friend-- a friend of over 12 years at the time--got extremely annoyed. Fine. Understandable. Even though I was kind of miffed at having to ask her more than three or four times. I let her have her own space, though every so often, I'd check back in to see if she was still mad at me.

But what I didn't--and still don't--understand was that long after I tried to re-patch our relationship, resume our normal course of friendship and move past this silly episode, she continued to harbor a grudge. Things were never quite the same after that.

Maybe it was my stupidity for speaking my mind-- but a)she annoyed me past the point where I could keep quiet about it, and b)I was kindof banking on the fact that we had been friends for such a long time--half of our then-lifetime, to be exact--that if our friendship was actually significant to her (as it was to me) we'd eventually get over this. I certainly did, after a week or two. Also, c) siblings and family members fight all of the time, but then at some point, it's a given that you make up. Furthermore, d) she is allegedly a practicing Roman Catholic, and they're supposed to be into the whole forgiveness thing. So for all of these reasons, I was expecting to "resume" our status quo friendship after I let her fume for a bit. Well, it turns out that I overestimated the bonds of our then-twelve-year friendship. Also, it takes two people to make up, so no matter how willing I may be to move past this, it's really not possible if she's not willing, and she wasn't.

It's not that she ever explicitly stated this, but she slowly stopped responding to my emails. No matter how hard I tried to resume our pre-confrontation status, she was oddly distant. And every once in a while (even as recently as a year ago), she'd send me an email, and then preface it with an emotionally laden, "I know you *HATE* forwards, but I thought I'd send this along since . . .." Talk about baggage. It's been about ten years since we've had our altercation. Although I might tend to have a short fuse, I don't like expending energy to stay mad at people or hold grudges for that long a period. So I really don't understand people who harbor such strong feelings for years. (And I'm not even a regularly churchgoing Catholic like she is.)

We never resumed the several-times-a-week emails. Getting her to call me back when I called her or reply to my emails was like pulling teeth. When we did talk, although she pretended to be happy to hear from me and we'd "catch up", the conversation was strained and superficial. The birthday cards that used to come religiously on my birthday were at first, just tardy, and then eventually stopped coming altogether. She'd always email a week later to wish me a happy birthday, and then apologize for not sending a card because of xyz reason, but when someone has been sending you birthday cards on your birthday since you were twelve, it's simply not the same.

So fast forward about ten years, and we've gone from emailing each other several times a week to this odd situation where we go for nearly a year without talking/emailing, and then she calls me out of the blue to tell me that she's "gotten engaged!" and "We have a lot to catch up on!!" And I'm supposed to eagerly call her back and squeal with excitement as if we're blood sisters.

Except that when I got her message, it felt more like a vague stranger telling me that she had gotten engaged.

The problem with friends is that whereas with family, it's usually a given that you'll eventually make up--perhaps because circumstances necessitate it--you just don't know how friends will react to bumps in the road, such as a confrontation. Take this friend. She seemed like the easygoing type, and for 12 years, there were no rocks or bumps in our friendship. But our "friendship" as I see it ended up not surviving our first (and only) "bump".

And thus, it's been relegated to a "Hallmark" status relationship where we update each other on major news-- engagements, marriages, babies. This is the kind of "friendship" that I have difficulty maintaining, because I don't like superficiality and don't like being fake. I'm simply a lousy actor.

I'd rather be in-your-face and direct than be polite and fake, but it seems that sometimes, even the best of your friends really can't take direct. (And then you resort to blogging about it.) But then, what kind of a friendship is that when one can't be direct about one's feelings without it affecting the friendship in the long run?

Am I expecting too much of a friendship to expect that a good one (as this one was) will be solid enough to overcome an occasional altercation/confrontation/moment of tension? It's not like I confront people on a weekly, monthy, even annual basis.

If I can't make the occasional "you've irked me"' statement to my friends without it adversely affecting our relationship, then perhaps it's no wonder that our president's definition of diplomacy is to engage in conversation with only those nations that he doesn't find contentious or he is not currently irked at.

Hallmark diplomacy. . ..