I hate filling out job applications and I hate writing resumes and I find this introductory paragraph almost impossible to do, too. In job situations, I always want to say, "Can't I just take a test?" Can't I just prove my worth rather than try to spin it? I really find this kind of thing very hard.

But if forced to sum up myself, I guess I would have to say I'm a mass of contradictions, and although a Libra, I seem to be one who is not only sort of constantly out of balance myself but also have the unfortunate effect of unsettling other people, too. For example, I often find myself the recipient of fairly personal confidences in a matter of seconds from people I've barely met, and when I was younger I used to love that--after all, I AM very curious about people, and not in a morbid way either--but as I have grown older, I have grown more wary of this kind of instant intimacy. It often seems to be a kind of mistake, and these days I think it's probably better to get to know people more slowly. Probably a lot more slowly. I would love to stay on the level of books and movies and pets and children (if they have them; I don't) and favorite recipes and hobbies and even the weather for quite a while before moving on to the nitty gritty of people's souls. Still, I seem to be constitutionally unable to walk away from someone who wants to do a little soul-baring before me, and for some reason, at least momentarily, so many people do. It's a problem. I'm still trying to work it out.

For my own part, I'm way more truthful than is good for me and I have a wicked sense of humor (without feeling deeply wicked at all) and am constantly sticking my foot in my mouth and constantly giving people odd impressions about me. These are all problems I'm trying to work out, too. Then on top of all that, or maybe because of all that, I am also fairly introverted and extremely self-conscious. And sensitive, in probably every sense of that word. I am not easy; I am definitely not easy. But if I'm able to trust you and relax around you, then I can also be--well, sweet; there's probably no other word for it--and loving and giving and kind. And loyal, always. And rewarding. And I sound as though I'm describing a St. Bernard. Oh, well. I'm worth it. Yeah. I am.

So, is there a test I can take now? (Oh, right, I already did that.)

Apparently I'm in the process of deconstructing it. And that self-summary's going next!

All things verbal. Most things mathematical. Much that is emotional. Basically, anything I don't have to put my mind to.

That I do not scare them. I do scare them later, of course, but not at first. The second thing they notice is that I'm actually listening to them when they speak. I think that's what ends up scaring them. Just my hunch.

Books: To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, Gilead, The House of Mirth, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Sense and Sensibility ...

Authors: Jane Rule, Alice Munro, Anne Tyler, Marilynne Robinson, Jane Smiley, Edith Wharton, Nancy Mairs, David Sedaris ...

Movies: 12 Angry Men (Henry Fonda), Some Like It Hot, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Harvey, Donnie Darko, Places in the Heart, A New Leaf, Same Time Next Year ...

Food: Italian, Chinese, and basic steak dinner: a filet mignon, baked potato, salad, warm bread. I used to include the alcoholic beverages I most preferred with these foods, but in the last year I have become unable to drink. I feel something akin to alcohol-poisoned after imbibing so little as a quarter glass, sometimes even just a few swallows. I mourn this loss appropriately while marveling at its mystery. I mean, what? Did my liver/kidneys just quietly slink off somewhere to die without even the decency of leaving me a note? The scumbags.

Iced tea ...

my disenchanted middle-age. I call this decade my "bitter 40s," and I have every intention of getting over this, I truly do. But I've got only three years left in this phase, and if a thing's worth doing, then it's worth doing right. Right? So right now I'm disgruntled and dissatisfied and appalled and heartbroken by a world gone mad, a world I am also no longer certain ever held any sanity.

I also spend a lot of thinking time on the never-ending tedium of everyday life -- of having to go to the grocery store, having to run errands like getting the car's oil changed, having to do laundry, having to scoop the litter box -- and how at the end of it all, your only reward is knowing that you get to do it all again and again and again.

Remember, bitter 40s! Check me out again in three years. Except I'm precocious, so you might want to check from time to time sooner than that.

I secretly want to copyedit people's profiles, and worse than that, I then find myself fantasizing blog entry rants on my grammar pet peeves.