Wheeeee! It's this stuff again! Lucky, lucky you.

49.···I can't stress this enough: I hate the telephone. The way you can be my best friend is never to call me on the telephone. I lost a programming job because they wanted me to code up a "soft phone," and I just hated it too much to want to work on it, so I didn't. The ringer on my phone was once turned off for a week because one Saturday, while trying to take a nap, people kept calling me and waking me up, and even though I knew eventually I would have to turn it back on before someone got hostile about not being able to reach me, every time I reached for the ringer switch I thought, "Nah, let 'em wait awhile yet." I tell people that if I had invented the phone, it would only dial out, and it would only dial one number: 911. They think I'm kidding, but I'm not.

50.···You can probably infer from the above that I don't have a cell phone. It's my goal to check out of this world without one, too.

51.···A large part of the reason I'm against fascism in all its forms, under all its labels, is because I know no one's ever going to let me have my kind of fascism, under which the first thing I do is, I confiscate YOUR cell phone. Don't give me that look. Up against the wall!

52.···I don't understand people who can't be quiet. Some people have to talk all the time, no matter where they are, no matter what they're doing. Once, while shopping, I actually started to hyperventilate in the dressing room stall because in the stall next to me were a young woman from Oklahoma and her mother--and they simply would not say anything remotely interesting, but neither would they shut up, and oh, p.s., they were LOUD. Try as I might, I could not tune them out. It's the closest I've ever come to having an anxiety attack. With all due respect to the fine citizens of Oklahoma: Do you people have any idea at all what you sound like?

53.···That said, I can talk your ear off if the mood strikes, and I send out some very burdensome e-mails. I've actually had people write me back saying, essentially, "um, I can't possibly address all this, but I thought I'd tell you I got a new job last week. Hope everything's going well with you. Don't ever e-mail me again."

54.···I think if you mess something up or do something awful, you ought to be aggressive and prompt in trying to correct it, but I hate trying to practice that myself. I pretty much have to spend a few hours wallowing in shame first.

55.···I don't think the logical solution to personal problems is always the solution most likely to work, because I think human beings definitely have some very irrational attributes, and sometimes you're better off working with those attributes, rather than just trying to reason out the most logical solution. However elegant a solution is, first someone has to be motivated to try it, or it's no good. And I'm really sorry that sounds so much like something Anthony Robbins would say, because man, do I hate that guy.

56.···My favorite color is purple, but you won't catch me wearing it, because every time I see a purple article of clothing I'm reminded of Donny Osmond's socks. I wear a lot of black. It goes with anything and it shows off the cat fur spectacularly.