You people scare me. Please stay away from my home.

Today is my friend Laura's birthday. Hopefully, she won't mind the use of her name as she uses it on her own blog. For a long time, Laura has been one of my favorite Salt Lake City people. I'll try not to embarrass her, but suffice it to say, she's the kind of person that makes life more interesting. I'm glad I know her.

A couple days ago, her mom thew her a birthday party, and it was lot's of fun. Pro-Laura paraphernalia decorated the house, and we played Laura-centered or Laura-preferred games. We sang and did all the typical birthday stuff too. I like these kinds of parties because they give us a chance to celebrate the people who matter - the people other than ourselves anyway.

In contrast, I spent all of December trying to celebrate myself. Given my abhorrence of self-glorification, this behavior is unusual. They say that when people start dating, they are really just dating the other person's representative; I think writing graduate school essays is no different.

It's fun to celebrate our friends because we can say whatever we want, and no one will question our motives. We say nice things because that's how we feel, end of story. When saying nice things about ourselves, however, we always have a self-serving motive. We need to look sexy or experienced or intelligent because the listener needs to like us.

This setting bothers me because, as I've said many times, I don't like having a representative. I don't like a mirror image of myself explaining to people how they are supposed to feel about me, but when dealing with strangers who have something I want, I suppose I have little choice.

At least once a year, the rules get to be different; maybe, I should look forward to that day more often.
Another Christmas Song - Blink 182