It's Okay to Be Single...Even For Life!

Our culture is obsessed with romance.  Almost all of the best-loved fictional yarns of the past century, ranging from Star Wars to The Great Gatsby to I Love Lucy, have some sort of romantic element to them.  It's rare to find a story these days that does not involve two characters falling in love.  Such a fixation makes many lifelong singles feel like losers.
That trend has made its way into the doors of the church.  God ordained marriage as a sacred union, and has even given commandments regarding it; however, Christians have become increasingly insistent that marriage is God's plan for everyone's life.  Is it wrong to get married? Of course not! However, take into consideration these verses:

• "Jesus replied, 'Not everyone can accept the idea of staying single. Only those who have been helped to live without getting married can accept it.  Some men are not able to have children because they were born that way. Some have been made that way by other people. Others have made themselves that way in order to serve the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept living that way should do it.'" -- Matthew 19:11-12 (NIRV)
• "Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry." -- 1 Corinthians 7:1 (NIV 1984)
• "So I say to those who aren’t married and to widows—it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am." -- 1 Corinthians 7:8 (NLT)

 I have no doubt that, for some people, marriage can be a wonderful thing.  Still, there are plenty of cases where people should refrain from getting married, just because, as those verses say, it's not for everyone.  I've heard far too many heartbreaking stories of married couples, including some Christian ones, whose marriages have gone wrong, leading to all kinds of trouble.  There are some people who just aren't meant to find romance, and that's fine.
As usual, I'll use stories from the entertainment world to prove my point: Some of you may have heard of the Christian comedian/southern gospel singer Mark Lowry, who is a lifelong member of the Baptist church.  Mr. Lowry is old enough to be my dad, but he has no children (unless you count his nieces and nephews) and has never married...yet, he is perfectly happy with his life.  Sure, single Christian women have tried to start a romance with him; in his book Live Long and Die Laughing, he discussed getting dating proposals from unmarried female fans via e-mail such as, "I don't normally do stuff like this, but God contacted me last night and told me we're gonna have kids, so call me."  If he is still living a full Godly life without a significant other and is completely happy with his lot in life, then, I say, more power to him.  There are probably plenty of other Christians out there, of both genders, who are the same way.
Despite everything I've mentioned in this post so far, some people, including Christians, seem to pressure others into finding romance.  I've seen numerous cases where well-meaning believers assumed there were romantic feelings between two people of the opposite gender when there was absolutely zero, or assure people who haven't found "the one" yet that there is 100% chance they will at some point.  I ask: Why? Didn't the above verses say that some people are meant to remain unmarried?  Sure, our society's focus on romantic love may make it harder for those who are in such a situation, but not only is the entertainment industry to blame for that, but no one said that being a Christian, no matter your relationship/marital status, is easy.  Marriage may make some people happy, but, for others, it does the exact opposite.
In conclusion, I will say this: I've mentioned before that all of us have something that is only behind faith, family, and friends in terms of importance to us.  Some people's passion for that topic, no matter what it is, is so encompassing that it takes place of a relationship.  I'm reminded of a scene in the 2006 film The Astronaut Farmer where the title character has asked his friends and family what he should name the rocket he'd built.  A Latino buddy suggests La Otra Mujer; that's Spanish for The Other Woman.  As strange as it may sound, for some, their hobby is their "spouse."  I should know; I am one of those people.  I know I've joked about a celebrity such as Hilary Duff, Anne Hathaway, Victoria Justice, or some others I won't mention, as being my "girlfriend" or "wife".  Of course, it was all a joke; I've never met any of those famous people, and I never have been in any sort of relationship with them.  Still, as my interests have shifted and I've expanded my horizons, I really feel that I am "in a relationship with" or "married to" entertainment.  I know, I know; pretty much all of us love our movies, music, television, books, etc., but I spend so much time immersed in, discussing, and/or researching at least one form of entertainment that it rivals the number of hours I've seen young couples in serious relationships spend together.  Frankly, I'm perfectly fine with that; no, entertainment can't supply me with the physical aspect of romantic love, but it can make me happy and brighten my day.  It may sound like a defeatist attitude to feel that way, but that may be God's plan for me; check the above verses for proof.
Any comments?

Why I Like "Juvenile" Entertainment

It's no secret that, despite being twenty-four years of age, I am a big fan of all sorts of "juvenile" entertainment (I'll explain the quotes later).  Nickelodeon creations such as Victorious, iCarly, and House of Anubis are among my favorite shows; "teen pop" music, ranging from well-known artists such as Selena Gomez and Victoria Justice to obscure bands such as the singular-album duo V*Enna, dominate my top played songs; my DVD collection has "kiddie" flicks ranging from the Jennifer Stone Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars to the Nickelodeon comedy-sketch-turned-movie Good Burger to the old-school animated favorite Mulan to even the live-action 1997 remake of George of the Jungle; and I have read and enjoyed novels from series such as Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Bill Myers' Journeys to Fayrah, both of which are intended for younger audiences.  Some people don't get that, though; they seem to think that, since I am an adult, I should not spend so much time immersed in entertainment meant for the younger crowd.  If you believe that everything I watch, read, listen to, etc., is meant for kids, then you're sorely mistaken; one look at my playlist, which features classic rock by the likes of Electric Light Orchestra and the Beatles, just to name a few, as well as "adult contemporary" tracks by Josh Groban, Michael Ball, and numerous others; my DVD collection, which includes every theatrical Batman flick from the 1989 Michael Keaton original to The Dark Knight, as well as the entire Visual Bible series, not to mention a seven-film John Wayne set, and especially my book collection where adult fiction outnumbers juvenile fiction by at least a four-to-one ratio, disproves that claim.  Still, "juvenile" entertainment takes a big chunk of my spare time.  Some people would just blame that on me being mildly autistic, but I hate to use a blanket statement like that to describe why I do what I do, especially since modern technology allows me to express my feelings fully and honestly.  So, now, I will explain why I am such a fan of "juvenile" shows, movies, books, and music.
In my early years, I wasn't much of a television watcher.  Sure, I watched the nightly news, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Home Improvement, and a Saturday morning show here and there, but most of my spare time was spent playing computer games.  It got to the point where my mom would put me on restriction from even touching the computer, for no other reason than me spending too much time in front of it.  However, around late 1997, that all changed when I was introduced to a little show called Growing Pains.  Some of you long-time friends may remember me mentioning GP as "my first classic sitcom addiction," but, at first, I didn't know that it was a classic sitcom.  I got into it thanks to reruns on the Disney Channel (seriously!) that aired at least twice a day, every day, on there back then.  Over the next few years, I found out about other vintage television series, including Scooby-Doo, Mork and Mindy, Diff'rent Strokes (ugh!), and ended up going right back to the Seavers in summer of 2002, just before I started high school.  Their main appeal was the fact that they were humorous without being bawdy, a trait which proved hard to come by in network shows, even back then.
Right after school started, I hit a wall.  Growing Pains had been taken from ABC Family's line-up, and it was nowhere to be found on any of the other channels or technologies available within my household, and I just felt lost.  I even wanted to throw my television into the garbage bin; without the Seavers, what on there was even remotely worth watching? Yet, that all changed when a somewhat younger guy I knew showed me Lizzie McGuire.  I'd seen it before, mostly thanks to him, but, that one time, it clicked for me.  They were just like the vintage sitcoms, except with modern pop culture references and actors/actresses that were young at the current time, as well as without the occasional episode that dealt with a main character doing drugs or having sex.  When I saw Even Stevens, That's So Raven, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and even Drake and Josh, I loved them all because they fell along the same lines: clean, funny, and enjoyable modern entertainment.
That trend has continued well into today, because I still don't like entertainment that goes against my morals; in fact, I never have.  I can still remember refusing to play video games such as GoldenEye or Mortal Kombat: Sub-Zero all the way back in the nineties, just because of their content.  Some may believe that it was because I wasn't allowed to experience such games, movies, television shows, etc., but, honestly, I'm old enough to choose what I want to watch, play, read, listen to, etc., and I still have that same rule.  It really wouldn't be hard to sneak such media past my parents, but I have no desire to; the last time I did that, I ended up wasting about two hours watching a bunch of rocker chicks swear and use drugs in Satisfaction, and felt like an idiot for even wanting to try such a flick.  To be frank, the vast majority of my friends, no matter their religious beliefs, watch movies and television, listen to music, read books, etc., that I would never even want to try.  It seems like "juvenile" (non-literary) entertainment such as Victorious or Lemonade Mouth is, for the most part, the only genre of entertainment that fits my sensibilities.  Sure, there are adult-oriented-yet-morally-correct flicks out there; my mom is a big fan of Hallmark telefilms, and they usually fall into that category.  I've actually been considering expanding my horizons by giving them a try.  The problem is that, unless its target audience is the under fourteen crowd, recent morally good movies and television are hard to come by.
Now, for the explanation of the quotes.  Shows such as iCarly or The Suite Life on Deck (and their musical, literary, cinematic, and gaming counterparts) may be looked down upon by those above the intended audience, but, in my opinion, they're not juvenile entertainment.  Here's why I say that: Middle schoolers are the most immature of all people.  Although some kids within that age group show remarkable maturity, most of them are so immature, they don't even realize how immature they are.  They even do things such as get into "relationships" that last a week or two at most to show their supposed maturity, not realizing until years later just how immature it actually makes them.  One thing that I remember from my middle school days was that, to my classmates, if it wasn't sexually explicit and/or demeaning to someone else, it just wasn't funny.  I mention that for one reason: There are plenty of "comedies" that have come out in recent years that would put the average seventh grader on Cloud Nine because of how bawdy and/or mocking they are...yet, they're given an "R," which is an "adult" rating.  To me, irrespective of the rating, anything (or anyone, for that matter) who only considers such things funny suffers from true immaturity.
In conclusion, I will share some words a Facebook friend sent me last night:

"When someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean they are wrong. It simply means you have a difference of opinion."
I don't remember who told me this, but this quote popped into my head while I was folding laundry tonight, and I thought of you. Make of that what you will.

 That's very true; in fact, I agree wholeheartedly.  I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me; I learned many years ago that no one is going to see things exactly my way.  My problem is with people who are very adamant about expressing their opinion about what I'm doing, especially when they don't have any right and/or need to be telling me what to do and how to do it.  There might be some people reading this who feel that I shouldn't be watching Victorious or listening to Selena Gomez, but that's not their choice.  For each person who vehemently opposes me being a fan of such entertainment, there very well may be two or three others who are 100% fine with it.  I'm not going to be able to please everyone, so I just worry about pleasing the ones I have to answer to: my parents and God.  I can't let popular opinion, even that of the people I interact with, dictate what I like and don't like; that isn't and never has been my style.  My mom used to always say, "Opinions are a dime a dozen," and that's very true; however, some people don't always feel that way about their own opinion.
Any comments?

Make Them Mine

DISCLAIMER: Despite today's date, this "song" is meant in all seriousness; enjoy!

MAKE THEM MINE

To the tune of "Make it Shine" by Victoria Justice

It's so fun, bargainin'!
I see somethin' I want, and then
I take the price to a big low!
No, I don't know what I'll find now,
Or what deals I will make!
But, I surely will make a great deal!
I see something now; decided I want it!
Let's make a deal!

CHORUS:
Yard sales are the only way I get my entertainment!
Find the most random things, all at such costs convenient!
So much fun for me; I find everything!
What is not to like?
Yes, I know yard sales are nothing but secondhand things!
But, the deals I find there always make me want to sing!
I see awesome things!
I start bargaining!
Then, I make them mine!

People, why don't you know
That yard sales are the place to go?
Why keep buying
Everything new?

I am here to show you all how
Things could be much cheaper
If only to yard sales you'd go!
There's one going on now!
If you would just give it a try, you'd know!

REPEAT CHORUS

Everyone, I'll tell you that yard sales are so much fun! (Whoa!)
But, some don't do a thing except peddle and sell junk!
Still, all of 'em are not like that; assuming that is unfair!
Oh, you doubt it? Well, believe it, 'cause there's tons of good yard sales!

REPEAT CHORUS

No more; I'm done!

If you know me, you no doubt know that I am a big fan of various celebrities, especially Victoria Justice and Jennifer Stone.  I've talked about those two to pretty much everyone I've communicated with over the past year.  However, I think it's time to call it quits.  Victorious stinks; it never really has been funny, and the songs are ridiculous, especially "Freak the Freak Out".  Seriously, what does that even mean?  Wizards of Waverly Place is just as bad, especially now that it's come to an end.
So, then, if Victoria and Jennifer are no longer my top two famous people, then, who will replace them? I'm not sure just yet; I've been considering Rebecca Black, Carrie Fisher, Justine Bateman, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, and Lea Thompson, just to name a few.  Some of those are older actresses, I know; I started out crushing on classic stars, so, maybe I should return to my roots.  You may not like that, but it's not up to you; it's solely up to me.
By the way, do you know what today is?

Why I Love Yard Sales

Before I start, let me say this: Whether I say "yard sales" or "garage sales," I'm referring to the same thing. Library sales are also included in that term; it would just be repetitive and annoying referring to them as "yard/garage sales and library sales" as many times as I'm going to mention them in my post. Still with me? Then, here we go. Over the years, I've noticed that people that have something in common (whether it be those of certain faiths, those within certain occupations and/or organizations, or just those who are big fans of something) tend to be misunderstood by those who don't share that same association. For example, most people think all male figure skaters are homosexuals, but my mom adores figure skating, and she knows very well that they're not. Even when I was younger, I thought that all Scouts (that is, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts) did nothing but camp and hike. When I joined a Cub Scout pack, I was shocked to see that they met inside a church; prior to that, I had thought that they met in campground picnic shelters or humongous tents. Whatever they are, such misunderstandings tend to be judgmental, which also makes them sinful (Matthew 7:1-2) as well as not very becoming.
Such is true of us "yard salers"; those people who don't go to garage sales don't get why those of us who insanely enjoy them. I've heard plenty of criticism of garage sales over the years. One of my childhood friends didn't want to play with a Velcro dartboard just because it had come from a yard sale; he informed me that he had been to a garage sale that was nothing but baby items--and I've seen tons of such sales for as far back as I can remember--so he just assumed that yard sales sold nothing but baby gear. Years later, a high school friend claimed that he had bought some roller skates from a garage sale that broke the first time he used them, and that made him not like yard sales.  Others just don't get the appeal of them, or think that they have nothing but junk, which isn't the case.  I could apply Stein Mart's slogan--"Once you go, you get it"--to yard sales, but I feel there's more advantages to them than will fit in a short motto.
First off: It isn't just the purchasing; it's the hunting.  Millions of people, including me, use web sites such as eBay or Amazon Marketplace to find good deals online.  If you're looking for a specific item, such as a certain book or DVD, then such sites are the place to go.  However, garage sales aren't quite like that.  An article in AARP: The Magazine summed it up like this: "Stores are for things that you know you want or need.  Yard sales are for things that you didn't know you wanted."  Many times, the sheer surprise of the things I find at garage sales is half the fun.  I've found things that I didn't know existed (i.e., a DVD of obscure Amy Adams film Moonlight Serenade, or a Star Trek board game) or hadn't thought about in a long time (e.g., some FoxTrot compilations, a CD by a cappella group Naturally 7, or the entire five-cassette A.D. set).  Sometimes, the shock is that the items are so cheap; I recently purchased the entire Visual Bible DVD set, which consists of three different movies, still in the shrink wrap for only three bucks.  Even things I haven't purchased were still fun to see; at a yard sale last year, I saw a book and audio tape set featuring Putt-Putt--my favorite computer game character as a kid, for those who don't know--that I didn't know of previously.  I didn't buy it, since I am much too old for that sort of thing, but it was still good to see.  Even better is the interaction I get; when I wear shirts with words and/or pictures on them to garage sales, people often ask me about or comment on them.
Second off: At yard sales, you can get deals that you can't find anywhere else.  I'm known as a bargain hunter; as much as I love entertainment, I rarely pay full price for it.  I buy literature at used bookstores and purchase used DVDs at MovieStop, both with trade-in credit.  Although the deals at those places are good, they rarely even come close to garage sales, where you can usually find a book for no more than a buck and a DVD for under three dollars.  People often want to buy new instead of used, but, as someone who came from a household that wasn't always affluent, I know that getting items used is sometimes the only way you're going to get them.
Lastly: Buying items new is way too expensive these days.  I'm not going to divulge my weekly pay here, but I will say that my current job doesn't pay enough to cover living expenses, even monthly rent for an apartment.  At some point, I hope to advance to a better-paying job, hopefully in a library setting, and then move into some sort of apartment or townhouse; still, for now, I'm living with my parents.  Some of you may know that, as part of a deal with my folks, I recently purchased a new Mac, which, as most of you know, was a bit pricey.  It was thanks to all the money I had saved up in my bank account that I was able to buy that new Apple; had I purchased all the books, CDs, DVDs, etc., I've recently gotten new, I probably wouldn't have had even close to enough to do that.  Prices of almost everything have skyrocketed in recent years; paperback novels cost at least six dollars, new DVDs are no less than fifteen or twenty bucks, and just one album usually will set you back no less than ten smackaroos...yet, you can find those same items in great condition at yard sales for much less.
In conclusion, I will say this: If I were to make a list (which I won't) of all the media I've obtained over the past half-decade or so, I think right many of you would be surprised at how much I did get, especially on such a limited budget.  Only a small percentage of those books, CDs, DVDs, and other media have been Christmas and birthday gifts; almost 97% of it was bought with trade-in credit and/or my own cold, hard cash.  It may sound odd, but I consider hunting for bargains (at garage sales or anywhere else, including online) to be fun.  As the song says, "You'll never know if you don't go."
Any comments?

Goodbye, Old Friend and Faithful Companion

I think most of you reading this know how much I have always loved my technology. Between computers, printers, Nintendo consoles, CD players, VCRs, DVD players/recorders, CD players, MP3 players/iPods, television sets, flash drives, cell phones...yeah, I've had countless electronic devices over the years, and I've loved every one. Some may think it's stupid for technology to be so important to me, but those people don't realize that, without it, I never would have graduated high school. One of the symptoms of my disorder is having bad coordination, which meant my handwriting was terrible. For that reason, I was given a device to type my work on by the school system in fifth grade, and I had one until I graduated from high school. Some people decried it and felt it was hurting me and that I actually could write legibly with practice, but what they have always failed to grasp is that I did practice more than one summer, and still got the exact same complaints at the beginning of every school year. So, I fully believe that, without digital assistance, I would not be where I am today.
What does that have to do with the titular statement? Simply this: Yesterday, the Epson printer I've had since 2000 bit the dust. I had thought its death was imminent; over the past few months, it had produced one shoddy printout after another, even though I replaced the cartridges and cleaned the print heads. It even failed to let me know the black ink was out a month or two ago, and it had never done that previously. Throughout its lifetime, it had helped me print countless documents: greeting cards, CD booklets, bookmarks, various school assignments and projects, pictures of everything from Pokémon to Victoria Justice, binder covers, and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment. The Epson's death came at a rather bad time; not only do I not have a replacement printer, but I was going to increase my sending out of cards made on Print Shop to my friends and family for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and other such occasions. I can still do it; what I'll have to do is save them to my flash drive as PDFs via the Mac OS X Print dialog box, and then take them to the library to print them out. It'll cost to print each page, but it'll still be more heartfelt than a pre-printed Hallmark card.
Friends, let me be honest: I know that my late Epson printer was not a living thing. It didn't have a soul, nor did it ever feel any emotion. Still, when anything--a car, a video game console, a piece of furniture, etc.--has been with someone for that long, it's hard for that person to not feel a sense of attachment to it, especially when it's served him/her faithfully for several years, only to fall to pieces in mere months. I plan on getting a new printer one of these days; maybe I can find a good deal on one at a yard sale or Best Buy. It'll probably be another Epson; not only is twelve years a good lifespan for pretty much any piece of technology, but, the one that just died was actually a replacement for a defective same-model printer that my mom bought from CompUSA in 1999. I'm pretty sure it was replaced quickly and free of charge; since we'd had it less than a year, it was most likely under warranty. So, with such a good reputation, how could I not get another Epson? However, no matter what printer I get, it won't be that Epson. That old blue printer will always hold a special place in my heart, just like my Commodore 64, my Game Boy Color, and my first Mac. That may be hard for some of you to understand, but I think some of my tech-loving friends will get it.
Any comments?

As It Has Never Been Seen Before

The above phrase has been somewhat overused, especially in the entertainment world. Over the years, countless movies and television shows, and even a few video games and books, have promised to show you something (or, in some cases, someone) "as you have never seen it [or him/her] before." Whether or not said media delivered on that guarantee is a matter of one's opinion and life experience. When something is that way, though, it usually isn't easily forgotten.
Most of you reading this know that I have always liked to do things my way, which has caused friction between me and some authority figures, usually teachers. A perfect example is elementary and middle school art class, where the kind of art I wanted to do was not the kind of art I was supposed to do. All of the art I grew up with either moved and made noise, such as CD-ROM games and animatronic dinosaurs, or had printed words that went with it, such as comic strips and picture books. For that reason, I did not know how to make art that was simply a picture. Additional problems were caused because I couldn't refrain from putting an allusion to one of my favorite things, which ranged from Scooby-Doo to Pokémon/Nintendo to computer games to dc Talk to Hoyle Board Games even Weakest Link, in my artwork. Very little of the other students' artwork I saw had such allusions. You can imagine that my art teachers and I regularly clashed over all that, and that's part of why I never took any sort of art class, even computer art, after seventh grade. That, combined with my lack of artistic ability, was probably why my artwork was never once hung up on the schools' walls. (Yes, my training in Web Design did require some making some pictures, but those weren't "art classes," in my opinion.)
Throughout my school years, most of the projects I got good grades on were ones that allowed for freedom. I didn't mind a few rules, but ones that had a bazillion strict requirements drove me nuts. For example, I've always liked science, but the science fair projects all us middle and high schoolers had to do were mostly nothing more than a thorn in my side, if only because of strange rules, such as having to refer to yourself as "the student" instead of using a personal pronoun such as "I" or "me". Yet, in sixth grade, when I had to make a model of an atom using whatever materials I wanted, I got an A-plus. Yes, that project did have rules; the model needed to be labeled, and ignorance of that requirement caused many of my classmates to get grades as low as C's, even when their model was well-constructed.
Nowadays, when I do or make something, unless it's something someone else has asked me to do/make, it's pretty much up to me how it ends up. When I have that freedom, I usually buck tradition in a way that most people have never seen. One such example is last Christmas, when I made cards via PrintMaster on my laptop to give/send to my friends. Most people don't give computer-generated printed cards to others in the first place; I've only known four people, two of which were my parents, who have ever done that, and three of those people, including my folks, only did it sparingly, yet I've been doing it at least somewhat regularly since 1995. However, the biggest difference was the picture on the front. Most Christmas cards have Nativity scenes, wintry landscapes, family portraits, elaborately decorated trees, Santa Clauses, cutesy cartoons, etc., on them...but mine had a picture of Victoria Justice holding a Christmas present. At least some of the friends who I gave the cards to said that they had never received one quite like it, and I was proud of that. In fact, I prefer making cards for any occasion on Print Shop and/or PrintMaster than buying them from Hallmark, just because a card lovingly crafted on a computer feels more heartfelt than just purchasing one at Hallmark and scribbling a signature on it. I'm sure some of my friends who do paper crafting (are you reading this, Lorie?) feel the same way about the cards they make.
It isn't just greeting cards, though; I always have done things like no one else, which is why this blog is called "Siobhan Thinks Differently". Everyone who has known me, no matter their opinion of me, has known me for being an original in pretty much every way. Yes, that has made certain people very critical of me; many people have taken society's rules about what someone of my age, gender, and/or heritage "should" be doing so seriously, you'd think they were Biblical commandments or federal laws. They wanted me to, as the High School Musical tune says, "stick to the status quo," but I almost always refused; I was not going to subscribe to the mob mentality, usually because such thinking and/or actions didn't work for me. Some people went entirely too far in their attempts to get me to do what "everyone else" was supposedly doing; I remember one inescapable individual who made unkind remarks about others we both knew that I won't even begin to repeat on here just to get me to take swimming lessons or do something else that went completely against my tastes. Such talk, even when I think of it now, smacked way too much of manipulation, and that's why I refused to give in to that person's demands. An older friend once told me, "This world doesn't know what to do with originals, [Siobhan]." That's very true; I honestly wonder if the denizens of this planet will ever know what to do with people like me.
Apparently, being the way I am has made me rather unforgettable; I remember an instance some years ago when I was in my local shopping mall with my brother-in-law and saw a guy who was a summer school classmate months prior to that, but whom I hadn't seen since until that moment. That classmate didn't say much to me, so I told my brother-in-law that he must have forgotten me. My brother-in-law immediately replied, "[Siobhan], how could anyone forget you?" Several others have said essentially the same thing, and I'm actually proud of that; if being an original makes me hard to forget, then, I say, that's great. It's their choice whether or not they accept me; those who chose to have said that those who haven't are seriously missing out.
Any comments?