Libras are irrational

Lately, I've been finding myself arguing or debating with people on completely different levels of thinking. Far be it from to claim that I'm right in my opinions (even though I am), it's becoming apparent to me that it's incredibly futile to try and discuss rational thought when the other person is using emotion and feeling as their argument. Yet, still I find myself arguing and huffing and puffing. It becomes infuriating to watch that persons silly grin as they discuss how Taurus is a big influential sign on her life and relationships with Geminis always end badly.

Honestly, I try to understand and I can see where Karen came to the conclusion that she does better with Taurus men than Gemini men as her 3 biggest and most successful relationships were all men that are born between April 20th and May 19th and her divorce was with a man who was born a Gemini. But to me- there's no causality, it's a small sample size and she may even have selective data as she probably only includes the data where it matches up with her conclusions (and not on purpose either, a lot of us tend to have selective memories when trying to make a point).

Perhaps I should convince her to date a million men. If she wasn't married, she probably could fulfill that task or at least give it the ol' college try. (I'm kidding Karen!) And after you get a large enough collection of...ahem.."data", she could perhaps see that her chances of having a positive relationship with a Gemini is as equally likely as having one with a Taurus. Or maybe, she even could be proven right and she could nanny nanny poo poo me all she wants. And I would accept the razzing because she used a scientific way to prove her point.

But she doesn't think that way.

And it's not that thinking by emotion makes her always wrong. It probably gets her pretty far with most things as most people use their "gut" to get through life anyways. Heck, some really good poker players are "feel" players who ignore the math completely but still manage to be rather successful. There certainly is something to be said about emotive capabilities.

So why can't I accept that and move on? Why do I have to even view emotion itself as simple chemical reactions and synapses firing and nothing else?

It's not like I give my wife a Valentine's day card and write a note that says, "My endorphin levels escalate every time I am aware of your presence. My hormonal response to your sex organs is a positive experience. I have no plans of mating with other women in the foreseeable future, Brian" Instead I write, "I love you and love being around you. You have an ass that won't quit. Yours forever, Brian." So, why do I have such trouble accepting arguments from the emotional side. Why won't my line of thinking allow me to embrace spirituality?

I'd say that science is my religion but that would be a cop-out and completely untrue. I am without all faith and science is not faith as it constantly changes. Scientists abandon the latest scientific theory as soon as a better one comes along. I also feel what you would could call spirituality at times, it's just I have a voice that tells me that's it's a weird chemical reaction. I think I've somehow learned to detach myself from certain emotions in order to survive my own destructiveness and emotional carnage from my bipolar nature.

I also tend to surround myself with cynics and doubters like myself. It's also why I have become such a pompous ass about my belief system. I was constantly being reinforced as my line of thinking as being the right way of thinking. I would scoff at the religious right and view them as the enemy who was ruining my libertarian way of life with their intrusive morality laws. I started to associate the extreme kooks with your average person who had any faith whatsoever.

In other words, I became an elitist.

Then one day I watched someone else berate their own relative for having a faith based belief. He tried his best to berate that person in front of me and even looked to me for back up. While I thought that this person's belief was correct and logical, I wanted no part of his utterly disgusting display of pompous indignation and audacity. I actually defended the other person. I didn't defend their point of view but rather their right to have that point of view and their right to not take such shit from anyone for having that belief.

It's opened my eyes to a certain extent. While I still have no tolerance for the extremists and people who wish to shove their faith into the law of the land, I've come to accept people who have spirituality and faith as someone with a different take on things. I don't embrace spirituality but I do understand it better and while I may not ever understand anyone's own particular sense of bliss, I do acknowledge and respect it much better than I ever have the past 10 years.

Now all I have to do is learn how to sidestep getting into all of these debates.

I'm an April fool

I have a devious mind at times and warped sense of humor. If you were to say that April Fool's day was meant for me specifically, you wouldn't be too far off. Every year I try to get someone fooled by a prank, most years I'm successful. My favorite one was when I saved the newspaper that we had delivered from April 1st, 1985 and woke up early on April 1st, 1986 and replaced the new one with the one from last year. It took my Dad 5 minutes to realize he was reading last year's news. The paper was slightly yellow, but he still got fooled. Generally speaking, I think we don't notice things out of the ordinary unless it's blatantly obvious.

That leads us to this year's prank and victim.


About 3 years ago I run into my ex-high school sweetheart, Karen at the local Toys R Us. Turns out that she lives about 5 minutes from me. A year later we run into each other at the Walmart, at this point we exchange emails to send pics of our kids to each other. We exchange pics but the correspondence stopped there.

Then last year I get an email about her Komen's women breast cancer walk on Mother's day and if would I like to sponsor her. It was a chain email that she probably sent to her entire email address book and I'm sure she wasn't even aware she had me on it. I decided to donate 50 bucks and left a note "anything for an old friend". She then emailed me back thanking me and we started to email each other during slow periods at work and we rekindled our friendship. There was no inclination for either of us to have an affair or anything like that. We've met with the kids a few times at the playground and she's come over my house twice for events and we went out together with our spouses a few weeks ago.

Today I sent her this email:

I'm sorry I have to say this. So last night I had one of those knock down drag out fights with the wife. Eventually the subject of you popped up. I guess I didn't realize that Lynn was hiding alot of insecurity and jealousy. You and I both know that's there's nothing going on with us whatsoever aside from friendship and boredom at work, but for some reason she has really harbored some ill feelings that I email you so much and keep in touch with you. I will spare the details of our "spat" but unfortunately, Ive been put in a position that I feel is unfair to me and you but nonetheless I have no real choice as to what to do. I have to end our correspondences and keep our friendship on the back burner. I will still host the party in 2 weeks, but I understand if you feel uncomfortable to not want to come. I wish there was another way and I know it really sucks and I truly hope you understand that this is an April fool's joke and you've been had. I'm such a brat. Really, you didn't seriously believe that Lynn would act that way?!

She called me up in less than 5 minutes and started to needle me because I fooled her.

Pranks are fun. I'll have to start planning next year's prank tomorrow.