The other day at work I sat beside a woman I had never seen before. I had an immediate and negative reaction against her. She was a woman of perhaps 50, poorly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt of some kind covered by a larger frock which she would take off when she got warm. Her hair was draped from her head like a clump of tangled weeds pulled from the field by earth and roots--long, unstyled strands of dark hair which was beginning to gray, still wet from her morning shower. She was overweight, but not greatly overweight, with much of her extra weight gathered around her lower abdomen and hips. With a gruff voice signaling a cigarette habit, she spoke on the phone to women friends regarding a mix of work concerns and personal matters, and then turned to visit web sites which she probably read each morning. I don’t know exactly what I didn’t like about her. Maybe it was that I put her so easily into the category of women, single and proudly independent, who are unconcerned about their appearance and the impressions of others, and who have settled into a life without challenge. But it was unfair. Later in the day I spoke with her, and we shared stories about gyms, workout routines, and road trips across New York, and I liked her. But I think what made her likable to me finally was her concern for her extra weight and her waning workout effort.

Then earlier this week I was at a coffee shop and two women sat down at a table beside me. One was a younger woman of about 35 years old, significantly overweight and dressed in a brown business suit, all put together and ready for the office. She was married. The other was older, perhaps 50, and also dressed for the office, though without the power persona. The younger woman prattled on about office politics—clashes with colleagues at meetings, mentoring strategies and interpersonal dynamics with her manager—this while the other listened dutifully, and apparently with interest. As they were leaving the older woman had a chance to mention that she was undergoing training to be a “life coach.” Again I felt instant contempt for these women. I think it was their self-assuredness. Maybe it was what I perceived to be a shallowness? But I wondered if I found women less sympathetic in some ways than men.

There may be something to that, but then later that same day, more antagonism, but this time the target was a man. I visited the Wegmans grocery store in Pittsford, with all its well-feed, well-behaved, well-educated citizenry, those people who listen attentively to public radio in the morning, chat on the phone with friends as they hold the phone with their shoulder and grip a cup of coffee with both hands, who shuttle their kids to hockey practice in the evening and fuss about property taxes in bed with their spouses. I don’t tend to like these people in the abstract either. I saw a thin middle-aged man in jeans and sleeveless fleece vest pull his minivan into a spot beside me. His nervous young girls hopped out and raced to keep up with their humorless father, striding all-too purposefully to the store entrance. There’s no reason I should dislike these people, yet everywhere I turn, I see nothing but people I don’t like. I’m sure I’d like them if I got to know them, but for now, I don’t like these people. I’m not filled with the milk of human kindness. I’ve become a grumpy old man, I’m afraid. Maybe I just don’t like strangers.

I received my Cocteau lithograph today. Now I want to receive such a package every day.

I simply cannot stop picking at my hands, running the finger tips of one hand over the ends of my fingers on the other, over the calluses on the palms and around the thumbs, looking for raised edges, the flakes of dried skin, any unevenness that might be smoothened by removing skin. I like the smoothness of new skin, and the dull pain at the fingertips, the repetitive rubbing of one finger over the cuticle of the next. The sensation of a raised cuticle is irresistible. I want the demarcations of skin and nail to be sharp. There mustn’t be excess skin, yet there is. On the insides of my cheeks too. Once started, I cannot stop biting the insides of my cheeks until I’m satisfied that there is no more excess to be removed. I enjoy biting a bit of cheek and feeling the loose strand with my tongue, maybe even feeling the hallow center of a loop of cheek skin that I can feel with the tip of my tongue.