Especially vulnerable around movies about animals.

I cry really easily. I remember when I was six or seven I used to love watching the movie Homeward Bound about two dogs and a cat whose family leaves them in the care of a relative who owns a ranch while they go on holiday. The animals think they've been abandoned and run away from the ranch and try to find their way home through the wilderness. What happens in the end? Hint: it's got the word "Home" in the title.

There is one part of this movie where something happens and the cat falls over a waterfall. Every time I watched this movie, I cried so hard at this part that my mum threatened to take the thing away from me. But the cat! Went over the waterfall! How could you not be sad??? But in my mum's world, you're only allowed to cry the first time, when you don't know the ending yet.

But it's not just movies, which I seem to have become a bit more immune to in recent years. It's any kind of emotional conversation about anything, and it makes it difficult for me to talk about things I really care about without looking like a case of female hysteria from the 1800s. I HATE IT.

I went to look on the internet forums to see if anyone had found a solution to this problem. (I love the internet so much. I was watching Sleepless in Seattle the other day with Les and suddenly I realised, wait, the people in this movie DID NOT HAVE INTERNET. How did they live? How did they find out stuff? I love finding out stuff, but I really don't think I would have bothered going to the library every time I needed to know something. Internet-connected world, we no longer have an excuse to be stupid.) And of course there were loads of other people online who claimed to suffer the same thing I did, as there are for virtually any condition, imagined or real, on the internet. Hooray!

Admittedly, some of their cases were a bit more serious than mine. One confessed to crying whenever he turned the radio on. Naturally, no one in the pages of comments that followed suggested that he just don't turn the radio on. Huh. There was also a forum that simply asked: "Do you cry really easily?" to which people replied: "Yes, I do."

Thanks guys, super helpful!

But I did find my solution. Someone posted that it is impossible to cry if you tickle the roof of your mouth with your tongue, and it actually works. Anyway, I managed to talk to my father about getting married without dissolving, so hooray for me.

Where topics change at the speed of light.

Is there a way to block people on facebook without removing them as friends? This question could also be asked as, Why would I want to stay friends with someone whose unfailingly regular status updates I cannot bear to look at anymore?

I am considering pulling an MDB and taking everyone except the people I actually talk to regularly off my Facebook account, but the part of me that accounts for the millions of things I have hoarded away in my room "in case of emergency!!!" will not let me. What if I wake up one day and just really need to talk to the person who made my life miserable in primary school? What if Hiro Nakamura visits me in the MRT and tells me I need to save the cheerleader, save the world? How could I explain to him that I deleted the cheerleader off my Facebook account, and don't have her mobile number or email? See? That excuse sounds way lame even to me.

I cannot tell you how much Les laughed when he found out that the number one thing I do online when I just want to chill out is to watch the videos at momversation.com.

I'm sorry! I know I don't have a child. I am a wicked, wicked pretender. I just have not been able to find another place where there are sensible women who talk about sensible things, and where you get to hear many sides to the same issue, rather than ranting or endlessly flaming each other. I mean, the most visited local blog when I was in JC was probably Xia Xue. Point for me.

(And I cannot understand that, or girls who don't leave the house without wearing three layers of make up, or girls who surreptitiously untag all the unglam pictures of themselves on facebook. Sooner or later, Lady, someone is going to figure out what you really look like, and it will be so much worse for you on that day.)

PEOPLE, RICKY MARTIN HAS A BLOG.

I know. I am very excited too. And let me tell you that the excitement you're feeling right now totally, totally pays off. An excerpt, if you will:

[[Many people told me: "Ricky it's not important", "it's not worth it", "all the years you've worked and everything you've built will collapse", "many people in the world are not ready to accept your truth, your reality, your nature".

...

If someone asked me today, "Ricky, what are you afraid of?" I would answer "the blood that runs through the streets of countries at war..."]]

(from here.)

Oh man, I really REALLY need to meet this man. Not Ricky Martin, but Ricky Martin's friend who says things like "your truth, your reality, your nature." I feel like he would understand my soul, and we could cry together while "Friends Are Friends Forever" by Michael W. Smith played in the background. Or "That's What Friends Are For", that would work too.

Unless he lived in a country at war, because, don't you know! There's blood running down the streets over there! Running! Down! The Streets! And I'm just not emotionally prepared for something like that, you know what I'm saying? Hey, if it's Ricky's worse fear, I think I have a right not to want to go there too.

I am starting to believe that the sun may no longer actually exist.

Facebook can be so strange on so many levels.

"Holly Matthews has just invited you to SHARE the LOVE!"
WHEEL of FORTUNE!


"I would never send you a lifeless boring gift, here is an animated one!"
Well I would never send you a gift, because, like, I don't even know who you are!


"I'd like you to check out (fluff)Friends, where you can adopt a cute pet on your Facebook profile! Give your pet a name and a personality, earn munny and buy things from the (fluff)Shop, and enter your pet into (fluff)Races. With over 20 pets to choose from, and new features being added frequently, it's fun, free, and fluffy!"
I grew up in a household where fluff was code word for fart, so excuse me for not being very interested.


"Remember playing hangman when your were a kid? Well, you can live those days again by playing it on Facebook against people from all over the world. It is fun!"
This is just bad, bad copywriting.


"Jane Ashley sent an invitation using Love Match Predictor: You've been invited to use The Love Match Predictor! Jane wants you to try out The Love Match Predictor."
Yes, okay, I understand what 'invite' means, you don't have to repeat yourself ten thousand times.


GROUCHY!