My hometown newspaper's lead story was about a guy who was selling his acres of apple trees. The story about the earthquake in Iran was under the fold. Unforgiveable, in my opinion. At least the Post led with it. There are some days when I'm glad I'm not connected to every story instantly. The sort of day when 5,000 turned out to be an eight-fold underestimate. Don't get me wrong: I don't want to bury my head in the sand. Being overjoyed at a time like this just seems a little unfair.

Holiday break, you know. Best Holiday ever. Details later, when I get a free moment. Given the current ratio of things-I-haven't-had-fun-with to things-I-haven't-eaten-yet I'm still hungry for more. All around.

So I hear about this poll about the issue of gay marriage. I go and vote. Of course, they're "verifying" by an e-mail address, which doesn't make the poll scientific. Nicely, over 64% of people answered that gay marriage was fine or that civil unions (my preference, as I don't think the state should be involved with religion) were acceptable. Equal rights under the law triumphs again. The downside? I get an e-mail this morning saying the following:

Dear Reed, I want to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas, and to offer my sincerest thanks for signing the American Family Association's poll on marriage.

This issue in America today is so near and dear to my heart. As a former homosexual, I believed I was born "gay." After 11 years in the "gay" lifestyle my life changed in 1992 when a Christian woman lovingly confronted me and my homosexuality with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I couldn't help but see the truth in God's Word that my homosexuality was sin before a holy God.

Lives world wide are being changed daily by the power of Jesus Christ. I am one of thousands of men and women who have walked away from homosexuality, and who have become the men and women that God has created us to be.

Um, news flash, kid. If people weren't "born" gay then they must have "chosen" to become gay. So I'm sure those kids in high school who got beat up every day, or the ones who carry on sham marriages, are just making a "choice" right? I mean, they must want to be discriminated against, right? Because at the end of the day, it makes total sense that they'd choose to be one of the most marginalized groups in existence, one that was consistently persecuted against for all time. Right? Sheesh. I don't doubt that a few people over the history of time have been able to deprogram their sexual orientation and redirect it in a different direction, but we're talking chemicals here, interacting with other chemicals. I mean, if people were given the choice to be who they wanted to be, I'm sure many would choose to be a blue eyed American white man making serious coin and living in a nice house. Oh, wait: that's me! Just because I lucked out in the global lottery of good parents (help from nature and nuture!) doesn't mean that I should have it easier than everyone else. Or that I should go around crushing those less fortunate than me.

Just as I was starting to get down about these weirdos, (the AFA, that is) I read that Nader isn't running as a Green Party candidate. What happened? Well, I'm sure enough people told Ralph what they thought about him running. You send the Dean people over there and you get an instant /. effect where everyone is fighting for good and for ABB in 2004. It just goes to show, along with the AFA poll, that when you arouse the citizens of the blogosphere, you get a lot of educated techies who may occasionally veer towards libertarianism, but who know that Bush is the worse president in modern history. The Greens and the AFA are learning that lesson today. And that knowledge warmed my holiday heart.

A few reviews to throw up, but later. Between my ongoing laundry and the too many to count pages of the victorian/indian soap opera I haven't cracked in three days I've got plenty to work on. Plus, an idea has been bubbling in the back of my mind so I had to work on that to get a few words down.

After going to Beantown with Deborah and performing an elaborate switch with her to enable me to bring Brad back to the land of little representation, I'm slightly tired. (Of course, there's no place like Boston to cure a case of white skin angst! Those people up there are so pale it hurts to look at them.) I ended up driving over 3/4 of the entire journey, with aome slight festivities between the two days. Now I'm back, working hard as ever, and devoting some time to last-minute shopping.

This conveniently, brings me to a larger point I'd like to tackle this evening: namely, my inherent laziness.

You see, most people are either fairly mellow or a little high-strung. Most of my friends and co-workers tend to fall into the latter category. Maybe it's a DC thing, but the days of meeting friends who liked to be mellow, chill out all the time, abandoning long term ambitions, seem to be over. Instead, almost everyone here is either studying hard, working hard or partying hard.

You see, for those of us, including YT, who burn our candles twice as bright, there are further distinctions. I'd like to explicate those, to show that a lazy person can work hard sometimes, and vice versa. If one looks at my current trajectory it's quite easy to see my point. When I first snagged a job it paid poorly, but offered the opportunity for overtime pay. Consequently, I worked a great deal. Later I scored a better paying job which enabled me to get off of work at 3:00pm. Despite being a hellish job during the hours I had to work, it was over quite quickly so I ended up making more money for less work. Now, at an even better job, I make much more money while working far less. You could say I'm working smarter, not harder. Or you could be honest and recognize that I've managed to achieve a significant goal of any lazy person: working less for more money.

Of course, this is not to say that I'm not busy, merely that I'm working (in the conventional sense) at a pace that's slower. To draw this distinction more perfectly, let me merely suggest that another person, in my position, would probably get tons more work done. They'd be paid the same amount, yet work a great deal harder for little gain. I think that's foolish.

Put yourself on a beach. Are you

• A: the guy who is working on his tan
• B: the girl who is reading a book
• C: the people playing volleyball

More importantly, which would you rather be? I admit, I'd probably be multitasking by tanning and working on a good book. But if someone were to ask me to play volleyball, I would. Perhaps I should use a better example.

In every office, there are several workaholics. Some end up working late each day, sacrificing family and fun for the greater corporate good. We'll call this type of person the "hard" worker. Then there are the people who show up a little later, leave on time, but eschew chit-chat and socializing during the day. They prefer to hit a happy hour later, but while at work they're just professional. We'll call these people the "efficient" workers. Finally, there are the guys who show up early, but hit the coffee circuit, ask about the big game last night, and leave a few minutes early to hit a happy hour. These are the "social" workers.

A myriad of combinations exist between these three, but it's a good way to break down people. We're leaving out people too mellow to get a job in a high-stress environment, which is why even the "social" workers have to be smart and talented to get in. One can also substitute "work" for "school" and see the same effect, only with studying instead of working. As a lazy person, I definitely fit the "efficient" worker. Most of my day is spent attempting to either make myself obsolete (through simplification of existing routines) or to accomplish difficult tasks using less effort. If someone drops a five-hour project on my lap, and I realize that I can have it done in five minutes if I blow three hours creating a new system to do it with, I'll go ahread and waste three hours. The true lazy person always looks long term, to see if there are any cost-savings that can be built into the beginning.

I remember while at school, I used to spend the first week reading all the books for my English classes in advance. That way the stories and information flowed better, rather than breaking it down into chapters. Yet when paper writing time came, I frequently procrastinated until the final evening. Why the distinction? Well, as a lazy person, I realized early on that large grades hinged on big papers. Hence, the papers had to be completed. Doing them a week early didn't make them more completed than doing them two days before they were due. In fact, waiting until the last minute meant that rather than be distracted by other desires, I'd have to burrow down and get busy excavating the facts. Books, on the other hand, were for no points at all. Given the choice between seeing a movie or hanging with friends and reading a book, I'd always choose the former. Hence, by reading the books early the first week (before the real social events began to start) I would enable myself to hit more social stuff later. Yeah, by the end of the semester I'd forgotten some of the stuff, but that info was probably boring to begin with.

The true lazy person at works looks constantly for similar methods. If something can be done in five minutes, why waste ten? If a long term project won't be completed for three months, why start in advance? Haste, at least in my experience, does not make waste. Instead, it inspires a better work ethos.

The problem, of course, is that methods of study or work are not meant for the social sphere. Being "busy" with social events doesn't accomplish a named goal. I'm always annoyed by my friends who seem to have dinner plans each evening with a different group of people, as if they were attempting some sort of race circuit with the rather nebulous end goal of reviewing the entire district from a culinary perspective. When the bell rings to let out class, or to end the work day, many "hard" workers stay to keep working. I don't empathize with them. I'm halfway out the door already. But who makes it to the next level, then? I'm equally disdainful of my friends who are super-social but too busy to be mellow. You know: the person reading the business book at the beach. Some people believe that "networking" is a good in and of itself. I'm not too sure about that. Actually, I am sure. It's not good. I'd rather have one person I trusted than five who knew me superficially.

Odd, isn't it? That someone with such a poor good/superficial friend ratio would expres those sentiments. Well, again, without going into my bizarre friendship theory (which I can tackle during an entire post later this week) let me just say that I'm not drawn towards people who are always busy. I prefer people who can prioritize certain friends over business and social obligations. Being a social person is good, but only if it's backed up with a real desire to (as in my previous post) push the envelope in terms of going the distance and actually talking to people rather than simply making banal comments about the weather.

And so, to continue my slothful attitude, I like to hang around people in a social sense who don't employ numerous defenses to prevent me from getting to know them. If you're going to play hard to know, then you should remain unknown. Yes, I'm turned off by the person who instantly divulges a level of detail only a good friend should know, but at the same time, if I disagree with you on something, I'd much rather know about it (ya hearing me you GOP people?) so that I can find some common ground. Being sneaky about it or concealing your true motives is frustrating.

Which comes, nicely, full circle to my own hypocrisy: I'd much rather listen to someone tell me about their opinion than talk myself. Yet I frequently overwhelm people with my own rants. Why the disconnect? Perhaps because most of it is simply snow; witty banter designed to fill the space of a conversation. I want, more desperately than anything, to have people push back. Consider it a test. The super-talkitive people simply enage in further snow, while the truly interesting thing, deploy a pointed barb, and retreat to see my reaction. That level of verbal sophistication is attractive. Perhaps it's why I like people who argue with me. Okay, time to hit the book, laundry and other website. I've come up with at least two future topics, which is good. Plus, I only scraped the surface on my dislike for workaholics, of which I don't consider myself one. Perhaps next post.

Two days. Over a thousand miles logged. Very tired now. Will explain later.