Indy writes:

regarding "what is a fair distribution of labor in a marriage partnership between equals, I think the obvious answer is that it should be 50-50"

i would like to point to a dr. philism stating that the commitment to and what one contribute to the marriage should be 100-100

Dr Phil's approach still leaves you with the opportunity to find fault with your mate if your judgment is that they're not playing at 100%.

Try this: The relationship is 100% your responsibility, 0% theirs. Because you don't have the expectation, anything they do to improve the relationship is a welcome bonus. Because you don't have the expectation, their "failure" to improve the relationship isn't a failure - it's a validation of your wisdom.

(This requires some mental gymnastics to deal with the paradox of responsibility vs. expectation - but trust me, I stopped suffering over the wet towels left all over the house when I started assuming 100% responsibility for the relationship with my wife.)

Humans are social animals. Introvert or extrovert, you're part of a species that depends on contact with others. You weren't always a loner, satisfied with your "purposeful solitude" and your solitary hobbies and your relief that you didn't have to engage the mailman in yet another twenty words of chit-chat. Think back on what life was like when you were 2, 3, 4 years old. You wanted to play with everyone. Sure, sometimes you wanted to play with Jenny and her doll collection (introvert); or maybe you wanted to marshall all the kids in the sandbox (extrovert). But you craved the contact.

Then things started to happen. Your outstretched hand got slapped away. Your parents said you couldn't play with the boy down the street, though you couldn't quite understand why. You were the odd man out in your little group. The girl said she loved someone else. You said to yourself, "I won't do that again." And you didn't. And here you are, decades later, rationalizing your loneliness with weak explanations of why you're afraid to be around people.

Because here's the paradox: People are assholes. Everyone has the capacity to be a complete jerk (yes, even your sainted mother) -- and everyone IS a jerk at some point. Even you. No, ESPECIALLY you. But so what? We all share that. We have all been hurt by people around us, and we have hurt those around us. Some of us just didn't care for the experience so much that we shut ourselves off from our humanity. That's the crux of the matter: to pick ourselves up, to say, "Wow, that stings, but let's try again." But don't kid yourself: Isolation is not wisdom.

Peter Gabriel said it brilliantly in "I Have the Touch":

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/phenomenon/ihavethetouch.htm

Attributed to Phyllis Diller: "We've been married so long, we're on our second bottle of Tabasco."

As for the lethality of mayonnaise, it's the combination of mayo and sunlight that renders it poisonous. Keep the tater salad in the shade of the big elm!

I confess to nurturing some conspiracy theories about Indian call centers and coordinated efforts by the Indian community in the US -- Sanjaya is so outclassed by his competitors that it's been jawdroppingly shocking when he remains standing at the end of recent rounds. In the end, however, it's the number of votes cast, not the quality of the singer, and as Anonymous points out upthread, Idol has a history of promoting the puppy dogs past their prime.

We've been watching the first season on Rewind, and it's similarly shocking to note that Nikki McKibben, who made it all the way to the Top Three, sucked almost as badly as Sanjaya. But she looked hot, and that had to count for something when the votes were cast.

We'll know there's a fix in when Sanjaya knocks off any of the three eventual finalists: Melinda, LaKisha, or Jordin.

Three summers ago I undertook a similarly insane venture: The AIDS LifeCycle (see aidslifecycle.org), a 7-day, 585-mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was a life-altering event, and here are some things I learned that are pertinent to Andrew's questions:

First, California is really big. And most of it isn't Toll Brothers tract housing (at least not the routes we took, which focused on Salinas Valley agriculture, Santa Maria hills and Pismo Beach coastland). It's spectacularly beautiful. Yes, land planners are doing dumb things, but it's eclipsed by our natural environment.

Second, you'll have valuable insights irrespective of whether you can research them on the Web or not. You've been doing HTWW long enough that you'll see unseen connections in areas in which you're already an expert.

Third, don't worry about the physical problems. If you can ride a century already, you're fit enough. Everyone's rear-end hurts like hell by Day Four, even if you're a skinny little dude on a $5000 Seven. I was one of the fattest riders during my ride and I still pedaled every inch.

caropepe: Maybe I'll go look up some semi-obscure British punk bands from my youth in the 80's on iTunes...

I sure hope you're not suggesting The Jam were "semi-obscure British punk band": They were mods, not punks, and during their heyday they were bigger than Jesus in the UK. Never caught on much in the US, though. My favorite power trio ever.

/lurk

Yeah, I'd be mad if the only FZ album I was allowed to listen to was Uncle Meat (or Yellow Shark) -- but just the other day I found myself hankering to listen to One Size Fits All for the three hundredth time. Zappa does have albums that aren't all snark or juvenile humor, but this is the guy who released Does Humor Belong In Music? To not expect to hear snark from him is akin to expecting Morrissey to sing about puppies (live ones, anyway).

Classic records that I would die happy if I never heard again:

Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic

anything by the Eagles

anything by the Doors