My one British friend on fat people: 2 things.

1) When my one lawyer friend from Missouri and I were talking about my mother's position that fat people on planes should definitely pay more since it takes that much more to get them up in the air and fly them across the country, my one British friend said that they should 1st correlate it with the passenger's economic data since fatness correlates with class, and that way the rich fat people should pay more since they really have no excuse.

2) My one Britsh friend was also saying that just the other day he was telling his sister that she'll get fat and then get depressed and then eat more and get fatter and more depressed, and finally people will laugh at her to her face and then she'll not be able to take it anymore and commit suicide.

"Why were you telling her that?", I was like. "She's pretty slim."

"I know," he was like, "But she was eating a bag of crisps and I invited her to the gym and she said no, so I just wanted to let her know about the path she was on."

"And how'd she respond to that?", I was like.

"Oh, she said she was fine and that she wasn't too worried about that," he was like.

Saying picked up by my Muslim friend.

You know how some people say "WTF" in casual conversation, picking up the email acroynym for "what the f*ck?".

Well, my one half-British half-African (Muslim) friend does the same thing for "OMG!", though the 1st time I ever heard him do that, I was like, "Shouldn't you be saying, 'OMA!'?".

Anyhow, when I saw him last week, he started saying OMG, then self-corrected to OMA, and started he thanking me for suggesting that phrase to him, and he said that he's been using it all the time, whether in email or IMing or conversation.

"It really makes people stop and pause and think about how biased their language is," he was like.

How upsetting: Islamophobia.

I really dislike all the anti-Islamic stuff in the media, and then the other day when I was biking to a library downtown to use their collection, I was passing a construction site and saw a workman whose t-shirt said "INFIDEL" on the back with Arabic characters underneath (presumably "infidel" in Arabic?).

Working with abused women.

My one friend from high school is doing her doctorate in social psychology and her dissertation involves interviews with battered women.

"Is it quantative?", I was like. "Do you go around and measure their bruises?".

Days later, when I told my mom that my friend from high school was volunteering at a battered women's shelter, she was like, "Oh, what does she do, wipe the blood off their faces?"

Then, she was like, "Don't tell [my friend] I said that."

Went to a store with my mom.

"Aren't the people fat?", she was like.

"Not really," I was like.

"Well," she said, "They are, and that just goes to show you that the really really fat people you see around have so skewed your perception of what's big, you don't even recognize a fat person when you see one any more."

Testicle buddies.

My one friend from high school's husband since college has had cyst (sp.?) on his left nut that got so big that until like a month ago she thought her husband had a 3rd ball...

His doctors said it was backed-up, hardened sperm, but not to worry unless it was uncomfortable, and like a month ago, it started getting uncomfortable, so he went in for surgery like 2 or 3 weeks ago to get it off, and that laid him up all Labor Day weekend to sit at home and recover, since walking would inflame his scrotum and make it painfully swell up.

"You guys are ball buddies," my friend was like when she was telling me about it. "[First name of my friend's husband] just says he had 'personal surgery', but once he heard about your parasite, he said it was okay to tell you."

Then, she was like, "You guys are ball buddies!", and suggested that we chest-butt every time we see each other.

When we stopped by her house - I spent half a day hanging out there before she drove me to the train station - her husband was on the couch watching tv, and while we talked, he would lay there with one hand down his pants holding this big bulge of an icepack on his crotch while he looked at me and carried on a normal conversation.

"Sorry," I was like, "This is too weird, I'm going to go talk to your wife now," I was like, and left, which both of them thought was funny.

"You know," my friend was like, "That is kind of weird that he has a hand down his pants while he's talking to you."

Electrical and geese confusion.

1) I had unplugged lamps before leaving for the long weekend. I replugged in the lamp but it wouldn't turn on, which made me wonder if I had a bad wall outlet that might catch fire... Until I realized I was plugging in a nearby window fan and then trying to turn on the lamp!

2) The other morning when I was translating Greek over breakfast, I heard geese honking... and looked out the window to see a big V of geese flying north!