Dispatches from The Other 32 Percent

Statisticians measure *everything,* it seems. And one has recently estimated that fully 68 percent of my life is covered on my blog.

Personally, I dispute this finding because I see most of my blog entries as covering events that last anywhere from 30 seconds (like the drivers who insisted that I cross the street) to an hour (my cello lesson). Some of my blog entries do not even cover experiences of my life, per se (my dismay about Warren Buffet giving all the money to Bill Gates), while others mention things that occurred YEARS ago (and thus take up no more of my time than what's used in the recollecting).

But as I have learned, you can't argue with statistics. They can be bent and molded and played with and otherwise manipulated to mean anything. Any agreement over the meaning of a statistic is as ephemeral as a french fry placed in front of the right person.

So let's just temporarily accept the premise that what you've read prior to this entry constitutes SIXTY-EIGHT percent of my life. What's in the other 32 percent? What is it that I'm not telling you? ... If I tell you about it, does it automatically get folded into the other 68 percent? Or does it simply make the percentage I'm sharing grow, so that an exta four out of 100 details would mean I'm sharing 72 percent?

I would like to suspend all discussion of math for a moment and just present these little examples as Dispatches from The Other 32 Percent:

-- A few days ago, I burned the bottom of my right foot when I came across a small fire on the sidewalk and tried to stamp it out while wearing sandals. Burning embers of bark dust got in through the openings, proving that no good deed goes unpunished.

-- There was a long, hot hike in the woods a couple weeks ago with three other people and a dog (not mine) that never made the papers. You might ask yourself how it is possible that, if my blog reports on 68 percent of my life, this never managed to show up until now. Nor the delicious nap I took afterward. In fact, there's no report of my activities on that day at all. Which should lead curious minds to wonder: Just what *was* I doing, especially when even consumption of a chocolate croissant (pain au chocolat for those of us who love such things and find French very sexy) did not warrant my reportage?

-- There was, quite recently, a lovely picnic with friends in a formal and very fragrant rose garden. The only downside was drinking wine from plastic cups and that it didn't go on just a little bit longer.

-- Problems I'm having working my core muscles are starting to make me think I might have MS.

-- There was some berry-picking out on Sauvie Island, and several people got to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

-- I never said just *what* I was doing with (the actress who played) Nellie Oleson in the parking lot. But I think that might have to stay in the unreported 32 percent.

-- There are other things I watch on television than Letterman and "The New Adventures of Old Christine." I'm ashamed to say that "The Deadliest Catch" is among them, but there you have it.

-- Sushi gets consumed with various parties, all of whom I love for reasons that go beyond the willingness to eat raw fish.

-- Back in my report on the book "Gastronaut," I concluded by noting that I had something "utterly Bacchanalian to do." You still don't know what that was, so there *must* be more to this all than just 32 percent....

-- There was a lunch recently with XGF that included a rather tedious family-related story for my dining entertainment.

-- A man with Tourette's syndrom yells at the pup on a regular basis. This is conditioning the pup in a most disturbing way.

-- Someone tried to set me up with a woman who, among other problems, also apparently has Tourette's ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), which is making me wonder about my odds of *ever* finding a decent woman. Altogether, it's making me brush up on my self-care techniques, if you know what I mean. And that pretty much stays in the 32 percent, unless I'm feeling a little loosey-goosey about what I write.

-- I've learned how to make hair meatballs, a time-saving technique that allows me even more experiences in my life that do not get reported in the typical 68 percent.

-- I have a few secret relationships (with humans, *not* body-snatcing extra-terrestrials) that no one in my daily life knows anything about, and it's going to stay that way.

-- And although I could go on at some absurd length about the stuff I'm *not* reporting on myself and life around me, I will note that all readers of this blog who have personal contact with me know there's plenty we talk about and do individually and with others that does not appear herein. That is because I value these relationships and our experiences together, and putting 68 percent of our relating online would be a grotesque violation of your privacy, as well as giving away, very unnecessarily, the rich detail of our human lives and the experience of loving one another, no matter how it's expressed. (If you want to read about that stuff, you'll have to buy the book.)

Suffice it to say, there's more. But I'll return you now to our scheduled program, The Regular Old 68 Percent, already in progress:

... which is why," he said, "that feminism has caused the decline of the American family and morality and an increase in drug abuse in the last 40 years."

And how did I respond to that? Well, I made some wisecrack about John Cheever novels being full of post-war alcohol consumption, but I decided to let others take a whack at him this time.

Anyway, later, when it was pointed out to me that I had referred to "colored people" while talking about barriers placed in front of women and minorities, I had to hang my own head in shame. Where the fuck did that antiquated term come from? I *never* use it. At least, not 68 percent of the time.