[We had a meeting with London today about the ongoing (now nearly 2 years old, and still far from completed) process to redesign our company Web site. It was so disheartening that it entirely sapped my will.

I have enough strength to lift peanut M&Ms into my mouth, but that is all. As soon as I even think about addressing the work that needs to be done today, my mind blanks in fear, and despair clutches me 'bout the throat until I give up and go get some more M&Ms.

Also, I find that I have once again forgotten my fencing clothes, so I will conveniently be skipping my third fencing session in a row. At this point, it is beyond carelessness - I think I am afraid of suffering again the humiliation I experienced at my first open fencing session a couple of weeks ago. Even though I rationally acknowledge that continual thrashings are what I need to improve. Alas.

But on the positive side, both of my broken ddr metal pads have arrived in Seattle, and rather than wait for them to be delivered tomorrow, I am going to swing by the Airborne station after work and pick them up. Hopefully they will repair nice and quick and I won't have to rewire them. But one way or another, I'll be playing DDR this weekend on shiny, sturdy, non-step-missing metal pads! Excitement!

At the beginning of the day, I was going to go to a sports store and buy a change of clothes so I could go to fencing, but having my DDR pads is even cooler than fencing, so that put the last nail in tonight's go-to-fencing coffin.]

Since I am skipping fencing, here is a story that happened right outside Salle Auriol. I had just arrived and was looking for parking. Coming around the corner of the building, I saw a young lady standing at the corner, her purse on the ground, and the purse's contents all over the place. "Oooh, bad luck," I thought. Then I looked back at the girl. She was wearing a skirt so terribly short that I will not even tell you about the thoughts that went through my head as she squatted to gather her stuff when I drove around the corner.

And she had legs skinny like you just never see in real life, not even if you knew D~, our old Saltmine receptionist. She was wearing a tiny tight shirt under an insubstantial little jacket, and was wrapped in an enormous poofy feather boa.

And before the feather boa lobby gets on my back, let me go on record stating that feather boas are great, the height of self-confident expression. But combined with the rest of her outfit, you just could not help but form unsavory opinions about her character and/or profession.

A couple of minutes later, after I had parked and was walking with my equipment bag, I saw that she was still crouched on the corner, fiddling with her purse full of stuff on the ground. Was she applying makeup, or what? I stood there, completely undecided.

What I needed to do was walk into the salle and get some learning done. What I really wanted to do was walk up to her and ask her, "so hey, what's your story?" She looked fragile, crouched on the corner with her belongings everywhere. But then, by her choice of dress, she was exposed to the public, so presumably she had some toughness?

Was she a prostitute? Was she a drug addict? Was she one of the two that led to the other and now she is both? How else could she get so emaciated without a drug addiction? And more importantly, how did she get there?

Because we all start out with experiences that are pretty similar, in a wide-band sort of way. There are exceptions. There are kids who get beaten or thrown out of the house or abandoned in other ways, but no way are there enough of those cases to account for all the people on the street.

(And, of course, there are exceptions to the exceptions. T~ is a strong girl who got kicked out of home while in high school and went promptly out and got a job and found her own place to live and took care of herself; finishing school, getting a career, buying a condo, and everything else you expect of a grown-up. Kudos to T~!)

Is it just chance? Is it bad luck? Because while I do not suffer from an irrational fear of suddenly becoming homeless (I was surprised to find out last week that quite a few people I know do have this fear. Generally it drives them to good habits like saving and thorough preparation for the future. But still, that would be a lot of worry to carry around with you. Quite the day for parentheticals, isn't it?), I would be even more reassured if there was something I could call a dividing line and monitor myself for staying on the safe side of that line.

If we generally all start on the same page, how is it that I am all shiny and sparkly and enjoy such a comfortable life o'disposable income, while really nice people are homeless? (Warning: my father does not like that link. He thought I was judgmental and supercilious, which I feel really bad about, but such was not my intent.)

At the end of it, hesitation made my decision for me. I had stood there, trying not to look like I was looking at her, for too long. She finally got all her stuff packed and walked off. Too late, I walked after her a little, and watched her fade as she walked block after block. Wherever she was going, she was not driving or taking a bus. When I walked around the block a little later, I saw that the Seattle Opera had a rehearsal space right across the street from the girl's corner.

So it might even be possible that she was an opera singer who was so confident in her coolness that she could flaunt her skinniness in all sorts of dodgy ways and walk home via miles of alleyways in the cold of night while wearing not nearly enough clothing. One never knows.

And then the overarching question is whether "so, what's your story?" is even a valid question. What would you answer if I came up and made your acquaintance by asking what your story was?

It is far too broad to even hope to answer in a comprehensive way. But I think it would be fascinating to see what people would pick as their key points in answering. How do you tell the five minute story of your life? Do you pick events from your childhood? Was growing through the challenges of your adolescence the defining set of events in your life?

I would bet that, as a matter of course, most people would tell me what they do for a living as part of their answer, but if I asked them would also deny that their jobs define them.

You might mention some things that happened within the last year, because they are relatively fresh in mind, but how many defining events do you list between a few years after college and the present? They are probably out there, and probably went a long way towards shaping who I am today, as opposed to who I was five or ten years ago, but somehow they do not stick out the same way that the early-life (much less relevant to my current life) experiences do.

Possibly because I am now oh-so-much-more mature or something, and have a better emotional toolbox, and so events in recent years feel evolutionary instead of revolutionary as they did in my youth. I would probably agree that "what's your story?" is a really unfair question. But I am nonetheless seduced its evil funness! It may well become my favorite inquiry of strangers. So, then... what's your story?

[Okay, I unpacked the first "broken" DDR pad, and there was nothing at all wrong with it! All the buttons worked, it played perfectly, it was heaven! I did the required pre-emptive repairs, and now the pad works so pretty, it just makes me want to cry. I am dead happy.

Finally I can dance in my Chucks. Sweet! Then I opened the second box, and again, all the buttons work! The only problem with pad number two is that the acrylic on the left button is broken. I will probably jog over to Home Depot and get some replacement plastic for it. Dang! I am gonna dance non-stop for the next two weeks. I am gonna do so much solo and doubles that the regular old four-pad songs will seem like sleepwalking. Ahhh... the glory of new toys!]