they forgot "less tolerant of complete fools"

According to OkCupid's new personality award thingies, I am...

more aggressive
more ambitious
more artistic
more literary
more desiring of sex
more trusting
more well-mannered

and

less dorky
less indie
less desiring of love

...which to me seems like a frighteningly accurate assessment of my life and personality via funny little pictures. If by "trusting" you mean "more likely to be able to take most people out if they get out of hand" and by "well-mannered" you mean "more likely to fucking kill you if you don't acknowledge that it was me letting you into traffic and not your superior driving skills, you brain-damaged asshole."

Some douchebag wrote in to the paper whining about people swearing. Really? Swearing is the problem that gets you so bothered that you feel the need to write in to the paper to combat the problem? Not global warming, our unjustified war with Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il both being crazier than Bobby Trendy on crystal meth, and Steely McBeam still at large? It's not AIDS or world hunger or female circumcision or terrorism or Toby Keith fans? The entire world running out of oil and yet having no feasible solution to meet our insatiable need for power and they still let Britney Spears out in public?

Swearing, huh? Yeah, I get it. I can see in a world where Osama bin Laden is still chilling out somewhere with time to Clairol his chin pubes, you'd really be upset about my frequent use of the word "cunt." Because somewhere in a concentration camp in North Korea, someone whose second cousin was rumored to have complained about the weather had his fingernails ripped out right as I stubbed my toe and said "fuck." Clearly, something needs to be done about me and what I've done to the world.

the other night, she said "twat" at the dinner table

So I bought one of those Magic Eraser things to scrub the scum off our shower grout. Those things actually work, which is kind of amazing. Because that type of product almost never works. But that's not what I wanted to tell you.

No, I wanted to tell you all that my mother has finally given up trying to clean up my mouth. After about 25 years. I'm glad she didn't reach the official quartercentennial under the delusion that eventually I won't sound like a truck-driving sailor who just smashed his thumb in a door. Or, you know, her.

On the Magic Eraser package, it says not to use on your skin, because it "may cause abrasion." I'd fucking hope that my skin wouldn't be able to hold up to something I'd use to clean up mildew. Something would be extremely wrong with the makeup of my epidermis if it had the relative toughness of, say, a triceratops.

Me: May cause abrasion. Damn. I was gonna use it on my taint.
Mom: Turn it into a 'twas.

Thank you and goodnight.