… I don’t know if it’s all that important, but I was not affiliated with any particular political party at the time my boyfriend and I were saving seats for the Campus Democrats at our Homecoming game (if you missed yesterday’s post, here you go), but still perfectly happy to stave off drunk fraternity guys for a full two hours for a governor my parents had actively worked to keep from office just a year or two before.

My parents, probably trying to avoid showing how completely distraught they were over my dating this guy, were really good sports about the whole thing.

We arrived before the fraternity pledges who were supposed to be saving seats, and taped “Reserved for the Governor’s Party” signs to a section a few rows up from the field. We chatted for a while as people started to show up for the game.

I had a college boyfriend who lived by the principle that if one expects the worst from life, he’ll never be disappointed. I told myself he was a philosopher.

Not surprisingly, this guy was kind of a bummer to be around. I cannot fathom why I didn’t tell him to shine on after our first date. For some reason, I was terribly worried that, with as little as he had going for him, he’d find me lacking.

Anyway, this isn’t about him, or where my head was while I was dating him.

This piece actually started to be about making decisions based on love rather than on fear, and expecting the best. I was inspired by a clip from a commencement address Jim Carrey gave at some school for existential transcendental meditators or something.

Mike has a picture somewhere of himself standing with his sister, mom, and dad next to a sign shaped like Idaho. He is five years old and wearing the same wide grin we get from Colin when he poses for a picture. His sister is wearing short shorts and his dad has the most awesome moustache ever. His brother isn’t in the shot. He was holding the camera.

It is unofficial documentation of their emigration, forty years ago, to the place most of them have continued to live since.  Not long after, Mike’s two oldest brothers and their wives came out to join them.

Later this month I have a retreat with a group of ladies who serve on a board with me. We’re supposed to take a personality quiz beforehand and bring the results with us.

I love these things. I don’t know why. I take them and then read over the results and think “yup, that about sums it up,” and then I wonder if other results might also sound exactly like me, depending upon my mood, and if I’ve skewed the test by just answering stuff the way I want to be rather than the way I am. Then I forget what I was doing and go do something else. Eventually I forget what the results were altogether.

Never mind using these test results to make me a better person. I can never remember if I’m an ENTP, or Vermillion/Periwinkle, or an aspen versus a douglas fir, Yoda or Princes Leah, or what any of it means.

I do know I’m a Virgo, but I think I’m supposed to be a Leo who was too lazy to be born on time. Leo’s horoscopes are always the most interesting. Virgo is supposed to be systematically checking stuff off her list, earthy and patient.

Okay, I confess: I give money to panhandlers.

The reason is simple: I don’t like how it feels to avoid eye contact when I pass someone asking for help. I decided if I can hand over a buck without fumbling through my purse, if I feel safe, and am not enticing anyone to cross traffic, I’m going to give away money when asked.

I’m totally nearsighted, so clever signs don’t sway me. If the person isn’t too scary – not brandishing a machete, in other words – his appearance doesn’t matter, whether he’s sitting in a wheelchair, or dressed in a suit with a  Maserati parked around the corner.