There are some things in life that used to bother you, or me, a great deal; and now they don't bother you. For either reason: You got used to them, or the thing does not happen any more.

I have some pet anit-peeves:

1. Birds in the morning. I used to hate to wake up to their call. On July mornings, at four a.m. when I needed to get up only three hours later. Now I wake up to the sound of birds singing, and it fills my heart with joy.

2. Dog peeves. I used to hate to have to dodge the dog peeves on the sidewalk, and inhale the smell. Now everyone picks up after their dog, and the world is a better place for that.

3. Spitting in public. In Toronto, that's a national sport. Everybody spits outdoors. I hated that. It grossed me out, it was vile, and I was getting this close to punching some little old ladies out as they wound up for it with a loud harkening of nose-trills, underground in the subway stops. Here, in small town Ontario, nobody spits. Heaven!!

4. Smoking. It riled me to no end that I was unable to smoke at most places. White man came and took away our land where we, smokers, used to be free to smoke where our proud ancestors used to do it. Little by little, acre by acre, the white middle aged man relentlessly forced us smokers into reserves. Then when this situation became unbearably bad, I gave up my smokering habit.

My stepdad. Lol. He likes to wind me and my step-sisters up. Now i just roll my eyes at him and say "Whatever, dude!".

I didn't like to wake up early in the morning on my days off but now I'm finding that I like to get up before most of my neighbors and go sit outside...it's so quiet.

in your post you say "white man" that makes me wonder if you are of a native descent.

are you? If you are I will tell you something about spitting.

my anti-peeve is, and this sounds arrogant, stupidity.

Not having manners, not keeping your word, apathy, these things I always equated with stupidity....but i have mellowed.

I finally decided to be more accepting, and choose my battles more selectively lest i go completely mad.

Those who do the things that annoy me are not doing it to me, they are just being who they are, and ignorance may be a factor there...but god help anyone who litters in front of me I just might go berzerko. Not really but maybe.

Emo, please give my regards to your old step man. Please tell him I'd do the same if I were him. It's fun, twisting the minds of the younger of the species. In a well-meant way, of course.


Winterblue, it's time to wake up and smell the quiet. Really, I mean that. The first time I was able to get up regularly early on my own in my adulthood is when I started to live again.

Julie, I am of native descent. But not of America's First Nations, but indigenous to Hungary. I am also Jewish by birth. Christian by babtism. Atheist by conviction.

I said that thing coz I like to simulate an immediate change of scene in the flow of the story, like could be seen in movies such as... damn, I forgot the title. It was a very funny spoof movie about the "officer and a gentleman".

I used to be angry and I used to scream at people in public at the top of my lungs, too, and I decided to change and to lower the bar of my expectations for others, but the sheer decision did not do it -- but changing the taking of my psycho meds in the morning instead of the evening did the trick, though.

Are you a member of parliament in Canada? MP stands for that here. Who are you? I can only know that you are not me, but beyond that... it's anybody's game. (NOT that YOU would be anybody's game. Sorry, if it sounded that way.)

Down with Whitey! They hold a brother down and stiffle his mojo with big words and legislation....

wait a minute.....no they don't.

Each man sets his own limitations.


a man is only as small and insignificant as he allows.

You mean there is no bottom limit how small and insignificant a man can become.

Noted. Thanks.