41. morning talk

i visited my office friend denise this morning and we fell to talking about how, given the politics present in any office (especially a government one), our boss would benefit from having a network of spies under her control, infiltrating every division and delivering all sorts of news from the grapevine - ensuring her a vast well of information to draw from as chief communicator.

i then remembered varys, the master spy character in george r.r. martin's epic a song of ice and fire, who is nicknamed the spider for the webs he weaves in and around people to serve the ends of - well, we aren't sure yet whose. varys is a eunuch, and i gamely gave denise a rundown of what being a eunuch entails, that is, as being a man castrated early on in life to curtail forever the changes that puberty brings (hence throughout history eunuchs have been prized for their childlike voices and youthful appearance, as well as their sexual incapability that makes them ideal - trusted? - companions - or guards? - for kept women, as in a harem.). (and denise was fascinated, unsurprisingly. and come to think of it, disturbingly. haha.)

it was a fun conversation that diverged in many bubbling streams of talk, and i relate this now because  i realize how characteristic it is of my social skills that i blurt out random things (at many unsequenced moments) and that this is how i usually carry discussions with people. i am a blurt-outer, to often my detriment and skewed sense of amusement. i listen well but then my mind opens up doors and doors of stories read and heard somewhere or watched or picked up from cheeky eavesdropping or imagined, and my singular fault is that i just can't let them go (or fleet?^^) unsaid. i say them out loud, deadpan, sarcastic, or wonderingly, snatching them from thin air to either give them form or allow them to wisp away.

i think i've read somewhere (or, well, at least i sense that the world says that it should be) that to grow up is to cultivate a mastery of the tongue and a pleasant form of speech that is cultured and whenever possible, polite. in that sense, i despair of ever reaching maturity at this ripe old age of 26.: ) like a eunuch, i was castrated as a young girl of the proper formalities of talk when i sought books and media forms more than i did a bustling social life. as a result, mirrored by my affinity for sentences that never end, i have a non-linear way of communicating that makes me right at home with shared confidences and positively useless with straightlaced business/economic talk. that said, maybe there's no harm in growing up a little, to edit, be more deliberate, more concise, more gracious. there's a balance to be desired, and perhaps i will be better for it.: )