a day late, another river

Found a dollar in one of the dryers today. Score! Three thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine more of those and I'm good on that upcoming deposit.

Also while waiting for the laundry I leafed through some back issues of Redbook ... Read up on Tyra Banks' "Sisterhood Initiative" - sounds like hooey coming from the host of "America's Next Top Model," if you ask me - but in theory, how wonderful. I'd love to reach out to certain people and say, "Let's put the stupid [incident] [guy] [conversation] [misunderstanding] behind us and appreciate how much we have in common." Two, three, four years ago I would have read that article and jumped on my email right away, or worse, on the phone, and said just that. Fortunately I've learned that no matter the nature, nothing should be done in the heat of the moment - neither declarations made in fury nor olive branches extended in moments of bright white sisterly inspiration.

This was written so long ago, but is the way I've always felt about relationships compromised by the presence of an outside party. It is not the responsibility of the outside party to look out for the feelings of the people in the relationship. Sometimes it's very tempting to blame the outside party for whatever problems there are, but in truth, it's the person carrying on the side relationship with the outside party who needs to take care of it. The outside party may be a true friend, completely innocent, or an overinvolved, blathering tart - either way, it is not her fault that things aren't working out.

Still, and sadly, no white flags will be flown. Though the moment is long gone, the intense heat remains.