At the risk of letting my arrogance show, I’m a smart guy. I always have been. In my family, it’s just kind of expected. As a child, I made a very big deal about being smart. It seemed the most important thing in the world to me, and I held my intelligence over all of my supposed peers. Obviously, I had a rather bad childhood partly because of my disdain for anyone I felt wasn’t in my intellectual class.

The point here is not that I was an arrogant bastard as a child, or even that I still am on occasion. The point is that even to this day I generally behave intelligently. It’s one of my oldest patterns and I rely on it a great deal. I enter into every conversation from a point of intellectual query or debate. I weigh the various arguments and question the assumptions of those I’m talking with.

But more and more, I find that I don’t have to be brainy all the time. There’s nothing wrong with indulging in sincere grumpiness in the morning, or getting slap-happy and stupid when I’m tired. And as I become more and more adept at being a social person (I wasn’t for most of my life), I realize that relaxing into my mood and being human about it is one of the things that makes for positive relationships.

So don’t look at me funny when I get excited about smurfs or midgets, or start clapping my feet and barking like a seal. I’m just exploring my stupid side