Sometimes, when I stop my bike, I close my eyes for a minute. I become aware of the sun hitting my skin, I feel my heart beating fast, my muscles aching, the sheen of sweat on my body and, if I'm lucky, the zing of the endorphins. I become aware of every sensation.

Even though that in-the-middle-of-exercise feeling kind of sucks (because exercise kind of sucks) I tell myself that it doesn't suck. That it feels good to be in my body, that my body is happy with me for putting it in motion. I spend a minute loving the feeling. And as soon as I start riding again, everything is heightened. I can feel the breeze cooling my skin, and it seems like I could go on for miles and miles.

The high wears off within five minutes or so, but it's a nice ritual anyway.

I'm not a very organized person (the understatement of the century) so when I realized I needed to unearth my GRE scores for something, I despaired at the Herculean task ahead of me. Then I opened my file cabinet, spotted a file marked "school records," and opened it straight to my GRE scores.

Total elapsed time: five seconds.

Well... whaddaya know.

Sitting next to my bed, I have two kinds of facial moisturizer, foot lotion, body lotion, skin cream, hand lotion and cuticle cream. It's a ten minute lotion procedure that I go through, every single night before I go to bed. And every night I wonder: when did I turn into this person?

For the record, I also have a complicated hair care system that involves a rotating array of shampoos and conditioners: dandruff control, volumizing, color protector, clarifying, what have you. I divide my hair into zones and then apply the shampoos accordingly. I use three shampoos and conditioners every time I wash my hair.

You know the guy who writes labels for toiletries, promising that you will be pampered and soothed, moisturized and clarified, softened and shined and prettified? That guy? Yeah. I am such his bitch.

Oh, here's something that's a little weird to write about, but hey, whatever.

I've never really thought of myself as a witty person. For the most part, I think of myself as someone who hangs around with witty people and laughs at their jokes. I mean, I know my writing can be witty, but I'm talking about off-the-cuff moments, conversational wit. I've always suspected myself of lacking it.

But recently, I've gotten all these compliments to the contrary. My friend Eric told me that he thinks of me as an effortlessly funny person, and I was amazed that he would think that. One of my work friends said she envies how I always know just the right thing to say, especially when bantering with customers. And then Tanya said she's glad she doesn't live in the same city as me, because she'd get a stomachache from laughing at everything I say. (She also said I was very pretty-- I vote we keep her around!)

Anyway, I think all these situations have one common denominator: these are people with whom I feel comfortable. When I'm around boys I like, or people who make me nervous, my wit completely runs dry. It's an effort for me to think of anything to say; if something zingy comes out, it's a bloody miracle.

I'm not telling you this to brag-- especially because now you'll all meet me at Journalcon and go, "Uh, yeah. Where's witty Mo, and who the hell are you, stick-in-the-mud?" I just wanted to write these things down so I don't forget them. Compliments are nice, don't you think?

"And I was freaking out, because clowns are scary, and born again Christians are scary. I was screaming, 'I don't even believe in God! Leave me alone!' and more and more clowns/Christians kept showing up, handing me Jesus plates and taking pictures of me."