Presumptuous twit alert.

A couple of months ago, vsct_caius name dropped me to an A&S minister with a local group about teaching. I offered to teach period Christmas carols for their November meeting. Great! Wonderful! We'll put you on the calendar!

Last night I came home to an email containing a "class description" in it that I did not write. It was written by someone who cannot survive a single event without dragging out his guitar and singing "The Moose Song." He may otherwise be a nice guy, but I tend to avoid him and any performance circle he may be attending.

First of all, how can you write a description of a class you are not yourself teaching? Did you consult the teacher? No. Do you know anything about the subject? You obviously didn't pay a whole lot of attention when I taught it to your group a couple of seasons ago. "Clever lyrics" and "rollicking" sound very slick and have pretty much NOTHING to do with what I was planning to teach. Especially given your demonstrated definition of "clever" and "rollicking." (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

No. Sorry, I am not taking this as a compliment. Or a favor.

Pray keep your Madison Avenue, SweetBetsyFromPikeFilking hands off my beautiful, devotional music.

A Curmudgeonly Public Service Announcement

The following is the result of two emails I received this morning from someone on behalf of someone who can't keep her panties on because I have not automatically friended her back.

You know what I really hate about LJ and the concept of internet "friends?"

People who "friend" me without identifying themselves. I will not automatically friend you back, especially if your user name gives me no clue as to whether I might already know you. You want to poke around in my journal, pray have the common courtesy to drop me an email and introduce yourself. To do so, you will have to actually read my profile and figure out how.

For my part, this is called being street smart. I get enough New Bestest Friends stalking me on my instant message service because I answered a question for them on a public forum once or via my website*.
(*Clue.)

For your part, O Reader, it demonstrates common courtesy and requires you to make an effort to prove that you are genuinely interested, especially in those cases when I have gone and looked at your profile and thought, "Who IS this? We have nothing in common. Why has this person friended me?"

Yes, I know, it sucks that LJ does not include a place to introduce oneself when one decides to "friend" someone. Use your imagination and think outside the box! Post something to your OWN journal with a subject line of "For person_I_just_friended" and introduce yourself. What a concept.  Or hey, post a comment to a public journal entry and introduce yourself there.

My journal, my rules.

Oh, and what part of the word "curmudgeon" did you not understand?


ADDENDUM: My thanks to those whose mamas raised them up right and have had the courtesy to say, "Hello, it's me!" I do appreciate it. (As of this writing, I am still waiting to hear from the person who felt the need to complain to someone who is a real friend in the non-internet sense that I had not friended her back, prompting this post in the first place. What's up with that?)

If your introduction tells me that you're interested in the things I post publicly anyway, (e.g., Japanese culture, costuming, medieval music or feeble attempts at humor I'm not afraid to keep to myself), you're welcome to tag along. Please don't be offended if I don't add you to my friend's list. The "friends only" posts are just that.