(Possibly Misguided) Advice #1: Holding Open the Door

Whether I'm having the greatest morning of my life, or just fell out of the bed (resulting in a lousy mood), or just fell out of the bed but ending up in a great mood anyway, I always remember to consider holding open the door for the next person.

The life of a student in winter is pretty awful. We wake up in the dark, haul ourselves out of bed (I personally use three alarm clocks to make sure I get to this point), turn on the lights so we can see what we're wearing, accept the immediately following eye-soreness caused by the lights, then we begrudgingly drag our feet out the door on our way to school, knowing that the sun will come and go before we can even think of the final bell. If you find yourself having to face the additional obstacle of a heavy, heat-conserving door that insists that you literally pry it open with all your feeble morning muscles, holding it open for just a few seconds so someone else doesn't have to can make another person's otherwise bleak day just that much more bearable.

However, sometimes it's hard to know whether you should stop and hold the door, or let it fall. If the next person to pass through the doors is still a good thirty seconds away, you can safely release the door knowing that you have done nothing wrong. However, there are few things that can make me feel worse then miscalculating and dropping the door, only to hear it flung open again before it even falls shut. Especially with the door to my school, which has a very incriminating squeak to it. So, to help you help me help you, here are my rules of door-holding-open-ness.

RULES OF DOOR-HOLDING-OPEN-NESS (repetition is your friend):
If the person behind you...
1. ...reaches the door before you can pass through it, hold it.
2. ...reaches the platform to the door as you touch the door (ie. a short flight of stairs leading up), hold it.
3. ...is carrying many things, is on crutches, or for some other reason doesn't have the use of a limb (for instance, they may be missing one), hold it.
4. ...is someone you recognize, hold it. There is nothing worse then having someone you know let the door fall on your face.
5. ...is a dinosaur, hold it. Some dinosaurs have notoriously short and silly arms that make door opening very inconvenient.

You may let the door fall if...
1. ...you believe the door will stay closed for at least five seconds before it is opened again.
2. ...the person behind you is a vampire. Sparkly or otherwise, most of the people within a building like to keep their skin intact and their blood un-sucked. Unless of course the building is a hospital and the vampire is really a blood transfusion doctor.
3. ...the person behind you isn't really a person at all and is in fact a non-adorable, vicious animal (or vegetable).

P.S. If you are holding open a door, but have made the perilous mistake of stepping too far in and feel your poorly supported fingers start to break as the weight of the door bares down on them, it's okay if you accidentally release the door. However, if this causes damage to someone's face, you are obligated to get them a band aid with a childish theme on them. I recommend Hello Kitty.

Or Maybe I was Just Making a Poopie

The kinds of scenarios that go through my head are probably the same kind of thoughts that will end me up in an asylum.

For example, sometimes I wonder if people can read my mind. When strangers give me a look, or a friend doesn't see me in the hallway, I always come up with this horrible idea that they've somehow discovered that I was just thinking about putting peanut butter on my feet or dumping glitter on a hippopotamus. Other times, I wonder if my friends and family get kidnapped when I'm not looking and swapped out with robots. Not because of any particular diabolical scheme or anything, just because someone, somewhere, had too much time on their hands.

And I know I've had these thoughts all my life. Despite my horrible memory, I do know that when I was seven(ish), I was absolutely certain that I was the princess of something. Fact check: Yes, I am, and have always been, a boy. Yes, I meant princess.I was a misguided child to be sure.

Take this photo, for example. What in the world was my chubby self thinking? Perhaps I believed the reason my personal stroller pusher (A.K.A. daddy) had been turned into seeds which red eyed, feathered demons were now devouring. Or maybe I was just upset that my personal stroller pusher stopped pushing me in order to point a silly camera at me while I sat confused in the middle of the street. Clearly, I was a very important baby. I had places to go and babies to meet, and I obviously couldn't be expected to butt-scooch my way there. Do you see those wheels? The ground is filthy.