Everyone Loves an Irish Girl

Apparently everyone loves an Irish girl. I have a tee shirt to prove it. It says it in green letters with a sparkly green shamrock in the middle. And if its on a tee shirt, it must be true!
This has been another one of those weeks where the reader mail Juli and I get truly boggles my mind. Most of our reader mail is simple responses agreeing, or outright disagreeing, with something we said. But this week we managed to get some off the wall letters again. (thankfully no proposals in them) It was a potpourri week, with multiple subjects covered in the column, so the responses were varied. One of the funniest things to me about our mail are the letters signed "anonymous." Their names are at the top of the page right next to their email addresses. I guess some people forget that your name goes out with your emails. It was always cracks me up. Well, this week we got a very emotional letter from a man explaining why he hasn't married yet. He abbreviated his problem "SSA," for Same Sex Attraction. (I guess that is what homosexuals call it when they are ashamed of their "SSA.") What on earth would compel this man to write a letter to two women he's never met and out himself? Of course, he signed it with his real name. And then sent a second email asking us to only call him "anonymous." Oddly enough, he signed that email with his name as well. We received a few other very personal emails this week as well. I haven't quite figured it all out yet. Why would someone want to share their most intimate and personal and emotional details with us?
In other exciting news, I conquered the Woodley Park metro escalator all by myself. If you know me well, you know I have a near crippling fear of really big escalators. Woodley Park and Rosslyn metro stations are my nemesis. My friends had gone down the escalator and I turned off to find the elevator (a much more reasonable mode of transportation, IMHO). But sadly, very very sadly, the elevator was out of service. I considered walking to the next down metro stop (dupont circle), but determined that my fear of Dupont Circle alone late at night, was possibly greater than my fear of escalators. So I did it! I went down the Woodley Park escalator all by myself. Of course, I held my breath and closed my eyes nearly the entire way, but I did it!
(For those who are unsympathetic to my problem here- Woodley Park and Rosslyn are two of the biggest and steepest escalators in the world. And when you have vertigo like I do, a moving downward on an escalator is absolutely terrifying. It literally feels like I am spinning and falling steeply down at the same time. Its not fun.)