Slobber.

I'm drenched in it.

Pavlov conditioned his dogs to salivate when they thought they were going to be fed. All of the feeders wore lab coats, so when the dogs saw a person in a lab coat, they started drooling. Later, Pavlov rang a bell immediately before feeding the dogs, so even when food did not follow, the dogs would salivate upon hearing the bell.

I've realized this week that I'm one of those stupid dogs. Maybe it's not fair to call them stupid- they were, after all conditioned to think that certain factors guaranteed them food. My stupidity presents itself in that I am not, in fact, a dog. I'm a sentient human being, and after all of these painful false alarms, I still haven't learned that the bells and lab coats are all a cruel joke.

I've been on outptut overload, lately. I have love- so much love- that I'm mailing out in record amounts. I'm emailing cryptic pleas for love and attention, messaging 'no worries' that are more appropriately 'please-worry-about-me's, calling desperately praying to hear that I've already been called, and my step back from it all has shown just how William H. Macy in Magnolia of me this all is.

How sad that I've been foisting my love on people. That's not like me. I'm an absolutely interesting and kind enough person for there to be a reasonable give-and-take, but with matters as they are, I have all of this love and nowhere to put it.

So I realize that it will all come to me. Because I deserve that, for once. No more emails and code. No more endlessly refreshing my Facebook and checking the answering machine. I deserve so much more than that.

I deserve an immediate response, a drink on you, the extra concern, the glance and smile, the intimidation and deference for my talent and my passion and my love. I deserve to be sought after and looked for, pined over, cried over. I'll demand nothing less because if I didn't, I'd be wasting me (and I've spent the last few months doing just that.) Wasting me. Wasting gold.

I am no man, I am dynamite.

I guess that all means that the discount season is over. Sorry, boys. I've been making things way too easy, and I'm not going to do it anymore. All of this canine drooling ends here.

Gmail is my new boyfriend. At least until you all man up and get smart.