Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Vikki asks me to respond to her questions about dealing with people. Now, let me make two initial disclaimers. First, I'm not sure that this is a serious request based on my typical subject matter. Second, asking me for relationship advice is approximately equivalent to asking George Lucas for advice on writing good dialogue.

Here's how I see the world: Every person is responsible for their own feelings. That's it. You choose to be offended, you choose to harbor bad feelings, you choose to be jealous. Or you choose to be content and happy and you choose to allow other people the same.

There's not enough time in life to harbor ill will toward anybody, especially a family member. If they did something that really got under your skin you have a couple of choices:

First, you can confront them, explaining how you feel and all that stuff. In some cases this is the only option, but it must be used with caution. Most of the time when a person does this, they expect to somehow feel better after the discussion, but go into it secretly hoping to make the other person feel bad. This attitude won't work.

Second, you can adjust yourself. First of all, whatever offended you was probably something really stupid and has no long-term impact on your life. Second, whoever offended you probably doesn't even know they offended you because we're all really stupid and have a short-term perspective on life. So, you simply forget about it (really) and remember that at least you still have American Idol, 24, The 4400 and a whole summer filled with great movies and just be happy.

And if everything goes south, just know that you still have half a meat-lover's pizza in the trunk. That always makes me smile.

Bonus points for the first person who can name the movie referencing the meat-lover's pizza.