At my job, there are two women named Heather. By some freak coincidence, they are both brunette, life-long Rhode Island residents, in their mid-30s, overweight, and visually impaired. (Note to self: do not name your daughter Heather.) With all these similarities - you have to admit there are quite a few - it is amazing how much attitude can make a difference.

Nice Heather is - well, nice. I love working with her, because she is so much fun to talk to. She does not let her visual impairment hinder her life at all - she has lots of friends, dates occassionally, has the cutest dog, organises group trips to New York all the time, etcetc. She's taken the hand that life dealt her and played it well. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know that there was something wrong with her vision until a co-worker pulled me aside and told me, and later on Nice Heather told me herself, to make sure I knew just in case I thought she was looking at me funny (she doesn't quite focus on you, but behind you, which is unnerving at first but you get used to it.) She is very matter-of-fact about the fact that she can't see, and that she has some excess weight on her. She laughs it off, saying, "It's my fault for having so many chefs as friends" - but it's important to note that she's not cloyingly self-deprecating, as sometimes happens in this situation. When we talk, time flies quickly. She is just so enjoyable to be around, her personality so sparkling, that you forget her physical handicaps.

The other Heather - well, I think of her as Bitter Heather. Perhaps unfair... but accurate. She looks at life through bitter-tinted lenses (what colour would they be? Perhaps a dingy brown), and you have to tiptoe around her. I'm scared to even open my mouth in her presence, for fear of saying something un-PC and hurting her feelings, as I'm not really known for censoring all my thoughts. She is ultra-sensitive about her weight and her vision problems, and very jealous of other people over everything. It's like she feels she has been unjustly wronged, and is mad at everyone else over it. It doesn't help that sometimes she takes a supercilious tone when I come in to help with the mailings, talking to me like I'm 5 and have never stuffed envelopes before. Every week, I hope that she's not scheduled for when I'm around. And I thought that maybe it was just me, that I was overly sensitive and biased against fat people, but Nice Heather told me that within a month of her starting work, Bitter Heather managed to antagonise everyone on staff, and that even she doesn't like to talk to Bitter Heather because it's sometimes so trying. As a result, she has absolutely no friends at work (although everyone tries to be nice to her), nor outside of work. It's very sad, really, but she brought it upon herself in part.

I know there is a moral to this story, but I hate proselyting, and am woefully bad at it, so I won't. On a completely different note, am I a big dork for absolutely enjoying form-filling? I get a blank form to fill out, and it's actually fun for me. Today I got my grad school health forms, and by golly if I didn't take a pen to them right away. I'm sure this says something about my personality, but I don't know what.