I was working too hard. Relentlessly, also, I was being too hard on myself.

There I was, parking my car on South Van Ness, crabby, and a woman on the street who was overweight, poorly dressed, disheveled hair, a total mess, was screaming so loudly that her voice was booming louder than the Prince song on the radio. She walked down the sidewalk, shouting to the four men who leaned against the parked car two cars up from me, drinking 40-ounces. And she paused at the streetlight next to where I was parking. She stared.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"I'm just admiring you," she replied.

And it sounds cliche, and is definitely stupid and unwarranted, but at that point I finally experienced what a "quizzical look" feels like when giving it. As I walked back to my flat, I allowed her comment - - a comment offered, mind you, by an individual whose vision was obviously blurred by too much afternoon beer, whose opinion should not, practically speaking, make a difference, whose flattery should not necessarily taken as a compliment - - to warm me. Humming Prince to myself, I felt happy, and smiled.

It was not that long ago that I first began to experience the paradox of mass media submergence - - of developing a product called me sometimes separate from the person called me.

It's been challenging, sometimes frustrating, yet often exciting and invigorating, I confess. I live for those moments of sublime subversive inspiration - - when I succeed in delivering an uncommon message in a package palatable within the context of the often plutocratic financial realities of publishing and broadcasting. For each hit there are many misses.

And through it all I have learned not to internalize the flames that stem from resentment and sexism (while reading them to search for the nuggets of truth therein), and similarly I allow the flattery to bounce off me, unchanged. A thick skin, after all, is immune to more than the negative - - as well it should be, since neither extreme represents a useful analysis.

But there are times when a simple word, tossed almost randomly, makes a difference. And I'll let it get through.

Perhaps it is the case that people who are looking to confirm their unhappiness will latch on to the smallest pieces of badness to justify their pain.

And, similarly, people looking to be happy will find confirmation of good in even the most ambiguous of circumstances.

I don't think that either method represents brave ways of viewing the world, but if forced to choose between the two, I would take the latter. And I do.