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I missed the mail carrier this morning, but I came downstairs just in time to run into United States Census takers – a year early.

I have always loved the idea of the census. I love filling out forms. Send me a survey of any kind, and I’ll complete it – seriously considering my responses at the kitchen table. I am a voluntary participant in quite a few studies. And I’m always 100 percent compliant. Just this week I completed a five-page, several-hundred-question survey about my new car, while my husband watched, shaking his head.

I hate weddings.

Not all weddings or even the concept of marriage.

Rather, I have come to hate the ostentatious, overproduced spectacle that has become the American wedding.

Right now, as I type this, there’s an overwrought, overly ornate and definitely overdue, invitation waiting for action on my desk.

The character Irie, in Zadie Smith’s book White Teeth, posed the one question that black women most often ask their hairdresser at the end of a marathon session.

My husband left the house angry this morning. His firm had instituted a “women’s initiative,” ostensibly as part of a larger “diversity initiative” to address women’s attrition in law.

I don’t want to vote. Every time I see that lavender absentee ballot envelope peeking from under the sheaves of paper on my desk, I cringe.

I have voted in every election since I was eligible in 1990. School Board elections, I’m there. Library Board replacement needed, I skipped lunch at my summer job and stood in line to vote. Anyone can bow to peer pressure and vote in a general election. Special elections were my specialty.

Last week I interviewed a candidate for admission to my college alma mater. Though I normally shun alumnae activities, I relented this one time after a desperate email announcing that many black candidates had been ignored in the interview process.

Facebook is killing my groove.

By necessity, our lives are compartmentalized. It’s a skill most of us learn in junior high. Want to drink alcohol and kiss boys? You don’t tell your parents. You’re the model child at home, and actually enjoy spending time with your parents? You don’t tell your friends.

My friend’s four-year-old daughter wants to be Hannah Montana. She wants the pale skin and straight hair of Mylie Cyrus. This lovely African-American pre-schooler is ready to abandon her barely formed identity for that of a teenage blond icon. That young black American girls are still experiencing this rite of passage saddens me.

My Dell was a dud.

­ I have two passions: photography and writing. In the last few month when I have been writing (and maybe browsing the Internet, balancing my checkbook – multi-tasking), my computer has been slow. Very slow. My thoughts and hands move faster than the cursor on my screen, and I have to wait, impatiently, for it to catch up.

Dear President-elect Obama,

Yes, we did.

I and a bunch of other apathetic and ambivalent Americans got off our collective butts and voted for a Democrat.