I moved into a new office yesterday, an event that I’m portraying as a promotion, but is no doubt nothing more than the latest round of MWAH. The move forced me to spend half an hour rearranging furniture, after I spent the morning exercising my neck muscles by twitching everytime somebody walked by the door. See, I’m sitting at an L-shaped — or, more accurately, J-shaped — desk, with the computer plunked down on the curve, meaning I’m facing almost directly away from the door.

And this freaks me out. I can’t explain it. I didn’t grow up in a Mafia family; I was never involved in a shoot-out in a saloon; I’ve never even thought about working for the CIA. Nevertheless, I get as twitchy as all get out when my back is to an open door — and in this case, since I could just see the hallway out of the corner of my eye, was even worse. Every time I heard footsteps or saw movement, I’d neck spasm my head leftward to see who was passing by.

It’s a strange type of paranoia, similar to my prohibition on talking in restaurants. It’s not a total gag rule — but I refuse to talk about anything remotely personal or mention anybody’s name while having a conversation in a public place. Maybe I’ve been a reporter too long; all I know is that whenever a waiter walks by the table, I just assume that they’ll know whoever it is I’m talking about and the conversation will get back to them. It might be genetic, since my brother has the same tic: the last time we went out to eat together, we ended up sitting by the waiters’ station, and the way we stopped talking everytime a server walked by probably had them convinced we were plotting to rob the place or something.

So we did.

It’s too bad they weren’t facing the door. Then they would have seen us coming.