When is it TMI (Too Much Information)?

In my previous post, my good friend and best man made mention that it was TMI to know certain things about me. Now normally I would agree as everyone knows, there are some very strict topics that are pseudo-taboo amongst men. We want to know and then borrow and buy the books and movies that someone recommends are good to "toss off" to, but we sure as hell don't want to know that the particular person is doing so.

Well, in that same vein, I find that I don't always want to know the fine details on the trials and tribulations of others. I fear it more not for the details themselves, but for the effect they have on our mood and strength of purpose. It also tends to make one second-guess what one is doing because it seemingly caused issues for someone else. So, where do we draw the line between unfounded fear and information that we learn from someone's experience? Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Geeks my wife and I may be, but one of her greatest simple pleasures is when we lie on the couch together, her feet on me (as they inevitably find their way there) and my rubbing of them. Now, on a blog she had open recently, the woman there had gone to an acupuncturist in part of her last ditch efforts to make her dream come true. In that meeting, the lady told her that she should not have had her feet or lower back rubbed because "down" was bad and it disperses or messes up her chi.

Now, I realize that the first instinct is to summarily dismiss this as drivel, but many a doctor has been embarrassed by herbal medicine that was dismissed as drivel before. Armed with this new information, how am I not to dwell on the many years I have been rubbing my wife's feet hard for her after a tiring day at work? Have I been dispelling her chi and driving the babies away as this acupuncturist is claiming? How will I ever know for sure?

Before you tell me it is ridiculous nonsense, understand that I am well equated to how important the feet are and how well connected they are to the rest of the body. When I was much younger, playing foot hockey with the crew out in front of my house, I missed the ball and kicked the curb (definitely not one of my finest moments). Besides cracking my little toe (but not requiring a cast), something else curiously developed; a gland in my armpit had swollen up to the size of a small prune. It eventually went away after some soreness, pain and swelling. And this is also the area they say you do not want to have glass or a needle enter as the veins would take the foreign object right back to the heart and possibly kill you.

So, just what is a guy to do? Do I air on the side of caution and stop rubbing her feet as one more action to magnify our chances or do I brush it off as superstitious nonsense? Well, I have seen a lot of things in my short lifetime that no one was able to explain and I believe that there are simply things we do not know. So, sorry honey, but your feet rubbing will have to wait until you need it closer to the completion of your pregnancy. Whatever will help to make this work now, we need to do it. 143.

Ciao.