You must not have anything wrong with you, or anything different about you.
If you have something wrong or different about you, you really need to correct it. You need to be able to pass under all circumstances.
If you can’t correct it, or change it in any way, you should just pretend that you have. It’s not a problem anymore. Good news!
If you can’t even pretend not to have corrected the situation, you should just not show up, because it’s very painful for the rest of us to see you in your current condition.
If you’re going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to be ashamed.
– Salon Tom Weston’s Five Rules of Being A Grown-Up
(via Ann Lammott in this interview)