This is cat hell.

The guy next door is playing his TV loud enough that I can make out the infomercial he's watching, and my downstairs neighbor is blasting Duran Duran.

As you can imagine, I'm really starting to regret re-signing my lease...

The Se7en Year Itch -- Kevin Spacey is a married man whose wife and young son go on vacation for the summer, leaving him alone in his apartment building where he meets and is tempted by seven gorgeous women. So he ritualistically dismembers them according to the seven deadly sins.

From the Phrases You Never Thought You'd See In Print Dept.:

She attended Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona where she was taught by one of the greatest High School Theatre teachers, Deborah Carrick.

Right now, a handful of neighbors are letting their toddlers play in the courtyard in front of the complex. Now, as much as I love kids, I could really, really do without the constant screeching like a stuck pig that one of them emits.

Also, one of these children appears to have a comb-over.

I am going to relate the details of my dream before they fade too far. I was lying incautiously in the street next to my bike with (a friend?) after retreating from a family gathering. Three punkish girls (in that Avril Lavigne way) came skateboarding up, and one ran over my toe, but I claimed it didn't hurt, perhaps because I thought the one who'd done it was hot. The girl repaid my forgiveness by trying to steal my bike. Fortunately, it was on a chain -- an extraordinarily long chain, actually. So she was able to run quite far before it stopped her (and, indeed, all three of them for some reason). Myself and my friend/partner (we were, apparently, law enforcement of some sort), who resembled a svelte Ron Jeremy crossed with Nash Bridges-era Cheech Marin, chased after and subsequently caught them, holding them until reinforcements arrived.

Ron and I wound up back at Headquarters, because Don Johnson wanted to examine the damage to the bike. (I swear I never watched Nash Bridges; I don't know where all of this came from.) Only I guess we hadn't properly detained the girls, because they we off committing another crime. So I gave chase, and managed to corner them as they were stealing a bright yellow sports car with T-top sunroofs, which they had foolishly left open. This allowed me to leap in the front passenger seat and steal the keys from the running car. Once again, they were detained, and they waited there in that parking lot with us to be carted off to jail. Before that could happen, though, they started to literally dissipate into nothing. I was left with the distinct impression that they were murdered.

Looking for clues into why this happened, we (Ron and I, I guess, though we seemed to have been augmented by more agents) traced the girls back to an exercise club, which was more like a school gymnasium. We rounded everyone, hundreds of them, up into the middle of the gym and started to break them into groups: people who had been suspended from school, people who had gotten lots of detention but hadn't been suspended, and so on. The final group was people who called themselves friends of the people who had just died, but the strange bit was, the girls' death hadn't been made public yet. These people, as it turned out, were just friends of another group of people who had died -- in a plane crash, I believe. Only one of them, a disheveled homeless-looking fellow (what was he doing in a gym?) overheard me talking to a teacher/supervisor about the case we were actually working on and took off. I gave chase, through some dingy hallways and finally out into the back. He crawled under a fence and into someone's backyard. I could see the woman tending to her garden, and I yelled at her to stop him, but I guess she wasn't able. He made a break for the front yard, but I was finally able to catch him. Only when I did, he died too, like the girls. Thinking I'd just seen the killer die, I went to question the lady and escort her back to the gym -- for safety purposes, I guess -- only to discover that she was some sort of ghost herself, and that she was the one killing people. She said she was going to kill me too, but was waiting to do so because "she liked my sense of humor."

Yeah. So. Interpret that, Freudians.

Just what the world needs: another distraction for drivers.

Does this mean people will have to start hiding their phones under their mattresses?

There are a lot of different approaches when it comes to the psychology of dating. The prevailing wisdom, at least for men, seems to call for playing it cool, perhaps even cold, to encourage the appearance of being a sought-after commodity. This requires either a superior poker face, or an abundance of self-assurance and cockiness on the guy's part, which I suppose aren't two qualities lacking in men out there, at least in proportion to women. (In my experience anyway.) Women, I'm told, like a challenge. There is even another school of thought that calls for the man to actually put down a woman, in order to, I suppose, make her somewhat reliant on him for approval. Men who subscribe to this theory spend considerable amounts of time memorizing patterns, lines and subtle (and even not-so-subtle) put-downs in order to land their prey.

The usual reaction to the latter concept is disgust, or at least cynical resignation. I suppose it hinges on what you see as your ideal relationship state, and lately the majority of the population seems to accept that an "equal" (i.e., no partner is superior or subservient to the other) relationship is the best, and I would be inclined to agree. However, I recall vividly learning at an early age that among my friends and family, there was always one parent who handed out punishments and one who was more yielding. I am thinking specifically of my friend Beth, whose mother was clearly the disciplinarian in the family, in stark contrast to my own parents, where my father usually fulfilled that role. (S'funny the things that stick out, innit?) As far as I could tell, the parent who wielded the belt was also the one who wore the pants in the relationship as well. For obvious reasons, it's hard to say for sure, but that certainly was the case between my parents.

In my own relationships, though, the amount of control I had (or felt like I had) seemed to correspond directly to the amount I was interested in my partner. Basically, if I felt like I could walk away without any real emotional entanglement, then I guess I had little concern about how my actions affected my partner. (For the record, I have never been so mercenary or callous to completely disregard a girlfriend's feelings, I'm just describing the ratio.) This isn't a situation exclusive to romance, by any means: They say the best kind of job to have is the one you can walk away from at any moment without fear or adverse effects. Though it didn't start that way, this was definitely the case with my last employer, where they literally owed me thousands of dollars at the end there, and when the layoffs came, I was happy to walk out the door. The bullshit far outweighed the benefit derived from the paycheck.

Problem is, now I find myself in the complete opposite situation. (In more ways than one, but let's just stick to romance here.) My initial instincts were correct -- I was immediately attracted to this girl -- and I'm having a hard time keeping it in check. Not because I want to appear "cool," but because I would like to avoid drooling on her like a puppy that doesn't get out much. I've posed the question to a few friends now, but I still haven't gotten a satisfactory answer: Which does a woman prefer, to be presented with a challenge and have to pursue, or to have a guy come out and remove all doubt? To rephrase, is it better to seem detached or to confess to strong feelings?

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer. Every woman, every situation is different, and you can only get the promise (not the guarantee) of improved results with a certain approach, but whatever that approach is, I haven't figured it out. Even if I had, it wouldn't matter, because it would imply a certain detachment from the pursued, and what's the point in dating if you don't feel anything?

Having a unified approach does give some reassurance, I suppose. To use an analogy, say that you always land a plane the same way (let's say, with plane right-side up), you're guaranteed a certain consistency in your results. Other things may go wrong, the runway could be unpaved or poorly marked, but you'll always have your landing gear facing the right direction.

Christ, I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore...

To use a more concrete example from my own life, in one situation where I had strong feelings for a woman, I (some would say, rightly, stupidly) didn't tell her my feelings, instead hoping my actions would be evidence enough. This, as you can imagine, didn't turn out well, but I was young and dumb as blind housepainter. So the next time, having learned my lesson, I informed the woman in question of my feelings. Theoretically, this should have improved my chances, but it didn't work that time either. Still, my chances were improved by being up-front, I guess, and its been my policy every since. Not that the situation has come up since then, but it's policy nonetheless.

Still, the quandary remains. I suppose it's still too soon to tell. I hardly know her, relatively speaking, but I'm also not used to feeling something this strong this soon. It concerns me that it could just be a reaction to extended emotional solitude, but it's almost impossible to say. It's not like I can set up a control group and an experiment group.

The most solid advice I've gotten so far is to play it cool a bit longer, and then spill my guts. There are quite simply too many variables to judge her reaction, and at this point I mostly just hope that I get the chance to play things out. It all just seems like so many games to me, but every time I say I'm not going to get caught up in those kind of things, inevitably that little voice comes along and restrains my instincts until I've overthought everything to death. It's not hard to see why people hate dating: It's exhausting...

After a while, shock and horror just don't cut it anymore.

Last night, I had a dream last night that I was watching the X2 DVD with my father, and there was a scene with a woman playing a piano that had light coming out of it. I laughed, my dad asked "What?" and I said, "I just realized: That's Dazzler."

Apparently my subconscious is a big nerd.

I watched the film Without Limits tonight, about ill-fated runner Steve Prefontaine, unaware that he was from around here, or indeed much of anything about him, except that he died young in a car wreck. I was surprised at how young he died, actually.

The film was strong, I thought, though slight. I almost felt like it was a Cliff's Notes version of a much longer movie, which, I suppose, is a lot like "Pre"'s actual life.

The screenwriter and director, the highly regarded Robert Towne, frames the film around Prefontaine's belief that talent had nothing to do with his achievements, that it all came down to determination. He comes to question this belief later in life, but he's really cut short before he has to really face up to it. Thinking about it, I have to say I've always approached life from the opposite direction: Talent is damned near everything. If you don't have the capacity for it, you're wasting your time. (As Groucho said, "Try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.") This is, though, a fabulous cop-out, and I know it. When it comes down to it, as with much in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Lately, I've had to face the hard truth that I lack the kind of drive that inhabits a lot of people, by which I mean that I often resist doing something I have to until I'm pushed. It's a question of discipline, I suppose, as well as the misguided belief that I work best under pressure. Given a deadline, I will write the hell out of something, though I will push it as long as I think I can get away with. Lacking those sorts of deadlines or pressures, though, I have been slow to achieve as much as I feel I should have.

But much like Pre, the key is finding that direction, and I'm still struggling with which way I should be headed. (Prefontaine languished in other sports before he discovered running.) I fear that I may never find that direction, floating around from one half-hearted enterprise to the next for the rest of my life, like the Tom Hulce character in Parenthood, until I wind up on the wrong side of some demented mobster. However, I can take some comfort in the fact that I am not alone in this regard among people my age. This search for purpose is what the 20s are about, or so I am told, and given my experience I am inclined to believe it.

Not that it makes it any easier. I regularly feel like a sham, a failure and a fool. I know that if I could just discover the appropriate venue, I would have so much energy to put into it that I could achieve more than I can imagine. The problem is, I consistently wait for someone else to show me that direction, and that often leads to disaster. In one recent example, I got so caught up in what I thought I was supposed to be doing given my role models' actions that I completely lost sight of what I actually wanted. I behaved like an ass more than once because I wasn't where I felt I should be, in spite of the fact that, on further examination, it wasn't where I wanted to end up anyway. There was no There there.

Right now, I have just run out of ideas, and the miserable economy isn't helping matters in terms of presenting options. Another hurdle to overcome, I suppose. As they say, if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth doing. Of course, the ones who relish pointing that out aren't going through it themselves, the pricks.

How to win an election, guaranteed: Have a catchy name.

Democrats, take note: Nominate Heywood Jablowme immediately.

All the fall TV schedules have finally been announced, and it looks like what remained of sanity and taste have disappeared from the ranks of network TV programmers. Unsurprisingly, reality TV and sitcoms built around personalities rather than concepts or good writing abound, and nearly all of my favorite shows have been axed. Gone are gems like Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Futurama, and in their place, we get ill-conceived shows starring Alicia Silverstone, Jason Bateman (hasn't he had enough sitcoms?), and a Feldman.

Once again, networks have failed to come up with many (if any at all) new scenarios. I guess it just wouldn't be fall TV without the Holy Trinity: Cops, Lawyers and Doctors, or lots of comedies about wacky characters "moving back home." And, lest we forget, we'll also get enough reality TV that you may as well just put a video camera on yourself and get it over with.

I suppose it could be a bit worse. They didn't cancel Ed, but I'm still reeling over Sorkin's exit from The West Wing (the finale of which may as well have just been titled "Fine, Have It Your Way, I'm Outta Here, Suckers"). Still, Wing isn't gone, but part of me just wants to make a clean break, as I know chances of it being anywhere near as good are slim. Hell, I thought the chemistry changed too much when Ainsley left, and she was just a minor character. I'm still ticked the suits let Rob Lowe leave. So it definitely won't be the same show without Sorkin. NBC wanted less liberal-leaning writing and more attention-grabbing, ripped-from-the-headlines stories, and that's just not the Wing I enjoyed.

For proof that no one else writes the show as well as him, just look at the one episode he didn't write in the whole four-year run, from earlier this season, where CJ goes back to visit her dad. It was weak, to put it politely. If Sorkin hadn't written a cliffhanger, I wouldn't be tempted at all to watch, except perhaps to see if it becomes a trainwreck.

Speaking of clean breaks, they almost gave Ed a near-perfect ending with its finale a while back. It's almost disappointing to see it get picked up. Don't get me wrong: I'm not worried about that sexual tension, "will they/won't they" crap. That old myth about characters "getting horizontal" (to quote Moonlighting, the oft-cited proof of this) ruining the show was just an excuse for bad writers, and Ed has plenty of good ones to overcome that hurdle. I just liked the wrap-up of it all.

So with Wednesday effectively splintered, Sunday on Fox is the only other night of television I can see myself looking forward to. West Wing/Ed/(and, occasionally, when it's new)South Park was a solid night of TV. Futurama/King of the Hill/Simpsons is a pretty good match, except, oh wait... they cancelled Futurama. Bastards. Now we get Oliver Beene, which is passable, but much like night-mate Malcolm in the Middle, I rarely sweat if I miss an episode.

Much could be said about the rest of Fox's schedule. I like That 70's Show, in a nostalgic sort of way (not nostalgic for the 70's, but for watching the show when I was younger, plus Laura Prepon is hot), and I'm curious about the show following it, A Minute With Stan Hooper, which stars my all-time favorite SNL news anchor, Norm Macdonald, and is produced by Coach's Barry Kemp. Kemp, I might add, is a graduate of the U of I. But beyond that, the Fox schedule barely elicits a shrug. I was, after all, one of the ones who gave up on reality TV after the first season of The Real World, and I still regard Survivor about as entertaining as a family reunion video of bitter alcoholics I don't know.

Back to NBC for a moment, they have hands-down the oldest schedule on the block, and it's pretty sad to see a bunch of shows that should have given up years ago. Friends had clearly run out of ideas when they all started sleeping together. Frasier was never quite as clever as it thought it was. ER was one of those shows I could never get into, not enough humor, too much forced melodrama and my dislike of watching surgical procedures didn't help much either. Regardless, the show has been on a decade, and apart from The Simpsons and the odd talk show, nothing should be on that long. If they have term limits for politicians, we should get them for shows, too.

I take that back: Law & Order is a franchise that could conceivably keep going forever, if only because the cast is interchangable, and the concept is solid enough to last into infinity. Luckily for NBC, Dick Wolf apparently intends to do just that, with as many spinoffs as he can manage. (As I'm sure others have asked before me, how long until we have a L&O channel?) Other than that, American Dreams, who cares? Third Watch, is that still on?

NBC used to have some brilliant comedies, but lately only Scrubs doesn't have that Elbowing-You-In-The-Gut-Aren't-We-Funny feel to it. New show Coupling could be good, but I think I'd rather watch the BBC's original than a watered-down remake, particularly given the extensive pre-season recasting and reworking. That's almost never a good sign. As for new dramas, NBC actually has some strong candidates. Rob Lowe's Lyon's Den could be good. I thought Las Vegas was supposed to star the impossibly gorgeous Katherine Heigl, which may still be the case, but I do know that it stars Nikki Cox, who isn't bad herself. I could have Heigl's pilot confused with another Las Vegas-centered pilot, but the two of them together would be enough to make it worth watching. But then we have Alicia Silverstone as Miss Match? Sorry, no.

Moving on, ABC and CBS are both messes. They look like drowning men casting about for anything to grab onto. ABC is definitely the mouse network, with its usual bland, family-friendly pablum, and that's fine... if you happen to be eight or mentally retarded. The more adult-aimed dramas are critically adored, but I've never warmed to them. I certainly lost interest in Alias when they made the hardcore spy daddy guy into a teddy bear who wuvved his widdle girl.

CBS swings towards the other demographic, into geezer shows, as well as Survivor and even more comedies for idiots. I'll pass.

Okay, I admit I used to enjoy the occasional Everybody Loves Raymond, but it's on reruns everywhere, and I haven't seen half of them anyway, so why bother going out of my way to see the Monday version?

Now, the WB might manage to be semi-interesting. Smallville has improved dramatically, Gilmore Girls is solid (though slipping somewhat), and I'll admit to occasionally watching Charmed with the sound off. (Rose McGowan? Growl.) I'm pondering watching switching from The West Wing to Angel, as I like what few episodes of it I've seen (which leads me to the conclusion that what really bugged me about Buffy was Sarah Michelle Gellar). But as far as sitcoms on the WB go, it's a wasteland. And UPN? Please.

Oh, and memo to net execs: Even if you think you're getting a deal, DO NOT sign multi-year renewals of shows that aren't created by David Chase. It's like signing Mariah Carey to a movie deal. You're going to get bit in the ass. Don' believe me? Remember ABC's deal with The Drew Carey Show two years ago? See?

Basically, if it weren't for Ed, Letterman and The Simpsons, I may very well have no use for network TV next year. Now take away my cable, particularly Comedy Central (with its Daily Show, South Park and Insomniac, among others), Animal Planet and HBO, and there'd be hell to pay. Now sounds like a good time to get that library card...

Ding dong.

Yes?

Hi, we're you're allergies.

Oh. Hello. Can I help you?

Nothing personal, but we've come to kick your ass.

Oh, all right then... [savage beating ensues]

Aaaand, scene!

Full Metal Jackass: Army recruits are put through a strenuous training regimen, including snorting sushi condiments, being woken up with fireworks, getting papercuts and dousing them in lemon juice, and, of course, being hit in the crotch repeatedly. Finally, Steve-O snaps and shoots Wee Man and then himself, as Johnny Knoxville records the whole thing with a shaky digital camera.

First Journey ("Lights"), now Bon Jovi ("Dead or Alive"). Why does my neighbor's radio hate me?

As I was writing a letter to a friend -- people still do that, believe it or not -- a sobering thought hit the page before I even had a chance to consider what I'd written: What would the Me from ten years ago think of the Me now? And while I have little interest in what 17-year-old boys think of me, it was still disheartening.

I suppose by not owning a Ferrari or dating a model or two, I was bound to be a disappointment, but I think the real underlying sentiment is what do I think of myself now, honestly? I could easily deflect the question by saying, it's not the current station that matters but that I feel that I am on the right road, but that's bullshit and I know it. Besides, I am full aware that I am not so much on a road as desperately looking for the on-ramp right now. Not an uncommon sensation for people my age, or even people of other age groups given the current political and economic environment, but that hardly makes it any easier.

On mother's day, I called my mom, as all good sons are supposed to do, and at the end of the conversation, she repeated a sentiment that she has handed to me quite often during my life. To paraphrase, she would frequently tell me that I am meant for Great Things and that I had the potential to surpass my brothers and sisters. No small task given the crop of overachievers I was raised among; our ranks include one doctor, two lawyers, an engineer or two, a teacher, and so on. (Apologies to the "so on.") I have always felt myself the black sheep among them, for having chosen the more uncertain liberal arts path, though I was rarely if ever derided for it. I suppose they were more curious how I was going to make it work, and frankly so am I. I guess the one thing that never wavered was my belief that it was going to work.

The one area where I have wavered, though, is my dedication, and by that I mean my perseverance through the difficult times, faith in my abilities or at least my ability to manage, and more than anything, some discipline. I often wonder if maybe I'd be better off if I'd gone to military school early on, just for the structure that I seem to lack. I mean, look at me, up at 4 AM, writing on my weblog when I should probably be writing something more productive, or better yet, in bed. (Though to be fair, I'm still getting over the food poisoning.) The answer I inevitably come to is that, sure, I'd probably be better off if that had happened, but somehow I doubt I'd be after the same pursuits. But who cares, really? It's all just mental masturbation anyway.

That said, I have only recently come to consider how my mother's Great Things "compliment" can actually be poisoning in a lot of ways. For one, it sets some if not unrealistic then at least difficult-to-meet expectations, and it creates a heightened fear of failure that, more often than not, leads to doing nothing at all. It's hard to fail when you don't really try. But this all sounds disturbingly like a cop-out, and I'm not one to play the Blame-My-Parents-For-My-Shortcomings game.

So no, I'm not happy with where I am, though I do feel like I am soon to discover something that could put me on that road. (Even if that sensation is false, at least it keeps me motivated.) I've done things in the past that showed me what I am capable of, and I feel like, if I could just get back on that path (or another like it) that I could be satisfied. Well, maybe not satisfied, not to the level of complacency anyway, but moreso than I am at the moment.

I have the overriding desire to add, "And that's one to grow on!" But I won't. This isn't mean to be some dippy, Up-With-People pronouncement of self-esteem. I've just had enough with people (okay, one: Mom) questioning my state of mind these days. I'm fine, dammit. If I wasn't, I'd likely be out holding the local KFC hostage with a spork instead of blabbing on here, and I sure wouldn't answer the phone when my mother called.

Anyway, as I said, I really should be in bed. I have All-Right Things to do when I wake up tomorrow.

Right now, at this very moment, I am flagrantly mixing my biscuits.

Don't ask.

This is the kind of state I have chosen to live in, apparently:

Klingon Interpreter Needed for Oregon Mental Patients

PORTLAND, Ore. — Position Available: Interpreter, must be fluent in Klingon.

The language created for the "Star Trek" TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County.

"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," said Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves about 60,000 mental health clients.

Although created for works of fiction, Klingon was designed to have a consistent grammar, syntax and vocabulary. And now Multnomah County research has found that many people — and not just fans — consider it a complete language.

Once again, my college educational experience has proven woefully inadequate in preparing me for the real world...

First off, she just wrote back, and it seems all that worry was for nothing.

In other news, I met an acquaintance at a Mexican restaurant for lunch today to talk about his publishing business and so forth, and the burrito I had left me feeling about as ill as I've felt since the whole strep throat business, though so far nothing has come back up. Ugh. I'm going to bed.

It's been a long time.

I had essentially shut off that side of my life, the romantic side, first as a reaction to a broken heart, though it mostly just stayed that way out of neglect. I suppose it's not really one of those things you can force. The fact was, no one ever entered my life that lit a fire under me in any appreciable way, not like the last one. Not until now.

Living a life without prospect of romance is a stable but uninteresting experience. It's like the difference between the rides at the park for the people there to play and the people accompanying the people there to play. The kids go to ride on rollercoasters and tilt-a-whirls, and the adults get on the scenic rides, the train that goes around the park or the aerial lift that takes you over it. The whole thing is predictable and slow, and there's something to be said for that. But it can crush your soul if that's all you have.

And so you -- or, really, I -- seek it out, but it's nowhere to be found. I guess I had the classic post-heartbreak problem, which is that I was really just looking for Her all over again, and the fact is, she picked the other guy. Hell, she married him. There's no going back. But she embodied what I was looking for, and nothing that had come into my field of influence gave me anything near the same rush. I tried. I guess you can call what I did trying. I threw myself into whatever relationship was available to me at the time to no avail. Maybe, as they say ("them" being your parents, or, more likely, your parents' parents) love is something that has to grow, because passion is fleeting. And that's undoubtedly why divorce rates are so high, not because people are more fickle necessarily, but because they are less likely to recognize that sort of dogma for the bullshit that it is. But I digress.

The point I was trying to make is I had basically let a side of me atrophy, and it's the side that makes things interesting, that motivates you to do something besides accumulate. And yesterday, I had a glimpse of what I was missing, and it damn near killed me.

I mean, further bludgeoning the amusement park metaphor I mentioned before, imagine taking a sabbatical to sit and meditate on a mountain for four years and then coming back to civilization and immediately climbing on the Screaming Coaster of Death. Your heart would explode, and they'd have to stop the ride to clean the car you were sitting in.

Though that's not entirely accurate. It was more like I'd just seen the coaster, and wanted to ride it so bad that my adrenal gland gave me a good, hard slap any time I thought of it. See, I went on this date, and the thing is, I had completely not anticipated reacting the way I did. It's something like going into a movie your friend has told you is going to be crap, but it turns out your friend just has horrible taste. Your expectations are so skewed that you wind up having a different experience than if you'd gone in uncorrupted. And it's not that I'd heard bad things about her, or anything remotely like that, it's just that the phone conversations hadn't completely lit my toes on fire, and owing to a recent incident where my expectations had been low and the actual event had turned out even worse, I was low-balling it here. And my conversations with her weren't bad, per se, we were just missing that face-to-face aspect that allows a conversation to go much smoother than they ever could on a cell phone.

The problem has never been my communication skills, I've always had complete confidence in those (perhaps to the point of having too much confidence, but let's just move on), but my own self-confidence in my past and my physique and whatever else I seem to believe goes into the equation for members of the opposite sex. (Ignoring that I have no idea if those components actually do or not, but I have to take my best guess, don't I?) So when I saw her and she was tan and beautiful and tall (deliciously tall), my heart sank and my palms started to sweat. I remember noticing her lips first: They were luscious and covered in this gorgeous lipstick that sparkled just a bit in the early evening light from the street. I immediately felt pale and gawky and I was certain she'd see right through me or fixate on my all-too visible flaws.

She did not flee, though, and I was faced with the daunting prospect of not immediately proving my unworthiness. I leaned on my strengths: my somewhat quick wit and my erudition, which is not so much deep as broad. I figured that if I kept her laughing, she might not notice my hairline. And then she really twisted the knife. This girl, as it turns out, is not just pretty, but smart and fun. She listened to my stories, even the dopey ones with no point, much better than I'm sure I did to hers, though I hope she took my probably too-frequent interruptions not for rudeness but for extreme interest.

While we clearly had different tastes in a lot of places (she, for instance, has given up TV, which would probably result in a severe case of DTs for me), our upbringing and experiences actually overlapped in a wide variety of places. She laughed at most of my jokes, and I marveled at her varied stories of her life. We had gourmet chicken pizza and beer, and then a split a cookie. She solved the first of two real uncertainties of the evening by suggesting that we check out the book store across the street after all the food and drink had been downed. I took it as a good sign that she didn't bolt immediately after the check had been paid. (For the record, I insisted on footing the bill, as is my wont. Some women will make motions about paying, but then grumble about the gent's cheapness later; I figure it's best just to remove all doubt.) We wandered the aisles for a while, and I tried to keep up with her clearly voracious reading appetite. I lack serious literary depth when it comes to fiction and poetry, two things clearly close to her heart, but I think I scored bonus points by at least having heard of most of the books and authors she mentioned.

And the whole time, I kept thinking, dammit, this is good. I'm so lucky to be here. This is, I think, the exact opposite of what all the magazines tell you is the key to successfully enticing a woman. The vibe you're supposed to provide is that she's lucky to be with you. Frankly, I'm just not that good of an actor.

After we'd poked around a good portion of the book store, she started suggesting that she was exhausted from a long day at work, and to top things off, the cable guy was coming early tomorrow to install her new 'net connection. It was, she said, probably time to go our separate ways. (Only then did it occur to me that it probably would have been wise to have had a few alternatives at hand for post-dinner activities, but I hadn't thought that far ahead. Now it was clearly a moot point.) Though the paranoid side in me would probably like to think she was using all this as an excuse to cut things off, I am inclined to believe that she was telling the truth, if only for the bookstore jaunt, which was obviously more beyond the scope of the dinner and drinks that she had contracted for. I have to take that as a good sign.

As we walked to her car, she gave me what seemed like more good signs: She said that she'd had a good time, and that she was glad to have met someone intelligent. I complimented her back, and then the second moment of uncertainty came for me, and for her as well, I suppose. There moment came when I suppose things could have headed for a kiss, but I didn't feel it appropriate, the mood was off. Or maybe I'm just a chicken. I was babbling something about being off balance on the uneven sidewalk, and she seized on my apparent discomfort to give me a hug. It was sweet and certainly more than I was expecting.

I went home (okay, actually over to a friend's for debriefing) as happy as a goon. I can't remember feeling that giddy in ages, probably years now. I wanted to act on it, do something spontaneous and romantic, but not too forward, for fear of coming off as desperate or overeager. I wasn't, for instance, about to send her a dozen red roses, a move which would have likely been complicated by not knowing her last name. She had, however, told me of how she was reading "Love in the Time of Cholera," and I had in turn told her about a very funny Steve Martin essay that dealt that same book. As luck would have it, it was published all over the Internet, so I decided to use sending her that link as an excuse to e-mail her and tell her about how good a time I had with her.

I have not, however, heard back from her, which just brings back all those paranoia demons. She had, as you may recall, used the installation of Internet service as a reason for ending things relatively early, so it's doubtful that she didn't get the e-mail, right? Was it just too goofy? Too much too soon? Too much, period? Of course, there's absolutely no way to know, but my brain likes to mess with me, so all those possibilities and worse had already gone through my head after about an hour or two. Suddenly, the hug seemed like a brush-off, the "intelligent" comment a sure-fire sign of my impending retirement to The Friend Zone, and her "early" departure as a reminder of all my flaws. Of course, it's too early to say any of that, but I think I must regard happiness with immediate suspicion, perhaps because it's been so foreign lately. I'm sure that this reaction is just human nature, though it's up for debate how much of it is "healthy."

I don't know about any of that, but what I do know is that I really, really would love to see her again, and that sort of desire surely sets you up for more of a fall than, say, preferring someone's company to being force-fed dirt clods. Wanting something, especially something so powerful, surely requires a lot of risk, and that's scary, but it also holds the potential for a lot of payoff. It's the rollercoaster all over again. When I was younger, my friends and I used to chant "derail, derail" to taunt the weaker-stomached among us. Of course, I had little or no concept of what that really meant, it just seemed funny and daring. Now, though, I know exactly what happens when the ride goes awry, and how long it can take to gain the will to ride again after something like that.

The possibility frightens the hell out of me, yes, but that's part of the rush, isn't it? And what a rush, man. What a rush.

This is the greatest scientific study ever:

A single computer was placed in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo to monitor the literary output of six primates.

But after a month, the Sulawesi crested macaques had only succeeded in partially destroying the machine, using it as a lavatory, and mostly typing the letter "s".

"And now, the Royal Shakespeare Company is proud to present Bobo's 'Ssssssssss.'"

Chuck Norris, overheard on one of those late-night infomercials: "Now you may be asking yourself, is the [product] as good as we say it is? And the answer is, yes, it's even better than we say it is."

But... you just said that, Chuck. So would that mean it's even better than you just said it is, which is even better than you said it is? But then it would have to be even better than that, and...

...

My head hurts.

Looking through my kitchen cabinet the other day, I came across a cake mix and pondered the following: When did "yellow" become a flavor?

So in my dream, I am hanging out with my very pregnant (it's not mine) ex-girlfriend from college, though we're apparently in high school, because she's playing hooky and (later) I volunteer to call into school pretending to be her father to excuse her from missing class. First we break into a top secret building of sorts that my father used to work in, though it's more like we just wander in and no one seems to notice or care, and then we're at a baseball game. Finally, we end up at an Aerosmith tribute show, and I'm sitting on the sidelines noodling on a guitar and watching the backup singer who's just miming along to a pre-recorded track while my pregnant ex is actually playing guitar with the band. Not only is she playing with them, but she's apparently officially IN the band somehow.

And I'm being challenged by Justin Timberlake to a friendly guitar duel because he overheard me say that I could play better than him, and he wants to jam on Van Halen tunes. I avoid him somehow, and when the concert's over, my ex has a fight with the guy from 'Nsync with the goatee (who is drunk) about the father of her child and how he's in jail, which upsets me somehow, so I head for the exit without her. She intercepts me and we make up, but not before I run into some girls I am/was in high school with at a five-star restaurant, and I have to explain the nature of my current relationship with my ex, who has somehow morphed into the sister of one of their ex-boyfriends.

I've got to stop smoking crack before I go to bed.

As I was walking out of my last Illustrator class, and actually my last class at the PNCA (at least for the time being), I was suddenly struck with a nasty and overwhelming headache. Perhaps I've just spent far too much time staring at computer monitors lately, though that seems unlikely given how much I do that anyway, but regardless, I went from quite happy and pleased with myself to miserable and nauseous in about 0.2 seconds.

The first thing to go when I'm not feeling well is my good sense when it comes to eating. I'll chow down on anything if I think it will do me the slightest bit of good, and quite often I'll wind up regretting those decisions later. As soon as this headache hit I immediately headed for Wendy's, even though I already had a packed lunch sitting in my briefcase. (Didn't get the chance to eat that, though, because class let out early, and therefore we had no break. That didn't stop the girl -- the one who I previously thought was 16 but who I now have discovered is old enough to be engaged and work for Nike -- from bringing a fragrant cup of noodles into the computer lab. And no, she didn't bring enough for everyone, the bitch.) The urge for Wendy's may have had something to do with the overpowering smell of baked potatoes when I left the school, but it also was just the need to stuff as much food (and caffiene) as I could in my mouth in the hopes that it would quell my headache.

The chicken sandwich and potato were soon joined by a Snickers, some cookies, a peanut butter and honey sandwich, tomato soup, and (finally) crackers. And I'm probably going to have some rolls before I got to bed, partially because, although my headache is gone, my nausea isn't completely, and I find the best way to treat mild upset like that is with lots and lots of starch.

Also, I like rolls.

The other result of this headache is that I didn't get to go for a run, which adds further guilt to the whole overeating thing. But going for a jog would have been monstrously stupid, not that I'm above that level of idiocy lately...

My last two classes were fairly unremarkable. I half-assed the final projects, just like I knew I would, though I was able to do much better on the Illustrator project than the Photoshop one, which is about in inverse relationship to my respective skills in those areas. I just couldn't bring myself to care, but I lucked out in Illustrator. The other students still put in a lot more work than I did, and I felt slightly sheepish for a moment, but then I remembered that I'm unlikely to either see them or wind up working for them any time in the future, and my embarrassment subsided. It's a lot easier to not give a shit when nothing's at stake.

So perhaps the headache was just karmic payback for not trying harder. Hard to say.

I may actually take more classes, but I think I'll stay in beginning-level ones from here on out. I really don't feel like I learned much in the intermediate ones, and the class sizes shrank so significantly that social opportunities were limited as well. There was one girl in the Illustrator class that I got along with quite well, though I wasn't really attracted to her per se, but when she off-handedly mentioned her boyfriend, I suddenly lost any idea of how to approach her to just hang out without sounding, I don't know, non-platonic. So often there's the opposite problem with guys, I find. It's hard to bring up "hanging out" without feeling a bit, well, gay, unless the concept is fairly clearly mutual. Frankly, I'm amazed I have any friends at all...

Before I go, since you've made it this far, I'll leave you with this link, which originated from this site. Have fun, kiddies, and try not to poke your eye out with it.

Why are the vast majority of people who subscribe to e-mail lists complete idiots? Maybe I'm turning into the Internet equivalent of that old guy who yells at you to stay off his lawn, but it seems like lists are overwhemingly populated by people who can't tell "your" from "you're," and don't know how to, you know, delete all that extraneous crap in the message they're replying to. Recently, one bonehead in particular left an entire digest in his reply, which, I might add, was only one sentence long.

Perhaps its just Sturgeon's Law -- that 90 percent of everything is crap -- in effect, only this time applying to (depending on how you look at it) people's posts or indeed the people themselves. The latter seems a little cruel, though potentially accurate. I generally dislike about 90 percent of the people I meet, or, at least, I would not choose to spend very much time with them.

Back to the topic at hand, though, I may have been spoiled by my first encounter with an Internet mailing list. In 1994, I joined Echoes, a list devoted to Pink Floyd and known for its erudition. Of course, this was largely due to the band's following in intellectual circles and the limitation of 'net access in the early days to scientists and people in higher education. Now that the Internet has opened up to the general public, the list's character has changed, and though it still has an old guard of COD's (Crusty Old Dinosaurs, as they've named themselves) attempting to keep the standards high, sheer numbers are against them. When I last took leave of the list (probably a year ago), mostly because of the lack of any real Pink Floyd news or substantive discussion, it was mostly concerned with in-fighting and lyrical interpretations, neither of which particularly interest me.

I've joined other lists, mostly on Yahoo Groups, generally because I want to keep abreast of activities of bands or entertainers that I follow. Sometimes I can catch wind of a new project or a deal on a release that I wouldn't have found otherwise. But the sheer amount of crap I have to wade through to get that stuff is frustratingly huge. I've tried politely correcting people, but it's like whistling in a windstorm. Nobody listens, and I wonder why I even bother. Instead, I should focus on refining my scanning skills, or just lower my standards. Unfortunately, standards are like world records: Once they've been set, it's nearly impossible to lower them again...

Okay, here's a scenario for you: Let's say you make a new friend. We'll call him Ted. Ted just got out of jail -- for a crime he did not commit, he assures you -- and he has a great idea for a magazine specifically marketed to America's fastest growing segment of the population, the imprisoned. Now, in order to better facilitate a close working relationship, Ted comes to live with you.

However, Ted does not pay rent, but since he only takes up a portion of your living space, the intrusion seems minimal. Still, technically, Ted should really be paying half your rent and utilities. It's a decent place, so let's say Ted's share would be about $500. Additionally, since you're just starting up and he's got no other income, you have to pay for food as well. Ted can really put the food away, and on top of that, he has dietary restrictions. So you're coughing up an extra $250 a month just for Ted. But you like the guy, and you think he shows promise, so you willingly foot the bill.

Ted wants to borrow your clothes, too, since his only outfit he owns is a powder-blue tux he stole off of one of his victims. Mostly you give him your second-hand stuff, except the odd special occasion when you cough up funds to buy a nice outfit. Once he moves in, however, you discover that Ted has a terrible problem with incontinence, and needs -- putting it politely -- special undergarments. He also needs assistance changing them, due to an injury sustained in prison that affects his hand-eye coordination. (He can do it himself, but it gets messy.) Not counting the cost of counseling to deal with the resulting nightmares and mental anguish, this all costs you about $80 each month. Ted also needs physical therapy for his injury, for which you "borrow him" (as he puts it) another $80 a month. You give him the money gladly in the hope that it will spell the end of your part in his Depends changes.

Ted's got no car, and is legally barred from driving as a result of his conviction, so you help him out. The gas and insurance for your Lexus SUV runs you about 200 bucks a month on average, just for Ted's portion of the transportation mind you. Ted needs to go to lots of biker bars and casinos to do "research" for the magazine. Because it's for work, you tolerate it, and even make lots of new friends along the way, many of whom assure you that they would break your arms if they caught you looking at their woman, but cut you slack because you're nice to Ted.

Ted never learned to read, which could be a real hinderance to an aspiring magazine publisher, so you spot him $125 each month for a private tuitor (who, not unremarkably, you have to drive him to every day). On top of that, Ted needs some pocket cash to pay for cigarettes and porn, so you give him an allowance of 40 bucks a week. He continually presses you for a raise, but you resist, so Ted occasionally hocks parts of your expensive home theater system. Still, the magazine seems to be taking shape, so you silently tolerate this.

So you don't feel like a total doormat, you assign Ted some chores. He sets the table, does his laundry, and brutally assaults the neighbor who keeps dumping his leaves on your lawn.

Unfortunately, years pass, and your expenditures on Ted's behalf actually rise, while the magazine never actually comes to fruitition. Business venture capitalists continually reject your proposal because of your and Ted's lack of experience in publishing, the inability of the target market to pay with anything except cigarettes and cell-brewed moonshine, and Ted's repeated insistance that these potential investors respect him or he would "hoe check" them.

You ponder kicking Ted out, but even the mere suggestion sends him into a rage, so you continue paying his way through life. Ted is impatient, irresponsible and disrespectful. He interferes with your ability to have a social life and he rarely cleans up after himself. Your dog disappears under mysterious circumstances after a fight with Ted over "aiming" in the bathroom. The final straw comes when he throws a kegger for all his friends while you're away on business, earning money to put food for both you and him on the table I might add, and nearly burns the house down. "Enough is enough," you say, and file a restraining order against Ted.

Not wanting to violate parole and go back to the Big House, Ted agrees to move out and not kill you, but only if you send him to Harvard. This sets you back about $40k a year, but you do so gladly, if it means that someone else will have to deal with Ted from now on.

All told, it's nearly two decades later and what has this Ted mess gotten you? A quick calculation reveals that Ted's little stay ran you about $641,000. Not to mention your social life and nerves in tatters, your home likely ruined and you've lost twenty years you'll never get back. But this is all hypothetical, right? What does this have to do with anything?

Good question. As you may have guessed, it turns out those figures are about the current going rate for raising a single child. And most people wind up having more than one of those little Teds. (My parents had nine!) People like to say that raising a child is like investing the future, but it's really just one big pyramid scheme, isn't it? If I loaned someone $641k, I'd sure as hell expect to see at least a small return on that investment. And don't give me any of that "love" crap. Last I checked, they don't accept "love" at the checkout, missy. "Yes, I'd like to pay for that $300 grocery bill with love, please."

Well, that might work with some particularly lonely cashiers, but you'd definitely wind up with VD or worse if you tried to pull that often enough.

Oh, sure, I love kids; I'm just waiting for the discount version. I think someone needs to invent Timeshare Children. (Come to think of it, divorced parents already have...) Now there's a business I'd invest in, and I'd probably make some of my dough back.

I finally understand why parents used to put their spawn to work as soon as they could walk...

This was written last night, but Blogger was down, so I'm posting it now:

Well, today could have gone better...

I should have seen that things were off to a bad start when I opened my e-mail, only to discover that one of my favorite writers had announced that he was leaving the show he had created and written for the last four years. Between The West Wing and Ed, Wednesday was the only night of TV I made any real effort to watch anymore. But Ed has been moved to Friday, and teeters on the edge of cancellation, and I just can't see the point of watching The West Wing without Sorkin. He brought a caliber of dramatic writing unheard of in television today. The three final episodes of the second season will stand, in my mind, as the best dramatic writing ever seen on television, or in just about any medium, really. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

And sure, it's been hard to live up to that, but even Sorkin's lows over the two years since then have been higher than anything else on TV. The only TV shows I get remotely as much pleasure from are all comedies like South Park or Futurama. The Daily Show is a fine piece of television, sure, but nothing gives me quite the rush that seeing Sorkin pull off the unexpected with humor and pathos. He may go on to other projects (and I certainly hope he does), but he will have to work hard to find a situation that has such built in drama like the presidency, and gather such a talented ensemble. I enjoyed Sports Night, but I loved The West Wing.

But enough about that. After that start, the rest of my day probably couldn't help to feel a bit cursed. I dashed off a follow-up letter for a job that I really want, and went to hand-deliver it, but got completely and utterly lost on the way there, so the trip took about two or three times what it should have. Then I took what I thought was going to be a quick trip to find a CD (Opeth's "Still Life") by a band that I was trying to decide whether to see in concert on Saturday. When the first store (which I again got lost on my way to) I went to didn't have it, I decided to try another. That one was out as well, and quickly, it became a crusade. I visited every record store in town that I could manage, and finally found the CD at the fifth one I hit.

The only problem is, when I finally made it home, I discovered that I had bought the wrong record. Going by copyright date, I had assumed that the one with the most recent copyright date would be the one I wanted. Except it wasn't. They had released three records in the recent past, and I wanted the middle one, released at the end of last year -- but only in Europe. So the dates were all screwed up. And like an idiot, I had already opened the plastic.

To make matters worse, I discovered that the band was here last night, so I already missed them, and that three hours of driving and hunting was for nothing. I could have just ordered it online (for less, I'm sure) and achieved the same result, more or less.

Written up, it hardly seems like the kind of soul-draining day that it was, but I'm probably not doing a very good job conveying the difficulties I encountered along the way. And that's probably because I am just want to be done with it all. Reliving all the details again seems idiotic. I was supposed to spend the day writing, with a brief detour to deliver a letter and buy a CD, but it as things turned out, I wasted half the day and all of my energy on fool's errands.

Tomorrow should be better. I'm going with a group of friends to see an early matinee of X-Men 2, and that should leave the rest of the day open for doing the things I had hoped to get done today. Maybe I'll even get lucky and find somebody to buy that CD from me...