Dating has made me something of a cynic. Call it what you will - courting, dating, whatever - any non-platonic relationship with a female will most likely end in disaster. In fact, dating is a lot like playing darts with a blindfold on in a room full of crazed wombats. That is to say, it’s difficult to get right.

So, with my extensive knowlege in this field, let me give you some tips that will save you some time, money, and pain in your future relationships. These are valuable tips, but I’ve decided to be a Public Servant and not make you pay for them. That’s right. It’s all because I care.

1. There are three sorts of girls in the world, men. The ones that don’t care about you, the ones that hate you, and the ones that will hate you ex post relationship. Getting group one to care is no easy task. Don’t bother. Getting group two to care, believe it or not, is easy: they already hate you. Hate is pretty close to love, except that hate involves less intimacy and more bricks in purses. Group three is a write-off. Don’t bother. I know you want to, but don’t. Unless you suddenly become another person and that person’s name is Johnny Depp, they don’t want you.

2. If you’re so fortunate as to find a girl who cares and doesn’t hate you already, good going. You’re past the easy part. I’m going to assume here that you’re not a gigantic ass and that you’ll ask the girl out and not wait around for both your parents to arrange the deal, or for a giant tsunami to miraculously bring you together a la Hollywood. Here’s the catch: dating is an expensive, time-consuming hassle. So you need to know where this is all going. You need an objective. A purpose. Do you want to get married? That’s good. Go ahead and do that, see if I care. There’s a whole bunch of good reasons to date a girl. However, if one of those objectives is to “have a whole lot of sweaty sex”, go get yourself chemically castrated and have a nice day.

3. Once you’ve got a goal in mind, you’ve won half the battle of half the war of the rest of your life. Next comes dating in general. Now, let me let you in on a secret: every time you do something fancy for a girl, you’ve set a mark. And every time post-mark you do something fancy, it needs to hit or exceed that mark - which is bad news, considering that you probably suck at doing romantic thing for your girl. So, start small. Don’t be flashy from the get-go. Big things are nice memories, but the small things are what flesh everything out and really matter. Here’s an example: my first girlfriend just got married. So did my third. My second girlfriend is about as close to married as a llama is to a baseball bat, but this is all beside the point. I don’t have a single thing that reminds me of this first girlfriend. You know why that is? Because the biggest thing she ever gave me was this teddy bear I nearly forgot about after I doused it in gasoline and threw it out the window while driving down the 401. Okay, maybe I just burned it in the backyard. You want to leave an impression that lasts longer than it takes for a stuffed animal to burn. This leads to the next point.

4. Girls will say things they do not mean, and you must regard them as such. Girls will say things like “I don’t really care about flowers,” and “Valentines day isn’t a big deal for me.” You’ve probably heard it before. What these statements actually mean is “I don’t expect you to do anything on Valentines Day, like bringing me flowers.” Here’s the catch - unless a girl was beaten by a florist on Valentines Day when she was thirteen, she cares. So go small - don’t buy flowers on Valentines Day, because that’s just stupid. Do something else, something memorable. And if you can’t come up with any ideas, give me a call at my 1-900 number.

5. Be spontaneous. Really. Those flowers you see me talking about? Don’t buy them in obvious numbers on obvious days. Do it out of the blue. Get her one red rose. On a Friday, in the middle of winter for no reason whatsoever. You know what that says? It says, “Hey, I was thinking about you the other day. Not only was I thinking about you, but I care enough about you to express that through this gift.” You think that twelve roses says it better? Wrong. Look at it this way: she likes the rose you gave her, and it’s beautiful because of its simplicity. You think you get twelve times the appreciation when you have twelve times the roses? No. A dozen is a fundimentally unsound financial decision. Don’t do it, unless you want to set that bar higher. Remember the bar. Always, always, always remember the bar. Women have memories like you wouldn’t believe.

6. Be prepared for anything at any time. Relationships, and females in particular, are like a study in quantum mechanics. Things happen, and you can’re always be sure why, and you certainly can’t predict when. Your job is to not start fires, and to put them out when they do. It’s called taking charge. You’re not a hundred pound Dungeons and Dragons-playing wuss. But here’s the tricky part. Sometimes you just can’t fix things. You need to know when to let go. Let things run their course. If this doesn’t seem obvious to you, let me explain.

7. Women do not speak your language. They say things that don’t make sense. You, my friend, are a cryptographer. You’re going to break that code, because that’s how much you care. Sometimes, women say things they don’t mean. Sometimes they don’t say the things that they should. Sometimes they just want you to shut your pie-hole and turn on your ears. Especially when they’re frustrated with something - they suddenly become this giant fountain of speech that you can. not. stop. So don’t try. This is when you don’t try to fix things. You sit, you stand, you lie down, whatever - but you listen. Got that? Good.

8. Her parents are probably important to her. They probably hate you. Try to get along, would you? Even if that means golf, or household chores, or complimenting the absolutely awful design of the new addition to the house. Unless your girl is completely self-sufficient and approximately sixty, you’re just going to darn well have to do this.

9. It’s probably all a waste of time. After you’ve done everything right and gone to extreme lengths and been the most accepting, gentlemanly, respectful person ever, it’s probably going to blow up in your face and leave you back at square one. But this is a good thing, my cynical friend. For reasons that I can’t reveal due to national security concerns. But trust me, you’ll become a better person after it’s said and done. And if you don’t care about becoming a better person, well, you don’t deserve a girlfriend anyways, so go move to Nebraska and pan for gold or something.

Read this web community’s posts for a little while. Imagine what it must be like to be that way. To set your entire life in motion around a desire to look like something no human being outside famine zones should resemble.

One of the avatars on that site says “I desire perfection”. The picture: protruding ribs, flat stomach, rail figure. And that’s “perfection”.

well i did ok today, i wanted to try to start that soup diet but my mom wouldnt let me, she said that i dont need to go on a diet and i’ve already lost enough weight…that’s ridiculous…im just really sick of her right now she wont leave me alone, she wont let me go on the diet i wanna go on, and i cant go anywhere cuz i dont have a car…ugh i hate this

well today i ate…

apple not sure how many cals
soup 80 cal
cheez-its 130 cal

so my total for today is 210…not bad..

Read that — does it sound like perfection? It sounds like living hell.

You can’t even blame society for that. This is somewhere far beyond what society “demands” of the female body. And a whole lot of girls are going to look at that and go, “I don’t do that.”

But let me ask you a question. Are you on a road that leads to that place? Where you find satisfaction in a calorie count under 400? Are you profoundly disatisfied with your body? Would you like to change something about yourself? Ten things? Fifty?

You’re telling yourself a lie, and you know it. I’m not talking about being a healthy weight — that’s fine and good — but even if no one ever looks at you and says “you have the perfect body”, you’re still more beautiful than you can ever imagine.

Yep, they still don’t care what I sign on that receipt. I’ve got proof, and that proof is a picture. But not like you might be thinking a picture of a demon-posessed wombat.

I decided that if they don’t care that my name is Spoon, There is No — they’re not going to care if I just squiggle a bunch of circles on the receipt. And, suprise! Theye didn’t:

Yeah, you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing.

This “Two-Headed Boy” by Neutral Milk Hotel - one of my favorite bands ever. It’s played mostly on the downstroke with barre chords that start on the second fret. And it rules my shoes. Lyrics, anyone?

Two-Headed Boy

Two headed boy all floating in glass,
the sun it has passed, now it’s blacker than black
I can hear as you tap on your jar.
I am listening to hear where you are,
I am listening to hear where you are.
Two headed boy, put on sunday shoes
and dance round the room to accordion keys
with the needle that sings in your heart
catching signals that sound in the dark,
catching signals that sound.
In the dark we will take off our clothes
and they’ll be placing fingers
through the notches in your spine,
and when all is breaking
everything that you could keep inside,
now your eyes ain’t moving now,
they just lay there in their climb.

Two headed boy with pulleys and weights,
creating a radio played just for two
in the parlor with a moon across her face,
and through the music he sweetly displays
silver speakers that sparkle all day,
made for his lover who’s floating
and choking with her hands across her face.
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
and they’ll be placing fingers
through the notches in your spine,
and when all is breaking
everything that you could keep inside
now your eyes ain’t moving now
they just lay there in their climb.

Two headed boy, there’s no reason to grieve.
The world that you need is wrapped in gold
silver sleeves left beneath christmas trees in the snow.
I will take you and leave you alone,
watching spirals of white softly flow
over your eyelids and all you did will wait
until the point when you let go.

You hear stories all the time about people who use unsigned credit cards, sign wierd things, or just generally make a mockery of the system. It’s been done on the internet before, I know. Someone pays for a purchase with a credit card, signs a totally ridiculous signature, and posts it on the web.

But I just have to do it for myself. The tricky part is finding a corner store or whatnot that does two things: sells good coffee and also uses double sheets of paper so I at least get to keep what I’ve signed.

Luckily, I have one right by my house. Just one catch: no coffee. A pretty horrible little Shell station run by people that really don’t care much about anything, including their horrible little Shell station. So I figured it would be the ideal place to begin. And begin I did.

As you can see, I signed it with one of those catch phrases the Matrix spawned when I was yet a teenager. And nobody even looked at it. In fact, the girl gave me my credit card back before I had signed the receipt.

Also this morning, I was talking to this guy that regularly hangs out at the local Esso I buy my coffee at, talking about the man who lit himself on fire in the back of a rental van yesterday. And sometimes, I’ve wondered to myself why the man doesn’t have a car, why he’s maybe 50 years old and takes the bus to work every morning and spends at least twenty minutes in the morning dawdling around an Esso Station. But what he said explained all that. He said, “Now they’re blaming the cops. The cops should have had their marshmallows and weiners out and toasted them on him. Why didn’t they just shoot him or something?” Which I guess explains why he has a dead-end, low-paying job. Because he’s an utter moron. I mean, what do you say to a guy like that?

Today I got to tour a metalworking shop, just to get aquainted with what they do and how they use our tools. It was quite interesting, actually. An entire cell of robots doing things like spot welding, arc welding, assembling, that sort of thing.

Me and my new guitar are getting along quite well. I strum, I pick, I make tunes and words to go with them. All I need now is a microphone and an audience.

This one was a bit too wide to fit, darnit.

As was this pic.

I went out with Nick today. I bought a guitar, and wrote a whole bunch of not too terrible songs. It’s a great guitar, black, with a round back and great action. Bright, too, just like my old one. Now, of course, I need to save up for an amp and some cords and such. But I’m very glad I bought it. I need something to invest time in right now.

Idols are interesting things, aren’t they? Where they pop up, and how you can trade one for another one with such ease. You get rid of Ba’al, only to keep the building that housed him. You get rid of Asherah, but keep the grove. You’re forced to give up the present, but instead end up worshipping the future.

And God works in mysterious ways. I don’t understand him. I don’t get the plan - and maybe I never will. Who knows. Maybe it’s all way too far above my head to actually grasp in these tiny little hands. Maybe it’s something to wrestle with, until it touches your hip and calls you Israel. Maybe it’s a rock to lay you lay your head on and dream heavenly ladders and angels.

Maybe I’ll look back on my life before I die, provided I’m granted that long, and see the overarching purpose of it all. And maybe it’ll be God saying, “No, me first. Not that, not now. Me, now. Don’t grow toward that. Grow toward me.”

Maybe I’ll die in peace, having run the course of my own river, the one that carries so many other people with it.

I was reading Jamie’s blog, and I came to the expression “find myself”. This set off a trail of thought in my head that goes a little something like this:

People are pretty much who they are by the time they’re 14-16, generally. Some people a bit earlier, and some people a bit later. But the fibre of who you are is knit in those times, and you spend the rest of your life either running from that or accepting it and working with it. It’s not like you can’t ever change anything about yourself, but even the fact you might want to change something about yourself is probably a result of those formative years of your life.

It begs the question then. How does one find oneself? One already is oneself. How do you set off on a grand adventure to the great unknown to look for something that you aready are, only to find at the end of it all that you’re still the same damn person you always were, just in a different place?

It’s a good question, and needs to be asked in an age of pop-psychobabble. I think it really means something else altogether. People that set out to find themselves generally set out to find purpose, not some inner psychological place they need to get in touch with before they can lead proactive, fulfilled lives.

But how do you ever find a purpose in your life? What will you feel like fulfills you? When the adventure is over, what do you find? The things that give you purpose were already there since you were fourteen. Really what I’m saying is that your purpose is not something that determines who you are; who you are is exactly the thing that determines in what you will find your purpose. It’s simply inescapable, and I think moderns and postmoderns would do well to bear it in mind.

Not to mention the fact that you’ll never find a true purpose in yourself anyways! Where does a man or woman find purpose, real purpose? Well, in God, stupid. The chief aim of your life is what? Right - to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And until you do that, you can set off for a hundred different expiditions to a hundred different places and still be exactly the same person you were before, just with some new insights and experiences.

I honestly believe that most people can find fulfillment most places they look. Some places may be better tailored for certain types of people, but the plain facts are that modern man is much too provincial in his thinking. We tend to say, “Oh, well I need the perfect job, one that I love,” and forget that a variety of people can be completely happy doing a variety of things if they’d just let themselves be content in the place they’re at. Life partners are the same way: some of them are a perfect fit, and others aren’t at all. But I’d be comfortable saying that the vast majority of people are compatible with the vast majority of the opposite sex. The defence invariably rests on “Well, don’t you want better than good?” when they’re completely comfortable with turning around and saying “Life is what you make it!”

Well, you can’t really have it both ways. I suppose there is a bit of truth to both sides, in that you are who you are and you make your life what you make it, but the plain facts are that life is hell and most people are never going to find the perfect job or the perfect wife. And most people are never going to even know it. In fact, it’s impossible that everyone have the perfect job and wife, because that implies an absolutely ridiculous one-on-one correlation to everything in the known universe.

So you want to find yourself, do you? I hope you enjoy what you find; you’ve known it all along, after all. And you want destiny, do you? Well here’s an amazing plan for you to stick in your pipe and smoke: what if the amazing plan for your life is that you never truly find that perfect something on earth? Ever think of that? What if the plan is that everything in your life directs you to salvation and eternity by making damned sure you’re not happy with the way things are? What if your life is a monument to pain? What if your life is a testament to others that putting so many chips on the perfect this or that is a bloody waste of time?

Ah, but Jamie, don’t mind me. I’m a little angry right now. Confused, maybe. It’s not you.

I had the awesome experience of watching the movie “Hitch” tonight. It was good, but of course, it just had to have a huge helping of romance. I got caught up in it, and forgot about myself. It was good, just like when I played the piano Sunday morning. Singing along with Dead Poetic, those sorts of things.

I need a good long sleep. Really, I need one. I’m getting tired already, and it’s just 12:14. And in other news, when I went to buy coffee today, the gas bar didn’t take cashback, so I had no money.

Figure it out… it makes sense.