Tagged: women
Who’s Fighting For The Leprechauns?
Constitution or no constitution, I think it’s a valid question.
And if my daughter’s classroom had anything to say about them around last St. Patty’s Day, what with chairs overturned and tables on their side, I wouldn’t want to piss those little guys off. They can be awfully mischievous.
Hot and Bothered
My son’s shoulders were red and his tank top was drenched with sweat. He smelled bad too and though I didn’t want drive away–not yet–I couldn’t help but think how if I didn’t, his car seat would get sweatier and sweatier and probably never not stink again. Only the very top section of his hair was not plastered to his head and was standing straight up as if he was still running around with the other kids. If you looked close enough, you could almost see little chests sticking out of each of the hairs as if they were proud to be counted among the few who held out to the end of the battle.
“Mommy, what’s funny?”
I didn’t raise my head from the steering wheel where I had just placed it. As for me, I was warm for a different reason and in a different place. My shoulders were red from the sun except for where my spaghetti string tank top had only slightly covered each of them, and now that I was away from the man I could finally allow my face to fully flush and match the hue. But I didn’t want Billy to see and comment. Not expecting nor suppressing the giggle that erupted, I deliberately focused on memorizing every feature of his face, physique, and sense of humor. He was perfect. I did not want to forget him. And yet I forgot to give him my number. Dammit. What was his name again? Steve? Brian? Eric! Eric. His name was Eric. Whew.
I did consider raising my head when I heard a knock on my window followed by “Mommy, the man from the park is knocking on your window.” Shocked and not wanting him to see me in this state, as I raised my head I kept my hands where I had had them at the ten and three and I tensely looked away. There was a second round of knocking and a second round of Billy announcing the knocking. For a moment I wondered how long he would stand there and for a briefer moment I wanted to test him–only partly playing–but I didn’t. Finally, turning my head with no small amount what-I-knew-would-be-an-enticing flash of my shoulder length, cute, jet black hair, I looked up at him, smiled, and attempted to lower the window. I had hoped my skin’s normal color had returned to my face, but as I pressed down on the window button, I was certain my face regained whatever red it had lost, this time due to embarrassment. I had forgotten to even turn on the car. No wonder I was so hot. Poor Billy, I chuckled to myself. I could hear the local news’ coverage already: “Local boy and mom rushed to the hospital earlier today. After recovering from a mild case of heat stroke, the mom admitted she had become absentminded after talking to a nice man for the first time in years and subsequently forgot to turn on the car after getting in it to drive home.”
Luckily, the car started and I had the a/c on and window down in no time.
“Hey-” I began.
“Hey-” he interrupted.
We laughed.
“What’s funny, mommy?”
He didn’t seem like he would start again so I finally said, “Yes-” right as he did begin again with, “So-”
We laughed again.
Billy laughed from the back seat.
We laughed harder because of it and Billy kept laughing.
“Should we ro-sham-beaux to determine the order of speakers?” Eric asked.
“Ro-sham-beaux?” Billy repeated.
“No. I’m sorry. Please, go ahead,” I insisted, looking right through his only lightly tinted, tan designer sun-glass lenses and into his remarkable and piercing dark brown eyes.
He looked back at Billy, waived, and then said, “Before you go, I just thought you might want to see this,” as he handed me his phone.
“Can I see, mommy?”
I almost gave the phone right back to him as the screen did not have whatever I was expecting, which I guess I would have to say was another cute meme like the ones he had already shown me. Only a moment before that awkwardness, I realized what he was doing. He was so considerate. He had given me his phone on the “Add New Contact” page with my name so that I could give him my number without the kiddo knowing. He remembered my name. You better believe I triple checked the number, even going as far as texting myself and checking my phone to see that I got it before handing his phone back to him.
“Funny,” I said finally. Turning to Billy, I said, “Not this time, sport.”
“Well, it was my pleasure. Nice to meet you, Billy. Be good for your mom.”
I then watched as he stepped back a ways and stoically raised his open right hand. I would’ve kept looking at him, but when he coolly smiled and winked, I couldn’t keep a straight face so I pretended to clear the passenger side of my reverse.
Buy It Today! It’s Just Us, Daddy, by Pete Deakon and Illustrated by Kaelyn Williams is on sale now
You read that correctly. The long awaited illustrated children’s book is finally for sale on Amazon. Buy it by clicking here. Or here. Or here. You can also click here.
I plan on giving it to Glenn of Glenn Hates Books at the end of next week. Please don’t let his review (as awesome as it will be) be the first/only one posted.
Who Loves His Daughter More? Arnold vs. Liam, A Joint Review of Maggie and Taken
“Good will overcome. Trust in that.”
Lord Locksley is right yet again.
I hated Liam Neeson’s blockbuster Taken. Hated it. I hated it despite finding myself in a pool of people who loved it, people who adored it, people who worshiped it. It came out while I was still serving and both the men and women serving beside me couldn’t get enough of it. They also couldn’t keep their enthusiasm to themselves. A happy soul would volunteer they watched it on a long flight, and at least one listener would perk up with, “You saw Taken? What’d you think of it? Awesome, right? I loved it.”
I instinctively hated Taken because it is too easy. Is there any thing Neeson can’t do? No. He’s the most highly skilled and trained operative the world has ever seen. And he’s a dad. Then his virgin daughter gets kidnapped. Yes, I said virgin. His daughter is a virgin, and the whole movie rests on this one simple fact. Like a Fifty Shades of Grey for men, Taken is nothing more than fantasy of the basest kind. What wouldn’t a father with Neeson’s skills do to get his virgin daughter back? American macho men itch for a predicament like this, for a hero to cheer on, for a scenario that they can dream about happening to them. Wouldn’t it be nice if perfect, beautiful, innocent girls were being harmed? Then we could go torture and kill some people without losing sleep at night. Give me a break. Don’t believe my little theory? Ask yourself if you would’ve enjoyed the movie if the daughter had a reputation of being sexually active? Ask yourself how you would’ve felt if when given the horse for her birthday, the daughter had responded, “Aww, you shouldn’t have. I appreciate the effort, but I wanted something ‘hung like a horse’, not an actual horse.”
Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m alone in my criticism. What else is new? I’m alone, but never without hope. For a long time I’ve waited for someone–anyone–to tell a good father-daughter story. You can imagine my excitement when, yesterday, I stumbled upon Arnold’s newest flick Maggie.
The premise? Zombies. The location? Rural Kansas. The conflict? Arnold’s late teenage daughter is infected with the dealio that turns people into zombies. But Arnold promised her mom, before she died (the mom, not the daughter) that he’d keep her (the daughter) safe.
That’s a remarkable story. The kiddo is going to become a flesh-eating zombie, and you have to kill it or it will kill you. What do you do? What will audiences cheer for? Who wins? Is it believable?
In this simple story, Arnold, the man who single-handedly inspired me and countless millions of others to exercise, essentially standing chest kicks Liam and his Taken nonsense 300-style into the pit. In effect, Arnold says, “You think traipsing around the globe killing people over your virgin daughter is love? Ha. You don’t know what love is, buddy.”
Kansans know what love is though. And I’d like to take a moment to personally thank Arnold for demonstrating this. “Thank you.”
Even before Maggie, Man of Steel did Kansans right with an amazing, old t-shirted (seriously, how do they make a t-shirt look so perfectly old?) Kevin Costner and his confident-yet-never-certain wisdom that goes against seemingly common sense which molded Clark into, well, Superman. Yahoo for Kansas.
You know that I grew up in Kansas. Kansas, which is beside Missouri–the Show Me state–must be the place then where I picked up my anti-authority, anti-utilitarianism attitude. The same attitude that Arnold and the other Kansans have in Maggie. The attitude that says, “So what if the government has mandated that infected folks have to be quarantined until they’re killed, so what if I might not be able to do what needs to be done before it’s too late and consequently the larger group is put at even more risk. So what? Who are you to tell me what to do? I only have one daughter, and I made a promise to her dead mother. There is more going on here than you and your rules.”
In the end, of course, Arnold kicks Liam’s ass. The movie is fantastic. There is actually another father-daughter sub-plot that takes the cake, but you have to see it to believe it. No spoilers here. If you secretly or overtly laughed at Taken, watch Maggie.
Mildly Depressing Information About WordPress Blogging – Part 2 (The Good Stuff)
“You have to sell your soul at some point if you want to make money,” he says to me. He being my brother, Sam. The reason he said it to me was because I was explaining to him how I was increasing traffic to my (this) blog. Though, to be perfectly clear, the real–the root–reason he said it to me was because we grew up in the bible belt. Anyhow, let’s get to the good stuff–how I gained 1400 followers in 6 weeks’ time.
As a reminder, this all happened last December. December 2014 I was unemployed and living on some savings. I had oodles of time and two books inside me that I needed to get out. Obviously I wanted them to become best sellers and therein give me the means to discover first-hand whether or not the life of leisure was actually for me. Since beginning to blog daily, like a broken record I constantly told my friends and family, “I know the way to get more followers is to be more active in the blogosphere. I can tell that if I just take the time to read more blogs and comment and “follow”, then I’ll get more followers. I just don’t want to spend the time and energy.” I knew this because, like you, I had seen a “like” email and followed the link to the associated blog and often enough liked/commented a post or two and soon made a momentary friend as our two blogs gained a follower.
So while taking a break from writing my first not-best seller, I opened up the WordPress Reader. I was writing a contemporary realism tale of divorce (of course not based on mine, that’d just be silly) so I figured that’s where I’d start. Typing in “divorce” on the left side of the screen, I ended up with a page full of divorce posts. Suffice it to say that after reading a couple of them, I realized this was way too time consuming. How does anyone possibly read a lot of blogs, I asked myself? I think I then decided to just skim the blog posts. But I’m too lazy to skim, so that didn’t work either. Then, I noticed something that I never had before. Right there on the Reader, you can click “like” and “follow”. As in you and I, any WP bloggers, can “like” and “follow” blogs that we haven’t even visited. Understand me? Not just not read, but not visited.
All of a sudden it became clear why I had been getting the like/follow double emails. Knuckleheads were seeing my blog post in their Reader for whatever reason and, like a one-two combination punch, clicking “like” and “follow” from there. Good to know. Next thing I know, I’m mindlessly clicking “like” and “follow” on every blog on the Reader. When I got to the bottom, it’d take a second to load more posts and then I’d continue. But then something hit me. I remembered that I hated getting a pair of like/follow emails. They always felt dirty to me. But what I did like receiving was just a “like” email notification. Hoping to discover you and I were not as unique as we might want to believe, I switched tactics. I just clicked “like” on the Reader on post after post after post.
Here’s where it got interesting. I remember thinking to myself before I hit the limit, “Surely there is a limit to this. I can’t believe their IT guys would let a blogger sit here for hours on end liking posts in an attempt to steer traffic his/her way.” (Please keep in mind I was not working, so I had plenty of time. What’s that saying about the devil and idle hands?) Anyhow, I kept “liking” and scrolling until something goofy happened. The “like” wouldn’t stay orange. It kept bouncing back to blue. Not to be deterred, I actually visited the blog whose post I was attempting to “like”. When I clicked “like” on the actual blog page, it seemed to stick. My icon was added to the group of likers (or often was the first one). But when I refreshed the blog, it hadn’t worked. I had hit some limit WordPress had set after all.
Next, I figured that this was surely a temporary “like” lockout. I do remember panicking a bit. “What?! I can’t like another post? What if I actually do like a post? What have I done!?” I walked away from the laptop for a while. Upon my return, I discovered I could “like” again. So now I figured, “Fuck it. Let’s put them to test.” Long story short, I discovered that I could like 100 posts and then WordPress would lock me out for one hour. As in literally 60 minutes after the 100th “like” I could again “like” another 100 posts.
During all of this, something else began to happen. My own blog stats were going through the roof. On average days before this day, I had 30 views. My all-time high was ninety-three. (I must’ve posted something about sex that day.) With my liking a few hundred posts in a day, I was getting nearly as many views in return. 30 became 300. It felt amazing.
But everything I’ve told you so far is just foreplay. Stick with me.
I then found myself manually “liking” 100 posts (takes about 5-10 minutes to click “like” 100 times, depending on whether any headlines/intros are distracting in a good way) and then putzing around for an hour and then doing it again. And again. And again. All day. Can you imagine this? Living life 60 minutes at a time. “Whoops. I’ll call you back. Gotta get back to it.” Then one day my friend George was over. George is a sharp cookie. He is also a programmer by trade. He is also an extremist in nearly every way and so while he was fixing some paleo-bullshyat meal for himself in the kitchen, I told him I needed a few minutes to do my thing. He sees what I’m doing and says, “Hey. Let me have the laptop for a second.” He said this with a look that excited me and I’m sure I looked silly trying to keep a poker face as I answered, “Sure. Okay. Cool.”
You need to be in your web browser for this next part (not your mobile device). Ready everyone? Follow my next instruction very precisely. I know a lot of you aren’t techy, that’s cool, but I don’t want you to take your computer in because of something you can fix yourself. What I’m going to have you do is the same as pressing Caps Lock. Press it once to turn it on, press it again and it turns off. Get it? Okay. Instead of Caps Lock, find and slowly (like give it a second to bring up a new Matrix-y mumbo-jumbo screen before you press it the second time to take that screen away) press the F12 key two times. With me? Okay. So that little half-screen thing is the way you–you know what? I don’t even get it, so I’m not going to try to explain it to you. Skipping ahead, George wrote a script for me to enter into the bottom field of that screen, the one with the “greater than” (>) sign, that would click “like” on all one hundred posts instantaneously, as long as I had already scrolled down enough to load my Reader with one hundred posts. Drum-roll please…
jQuery(‘a.like:lt(100)’).click()
Just highlight and contol-c that bad boy.
I’m not kidding. I now could wake up, fix the girl-child some breakfast, open the laptop, open the Reader, scroll scroll scroll, and then hit F12, cut-and-paste the script above, hit enter, and voila! 100 poor souls would see the Woodpecker image and swing by the ol’ Captain’s Log, discovering how awesome my writing was in the process. I’d then look at the clock and record the time on my white board. (There’s only so much ice for penguins in the old noggin’, as we used to say in the Air Force.) One hour later and I’d do it again.
As for the results? For 6 weeks I averaged 600 views a day (around 2/3rds of my “likes”. I usually had the stamina for 10 rounds of this or 1000 “likes” a day). I gained around 70 followers a day too. I also felt very, very guilty. Know what it’s like to read, “Thank you so much for stopping by my blog” when you didn’t stop by a blog? I do. It doesn’t feel good. But whatever. I knew my writing was not a waste of someone’s time and I was trying to sell my book. Of course, the book hasn’t sold, so please don’t miss the lesson here.
Anyhow, I know you’ve got other things to do today, but here’s a few more lessons learned. You might be sharp enough to ask, “Are there really 1000 new divorce blog posts an hour?” The answer is “no.” In fact, most categories that I tried did not have 1000 new posts a day. So I had to vary it. Poetry and Writing are the most used categories I found. And as you might imagine, they are also the most grateful. Batman, Movie Reviews, Philosophy, Erotica, Affairs–not so much.
You might also be asking, “What about WordPress? Surely they would notice his extraordinary ability to speed read?” They did. One day I discovered a thin red banner across my blog’s dashboard. I “clicked here” to begin to resolve the problem. Kevin, I think his name was Kevin, told me they noticed I was “liking” a lot of blog posts. He then asked how I determined what to “like”. Only mildly worried about losing all my own blog posts over this little stunt, I followed the age old moniker, “Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Immediate Counter-Accusation.” It worked. Though I’m still not sure Kevin is human.
While I didn’t think much of it at the time, these days I think I deserve an award for following this hourly schedule for six weeks.
In sum, I went from 400 followers (gained over a year and a half) to 1800 followers in 6 weeks. Since I’ve stopped my mass-liking (is there anything in life that doesn’t get old?), I am back to gaining the I-assume-you’ve-seen average of one new follower per published post.
Regarding “likes”: Before I ever mass-liked and with 400 followers, I had been getting 10 likes a day. Now I get between 20 and 50 “likes” a post, depending on type of content (keep in mind, this small increase is with 1800 followers).
Other lessons. Sex sells. So do father-daughter posts. My daily “views” when I publish are at about 60, up from 30. Though my recent divorce rant with the “c” word peaked at 194. I credit an early use of the “c” word for the extra attention.
Okay. That’s it. Like I said yesterday, I don’t know why anyone would want to use this information to attempt to better their station in life, but now you have it. I also feel like I understand WordPress as a business a little bit more. They provide a super-user friendly way to have a website and virtual community. But they’re the only ones getting rich quick. Oh well. No big thing.
As a final note, I couldn’t stop writing if I wanted to. And I don’t want to stop. I may not post as much as usual in the coming days/week, but that’s just because I am dealing with some other negative stuff in life and don’t want to keep ranting on here.
On a positive note, my illustrated (by a friend) children’s book proof is arriving next week. So that’ll be the next big thing. It’s great.
Actually, while you’re here, click here to buy my books. Seriously. Buy them! Do it now! That’s an order!
And never forget that the only way to get there is together.
PS – Here’s photographic evidence. The middle bar is the rant day. Yesterday’s views are because I wanted to make sure the script I gave you still worked. I was at 92 views yesterday at 3pm (six hours after publishing, most views come in much earlier than that) before I mass-liked 100 poetry posts. Looks like 157 will be it. Like I said, you can expect a return of 2/3rds the amount of “likes” you do.
Farters
When attempting to describe my sense of humor to people who are new to it, I’ve used the label “cosmic humor”. When I’ve said that, I intended to convey that even if it seems like I am laughing at rather than with a person, I’m not laughing at the person at all. I’m laughing at the cosmic situation. Sometimes people get it, other times people do not. Recently a blogger friend asserted that she didn’t think my icebreaking attempts at the gym were funny. Upon reading that, I felt bad and have wanted to try to explain why they were funny, moreover I wanted to explain how I can laugh at someone without actually making fun of them. Two days ago my brother gave me just what I needed.
I got this text from him in which he shared that he had the amusing thought of trying to deduce the origin of the “he who smelt it dealt it” phrase. After giving that problem more than a passing moment’s thought, I couldn’t help but laugh. And then it hit me that besides this unexpectedly pleasant laugh, Sam also unintentionally gave me a perfect way with which I can describe my sense of humor and offer its brilliance to you for your own application in this crazy, crazy world.
Picture with me the first time a couple of human boys heard a fart. Picture the very first time–caveboy style. I’m not talking about the purposeful farting that happens around puberty or so, but when the lads were probably four or five years old and off a ways from the tribe, just screwing around in the woods. It’d have to have been an otherwise quiet moment when all of a sudden this silly noise emanates from one of the boys. Surprising even himself, the perpetrator turns to the other boy and smiles. The other boy responds in kind with a innocent chuckle and a, “What the heck was that?” expression on his face. And then I picture the boy that didn’t fart to playfully laugh with an attitude of, “That was a really funny sound your body just made,” which would likely be followed by the hopeful command: “Do it again!”
See how the non-farter is laughing at the farter, but not really? He’s more laughing at the fact that farting occurs. It’s the slightest of distinctions, but I promise it’s there. And that’s my humor. That’s how I laugh at everything. We’re all on this human journey and these bodies we have utter words and make faces and take things serious and believe they’re important or right etc. etc. And so I laugh. I see stuff happen, especially things I do, like walking up to random women and pointing out how they can do life better, and then I laugh. I laugh with an attitude of, “What the heck was that?” and “Can you believe my body (brain included), in all its glorious wonder, just made that noise?”
And sometimes, just sometimes, the stranger laughs at the sound with me. And in that moment–that rare moment–a great friendship forms.
So lighten up, because I could use more friends. And after all, we’re all just a bunch of farters.
The Morning Paper
Beginning the previous night during a skype session with grandma and pops, little H- manifested a year old Lego instruction guide previously hidden in the depths of her room. Naturally, the pamphlet was equal part instructions and advertisements. As her birthday was rapidly approaching, H- was sure to make her requests for new Lego sets earnestly.
The following morning, her dad placed her bowl of milk-less Cinnamon Toast Crunch in front of her, remembering the spoon and everything this time. He then began to fix himself a bowl and saw she was again engaged by this Lego pamphlet.
“What are you doing, H-?” he asked.
“I’m reading the newspaper,” she answered nonchalantly.
“Who reads the newspaper anymore?” he questioned out loud, looking to challenge the lass.
“Grandma and pops,” she replied, unphased.
“Oh,” he muttered. It was true. The Kansas City Star still made it onto the grandparents’ kitchen table every day. “So, what’s going on? Anything important?”
“Well,” H- began with a breath, “it looks like they’re building something.”
Complimenting Women And Why I Won’t Do It.
For a long time I worried that I hated women. As I’ve re-read many of my posts on the subject, I’ve concluded that I never actually hated women, I just fear them. Why do I fear women? Because they have a power over me that I don’t give to men. However, this power that they have isn’t merit based, unless being born is difficult, hence the fear. Allow me to explain.
Except for maybe TC, I have never looked at a man, no matter how attractive he was, and on the basis of his looks alone, thought, “I would like to be his friend.” With men, I size them up. What have they accomplished? What is their personality like? What obstacles have they overcome? What are their goals? And on and on.
But with women there is this very difficult to describe feeling that comes over me based simply on their appearance. You might call it an erection. If a woman appears a certain way, all the criteria I normally apply–all my choosiness–goes right out the window. And for what? The possibility of breeding?
How does my refusal to compliment women fit in? Yesterday’s examples of my icebreaker line stylings evoked several responses that suggested or made mention of the use of compliments as a means to advance my endeavor to meet women. Well, ladies, I won’t use them. And here’s why.
First, Groucho Marx said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” Likewise, I don’t care to be with a woman whose heart flutters at a stranger’s compliment. I can’t think of anything more difficult than discerning the truth of a compliment. As a rule, then, if a stranger pays me one, I fight off every instinct to ask for another, politely accept it, and then immediately discard it. You should too.
Second, one commentor in particular (my mom) offered that my style of “line” signals that I’m only after one thing [punany] and that’s why they are falling flat. Is that a joke? We’re saying that clever attempts to make a woman laugh indicate that I only want sex more so than telling a woman she’s beautiful? Than making an assertion that I can’t possibly know to be accurate? Please. It’s more like I expect women who find themselves among big people to acknowledge that men don’t approach women whom they can’t imagine sleeping with in some scenario or other–and then get over that fact.
Third, while the historical record may lead you to believe that I’ll sleep with any woman who wants to sleep with me, I don’t really care to sleep with a woman that is not first my friend. And I have high standards for friends, especially regarding their ability to laugh at life. So I test women, not compliment them. If I say something so ridiculous that I think they should fall over laughing at the entirety of the scene, and instead they think I’m serious, then there is no way in hell we’re going to get along in this lifetime.
Lastly, in defense of myself, I am shocked at the comments which seemed to imply I was earnestly giving advice to the ladies I approached. Seriously? After everything I shared you thought I was concerned with helping the women? Sorry, but no. I care about making people laugh, not about how people exercise. That’s my favorite part about gyms. All of us can be the disasters we are and it has no effect on any of our results. By way of example, compare the folks in a gym, even the staff, to, say, an aircraft and its flight crew. People in a gym can be utterly wrong and misaligned and it doesn’t affect me in the least. More reps. Less reps. Half reps. Forearm exercises. Tweaked shoulders. Recent surgeries. Shirt-matching shoes. Butt-hiding shirts. Headbands. Wristbands. Earbuds. Dr. Dre’s headphones. Cardio then Costco. None of that has anything to do with whether I get results. Whatever your preference, just do it.
Let it be known, women. I am afraid of you. I am a lot of thrust just waiting for a vector. Yet, I’m certain that with the wrong one of you at my side, I might not recognize the fast rising earth soon enough to avoid disaster. So I’m not going to make this easy on you. Want a compliment? Impress me. To begin, I’d lighten up.
Making Friends At The Gym
One of the reasons I joined the mega-gym in town was to be more social and hopefully meet some new people. It has not gone well. I can’t quite put my finger on why not, but I think I am beginning to see a bit of a pattern.
First, and foremost, I am often motivated to talk to female members because I watch them talk to other men and everyone looks like they’re having fun. And especially of late, I’ve been more bold in striking up conversations with people that I’ve wanted to, regardless of my estimation at success. For your enjoyment today, I’d like to share three examples with you.
Before we get going though, I wonder how many of you have ever read Ben Franklin’s letter to a young man about a mistress? I doubt many of you have, so I’ll post the meat of it here for easy access. It’s well worth a read. I promise.
…then I repeat my former advice, that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones. You call this a paradox, and demand my reasons. They are these:
1. Because as they have more knowledge of the world and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.
2. Because when women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the diminution of beauty by an augmentation of utility. They learn to do a 1000 services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old woman who is not a good woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience.
4. Because through more experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the affair should happen to be known, considerate people might be rather inclined to excuse an old woman who would kindly take care of a young man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his ruining his health and fortune among mercenary prostitutes.
5. Because in every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part: The face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the neck; then the breast and arms; the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every knack being by practice capable of improvement.
6. Because the sin is less. The debauching a virgin may be her ruin, and make her for life unhappy.
7. Because the compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you frequent bitter reflections; none of which can attend the making an old woman happy.
8thly and Lastly: They are so grateful!!
It’s difficult to write after reading something as great as that. Anyhow.
Still with me? Good. The point of including that advice is to say that there is this older woman at the gym. I noticed her straight away one morning and couldn’t help but think to myself that she had a very natural beauty to her, the kind that is possessed by women who don’t know they have it. One day I introduced myself and we had a brief chat. The following week, her daughter was with her. Besides receiving all the important genes from her mom, the daughter appeared to be equal parts college student and cross-fit games champion. As such, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the pair. Suddenly, however, I was struck by something funny. On this day, unlike all others, the mom was going balls-to-the-wall as they say. Her daughter was spotting her every set and it seemed like some real results were nearby. This was rather silly to me. Nonetheless, my brain filled with what I thought was a good enough line to use to open the door to conversation. So I went with it. I finished watching them double team a machine from the close by station I was at and then walked over and said, as if delivering a useful secret, “I don’t know if you two know this or not, but the gym kinda frowns on two people using one machine at the same time. Something about liability.” Only half way through the delivery did I notice the daughter had in her ears the smallest, most invisible of ear-buds, which left the mom to be the lone recipient of my charm. And despite outstanding delivery on my part, which concluded with my beautiful smile, she responded with, “What?” And like a fool, I repeated myself. It was hell. No laughs either time. I walked away tail tucked between my legs and later apologized. Oh well.
Next, I have seen the same employee lady nearly every day I go and sometimes she even smiles at me. I figure to myself that gym employees, like all employees, would always prefer a fun day to a boring day. Boy was I wrong. This particular day I see that she’s helping a lady who talks like the Champion of Everything but appears to struggle daily with at least one thing. In any case, I happen to notice my girl enter a one-handed battle with a weight rack for possession of a 45lb plate. Again, leading with a tip-giving countenance, I offer, “You’ll find it takes less than half the time if you use two hands next time.” Crickets. I might have broken the no running policy to escape that real-life example of awkward.
Lastly, I see a lady with whom I’ve nearly successfully delivered one of these singular conversation starters in the past. She’s on the lying down leg curl machine. It’s the only one in the building. I would like to use it. Trouble is, she’s doing some other fandangled exercise on it. However, the exercise she’s doing on it is so wrong, that it must be right. Or, put another way, she must be intending to do whatever she’s doing. As an ice breaker after which I’ll ask to work in with her, of course resetting the machine for her after every set of mine as gentlemen do, I say, “So when I’m not sure how to use a machine, I usually look at the diagrams posted on it. For instance, you’ll see pictures right here. And if I’m still not sure what to do, I-” She cuts me off, asking, “Are you serious?” I continue unphased, saying, “-I then move to the written description of the movement. And, like everything, read left-to-right, top-to-bottom.” Another “Are you serious?” later and I smile. Minor conversation starts and I determine that the only reason she was a willing participant is because she has very, very low self-esteem and figured such a demonstrably wise man as myself might add himself to the list of men who award her daily validation from here on out and that’s just not my game. Conversation over.
And there you have it. I know I’d be friends with a guy or girl bold enough to deliver these lines.
Pooches
“I want macaroni and cheese,” H- said as the waitress held out her pad. She smiled at the girl’s boldness.
Then addressing the little girl’s dad, the waitress clarified, “It’s not Kraft macaroni and cheese, but our own homemade version. It has a heavy cheese sauce-”
“I love homemade macaroni and cheese,” H- interrupted.
Again, the waitress smiled. As did the dad.
“I need a few more minutes,” he said, “but you can bring hers out whenever.”
“Okay.”
Minutes elapsed as H- and her dad partook in their respective lunches during spring break.
H- broke the silence and smartly volunteered, “I should eat all my macaroni and cheese before the strawberries, right?”
Smiling, her dad answered, “Right.”
A few more minutes of diligence on H-‘s part passed.
“You really should eat more, H-.”
“Eat? Look at my tummy. It’s so full,” she began, attempting to stick her non-existent belly out. Then, as if realizing she may be her own worst enemy, she added with determined eyes, “But not too full for dessert.”
“It’s not even big, H-,” he answered, rolling his eyes at the four year old’s endeavor.
“Do you know what a pooch is, Daddy?”
He didn’t want to let her see his shock at her question, so he delicately, though quickly, shifted his eyes from hers to something a few inches away. “Pooch?” he thought. “Why does my daughter know what a pooch is? What moron–no, what mother fucker is using the word pooch around little girls? As if little girls don’t have enough bullshit to worry about in this world, some knucklehead is even now ruining their already set-up-for-failure image innocence. Never again will I let her out of my sight-”
“It’s a dog!”
He turned. Relief? Alleviation, perhaps? Mitigation? Easement? None of these words capture the feeling this answer gave him.
“Maybe the world’s not such a terrible place,” he thought.
Captain’s Log 
