to get the girl of your dreams in four easy steps
(1) get close to her any way you can. sit next to her, hang out on her porch, "happen" to run into her. tell her you invited everybody when you didn't. grab her if you must. gently though, girls are delicate.

(2) make yourself attractive. shower, shave, wear nice clothes, cut your fingernails, groom yourself. flip your hair if you must. find/fake some style and use and abuse it. find your good side (or angle) and stick to it. don't fuck around by standing next to better looking men or bright lights. hang out in shady areas with some dorky looking mofos. this is a very important step. consult a platonic female friend for "how can i look better" advice. if you have no platonic female friends, the failsafe is to hit the gym. muscles are always useful for.....making more muscle.

(3) always say "yes." nod a lot. smile a lot. agree agree agree. throw in an occassional question or retaliatory opinion just to mix things up so she thinks you're really listening. be sure to concede your point within five minutes, no matter how illogical her argument was/is. make sure to bring up how you are so in touch with your emotions and how you "love to talk all night and take romantic walks on the beach." i quoted that because you must say this verbatim. no exceptions. also, try to mirror her attitude. if she is being bitchy, you be bitchy. if she's being pouty, you be pouty. got it?

(4) tell her you like her. all the time. even if it doesn't seem to work at first and she dismisses your declarations of love as hogwash, you must keep at it. give presents (homemade shelves are nice), don't be thrifty with compliments, and make sure she knows that you don't want to just be friends. she may reject you at first but in time, your persistence and the "awn" moments you generate with your gifts will win her over. i'm sure of it. i've seen losers turn into winners through the sheer power of presents and perfectly timed compliments. when are compliments perfectly timed? any time you utter a compliment (try to be sincere please) is a perfect time.

there you have it. my four step plan to acquire the girl of your dreams, backed up by the research of really smart social psychologists. remember, "friends don't let friends be ugly." maybe this should be changed to "friends don't let friends be lonely" for 2006. the panel will consider it.

propinquity = reciprocity? in shocking news, the closer you physically are to someone the more chance you'll have of building an attraction towards them -- and vice versa. i must have missed this section in my social psychology class because i had no idea what the term "propinquity" meant. actually my class attendance record probably indicates that i missed lots of sections, and not just in this class. think of the knowledge i willing slept through.

there probably needs to be a sub-section in the romance chapter of social psych to account for why people fall in love with each other through the internet. i think i could write such a chapter. much of it would have to do with revealing photos and detailed profiles with a long list of "favorites." those always seem to work well. social psych scientists must be flabbergasted at the growing number of online hookups. it tears away at the very logical fabric that they've used to contruct their attraction theories. "wait, people don't have to actually see each other to fall in love? but it says here......"

let's look at what else social psychology offers us in terms of liking and attraction. otherwise titled "how to get the girl 101."

the four strong influencers of attraction
(1) spatial contact - proximity or propinquity
(2) physical attractiveness
(3) similarity of attitudes, values, and demographic variables
(4) reciprocity or evidence of liking

in a well funded study on twins, there was found to be no apparent genetic or shared-environment effect on mate selection. which basically means that if you and your siblings (and cousins or god forbid, parents?) happen to be attracted to the same person, you're both just sick and can't blame it on god.

(1) propinquity (i don't even know how to say this word properly). being close to someone provides the opportunity to interact and get to know them. pheromones also don't work so well from a distance. winks, sultry eyes, smiles, and flexing however, does work from a distance. being exposed to someone increases familiarity and familiarity breeds....contempt? it also breeds attraction. basically if you hang out with someone long enough, chances are you'll probably want to kiss them at some point. even if it's only a fleeting thought. that's propinquity.

(2) physical attractiveness. once the proximity barrier has been breeched, physical attraction comes into play. stunningly, more well funded studies have found out that physical attractiveness (or "PA" as scientists like to call it) is the most powerful predictor of liking. it's hard to believe researchers use "liking" as a scientific term isn't it? they're so fifth grade.

people of comparable PA are more likely to match up, they also tend to stay together longer (unless you're a celebrity in which case reverse-PA seems to happen a lot). people infer positive attributes from beauty. yes, it's true. it took researchers many years to figure this one out i'm sure. beauty equals good, ugly equals bad. note that the gift of PA isn't necessarily always positive. "inferences of lower intelligence and attributional ambiguity when receiving praise or benefits" can accompany high PA.

the effects of PA tapers off in adult years, and does not predict life or relationship satisfaction. good to know. plastic surgery is still an efficient and effective way to fix yourself. medical advances have pushed recovery time to a bare minimum and i have plenty of band-aids to hide any unsightly bruises. remember, pain is temporary, beauty is forever.

(3) similarity of attitudes, values, and demographic variables. once you're hanging out and physical attraction has commenced, "mind melding" is the strongest predictor of further relationship developments. people choose partners with similar age, race, class, regional origin, culture in part because of proximity but also because this common background makes attitude similarity more likely.

correlations between couples are .40-.60 for attitudes, .46 for education, .45 for physical attractiveness, .37 for IQ, and about .15 for personality. the only feature for which complementarity holds true is the trait-pair dominance-submissiveness (i have no idea what this last sentence means).

similar attitudes help in a relationship because it provides social validation of your own attitudes. being able to hang out with someone and partaking in joint activities, leads to joint experiences and the building of a strong relationship foundation. similarly minded people also tend to have the same negative inferences about other people, meaning you can gossip and bash other people together. big bonus.

however when you disagree or argue, similarity of attitudes can be disastrous since it will then reflect on how different you are from each other. and make you question if you are truly "right for each other" or "soulmates." right honey?

(4) reciprocity or evidence of liking. if you find out that the other person likes you, your own attraction level increases. you also probably get giddy. scientists postulate that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. if you know someone, anyone, likes you, you get an ego boost and thus more confidence. confidence is good for the skin. girls dig it too. if you are to err on one side of the line with regards to confidence or cocky, go cocky every time. lack of confidence is a bigger turn off than cockiness. chicks dig dicks (and assholes). they don't dig whimpering simps.

with evidence that someone likes you, your ego is flattered but also, your fear of rejection is lowered. in lieu of actually having someone like you, alchohol is a good substitute for lowering fear of rejection, if only temporarily. alchohol is also a good way to get people to like you, or to find out if someone likes you. i mean, so i've been told.

there it is. the four major antecedents of liking and attraction, presented by knowledgeable social psychologists everywhere. i'll distill the lessons we've learned here into some simple steps for those of us who don't know big words like "propinquity." actually, i'll do that tomorrow.

the thomas crowne affair. my roommate, otherwise known as the photo nazi, accuses me of stealing everyone's photos. it's true. if i see a picture i like, i'll either take it or ask for a copy of the big version for my files. he thinks this is unethical. keep in mind that my roommate also makes me hibernate my computer after fifteen minutes of not using it because it "sucks electricity." he recently taught me a "better" way to wrap up the vacuum cord (our vacuum cleaner cost $400 don't you know). he also has an "ingenious way" to put the trash bag into the trash can for maximum waste holdage. and my roommate tells me to pee sitting down because for some reason or other our toilets were made for midgets -- whether or not i actually pee sitting down can't be disclosed at this moment. yeah, my roommate has some issues. but that's a blog entry for another time.

he says that me taking other people's pictures is immoral. i say it's just me wanting to have a collection of good photographs of my life, regardless of who was responsible for taking them. i mean, i'm not slow to give credit or to acknowledge the fact that these pictures weren't taken by me. if anything, i serve as a walking advertisement for how great a person's photography skills are. i have no shame in admitting that i suck at taking pictures with my outdated camera. with the ease of photo sharing nowadays, why not exchange (steal) photos from friends? that's why god invented digital photography. my roommate disagrees.

meanwhile, i continue to post all of his good pictures on my website, since i think it's criminal that these fine pictures are wasted on his computer when i (and presumably you) could be enjoying them. if you go to my pictures section or good picture albums, half of my links are to his pictures since he won't set up an archive himself. i'm doing him, and the world, a great service. someday he'll thank me for this. anyway, i just wanted to say that from now, and applied retroactively, any awe inducing picture that i present to the public was probably taken by one of my friends. it's not mine. got it?

i have gotten quite good at backseat photoshopping however, so if you seem to look better than normal in his pictures, feel free to thank me for my skills. i think i was born to use other people's skills for my benefit. oh, i hear my roommmate coming home now. i have to go clean the lint trap.

a thousand words. digital photography has changed everything. in the past, you had to conserve your film because it was expensive. in the past, you had to get your film developed, hoping that the seven bucks you paid resulted in five or six quality photos. in the past, taking pictures was a chore, and sharing them even worse. now, it's all different. you can take as many pictures as you want, review them immediately, and if they suck, you can re-pose. sharing pictures is efficient too. send a friend a link and voila, they see your pictures. but it's not a perfect photo world by any means. there are too many photo services out there. snapfish, ofoto, shutterfly, kodak, blah blah blah, the list goes on. i'm sick of it. we need to organize before we can effectively pictorialize (together).

i'm not asking for much. i just want a photo service that allows me to store my photos in perpetuity, easily group and organize albums, doesn't make other people log on to see my pictures, and most importantly, access to large versions of all of my images. i want full access to my pictures -- and yours.

i've been a loyal yahoo photos customer for three years and five albums, but no more. i'm sick of the small image size, the reduction in quality, the small storage space (they fixed this i think). while i do enjoy yahoo's ease of use and the ability to quickly and easily rearrange and edit the names on my photos, i need something better. hello flickr, the new photo site bought out recently by yahoo.

while i missed out on the flickr bandwagon when they were giving out unlimited pro accounts, i did sign up to flickr quite a while ago. i used the site mainly for large "good" images but not normal images because there was an upload limit per month, and it was a pain in the ass to upload pictures one by one, without an upload utility. flickr has an easy uploading program now, for both pcs and macs, erasing all my doubts.

free flickr accounts offer 20 megs of upload bandwidth a month (plenty by most normal people's standards), a semi-clean interface, some photo editing features, commenting functions, privacy settings, tagging of photos, and upload from emails or phones. plus it syncs nicely with blogs. best of all? flickr saves your photos forever (although it only displays your last 200 photos unless you have a pro account). flickr also resizes your images from thumbnail to original size, and all logged in flickr members can access the original image.

flickr pro nets you: 2 gigs of upload a month, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited photo sets, permanent archiving of photos, and ad-free browsing. all for the low low price of $24.95 a year. that's super cheap. i would do it immediately, except i don't have a credit card.

there are some cons of course. such as the tragically unwieldy organization system which seems to be a bit clunky and slow. also, there is a limited number of albums, or "sets," you can create using the free version. these caveats aside, flickr is pretty great. you can also make contacts, friends and family designations so you are linked to your friends' albums. this is something no other photo service offers (yet). no digging around in emails for your friend's photo links, just go to flickr and find them. it's a community! you can also make group photo groups, so for example, if you and all three of your friends just attended a wedding, you can share your pictures in a group wedding album.

what're you waiting for? get a flickr account so we can be friends and share pictures! do it now. this message is not (sadly) paid for or endorsed by flickr or yahoo in any way. i'm just really into nostalgia okay?

now i ain't saying i'm a gold farmer. i had a friend once mention to me that she thought i might be slightly racist. me? racist? what?! was i one of those unknowing unself-actualized bigots that spewed racial epithets and used stereotypes to guide my judgement and (mis)treatment of the one in a trillion stars in the sky individuals who deserve to be evaluted not based on the color of their skins but the color of their souls? had i not shined the racist black light long enough in my own direction?

what my friend said hit me in a bad way; like the sight of a mexican "chef" behind the sushi bar -- and not with a mop in hand either. i thought long and hard about her words... and the conclusion i came to was: "yes, i am exactly one of those people who spew racial epithets and use stereotypes to guide my comments and judgements of individuals."

for example, common phrases that might be heard coming out of my mouth include (but are not limited to) the following:

"oh, he's korean? no wonder he's so angry. and drunk. and rude. and wife beat-y"

"a white bar? no way, i'm not going in there. hell to the honky no. kanye west does not care about white people."

"wait, he's black? if he can dunk, invite him over."

"dirty pilipino." (i don't say this one actually, i just like hearing one person in particular say it)

it disturbed me for some time, that these comments could give my friend the impression that i was racist. i mean, i was just grouping people together so that my advanced mammalian brain could be prepared to act quickly on instinct, just in case i get jumped one day by roving african-americans wearing totally unseeablethrough facemasks. but i'm sure it was them officer, i know it. book'em danno. it's a fine line between using stereotypes to prevent assault and theft, and being racist. apparently i challenge that thin line on a daily basis.

hanging out with a whole bunch of asians never helps nominate me for united nations man of the millenium either. i have a handful of white friends -- okay, maybe three or four. a gaggle of black friends. a dollop of indian friends. and a tinkle of persian friends (two of which come from the same family). and most of these non-asian friends come in fractions. half-black, quarter-white, an eighth martian. if i had to count full blooded monochromatic friends, my numbers would drop below the friendship variety poverty line. and i might be done making new friends this decade, so my personal kaleidoscope won't exactly be looking different any time soon.

what keeps me thinking about this whole discussion (dated circa 2001) is that the accusation came from the mouth of a friend who had once declared that she wasn't sure if she could be "really good friends with anyone non-asian." i mean, wasn't that somewhat racist? she had a decently logical argument for her reasoning but to close yourself off to deeper friendships because someone might not share your ethnic background and upbringing strikes me as a wee bit racist doesn't it? as well as totally non-opportunistic. you need to make good friends where you can find them -- under a rock, in a tree, in the midwest -- and then fuck them over later if need be. hoard and pillage, in that order.

i think that in the end, when push comes to shove, everyone's a racist. at the apocalypse we'll all band together with people who look like us and hum traditional battle cries as we face off in braveheart fashion. which is why i'm glad that there are many more of my people than there are of any other people. go team chinese.

ayn rand, the playboy interview (1964)

playboy: couldn't the attempt to rule whim out of life, to act in a totally rational fashion, be viewed as conducive to a juiceless, joyless kind of existence?

rand: let's define our terms. reason is man's tool of knowledge, the faculty that enables him to perceive the facts of reality. to act rationally means to act in accordance with the facts of reality.

emotions are not tools of cognition. what you feel tells you nothing about the facts; it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts. emotions are the result of your value judgments; they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong.

a whim is an emotion whose cause you neither know nor care to discover. now what does it mean, to act on whim? it means that a man acts like a zombi, without any knowledge of what he deals with, what he wants to accomplish, or what motivates him. it means that a man acts in a state of temporary insanity.

playboy: should one ignore emotions altogether, rule them out of one's life entirely?

rand: of course not. one should merely keep them in their place. an emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man's value premises. an effect, not a cause. there is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man's reason and his emotions -- provided he observes their proper relationship.

a rational man knows -- or makes it a point to discover -- the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come; if his premises are wrong, he corrects them. he never acts on emotions for which he cannot account, the meaning of which he does not understand. in appraising a situation, he knows why he reacts as he does and whether he is right.

he has no inner conflicts, his mind and his emotions are integrated, his consciousness is in perfect harmony. his emotions are not his enemies, they are his means of enjoying life. but they are not his guide; the guide is his mind. this relationship cannot be reversed,

however. if a man takes his emotions as the cause and his mind as their passive effect, if he is guided by his emotions and uses his mind only to rationalize or justify them somehow -- then he is acting immorally, he is condemning himself to misery, failure, defeat, and he will achieve nothing but destruction -- his own and that of others.

disclosure remorse. i feel like there's an unwritten rule that you should tell friends about someone you're seeing within a certain time period. how that formula computes i'm not so sure. maybe the more that you interact with someone, the less time should pass between you telling them about a person you're dating? i personally don't bother to tell anyone about anyone i'm dating, or plan on dating, unless directed cornered and asked. and even then i like to hem and haw and squirm.

i just feel like it's weird. to drop the following into a conversation. "so, how's your day?" "i got a girlfriend, booyah, what're you doing?" then again, i get slightly put off when a friend of mine neglects to tell me that they are dating someone. i realize this makes me a bit of a hypocrite. but i expect to be updated on these things immediately, without having to ask. if i've already expressed that i have interest in this part of their lives, they should provide timely updates as action, or inaction, occurs.

there have been times when some of my very best friends haven't told me they were going out with someone. and meanwhile, the happy couple's entire flirting period happened right under my nose. i'd hang out with these people for two months straight, and then find out three months later that they started dating while the three of us were constantly hanging out. i think maybe i was just obtuse. no more i say. my eyes are wide open. well, as open as i can get them.

i say six months is a good grace period for letting most people know about a status change. if the gossip grapevine hasn't worked its way around by then, or they've not bothered to ask, then you're off the hook. i've gone months and years without telling some friends that i'm seeing anyone (or more accurately, did see; if months and years are involved). which is, i think, perfectly legit. unless you are a part of my disclosure life, i operate under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. i just assume that if somebody wants to know, they'll ask. and if they don't ask, they're probably not that interested.

also, i find it very strange that when you run into an acquaintance, they immediately ask you "so, are you seeing anyone?" not that this happens to me of course. but i see it happen a lot. mainly between two females. it's like what's really important is not how they're doing or where they're living now, but if they've established a (temporary) romantic rapport with someone. or actually, between acquaintances, maybe you don't really care about anything they have to say, so you might as well go straight for the juicy stuff and hope that they'll say something like "oh yeah, i just went through my second annulment in eighteen months, want to see pictures?"

and what is it about two really good female friends -- best friends even -- who never talk about boys? don't you find that weird? it really flips my entire worldview on its side. girl friends who don't talk about boys? it's an entirely foreign concept to me. this topic to be fully explored once i can gather some more anecdotal evidence.

i have a dream. my current life dream is to have a mtv style battle of the sexes, inferno, gauntlet type challenge with everyone i know. one, it would be tremendously fun. two, what can you really know about your friends and the people around you until you've had the chance to compete, yell, scream, and vote each other off? there are a few things that stand in the way of my dream.

logistically this would be crazy impossible to pull off. maybe i could organize a super weekend for this type of thing, but it would involve a pretty huge budget. if i had a million dollars right now, this is what i would do. i would fly out forty people to some remote location (wyoming?) and then have two groups face off for fabulous prizes and a chance to get pissed off at each other. doesn't that sound absolutely great? alternately, i would settle for having twenty people i know facing off against twenty people that someone else brings. making for a truly epic battle.

the other problem with this dream is that the voting friends off thing is tricky. you don't want to offend anyone, but at the same time, you want to win. you really realize how absolutely ruthless and unfeeling you can be when faced with the decision to cut a friend, or to not cut them. nobody can really not be offended when they get cut, even if they understand. it sucks to feel like you're not wanted.

i think guys are better accustomed to being cut and rejected. i mean, for one, guys are constantly put in competitive environments where the best are kept around and the rest are swept aside. and two, guys just get rejected a lot in general. they make take it hard but really they're used to it. i don't know any guy who hasn't been rejected multiple times, be it athletically, romantically, or cosmically.

alternately, when you are voted off (hopefully somewhat fairly), you just have to realize that you weren't the (wo)man for the job. like when you're assembling your best five to play a really important game of pickup basketball and you know when you're not one of the best five. so you just stand down, sit, watch, and cheer. i always felt like in this situation, those who know they're not good enough should willingly step down. it's all about the team. if you want to win, you have to make sacrifices, even if it sometimes means your feelings get hurt.

wouldn't it would be so fun to figure out who would be the best leader for a particular mission, to see who can perform in the clutch, who surprises with their effort and initative, that kind of thing? and i feel like you'd learn things about yourself along the way. it wouldn't be just about stomping on the other team and backstabbing your friends, it would also be a journey of self exploration. sort of.

anyway, i'm working on sponsors for this project. if you know anyone with some spare cash to invest (give away) in a potential clash of the titans, send them my way.

hakuna matada. i'm watching this thing on mtv about people who choose to take steroids. it's somewhat illegal, it's definitely harmful to your body, but the short term gains and effects are "positive." so it's basically sacrificing your long term health for short term happiness. which is really, my entire being. i can't think long term; never could. some people live in the future or the past, i'd always preferred to live with both feet firmly planted in the present. i prefer to ignore everything that could negatively impact my future if i'm having fun now.

i was really hoping that by the time any health problems kick in for me, they'd have cured everything. i mean, this was the utopia i had envisioned as a teenager. but i realized a few years ago that no, there weren't any miracle cures coming my way anytime soon. anything that breaks on this body is going to be permanent and probably irreplaceable. sobering when you realize that the aches and pains that you have now, at a young age, will just be multiplied as you move upward in years. i don't see how the elderly ever wake up every day. once arthritis sets in, or your vision blurs, or whatever. it seems like torture. i don't give them enough credit i guess.

gene, when i asked him what made him stop smoking, drinking, all of that stuff, explained it to me this way. he had met a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life (wedding pics) with so he wanted to make sure that he would have a long rest of his life, as well as a quality rest of his life. so out went drinking, smoking, etc. and that reasoning made perfect sense. as if suddenly giving up the things that are toxic to your body (and mind) wasn't such a drastic move. or a move made at the coercion of another person. it was a mindset that said "i have a future to think of and head towards." which is what growing up is all about i guess. somewhere there's a correlation between maturity and planning ahead.

of course, you could extrapolate that kind of rationale to eliminating things like say, fast food, but that might be taking it too far. mcdonalds is quality of life as far as i'm concerned. anyway, my point is. as we approach our thirties, these will be the concerns that face us. "how will i feel about my health, my job, my life, when i'm forty?"

i find it strange that in thirteen years or so, i'm scheduled for a mid-life crisis. it seems to be too soon. i'm think i'm gonna push my mid-life crisis to sixty. just to give me some leeway in case i'm behind the curve when i hit my forties. surely by the time i'm sixty, miracles of all shapes and sizes will be commonly available. which would make the crisis so much easier to deal with.

the alamo. i've been to two bachelor parties so far in my life. neither have involved women of the naked kind, or obscene amounts of alchohol and debauchery. unless you count hours of board games, video games, and watching movies as "debauchery." the last bachelor party i attended might not even have been a real bachelor party since it was more like our version of a bachelor party for eric, who had his real bachelor party in michigan. our bachelor party for him involved basketball, singing, the playing and making of music, baking, back to back viewings of the "cutting edge," and ferocious games of risk, monopoly, chess, and squabble. it was wild. and perfect.

my second bachelor party was this past weekend. the big single send off for one of our very own san diego boys. i must admit, there was some alchohol -- and subsequently a lot of flushed faces -- but the motivation behind drinking was mostly puzzle fighter duels. however, there was enough drinking to put a few people to sleep, plus two people puked (always a sign of good times?), and people got drawn on with permanent marker. success all around on the drinking front. note that we didn't leave the friendly confines of san diego, nor did we engage in any partying or carousing.

it was just a laid back kick back kind of bachelor party. with some fishing (notice, no mention of actually catching any fish), some pho, lots of poker, lots of puzzle fighter, and a steak dinner. and i finally got to conduct a paper-rock-scissors tournament, although much to my chagrin, i lost to one of my arch nemesi. oh well, you can't win them all. otherwise they wouldn't be nemesi would they?

the thing about bachelor parties is that they should fit the bachelor involved. and this one did. there was the vain attempt to inject some boobage (in metal, plastic, paper, and candle form) to the party, but it didn't really work out. good try boobs, good try. you forgot what kind of males you were dealing with. we bake and sing together in unison. take that.

bachelor parties are really about creating some memories anyway right? who says you have to get trashed and stupid and lecherous? i mean, there's certainly people and places for that type of bachelor party, but i doubt i'll be attending one of those any time soon. maybe i should have stolen some of those under utilized boobs come to think of it. then again, my bachelor party is lining up to be a pizza and blogging party. how great does that sound? you're all invited, of course.

note: who uses the word "boobs" anymore? except apparently gag gifts and small children who tend to giggle. if a grown person ever used any variation of this word, they should be immediately ostracized. from society.

are we there yet? it's not every day that a new year comes and goes. it's also not every day that you sit at a boba shop twenty minutes to twelve, semi-panicking about where you'll end up at at the stroke of midnight. my best new years are generally spent on the couch by myself. i prefer those to almost anything else actually. occasionally our family had a new year's party or two. the "party" portion of those nights consisted of tons of chinese parents karaoking and then singing "auld lang syne" in varying degrees of accents, albeit always in full unison. this tradition is strangely festive and really captures the spirit of new years. i spent last new year's eve counterfeiting counterfeit money and watching james take his pants off. that was pretty fun.

sadly, my main concern at the turn of the back half of this decade is whether or not to start a yahoo account for all of my upcoming 2006 pictures. i mean, it's kind of illogical to double back and have another january folder right? won't that be confusing when twenty years from now i'm left wondering if my yahoo folder contained two separate januarys or just lots of excitement from one january? these are the types of things that i worry about for new years.

i "forgot" again to send out christmas cards to people. this is two or three years running where i've actually gone out to buy cards and then watched as the date for writing in those cards came and went. so i guess i wish everyone a merry christmas, and a happy holiday season. next year i'm biting jon g's idea and doing it all electronically. if you can cordially blue mountain birthday wishes, surely electronic christmas cards are the wave of the future.

this may have been the fastest approaching and shooting by holiday season ever. maybe i/we should have commemorated it better somehow, but i think a few hours of pictionary was definitely the way to go this year. that plus we were in a car again, on the freeway, as the new year actually happened. that's three times that's happened to me now. pretty spectacular. i wonder if they play the mexican national anthem at midnight on new years, or if they go with something more new years-y. they play the mexican national anthem (instrumental) at midnight on most am radio stations around here. sadly, i forgot to check this year while i was driving, thus leaving me with another unanswered question for 2007.

i'm pretty excited about 2006. for one, it'll mark the publishing (cross your fingers) of my eventual book. i'm not sure if i've written this here before. but i'm writing -- nay, scribbling -- a book. it's non-fiction and not based on anything involving me so much. but it's still a book. the due date is coming up very soon and once that is all figured out, i'll know if i have more books to write, or if i'm off again to the land of menial labor and awesome white collar administrative jobs. by the way, i'm twenty eight in 2006. keep it real. my cousins who are far younger than me are getting lucrative jobs/careers and angling for truly higher education degrees. people in my immediate peer grouping have titles that contain the word "senior" in their job descriptions. as in "senior mananger" or "senior accountant" and what have you. i still sleep in till two. the only thing i've got is an unshakable case of senioritis.

but life is good. i feel like this is gonna be a huge year for me. some serious friends are getting seriously married. i've got all the job prospects and financial security of an eighteen year old. i've got framed posters on my wall (wood frames, not plastic). i've got an ipod and a laptop. i've got just the right number of email to phone to hang out to random buddies.

i've given up cuddle buddying as a personal way of life, but never as a philosophy. i stupidly ordered tiny child size cuddle buddy bracelets by the way. if anyone has extremely small wrists, i have a lot of glow in the dark bands for you.

the final path towards fantasy football glory continues to be an elusive one, maybe next year. i somehow never learned that one space after a period was perfectly acceptable. thanks to 2005, now i know that one space is just as good as two. my entire litany of relationship ideas and rants is undergoing extreme and rigourous testing, results still inconclusive (also, if "nobody" or "no one" is reading this, please email me, thanks).

perhaps most important of all, i've learned to hang out with myself a bit, even if it's only for a few hours at a time in a movie theatre. that counts as by myself right?