Self Improvement: Fingernails

How I hate tending to my nails. Ten vulgar crusts, which yellow and stretch, only to canker and curl into rattling whisks weighted by fungal inlay. When at my meal, I curl my hands into fists, lest my stomach rebel at the sight of them. Were a mosquito bite to pulse and twitch on the filet of my calf, I would not raise a nail to scratch it- instead, I would do well to bear it, in the evolved sanctum of meditation and restraint.

Self Improvement: Cocaine

I recall those halcyon summers of my youth, laying on the sidewalks, the hot cement making me flush, as I sprinkle salt on the last of the spring snails and marvel at the blooming white foam. In those moments I would clench my jaw until my teeth squeaked against each other and threatened to crack. I might remain in place, out on the sidewalk, until dusk, when the sun burns on my neck begin to blister.

Self Improvement: Caring for Cats

Observation shows that a cat's guile is all appearances. In fact, they are simple-minded and lazy creatures whose "guile," in practice, is little more than a sequence of twitches in which we humans find a shameful delight. What is a cat's worth? They divide their time evenly between blinking, shitting in a specific place, and being inside of things. The latter being a point of real contention because, as everyone knows, a tree once nested by a cat will go barren, and likewise a shoe once nested by a cat will be full of dander, fur, bits of glass, buttons, fish scales, raven beaks, dead sow bugs, etc. The animal is an actual trauma to real estate, an idea borne of Satan in soft and precious form. Man is damned.

Self Improvement: Wearing Shorts

It is mid-winter and already the coming of the warm months makes me worry, for soon, I will have to wear shorts... I am a pale person, my calves look like the belly of a cold trout, almost a pearlescent white, with thin blue veins trembling and snapping beneath the clear skin. My knees are shackled and creak with movement, occasionally popping as I move to and from my chair. The hair on my legs is not like the carefree brown coils of the other men, but instead I have sparse, black wires that quiver like the nervous hairs on a tarantula's body. I hate to reveal my pathetic stems, but what am I to do in the summer? Go about in long-pants? Oh were there a solution other than the endless spray tans of my summers past...

Of one thing I am certain, I will never use a hair straightener on my legs again... it simply doesn't work.

Self Improvement: Being Kind to Homeless People

I was shocked to see a beautiful young woman handing money to the homeless man who lives outside the local liquor store. He is filthy and his skin is tormented by some disease, covered in scabs and bleeding ruptures. I always hold my breath when I pass him, not only to spare myself the stench of his stool-packed trousers, but to avoid contracting whatever street-bred pathogens escape his toothless mouth as he mumbles his pleas for money which I always ignore. I hurried over to the young woman as she wished the homeless man well.

"Hello." I said to her.

She smiled at me and I pointed at the homeless man.

"Terrible thing to see isn't it?"

The homeless man looked up at me with watery, yellowed eyes. I held out some change and tried to drop it in his outstretched hand without actually touching him. The coins missed and fell on the ground. The young woman stared at me and I smiled.

"Looks like we have something in common," I said.

"What?" She asked. 

I pointed at the wretch below us who was slowly gathering the fallen coins with his blistered fingertips.

"Being kind to the homeless," I said.

Self Improvement: Water

Insufferable water. It is pompous rather than pure, babbling it's way down from the mountainsides, pooling in the most inconvenient places, engendering rust and decay. No matter one's situation water will find the form most appropriate to find your ill favor. Beneath an awning? Fogs and mists will spittle in your face. Walking to work? Your feet will be mired in oil-slicked puddles. And most loathsome of all is it's tendency to fall from above, rain! What a cruel joke, splattering the lenses of your glasses, trickling down the temple and into the ear, finding its way through vent and seam... but alas, our accursed bodies are mainly constituted of the stuff, and daily I must pour it's base formlessness down my quivering throat and try, oh how I try, to respect it and embrace my need...

Self Improvement: Painting

I was advised to take up a hobby to relax after work. I enrolled in Basics of Painting through the LACMA membership office. I purchased a set of paints and fine brushes of all sorts. The teacher was a bright and cheery woman who recognized a latent talent in me that should absolutely be explored. She examined my canvas as I prepared to lay down paints over my pencil sketch.

"What a beautiful dog! Is it a golden retriever?"

I told her it was a horse.

"Oh, of course! I like its hat."

"It isn't wearing a hat."

She excused herself. The fact is, it was wearing a hat and I felt extremely relaxed.

Self Improvement: Giving Blood

The invigorating practice of blood letting, which, unfortunately, lost the favor of the masses in the 19th century, is alive and well at your local Red Cross. I have found that allowing my veins a warming confession of 1 liter per month keeps me feeling fit and in good spirits. I love to spend an afternoon reclining in the phlebotomist's chair, swaddled with blankets as the warm rush leaves my arm and collects in the bag below, a rich and swirling broth which nurses check occasionally with a squeeze, allowing me, amidst the faint scent of iodine and bleach, a glimpse past their drooping blouses, at sturdy breasts cupped in sweat yellowed bras... I love the shaky uncertainty of my trek to the snack table, to sup upon fig newtons and orange juice, always tempted to allow myself a fainting spell, so the strong armed assistants can carry me to the recovery cots, where I can peacefully cultivate new blood cells in the hive like hum of the fluorescent light... What sorrow to shuffle out into the sun, pathetic bandages around my wound a reminder of the unbearable wait until my next purge, and renewed vigilance against pleasure crushing anemia. With the exception of last month's embarrassingly leaky tourniquet at the Apple Store, I've had no reason to believe this is not an exercise in which I will find consistent benefit.

Self Improvement: Accepting Children

A boy of 10 was wiggling around in line for Space Mountain at Disneyland. I watched as he put his hand down the back of his pants, scratched at his grubby anus, and then slyly smelled his fingers. His father asked what he was doing and he replied, "it itches."

Later, as we boarded the ride, I watched as the boy's father told him to stop biting his nails... those same untrimmed nails that had been clawing at that most wretched hole, that stained drawstring, to rake at its burning deposits of fecund cheese, only to deposit this stinking, gland-moistened pollen right back in his own mouth...

One day I must try to at least accept the possibility of taking part in procreation- if not for the species, than to promote adequate disciplinary action by example.

Self Improvement: Stubble

Each morning I am repulsed by those black and wiry specters which nightly rise from my face. There is no more keen a flavor as the scraping of a fresh razor against my cheek. Reaping the obscene field whose useless chaff I flick, hatefully, into the toilet. What glee, to then turn the razor upside down, and shear up now, against the grain, artfully slicing and pulling at those hairs too deeply rooted in their oiled shafts to feel the bite of the first pass. Finally, the controlled sting of scented lotions to the whistling barren of my now smooth jaws...

Henceforth, however, I will resist shaving on Sundays.

Self Improvement: Bitterness

True bitterness is a resentment borne of personal failure. It is an exhilarating change of pace.

Self Improvement: Public Affection

I hear the same complaint from every girl: I don't show enough affection in public. I have decided that I have been in the wrong and so I've compiled a list of affectionate gestures which I am willing to do in public:

• When we walk, I will place my hand on her shoulder.
• When we arrive at a restaurant/ bar, I will slide my hand down from her shoulder to the small of her back.
• When we meet new people, I will preface her name with "my." (e.g. "This is my Tiffany.")
• If we are seated in chairs, I will place my hand on her thigh.
• If we are seated in a booth, I will place my arm around her shoulders.
• If she needs to use the restroom, I will lay my hand on her purse until she returns.
• If group conversation dwindles, I will kiss her on the cheek. 
• On any given night in public, I will kiss her at least twice but not more than five times.
• If she offers me a sip of something, I will no longer wipe the rim of the glass first.

Self Improvement: Women's Bowels

I've always had a profound discomfort with the bowel activities of women. When I share a bed with a woman, and find myself awakened in the night, she still sleeping beside me, I am racked with fear at the prospect of witnessing some unconscious release of gas. If she uses the restroom to ease her straining bowel, I avoid the toilet for six hours to spare myself even a nuance of lingering stench or a glimpse of specks in the porcelain bowl. How, though, can I ever share my life with a woman if I cannot reconcile her femininity with the natural activity of her asshole? As such, I've decided to face my fears through conditioning:

• Once bedmate falls asleep, I will gently press on her abdomen to induce flatulence, which I shall endure.
• After a girl has defecated, I will shut myself in the bathroom, and come to terms with her aromatic leavings.
• I will disable toilet without telling her, allowing me to confront the exactitudes of her shit (color, texture, volume).

Self Improvement: Eye Contact

The so-called "windows to the soul" are less exciting than the oily, peeling, hairy casement that is the face. I prefer to fixate on earlobes, nose tips, lips, teeth, chin clefts, moles, foreheads, sideburns, anything really, except for the eyes- those cloudy, fidgeting orbs which peer and pry into everyone's business... Nevertheless, I accept that many consider lack of eye-contact to be a sign of weakness or deception and as such I will henceforth stare, unblinking, into the eyes of all I encounter.

Self Improvement: If I had a Daughter

If I had a daughter, and she brought home a young man in whom I saw a reflection of myself, and this young man eventually broke up with her, I would not blame my daughter for the inadequacies which drove him away. It wasn't her fault.

Self Improvement: Penis Size

Have decided my penis is too small when flaccid. When erect it has sufficient dimensions ( 6.3" x 3.2" x 1.6" x 5.4" ), however when it is flaccid, it is unbecomingly small. During the winter it shrivels like a straw wrapper. In warm climes, it nests in my pubic hair like a dewy sparrow's egg. These are unacceptable conditions in the company of women.  As such I have embarked on a rigorous penis lengthening regimen:

• 7:00 am : suspension of two pound weight from penis during shower.
• 10:30 am : seven minutes of penis twisting to encourage skin growth.
• 12:45 pm : lunch
• 4:00 pm : seven minutes of penis swinging beneath hot air dryer in men's room.
• 6:00 pm : kneading of penis during commute.
• 8:00 pm : penis given herbal rinse and cortisone injection.
• 11:00 pm : penis wrapped in warm gauze until morning.

Between above listed activities the flaccid penis shall be rubbed with capsacin and kept taped against my thigh.