How To Be Nice To The Girl You're Dating, Bouncing, Or Marrying

This advice is probably not for you. Because you're a peerless specimen of well-mannered manhood and also I'm pretty sure only women read my blog. That said.

Relentless sociopaths aside, I think everyone wants to be nice to the woman they're seeing, screwing (sorry, mom) or marrying - especially if they want to see her again, sleep with her again, or not end up at the office with couch cushions imprints on their cheek.

But we're all fragile human creatures. Sometimes our heads are stuffed with other things, sometimes we don't think, sometimes it just didn't occur to us how someone might take something. Therefore.

A Not-At-All-Comprehensive Guide to Being Nice to Her, Because I Believe In Your Potential

1. If you get yourself some water - you know when - offer her some too. Don't just suck it down and leave her to fend for herself. Especially if she's in your house. She's not a camel. Unless she is. Then you have a whole different set of problems, problems I am not equipped to advise you on.

2. If she cares about Valentine's Day or birthdays or Martin Luther King Jr. Day, you get to care about them too. Not because Valentine's Day isn't a corporate shill dressed as an armed toddler, but because it will make her happy.

3. Condoms. I mean, obviously.

4. Talk to her. Let her talk to you if she needs it. Women like talking. Everyone likes to feel heard.

5. But don't talk about your ex. That never goes well. No one likes ghosts. Especially ghosts who are still very much alive and possibly hotter and/or less crazy than she is. (No, I don't speak from experience. Why do you ask?)

6. Make her bacon in the morning. Just saying. (Unless she's vegetarian. Then maybe don't do the bacon thing.)

All this goes for the women too, obviously. Maybe substitute football for Valentine's Day. You don't necessarily have to watch it with him, but you get to be cool about it when he wants to spend six months of the year bowing to the god of intramural testosterone. Because he likes it. Enough said.

Extra Credit Is Given For...

1. Asking her to text you when she gets home so you're sure she's safe.

Yes, we can all take care of ourselves and yes, she managed just fine for 20 or 30 odd years without you, but it's a nice gesture. It tells us that you would care if we got mugged or hit by a bus. We like that in a guy.

Extra Extra Credit For...

2. Driving her home or paying for her cab.

Again, we can get ourselves home and we can pay for our own cabs, but when people do that for me, it just feels really nice. I tend to retain fond memories of that person, that person who cared for my safety and well-being even if he was a little disconcerted when I fell asleep standing up at the bar at eleven p.m. (What? Eleven p.m. is late.)

In Conclusion

It's not always going to work out. But you can leave someone with good memories. Knowing that you behaved the best you could gives you a peace of mind that actually does make a difference in your life. I've acted poorly in situations and have the alarming ability to feel bad about it for years. Seventeen years, to be precise. That's my personal best. High school was rough, man. I'm not wracked with remorse or anything, but if I didn't treat someone the way they deserved to be treated, it eats at me a bit.

So be nice. How else will you get her to turn to you for sex when she breaks up with the next guy?

I'M KIDDING. SORT OF. NOPE, DEFINITELY KIDDING. DON'T WORRY, MOM.

In Real Conclusion

If you're dating her, sleeping with her, or marrying her - just respect her. Show her that you care. That you like her. Even love her. Everyone wants to feel safe and loved. And if she does the same for you? Well, you just might have something there.

There Are a Lot Of Things In My Head Right Now

How muddy the dog is, because it's been raining. Sir Calzador of the Muddy Paws is not welcome in the bed. He doesn't understand, his paws feel the way they always do. Yet he is banished from the big warm bed with the human. It's cruel. How I got really excited tonight and bit my finger. What? It happens. I was eating a dried apricot that looked alarmingly like a wizened ear from a miniature orange person when I got an email and lost all sense of time, place, and where my fingers were. Chomp.

Boom she clack clack. Boom she clack clack.

A big thing is launching tomorrow. The press is already starting to come in, and part of me wants to stay up and see what happens, but the rest of me knows that I've been working for over twelve hours already and my frantically clicking media fingers need to be fresh - if slightly bitten - tomorrow morning.

Why on god's green earth would I choose to do a three-day juice cleanse on the week a big thing was launching and I will also - apparently - be rife with delightful coursing female hormones.

Since I did decide to do my first juice cleanse, why on earth would I choose the one that promises to "unearth the crayons you ate when you were seven" instead of, you know, the friendly one. The easy one. The one that isn't all perfectionist and Type A about juice. Not to mention DIGGING TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD COLORED WAX FROM THE DEEP, DARK DEPTHS OF MY INSIDES.

Boom she clack clack. Boom she clack clack.

My finger is still throbbing.

This week will be fun. I like being busy. I like making things. I like writing things and writing things fast. I like pushing my body to weird limits, even if those weird limits come with a liquid cookie every night. I like that it's raining. I like that I'm totally going to cave and let the dog sleep with me, muddy paws and freshly washed duvet notwithstanding. I like that there are so many options, spread out before me like a buffet of everything I ever wanted. I just have to choose.

Why I Meditate, Or How I Beat The Brain Hamsters Into Submission

I'm back on my meditation kick. It tends to sound a little suspect, especially if you're not from California, but meditation is just the hemp-wearing cousin of your standard Baptist-approved prayer: quiet your brain and connect with something larger than yourself. It all comes from the same place, really - the basic human desire to live a good life, not piss off the gods, and maybe get a pony. It's also good for politely requesting custom-fit muzzles for the hamsters in your brain, the ones that think they know all the answers but really just don't.

Brain Hamsters: You're not very good at this thing you do. Yes, that one. Also, you're almost 33. Shouldn't you have a kid by now?

Me: Not listening.

Brain Hamsters: You know who is good at that thing you do? This other person. The one who's not you.

Me: Still not listening. Ommm.

Brain Hamsters: You should cut your hair. You'll never meet someone when your hair looks like that. At least buy some hair spray. Don't you want to meet a nice man? I mean, you'll need him to support you because you still aren't very good at that thing you do. Yes, that one.

Me: OM THIS, FUCKERS.

Brain Hamsters: You're not very good at meditating, are you?

Brain Hamsters are like your cranky Aunt Mildred, the one who shows up to Thanksgiving and leaves bright orange lip prints on your cheek before asking why you're drinking whisky - it kills eggs you know, and yours aren't getting any younger. Brain Hamsters and Aunt Mildred really do want what's best for you - but sadly for everyone involved, neither Brain Hamsters nor Aunt Mildred have any bloody idea what that is.

So you have to figure it out. Hooray for personal responsibility! Also, for getting to decide what's true for you.

I treat my brain as a separate, anthropomorphized entity - it keeps me from getting all enmeshed in its drama. But everyone kicks the ass of the Brain Hamster differently - jogging, knitting cat hammocks and putting them on Etsy, reading novels, sending so many texts that AT&T threatens to repossess your car. Whatever works. It's a different combination for everyone. I happen to like meditation.*

* And exercise and reading and sending so many texts AT&T threatens to repossess my car. Actually, they just send me dire warnings about changing my plan unless I want to pay through the nose because obviously I don't have a firm grip on my phone habits.

Backyard where I grew up. I mean, I didn't grow up in the backyard. They let me in the house occasionally, for meals and such. Anyway, peaceful, yes? At least until the squirrels launch another carefully plotted bird-feeder strike.

Here's Why I Like Meditation, If You Want To Know

Sometimes it plucks some important thing I had to do out of the recesses of my lapsed memory. So I pop up to do it, completely forgetting the whole point of meditation, where my only task is STAY IN YOUR DAMN SEAT. Sometimes it really does make me feel like a better version of myself. Sometimes it just annoys me. But that's good too, because then I have to question why I'm annoyed. Sometimes it's so relaxing I feel like tossed back some illegally-obtained South American pharmaceutical and put the Brain Hamsters into a medicinally-induced coma.

When the Brain Hamsters are napping, sometimes I get answers, answers I can't hear otherwise.

The Dark Side of Trying To Get Your Physical and Emotional Shit Together

Yesterday, I was supposed to work a lot during the day and drive downtown in the evening to learn the steps for a tap dance flash mob. Neither of these things happened. Because the cleanse broke me. Instead, I fell to dramatic, sobbing pieces during the day and then had to miss the flash mob to make sure the dog didn't die. * * The dog is not dead. The dog is not to be trusted within a paw's distance of a bottle of pills ever again, but the dog is not dead.

When you do a cleanse, the books warn you about emotional detox. It's normal, don't be alarmed, the world isn't ending. Basically, they're saying that your reward for eating like a healthy person is to cry a lot. Really? I feel betrayed by this system. And unless the authors of these books are prepared to come to my house at 3 a.m. to give me a hug, they just shouldn't be so perky about the world not ending. **

** The world didn't end. The Mayan Calendar didn't kick in because I bought this off Amazon.

But the cleanse did steal all my caps and exclamation points. I just didn't have the heart to move my pinky to the shift key and that was oddly disconcerting.

It also kept me awake until four in the morning. It's really dark at four in the morning. That's not even meant to be all deep and symbolic. It's just...really black.

4 a.m. 

See? Dark.

The first couple of weeks on this cleanse, I felt amazing. Energetic and creative. Like I'd pulled my ass kicking boots out of storage and they still fit. Then something set me off yesterday and suddenly I was drowning in grief. A lot of grief. Waves and waves of grief. That didn't let up for hours.

I realized yesterday that I've been actively avoiding grief for years. I don't let myself properly mourn - not deaths or breakups or passing phases of life.

Oops.

All I can say about yesterday's unexpected Grief 101 is "Man, this suuuuucks." No wonder I avoided feeling that way for years.

Emotional detox is kind of like cleaning the drain in an apartment shared by three girls with long hair. The top looks all pristine and sparkly until one day everything clogs up. So you pull up the drain and realize the whole thing is packed with wads of slimy hair and encrusted with soap scum until you have to stop inspecting the gunk and just mutter a heartfelt ewwwww as you drop it in the trash and wonder how you ever let it get so bad. It got so bad because you couldn't see it. You were just trying to shower and get on with your day, and you never gave the drain a second thought. But once you yank out all the gunk, everything starts flowing properly again.

Apparently, my soul was slimy and full of hairballs. Hairballs I metaphorically coughed up all over the carpet yesterday.

I got through it. I cried and sobbed and felt like my heart was literally cracking open, but I stuck to that @#$% cleanse. To the letter of the law, if not the spirit. I didn't dive face first into a bucket of fried chicken, but I sure as hell wasn't eating 80 percent vegetables either. More like 100 percent fried polenta and vegan cheese and episodes of Modern Family.

Then it was bad again for hours. More grief stricken will-this-ever-end-who-knew-pain-could-feel-like-this, until I found a video at 3:30 in the morning. Watching it on my phone in the deep dark quiet reminded me that there are good things, things beyond 33 years of pent up grief. Even when I'm in a hole I don't yet see the way out of, there's creativity and people who can move their bodies in astounding ways.

That's what art is for, I think. YANKING YOU OUT OF THE LITERAL DARK NIGHT OF YOUR SOUL.

Hey, look. My caps are back. And I feel like me again. That's a relief.

The One Where I Give Up All My Vices, Comforts, and Distractions Just To See What's Left

All those tasty, tasty comforts I put in my mouth - gone. Alcohol, caffeine, sugar, anything white and floury, anything ever produced by an animal. Unless a monkey really did pick my tea. What does this leave? Salad. Water. Whole bell peppers. An avocado, if I'm feeling frisky. What does this exclude? EVERYTHING DELICIOUS. Like large glasses of wine and delicious chocolate frosted morsels, morsels delivered to a table as I stare with such avid heat that when I finally rip my gaze away from its luscious brown curves, everyone's looking at me strangely and Lanny says, "I think that cake needs a cigarette."

Drea, me, Lanny, Raihanna, and the dessert I violated with my eyes.

The TV is gone too. This was hard for me, because my friends are in the TV. The TV was what I did after I was done working, what I did to relax, what I did to escape some of the realities of my life and...yeah. That's why I gave it up.

I'm on a take-everything-I-think-I-need-away-and-see-what's-left kick.

What's left is wrestling the brain hamsters into submission. Green juice instead of cookies. Unidentifiable grains instead of pasta. Baths instead of TV. Lots of yoga.

WHO HAVE I BECOME?

I've become super focused. I have a ton of energy. My creativity feels tangible again, rather than a haze squatting in the back of my cerebellum. I'm working steadily on projects that I'd avoided for months. I'm so busy that the only time I really miss what I don't have is when I'm watching my friends eat it.

Everything has gotten drastically better in the past few weeks, simply because I'm treating myself better. I think that's pretty much the only thing that could beat Friday Night Lights.

Congratulations, weird-ass hippy cleanse. You officially beat Tim Riggins on the score chart of Things I Find Desirable. Now sit still and try not to squirm while I stare at you lustfully.