One morning, about six months after the tape had first entered into the depths of my tape deck never to return, I sat in my car, waiting for the engine to warm, and sighed resignedly as I looked at my pitiful and hopelessly jammed stereo. But something felt different that day.

Confidently, I pressed the eject button and held it down, and as if nothing had ever gone wrong, the tape came out with the reassuring sound of gears turning from within my car stereo. Perhaps stupidly, after some deliberation, I pushed it back in, just to see if it would be recognized and I could once again listen to my iPod in my car. It worked. I pressed eject. It came out again.

Time, it would seem, had fixed my car stereo.

And time, it would seem, finally got around to fixing my iPod today. Starting last December, my iPod became unrecognizable to any computer to which it was attached. It would charge fine, it would play all the music that was on it, but I was never able to update it with new songs. It took it to the Mac store, I followed every bit of advice available on online forums, but to no avail.

Just now, though, I plugged it into its dock, just to charge it up for tomorrow, and instead of the usual lack of response I used to get upon doing so, iTunes started updating my iPod! It's fixed! At least for today...

I think there must be a Third Law of Thermodynamics: given enough time, negative entropy can be favorable. If you're lucky. And lazy or cheap enough to leave things in a state of disrepair.

It was strange, but he found solace in it--love as a Rubik's Cube--and smiled again as he stood up and flushed, then went to shower in the near-empty locker room; all undergraduates and most other graduate students had already left for winter break.

The isolation of a temporarily abandoned university didn't really help the encroaching loneliness he thought he sensed, and he feared it would ruin the contentment, or at least lack of disdain--had these become the same to him?--he had lately been feeling toward his single life. But the truth--and he felt everybody must be fleeing their own stark realities brought by the year's end (at least he hoped uncharitably that he was not the only one)--the truth remained that things felt stagnant while progress whirled around him. Every motion he made belonged to a monotonous deja vu upon and despite which his friends and acquaintances built their successes at work, in love, at play.

He walked from the gym back to his lab through the profane cold. You knew Chicago temperatures had hit bottom if you breathed through your nose, wiggled your upper lip, and could feel the crunch of ice crystals clinging to your nosehairs. At times like this, it was surprising that every exhalation did not produce a flurry of snowflakes, and suddenly he imagined himself skiing on his own breath--careening down a hill, rhythmically blowing fresh powder from his lungs that kept his skis from scraping the rocks he saw only feet in front of him until he sped faster and faster, his snowblowing body failing in a fit of frozen suffocating coughs as he tumbled uncontrollably down the bare mountainside.

As he reached for the handle, the door to his building was flung open from the other side, missing his face but startling him from his thoughts, and through mumbled apologies, he walked into warmth. In the lab, more daydreaming. He thought mundanely, predictably of his crush, meditating on some hypothetical point in time after they had expressed their mutual affections, already ensconced in the comfort of a stable relationship (was there really such a thing anyway?), but stopped when he realized his experiment required his attention; he gave it, undivided. Later, as he sat analyzing the data in his office, he felt ready to break glassware. Another fucked up result I can't use, he sulked softly.

Elbow on desk and head against hand, he sorted through an inbox full of spam, and as he deleted he noticed an invitation he had glanced at then forgot about. Tom's birthday at Big Chicks, 8:30 Friday night. Today was Friday. The bar was close to his apartment; he could walk there, wouldn't have to park, wouldn't have to drive home after--important since he needed a drink, probably several. He shut down his computer, made the remarkably easy decision not to take any work home, put on scarf, coat, hat, gloves, and sufficiently winterized, walked out to his car.

On his way home, as he passed the lake, he let his eyes dart lingeringly away from the road, toward the expanse of black frigid water he couldn't see, as if the world ended at the dimly lit shore, where iceberg-like formations had grown out of the shallow water since the cold began in earnest. The transformative power of the cold amazed him, and he thought of how different the beach looked in summertime and how much he missed sailing. He appreciated every minute he had spent in a dinghy--the self-imposed solitude, the simplicity of the rigging, the surprising speed when the sails were trimmed just right. In a Laser, one had a solid sense of control; tiller in one hand, mainsheet in the other, the boat's heel tamed by your body's placement. Any movement, and the boat responded, every change a direct consequence of the skipper's actions. But even that wasn't true. One 25-knot gust and Nature had you capsized, gasping through waves, reaching up for the centerboard to set things right; she knew who was boss.

He got lucky and parked in a freshly vacated space across the street from his 3-flat. Inside, he set down his keys and glanced at his watch. 8:42. He'd be a bit late. Munching on whatever he found in the fridge, he called Scott to make sure he and Jacob were going too; he was feeling sociable, but not toward strangers. Unlike others he knew, neither of the two made complete deference to "us," something he viewed in most couples with half-jealous disgust, perhaps to equalize what they had with the only thing he felt he had in plentitude: the independence that seemed inseparable from being alone.

An hour later he pulled his door shut, and after several brisk steps in the direction of the bar, showed the bouncer his ID as he removed his hat and shoved his gloves into their respective pockets, thrusting himself into the warm cigarette-smoke air, humid with melted snow and evaporated liquor. Big Chicks was a small gay bar, with an older crowd, few lesbians despite the name, none of the pretense of its Boystown counterparts, walls hung with artistic renditions of fat women and naked men and adorned with hungry pairs of eyes. He strained to find his friends beyond his glasses, which had fogged up. If he wiped them with his fingers they would smudge, so he waited in a self-conscious haze until the moisture slowly left in search of colder, drier surfaces. Clarity restored, he found everyone in the back, near the pool table, a few feet past an incredibly attractive boy that he knew he would be staring at distractedly in the near future.

He hugged the birthday boy first, found Scott and Jacob, got a beer. Intermittent eyes toward the hot stranger, betraying some kind of desperate yearning. More beer. It was hopeless, to perceive anything but appearance, to project anything but appearance in such loud, dimly lit, volatile, nicotinic circumstances. All words became a pick-up. All conversation a progression toward an isolated moment of physical release, after which slowly, the lines would fill up again. But still he looked.

Jacob told him about a client at work, he had really wanted to kick her ass. The boy looked back. Nodded. There was something behind the nonchalant mouth, the casual eyes. Something disaffected, a fear, a pause, possibly imagined. Last beer. Fighting the music, Scott shouted that they were going soon. It was late; he'd go too.

In the morning, he saw that mouth, those eyes again, lying next to him, lit from behind by the orange sunrise from the window beyond his bed. He wanted to kiss them; with affection, not lust. But he blinked them away, went back to sleep as he made a partially woken point to spread himself over both halves of the mattress.

I don't really have a sweet tooth anymore.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, I had this one coach, Dan, who would always shout motivational things at us like "MY GRANDMA COULD DO A BETTER DISMOUNT!" or "DON'T BE SUCH A PANSY!"

One early spring day, my mom was gardening out in front of our house. She was planting pansies. She mentioned to me that they would be okay if we had another frost before spring started in earnest, since, as far as flowers go, pansies are fairly durable. When she said that, I thought about Dan and smiled to myself. Now, I had ammo.

That night, when I went to gymastics practice, I just couldn't wait for Dan to use his signature line.

"DON'T BE SUCH A PANSY!" he yelled, as I struggled on pommel horse. He grinned smugly. You could tell he enjoyed little more than to taunt kids into pointing their toes and obtaining more height on their flares.

Ah ha! I thought.

"ACTUALLY, PANSIES ARE VERY HARDY FLOWERS," I retorted in my know-it-all pre-adolescent voice.

And to think that I was surprised when this didn't have the chilling effect I anticipated it would. [buries face in hands]

Back then I had big glasses, I think I still had your stereotypical Asian bowl haircut, and I certainly had no clue as to what constituted tasteful dress. So a big teal duffle bag thrown into this mix didn't really make things any worse.

It is not the bag itself that continues to embarrass me thirteen years later, it is what was printed on the bag.

Drug companies don't give anything away for free unless it has the name of a product plastered all over it. So, throughout seventh grade I was unwittingly a walking advertisement for:

It wasn't until years later that I learned Diflucan is used to treat vaginal yeast infections.

Thanks, mom and dad.

It is not the first time I've heard him ask me this.

"Dad, there's no reason to be careful when I'm essentially celibate."

"You know I just want to be sure that you are safe and healthy."

He has just finished telling me about a patient he saw earlier in the day--a 21 year old he diagnosed with HIV. I can tell he was shaken by the experience, which I find surprising given that his specialty, infectious diseases, brings a great many HIV-positive patients to his medical practice. But I suppose he couldn't help but draw parallels between the patient and his 25 year old gay son. (Incidentally, this was one of my greatest fears upon coming out, that the vast majority of gay men my dad came into contact with were those he treated for HIV/AIDS, that he would imagine me dying before he knew me completely. In retrospect, my fears were largely unfounded; I could not have asked for more supportive parents.)

"Dad, please. I don't need your worries to make my own paranoia worse."

A bit harsh, perhaps, but true. Maybe it's because I am surrounded in my immediate family by doctors (my mom and my sister are also MDs), all of whom have expressed similar concerns, and every time have received the same plea for my sanity. I am paranoid enough without my cohort of doctors nudging their medical advice into my already very noisy head. I have worried months after I've broken up with past boyfriends that they've given me something incurable, replayed sex we've had in my head, not for erotic purposes, but to examine every moment for the slight possibility that a rogue virus or two might have snuck its way from their bloodstream into mine. This is after we've been tested together, all results negative. Your ex was totally healthy, not a rogue virus in sight--you were both tested *twice*; his health is scientifically proven, says the rational conscience on my right shoulder. But what if, what if, what IF, my other totally neurotic conscience chants directly into my ear, perched atop my left shoulder. What if he had some crazy strain of HIV not detectable by currently available tests. What if he had a freak immune system that never developed antibodies to the virus. What if he cheated on you shortly before you had sex the last time. Or right before you were last tested.

I will only hint at how loud my sinister conscience got after my one and only one-night stand.

Really, the only way I've found to keep him as quiet as possible while still living my life is to abstain from sex without emotion. It's quite convenient, then, that unemotional intimacy is not something I really care for anyway.

About a month ago, I was climbing on a Monday night at Evanston Athletic Club, and felt compelled to ask my fellow climbers about something on my mind at the time.

"What do you do if someone clearly likes you, but you clearly do not like them."

Staff member Katherine astutely and quickly cut to the root of the problem. "Right or right now?" she asked. "Is that what this is about?"

I laughed, "I...guess you could put it that way."

"Eh, we've all done it. Use 'em and leave 'em," she joked.

With this sound reasoning I reconsidered my situation. I had been single since January. It was now July. No substantive physical contact with anyone in six months (there was a bit in February). Not even cuddling, of which I am a huge fan. This guy I had been on a few dates with was cute, but I just wasn't feeling it. There was a personality clash, and so I found myself acting like I was repulsed by him. He would put his hand on my knee and I would coldly, frigidly, do nothing. On one date, we watched TV at his place, and when he pivoted himself into my arms I held him, if not purely to avoid confrontation, then because it *did* feel nice. Yet I quickly found that the pure physicality of the situation allowed me to go no further. With guys I've felt something for, a small touch can quickly lead to a kiss...and so on. This was completely different. I didn't want to use him, I only wanted to leave.

Paranoia and neuroses completely aside (because, come on, we were only talking cuddling and maybe kissing here), I just couldn't see the point. I cuddle because I want to be near someone, not because I want merely to be touched. I kiss because it is an extension of my desire, not because my lips need moisture (although I did learn from my ex-boyfriend Mike that kissing a pair of recently-Chapsticked lips is a very convenient way to apply lip balm). This rhetoric, I'm afraid, places me on the fringes of the gay community; I am a significant minority of a significant minority.

"It's *just* SEX," Matt's essentially husband Will often tells me.

I guess that's my problem with it. Sex without emotion is just sex. It's masturbation with drama. It's intimacy without intimacy. I'd rather be sailing.

Every 21 days since October 22nd of last year, my voicemail replays me a message in which my sister, between choked-back tears, tells me that she's just seen her rheumatologist and has been diagnosed with lupus. Usually, I only listen long enough to hear the first five words, "Hi Nathaniel, it's your sister"; they are squeezed through a voice cracking with fear and shock and uncertainty. Then, invariably, I press 9 and save the message for another 21 days.

My parents were traveling in Thailand and Japan that week. My sister bore the news with no family close at hand, and when I returned that call, I mostly remember the feeling of wanting to be there with her. Maybe to take her out to lunch, or to a movie, or to sit on the couch with my arm around her, kleenex and wastebin close at hand, or to fight about something inconsequential, like we always do. Instead, I sat in my lab at work, 2000 miles away, doing all I could by voice alone.

I wish I could say that I keep Kristina's message because she was mean and awful when we were kids, and hearing the news every three weeks is some sadistic way of vindicating my childhood. Or, maybe my interpersonal correspondence skills are so bad, I need a message that carries so much weight to remind me to call her. Perhaps I use it as a reminder of how tenuous and mutable our health is, that I should do everything I can to guard my own. At least these reasons would make sense. But it is something else, something I don't understand.

In the past, I've kept messages that relate to something I am working through. For a few months, I wouldn't delete voicemail from a boy I liked, a crush I strugged with for a long time. When I finally removed his voice from my mailbox I suddenly knew I was okay, that I had moved on.

So maybe this is similar, albeit weightier. Maybe it is the talisman thrown into the sea when the problem has dissipated, the soul once again at ease. I don't know what kind of resolution will bring me to delete the message. I can imagine a total and unending remission of her symptoms; or, a moment when I *know* she is okay, when I can see there has been little adverse effect, that her life is fully lived in, that things have turned out for the best after all, despite any lupine howl that may have roughened the journey.

I make it sound worse than it is though. Her immune system is under control. She is an obstetrics resident (and always has stories for me I don't want to hear about vaginal births gone terribly wrong, but I am glad she has the stories and tells them). She recently bought a house (and chose a kitchen countertop color I would best describe as "confetti barfage," but it's good she chose something based on her own tastes). She is well. So, although I would like to say that her painful message represents some kind of hope for the future, that doesn't quite make sense. The present is hopeful already.

I think I preserve the message as a token of a turning point. Just as we keep the tassel from our graduation cap, buy a t-shirt from a concert, or snap a photo of ourselves in front of the Eiffel Tower, her words and her voice mark an important plot point in a story--one that is still full of pronounced uncertainties. Our lives are all uncertain to a large extent; but that day, when she left her rheumatologist's office, when I checked my voicemail, life's ambiguities were amplified. Eventually, the ripples her diagnosis caused will subside. The calm surface, smooth as glass, will return, reflecting a life no more ambiguous than any other. Then, the ramifications of the message will be clear, and like a stone, I will let it go and watch it sink away.

When we go out on the lake the next day, it is overcast, cold, and windy, with the water one degree warmer than the 53°F air temperature--less-than-desirable conditions for a capsize drill. We take turns skippering (driving) the boats, and I think we all start to realize that sailing is not at all straightforward. At the helm of a 420 (normally a two-person vessel, there are three of us in the boat for instructional purposes, and it is taking on water) for the first time, I repeatedly push the rudder in the wrong direction (on a sailboat, the steering is backwards) while tentatively adjusting the tension on the sail according to Frank's commands rather than my own understanding of where the wind is blowing in relation to our heading, and where the sails should be in relation to the wind. All I know is that I am supposed to be keeping the boat headed toward the Hancock tower, and christ almighty is it hard to steer straight, especially with wind blowing, water splashing, and Frank yelling over the din "EASE OUT A LITTLE. MORE. TILLER TOWARDS YOU. NO, TOWARDS YOU."

After the other student in the boat, Bree, and I both get a turn as skipper, it is time for the capsize drill. With Frank’s help, we orient the boat with the wind across its width (in a so-called "beam reach"), let the sails luff (go slack), and pull the boat over onto its side, dumping ourselves into Lake Michigan. Fortunately, we are wearing wetsuits, but I still feel the shock of the cold water on my hands and feet and neck, and as I swim around to the centerboard (the big fin that sticks out of the bottom of the hull) and heave myself up onto it to right the boat, I have to wonder why the hell I decided to take sailing in Chicago in May, and I begin to let my old leisurely, relaxed, fairy-tale notion of sailing give way to something far more strenuous, exciting, and challenging. And cold. Did I mention cold?

In concept, sailing is deceptively elegant. Stretch some fabric in the wind a certain way, and you can move big things quickly. Like photography, another of my fascinations, sailing is grounded in science but is more art in execution, and consequently its potential complexity is never-ending. You can always get better, and inherent in the sport are as many chances for humility as there are for triumph. Put simply, I won’t be getting bored of it any time soon.

Yesterday, two and a half weeks after the first day of class, I am hiked out on a 420 in a close haul. Because the sails are positioned nearly parallel to the long axis of the boat when headed upwind, there is a considerable sideways force that makes the boat want to heel (lean to one side). To keep it flat and fast, fellow student Ed and I lean out of the windward side of the boat as counterweight. Our feet are hooked under the hiking straps in the center of the boat, and our butts, torsos, and heads are stretched out over the side in a horizontal position, the water skimming by only inches below. We tack ninety degrees, moving the bow through the wind, switch to the other side of the boat, and hike out again as we feel the acceleration of sails catching wind. It is so fun.

Flying through the water, I am reminded that the forces around us are not trivial, that 10-15 mph winds--a light breeze on land--can do something pretty marvelous over water in the hands of human ingenuity. It feels like life stripped down to what is good only, and boy is it a rush.

--> I've taken my classes at the Northwestern University Sailing Center.

--> The entry title is a lyric from a song in William Finn's musical, A New Brain.

Sheryl, my friend from college, is getting married in June in Washington DC. All of my closest friends from Rice will be there; it will be a chance to re-connect, a chance to remember all of those late nights we spent in each others' dorm rooms laughing at Skinemax (the soft-core porn Cinemax plays after 10 pm), bitching about classes, and learning who we were. It is unfortunate we can't go back to college, but thankfully we have the friends who shared it with us.

Sheryl and Steve met at Rice, so their wedding will be a sort of culmination of something we saw begin and develop; it makes me smile to think about it.

Here I must confess something, though. I have been a terrible correspondent. After college, Sheryl joined the Peace Corps and went to Turkmenistan for two years, and I sent her not one letter. And maybe one email. I don't know what my problem is. I have one meek defense: in the past three years, I can count the number of pen-and-paper letters I have written and sent on one hand. Somehow, writing them takes me an inordinately long time--perhaps it's my fanatical attention to both grammar and penmanship; in any case, a single two-page letter takes about a week to write (incidentally, the time scale of writing these website entries is comparable, which is why I post them so infrequently). I fear the pen's permanence, and even more I fear the disordered and inconsistent look of white-out, so each sentence must be mentally wrought and re-worked before it is written. What emerges is a slow and tiring process that reminds me too well of my anal-retentive undercurrents, so I rarely repeat it.

Here is meek defense number two: when you are living in such different places, when you are, yourself, undergoing so many experiences that leave you changed, how do you distill your life into a few paragraphs without squeezing everything substantive from it? I just don't see the point in sending trite correspondence, in having trite conversation, where all I manage to communicate is that I am alive, that I am surviving graduate school, that I like Chicago. The other details in life are so fluid that capturing them in text feels like an inaccurate representation--they may change as I seal the envelope, or as my letter is making its way across the world via plane or electronic circuitry. No--I can't help but feel that the only satisfying way for me to connect is in person, or at least over the phone, where the communication itself is as transient as the subject matter. But then, of course, the activation energy is very large, if not insurmountable. With Sheryl, phoning her or seeing her in Turkmenistan were not even possibilities, and unfortunately, as I have explained, I am a total wacko when it comes to letter-writing. Yet these excuses only go so far, and beyond that I can only say that I was lazy and I am sorry.

That being said, I was excited to have the chance to see her again, catch up, celebrate the occasion, and, of course, re-connect with the other Rice friends subject to my terrible lack of correspondence. Then, I received a call from Ilana (one of a few college friends I *have* managed to stay in touch with) about a month ago.

"Nate...have you bought your plane ticket to DC yet?'

"...No...why?"

"Well...because...you're not invited to the wedding."

"What?!"

In the following hours, I was rational and understanding of her logic, but then I began to feel upset. The whole situation just felt so shitty. She is completely right. Her wedding is for her, not for us, and especially not for me. That I never wrote her is my fault and my fault only (I should note that she actually sent me an email on my birthday last year! And of course I and my missing chromosome failed to respond. I am a BAD PERSON.) But despite my understanding, I felt robbed of the chance to see her, and to see all of these people, together, in the same place at the same time, for the first--and possibly the last--time in years. My friends and I have been talking about this for months, and I was totally going to make use of this rare opportunity to make up for lost time and unsent emails!

Ah, the clarity of hindsight.

A week or so later, at the suggestion of ex-roommate, pseudo-brother, and co-worker Matt, I decided to send Sheryl a wedding gift anyway. This wasn't meant to be a backhanded guilt trip so much as a way of putting the situation back into her hands, to say that I did understand, that I wished her well, and that I hoped our friendship wasn't ruined forever. So I logged in to Sheryl's gift registry and sent her some lowball glasses and dipping dishes (the dishes were on backorder, so she hasn't received those yet). The note that accompanied them: "Sheryl and Steve -- A wholehearted congratulations. Take good care. -Nate C."

Now that I've received her thank-you note, I don't quite know what I was expecting--certainly not something that so clearly side-stepped the circumstances in which the glasses were sent. I think I hoped the gift would be a catalyst for discussion, that she would express her regret at having to exclude me, but maybe there was none. Or, maybe she interpreted the gesture as the backhanded guilt trip I did not intend it to be, and her standard response was the only thing that would contain her disdain. As I tore open the envelope yesterday, I had envisioned closure nestled in with "thank you," but found none; and now, I don't know what to do.

Here is the consolation prize: I took the hint. In the intervening month since this small fiasco began, I've written more emails and placed more phone calls to friends I've neglected than I have in a while. I think perhaps in the back of my mind, I've always had the fear that the first communication will expose an alienness to our relationship, that I will find I no longer know the person, that talking to them will be supremely awkward; but I think I'm finding out that with close friends things are usually okay. It's just good to hear their voice or read their words, and embrace their familiarity. Of course things will have changed, but I suppose that same change is what makes life exciting, however unfamiliar it may make the things we once knew. In old friends, we can find the familiar in the unfamiliar; I just hope I've learned to retain and appreciate them as such.

It is inarguable that dissimilarities between two people are integral to a meaningful relationship. Being with someone else is about learning from them, about sharing moments and different viewpoints; it is hopefully about creating something that is larger than two people, and that can't be done with two people who are effectively the same person. So I am not saying that I want to find someone who is the same as me--as with everything else there is a balance to be struck.

But where then lies this balance? If such things could be quantified, should we strive to find someone with one-half similarities and one-half dissimilarities--an even 50-50 sort of balance? I am inclined to say no, that when it comes to relationships, a far more lopsided proportion is optimal. Last night, my friend Shawn told me about a "rule" he heard regarding this same question: for a relationship to work well, the two participants must have at least seven things in common. These are not just seven half-assed skin-deep things ("I like balloons, seashells, blue, PB&J, gerbera daisies, Charmin Ultra, and money." "Ohmygod, *I* like balloons, seashells, blue, PB&J, gerbera daisies, Charmin Ultra, and money!!!"). They are core-of-being passions, things that define you, and so you can imagine that when too few correspond between partners, only detriment can follow. Why seven? Who knows--and frankly I don't think the particular number is important. The point is that there is a threshold number of things to be jointly held in high regard, and it is not small.

The silver lining may be that people often have many passions, and this threshold can be reached any number of ways. However, certain interests are bound to be more important to someone than others, so the caveat is that the most important ones must match, or else the relationship is doomed from the start. As an example, here are just ten of my passions, some more important to me than others, and in no particular order:

- photography
- classical music from the romantic and 20th century periods
- rock climbing
- science
- food (as something much more than mere sustenance)
- Radiohead
- philosophy
- piano
- well-crafted films (admittedly highly subjective; perhaps surprisingly, Lilo and Stitch and Bring It On fall into this category as do In the Mood for Love and Pulp Fiction)
- stained glass

In a similar vein, dissimilarities afford learning. To me, that's what is exciting about a relationship--having another person's experiences and knowledge to draw from, being shown new things and new ways to see things you already knew. Shawn also had something to say about dissimilarities that made a lot of sense to me: they are beneficial only if the other partner has some intrinsic curiosity about them. If I were dating someone who had long ago decided that food was merely something he had to eat to stay alive, I would deem that an unreconcilable dissimilarity. On the other hand, I would not be discouraged by a guy who liked the small amount of classical music he had been exposed to, but didn't know where to start listening on his own. It is the difference between active dismissal and simply not knowing, and while the latter adds spice to a relationship, the former breeds only bitterness.

You might by now be thinking that to concentrate on common interests is to ignore the more general things that should agree between two partners: their world view or the degree of intellectual curiosity that drives them through life, for example. But I am wholly convinced that a guy who loves what I do will also match me in broader ways, that his corresponding passions will be indicative of our wide-ranging compatibility.

Goddamnit. I'm never going to find a boyfriend.

You see, graduate school is populated by life-learners--people who feel that they could, and so do, spend much of their life in the classroom. While safely ensconced in academia, we are protected from the real world, from much of industrial bureaucracy, from all that job stuff. And because of it, people like us can spend almost 30 years of our life without ever having to join the conventional workforce, without participation as a "productive" member of society. THIRTY YEARS!

The solution to getting these crazy larnin' bastards back into civilization? Graduate school itself.

Graduate school is the school to end all desire for further schooling. After graduate school, nobody in their right mind ever wants to go to school again. Ever.

Thus, it is my firm belief that PhD candidacy is nothing more than a societal tool to prevent people from spending *literally* their entire life in school. And boy does it do its job!!!

All I can say is: boy am I lucky to have a bunch of friends who love to cook. For our second annual Easter dinner, we made and ate:

- Dtohm kha gai (Thai coconut milk and galanga soup)
- Baby spinach salad with blue cheese, pear, and avocado
- Roasted pork spareribs marinated in rosemary and balsamic vinegar
- Chicken and rice (arroz con pollo)
- Mashed potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Scalloped potatoes au gratin with fennel (we like the potatoes, okay?!)
- Asparagus with goat cheese and bacon
- Flan
- French custard and prune tart
- Some creamy mousse-y yumminess with fresh berries and raspberry sauce (a.k.a. Shara's cheesy-cheese fatty-fat dessert, on account of its cream cheese and heavy cream content)

The Authority concluded that the information submitted [by Penta] was not sufficient to prove Penta water had health benefits over and above those of ordinary water or was structured differently from ordinary water. The Authority told the advertisers not to repeat claims that implied the product was chemically unique, had been restructured or molecularly redesigned, or hydrated cells and improved physical performance better than tap water. It told the advertisers to amend their advertisements and advised them to seek help with the amendments from the CAP Copy Advice team.

Other lomtick.com entries on Penta Water:

Penta Water is based on lies
Exploitation x 5