One of the finer, forgotten points of Darwinism that men always overlook is the preparing of the domicile to recieve a young lady. What follows is meant to help single men of the world through this trial that actually does make all the difference, despite what you may think (or not, you're a guy afterall).

Do realize that when a woman comes over to your house (apartment, trailer, "place", etc.) you are under scrutiny. It is as if the FBI is making a full bug sweep through your living quarters, leaving no pillow unturned. See, women do a lot of flash forwarding, involving themeselves in various situations such as "will I walk on that floor barefoot" and "if he disregards the bathtub, will he someday forget our anniversary?". It's silly, I know, but bare with me - there are a few things you can do to immediately improve your "rating" which is actually an ongoing mental score that women keep, similar to exit polls but tons more flippant:

1. Floors are of major importance to women I think becuase of their almost maternal connection to their shoes. Scan your floor for loose articles - water bottles, sports equipment, clothes, bill envelopes, random cords. These need to go away - your carpet should be an unbroken, barren area, with clearly defined paths from place to place. In a pinch, use your kitchen sink as a mop bucket to dry and wet mop hard surfaces at the same time.

2. Even if you have the sandy formica cabinet tops in your kithen and can't visibly detect any contrast between crumbs and the actual surface, they're there and they scream, "you are a bad lover" in loud, repeating intervals. Do a once over with a sponge or, my favorite, a wet paper towel. Get a plastic bag going.

3. Your bathroom will make or break a relationship so be VERY well prepared. If a women can't use your bathroom, she can't use you and will move on to a cleaner bathroom - it's that simple. What you're looking for here is a curious, thin, almost invisible layer of filth that accumulates on all white surfaces, almost like an indoor moss. If you don't see this, I promise it's under a difficult layer of pubic hair that also needs to go. It's probably the color of your towels. And shock treat your toilet - if it's bad, get some chlorine from Pinch-A-Penny, throw it in, then don't go there for like a day. It's been my experience with swimming pools that chlorine takes care of a number of unpleasantries.

Believe me, your apartment is your audition, in no uncertain terms. Think of it as a game - the harder you clean, the better chance she'll want to stay, and I think we all know what that means.

It means you'll have to keep cleaning.

Lately, there's nothing that seems to calm and satisfy me like an hour's worth of lacrosse. There's a really nice park about a mile from my apartment with a lighted tennis court and I go there when I need to be active or spend some nervous energy. I used to play a lot of lacrosse with neighborhood kids in Buffalo, so doing this occasionally in the context of my living in the north again is like getting back to my childhood - it's one of those things that feels good to the body and heart. I'm trying to join this adult lacrosse league which plays in the spring, so this is another reason I'm getting out every other night or so. It's not that I'm bad, but I'm out of practice and need to find my underhand shot again. This is difficult because it involves twisting AND flipping the stick so the ball is delivered as the stick is moving up, as opposed to down or across the body which is an easier shot. The point is, the underhand shot is the kill shot because it's the hardest to stop in terms of its speed and just how personal you make it (you can angle it up or down). Since I've never played competitively, it's going to be interesting to see just how my sandlot skills compare to people who I suspect are really UMD Lax players who's "goofing around" in the off-season is probably ten times better than whatever game I could possibly bring. For right now, I'm enjoying myself but always with the prospect of league play come April.

Okay, a little while ago, I shared with Teej and Ash a little known part of my dark and mysterious past. Turns out, I have these old essays about a variety of things dating back to high school, which should be considered PB or "pre-blog" - back when people just had "web sites" and that was cool enough.

One of which involves a girl with the initials AC who ought to know who she is when she's done reading this. And if you are her, let me make try to explain a few things before you file a restraining order. Okay, so this is nothing more than a little crush, a school boy fantasy if you will, brought back by the fact that you actually responded to my request to post your pic on classmates. Of course, I can't SEE your picture, due to the fact that classmates apparently would rather tease me than be useful in any way. So I have to assume that you at least remember me - and if so, you might recall some of the embarrassing things I did, mostly involving a last minute, teen-movie confession of how I care for you.

Then, I was a stuttering, unconfident, unaccomplished high school senior who was intimidated by beautiful women. Now, I'm an established designer and college grad who, shall we say, has vastly improved his experience with the fairer sex. This is why I feel that at this point, I should try to find sufficient closure to this part of my life that seems unfinished - and it's not even like I want to know if you could like me now...it's more like, "I like ME now so here I am again" - how about a second consideration, is all I'm saying.

On a lighter note, for anyone who thinks I'm being a tad sentimental or can't seem to let this go, I submit that you probably have your own loose ends that could use some tying up - that is, unless your the person who owns the "Trying to Understand This" Blog. This really is what skin-wearing, child-stealing, bell-tower-sniping, deep-phone-breathing obsession looks like, and it's not pretty.

Went to Pentagon City with Kristen today - another Yellow Liner. I have taken to labeling people with their Metro Line as part of an unofficial scientific study - it is my contention that women on the Yellow Line are extremely difficult due to something in the water there. When I finish, we shall see if "Virginia is for Lovers" - right now, I think a better motto would be "Virginia is for Women Who Never Call You Back."

She brought up a part time job she's taking with her Church. I wonder - could I use a part time job? She says she's there every Sunday anyways, so I got to thinking: where do I usually end up that would lend itself nicely to a part time job? There's the grocery store, but I have no desire to bag, mop, bake or stock. So that's it because I'm really not reliably anywhere in a given week except in the case of my running club, but that's not part time job material - unless they wanted to pay me to drink. Which would make me some kind of professional drinker. And while that does sound like potentially everything I've always wanted, I'm not a big drinker and I'm afraid of practice - look, I was unable to commit to 1 hour of piano every other day.

My xmas shopping is all but complete. I put Kristen to shame with my shopping skills which I have Reena to thank for. Tried out this French restaurant in Old Towne afterwards and had the Leg of Duck. FYI - shallots are little onions that look like boiled eyeballs.

With the Holiday season quickly approaching, all the major retailers are busy trying to convince you that Santa Claus himself personally shops at their store. Well, I sincerely hope Santa makes more than 5 figures, because he lives further north than me and from the looks of my financial situation, the more north you go, the more it costs. To that end, I'm a little unhappy at the current state of my bank account. See, it's preventing me from enjoying my Friday night like I want to seeing as how I have approximately $13.00 after taxes, bills, food, insurance, and of course monthly banking charges which I honestly don't understand - I use everyone else's services online for free, what could BOA possibly be charging me for? They aren't some cool community portal or subscription newspaper service. They don't allow me to download MP3's of my recent bank statements to my palm pilot.

Regardless, it's not their fault - I'm actually trying to live beyond my means. Allow me to fantasize: I want the life of my co-worker, Jay. Jay is a 27 year old programmer by day / playboy by night who regularly spends $400.00 entertaining like, extremely hot foreign women at really nice clubs. I would approach him to hang out, but I'm sure he'd be like, "Oh, so you're prepared to drop a paycheck this weekend?" So, really interesting methods of revenue generation have been floating through my mind lately. For example, I haven't looked into live organ donation, but that might be an option.

But really, I'm being silly - I'm extremely happy with what I have, but I need to manage it better - I guess it comes with age. What I have here is a much larger problem now that I've accepted my staying home tonight, which is, how do you ensure a steady flow of experience? How do you keep the vibrancy of your day-to-day life? In college, my vibrancy was Reena, Kappa Sigma, my roommate Steve, and the DAS Crew. My routine was Maud's, the Union, Buster, and the work I poured myself into desperately trying to get somewhere. My other co-worker says I'm ahead of the curve so I must need to find equilibrium with DC - a nice mixture of work, fun, responsibility and fulfillment.

Three short months has yielded amazing times but no steady flow of adventures...it's kind of segmented - definite down-times here and there, which I don't like because I guess I can feel myself getting older. I told Reena once, "Give me a year and I'll know Gainesville like the back of my hand." Well, I didn't take it as slow this time, assuming nothing here could possibly wait around for me to come to terms. I guess I was hoping that I'd arrive here and be this totally different person, that somehow the city would open itself up and accept me - "Here I am!!". After speaking to Ash though, who is my new therapist, she reminded me to make things happen on YOUR terms. I just need to find a rhythm and make new routines, like she is doing and, incidently, like Reena is also doing. At times, other people's stories seem very applicable to you, and Ashlie and Reena are two excellent examples of people going with the flow until the time is right. I find solace in that and it fills me with a deep happiness to see people I care about succeed - it's an affirmation, really.

I have to admit - this is the first time I've been just a little scared for a long time. Or mabye I just haven't had enough time to realize it. Good thing I'm going home for Christmas - just in time for a little boost of confidence from friends and family.

So, I've held off doing this long enough out of respect for my friends who don't as of yet have a job out of college. But I feel I've given them more than enough time, so here it is:

WANTED: Personal Intern

Job Description
Brandon, LLC is a leading peer-to-peer downloading company serving no one in particular. I am searching for an Intern for my corporate office located in Rockville, MD. Flexible hours. Intern responsibilities include downloading and organizing my MP3 files. In fact, that's pretty much the job right there. Light typing and occasional sandwich prep.

About the company
I have a lot of MP3's and they need to be organized. I like artists like "Reef" and "Robby Williams" so if you can't hang or are forced to produce a snicker when you come across folders upon folders of music you don't particularly like, you can go to hell. Music snobs, emo babies and people with Saturn's need not apply.

Minimum Skills & Experience
-o- Bachelor's degree or equivalent specializing in Business, University of Florida MBA's preferred
-o- 5+ years management level experience in music-based technology environment with demonstrated skills
-o- Demonstrated leadership in developing and implementing ways of downloading more MP3's as if the end of the world was nigh and we were hoarding them like food
-o- Exceptional interpersonal, communication and organization skills
-o- If you're a dude, must have hot, unfaithful girlfriend or hot, confused friend who has a thing for men with authority (over you)

If you are the qualified candidate I am searching for, please submit cover letter, resume and salary requirements to someone benevolent, and then come organize my music.

...you get the building owner's parking spot two feet from the door after everyone's already parked and he's left
...collect your thoughts on the drive to work
...let co-workers put out clients fires that don't really involve you but assuredly would if you were actually there
...get to check email and set new torrent downloads
...miss occassional fire alarm testing
...the boss is usually late

Okay, so based on my post a couple days ago, I've decided to try out HotOrNot even though it may lead me down the road to male bulimia. If that sounds effeminate, then I just slept with your girlfriend, punched her in the face, and then had her cook me dinner while I watched car crashes, shirtless, and scratched myself.

HotOrNot now empowers you to feel misery, self-pity and that oh-so-familiar sick feeling of your ego being crushed in real time. Almost on a minute-to-minute basis you can refresh your score and watch as you get less and less hot, almost like J-Lo. What happened between 6:15 (hotter than 72% of guys) and 10:58 (68%)? Did I grow a third ear? Is my look so 4 hours ago? Or did every guy get 4% more hot and I missed it when I was commuting or sleeping with your girlfriend?

And who gave me a one? I thought a score of one was like an A in art school or a night of wild threeway with the female principals of Buffy - you just never get one, or it's so rare you never qualify. HotOrNot needs an orientation session where they make sure you can count.

So rate my pic - I'll be standing by, really caring about your vote. Don't let me down, single women of DC. Who will be the first to give me a 10 to even out the bell curve?

Vote: http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=BSOMGEA&key=PDW

According to a recent commercial by Dyson (that colorful Brit who thinks "Things just shouldn't suck so bad"), his new vacuum is capable of generating a force ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES THE FORCE OF GRAVITY. Since I have absolutely no concept of the force of gravity, I will naturally try to explain what this means; basically, if you buy a Dyson vacuum (retail: $419.94) you could accidentally suck the entire earth, sun, and 6 of the other closer (but ugly) planets, along with whatever appendage your holding it with into an dimensional-rift faster than it takes to find porn on the internet.

There are a couple problems here that I see right away, all of them supporting my theory that Dyson is himself an international super villain bent on global destruction.

First, the name "Dyson" sounds like something you'd name your kid if you were shooting to raise an evil genius. Say it to yourself like it's a command. So the kid had no chance, and probably started down this path at an early age. The fact that no one recognized this is a clear failing of our public schools - the Preventing Super Villain Activity budget hasn't increased since the 60's when evil and really long sideburns were just being introduced.

Second, where's the intelligence report on this thing? Or at least a warning label from the FDA? ("May cause cataclysmic space-time disruption; keep out of reach of children"). Dyson even mocks like a supervillian: on his web site, he nonchalantly tosses off that he went through 5,000 prototypes until "at last" he was able to "launch the Dyson Cyclone". That's just what I'd call my doomsday device, you know?

Oh, and what does he mean by "at last"? At last? You mean, this one is just right? He's been at this for awhile, probably in some lair under the English Channel. Why stop at gravity? Why not take on the so-called strong and weak forces thus enabling him to simultaneously unravel space-time AND fix all British dental problems in one fell swoop?

If you're not completely convinced, just look at this thing - incidentally, there's one cone for every continent...COINCIDENCE?

Perhaps I'm all wrong about this. And perhaps Dyson is not really bundling death-machines in his trendy, over-designed vacuum cleaners. But I'm dusting off my MI6 badge, just in case.

This January will mark a largely unimportant milestone in my young existence - I will have lived exactly 1/4 of my life in New England. Let me explain why this doesn't matter to you: I don't want every time one part of the country decides to go through some existential crisis to have to define who I'm supporting - the South ("we-shall-rise-again") or the North ("we-don't-need-your-slack"). I consider myself more loyal to cities and people than geography, but lately getting this point across is as productive as a cactus fight.

Instead of hating the south, which includes all my friends, family and a chain of supermarkets with delicious subs, I'd like to shift the misdirected focus of the sagely Northern states off of the good-old-boys and onto another portion of the population that I think is more deserving of some maligning. I am speaking of people who watch Reality TV Shows.

During the elections, which are serious, somber proceedings we cut to commercial. It was the promo for "Rebel Billionaire" which was about 1:30 of shear, unadulterated shit. I remember thinking, "after this, it will be okay because surely, this is the end." I've studied the dot com boom/bust so I like to think I can spot when social Darwinism usually kicks in, but with reality TV this is not so. Item: "He's a Lady" - same length, took me about another 1:20 for this concept to sink in, then I punched a dog (this took 10 secs). Item: "Renovate My Family" - hopefully, eliminations occur with staple guns. Item: "The Biggest Loser" - today's episode; the teams have breakfast together.

Reality TV-watchers should secede and form their own nation then loosely organize into unrealistic teams, steal each other's water, sleep around while redecorating their dens, and occasionally be handed "problems" that require the intelligence of a cabbage. We'll throw in an element of danger - like Navy target practice or random organ harvests. Now THAT would get ratings.

Dear "Chandon":

At the risk of sounding like some sort of perverted, desperate weirdo, I am intrigued by your appeal for donations for the "Chandon Breast Enlargement Fund", found by my perverted, desperate weirdo friend on HotOrNot.com. Wait - was intrigued the right word? Maybe what I meant was "horrified". After some time to reflect, I have decided to help you in your endeavor as it appears I will be pleasantly rewarded for my investment with an "after photo". I think you should sell "shares" of your new breasts making me a share "holder" since my physical distance makes it impossible to actually "hold" anything, even if you were offering. So, I'd like to do my part to help temporarily disfigure your (from what I can tell) already beautiful and pert breasts in the hopes that you'll feel a little more secure in your new skin. Although we've never met, you appear to be intelligent (read: has small breasts) so I'll just do the right thing and caution you before you go into this and decide it's not really what you wanted. A lot of guys like a girl with manageable melons and if you can't find one, it's not you who should change. With that said, if you change your mind and decide to blow the money you raise on a whirlwind trip to Vegas or, I don't know, Prague - I'd still like a picture of your current breasts, perhaps from wherever you decide to go. Let me know how to donate and if you would be interested in a long distance "breast counselor" (this is someone with whom you can feel totally free and open to share anything breast related - pictures, descriptions, plaster-casts, etc.). I'm here to help.

Sincerely,

Brandon

CBF: http://meetme.hotornot.com/r/?emid=NRAMHLE