i was offered a modeling job.

i have yet to respond.

for some reason the mere mention of it has spiraled me down this horrible swirl of self-doubt.

i hate my body. i hate it soo much. why am i not effortlessly beautiful like my mother was at my age?

why don't i have breasts? why won't they just miraculously grow? why do i have these stupid scars that i gave myself? why are my feet all twisted and ugly? why can't i get rid of my disgusting saddlebags or my muffin top? why is my nose so big? why are my lips so thin? why can't i have what i've been promised by every commercial aimed at women?

why was i not given the superpower of sex appeal?

how can i get it?

and on top of all that, why does this photographer think anyone wants to see pictures of me? i've seen the women he has worked with, i've seen his wife. his portfolio is filled with glossy pictures of total bombshells. i don't even come close.

this is fucking with me.

i'm having a lot of issues lately.

a couple weeks ago my boyfriend's roommates collectively decided to ask my roommate to tell me that they would prefer if i didn't go over there anymore.

none of them had spoken to either me or my boyfriend prior to asking my roommate to inform me that i was unwelcome there.

which obviously led to a huge blowup between jon and his roommates.

none of them attempted to talk to me.

i was told by jon that apparently they feel that i am condescending. they didn't like that i had slept there while jon went to class or that i had invited my friends over there. and, finally (the only one i agree with) they were uncomfortable with me using their electricity and pluming because jon wasn't paying for a two-person share of the bills.

thing is, when i slept there, jon was only going to an hour long class and he didn't see the point in waking me up and making me leave. he told me to stay. when i invited friends over i also had cleared that with jon beforehand and they only hung out in his room.

i guess somehow an agreement was made amongst the roommates that jon would pay more of the bills.

all of them decided to completely avoid me.

until last wednesday when jon invited me over there. when i got to jon's place, rob was playing video games in jon's room and jon basically sprung on me that i was supposed to apologise to rob.

as i'm guessing you can imagine... that did not go well at all. it culminated in me screaming at rob and telling jon it was over.

after a little consoling i told jon i didn't want to leave him but, nothing has been the same since.

today jon asked me to come over during the break between my classes. when i got there i walked up to the door and as i was going to open it, jon's roommate justin swooped over and dead-bolted it. he looked right at me then turned and proceeded to reorganize the kitchen.

i don't know how i can stay with someone who thinks all of this is my fault. he thinks i'm the reason all his friends are all pissed off at him when, really, he was the one who needed to clear things he told me were ok with the rest of his house.

i will not apologize to people because they gossiped about me and kicked me out of their house.

and i know if i stop going over there i will almost never see jon.

i really hate that something soo stupid is going to break us up but, what else am i supposed to do?

dear justin,

you are a sad, empty, shell of a man. you have accepted the fact that no one will ever love you and that most people simply tolerate you. you have realized that hatred is the strongest emotion you can ever make someone feel towards you. you create problems where there is calm and you prey upon people. in my eyes you do not qualify as human.

it would be in your best interest to avoid me. you know what i'm capable of. i can't let you get away with this kind of behavior any longer.

loathesomely
claire

p.s.
i bet $20 this message made you cum in your pants, you repulsive, pathetic, twisted piece of shit.

so, i open up the paper today to read a story about a young man currently serving a 35 yr prison sentence.

this young man was 14 when he was coaxed by older friends to take part in a carjacking. during said carjacking, the owner of the car, a thirty-something woman, was shot in the head by one of the older boys.

this young man admitted to his role in the homicide when questioned by police and was held without bail until his trial where he was charged as an adult. he got a court appointed lawyer who only visited him twice and who convinced him to sign a plea agreement for the thirty-five yr prison sentence. he was not educated enough to understand the language of the agreement and did not understand that he was agreeing to serve 35 yrs.

what kind of country do we live in?

that kid is gonna be 52 before he's eligible for parole. this is wrong.
there is a reason that we have a distinction between child and adult offenders. I'm positive this young man did not completely understand at 14 the consequences of trusting these older boys.

isn't our criminal justice system supposed to be about rehabilitation?

that young man will spend a majority of his adult life in prison and when he gets out the likelihood that he will re-offend (in order to return to the only home he has known) are extremely high.

it just pisses me off. i think it's pretty ridiculous that the law restricts the privileges of minors when it comes to making important life decisions; they are required to have a guardian because they are believed to not have enough experience and insight to understand the long-term repercussions of their choices. yet, we're such a vindictive society that when it comes to violent crime, that we toss out all that logic about how they're too young to fully understand and then treat them as if the commission of a heinous crime makes them grown-ups.

fuck our country. we lock up the most underprivileged people in society (most with drug dependency issues that lead to the crime for which they are incarcerated) in order to create slave labor for corporate controlled prisons.

this article on the subject is quite informative if you're curious.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289

I'm moving to Holland.

i just got ditched.

this actually happens to me a lot.

i know i teach people how to treat me and i've taught this person who ditched me, that basically he can treat me like a total piece of garbage and then whenever he decides he wants to come around i'll give him anything he wants. i buy him dinner, i pay for booze, i bring him weed, and then i fuck him.

why do i do this?

i think i feel like its what i deserve. god, that's pathetic. show me someone who absolutely adores me, dotes on me, and truely cares about me, and i'm disgusted.

do i really hate myself soo much that i think i deserve to be constantly jerked around like this?

the two people i dated the longest both treated me like crap. they were both extremely jealous and controlling and in some cases violent.

and now i'm sitting here crying because i got ditched by someone who was going to spend my money, smoke my weed and basically use me for whatever he can get and insult me while doing it.

i'm so fucked up.

i might adopt a dog named Leah.

she's a yr. old yellow lab/pitbull mix and a total sweetheart to people but her current owner tells me she's no good with other dogs and has been trying to eat his bulldog (i'm guessing that's the pitbull in her).

i really want her.

additionally, i found it rather interesting that she also really hates cigarette smoke.

i'm not hosting a tiny parasitic human in my uterus!

fucking thank god.

that is all.

Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death. This is not my blog, but I don’t have a blog, or a space, and I’d like to be heard for a bit.

Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron “honor killing”, in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.

There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.

I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it’s been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for “Captivity”.

A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by “The Killing Fields” Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.

“I’m sorry.”

What is wrong with women?

I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.

How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let’s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.” It’s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it’s entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women’s behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.

It’s safe to say that I’ve snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I’ve looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I’ve shorted out. I don’t pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I’m not for a second going down the “women are saints” route – that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn’t that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use ‘trees’ as my example, but at the rate we’re getting rid of them I’m pretty sure we really do think they’re evil. See how all rants become one?)

Now those of you who frequent this site are, in my wildly biased opinion, fairly evolved. You may hear nothing new here. You may be way ahead of me. But I can’t contain my despair, for Dua Khalil, for humanity, for the world we’re shaping. Those of you who have followed the link I set up know that it doesn’t bring you to a video of a murder. It brings you to a place of sanity, of people who have never stopped asking the question of what is wrong with this world and have set about trying to change the answer. Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. If you can’t think of what to do, there is this handy link. Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you’re all in it now.

I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we’re pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.

The sky isn’t evil. Try looking up.

-Joss Whedon

i've been feeling rather stabby lately.

this is no good. i don't like getting angry.

i miss my fucking birth control. i'm becoming a whiny little girl and i've got pregnancy fears. i think i should be able to bring in broken condoms for a refund or replacement. i'd at least appreciate an 'oops' and a shrug from the guy behind the pharmacy counter.

i loved not having a period. i felt sane for the first time in a long time. for some reason that shot made all my thoughts stay in order and none of my emotions jumbled them up.

now, to get the shot back i've got to take a pregnancy test. i'm fucking scared. its not likely, its an extremely slim chance but, if it came back positive my mother would lose a lot of respect for me and i don't exactly want to deal with what i'd have to do.

i'm just really stressed right now.

I'm absolutely appalled.

my mother has had this guy named mike doing odd jobs for her for the past 8 mos. or so.

mike is homeless because he has a propensity for criminal behavior. we're talking mostly drugs and theft but, he has been to jail several times.

i really do not like that my mother has a bleeding heart for this guy because she is paying him to do stupid little chores that my brother an i have always done for free. she can not afford to pay him what she is for the stupid crap he's doing. especially when she's giving him a place to stay -usually our house or around the corner at a vacant rental property- and letting him get shithoused every night with the money she has given him for the work he has done. she is enabling a total stranger's alcohol and drug problem in our house.

my mother is an intelligent woman and i don't know why this has gone on for so long.

a few weeks ago, mike (who is in his mid forties and has a son the same age as me) was staying at my parents house and he walked outside at like 11 at night to join me while i was smoking a cigarette. both my parents were already asleep. i felt uncomfortable already because i was in my pj's because no one explained to me that he was going to be there so, i didn't feel like i was dressed for company.

mike offered me a beer and asked if he could tell me something.

i took the beer and he took that as a go ahead.

mike then decides to tell me just how sexy he thinks i am, about the things he wants to do to me (which bring vomit to my mouth) and then asks me if i will sleep with him.

i laugh and tell him that the only way i would EVER sleep with a man over thirty would be if said man took me on his enormous yacht in the Caribbean.

he persists so i tell him to fuck off, take another one of his beers and go inside.

since that happened i've felt increasingly uncomfortable whenever he's around. i don't feel safe when he's in my house.

i had decided no to mention anything about it to my parents simply because i didn't know how they'd react and because he's only verbally harassing me(at least for now).

but, mike just keeps pushing it. i swear that if i hear that man describe another portion of my anatomy to me i'm going to take the magic bullet blending stand to his face.

so, this morning i decided to tell my mother about what mike had been saying and why i want him nowhere near me, ESPECIALLY when i'm sleeping.

and she told me to get over it.

wtf?

i shouldn't have to deal with this shit where i live. she shouldn't be letting a dangerous person in our house and she really shouldn't be supporting his addictions by giving him money and a place to stay.

i will seriously drop out of my summer school class and move out again if he doesn't leave. i just can't handle this. i'm afraid of him.

i'm her fucking daughter for christ sake!

i feel like i'm 6 again telling her about joe and watching her do nothing. its not the same and now, i can fight for myself but, damn does it tear open some old wounds.

i've been recognizing lately some of my issues when it comes to relationships.

i really don't like being single, but i like looking for a partner a lot more than i can stand having one.

i like the chase and once i've caught the object of my desires, i don't want it anymore.

its confusing because i rush through all these intense emotions soo quickly. the initial excitement when i first set them in my sights, i blush when i see them, i feel my heartbeat quicken, my breaths get shorter and my palms sweat. its like an electricity that bolts through me and locks me to each moment when they are around. then comes the anxiety, the uneasiness over whether they will respond positively to my advances. its a cold feeling that sits deep in my chest, it makes me uneasy, i can't sit still. i spend hours dancing around thoughts about the other person and fantasizing about them.

...and finally if all goes well, i date said other. for the first couple of weeks i'm satiated, i'm ecstatic, i float around with a goofy smile on my face and annoy everyone by repeatedly recounting all the reasons why i absolutely adore this person and why this time its gonna be different.

and then the spark is gone and i start to crave the new one.

i think the fact that i'm pretty insatiable when it comes to sex contributes a lot to the above pattern. i think i should stop having sex for a while.

it seems that when i first get into a relationship, the other is usually pretty agreeable to sex everyday multiple times a day or at least, as often as is physically possible. that's a pretty difficult schedule to keep up though. especially when people have jobs and other responsibilities that take up time.

i'm curious, how often are you supposed to have sex? like, what is the average number of times a week that couples have sex?

i don't think i have a problem but, i kinda feel like maybe i'm not normal.

idk, i should stop talking to myself soo much

i gave up a long time ago. i gave up on the idea that other people are good. most people lie, cheat, and steal with no regrets. there are a few good ones who hold a special place in my heart and who make it all worth it, but in general, people suck.

i simply expect that people are lying to me, that i'm being used and that no one can be completely trusted.

i assume that no one really cares how i feel or what i think.

and none of that bothered me. i wanted to be nice.

...but recently i stupidly tried to hope. i saw a glimmer of chance that something i've wanted for almost 9 years might happen.

i'm an idiot though. it's just the same old shit and i stupidly let myself get hurt. i stupidly hoped that things were different just to be proven wrong.

so, i'm done going out of my way to make other people smile. no more favors, no more surprise gifts, no more compliments.

i used to think it was worth it brighten someones day for a moment with all those stupid little things. i thought i was being nice; thought it meant something important to make someone else feel good.

turns out i was just asking to be taken advantage of. people don't think i'm being nice when i do things like that for no reason, they think i'm stupid and weird.

so, fine. you think i'm weak when i put so much energy into trying to make you happy? how weak am i when i put that energy into making you miserable? i'm fucking creative.

so, i'm in a weird place now. i've been running into this certain person on whom i used to have and enormous crush and i'm finding that it didn't go away.

its kind of upsetting because i'm fairly sure this person does not at all think of me like that. part of me tho keeps over analyzing things this person does and tries to cling to the hope that maybe this person really does like me.

like, the other day i got a ride home from this person. we goodbye-hugged and this person lingered for a moment and caressed the short hair on the back of my head. when i pulled away from the hug this person's cheek brushed against mine and we both paused for a second and looked at each other.

...then deciding i was crazy and the moment i was perceiving wasn't real, i popped out of the car with a quick "thanks" as i shut the door.

then all night i yelled at myself for what i perceived to be an almost kiss moment that i blew.

and this person has yet to call me since this happened and i'm to chicken shit to pick up the phone.

i've known this person since 7th grade and had a crush just as long.

it kills me to think about it. i don't know what to do.

the summer bartending job lo was supposed to have turned out to be a summer stripping job. her stripper name is jade.

so, i'm single.

i'm pretty happy about it. it was really starting to piss me off that she couldn't be honest with me.

plus, this weekend will be a lot more fun now that i'm single.

i really don't understand the whole monogamy thing and i don't know why i keep trying it when i hate it so.

...and on that subject, i saw this on tv today and it made me smile.

http://current.com/items/89808888_sexual-civil-rights-lawyer.htm

i have, through the years collected a variety of exes. a handful of them happen to be batshit insane.

there was the ex who carved the words "i'm sorry" into her arm after we got into an argument.

or the ex who wrote songs(terrible ones) to serenade me and beg me to get back together and who even started stalking my friends after i stopped answering my phone, e-mail and any other form of communication

or the ex who threatened to beat the living tar out of one of my friends who he mistakenly took for my new boyfriend.

but none of those psychos compare to pat. pat has shown me what a truly insane person looks like.

this morning i got a message from my ex simply reading "i win!" i had no idea what that meant until three o'clock this afternoon.

apparently my ex, pat, who i broke up with over a year ago and who moved to Michigan, managed to woo my best friend's girlfriend and convince her to run away with him.

thing is, he doesn't like her. he thinks shes annoying and talks a lot of shit about her.

the entire reason he broke up their relationship was to fuck with me. who does that? i dumped him over a year ago and he has yet to date anyone else and has repeatedly tried to insert himself back into my life.

initially he was trying to get back with me, then he switched to vengeance. apparently me leaving him and moving on with my life was a horrible thing for me to do and i have to pay for it.

he threatened to stab my mother, he tried to burn down my family's house. and four months ago he told me he was going to sleep with Bethany, my best friends g/f. and last night he accomplished it.

he lives two fucking states away and yet he still wants to fuck around with my life.

he makes me soo angry. i try so hard not to care. but he goes just so far over the line.

and there is nothing i can do about it. he is going ridiculously out of his way to hurt me and i have done nothing.

i have not informed authorities about his various drug trafficking endeavors. i have not spoken to his friends or family about the various things i know that could damage him. i have tried my best to completely avoid him.

...but i think this was the last straw. i can't take it anymore.

so, i'm asking this, how awful of me would it be to release a pic i have of him from when we were still together wearing my bra and lacy panties with his hair in pigtails?

i was only thinking of sending it to a handful of his close friends, relatives and coworkers.

i really think he might contemplate suicide for a bit if i send it. he acts like this big macho man all the time and talks a lot of shit. having this get out would be a huge blow to his ego.

...but i'll kind of need encouragement to actually do this because i'm not really a vindictive person. even after everything he has done i can't bring myself to expose him like that unless perhaps i can share the guilt of it with a few blog readers.

so, opinions?

grr... my g/f pisses me off so much when she's drunk.

last night i got a series of drunken texts in which she babbled all her insecurities about our relationship at me. i initially tried to reassure her but after a while i just stopped responding because i was out with friends and she was getting kind of ridiculous. which then turned into her sending angry drunken texts to which i also did not respond. i'm sure she doesn't really remember last night too clearly so i can't be upset with her. it's just really frustrating.

why the fuck can she piss me off so much sometimes and yet, i still like her? she gets out of control and embarrasses herself and i forgive her in a heartbeat. even when shes a total mess, i find her adorable. part of me likes taking care of her when we go out and she gets messed up because she never lets me do anything for her when shes sober. i just wish it wouldn't happen as often as it does.

its starting to worry me.

my mother feels that i am not focused enough on what career i want to have after college. she wants me to have my life plotted out with goals for the next 20 years so that i can be taking steps to achieve those goals.

so, my mother got me a life coach.

seriously, what the fuck? i have ideas about what i want to do with my degree but i plan on getting my masters so, i plan on being a full time student for a while. my mother feels that i should be looking trying to find a job or internship related to communications. i think i've got years before i have to make any solid choices job wise.

right now i don't really have a schedule that would allow me to get a real job anyways, i'm going to be spending 4 days a week in dekalb and the rest in aurora... and i don't have a license. i've been doing just fine husslin.

she's just so... fucking type a. she drives me insane sometimes. it's really frustrating. she just thinks that if i don't have major life goals plotted out with a plan for achieving them that 1. i'm wasting time 2. i have no direction 3. i will fail at life and become a homeless woman begging for enough money to get me a mcdonalds fish sandwich before passing out under some bridge (no, seriously... she described this to me)

i'm not the same person today that i was two years ago, how the fuck am i supposed to know who i'll be or what i'll want in two more years?

the funny thing is, the life coach woman was actually pretty great. she just kinda listened to me explain all the reasons that i disagree with the things my mother wants for me and then told me she agreed.

so i guess if my mother is going to pay this woman to spend time with me, i wont fight it too much because the life coach is not gonna make me do anything to plot out my life. plus she had some awesome husslin ideas... but i am slightly irritated that my mother thinks i need to be coached on life.

i think the sparkle is fizzling.

this is why i suck so hard at relationships. i like lo, but not in a she-makes-my-world-stop-spinning kind of way. i just keep discovering all these tiny stupid little things about her that annoy me. like the way she taps her finger when she's driving and has to change lanes, i don't know why, but it pisses me off, it's fucking annoying.

...and i'm pretty much thoroughly over ther whole not smoking thing. i feel like scum when i smoke around her. she says she's fine with it, but then she gets this attitude whenever i do it.

idk. i'd kinda start to be an asshole now to drive her away so that i don't have to do the dumping (my usual course of action) but, she's fucking fantastic in bed. half the time i'm with her it's all i'm thinking about. like, right now as i'm typing this, just thinking about her... all naked in bed... writhing about... the look on her face... the taste of her... damn, i'm making myself horny. so i keep putting up with all the annoying stuff so she'll continue to do the naked things with me.

it's weird tho, the more annoying she'd been, the more i like fucking her. i've got issues.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at the photos and recall how fabulous you really looked at the time. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing gum. Real troubles are apt to blind-side you at 4 p.m. on an idle Tuesday.

Do one thing daily that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Remember compliments, forget insults.

Keep old love letters. Throw away old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't know what they want to do with theirs.

Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Mybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself or berate yourself too much. Your choices are half chance, like everybody else's.

Dance.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone.

Be nice to your siblings. They're the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Travel.

Accept these certain truths:
Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And then you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.