0 Ten Things You should already know by now

1. What’s important today won’t matter tomorrow

Yeah, so you got a problem. Sleep on it, sunshine. Put it off. Most problems can be safely ignored. You’ll be amazed how often they sort themselves out.

And the gravity of any given problem is inversely proportional to the hour of the day. At three in the morning,  you’ve got an insurmountable issue. After four whisky and cokes at nine in the evening, you haven’t even got an inkling of a problem.

2. Everybody else is furiously improvising, so you can too

Show me an expert and I’ll show you a charlatan. FAKE IT ‘TIL YOU MAKE IT, amigo.

21 year old lifestyle design guru? Hell yeah! Fat, unemployed life-coach? Why not? Homeopathy professional? Whatever, bring it on!

Choose your path, and then Act As If You’re Wearing A Cape.

3. Nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you

Really. They don’t. For example, I’m not thinking about you now. But I bet you are.

4. It’s OK to piss people off

But if you’re pissing everybody off, all the time, it’s time to stop being a dick.

5. Aspiration is for suckers

(arf)

6. Nobody tells all the truth, all the time

So lower your expectations of people. When put in a spot, people fib.

We men lie about our alcohol consumption all the time.

When we’re young and say we had six beers, we probably only had three. Nowadays, if we say we only had three beers, you can be sure it was closer to six.

It doesn’t mean we don’t love you

7. Life doesn’t get better – only your perception of life improves

There was a little man with a lame left leg. He lived on the outskirts of town in a tumble-down house. He had a hole in his roof, and water would come in day and night. His lame left leg meant he couldn’t go out to work, so he survived on the charity of others, who would give him scraps of food. Sometimes he would go for two days and nights with nothing to eat.  One day, the town council decided to fix his roof. The little man with the lame left leg became the happiest person you have ever seen. He was so grateful to be dry that he would smile and sing for the passersby all day long.

***

There was a healthy, beautiful woman who lived in a huge house with six servants and manicured lawns. But alas, she was permanently angry, because Jeannine, that bitch, had told her that her handbag wasso last season.

8. Your family comes first, but not to the detriment of everything else

You want to go out with the girls? Tell your husband to make his own dinner. And gents, you don’t need permission for that once-a-year trip to Vegas, you just need to communicate it properly.

9. You’re wrong as often as you’re right

So don’t dwell on either.

10. Men should never wear wigs

0 Readers by Authors

Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Author

(by the way – I respect every author on here, kind of)

J.D. Salinger

Kids who don’t fit in (duh).

Stephenie Meyer

People who type like this: OMG. Mah fAvvv <3 <3.

J.K. Rowling

Smart geeks.

Jack Kerouac

Umphrey’s McGee fans.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Girls who didn’t get enough drama when they were younger.

Lauren Weisberger

Girls who can’t read. Or think.

Jonathan Safran Foer

30somethings who were cool when they were 20something.

Jodi Picoult

Your mom when she’s at her time of the month.

Chuck Klosterman

Boys who don’t read.

Chuck Palahniuk

Boys who can’t read.

Christopher Hitchens

People I would love to hang out with.

Leo Tolstoy

Guys I want to date.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Guys I want to sleep with. (The difference between the two Russian authors lies in the fact that I think the Underground Man is sexier than Pierre Buzukhov).

Christopher Buckley (or William F. Buckley)

People who love excess verbiage.

Ayn Rand

Workaholics seeking validation.

David Foster Wallace

Confirmed 90’s literati.

Jane Austen (or Bronte Sisters)

Girls who made out with other girls in college when they were going through a “phase”.

Haruki Murakami

People who like good music.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

People who can start a fire.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

People who used to sleep so heavy that they would pee their pants.

Charles Dickens

Ninth graders who think they’re going to be authors someday but end up in marketing.

William Shakespeare

People who like bondage.

Mark Twain

Liars.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

People who drink scotch.

Joseph Conrad

People who drink old fashioneds.

Dominick Dunne

People who get their class from Vanity Fair.

Anne Rice

People who don’t use conditioner in their hair.

Edgar Allan Poe

Men who live in their mother’s basements. Or goth seventh graders.

Michael Crichton

Doctors who went to third-tier medical schools.

John Grisham

Doctors who went to medical schools in the Dominican Republic.

Dan Brown

People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.

Dave Eggers

Guys who are in the third coolest frat of a private college.

Emily Giffin

Women who give their boyfriend marriage ultimatums.

Richard Russo

People whose favorite day in elementary school was “Grandparent’s Day”.

Anais Nin

Librarians.

Margaret Atwood

Women whose favorite color is hunter green.

William Faulkner

People who are good at crosswords.

Jackie Collins

Your drunk stepmother.

Nicholas Sparks

Women who are usually constipated.

James Patterson

Men who score a 153 on their LSAT exam.

Sylvia Plath

Girls who keep journals (too easy).

George Orwell

Conspiracy theorists (too easy).

Aldous Huxley

People who are bigger conspiracy theorists than Orwell fans.

Harper Lee

People who have read only one book in their life and it was To Kill A Mockingbird (and it was their assigned reading in the ninth grade).

Nick Hornby

Guys who wear skinny jeans and the girls that love them.

Ernest Hemingway

Men who own cottages.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

People who get adjustable-rate mortgages.

Vladimir Nabokov

Men who use words like ‘dubious’ and ‘tenacity’.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Sommeliers.

Bret Easton Ellis

Foo Fighters’ fans.

Hunter S Thompson

That kid in your philosophy class with the stupid tattoo.

Cormac McCarthy

Men who don’t eat cream cheese.

Thomas Aquinas

Premature ejaculators.

Pearl S. Buck

Women whose favorite president was Harry S. Truman.

Toni Morrison

Female high-school English professors who only have an undergraduate degree.

Thomas Pynchon

People who used to be fans of J.D. Salinger.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Women who liked the movie “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” but didn’t read the book.

Rebecca Wells

Women on the East coast who wish they were from the South.

Tama Janowitz

Cougars who went to an urban college in the 80s.

Alice Sebold

People who liked Gilmore Girls – even in the first season.

Michael Swanwick

Men who argue Neil Gaiman is overrated.

Terry Goodkind

People who have never been dungeons master but still play D&D.

Stephen King

11th graders who peed their pants while watching the movie It.

H.P. Lovecraft

People who can quote the Comic Book Guy from Simpsons.

Brothers Grimm

Only children with Oedipal complexes.

Lewis Carroll

People who move to Thailand after high school for the drug scene.

C.S. Lewis

Youth group leaders who picked their nose in the 4th grade.

Elmore Leonard

People who know how to perform a “Michigan left”.

Shel Silverstein

Girls who can’t spell “leheim”.

Douglas Adams

People who bought the first generation Amazon Kindle.

Tucker Max

Guys who haven’t convinced their girlfriends to try anal yet.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Political theory and constitutional democracy majors.

Tom Clancy

People who skipped school by hiding out in the gym.

Herman Hesse

People who own one straw chair in their house.

Phillippa Gregory

Women who have repressed their desire to go to Renaissance Festivals

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Men who can’t lie but will instead be silent if they know you don’t want to hear the truth.

Susan Wiggs

Older women who are surprisingly loud during sex.

Nicole Krauss

Girls who intern at Nylon but end up moving back to the Midwest for their real job.

Mitch Albom

People who didn’t go to college but do well on crossword puzzles.

Stieg Larsson

Girls who are too frightened to go skydiving.

Sue Grafton

Women who have an @aol.com email address.

Seth Grahame-Smith

People who own a smart phone which requires a stylus to use it.

David Baldacci

No one. Even the police say Clancy before they’ll say Baldacci.

Michael Pollan

The girl who just turned vegan to cover up her eating disorder.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

People who refer to themselves as “playing devil’s advocate”.

O. Henry

Men who have names like Earl or Cliff and were really close with their paternal grandfather.

Virginia Woolf

Female high-school French teachers who have their master’s degree.

Michael Chabon

People who  hate Ayelet Waldman.

Ray Bradbury

People who own golf head covers.

Joseph Heller

People who love buying drinks for their friends. See also, people who cringe when they see their bar tab.

David Mitchell

Women who live in any area of Brooklyn other than Park Slope, but may end up there someday and if that day comes, they will switch to Barbara Kingsolver fans.

Max Barry

People who don’t mind the color orange.

Dean Koontz

People who would never dream of owning any type of “toy” breed dog.

John Irving

People whose parents are divorced.

Richard Dawkins

People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong.

Salman Rushdie

People who google image search Padma Lakshmi late at night.

Albert Camus

People who went to art school after “trying it out” at a public university.

Kurt Vonnegut

People who played Creep by Radiohead while having sex or smoking pot. Longer explanation here.

James Joyce

People who do not like John Cusack movies.

Charlaine Harris

Elementary school teacher’s aids.

Jorge Luis Borges

People who took care of their dying grandparents.

Terry Pratchett

People who really like monkeys.

Oscar Wilde

People who can’t resist anything. See also, people who claim they’re going to change but never do.

Truman Capote

People who would never dream of owning anything that could be classified as a “knick-knack”.

Tom Wolfe

People who don’t mind others smoking around them.

Neil Gaiman

People who can name at least two Miyazaki films.

0 44 Priceless Moments Money Can't buy

1. Realizing you were smiling the entire time you were talking to someone, right after you hang up the phone.
2. The warm coziness of my own bed after I return home from a long business trip.
3. Playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to settle a decision with one of your friends.
4. When a wild animal is tame enough to eat food right out of your hand.
5. Crying on my sister’s shoulder.  Without the help of my family and close friends, I would be lost in a world of emotion, stress, and confusion.
6. Picking and eating fresh fruit right off the tree.
7. The joy of watching a baby smile.
8. The proud look on my 4-year-old son’s face when he learns a new skill.
9. The bittersweet emotions that rush through your body on the very last day of high school.
10. Time with the love of my life.  Last May, my husband of 27 years was diagnosed with cancer and given 3 to 6 months to live.  We prayed, cried, loved, and laughed.  Now, 11 months later, we are still savoring every smile, kiss, and breath.  We know these moments will end sooner rather than later, but we are so grateful for the time we do have together.
11. The rush you get when you’re driving on the open road and your favorite song randomly plays on the radio.
12. The comforting sound of my father’s car pulling into the driveway when he finally returns from a long business trip.
13. When my baby girl looked up at me and said, “Daddy!” for the very first time.
14. Seeing two elderly folks who are madly in love.  It’s a sight of love that has surpassed the tests of time.
15. Kissing in the rain.
16. The feeling of cool morning grass under your bare feet when you walk out to get the newspaper at sunrise.
17. Beginner’s eyes.  You’ll never see it again for the very first time.
18. The sound and sight of ocean waves.
19. The feeling you get inside when you go out of your way to make someone’s day a little brighter.  Doing something nice and unexpected for somebody else doesn’t always require money, and often the gesture has more meaning when it doesn’t.
20. A good photograph of a special moment.  It transforms the moment into a tangible keepsake and helps make the memory of that moment last a lifetime.
21. A rainbow breaking through the storm clouds on a calm, rainy summer afternoon.
22. The exhilarating rush of adolescent love.  Those magical moments of adolescent lust and affection that only you and one other person rightly remember.
23. The little kicks and pokes I feel daily as I enter the last month of my first pregnancy.  It’s truly remarkable!
24. Sharing a good laugh with friends and family.  Some of the most memorable moments in my life have been moments spent in laughter.
25. The excitement of swinging on a swing as high as you possibly can.
26. The simple fact that I can read the sincerity in her eyes when she says, “I love you.”
27. The awesomeness of skipping rocks across water.  It doesn’t matter how old I get, this one never gets old.
28. The tears of joy that flow when you see your beloved for the first time after a 10 month deployment to Iraq.  All the months of struggle and loneliness are washed away the second he gets off that plane.
29. The soothing comfort of an old familiar smell.  Earlier today pulled into my parent’s driveway after being away for over a year.  I could smell familiarity in the air – the scent of the pine tree in the neighbor’s yard.  And as I headed through the front door, more familiar smells consumed my senses.  Gosh, it feels good to be home.
30. The keen wisdom my grandfather has acquired slowly over the course of 86 years, and the amazing stories and life lessons he shares with me every time I visit him.
31. A first kiss.  The sweet rush of butterflies in your tummy when you kiss someone special for the very first time.
32. When you look into the eyes of your best friend and know, without a doubt, that you can trust her.  You can see it in her eyes and you can feel it in your heart.  She has no ulterior motive.
33. The first sight of daffodils poking through the snow after a long, hard winter.
34. The realization of true love.  The warm feeling you get many years after your first kiss when you realize you married the right person.
35. The surreal beauty of watching lightning strike in the distance.
36. An unexpected compliment.  It seemed like just another dreary Monday morning, but when she walked into my office and said, “I love your shirt! That color looks great on you,” it brightened the rest of my day.
37. A peaceful, romantic picnic with your significant other on a warm sunny day.
38. The joy of telling an interesting true story.  One of the most enticing roles we lead in life is that of a storyteller.  There are few things more satisfying than telling a true story that others enjoy listening to.
39. The feeling of self-confidence is unquestionably priceless. It cannot be purchased with money, but it can buy you more opportunities and take you farther than any amount of money ever could.
40. The excitement of a white Christmas.
41. A pillow fight with two of your best friends.
42. When my cat snuggles up on my chest while I’m laying on my back.  He’s so warm and fuzzy and cute.
43. Grilled steak and potatoes home-cooked for me by my husband on a lazy Friday night after I’ve had a long week.  Nothing beats sitting at home in my pajamas and eating my favorite food, made by the man I love, with the man I love.
44. When the song on the radio ends right as you pull into the driveway.