What the fuck, am I, talking about.

I'm not sure. I'll try to deconstruct. I consider the world to be a basically hostile place, where every being is out for it's own good. It's like a big game, every thing for itself. People do things that are in their own best interests. To do otherwise makes no sense. People who do things that benefit other people have a need to do these things. They feed this urge in a way that everyone likes. Everyone likes it because it is in their best interest when someone else will do things for you, without any effort on your part.

Maybe that's why in the past, I've had trouble showing any form of gratitude. I didn't want people doing things for me because they thought I would be thankful? I guess I wanted anything done for me to be based solely on arbitrary will on the doers part. When people DID do stuff for me, or complimented me (on anything), they must have been confused by my flat response. Lately, I've been showing my gratitude a lot more. It doesn't come easy. I'm used to internalizing it in the interest of avoiding superficiality; fake smiles.

I can't tell whether I dislike superficiality because I am a bigoted person, or because I am a lousy actor. Oh yes, lousy. I'm not good at acting delighted. Since when I was in first grade, people would criticize my smile in pictures (for school, and at home) because it was ridiculous. I can't smile for the camera!

That's one aspect of the misunderstanding method of being happy. You always assume that a smile means someone is happy. You give them a puce sweater for a wedding gift. They smile. You're happy! You're happy because you like doing things for people. (I myself occasionally enjoy doing things for people. I like it when people do things for me, too, ALTHOUGH I AM NOT ASKING ANYONE TO DO THEM. [!!!] I've been trying to acknowledge that fact more.) If you understood their facial expression correctly, you'd realize that they disliked your gift, and that they had little enough respect for you to attempt to fool you. Oh. I think I see why I have problems socializing now.

(Not because I "correctly understand" ANYTHING. It's because I assume the worst possible situation is the true one and THEN start looking for disproving evidence.)

(Or maybe it just seems that way now and recently. I must be optimistic SOMEtimes.)

The other part of being really happy has to do with misunderstanding your part in the world. Another part might be misunderstanding the nature of the universe, whatever the hell that might be. If you can fool yourself into thinking that the universe is a proving ground for the faithful, you've got a map to happiness. Whee!

Later on, I spent some social time noting the similiarity of the aromas of Brian's cigarettes and dog shit. He's trying to quit, he said. Now it's "I'm trying to cut down." This is a silly thing to say because he now smokes more than he ever has before in his life. I haven't given him shit about it for a while, even though he was still smoking while nearly completely broke. It was about time.

The future is here now... in my mouth! -- Kris, eating french fries coated in a recently developed "crispy" grease.

Incidentally, that spider hasn't starved to death yet.