Jack Cazir

I mean, I’m pretty much the picture of sexual health unless, I dunno, maybe I get drunk or kind of high and she has good eye makeup and it’s a public restroom or library or rooftop and the weather’s decent and — okay, so I’ve made some mistakes, but this is the price I pay for it?

I hear it all the time. Gals will meet a guy and he’s great and totally not weird, so they go on a few dates and that goes great, too, and so the relationship progresses to a point where they both feel comfortable just hanging out at his apartment, and now, suddenly, they’re confronted with exactly how much time their guy spends messing around on xbox.

So I’ve never once had a relationship begin with something grand and romantic, like I came to expect from the movies, and I figured the same was true for most other people, as well. The opening lines of my relationships span from sweepingly idiotic to mundane, and while there are some sweet ones in there, too, they certainly don’t make up the majority — nor did they predict future success and compatibility.

So there used to be a joke — not a good one, mind you, but certainly traditional — that went, “what do you call the dumbest kid in law school?” And the answer was a millionaire or rich or simply a lawyer but intoned with some sort of gravitas.

Say wonderful. Means something which inspires delight, pleasure, and admiration. Say wonderful because it fits, like compatible and forever night conversation — every cliché come to life.

But the reality is football is extremely popular in America, and in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl it becomes something of a social norm to know how the various teams are doing, especially if you live in an area with an active team.

If you asked my mother, she’d say she was first and foremost a crusader for fundamentalist Christianity (a belief system believed so necessary to society that it required her constant defense), but I don’t believe that was ever really the case…

She was pretty, definitely, but more important was the book she kept in her bag. A girl with a book is innately attractive; men understand that if she can tolerate the act of reading for the sake of pleasure, she’ll likely put up with all manner of nonsense for the sake of a relationship.

I tell myself I can’t make it through another holiday season. I tell myself this every year, each time that frozen turkey slips into the scarlet letter shopping cart of my singledom: too many microwavable meals and pre-made drink mixers. Solo cups. Doritos. Nutella in quantities that indicate there is nobody looking out for my health.

A twenty-something man a few meters down the sidewalk shouts something anti-police and throws a traffic cone, and almost immediately he finds himself swarmed by protestors. Non-violent! they say. “I’ve been here since day one!” he says. non-violent! non-violent! non-violent!

The recent recession has done a great job of disguising the deadbeats — making them at first glance indistinguishable from the ambitious, driven young men merely fighting off the symptoms of economic collapse – and so the women who haven’t given up altogether often won’t know what kind of guy they’ve got until they’ve wrinkled their ‘first date dress’ and wasted a night.

I believe this club has the potential to be In the Aeroplane Over the Sea-good, which is to say really fundamentally solid, but then it wouldn’t be so bad (in fact might be better, even, all things considered) if we turned out more Hanson’s “MMMBop” and really attained that level of cultural penetration and accessibility, in the way the 1989 Lakers were considered the “Showtime” franchise despite the Boston Celtics playing technically magnificent basketball.

The Baron days were good. He didn’t make you feel guilty if you went out all night, got drunk and had some crazy unsafe sex, so long as the next morning you brewed him a cup of coffee and set aside a little rum. I was always told that we were brothers and sisters in Christ, but the Baron was the first time I ever felt anything like spiritual kinship.

Once you’ve made a connection, invite that special someone out by saying, “I’m going to be doing [whatever], if you wanna come.” Not only does this make you a subtle wordsmith (you cad) and transform cheapskate date locales into something seemingly spontaneous, but also the implication that you were going to spend the day doing [whatever] anyway means you’re not responsible for paying for your date if they want to tag along.

Because here’s the thing: as often as writers come bundled with bad habits and insecurities, and as maladaptive as these things are in the real world—the bedroom is not the real world. And the compulsions that make writers so miserable on a day-to-day basis are the same ones that make them ideal at last call.

Two summers ago I bled out on a bare mattress in a foreclosed home in Miami. I’d been sick. I’d seen a doctor but, as an American without health insurance, I’d been able to afford only the diagnosis—not the solution. I went back to work.

“Lift your arms into the air, make the sign of the Diamond Dallas ‘Diamond Cutter,’ then bring them down into the sign of the cross, and then bring ‘em down and flex and Hulk It Out, brother! Yeah!” Truly the Holy Trinity of Yoga.

Has parenting become so stress-free and routine that you’re looking to ramp up the difficulty? Is your daughter on the way to visitation with your ex? Is this a vengeance-Frappucino?