04.26.02 - 1:25 p.m.

yesterday was not one of my better hours. nor, for that matter, was today. i think nice, healthy, cynicism and a good sense of humor and, uhm, maybe a lack of self-importance are all necessary to, well, something. i'm not sure what, some sort of success as a human being. avoiding all the traps of self-importance and bitterness and smarminess and venality and baseness and lack of discrimination and rank stupidity and everything else that seems to have afflicted the human race.

it's not that people don't have their moments, but sometimes life seems to be a journey from one painful, horrible phase to another, set in a terrible, cramped warren of little rooms that resemble nothing so much as the run-down maze of apartments in neighborhoods near any college campus, swarming with people who are either dressed way up or way down, and are often obnoxious, thoughtless and rude. i don't mind thoughtlessness so much as a sort of aggressive rudeness centered in self-absorption. i mean, i just think that you should factor other people into your equations almost all the time.

if, for example, you are driving and someone is walking across the street, you shouldn't gun your engine and zoom loudly and quickly past once they're out of your way, scaring them into thinking you're going to hit them, as a way of teaching them a lesson. in particular, you shouldn't do it as a matter of course. if you've had a bad day and you're in a hurry, it's more acceptable. if you're just driving down the street to mcdonald's for dinner and you're pissed because some soul has made you waste 1/32 of a second while they cross, you should just wait.