Intellectually Cute

I heard a piece about Looksmaxxing on NPR while driving yesterday.  Some very "concerned" female therapists were analyzing the whys and wherefores of the movement.  It is bad, I heard, very bad.  Young boys, inspired by incels, are trying to maximize their looks.  This, of course, obviates their insecurities and inability to connect with people of the opposite sex.  They probably didn't bond well with their mothers.  

It must be truly awful.  These are boys going to the gym, using skin care products, and maybe even red light therapy.  They watch their weight, and even in extreme cases Facemaxx.  What is that, you ask?  Something about smashing the bones in your face with heavy objects to reshape them.  

Yea. . . that one sound pretty bad. 

Does it work? 

Apparently, I've been Looksmaxxing for a long time, exercising, watching my diet. . . and hell, I may even be an incel if my recent dating history is any indication.  But then again, I've rather fallen off the watching my weight wagon, so. . . . 

And yet, here I am taking care of my mother.  

My friend at the gym who is training for some kind of body contest that I don't quiet understand--and I--were talking the other day.  

"The only reason I exercise is for women.  I sure don't give a shit what the boys think.  I think I only learned to drive for girls.  If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't even brush my teeth.  But women don't do this for the boys, do they?"

She thought a minute and shook her head.

"Women do it for themselves.  That's really selfish."

She laughed at that one.  "Yea. . . probably." 

"I think I'm intellectually cute," I said.  Her eyes popped at that one, then she agreed.  

"Probably so." 

I think the boys need to start Smartmaxxing.  Read lots of books.  The classics.  Read the philosophers and the great scientists.  Understand art and music.  Have something interesting to say.  I mean, really. . . look at the people attracted to bodybuilders and real athletes.  Holy shit.  Back in the days when I was working out with freaks at the steroid gym, a bunch of the boys were getting ready for a bodybuilding contest at a huge nightclub.  They thought this was cool.  

"Really?  You guys, you're going to be like circus animals.  People will come to watch you on the stage.  You'll be like carnival strippers or performers at the freakshow.  And when it's all over, the girls are going to go home and sleep with some skinny guy who was drinking martinis and smoking cigarettes.  You guys are going to get to eat your first real meal in a month.  You aren't going home to sex.  You are getting boners for a pizza."

I thought I was funny, but they didn't.  I think I lost some of my popularity right then.  

Yea. . . I think I'm intellectually cute.  I wish I were financially buff, too.  The girls, I've learned, like that a lot.  

I had a busy day yesterday.  My mother's internet is running at dial up speed.  It's hard to download porn, so I called the internet provider.  We went through step after step for a long while before the kindly woman on the phone decided to send out a technician.  

"We are sending you 400 megabyte speed, so it may be your router.  I'll have a technician there between one and two."

Great.  Middle of the day.  Whatever.  I need my porn.  

I'm joking about the porn.  The premium channels are internet, not cable, and they keep catching and bumping and stopping.  But if I were downloading porn. . . . 

I went to the gym to do a little Looksmaxxing, then headed home.  I had to wash the sheets and straighten up for the cleaning crew who come today.  I had a minute to spare, so I got my newly re-handled sod lifter and went at it in the garden.  First I had to rake out all the leaves the yardmen blow into my beds no matter how many times I tell them not to.  I filled a big Otto garbage container and then started pushing that sod lifter underground.  It was nothing but tough roots, big and thick and wiry, and I was heaving and shoving and sweating as I tilled the soil.  It is muscular work.  

And then I heard a pop.  The new handle, lightweight, had snapped.  Not in two, but a big crack ran through a foot of it.  

Piss shit fuck goddamn.  

I don't want to tell the neighbor.  

Shower, then back to mother's right on time, one o'clock on the button.  But the cable truck was already there.  My mother was sitting in the garage.  The fellow was in back of the house.  He heard me and came walking into the garage with a big smile.  Really nice fellow.  He was changing out some things, he said, then he'd like to show me something.  

What he showed me is that I needed a new router.  He had one in the truck, but there would be a ten dollar a month upcharge on the cable bill.  

"You can buy one at Walmart or someplace for about twenty bucks, though," he offered.  That sounded like the deal to me.  

I had a three o'clock appointment with H and R Block to do my mother's taxes.  Only when I got there, they said my appointment had been for eleven.  

"Oh.  My mother told me three."

"Wait a minute," said the nice lady, and when she came back, she said the consultant could see me now.  

It took about twenty minutes.  $350.  But it gives my mother peace of mind.  

I had to run back to my house to change the sheets to the drier.  First, though, I would run to Walmart.  Only I couldn't.  A wreck had the whole highway blocked.  I turned around and went to another one that Siri told me was only three miles away.  It turned out to be a Walmart grocery store.  No electronics.  

So I ran across town to an Office Depot.  Boy was that cable guy wrong.  There were no $20 routers.  Over $100 for the cheapest.  I went for the newer one that is faster.  $179.  

It was after six when I got back to my mother's.  I decided to hook the router up.  There were no instructions.  You had to scan a QR code with your phone then download what you needed.  I tried but it didn't work.  Fuck it.  I could do this.  

I thought.  

I never got the thing to work.  Duh.  

I hooked the slow modem back up.  

That is how my days go now.  My cousin decided to stay longer at the coast.  A week with mom before I come back permanently.  I'm just a "Do Boy" now.  

After dinner, t.v.  What to watch?  On my list is a doc that has only recently become available.  I watched it when I was in high school.  It shaped much of what I did then and after.  But I will save that for tomorrow.  I have much to say about it, I think.  

Yet one never knows what tomorrow will bring.

Other than trouble, death and taxes.  

"This I know."