Self-Improvement is Masturbation
So sayeth Fight Club. Of course, Palahniuk meant for people to be repulsed by the space monkeys, not inspired by them.... The Mountain of Love told me that he has become much more vain since he first lost all that weight and stopped shaving his head during his junior year of college. Since that transformation he has had his first two real girlfriends, the second of whom is now his intended, and become much more socially adroit.

On Friday, The Watergirl ruminated on "what it takes to score with chicks." Of paramount importance: be attractive. A couple years ago, Skeeter told me that it was completely unfair of me to attempt to initiate relationships with pretty girls since I was so unwilling to make the same commitment to aesthetics that they had. (As all you have met me are aware, I am fat and habitually unkempt.) She had a point. Some of these nicknames are brand new: A Girl Named Hell-ya, From Russia With Love, Mrs. Sacramento, Skeeter herself, Swimmer Girl, China Doll, Annie Power!, just a sampling of the girls I've pursued in the last ten-odd years and each and every one of them a creature of exceeding loveliness. I must have been mad to think I could rouse desire in any of these beauties on the strength of charisma alone.

That said, I don't want to be vain. I don't want to trade the deadly sin of gluttony for the deadlier sin of pride. Pride is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins and, I fear, inevitably followed by greed and envy (and lust, too, pretty please). Am I eating copious fruits and vegetables to combat gluttony or to satiate pride? Do I run and lift every day to combat sloth or to indulge greed, lust, envy, and pride? (That's the vile beauty of the seven deadly sins: as often as not they come as a cocktail.) At confession, I once told Father that I was afraid I gave to charity to try and salve a guilty conscience; he told me, not in these words, to stop being an overanalytical schmuck: anything I gave to charity went to help people, to do the Lord's work, and so giving, regardless of the motive, was a good deed. Unfortuantely, the same cannot be said of a superior diet and rigorous exercise regimen. Am I trying to improve the Lord's House on the theory that my body is a temple, or am I just trying to get laid? Once I'm thinner, will this automatically translate into leading a better Christian life? Or a less Christian life full of debauchery and excess?

I do not wish to be vain, but I want all the benefits of vanity. I want to be attractive. Or, at the least, I wish to be less lonely and I see vanity as a means of attaining that end. Would it be enough to be less of a fatbuddy? Must I also becoem a devotee of fashion? Must I align my interests and my conversation with the mainstream? Should I shed my contrariness and be more open to all the things that "everyone" is supposed to like, the right music, the right movies, and Bog forbid we talk about books? Would I hate myself or would I just be happy to have a girl and a larger gaggle of fair weather friends? Would I finally, for the first time in my life, be cool, be with it, be like everyone else?

Of course, I'll be wearing an Edna's Goldfish T-shirt when I run and lift today; so, being cool is probably an impossibility, thank goodness.