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My creative mutilation of a great song:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The relative reduction
of the rate of skin cancer by up to 2% has been proven by several respectable cosmetic companies,
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than the experience of an almost 30 year-old
nobody. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty
of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 5 years you'll be only wondering how you could be
so stupid. In 10 years you'll be damning yourselves for squandering your best years. In 20 you'll look
back at photos of yourself and recall in ways you can't grasp now how much possibility that lay right
before you you just let to slip away.

You are not as fat as you imagine. It's just that some others are a little thinner.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an
algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real trouble in your life, the things that never crossed
your worried mind, will blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday afternoon whether you're making
2 millions a year and everybody knows your name, or you live in a trailor park and earn 30 bucks on
a good day. And nobody but you will give a fuck in either case.

Do one thing every day that scares you. When something shitty happens as a result, at least
you'll know why you've done it.

Sing. Especially when you have nobody to talk to.

Don't be recless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Remember: If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, get an ugly girl to be your wife.

Floss. The benefits of flossing have been established even better than those of sunscreen.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Make sure others are jelous first. If you treat this thing as
just a long race, you'll make it easier on everybody including yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. To succeed in doing that, a good dose of
opium should prove very helpful.

Keep your old love letters. Through away your bank statemets. As some Euripedes once said: "There
is something in the pang of change more than the heart can bear, unhappiness remembering happiness."

Stretch. The benefits of that have recently been dis-proved by scientists, but you have to get off
your chair for _some_ reason!

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I
know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting
40-year-olds I know still don't. People who know what they're doing are too damn full of themselves.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. Oh, never mind. You won't understand the power and beauty
of your knees until they're gone. But trust me, you'll miss them when that happens.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce
at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't
congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. If somebody up there just doesn't like you,
it's only half your fault. So it is for everybody else.

Enjoy your body. Especially when you don't have somebody else's body to enjoy.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your livingroom. You'll manage to forget where you really
are for at least a few seconds.

Read the directions, even if they were obviously written by a moron. Maybe you'll have some fun.

Do not read beauty magazines. Beauty magazines are written for those who don't need to read them -
basically for those who are thinner than you.

Get to know your parents. Then you'll actually be releaved when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're the only people who are obligated to stick with you by nature and
human morals.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge
the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew
you when you were young.

Live in Philly once, but leave before it makes you kill yourself.
Live in Paris once, but leave before it makes you realise that it really sucks everywhere.
Don't stick in one place for too long: it's too easy to overstay your welcome.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will
get old. And when you do, you'll be doing all the mistakes that all the old people have been doing
through the ages, just like now you're doing all the mistakes the young people have been doing through
the ages.

Respect your elders. You'll be there someday yourselves, and then you'll know that respect is all
you can really hope for now.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Why the fuck should anyone care but yourself?

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85. Just being 40 will be
depressing enough.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of
self-congratulation. Dispensing it is a way of convincing yourself that you are trying to help,
and aren't just gloating.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

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