When I was a boy, my mother told me I had such parched hands because I did not dry them thoroughly enough after washing them. For my mother, a problem was usually the fault of the person who experienced it. It would never have occurred to her that my dry skin was the result of the desert-low humidity of Minnesota winters. On the flip side, any challenge a person faced could be solved if that person acted properly. If you had a sore throat, for example, you merely had to gargle with warm salt water. Problem solved. Is this human-centric way of looking at our lives pessimistic (it is all our fault) or optimistic (we can solve most if not all of our problems by following simple remedies)?

One thing I can say for sure: this way of thinking is annoying. I rang in my childhood New Years as I do today: with hands as dry as mummy skin, and all the time thinking it was due to shoddy towel use. How much better if Mom had saved the guilt and taught me the value of hand lotion.

Such a strange way of thinking, especially from a woman who never once saw a doctor after I was born, her youngest child. And she lived another 38 years. Mom had problems walking the last five years of her life but refused to get a checkup. Her legs were her weakness, she said, laughing off every medical urging of her children. If she had half the faith in her own capacity to fix problems as she did in the capacity of her kids she may have caught the blocked coronary arteries before they killed her.

But we are all strange beasts. Unsightly winter hands and self-delusion are the least of our blemishes.

But what if I’m the polluted half of that shared gene pool? What if I’m the one who steals your keys in a drunken stupor and drives your car into a tree? The one who “invests” your money in a trip to Tahiti? The one who seduces your wife then dumps her when the ink on the divorce papers is still wet? What if I’m the one with the charm of a snake and the venom to match?

Somebody has to be the evil one. We push him into the shadows of the imagination and give him funny names, like Snidely or Lucifario. But he can’t always be a nightmare. Somebody has to steal, stab and murder. Why can’t I fill that job?

I want to be the bad boy, the one girls fear and desire in equal measure, the villain of legends told over cold beers on Friday nights, the one who goes out in a blaze of glory. I want to be Snidely, if only for an hour or two.

On second thought, I’d probably need a tattoo. Never mind.

I have played more Scrabble than any other game in my life. In fact, if you added up all the Scrabble I’ve played in the last three years it would probably be more than all the other game playing in my life combined. In those years I’ve gone from knowing the basic two-letter words and praying to get one seven-letter “bingo” before my death to memorizing all the two-letter words (including “et,” “qi” and “od”) and routinely using two or more bingos a game. If I wanted to memorize more word lists I could become an expert, but nothing seems drier or less profitable than such an effort.

Still, I’d have a hard time walking away for good. As annoying as Scrabble can be, as reliant on the dumb luck of tile draw and knowledge of never-used words (have you used “buqsha” in a sentence lately?), even so, not much beats laying down one of those big seven- or eight-letter words and seeing your point total explode. I’m glad my 69-point fellatio decided to wait another day.

It’s nice to finally have my new computer and not receive endless warnings that my hard drive is choke full. Over the last few months my old box was a nagging wife with all those admonitions. Or a nagging husband, if it pleases you. In any case, the thing was eight years old. The marriage was over.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this newfound digital power. All I do is surf the web and type in the occasional blog post. I dream of some larger writing project, cloudy in its particulars, and could use voice recognition software to enter it into the computer after long handing the first draft (the only way my creative juices flow). Then again, I’ve dreamed of larger writing projects for almost two decades and one hasn’t waltzed into my life.

Still, I’m happy with the computer. It speaks of an unseen promise that I have yet to witness but that waits for me in the wings. I just know it.

I was slaughtered the first time I played the game. It was a year ago. The computer’s elephant entered my lines and dragged bunny after squealing bunny into the traps. The carnage was awful. I had bought the board game that afternoon as an early birthday present to myself; now I slipped it under the bed to gather dust. How many things have I abandoned in my life because of momentary setbacks? It makes me cringe.

But I resurrected Arimaa last week. I told a friend I would play her sometime. It would be better than playing chess, I suggested, because I haven’t studied Arimaa or played it one thousand times. But yesterday I ordered an Arimaa strategy book. I’m going nerd, so my friend’s window of opportunity closes in 3-5 business days.

I don’t mind talking about the normal topics with people, but I refuse to use it as an introduction, even if it is to an attractive female. To turn to some unknown woman and ask “How about that rain?” is the most pathetic scenario I can imagine. Is that conversational snobbery or an excuse to wallow in my introversion? I both entertain your opinions and utterly disregard them. I won’t ask about the weather, nor the Vikings, nor the Twins. I will not be so appallingly unoriginal. Period.

Of course, that leaves me out in the cold, relationship-wise. I have few avenues open in the approach to potential mates.

I’ve always thought we should hold signs up when we meet those of the opposite sex: Displaying the green side of the sign would indicate interest on your part while red would indicate the lack of it. Things could continue in a less stressful fashion once both sides knew where they stood.

I’m sure there are perfectly good reasons why this idea is horrific in its execution, but something has to be better then the mess we’re in, because conversations about Christian Ponder only go so far.

Knowing what I know now about chess players, I can’t say that whoever brought the stench didn’t intend to offend the senses of his opponents or whoever else might wander near. Perhaps steal a game while those around him gasped for breath.

Even today, even as I smell that same man musk in a gym, the prototypical origin of such aromas, I think: Smells like a chess tournament.

I have no fellow feeling for these foul creatures. Does that make me a bad person?

No. I am acting on a primal fear handed down by blood through the ages, a fear that insects, especially the large ugly kind, hold poison and all manner of disease and should not be tolerated where I and my loved ones dwell. By killing that horrible bug I am protecting all the babies that evolution meant me to have. I’m doing it for the children, and what could be more wholesome than that?