Patronizing flowers

First of all, let me fulfill my role as a linguist and give you a few pointers about the use of 'then' and 'than'. When I bought the first Absynthe Minded cd 'Aquired Taste' (very good, by the way), I noticed the following sentence in the booklet: "And when I'll get there than I'll know"
Alas, this is quite wrong, of course. I'll put it as plainly as possible, in the hopes that the handful of people who read this can spread some truth amongst the masses.

'than': marks a comparison as in 'greater than', 'bigger than', 'less perfect than', and so on and so forth. It cannot be replaced or omitted. eg. "I'm a bigger jerk than most people."

'then': a time marker, and as such it can usually be replaced by similar expressions such as 'at that moment' or (although definitely not always) 'tomorrow' or even, in some cases, omitted. eg. "When people find out my true nature, only then'll I be in trouble." (A bit unorthodox and spoken, but form is never all that matters.)

Well, now we'll continue with a personal story, while hoping that all of the above is pretty much correct, since it's always pretty shameful to be wrongfully patronizing.

On to friday night: a house warming party, long overdue, conversing with someone who is not precisely unknown to me, but it was only the fourth conversation we had ever had (if memory serves, which is a long shot). She asked me about my cynicism, which seems overtly present in discussion, but oddly absent in my social actions. Boy, was I ever glad to hear that. 'Cause it's a shield, really (this might be some Dawson's Creek/Grey's Anatomy/*some show about teenagers finding their place in the world* plagiarism, but ah well), against all the goddamn crap people throw at each other, day after day, from every corner of the earth towards every other corner. Bitch, moan, lie, cheat, exploit, kill, and less than one hundereth of a promille of those for any reason that even comes close to being 'right' (whatever that means). I try to do the right thing, almost neurotically, towards the people I know, the people I might actually help, the people I care about. But I can't care about everybody, or at least, I can't care without losing the self-adhesive label of 'mentally stable'. Of course, it can be a thin line, and that's why I was so glad to hear her say that. I still see a good person in the mirror, and I'd like for it to stay that way. Not that it helps me sleep at night, but then, only excercise, weed and alcohol do that; I don't want my conscience upping my doses. And I don't want to join the world in circling the drain just yet...