My Sick Mind

As long as I am forced to spend time in a grocery store I know I will never suffer from writer's block. [put on some writing music ] I'm a spoiled guy. The supermarket is right next door (practically) and I spend a lot of time wandering back and forth for a couple of things. I probably use the Express lane more than anyone. [everybody has a skill] Today, in a fit of spontaneous decision-making, I figured I'd do a proper shopping trip. The old snowbound stock-up on all manner of food, so that whatever peculiar craving might strike me for lunch on Thursday - there it will be in the pantry or freezer. The ancillary benefit of the short trip is that it minimizes my time in the actual structure, so as to be of particular benefit to my overall psychiatric well-being. [So, I have that going for me] I feel funny buying the "Family Size" of anything, since I don't have a family. I feel like it's a shopping violation. Like I'd be falsifying records or something....

"You need to post something else ... she's scarin the bejesus out of me! I can't come back here till you do." - kate michele Yesterday's post , featuring an iron clad "female" bodybuilder has freaked out a few people. To soothe your savage breast, here's something a bit softer. A cat on a sofa. I'll be back soon.

I think it's a healthy exercise, every once in a while, to be exposed to the extremes of life. Whether you're wandering a city street and encounter a homeless person or visit a hospital and meet some people whose health is getting the better of them. Our bodies are a great source of consternation. We're either too thin or too fat, too short or too tall - or something in between. Generally, we're not happy with our exteriors, hence the boon in fitness activities like diet books and so-called "health" clubs. Once in a while, it's necessary to fall back and establish a little perspective. I'm here to help. The caption below this photograph reads (in part): Professional bodybuilder Dayana Cadeau of Canada poses during a press conference for the 2007 Ms. Olympia in Las Vegas, Nevada September 27, 2007. NO ARCHIVES. NO SALES. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. Editorial use? OK. Here's my editorial. In the word...

Remember the flesh-eating virus from a few years ago? That was like a head cold, comparatively. WASHINGTON - A dangerous microbe that has been spreading around the country causes more life-threatening infections than public-health authorities had thought and is killing more Americans each year than the AIDS virus, federal officials reported yesterday. The " superbug ," a strain of a once-innocuous staph ( Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA) bacterium that has become invulnerable to first-line antibiotics, is responsible for more than 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated. "This is a significant public-health problem," said Scott K. Fridkin, a CDC epidemiologist and one of the authors. " We should be very worried." OK , I’m worried. Thanks for that. This new strain of virus is impervious to antibiotics. There is hope, however. Among the prevention methods advocated by the CDC: G...

Thanks to those of you who, either by e-mail or blog comment wished Happiness on me for my birthday. Otherwise, it was "just another day on the calendar", and it's back to business as usual around here - whatever that means. So , I'm watching the ALCS baseball the other night (I'm the one) and the Indians pitcher put his fingers in his mouth, which strangely enough is illegal. I think, if you want to put your fingers in your mouth, you should be allowed to. But in baseball, the umpires freak when that happens. They wave their hands in the air and scream, "Ball!" so that the batter knows he got a "free" ball on that little indiscretion. How ironic, I thought. They have such trouble finding players who are using steroids (or so they say), but let a guy put his fingers in his mouth and they're all over it. Let's establish some priorities, shall we? Taking steroids? Maybe. Mess with the baseball? You're screwed, buddy. Ball one. As for ...

"Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory." - Susan B. Anthony Jesus Horatio Christ , I'm fifty years old. Today. At 5:30pm EDT if you're doing a zodiac chart. Don't do a zodiac chart. I've never been 50 before. Part of me figures, "what the Hell?" and dismisses it as a meaningless number, while the other part is starting to feel like a geezer with fewer days remaining than behind him. Lucky for me, the geezer part is only about one-tenth. I still feel younger than my age, and judging from what I see, I'm running at a higher speed than most 50-year old's I know. Those are good things. Of course, we're living in a world where obesity and cardiovascular disease are more common than a head cold, so the comparison is losing its value...

Sunday was interesting, which is good, because Saturday was dull. Saturday, I rummaged through my clothes and found 4 full trash bags of clothes that I no longer wear, do no longer fit me or that I never really wore in the first place. It freed up a lot of closet space. On Sunday, I went to Erwinna, PA with some bike shop buddies to ride something called the Covered Bridges Metric . [63 mile rides are called "Metric" Centuries because they're a hundred kilometers.] It wasn't the ride so much as it was the temperature that almost made me decide not to go. I don't like to ride in anything colder than 50 degrees, and our ride-time temperature was a sparkling 39 degrees, so the part that controls common sense was wondering what the other part was thinking. But since I had kinda promised to go, I figured I'd use that. I wore lots of layers and tried not to think about how cold it was. It didn't stay 39 for long, and as the sun came up it got more into the 5...