Warmth

Yeah I know. It looks like I tied road kill to my head. Guess what, I don't care it's warm.

Too Much Information

Protein shake + Flaxseed Oil + Multi-vitamin = Green Pee. Who knew?

Waterboy

The new diet continues. I am eating lots of not very exciting food, high in protein and low in carbohydrates. On top of this I am suppose to drink at least a gallon of water every day. My understanding of the situation is that I need all this water to transport the protein to the muscle. It also is transporting me to the bathroom on a fairly constant basis.

I am becoming conversant with every public rest room in the Boston area. (No smart remarks) I have always had a bladder the size of a pea, but in conjunction with middle age and large quantities of water, I feel like I should be carrying a bucket around with me. Lucky for me there is a bathroom right down the hall from my desk at work. On the down side there are no rest stops between my office and my apartment. I try to remember to make a stop before I leave for home in the evening, though on nights when I have forgotten, it has sometimes been a race to the finish.

All in all this, more than exercise and a bland diet, is making me question my grasp on sanity. My friends, and especially the Monkey all visibly shudder when they think about the hour at which I choose to rise to worship at the altar of fitness. Honestly, I have become so boring over the past few years that I genuinely do not mind being in bed by 9 so I can be up by 4:30 in order to give myself enough time to regain consciousness so that I can be dressed, coffeed and out the door by 5:30 in order to be at the door of the gym when it opens. I think I am also at an age where if I waited till after work as I used to do when I was younger, I'd never actually go.

It's the water. The one gallon plus of water every day that I do not understand subjecting myself to. I seem to spend the better part of any given day drinking water and looking for the bathroom, trying to evade people who have questions at work so I can go to the bathroom and drinking more water and making more pit stops. Then drinking more water so that I can start all over again. It is like some bizarre religious rite. I am put in mind of all of the physical mortifications that I read about the saints putting themselves through in my long distant Catholic boyhood. Was there a saint who drank huge quantities of water so that they could be waylaid by long winded faculty members in the middle of an emergency run to the restroom? Where will it all end?

The bland diet I can put up with because it adds to the joy of cheating and actually eating an absolutely delicious meal that in no way can be construed as being good for you. I have also fallen into the perversity of anyone who comes to enjoy weight lifting in that there is something satisfying about having "good" muscle aches. But the water, I just don't understand why that isn't the breaking point, the proverbial straw. It's a nuisance to constantly be making sure I am meeting my quota for the day and even more bothersome to be relieving myself of this self imposed liquid burden and looking for places to seek relief.

I suppose that I will have to chalk it up to vanity, which is a pretty ridiculous reason for someone with a puss like mine. It's not gonna' stop me, but it's still a pretty silly reason.

Attack of the Lite Brites: Day 4

The non-news event that is still getting a lot of air time is the TBS Cartoon network marketing prank gone wrong. I am sure the mayor is more than happy to have attention diverted from the school superintendent fiasco, but is it better that he's making Boston the laughing stock of the country? What's even more puzzling is that the local media is playing into this. Everyone is acting as though we have narrowly escaped having the city leveled by nuclear devices rather than merely annoyed by yet another marketing ploy. I would like to know why the 4th estate is not asking, why, if in other cities around the country could spot this gag for what it was in very short order, that the police and the mayors office here in the hub could not.

Hizonner is constantly referring to Boston as a world class city. I happen to find this a little bit less than credible, considering that we roll up our sidewalks after dark. For craps sake, we close down our subway between 12:30 and 5:30 every morning. This whole police action, or over reaction whichever it is, only makes this city look more like some provincial town in the middle of nowhere, filled with gullible rubes.

The only people who seem to be capable of responding in an appropriate manner to the non-newsworthy nature of this horribly embarrassing incident by only discussing 1970's hair styles with the media are the 2 guys who were offered 300 bucks to put the "devices" out around the city. 300 bucks, by the way, which as far as I know, they have yet to receive. (It was pretty hilarious to listen to the self righteous horror of the media at their irreverence) It must be a really slow news time or Hizonner is threatening them with some fate worse than death if they don't play this up and play down his more important recent screw up.

All in all, it is a pretty humiliating experience for those of us here in Boston who actually have a couple of still functioning brain cells. Why the mayors office or at least the police can't admit this is just an enormously embarrassing screw up and move past it, I don't know. Maybe because it would be admitting some responsibility. Whatever the case, it's time to just move past this and see if we can't try and concentrate on things that really are important to the lives of the people of this city. If nothing else, I'd like Tommy and crew to stop trying to spin this into some sort of important decision making moment at a critical time of city wide emergency.

My cousin Dave has a saying.

"If I made a mistake that fucking stupid, I'd bury it so far out in the woods even God himself wouldn't be able to find it."

Maybe I should have Dave talk to our mayor.

This just in: I was talking with a friend out in California. He said that elsewhere in the country, Boston's reaction to the attack of the Lite Brights is causing great hilarity. Big surprise, huh?