Category Archives: Health

Given past history, current circumstances, and life, the Universe, and everything, I would suggest that everyone just take a chill pill.

Especially me.

Although the argument could be made that because I’m not panicking more, I don’t understand how bad the problems are.

“Whatevs, man!” as the kids say. (I have no idea what the kids are saying these days. In fact, I didn’t know what the kids were saying when I was a kid and when I had kids.)

Some days it’s enough to remember spin training. If you’re flying your little Cessna 172 and you make a couple of mistakes and get slow and uncoordinated, you can end up in a spin. The first steps are to pull out all of the power and take your hands OFF of the controls.

Your immediate goal is to not make anything worse.

Some days that means recognizing the couple of actual honest-to-God wins that you got and worked hard for and earned, and while recognizing that there’s a whole freaking list from Hell of things you need to do and things you want to do and things you want to stop doing, the next best step after recognizing your wins is to not make anything worse.

What’s the next step after that? Step on the opposite rudder to stop the spin, then gently pull up to level and put some power back in to climb back up and restore any lost altitude.

If you’re not in the left seat at the pointy end of a plane, you can apply the same principles as needed to maintain the analogy. Stop the spin, pull up to level, restore your power settings.

So, in this case, post something for the day, finish up your day end task list, pick some little tasks that can re-establish control and show some progress, get some sleep, then start attacking the bigger, more difficult tasks tomorrow. Get moving, get shit done – if you can identify and complete some higher priority tasks, but get your ass moving.

Good talk. Now, hit post, then clean that monitor, it looks like shit.

My “red dinner” tonight, not to be confused with “The Red Wedding,” which I might still be traumatized by.

Sheer coincidence, just a small variety of stuff that I grabbed quickly since I was busy all evening, and I realized as I was sitting down that everything was red. (Except for that one, odd radish – the result of shopping for super fresh fruits and veggies at the farmers’ market again.)

One unexpected observation that I’ll pass along – eating all of the radishes first and having that zesty ZING! going off on my tongue and then going to the watermelon next gave me a MOST unusual taste sensation. I don’t recall ever having done that combination in that order before, but the sensation was distinct and powerful. Not unpleasant at all, but it very much caught me off guard. So hit the farmers’ market, radishes, watermelon, in that order, and see if YOU get that rush!

It’s probably a good thing that genie’s don’t come out of bottles and grant the traditional three wishes. I’m not an idiot, I realize that the main point of most of those stories (looking at you, “Monkey Paw”) are that bad things happen.

Still…

The reason we fantasize about getting those wishes is because we’re all feeling so frustrated and powerless on a daily basis, trying our best, working our asses off, and it’s all the Red Queen’s Race, getting nowhere fast but making good time.

Running marathons a few years ago taught me that we can all do so much more than we give ourselves credit for if we just keep putting one foot in front of the other and simply refuse to stop until we get to the finish line.

2025 and 2026 (so far) have me questioning the existence of a finish line, other than the one that pops up (SURPRISE!) when we simply keel over at our desks and start approaching room temperature.