“Now one of Clinton’s laws of politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”
—–Bill Clinton, 2004.
Hey. I’m just saying.
Happy Leap Day, my day of grace, giving me an extra 24 hours in the race to The End of Life As We Know It, or my 50th birthday, depends. It’s sunny here, as it should be.
No famous Five-Oh birthdays today, statistically not unexpected, but I will note that both Alex Rocco (72) and Dennis Farina (62) were Leap Day babies and both ended up becoming famous for portraying (mostly) mobsters, Rocco most notably as Moe “You don’t buy me out! I buy YOU out!” Green in that movie from the 70s. You know the one. Also Tony Robbins, who I find a little creepy but darn optimistic, is 48 today.
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Loyal Reader Scott Beauchamp prompted a mini-discussion in the comments yesterday, wondering how somebody who smokes can walk a long way and not, you know, die. Janet noted that her father was very active and still smoked. Beth suggested that it was because I was an artificial life form. Good discussion.
It’s interesting, in a morbid way. My father, who smoked for 50 years, multiple packs a day, seemed to have a very healthy heart, at least from what I remember of his infrequent doctor visits and one stress test. He also had a low cholesterol, which seems to be a genetic gift for me. Janet’s dad died of heart disease, while my father took the lung cancer route. Same difference, though; death by cigarette.
But this is important to me for a couple of reasons (well, more than a couple). First, as I mentioned to a couple of people last night — and I’m not talking about my dad here; I’m too close to that situation to be objective — I really, really don’t want to end up like one of those guys who never quits until he’s in his 60s or 70s and is forced to, then spends the next couple of years really wanting a cigarette and then dies. I’ve seen that a lot. No, thank you.
Not that this latest adventure in good health ensures me anything. Cancer could already be creeping through my system. The odds of some diminished lung capacity, as I get older, are very good; emphysema at the least. And I could die suddenly of a massive heart attack, although I think that’s probably unlikely given everything. Choices I made long ago are still spinning merrily along, playing with my destiny.
But more importantly, part of my motivation is that I’m doing pretty good still. All things considered. I’m going to be […snip…] years old soon and I’ve never been hospitalized, never had a major (non-addiction) illness, never broken a bone, never had a lab result or imaging study or EKG that raised eyebrows, and never had major surgery. I’ve got lousy eyes, some periodontal disease, some male-pattern baldness starting to happen, marginally dry skin, sort of fragile shoulders, and a stupid looking nose.
So the fact that I could smoke a cigarette and then immediately walk 3-1/2 miles in slightly over 50 minutes and not be out of breath or tired is a GOOD THING. I should be so lucky. So while I can’t count out major consequences for a lot of bad behavior, so far so good, and I wanted to quit while I was ahead. So to speak.
I’m not obsessive, as fun as it is to call somebody else that. I walked a huge amount because I wanted to lose weight, and then I cut it back by two-thirds. I’m walking a huge amount these days because I never smoked and walked, so it helps with the urges (a friend said since he never smoked in bed, he just climbed in there for a few days to quit smoking. It worked).
Although my neighbor did say to me yesterday, “You seem to like to walk a lot.” I must look like a crazy person. Or a cyborg, but that’s just my daughter’s opinion.
I think nicotine gum is stupid. It’s a stupid gum. You have to chew a little, wait for the tingle, plant it between cheek and gum, then the tingle goes away and you have to chew some more…it’s stupid. It’s a stupid little gum stupidity. And you’re stupid for reading this. You and your stupid blog reading. Shut up. You want a piece of me?
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Oh, really. It’s fine here. Actually I miss coffee more, since I dumped that brief habit also for reasons smokers will understand. I’m just sort of dazed at the moment. Also, I keep biting my tongue. But no irritability and I haven’t cleaned out the refrigerator, although I did spontaneously eat three little oatmeal cookies this morning, right in a row. Odd for me.
And I walked 10-1/2 miles yesterday, almost three hours’ worth. It keeps me busy, I guess, and it will offset whatever chance I might have of putting on weight. Lots of people don’t, of course, and I’m pretty well trained after all this work I’ve done. In fact, I commented this morning on this — I dropped 70-plus pounds pretty quickly, and now two months later I weigh a bit less than I did on January 1, when I hit my goal. Knock on wood. I could lose 20 more and not look gaunt, that’s for sure, so we’ll see. In the meantime, I’m brushing my teeth a lot and fighting off cues, which are the worst part.
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Given the nature of this countdown theme, I guess I should mention that 50 years ago today, the worst school bus accident in U.S. history happened in Floyd County, Kentucky; 26 kids and the bus driver lost their lives. A long time ago, but I imagine there are those who still grieve.
On a happier note, today is the first anniversary of this blog, at least on this site. We’ve endured 572 posts and some 800 comments in the past year, and those Legos still look pretty good. Lots of changes in this past roll around the sun, and personally I can’t help but think all of them were good. See ya next year. Now, I need to either take another walk or eat a cookie, and I’m thinking walk. Which may sound like a stupid thing to say, but who asked you?
Twenty-five years ago, when I was (quick! Do the math) 24, Julie and I drove south and east to visit my parents, who were spending a few days in a trailer they had parked up in the mountains. We’d eventually, five months later, sort of honeymoon in that same trailer (we were working at the time and couldn’t take time off; we’ve been honeymoon catching up since).
The purpose was sort of to introduce Julie to them, although they’d run across her before. Just not on my arm, so to speak, and they were curious and probably a little worried that I was going to bounce from girlfriend to girlfriend. Nope.
The occasion, though, was Julie’s birthday, and Mom baked her a cake. It was a nice day, as I remember. We were still probably glowing as a couple, and the drive down the snowy roads was fun.
And here we are. She’s gone off to teach undergraduates. I went for a walk, and now I’m working up the energy to drive down to the store to buy some nicotine gum. I have a long and sordid smoking history, starting almost by accident, quitting for a long time, sneaking them in between and then finding them a nice post-booze crutch in the past year and a half. But I stared at a list of statistics the other day and it just got really stupid. Alcohol kills, all in all, about 60,000 people a year in this country. Smoking kills nearly half a million, and is the main killer of recovering alcoholics.
So we’ll see how this goes. I made a lot of noise these past few days, sort of whining and grumbling, but the fact is I’ve stopped and started them more than a few times in my life, and there are worse things than nicotine withdrawal. Most smokers go through it at least once a day, anyway, since nicotine has a half-life of 40 minutes; in an hour and a half it’s out of your system. Maybe the gum will help this time. I can’t say that I’ve done anything in the way of psychological preparation; I’m just tired of them, I don’t like the statistics, it’s expensive, and I’m much better off without them. Psychologically they’ve helped in the past 18 months, I guess, although I don’t recommend it.
Really, it’s hard today to get too worked up. I refuse to be a secret smoker, and it’s my decision, and frankly I can’t get too stressed. I’ll just probably walk six hours a day and get really skinny for a while, and maybe I’ll be irritable for a couple of days, and maybe I’ll be around for 25 more birthdays, maybe more, which Julie seems to think is a good idea. Me too.
In my opinion, you can’t go around saying you’re the “change” guy, exhort the growth and goodness of change, and then slink away when the going gets rough, when change looks a little intimidating. That would be wrong, for sure.
Talking about me here. Who were you thinking?
One of the things I’ve changed lately is my proximity to the latest political stuff. I’ve just backed away a bit. First, I’m getting increasingly frustrated with my lack of time management. Second, the glitter is starting to slip off. I’ve found this a fascinating season so far, lots of surprises and interesting things, but as it settles down I see same old, same old in a lot of ways, and I think it’s better to have some perspective. These things have never been pretty.
And the memes are forming up. For the Democrats, it’s going to be a nickel-and-dime offense, slowly picking apart the halo that John McCain has drawn above his head for the past 15 years or so. And there seems to be room to do that; the more I read about a man I once had tremendous respect for, I start to see just another pol, a guy who liked to give press conferences and talk frankly about corruption and then pretty much did what everybody else did.
That actually doesn’t faze me much; we’re all hypocrites in a sense, falling short of our principles, and McCain has pushed back enough times in his career to keep me sort of liking him. But that will be the attack, I suspect. That, and his prickliness, and that other thing. You know.
I was watching Hillary Clinton on something the other night and thinking that she looked pretty good, energetic and healthy and young. It’s been a grueling campaign and she’s hung in there, and probably is at the prime of her life.
Her husband, on the other hand, looks like he’s on his last legs. Or is it me? The man does not look well. And of course he had the heart thing, but you know what it really is?
He spent eight years as President of the United States. That job will age you big time. The only one who seemed to leave relatively unfazed was Reagan, and he was probably an exceptional specimen and also had a philosophy that helped; we sure laughed at all those naps, but who’s laughing now?
So McCain will assume probably the most difficult job in the universe at the age of 72? This would not end well. So that’s going to be an issue in some shape or form, although he appears to be going strong at the moment.
As for Obama, he managed to avoid the right-wing sleaze machine and just draft behind Clinton, letting her take the blows, but those days are over. I suspect he’s going to win Texas and maybe Ohio, but if not it’s still over. As has been pointed out over and over again, she has to win the rest of the primaries by huge margins just to tie, and it’s apparent that the more people know about Obama the more they vote for him. I think the first week of March we get a Clinton withdrawal, but stranger things haven’t happened. And if there’s a major Obama slip or gaffe, or she ends up with big wins in those two states, the game could still be on. I just don’t think so.
And we know what’s coming at Obama, thanks to the Clinton campaign. Yesterday a picture of Sen. Obama, taken during a trip to Africa in 2006 in which he’s wearing traditional Somali garb, suddenly appeared all over the Web, apparently pushed by the Clinton people. And listen to Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), a Clinton supporter, herself an African-American (nice touch), talk about it on MSNBC:
JONES: Understand this: The Clinton campaign does not condone people putting out pictures that they seem to believe are inappropriate. But let me say this: I have no shame or no problem with people looking at Barack Obama in his native clothing, in the clothing of his country.
Whoa, Stef. Let’s slow down a sec, OK? “I have no shame or no problem with people looking at Barack Obama in his native clothing, in the clothing of his country.” His native country?
There you have it. Welcome to the fall of 2008. Barack Obama, grown in the womb of a Kansan, born in Hawaii, educated in the halls of Harvard Law School and the streets of Chicago, is, I would think, you know. An American. His father was from Kenya, true, and his paternal grandmother still lives there, but the clothing he was wearing was Somali.
Have good memories of Somalia, do you? Ring a bell? Anybody think this is just a coinky-dink?
So that will be that. Obama isn’t really an American, he’s not patriotic (whatever that means), and of course the oldie but goody, he’s a Muslim who marches to the mullah orders and will be sworn in on the Koran and side with the terrorists and probably abort babies in his spare time. Thanks, Hillary, for the head’s up.
Should be fun. Go. Enjoy.
As for me, I have more changes to make, probably none involving exotic clothing but then the day is young.
Stuff