Reading: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers
Music: Victor Borge
TV/Movie: Benny Hill, Best of
Link o' the Day: www.tobiasbuckell.com

I mentioned in last night's post that my Easter basket this year did not contain as much junk food as it had in the past due to some recent high cholesterol readings.

A couple of years ago I had the first physical exam I've had in over twenty years. It was kind of an amusing experience as it took nearly two hours to conduct--mostly because the doctor couldn't find anything really wrong with me.

Attend. I was almost forty. Overweight. A smoker. A former alcoholic. Family history of diabetes and heart disease. And I grew up with the "walk it off" attitude. In those 20 years I saw an emergency room doctor only once when I had a brief bout with pneumonia and they ended up sending me home with a couple of pills. Walk it off.

So when this poor doctor is thumping me, peering into crevaces, taking pulses and blood pressures, and all that. I think she was a little let down. Sure, she told me to quit smoking and lose weight, but I don't think her heart was in it.

Flash forward two years to my next physical exam. This took about 20 minutes. Again, nothing really wrong aside from blood pressure on the high end of normal. This doc recommended quitting smoking and losing some weight. No biggie. One of the first things I told her at that exam was that I felt it was time to quit smoking. She's an ex-smoker, so there were no lectures or condescension. that's the best kind of doc. We talked about some methods and I'm making another appointment later this week to see about something called Chantix which shows some promise.

My blood tests came back and showed that my good cholesterol was too low, and my bad cholesterol was too high. I can't say as this came as a complete surprise. I've always tended toward the rather immature stance of "I'm gonna eat the crap I love while I can--before some doctor says to knock it off." So now I've gotten something akin to "knock it off" and now I have to keep a better eye on what goes down the ole gullet.

So I'm cutting out or extremely limiting the fried foods, and fatty foods. I'll try to eat more (yech) vegetables. I'm taking a multivitamin specially geared toward improving cholesterol and eating a breakfast cereal which claims to aid in controlling cholesterol (and using 1% milk). So this shouldn't be too hard. I'll get another test in July or so and hopefully the levels will be where they should.

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Ever deal with someone who was both condescending and stupid at the same time? I had to deal with that this morning. A client informing me that I wasn't very good at my job because I didn't have this obscure display font she was looking for, because _everyone_ uses it. After making me search the internet for half an hour, scourinbg font libraries, I find out that we do have the font she was looking for--not a common one, but one that I use once or twice a year. She was not only pronouncing the name wrong, but spelling it wrong. Turns out she didn't pick the font herself, but was going by something someone else told her that she only half listened to. (Note, I'm avoiding details to protect the guilty.)

I kept a civil tongue. But jeez. Be condescending if you want. I'll just write you off as a jerk. Be wrong. No crime. But to be both at once? That deserves a beating with a sack full of doorknobs.

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I've started work on some short comic scripts for LI'L MERLIN. He's a pantomime type character who is kind of a combination of fictional boy magicians (there are lots of 'em), Calvin and Hobbes, Henry, and Beetlejuice. The other day I had him getting rid of mean kids by feeding them to an inflatible three-headed dragon. Today he cures the postman of hiccups by, in order, electrocuting him, drowning him, setting him on fire, and dropping a meteor on him.

Hey, it worked. The hiccups were no *hic!* more.

Just some practice drafts to get my mind back into deeper writing mode.

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Today's link revisits my mention of Tobias Buckell's novel Ragamuffin which is on the final ballot for the Nebula Awards this year. Visit his webpages at www.tobiasbuckell.com to read the first third free, online. I should also mention that at Tor.com one can download a free copy of his first book, Crystal Rain for free after signing up for the Tor newsletter.

Cheers!

--John