I've got to force myself to start exercising. I still think my best option is to meet Dave at the gym for early morning workouts. I do well in the morning, but not the early morning. It's like pulling teeth to get me up before 6 a.m.

Nevertheless, I was in bed at nine last night (though I wasn't asleep for another ninety minutes), and here I am at 5:30 in the morning: up, trying to imagine myself walking the ten blocks to Club Fit. My imagination isn't so good this morning, so I’m doing a bit of writing instead.

Self-discipline has never been my strong suit.

Among my many bad habits is this particularly harmful one: I frequently forget to deposit checks. Because I choose to live paycheck-to-paycheck (a choice that Kris loathes, and perhaps rightly so), it sometimes happens that "forgetting to deposit a check" equates to "oops — I'm overdrawn". I've never actually spent more money than I have, but I sometimes spend more money than I have put in the bank. (Hm — maybe sometime I ought to explain my decision to live paycheck-to-paycheck because it is a choice I've made; it's not one that most people would make.)

Can you guess what sort of idiotic error I've committed again?

I even tell myself over and over after I've been paid: "Always deposit your paycheck on the day you are paid. Always deposit your paycheck on the day you are paid." Instead, I let the checks languish in my pocket, or on the counter, or tucked in a book.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Self-discipline has never been my strong suit.

Things About Which Kris And I Have Frequent Disagreements

Lebanese Food
Kris is for it. I'm not opposed to it, but I don't enjoy eating it every single time we go out to dinner. When was the last time we went to Indian food? (I love Indian food!) It's been so long that I can't ever remember. 1997? 1998?

A New House
I'm for it. Kris is against it.

Our house is fine, but I'd rather live either in Portland or completely in the country. Kris tries to convince me we have the best of both worlds — minutes from the country and just half an hour from the city — but I'd rather choose one place and live there. I suspect she's the voice of reason here, but it doesn't stop me from complaining whenever the mood strikes.

Bug Spray
Kris is for it. I'm against it.

Admittedly we have a severe ant problem, a problem that is difficult to combat without bug spray. True, I love my long-range wasp spray, which I use with true glee one morning in May every year.

No matter: I hate bug spray. I loathe it. The stuff makes me gag. It doesn't bother Kris — this woman who is opposed to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, etc. — because it kills the bugs. Fast.

Bug spray reminds me of my childhood, but not in a good way.

We lived in a trailer house that lacked window screens. (The trailer once had window screens, but three young boys made short work of them.) Our house was nestled next to twenty acres of farmland, farmland that was subjected to frequent applications of manure in all its various forms.

In the summer our house was infested with flies. Not just a fly here or there. Not a few dozen flies. Our house was infested with hundreds of flies.

It was disgusting.

Fly strips were largely ineffective since they'd be completely coated after a single day. We used the big guns. Once or twice a week, Mom would set off a bug bomb: a can of bug spray that could be set to discharge its entire contents over the course of fifteen minutes. We'd set the bug bomb, drive to town for a couple of hours, and when we'd come home, we'd sweep up all the dead flies.

We'd do it all again a few days later.

I can remember taking my lunch to school in fifth grade, pulling out a stick of beef jerky, and gagging because the meat tasted like bug spray.

I hate the stuff.

Air Conditioning
I'm for it. Kris is against it.

When I was a kid, the summer didn't just mean flies, it meant hot, sweaty days.

We had a fan or two (I can particularly remember a small oscillating fan that we kids'd fight over), but they did little other than stir the air. I don't know when we even realized there was such a thing as air conditioning. High school? It must have been earlier than that, but I can't remember.

Air conditioning is one of those sweet luxuries that I cherish despite its status as EVIL. As I'm lying in bed, unable to sleep on a hot summer night, all I want is to turn on the air conditioner, the rest of the world be damned.

Fruits and Vegetables
Kris is for them. It's not that I'm opposed to fruits and vegetables, but my self-discipline is, as I've mentioned, lacking. Given the choice, I will always choose the not-vegetable over the vegetable. If I'm not given a choice, if somebody presents me with a salad and says "eat this", I will, and I'll be pleased to do so. But I'll never make that choice on my own.

In high school I developed a tongue-in-cheek theory of nutrition in order to justify my poor diet to Kristin. I told her that because I'd been eating junk food (in this case Hostess treats) for so long, my metabolism had altered so that it was actually able to extract nutrition from the Twinkies and fruit pies and Hot Tamales, etc. In fact, it was fruits and vegetables that had become like junk food for my body. Heh. I thought I was pretty clever.

Maybe I should just carry a bag of that pre-tossed salad around with me and force myself to eat from it whenever I'm hungry…

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Centigrade   After thirty-six years, I've learned how to do fahrenheit-celsius conversions in my head. Fortunately, it's nowhere near as complex as the British monetary system.

2004 — Guest Blog: My Conservative Roots   I'm generally a libertarian (primarily because the Republican party seems to have gone completely nuts in the last 14 years).