Knowing When To Say Good Night

"The mere sense of living is joy enough." - Emily Dickinson

By about 7:30 or so last night that joy was sagging. I think it was just the product of a week of running 5 miles a day as part of a spirited dash to see if I could get the body fat percentage down to 15% by tomorrow.

Self-awareness of my body has been one of the big gains this year. When I'm in a work meeting and come away replaying certain moments grumpily, it's a classic symptom for me to consider an early bedtime. I slipped a little diet-wise as the night grew longer, which wouldn't have happened if I'd shipped myself to bed with a good book and a tall drink of water.

So as they say, today is a rebirth, a chance to improve, entirely within my control since it's all about attitude. And possibly a short day!

Fresh Err

"I don't look at anything in the past as failure. I look at it as a great experience. Mistakes are part of the building process. Mistakes have to be made. How you act when you make mistakes is of paramount importance. That's how both teams and individuals grow and improve." - Mike Krzyzewski

Creating Something Special

"In my life, I've always wanted to get a group of man ogether who have a common thought, common goal. I don't care who they are. But if those men can come together, check their egos at the door and honestly care about each other for more than what they do on the field, I think csomething very special can be created." - Mike Singletary, head coach, San Francisco 49ers

The Soloist

A friend sold me on this for the good music, and there's definitely some brilliant play for the fan of the symphony. But this story is about the plight of the American homeless - all 80,000 in Los Angeles and 3 million in America. An unlikely relationship blooms between a newspaper writer and a street musician with a violin down to its last two strings. The lifelong setbacks and gripping story of this former Juliard student intertwine heartwarmingly with the struggle of the columnist to accept that sometimes a life well lived is about enjoying and listening to the world rather than trying to change it.

I'm glad I got the DVD, with its special feature infomercial about the efforts going on to help the hopeless. It's worth the money!

Aphids Wild

What the heck's going on, folks?

Have you ever known bugs so thick that you run from your car to the store as fast as if it were raining?

Bugs so thick that your wife calls you from two miles away asking for you to come pick her up by car to escape them?

Bugs so thick that the guy with the bright yellow shirt looks like he's actually wearing a polka dot shirt?

Bugs so thick that the window screen is meaningless?

The inside of my car window looks like a decal from Lord of the Flies.

Evidently these soybean aphids - all trillion of them, surely enough to fly circles around that teeny Biblical locust swarm - flourish in the warm and mild temps. For the first time I find myself pulling for a cold snap!

Words Have Consequences

"It was wrong then to demonize the president, and it is wrong now...

Ted Kennedy once mistakenly received a direct-mail appeal from Jerry Falwell urging him to send money to fight 'ultraliberals such as Ted Kennedy.' The mishap led to a remarkable scene: Falwell hosted Kennedy on the campus of Falwell's university in Lynchburg, Va. There, to applause from the crowd, Kennedy quoted a speech that his brother Jack gave to the Protestant Council of New York City: 'The family of man is not limited to a single race or religion, to a single city, or country … the family of man is nearly three billion strong. Most of its members are not white and most of them are not Christian.' (The speech had been delivered in November 1963.) Ted Kennedy concluded by citing Saint Paul: 'If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.' I believe it is possible."

- Jon Meacham, Newsweek

Regardless of who's leading the nation, city, office or house, there are few things as uplifting as the ability to hold someone accountable while still holding them in respect.

The Anatomy Of A Yeah

I was in the middle of a conversation at work trying to resolve an issue, when a sort of glossy look came over his face and he uttered a distracted "Yeah." Have you been there before? There's art in human relations. In the next breath I could've told him that Tiger Woods was babysitting my kids tonight and he wouldn't have flinched. When we have a point to make, why not wait until the person's listening, and listening with a receptive mind? I could have fallen into a world of my own, enjoying the sound of selling the idea without regard for his attentiveness, wasting a slice of both of our lives.

I changed the topic briefly, which brought him back. Eventually, I led back into it once his mind was refocused, and the motion carried!