That's my definition of a good morning, not so much for what was done as the fact that doing it is satisfying and I look forward to the next morning's routine without reservation. We do have some work to do on the rest of the day, but what is life without its challenges? And this matter of living in an inflationary environment in a chemically altered condition feeling the walls closing in while spending my time watching strange foreign English subtitled movies instead of getting out into the world to meet friends and court the ladies. There is all that in addition to figuring out what to do with the afternoons. And evenings.

Oh?

Last night I turned on the TV to watch the first of my “Japanese soaps”, a new series about a (Japanese, of course) family with teenage quadruplets. The teenage condition is bad enough in any culture or language, but this particular over the top combination of teenage angst and Japanese culture caused me to turn off the set and hide in bed until the never ending samurai series on the Shogunate during Commodore Perry's entrance into Japan came on and I revived. This, by the way, after having given in to a base need to go out and buy a cooked chicken and sourdough bread at Safeway, adding a couple of the small flask sized bottles of sake to the mix just in case I found myself thirsty.

Now, I didn't eat the entire chicken, didn't even eat half the chicken and a good deal of what I did eat went to Ms. Emmy (whatever's ailing her hasn't affected her appetite for chicken), but I did eat more chicken on sourdough bread (with mayonnaise, dear god) than is good for one's diet. Than is good for one's stomach. Than is good for one's psychological health as you're sitting watching Japanese samurai dramas. To put this in perspective, I didn't touch the sake, thinking it would just make me feel worse than I was feeling.

Now this sort of thing happens. You go along doing quite well with all of the things you think you should be doing - the walking, the eating, the consumption of alcoholic beverages - going along just fine, thank you, and then, for whatever reason, you go off the wagon. Not all that far off the wagon, but the psychological pique associated with the doing of it combined with a queasy stomach can be unsettling. Makes you wonder if you're in control of your life. Well, no one's in control of their life, but, you know, in control enough to think you're in control and being smug about it.

That's one of the benefits in a good morning. You start over in a good mood, doesn't matter what it's saying in the papers. You eat breakfast at the usual place, often with the same people, a mix of reprobates and loners not unlike yourself, and your batteries are charged and you're ready for the afternoon. An afternoon, one hopes, that doesn't lead to another evening like last evening, not two in a row. An episode over a weekend, you can deal with that, but it keeps you on your toes. Walk the lake this afternoon? Get the pheromones humming? The juices flowing? The hormones humping? Whatever it is that makes this walking business such a ball buster in all the health bulletins? That and eating vegetables? Do you think you can get your ass together and actually do that today, my bucko?

You seem to be wobbling here into unknown territory.

Morning's over: it's after noon.