The joys of hay fever.

I have been sneezing all day. I wonder what plant species decided to have sex today? I thought I’d get my revenge, however, and hacked the heck out of the rhododendrons and nandinas in the front yard. I had to give up when I filled up two garbage cans (and when things started to look like hell). I don’t have the skills my dad had, and he called my style, “Chop chop.” I suppose you could also say that the soul of the gardener comes out in his work and my soul is filled with hack and slash, at least when it comes to plantlife.

I finished another Harlen Coben novel today and I’m well on my way with another Barry Eisler novel. I should probably get out and DO something, but books keep me away from the sharp objects that the plants are dreading. You know how it is.

Wow, not only am I boring, I’m a liar as well.

I’ve been gaining weight lately. I looked at myself in the mirror a couple of weeks back and looked kind of pudgy. So I eventually got on the scale and I think I’m up five pounds. If you’re not a dude, you may wonder how I can have a brand-new medicine cabinet with a mirror behind the shelves, one on the front of the door, and one on the back of the door without actually looking myself in the mirror. But if you’re asking yourself that you’re not a dude. I look particularly at where I’m shaving without seeing my face. I look at if my hair standing straight up or whether I need a haircut but I don’t look at how much grey is there. I can look at various specifics without seeing the overall fat old greying guy who is standing there because, well, I’m a dude. That’s just sort of the way it goes.

Back to the weight gain, I sort of had a cheeseburger on Friday, but I’m not counting it because of several accounting tricks I’m employing. One is that it was blue cheese and not cheddar or swiss. I’m not counting crumbly cheeses. The second reason is that it was paid for by work, so I’m pretending it was forced on me. Don’t go telling me I could have had a salad instead, because that would assume that waving a tasty not-quite-a-cheeseburger under my nose wasn’t a cruel trick by an employer who knows how to manipulate his employees. What I’m saying is that I’m blaming others for my fallibility. It’s more fun that way.