Winged Vermin

Not by nature a violent soul, I am being pushed of late to extremes of cruelty, if only in my imaginings. The objects of my warlike sentiments: the pigeons that perch outside our bedroom window every g-d-m morning and do what I believe is referred to as cooing, though I demand that lexicologists devise another term for this sound. Doves coo, and best of all, at some remove from my bedroom window. Pigeons "broan", or "brind" in a manner to suggest a cross between a stalling car-engine and the dry-heaves of a food-poisoned troll. Until recently the pigeons would make their presence heard at about 6 or 6:30. The past few days, however, I have woken at 5:45 AM in anticipation of them, my whole body clenched for the first sawings of their gullets. Once they start in, so do my visions. In one, I catch the offending beast, and while gazing in its eyes, ever so gently snap its neck. In another, I stand outside my bedroom window with a shotgun, creating little puffs of feather. (Even the soul of pacifism, Thom, muttered something about soaking breadcrumbs in DDT the other day, though I think he has since become inured to the sound.) I cannot say whether the pigeons are aware of the fact that they are at war, though I suspect their leader, a plump beady-eyed rodent with a lecherous swagger, has noticed a breakdown in diplomatic relations. My attempts thus far at detente have included setting up a fan in the window for white-noise purposes, and while a short, sharp "shush!" out the window usually takes them by surprise, it is never very long before they regroup for a second skirmish. This must stop. It is time for the big guns. This weekend I buy a plastic, yet remarkably lifelike painted owl I have for some time coveted in the local dollar store window. Birdman MacArthur, your "grompelling" days are numbered!

Die + T

Yes, I am on a diet. No, I'm not crazy. Yes, it's nothing that a more regular exercise program wouldn't solve. Yes, I do have serious body-image issues verging on the pathological. Any other questions? Good. Let's move on. I know I'm not fat. I also know I am not as thin as I once was. Is this age or chocolate? Likely the combined effects of both. I would like to be able to exercise more, but how exactly does one balance a full-time job with a relationship and still make time for creative pursuits (no, I'm not actually pursuing anything creatively at the moment, but that's the topic of another post), all while scheduling 90 minutes of brainless exercise three to four times a week? Truth be told, I'm not sure exercise actually works. At least the way I do it. I have belonged to a gym pretty consistently over the course of the past 10 years, and at one time, could be found diligently lifting dumbells at 6:00 AM, five times a week, to be followed by a breakfast of egg whites and power bar and a lunch and dinner of chicken breasts (two) and steamed broccoli. I looked like a million bucks. Well, a million yen, maybe. And yet, throughout that time, and the subsequent years up to this very day, I can't shake the nagging feeling that no matter how confident my pose, or how appropriate my gymwear, no matter how determined and masculine my self-gaze, or how convincingly expressed my grunts, that I in fact have no idea whatsoever what I am doing, let alone believe that it will have any positive effect at all. Exercise requires blind exertion; diet simply requires self-denial. This is an approach that has stood me in good stead.

A topic to enlarge on

Have for some reason become the recent target of a veritable onslaught of penile enlargement e-mails, at work no less, where my uses of the internet are unimpeachably pure. Where do they come from? Why do they come to me? Should I really trust the money-back guarantees they promulgate? If my casual gleanings of these missives are to be believed, technology has advanced to the point of extracting deposits of fat from various overfed regions of one's body and injecting them, yes, injecting said deposits into the diminutive appendage in question. I fail to see how this can assist in weight loss.