Comeuppance

12:12am
B-Trip: Home

Do I take too many D's? How many is too many?

And is too many preferable to too few?

Seems it would be better to keep things moving than to be backed up for a few days. That is, as long as there's a B-Trip readily available.

So I'm sitting here contemplating my personal D pattern. The past several weeks have me averaging about three-D's-a-day. Before I started keeping track, I would have pegged myself for a two-D-a-day individual.

And if I'm averaging three, why just the solo D yesterday? I didn't make any special effort NOT to go, nor was I away from home for any appreciable length of time. (I firmly believe, btw, that the human stomach has a homing device that knows when an acceptable B-Trip is near. Ever notice that? When I'm out & about, the urge rarely strikes. But when I get about 3-5 miles from home, the assembly line kicks into high gear in a hurry. Unexpected traffic or difficulty finding a parking space, and I'll be crowning by the time I walk through my front door!)

And why 4-D days sometimes? That must have to do with dietary choices. To that end, I'll be shocked if today doesn't turn out to be a 4-D day. Stay tuned to find out!

So while I'm not sure what the proper amount of daily D's might be, I will continue clinging to this unwavering truth:

'The longer you wait to Take your D, the stinkier thoust D shall be.'
-Jane Austin


8:10am
B-Trip: Home

I got worried yesterday. I admit that. While making dinner, I became aware I'd only taken one D.

So I did what any sane individual would do....I loaded my half of our made-from-scratch pizza with jalapenos!

Per usual, they 'sped-the-plow'.

No need for a long good-bye here. I'll be back soon.

10:50am
B-Trip: Home

Jalapenos 2: Ye Best Not Stray.

And how.

I've returned to the "How To Be A Gentleman" book. I see that this book was published in March 2001. In other words, the Old Normal. We'll have to see which (if any) of these guidelines still apply to our post-9/11 reality.

Take this suggestion, for example: "A gentleman knows how to use a dictionary."

Suuuure he does. Maybe as a weapon to throw at evil-doers so freedom doesn't scuff her marching boots, but a gentleman certainly doesn't need one to "look stuff up". In the New Normal, we only need about three dozen words (values, surge, embolden, etc.) . And spell-check has all of those under control.

"A gentleman gives direct answers, especially to controversial questions."

Perhaps. Let's look at this recent exchange between two consummate gentlemen:

<<BLITZER: Here's what Jim Webb, senator from Virginia said in the Democratic response last night -- he said, "The president took us into this war recklessly. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed."

And it's not just Jim Webb; it's some of your good Republican friends in the Senate and the House are now seriously questioning your credibility, because of the blunders and the failures. Gordon Smith...

CHENEY: Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash.>>

At first glance it may seem that our VP was, in fact, avoiding a controversial question. However, that's tough to verify since Wolf was cut off before posing his question. If we assume he was leading up to "Do you accept the premise of my question? And, as a followup, do you think this question is asinine or merely hogwash?" then it becomes clear that this tenet of gentleman-liness is alive & well.

"A gentleman does not make idle threats."

Wait one second, you say. Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden? Weren't we going to "smoke him out"?

Now before you go questioning the 'gentleman credentials' of our beloved leader, consider this..."One of these days." Bush never said when we'd smoke him out. He might even go ahead and leave the smoking process for his dad (who, I believe, will be elected in a landslide in '08. After all, cleaning up his son's mess is a role to which he's surely accustomed. And he must be pretty good at it considering his complete f*ck-up of a child became a two-term president.)

So we'll smoke Osama out one of these days. There's a lot of caves in Afghanistan. It's hard to find enough smoke. I don't know much about foreign policy, but I suspect one day we'll learn the real reason we lit Iraq on fire and also took zero steps to reduce carbon emissions was because we needed more smoke for the bin Laden hunt. A pretty brilliant strategy, but per usual the President gets no credit.

11:03pm
B-Trip: Home

Joel Stein is one of about a half-dozen reasons I keep my La Times subscription active. (The other reasons, you nosy bastards, are Tim Rutten, Steve Lopez, Patrick Goldstein, Rex Morgan, M.D., and Bill Plaschke....though the latter, as far as I'm concerned, is still digging himself out of a hole after brazenly dissing the 2006 World Series.)


Go ahead. Click on it. I'll wait....

Plaschke's unwarranted, above-the-fold negativity deflates this otherwise frame-worthy sports page. It had been 24 years since the Cardinals last won. He couldn't have waited 24 hours to whine about the Series?

Bill, you're lucky I enjoyed your Sean Avery story and Olympic coverage last year. Otherwise we'd have serious issues. But, moving forward, let's try to keep the dick moves to a minimum.

Anyway, Joel Stein's column was not one of his best so I moved on to an op/ed piece entitled "Never Too Late", detailing the myriad accomplishments of people such as Clint Eastwood, Mark Twain, and Robert Frost who did not produce their finest work until middle age and beyond.

This article spoke to my very core. After all, most poop journals are kept by newborns. I've often thought:

"Am I too late?"

By waiting 'til I'm thirty-two to track my poo, does that mean I'll never be thought of as a defecating wunderkind? The boy wonder of the B-Trip?

Some twelve month-old in Chattanooga could do exactly what I'm doing and become the Stinky Sensation while I'd be dismissed as the other guy, the grownup. People would wince, admitting in hushed tones that my online journal, my d'log, is kind of sad.

But this article urges experimental innovators everywhere not to give up! I'm not sure what an 'experimental innovator' is but, like me, I imagine they Take D. The piece seems to say if you're thinking about Taking D: TAKE THAT D. And if you think there's some chance the rest of the world would like to hear all about it: SHARE THAT D! After all, I have over three decades of D'ing experience from which to draw. What's that superstar in Chattanooga got? For all we know, he still wears diapers.

(Memo to self: Taking D in diaper could make for fascinating d'log post. Do it soon to scoop kid in Tennessee. T-Tennessee? Tennessee...T-Tennessee?)

Ahhh...Arrested Development. I think I've finally stumbled upon this d'log's theme.