Catchy title, but I may not do much with it.

My body seems to have a mind of its own, and it isn't the one ostensibly in my brain. Last night I had one beer--one!--and talked with a friend until 1am. This morning, I woke up at 6:45 . . . then at 8:30 . . . and finally at 9:50, ten minutes before I was supposed to be at fencing. Was I late? Do Catholics have too many rules? Do Hindus have blue gods? Are the Democrats seemingly unable to grow a set of balls (except John Murtha)? Are the Republicans unable to think without theirs? Is China's population so overwhelmingly huge that they constitute an abnormal gravitational center in the solar system, one that even now beings from distant galaxies are trying to fit into their alien physics?

If the answer to all these questions is yes--and I'm quite certain about the aliens--then I may have to rethink this whole "I'm feeling fine" thing.

To be fair, honest and unable to reason beyond a sitcom level (Laverne and Shirley, let alone All in the Family), the weather has been stupid lately. It's like how I imagine Seattle or Portland to be, except without all the really interesting, nice people or the short trip to the ocean. The closest body of significant water is the Ohio River, magnificent if you've never seen the Mississippi River, pretty impressive otherwise until you realize it's just a very wide stretch of roiling, muck-filled H20 that requires building bridges. Driving across bridges is like eating sushi at a baseball game. You're not sure where it came from, and hope that it's safe.

All this is to say that there's been a lot of rain, which always gets me down, and causes me to sleep at odd times. I just awoke from an early eveing nap--yet again--ate an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers (surely a ridiculous choice for supper; what will dessrt be, a bag of Pixie Sticks?), finished watching the Clerks animated series (funny, not brilliant, and amazingly self-conscious), sang and played a few songs on my gee-tar, and now I'm venting my inability to think beyond the next seventeen seconds by exposing my worthlessness to the world.

And, my fish died.

Is it really as bad as all that? Is my life a pitifiul pit of self-pity? Am I, in those immortal Sicilian words, "helpless, hopeless, friendless"? No. Of course not. I work with people who like and respect me. I have friends who not only care about me, but care about lots of things. My family is wonderful. I'm meeting new people, including new women (not, you know, new as in babies, but new in my life. That should have gone without saying, but when you tune in to this particular loopy channel you take these kinds of verbal chances). I'm writing again. I live in an apartment I like. Except for a few things, life is good. One of those things is my battle with my own biology.

And, my fish is dead.

To be fair, she never seemed to feel well. Vera Lane was a beta, also known as the Siamese Fighting Fish. Now, I know beta is easier to say, but which is cooler? If you were forming a rock band, which name would you choose? Also, does it strike anyone else as odd that a fish so pissed off at the universe that it will attack another of its kind just for hanging out within something like eleven feet is called "beta"? Why not "alpha", for criminy sake?

I had joked with someone the other day that if Vera croaked I'd just buy another beta, also named Vera. I'm going to buy the fish, but I don't know if I can give it the same name, even though I could very easily have twenty seven friends all named Bob. (It would be easy if I had twenty-seven thousand friends. The odds would be with me.)

Time to get out of the house. Return my movie. Maybe get another. Buy a Little Debbie's Double Decker Oatmeal Cream Pie.

Now there's a healthy treat!