TBW Daily Diary

Jeff Piccola continued his campaign against equal civil rights for homosexuals today when he cast his vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I know nothing about the workings of our political system, but I am befuddled by his continued bigotry when he represents one of the largest enclaves of gays within our state. We can thank God that wiser minds prevailed. And to think Piccola once aspired to the Governor's chair . . . Well, my first complete physical in about thirty years is now history. Dr. Cary Cummings and his warm, professional staff certainly made the ordeal painless. What they had to say, however, was somewhat of a mixed bag. The heart is good and the lungs, despite 50 years of smoking, are not too bad, all things considered. Ditto the liver and kidneys . . . You have the dirtiest ears I have seen in quite a while. Are you sure you can hear? Well, not according to Bob who is forever saying that he told me thus-and-so but I never listen . . . You are terribly deficient in Vitamin D. But, doctor, the sun hasn’t shone for two months . . . Your cholesterol is somewhat elevated. Need to cut out pastry and pasta and those saturated fats. But, doc, my favorite foods are Spam, Vienna sausages, Dinty Moore beef stew and sharing dessert treats with my Godson. Well, okay, then, you can have some of each—say, once a year . . . Then came the serious nitty-gritty personal stuff that afflicts 74-year-old men. I think it is best that you consult a urologist . . . The doc recommended some medicines I might take. I told him I wasn’t much of a pill-popper. He wrote the prescriptions anyway. Then as we parted he looked at me suspiciously. You aren’t going to take any of this advice, are you? I promised I would think about it . . . and in thinking I wondered if not knowing might not be better than stressing over what I now know. Maybe ignorance is bliss . . . There is some humor in this—the condition that sent me to a physician in the first place. Despite a battery of tests, that recurring pain in my chest remains a mystery to medical minds. Maybe, just maybe, it is caused by hunching over the computer too much. The cure might be as simple as an occasional walk around the block . . .