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Age is just a number

“You can’t beat death But you can beat death in life, sometimes…” Charles Bukowski – The Laughing Heart Being in your mid-50s is sort of a weird, transitory period. You’re not young, you’re not even middle-aged, to be honest, unless you think you’ll live to 110 years old. But you’re not old-old yet, if you […]

Exercise – sometimes it’s a lifeline

Ok, everyone knows that regular exercise helps ease the symptoms of depression and anxiety. It’s exceedingly well-documented. For the most part, those of us who exercise regularly don’t need to be told about the very real endorphin rush one receives after physical exertion. It’s not a magic bullet, though, but it is a valuable tool […]

Things can always get worse, but they can always get better, too.

I recently read a CNN article that explained that studies have shown that childhood trauma has been shown to later affect the grown adult’s relationship to money and finances. Basically, the instability and stress of living in a financially precarious household often causes extremes in people as they reach adulthood. Many become extremely conservative with […]

Redemption Song

Recently, for a number of reasons, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about redemption. To be clear, what I mean is the restoration of one’s reputation and credibility as a person in general or even in a specific circumstance such as work or with a particular loved one. Reputation, as they say, takes a […]

How not to do drugs…

A primer in harm reduction: As a society, we tell our kids from a pretty young age that drugs are dangerous. In school we give them the dry clinical facts about the harmful effects of each of the drugs; alcohol, cannabis and other illicit drugs. This information is useful but it ignores the reality that […]

“the tarry shingle of the morning…”

This morning I got up early, made my coffee, checked the news (yikes) and, for some reason, thought about gratitude. I mean, there is the war in Ukraine and gas has reached prices that make really make one contemplate how badly one needs to use their car. Inflation is ramping up and set to snowball. […]

How blogging is exactly like strength-training

My two favorite things to do on Saturday morning, after I’ve had my coffee, is to write a few pages and then go to the gym for a few hours. It occurred to me this morning that there are quite a few similarities between the two activities. Let me explain: Hygiene: Powerlifting is an important […]

Why the name of the blog has changed…

My readership, in their teaming dozens, may have noticed that the title of this blog has changed slightly. I took the word “beer” out. To be honest, I originally added it for alliterative effect, to follow “barbells” and “books” but also, beer was a major part of my life for a long, long time. If […]

The battle of the spicy vegetable condiments – Kimchi vs. Pikliz

Yesterday I realized that I had accidentally made the most blatantly pretentious fusion snack possible. As I got home with steaming bag of Korean takeaway food, my first instinct was to use the Korean fried chicken for some sort of sandwich. I quickly took stock of what was in the fridge and made a wrap […]

The key to happiness is daring to suck, and suck badly…or the mystery of motivation.

The inspiration for this stems from a something I posted recently regarding regrets and a subsequent post I read on Stuart Danker’s excellent blog. If you think about it, our biggest regrets are those times when we simply “gave up” or chose the easiest solution, the path of least resistance. Conversely, one of life’s enduring […]