The Bad News

So I've been lazy about this for a couple of weeks. Work, life, holidays, demonic possession, and imaginary fuzzy bunnies dripping blood from their giant fangs have all conspired to keep me from doing anything about Minions since whenever I last posted. This is troubling, because I am, of course, your monkey. But it's also liberating to not worry about it for a while.

Part of the issue is that it's harder for me to do anything about Minions when I have nothing to do. The beauty of it has always been that it's easier for me to write than to work. When work does not present itself as an option--as has happened for most of the last two weeks--or when it presents itself as nonoptional, which has happened for a few days of the last two weeks, a lot of the naughty thrill of the thing is gone Daddy gone.

But today, I am compelled to share with you a bit of me. Many readers know that years of lifestyle abuse (smoking, lard, and recumbence) have not been kind to me; I had a little baby heart attack in November 2003. Reactions from friends and family ranged from "a warning like this is a gift from God" (various friends, paraphrased) to a complete lack of surprise (BdR) to "You dumbass" (my father, John the Daftist, of whom y'all don't hear much, because like any good misogynist/schizophrene, I blame Mom). My own reaction was something along the lines of, "Gosh, that didn't take long."

Many people believe that lifestyle change is, like Nazism, a triumph of the will. Bite me. Lifestyle change is the hardest thing in the world, and I have tremendous respect for those who embrace it and bring it to fruition. BdR, for instance, is a former smoker, a former meat-eater, a former largish person; his heart attack (three years before mine, thankyouverymuch) spurred him to great heights of lifestyle change that did not fundamentally alter his underlying being. He doesn't smoke, he eats no red meat and little other meat, and he has launched himself at the gym with all the fervor of the Wehrmacht invading Poland.

Lifestyle change is harder for me. I am addicted to nicotine, and food unflavored with bacon just plain bores me. I can't make any form of exercise stick, except for walking.

Mmm, exercise stick. Does it come in a beef jerky flavor?

So there's a point here...right. No lifestyle changes so far.

So I went for my annual cardiology workup yesterday. Last year's workup revealed a heart muscle damaged in only a very tiny way by my years of predation on my own system. Things were holding up quite nicely. Yesterday's workup? Not so much. The Heart of Satan gets a tad limp biscuity under stress, it appears. This is, for those of you not technically minded, not a good thing.

The point herein being that the reason I'm two weeks overdue is because I'm a pathetic little heart-diseased man, and only your sympathy can clear my left anterior coronary artery.

That and another roto-rooter, which I will be having done next week. Tain't no big deal, chirrens; one day, in and out, and I spend most of that day in a Demoral haze. Worry not your pretty little heads, and after this, I'll actually think about getting started on the first item in our Lifestyle Change Series.