NICE HYGIENE: I have no underwear on this trip. I simply omitted underwear from my luggage. Call me "Commando." Discovered it this morning. Black sweater? Check. Black slacks? Check. Black shoes? Check. Black socks? Check. Underwear of any color? Nein.

And so I feel a little naughty today. And apparently I'll continue to feel naughty tomorrow...on accounta...

I left my computer at Microsoft after my presentation. I did not discover this until I was returning my rental car at Sea-Tac airport. I took the car back out, drove it back to the campus and, escorted by two Microsoft security guards, recovered the computer. I missed my flight to L.A. but caught the next one. And so by the time I arrived here...all the stores were closed.

I remain underwearless.

I heard the SOTU speech was blah, lackluster, no news, platitudinous. Too bad. Poor dumb Bush.

Just saw Hillary Rosen stumping for the dems. Or I should say spinning for the Dems. Never liked her when she was the unrealistic and harsh voice of the RIAA as they sued music consumers. Anyway, seeing her on the Dem side makes me feel better about not being on the Dem side anymore.

I won't vote for Hillary. Won't.

I've read ongoing analysis about how McCain can never be nominated.

I wish I had underwear. Or at least more pants.

ON TRAVEL AND POOP: Monday morning. I awoke with a random headache -- because, man, I only had like a couple glasses of that rose (think ro-zay; don't know how to make the accent over the 'e') -- but none of the pervading "sick" of last week. The Z-Pac (not to be confused with the 2Pac) has helped, clearly. Now I'm at Starbucks scotch-taping expense reports and working the e-mail. Headed to ORD in a few hours to catch a flight to SEA for a day, then on to LAX until Thursday.

A few fun C.J. scenes of late:

"Daddy, what's it called when I have a really fast poop?"

"Diarrhea."

"Oh. What about when I have a slow poop?"

"I just call that regular poop."

"Eggrahlah poop?"

"Ummm..."

"Egg roll poop?"

"Yeah, close enough."

"Daddy, I hope I have an eggroll poop soon."

And then there was this one:

"Mommy, will you change my poopy diaper?"

"C.J., you're almost four, it's time for you to poopy in the potty. Mommy's getting tired of poopy diapers."

(thinking about it)

"Mommy...will God change my poopy diaper?"

FIXED? THINKIN' YEAH: Ya gotta love a decisive doc. I'm in there for like 30 seconds, she's poking around, and then: "This is a bacterial infection run rampant. Z-Pac, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen thrice a day, and a steroidal nose spray."

Here's hoping my massive influx of drugs will have me riding high on the flight to Seattle on Monday.

WHAT STARTLED LOOKS LIKE: Yep, this is it. Expulsion of air. Wide eyes. Stomach acid marching up the old Esophageal Trail... 

START THE MUSIC: Today's an all-day meeting, starting in moments and running straight through until 6:30PM. Then I rush to the airport, dump the rental car, and try and get my butt home before midnight. Long day!

I no longer marvel that people can do this, can find the energy and will to get through a work day that starts at 7:30AM and doesn't end until almost the next day. I see it nearly every week. What I do still marvel at is that people choose to live like this. Given the wide range of available options, I'm literally startled sometimes -- as in, "Huh?" -- that there exists a class of folks, among which you may count me, that keeps putting quarters in this particular carousel.

WOKE UP THINKING: Actually had some decent sleep last night, and my throat is about 50% as raw today as yesterday. I like to think that my gargling with saltwater ("yes, can you please send up two salt shakers to room 1131? great!"), noshing on Robitussin menthol lozenges, staying regular with the Advil, and begging off dinner last night so I could just take it easy were all contributing factors. I am beating this whatever-it-is! Of course, chances are it's just that the virus is running its course, or that my bodies defenses have finally discovered a more favorable strategy. Germs are, of course, simply little terrorists who seek to engage the corpus maximus in asymmetrical warfare. And the thing that's good to remember is that these little germs usually lose time and again...

...until they finally prevail, of course.

Nothing...nothing...nothing...lasts forever, now does it?

Odd that, somehow, that simple thought manages to be both the source of greatest comfort and stress all at once.

SAY IT KEANU-STYLE -- WHOA! Lebron James' mom, in addition to being a nutter, is also two years...wait for it...*younger* than me!

REFERRAL GENIUS: In my hotel's in-room GUEST SERVICES DIRECTORY, it says:

Doctor/Dentist: An "At Your Service" associate can refer you to a nearby doctor or dentist.

Wow! Great. I'm still feeling pretty crappy, and I decide that if I feel this way tomorrow I'm going to the doc. So I stop by the front desk on my way in from an evening reception.

"I'm thinking about seeing a doctor tomorrow. Do you have a list of doctors you refer guests to?"

"Huh?"

"I think I may want to see a doctor tomorrow, and in the book in the room it says..."

"Are you sick?"

"Well, I have this lingering sore throat, and I've had a fever off and on, and...look, do you have a list of doctors?"

"There's a hospital nearby."

"Okay, so you don't really have a list..."

"Mostly we just tell people to go over to the hospital. They have doctors there."

"Uh, okay. Thanks."

IN MY PATH FOR A REASON: I'm lucky enough to be working on a corporate project with a playwright by the name of Alex Dinelaris. Seems like a very good guy, talented, upbeat. Best of all, he's about my age, and he was telling me this morning about how just a few short years ago he was a guy that felt he ought to writing plays, but he hadn't really put it all together yet. All of a sudden the stars aligned, he made the commitment, took some time off to write, finished a play...and now finds himself with a play ready to open on Broadway this summer with Danny Aiello and Rosie O'Donnell in the leads. Inspiring!

YES! I have been immortalized in the Urban Dictionary.

BOO HOO: Sitting in a Hertz Business Center at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, just about to launch my rental Taurus or 500 or whatever they give me at Richardson, Texas. Unbelievably, I'm sick again. Very sore throat and body aches. Did the strep come back? Gonna look into a doc-in-the-box by my hotel. Sucks.

By the way, does this win my most-boring-post-ever?

ON GENIUS: Here's MSNBC's pretty solid take on the glory that was the first episode of SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES.

EVERYTHING I WANT FROM TV: You know, I thought AMERICAN IDOL was the most entertaining show on TV, but after only about 15 minutes of this SKATING WITH CELEBRITIES show, I gotta say:

Goddamn! How can I be sitting here laughing like a loon, grinning like a baboon at this show! Bruce Jenner in some kind of admiral's getup! This Sir John guy affecting the grumpy Simon role! This is just too much.

I think I love it.

(Addendum: For the love of God, Willis (as in "Whatchew talkin' 'bout Willis") is about to skate! From Rikers to the rink! I love it! I love it!)

SLICE OF LIFE: There's something in the air at my hotel.

The place is packed with some serious yahoos. For a second, I thought I might be among my NASCAR brethren, this horde of rural-seeming, puffy men hell-bent on whooping it up and/or squiring their wide-eyed families through the large hotel lobby. But these folks, salt of the earth and all, are just a little too...down-market for NASCAR. These are some odd folk. I started looking at their name tags, trying to make out the logo. Hmmmm. Looked like it said they were with the PARK CONGRESS. Maybe that's it. These are national park-type people. Wilderness folk. Then I saw this sign:

Pfizer Animal Health & Hormel Happy Hour, 6:30PM

Then I stared harder at the name tags: Pork Congress. Pork. As in porcine. Piggies!

"Excuse me," I say to a man in the elevator. "Does your name tag say 'Pork Congress?'"

"Yes, indeed," he says. "We're pig people."

SPECIAL TO CASEY THE ENTERTAINER: A-ight, Case! Way to go! I'm sure Mom "had a chuckle." 

WHAT HE SAID: "Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation." - Graham Greene

WHY IS EXERCISE STUCK IN THE GYM? I'm standing at the Baggage Claim yesterday, waiting and waiting to retrieve my suitcase (so much for the PRIORITY tag they always stick on it due to my frequent-flier status), and it hits me: What about a public exercise movement?

Why can't I just drop down right there and knock out some push-ups and some sit-ups? Why can't I do some step-ups on the baggage carousel or knock out some dips on the chairs nearby? Why not?

Well, I'd look like a goof, right? But why is it that we don't feel ashamed when we do unhealthy things in public, like knock down a Cin-A-Bun or smoke a cigarette or polish off 73 frozen margaritas? Why are those behaviors more socially acceptable?

So what about it? Should I launch publicexercise.blogspot.com and document examples of people exercising in public, making their waiting time in doctors' offices and supermarket lines and so forth add up to something healthy?

The answer is no, no more blogs. But I think I'm onto something, nonetheless...

THIS & THAT: As I mentioned in my COMMENTS, I somehow had the big Mo to head down to the workout room last night upon arrival in Minneapolis. In typical me fashion, I had a bit of a spaz-out down there, using the treadmill, the elliptical, the weights and weight machines, the pool, and the hot tub. Had a nice dinner of local walleye and some veggies, and I slept pretty well. I also made the mistake of making a late-night run to the local Borders store which, according to their website, should have been open until 11PM. Alas, when I arrived there entirely frozen (no, Mom, I did not bring a hat or gloves) at 9:55PM they told me I had five minutes to thaw out on accounta: "We're closing, bub." Nice. I had head-freeze on the walk back which was quickly remedied by a big to-go glass of the house Zin. And...scene.

Just finished Michael Collins' LOST SOULS, a book I grabbed on a whim in Santa Monica 'cause I liked the cover and one of the blurbs on the back. And wow! This guy can write his ass off. Sort of David Gates meets Michael Connelly. Artistically sound, rather bleak prose that organically pulls the reader from page to page like a Grisham...with none of the aftertaste. A definite model for the kind of novel I hope to write.

PROOF THERE IS RACISM IN THIS COUNTRY: New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is really something else. Can you imagine if the mayor of some super-white city...like, say Minneapolis or something, where I am right now, and where it's so goddamn windy and cold they oughta shut the whole city down until spring...I digress...can you imagine if the mayor of some white-guy city said, "We want to keep this city the only way it can be, white as snow!" (Yep, snow. Works for Minneapolis.) It's a wonder he didn't start a chant of "No more honkeys!"

YOU'RE JEALOUS: Off to icy Minneapolis for the rest of the week!

BULLY FOR SULLY! The new AndrewSullivan.com launched today under the auspices of the Time.com mothership. My initial take: Splendid. Jolly good. Love it.

FUNNY? YES. SMART? NO. I love Letterman. I'm a fan. I'm more of a Letterman fan than an O'Reilly fan by a long stretch. But Letterman comes off so badly and O'Reilly comes off so well in this clip, that I have to wonder if my allegiance is in the wrong place.

GO WEST: This blogger is bound for glory, this blogger. Or at least bound for Los Angeles.

Repeat after me: Monday night, Anaheim; Tuesday night, West Hollywood; Wednesday night, Santa Monica; Thursday night, arrive in Chicago around 10:00PM. Long week.

Both boys have strep throats; and I woke up with a golfball in my throat this morning. Luckily my doc phoned in an amoxicillin order, so all is hopefully on the mend, or at least headed that way.

THE BOOGEYMAN CHECKS HIS CLOSET FOR CHUCK NORRIS: If you haven't yet seen the "Top Thirty Facts About Chuck Norris," you've gotta check 'em out. High, high comedy. One of my favorites: "Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits."

GOOD ADVICES: A good pal just reminded me of something I already knew: To be a writer, write.

Sort of like, to be a vegetarian, eat vegetables. To be a meditator, sit your ass down. Etc.

'NOTHER HAIR FLASHBACK: Here's more of the mid-college "new wave" look, as forwarded to me from an old friend. I think I look a bit like a lady. Oh, well. 

WHAT'S ALREADY STICKING IN MY CRAW IN '06: I wake up thinking, "I want to be a writer." Some mornings, or more likely some nights after wine, that thought twists into, "I am a writer."

Of course I'm not.

I proudly told one of my sisters-in-law that one of the great things about me is I know what I'm good at, and I know what I suck at. I have a healthy sense of shame, I told her, a filter that allows me to "know better" before I run out (into the marketplace, the town square, the public space) and embarass myself. I have a real and functioning governor on my own idiocy. Keeps me from making a fool of myself. And she pointed out, in so many words, that that same governor is what stands between me and really taking a chance, putting myself out there in a way that I might fall, might fly, might feel really and fully alive.

Doorway to greatness? Governor's minding it. Why bother?

Clearly I've grown older, and with age and experience I've grown more reasonable and responsible. Heck, look how nice my hair looks now!

:-)

And yet...as I've grown I've had to shed a layer of skin (along with all the hair). I used to think that "skin" was just the shadow part of me that was reckless and selfish. No big whoop. Farewell and such.

Now I wonder if maybe there weren't some strands of my soul wrapped up in what I stepped out of .

Wow. Talk about a "Happy New Year" post! Off to the soul-searching races in '06!

MORE HAIR, LESS WEIGHT: Eventually I lost some weight and grew some hair. This is pretty much how I've looked, plus or minus a few pounds a quarter-inch of hair or so, for the past five years. 

CURBING HIS FABULOUSNESS: Larry David on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Hilarious.

CLIPPED: During my music biz days I just shaved it all off, boho-style. I was also a bit fat. 

KOOKY CONSULTANT: Here's my look when I got the gig at Andersen Consulting, which was also right around when I got hitched. The hedge is back! 

COLLEGE GRAD: Thankfully by graduation the hedge had been trimmed back to youthful respectability, with a touch of flair. 

COLLEGE RAD: By the time I got to college I smoked cigarettes, braided and colored my hair, and had completely lost my mind. 

THE MANY MOODS OF MY MANE: Okay, so here are some haircut shots...


First, here's me in seventh grade, sporting the basic straight-hair look, medium length. 

HAIR-DO YOU DO: After a long layoff the only way for me to break the seal on this blog, so to speak, is to just start writing and see what comes out.

I went for a haircut this morning, distinguished perhaps most of all by the fact that it wasn't much of a haircut. For the past several years I've been wearing my hair very, very short -- triple-zero blades on the sides and finger-length on top -- and before that I wore a shaved head (wore!) for about four years, which I clippered down myself once/week and then razored smooth in the shower. So today when I went to Sheila, I was like, well, hold on a second there, let's just clean up the thatch up there and set it up for growth, you know? I told her take the ends off, more or less, shape the frizzies into something topiary-like, but mostly just leave it alone.

I've had hair periods in my life actually. I remember from like zero to about seventeen my hair was basically medium-length and straight, albeit with a quick perm-detour in seventh-grade when I was inspired by Mike Ditka (dude, *everybody* was doing it) and some of my black friends at school to go with an unnatural "natural." And I mean it was a rush, a cross-cultural buzz to carry a pick in my back pocket. That was about the same time my friend Scott Bowling (the blackest white kid at school, really) introduced me to parachute pants and Giorgio Brutini pointy-shoes. We listened to Zapp on WDAO ("White Days Are Over") and we did our best to learn line-dances with turns and twirls and funky backsteps and shit. Lordy. And then we moved to Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Won't you take me to...preppytown! I'll tell ya, my parachute pants were not winning me a spot at the cool-kids lunch table in that town. Faster than you can say makeover my new friends were helping me pick out plaids and polos and busting down by billowing backthatch of mullet-tude, saving the day for me.

But alas, I was talking about hair periods. Straightish, with the permed and mulleted variations tossed in, from about zero to 17 or so. Then I began to notice that, left untended after a shower, the top of my head actually had something of a wave to it, a curly flourish that was friggin' perfect for teasing up into a Thompson Twins tuft (made all the more dramatic by shaving the sides high and tight). And that's where my college nickname, one of 'em, came from, the Human Hedge. I had this big old hair-stack on top, spilling down toward my big forehead like a Seuss character, all through college (granted, there was that brief flattop era) and even up until my wedding around the age of 26. Rest assured, I look like an extra from the movie VALLEY GIRL in my wedding shots, sort of Lyle Lovett in a bad rental tux with a floral cummerbund. Lovely.

When the billowing new wave 'do started to suffer from hairline recession, well, I pretty much just went apeshit and shaved my head one night, drunk, on my wife's 30th birthday. It's a funny story, but too long for now. And for about four years I kept the cue-ball look, Mr. Clean plus a paunch, I hate to admit. Somewhere five or so years ago I actually got my butt back into some shape (all of me, really) and, at the same time, let some hair grow in. And I figured out this high-and-tight, cleaned-up look I've been sporting, sort of Bruce Willis meets OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. Somewhere along the way I discovered the goatee, an ingenious way to look thinner and make shaving take less time.

Where I sit right now, in addition to being off the schneid on Blind Camel for '06, is with a slightly fluffy, almost "Chia" look, the transition point between my manicured, quasi-military look of the past five years and the follicular folly that is to come. Stay frickin' tuned. Makes for gripping blogging, I can assure you.