Operation ÖSTERREICH
One week ago, I returned from the sun-blasted desert of Arizona to the sun-starved snowfields of Michigan with a budding case of the dreadful sick (cough & runny nose variety). I lost last week to the dreadful sick, able to function but unable to exert myself; when I did skank last Friday at the ska show, I paid for it with a coughing fit. The week before, after that first triumphant swim, was a casualty to the snow—a Tuesday on which all campus activities were canceled after 4:00 P.M. and a Wednesday that was a complete snow day—and the pressures of preparing for an aerial hop to the other side of the continent. This week saw Monday wiped out by another, this time unnecessary, snow day, and me weakened by the lingering effects of the dreadful sick. I hope to return to the pool as soon as possible, but my breathing is not yet unencumbered, curse it all.

I hate being sick.

***CAUTION: LEWDNESS AHEAD***

Mission: Unpossible Drei - Tag Sieben
The thing of it is, it doesn't matter if you think masturbation is or is not a sin. That's the basic and most diabolical flaw of Protestantism, the ludicrous notion that each man can decide for himself—and by himself—what is sacred and what is profane. Masturbation is a sin, and one with grave consequences for the soul.

By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."
—Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, Part Three "Life in Christ" 2352, pg. 623

The ultimate goal is to purge entirely from my life the sin of masturbation, but as the first two attempts as Mission: Unpossible proved "unpossible," we start with the far more modest goal of passing a single Lenten season without committing that particular sin.

So far so good, but bitter experience tells me there is tough sledding ahead.

***END LEWDNESS***

Project MERCATOR
I have made reservations to travel by aeroplane to old New Amsterdam in the spring, to spend a week imposing upon the hospitality of Mrs. Skeeter, Esq. and Mr. Skeeter, Esq. (né Jimmy From Queens). We shall indeed find out if everyone's your friend in New York City.