Ricky Fitness: Catchall
Patronizing the gym first thing in the morning rots, but it is preferable to the afternoon/evening-after work option, which consists of me saying to myself, Ugh, not today, I'm too tired, but I'll go tomorrow. And repeat.

Need a shady way to feel better about yourself? Use an upper body machine directly after a thin women. You'll believe yourself to be some kind of Herculean he-man when you're lifting five or six times more weight than her.

The gym is just like the real world: hot girls stick together, ordinary girls do the same, and never the twain shall meet. Hot girls only talk to muscular guys. Muscular guys scoff at fat guys. Same as always.

There is a biddy who gives me the stink eye each time I look up after finishing a set. I have a feeling that were I ever to talk to her she'd by like the old bag to whom Ed Robertson dedicates "If I Had $1,000,000" on Rock Spectacle. Lady, what have I ever done to you? In what way have I wronged you? Too fat to share your exclusive rec facility? Hate my tattoo? Lousy crone.

Tuesday of last week, I saw the most amazing girl. She looked like Wonder Woman, only blonde. Not too thin like so many, but without a trace of pudge; she was obviously very powerful, but still conformed to an impossible feminine ideal. The crone is omnipresent, but Wonder Woman I saw but the once.

Dark Bastard Dinner Theatre
The next couple days will be high times for the dark bastard. I shan't be in the emotional doldrums, it's simply that the time has come to pay the Danegeld. The dark bastard is vicious and cunning, but ultimately lazy. He stands for nothing himself, he is entirely oppositional. I could fight the dark bastard and assuredly force him back into his chambers, but he'd eventually find an exit and strike at the mosy disadvantageous time. This way, vent is given to his fury at the cost of the least damage possible. It is an imperfect solution, but not without some degree of elegance.

The time 'round, he is haranguing me for my insufficient knowledge of medieval pilgrimage customs. And he's right, I don't know as much as I should about reliquaries and veneration sites, about saints' bones and the man miracles ascribed to their holy power. And now he's lambasting me for blogging about this instead of pouring over dusty volumes for information about Rheims and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And he does have a point, I am unacceptably ignorant on a whole range of issues across an impossibly board range of subjects.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Valley Winter Song" from Welcome Interstate Managers (T.L.A.M.)