Ouch!

When you miss a few days of exercise your body likes to punish you by forgetting some of its strength and flexibility.

If I go more than three days without doing any karate, moving seems more difficult. My legs are heavier and slower. I can't stretch as far as the week before.

Why can't we have eternal body memory? We do something once we can do it forever. In theory, that would mean we would be as flexible as when we were babies.

Searching

What is the meaning of life?

Why do we ask this question as if there is only one simple answer that can be whispered in our ear?

The meaning of life is our life in it's entirety.

Meditations

Fortune cookies hold little nuggets of life's wisdom.

Yesterday I opened a fortune cookie that said: "Your luck will be as sweet as you are."

I'm sweet like an orange. I'm sweet once you get past the bitter and protective peel. Perhaps that's why my luck's always been so-so.

Perhaps if I was sweet through and through, like candy, my luck would be better.

You are treated as good as you treat others, some say.

But then we all know bad things can happen to good people. Why? No one knows.

Is there such thing as luck?

Undue stress!

It is said that when you have children or pets you can be more stressed for them then they are for themselves under certain situations.

For instance, I took my cat to the vet recently, and while she did not enjoy her experience, she handled it well. I turned out to be more worried about the experience than her. I underwent more stress than my pet.

I have heard the experience is worse when you have kids. Like if children are taken in for surgery, the parents undergo more stress and worry than their children.

We worry too much. But we do not worry without reason.

The shopping god is everything.

Christmas time! What a commercial scam!

The spirit of giving translates into the spirit of buying.

The mall is riddled with hundreds of shoppers looking for the perfect gifts.

But those shoppers don't necessarily embody the Christmas spirit.

I made the mistake of going to the mall during peak time: a Saturday afternoon. I was elbowed and shoved along through the throngs of people.

I had to ride the wave of slow meandering crowds to get to the aisles I wanted. Shopping cart barricades prevented access to other aisles.

A grumpy man yelled at me for holding up the line when I asked the cashier to put some work related purchases on a separate receipt.

Tis the season.

The weather outside is frightful.

There is nothing worse than when it is cold outside but there is no snow.

At least when there is snow, the cold weather feels justified.

But, I guess, when there is no snow, the driving conditions are good. And that is important.

Keep on trucking!

For all you aspiring writers and artists out there, you might find this story, told by Jerry Seinfeld in the documentary "Comedian," inspiring.

"You know, when I was starting out, I used to sit down and write a couple times a week. And then, one day, I was watching these construction workers go back to work.

"And I was watching them kind of trudging down the street, and I was . . . It was like a revelation to me. And I realized these guys don't want to go back to work after lunch, but they're going 'cause that's their job.

"And if they can exhibit that level of dedication for that job, I should be able to do the same.

"Just trudge your ass in."

The Divine

Chocolate should not be lumped into the same category as junk food.

Here is why.

Junk food refers to food with limited nutritional value. Foods with lots of salt, sugar, fat and calories can be called junk food.

Candy, gum, fried fast foods and salted snack foods are all junk foods. They lack little in protein, vitamins or minerals.

But chocolate, on the other hand, contains antioxidants, which help prevent cholesterol from sticking to artery walls. Chocolate can reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Chocolate also contains disease-preventing flavonoids. The darker the chocolate, the more antioxidants and flavonoids it contains.

There is a reason South American tribes call chocolate the food of the Gods.

Yes, chocolate does contain a lot of fat. So, unfortunately, it must be consumed in moderation.

It should also be noted that a serving of chocolate contains as much caffeine as one cup of decaffeinated coffee.

Meow!

Ah, to be a cat.

To always land on your feet and look so relaxed. Cats make their living lazing about on sofas and sunny ledges.

Cats are true royalty.

They smile when they sleep.

I wonder if I smile when I sleep.

Road Maps

Sometimes it feels like life is holding me in place. Yet the more things stay the same, the more things change.

Other times I feel compelled into motion and I have to move quick.

Either way I have no idea where I am going. I have an idea of some of the places I'd like to travel through, but I have no final destination in mind.

Life would be easier if I had a crystal ball. If I could tell the future, what would it do to me?

Choose life!!

We take for granted our freedom. For the most part, we do control our own destinies.

Fiona Harrold wrote: "We can have what we want or we can have our reasons for not having it." We choose.

Now if only I could follow that advice. It is easier said then done.

Gremlins

There are great mysteries in life.

Like when you find something broken for no reason whatsoever. When you open a CD case to find overnight that the CD has worn from silver into a clear see-through unplayable plastic. When some tubing in your car melts and no one can give you an explanation why.

There are gremlins in our lives.

Weekends

Sometimes there is nothing better than a quiet night at home on a Friday or Saturday night.

It's nice to catch up on reading, movies or anything else you haven't had time to do in a while.

I think sometimes we go out on a Friday or Saturday night just for the sake of going out.

But staying home alone gives you the chance to reflect on your inner self.

There is also the likelihood you will wake up earlier the next day, giving you more productive time for your weekends.

Bad hair days every day!

Tis the season of frizzy toque hair.

For the next five months, the frigid weather requires hat wear.

This means some of us will walk around with flat, messy toque hair, which makes us look like eccentric professors that can't be bothered to do our hair because our minds are clearly in other places.

But it's the weather. Honest!

To protect and serve.

Firewalls are problematic.

Apparently we need them to keep our computers safe from harm. But as soon as you have a problem with your Internet or any of your software, the first thing tech people do is tell you to shut off your firewalls.

Well in two recent problems with my computer I have shut off my firewall, but, of course, the problems weren't really with the firewall. It was something else. But, when you tell this to the tech people, they seem at a loss for what to do.

I had a software problem last night. I contacted tech services. Of course, you can't reach tech help on the phone anymore. Instead it's a live chat, because we like to make these things as inhuman as possible.

I had a sense of what the problem was, but the tech guy wouldn't listen. Because, in his mind, the problem was the firewall and nothing else.

The tech guy told me to shut off my firewall, my virus scan, etc. But that didn't fix the problem. I told him this.

His answer: "Well, uninstall your firewall and virus scan and see if that solves your problem. If not, call us back."

And I'm like: "That's ridiculous. What's the point of having a firewall and a virus scan if they interfere with having your computer work properly."

Well I was hung up on. But instead of following the guy's advice, I pulled out all the instruction manuals, or, as I like to call them, the "destruction" manuals for my computer and played around with things until I got my computer working again.

And the problem wasn't the firewall.

The firewall is an excuse that tech guys give you that means your problem is too complicated, and they don't want to take the time to help you figure it out.

It's too much hassle.

The Artist's Way

Pablo Picasso once said: "Never take a part-time job because it will become your full-time life."

I guess that means you must starve, while you develop and grow as an artist.

How can one truly dedicate themselves to such a craft and succeed?

We are not living in the world of rich benefactors anymore. And art grants can be pretty stingy, plus hard to get.

The whole world knows it!!

Have you ever come across a piece of knowledge that you don't know, but one day find yourself needing?

You need that piece of knowledge to solve a problem. And when you look for the answer to your puzzle, you realize the answer is already common knowledge.

You find yourself asking: "Why does everybody else in the world know this, except for me? Where was I, when this common knowledge was handed out to everyone else?"

It's like learning a new word. You had know idea what it meant. You had never even heard the word used before. But once you learn that word, you hear it all the time. Everyone knows what it means.

What's with that?

Great Expectations?

There is too much pressure to have the perfect Christmas.

The Christmas lights come out almost as soon as the pumpkins are taken in. And so begins the countdown to that "perfect" day.

Keep your smiles up in good Christmas spirit. You're not allowed to have a bad day for the whole month of December. You can't dampen holiday spirits after all.

Movies are all about potentially ruining, then saving, Christmas. There is Christmas commercial after Christmas commercial...

Under all this hype, we forget it's just a day. A pleasant day perhaps, spent with family and friends. But it's just another day.

All my Christmas Days blend into one when I look back at them.

With all the hype leading up to Christmas, I often find Christmas anticlimactic, although enjoyable.

Commitment

"Commitment-phobes are not only unable to commit to 'yes.' They are also incapable of committing to 'no.' They keep the door open, giving their partners false hope," wrote Lisa Rubisch.

Some men won't commit. They are not serious about you, but they won't tell you to get lost. They will leave you hanging.

These men will occasionally call you up and give you the attention you want when they are in an indecisive mood. Sometimes these men think they want you, but deep down inside they know you aren't the one.

These men won't say "yes," but they don't want to say "no" indefinitely.

These men will drive you crazy. Run while you can. Both of you will be better off.

Just Friends

When a guy complains that he is in the friend zone, he must ask himself is he really in the friend zone? Or is he just sitting on his hands, afraid to act?

Has the girl been laying subtle hints that she likes him? Is he just too dense to notice?

Speak up boy. Express how you feel. If she doesn't feel the same way, she'll end the teasing friendship and you'll get over it.

A non-profound revelation!!

If we are too busy in life to do everything we want to in one day, perhaps we should should take the time to enjoy the few tasks that we can accomplish. Even if it is just doing the dishes. It's one more thing off the "to do list."

My fortune cookie at lunch today said: "enjoy the small pleasures in life."

I guess I should enjoy the day to day things more, like doing dishes, and turn the chores into small pleasures.

After all, there are people in this world who don't even have dishes, clean water or adequate food.

More time please!!

Do you ever feel like you've bit off more than you can chew?

I have so many things I would like to do and have to do, but there is only so much time in a day. So I never get everything done. I'm tempted to cut back on sleeping, just so I can have more hours in the day.

Unfortunately, I like sleeping way too much.

Work eats up a lot of time. I don't mind working. But it would be nice if there were 12 hours left in the day after work, which would allow me to pursue my other interests, and then also have another 8 hours left for sleeping.

There just isn't enough time in the day. I need, at least 28 hours in a day, if not more.

Beauty and the Beast

"The psychic scars caused by believing that you are ugly leave a permanent mark on your personality:" Joan Rivers once said.

It's a tale as old as time. For some reason we think we're ugly. And we put this message out to the universe, so the people around us believe it too.

But I've read if we can reverse this thinking, and be confident with the way we look, people will view us as attractive.

Maybe we're not airbrush model beautiful. But our uniqueness and confidence makes us attractive, like Sophia Loren. She was voted one of the most beautiful women in the world at the age of 66. Yet, when she was 16, she was told by Hollywood bosses that her nose was too big and her mouth was too wide. Loren was told to get plastic surgery. She didn't follow that advice and was still beautiful to the world because she believed she was beautiful.

Perhaps it is our physical imperfections that outline our beauty.

Emptiness

"Whatever happened to a boyfriend? The kind of guy who tries to win you over . . . I can feel it in my bones. I'm gonna spend another year alone." - Liz Phair

Pre-perceptions

Why do we like to imagine what people are like before we meet them?

When we talk to someone on the phone, we get an idea of what this person is like from the sound of his or her voice and the few sentences he or she strings off.

We use language and sound to fuel our imaginations, but language and sound fail to paint accurate pictures.

We also use preconceived notions to guess what a person looks like. If we know a person likes punk rock or ballet, we assign a certain look for him or her in our head.

But our logic and ideas fail us, because we are often surprised.

Apathy anyone??

Jack Kerouac once said: "I don't know. I don't care. And it doesn't make any difference."

No truer words were spoken, in a sense, anyways.

Caring makes living harder to deal with, especially when one starts to think about global injustices.

If we don't know and don't care, it really doesn't make a difference. We are only one in a few billion. What is another lost soul?

If we don't care, where does that leave us?

Sitting at home, eating potato chips, watching reruns of "Sex and the City," while thousands of other people starve.

I have no power to help the world. I turn my back and choose not to care. I take for granted my trivial daily problems and refuse to acknowledge the harder realities out there.

On the surface, I don't care about anything, except, of course, for me.

But peel away my layers and you will find guilt over the fact that, every year, 15 million children die of hunger.

But I shut it out. I make myself not care. Because, even if I cared, it wouldn't make a difference. I am only one person. I cannot solve the world's problems. I cannot even begin to try.

Waiters and Waitresses

Why do waiters and waitresses write a generic note on the bills they pass out?

I mean, I don't know about you, but a handwritten "Thanx!! Christine:)" on the back of my bill does not affect the way I tip.

Why do servers do it? Especially since people have gotten in the habit of tipping regardless of the quality of service. People reward mediocrity.

And what is with tipping anyways? Servers don't have to be paid a lot by their employers when the employer knows the public is willing to hand out cash.

Servers get 50 per cent of their wages from the employer and 50 per cent from the public. What a scam!

Employers should be paying 100 per cent of the wages and be thankful the public is willing to pay for inflated meal prices.

Live in the now!!!

Why is it that people worry so much?

Sometimes it seems, if we don't have something to worry about, we worry about not being worried about something.

Worry prevents us from truly enjoying the moment. We are always wondering about what is up ahead, instead of being fully in the present.

Worrying about something does not make that something any better.

Unfortunately, I can't shut my mind off.

And is that what living in the moment really is -- shutting off our minds, not just from worry but thoughts.

It takes a lot of concentration to truly be in the moment. If we truly lived and enjoyed the moment all the time, then when would we get a chance to think?

Bat out of hell...

Truck drivers are crazy.

Let's say you are driving on the highway in your little car and it's day time. The roads are fine, so you're doing the speed limit. Chances are you'll come across several snail-like semis you'll have to pass. When road conditions are fine, semis tend to drive below the speed limit.

Now let's say it's dark out. The road conditions are horrible with ice and whiteout conditions. You, being cautious and wise, slow down to meet the road conditions. You might even be looking for a nearby town where you can spend the night and wait out the storm. The semis, in the meantime, are whipping by you at breakneck speeds.

What gives? In normal conditions, semis move like slugs. In horrid conditions, semis are driven by maniacs.

It's pure madness.

Figuring out this life

Is it true that we spend our 20s trying to figure out what we want and then our 30s trying to get it?

And how do we know what we really want until we have it?

We've all had those experiences where we want something so badly that we'd do anything for it, but then when we get it we realize maybe that "thing" isn't so great after all.