Watch Your Back, Ashton

Check your rear view mirror Ashton Kutcher.   You may have crossed the magic million follower mark on Twitter and already racked up a couple hundred thousand more, but little reported was the addition of my one-thousandth Twitter follower and twenty-five more after that.   Twenty-six now.   Twenty-seven.   Feeling the heat A.K?    I also notice you are following eighty people and I am not among them.   Your loss, buster.   You'll never know what airport I'm flying out of, or what the weather is like around my place.   You'd give up all of that just to keep me from having one more measly follower?  [I don't mean to imply that you or any of my followers are measly.  Although I suppose you could be if you did not have measles as a child.]

Anyhow.  I have you in my sights.  I'm not sure what you do, but I understand you are very popular from your work on That Seventies Show.  I'll tell you what, I was that Seventies show. I had actual pimples in the early Seventies.  I had friends who wore platform shoes with bib overalls.  I had tinted lenses in my glasses.  A girlfriend once sewed paisley corduroy into the seams of my bell bottoms.   And this wasn't something I left with the wardrobe department at the end of the day.  I went back to my dorm and slept in them.   I carry these and other humiliations with what passes for grace and dignity around my house.  You wouldn't know about that, but you could.  Make me your eighty-first and my world becomes your world.  Only without all the money and adoration.

Oh Peeps, We Hardly Knew Ye!

This is a picture of perfectly good Peeps in the garbage.  It wasn't my idea.  I found them like this.  Minding my own business, I opened up the drawer to discard a tissue and there they were staring up at me with those two little black eyes.  Not as shocking as finding a live baby in a dumpster, not even in that ballpark, maybe not even in that solar system -- but at least sharing a galaxy.   So innocent and helpless.  Little bundles of marshmallow, food dye and joy.   You'd thing they could at least be recycled.  Maybe not.  These are not a Hindu confection.  They are born of a Christian Holy Day.  They are not destined to come back in some higher form, such as a Snickers, then a Cadbury, then a chocolate mousse until Nirvana when at last they achieve real chickenhood.  No, these little peeps get but one shot at it.  Dead is dead.  Gone is gone.   Even the Rapture, I fear, cannot save these little preservative laden souls.   They may rise, but they will still be weird marshmallow confections that are eaten at only one specific time of year in celebration of the Resurrection.  And not one day later.  Obviously.

Not Dead. Yet.

Yesterday I received the following two emails about four hours apart:

Tom: 

I'm not kidding.  Some time in the last two years both my wife and I swear that we heard on the news that you died. I guess that's not true, huh? 

Rick xxxxxx

St Louis, MO 

Awhile ago I heard you passed away. I was very sad. I am glad that you are still alive. I always loved your Motel 6 commercials. Take care Mr. Bodett, and again, I'm glad you're alive.
Steve

Fresno, CA

This raises two immediate questions -- 1) Who is telling people I'm dead?  2) What happened yesterday to indicate I wasn't?   More important, I suppose, than the answers to those are the concerns it raises for the dearly not-so departed.  For example, should I get a publicist?  I have never been much of a self-promoter and always assumed I was just as famous as I deserved to be whether up or down. But, I never figured I'd be one of those "I thought you were dead" guys.   Granted, my professional output is down during these child-rearing years, but it's not like I'm, well, dead.   

I suppose it's possible my publisher or a speculative bookseller [there's a redundancy] started spreading the rumor of my death in the hope of stimulating book sales.  They severely underestimate my fans.  If you, dear reader, were to learn of my death most certainly you'd figure my back list of titles would be out of print within a year and you would be able to pick them up at discount booksellers for twenty cents on the dollar.  That's what I like about you.

Motel 6 might keep my death a secret for awhile; propping me up in the radio saddle like Attila the Hun until the whole thing started to smell.  That scenario does raise the question of whether AFTRA and SAG require producer pension contributions for deceased performers.

I could go on and on about this, but it's Sunday and I have a lot of chores to do around the house.   The trash needs hauling.  The perennial beds need to be raked.   The tractor needs grease.   I've no time to be dead.   In fact, to save time I've already composed a list of Last Words and today could be my lucky day.  My favorite so far:   "That jack looks a little wobbly".

Sleeping Off Those Extra Pounds

I've recently become concerned about my weight.  Not so much that I'm getting fat -- just the expected middle-age "thickening".   My pants size hasn't changed in thirty years, but it's trying to and I refuse to budge.  "Never give a inch" [sic] was the Hank Stamper family motto in Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion.  I'm going to hang that in my bathroom.   But, more of a concern to me than my actual weight is the wildly fluctuating readings on our bathroom scale.  It's a pretty good one and has always agreed with the big butcher's scale at the doc's office.   So why then does my weight vary up to five pounds in a single day?   A couple pounds here and there would account for meals and water, but five?  I've set a goal for myself of ten pounds, so having a margin of error of 50% is taking the fun right out of not eating ice cream and every other damn thing I want.

I wake up three to five pounds lighter than I was when I laid down.  I can lose half the weight I want by sleeping for seven hours.  Now there's a diet program you could sell!    I then gain it back by working like a dog for eight hours.  Shop work.  Woods work.  Office work.  No matter.  Here's those five pounds back.   Theoretically I could meet my goal by skipping work and sleeping for two days.   I'm not sure I could sell that plan around the house, but it's worth a try.