inanimate raze i do my crunches in bed. the mattress is kinder to my back than the floor ever was. i don't often leave my glasses on when i'm counting to eight hundred and fifty. tonight i do. i scan the objects on my dresser: a candle i've had for more than half my life because i couldn't bring myself to let it burn. two flashlights. one dead. one still living. a scuffed roll of scotch tape running on empty. a chest small enough to hold in my hand. nothing inside but bad memories. pens and hair ties. camera batteries and flash drives. i lock eyes with a simian sculpture. he wears an open vest and a tam o shanter. from this angle, the facial expression that's always appeared neutral takes on a sinister slant. "i see you judging me," i say. "you try living through this. try losing everything you love and not fucking dying. you try it, asshole." the inaminate ape sits and stares while i go through the motions of making myself strong enough to withstand the weight of whatever tomorrow might bring. 250729 ... epitome of incomprehensibility An alarm clock that failed soon after I passed my degree at Brock. If you can walk and talk, you might out-squawk an alarm clock. On the table beside my bed, and I closed its lid in respect. Could I reanimate it? I haven't so far. My phone does a bang-up wake-up job, and more musically. It's The Emperor and the Nightingale, only here both nightingales are mechanical. Inanimate. ... Also, raze, you put my own habit of morning sit-ups to shame: two sets of 20 each. But the 40 is pretty easy, so I'll go to 50 or 60 sometimes. It's the pushups on the floor that I added, peacefully rearming, that cause me to groan. If I go past 40, it's never much more. 250730 ... raze i'll tell you, it took me a *long* time to get this point. when i started and my main goal was to eliminate some nagging lower back pain, i think maybe i could manage eight. twelve tops, if i was feeling ambitious. if you'd told me one day i would be doing as many crunches as i do now, i think i would have scoffed and said, "that's not even possible." it's pretty incredible what the body is capable of even after a few decades of relative neglect. 250731 what's it to you? who go blather from