In a slip-and-slide accident last year, I bruised my ribs pretty badly. I thought they were broken but the X-rays said otherwise. If you had seen my kids’ overly cautious attempts at slip-and-sliding, you too would have run full tilt and belly flopped on the cement-like surface.

My ribs hurt for two months and also served as a convenient excuse to avoid all physical activity. It also seemed like a good idea to eat more sweets and drink more beer. I did this for a year.

I did not get fat. When you have a body like Joey Ramone’s — but Joey in his 40s when he took to wearing XXL t-shirts — you don’t really gain weight; the weight just sort of moves. In Joey’s case, and mine, it moves to the gut, resulting in the kind of skinny/fat paradox that women and men find universally attractive.

My little science experiment came to a halt soon after we stayed in an Airbnb with a full-length mirror in the master suite. There was very clearly something wrong with that mirror.

Years ago I read something in one of Haruki Murakami essays on running: “As long as you have a pair of running shoes and a good road you can run to your heart’s content.” It stuck with me, but I never did anything about it because I hated running. Running was stupid.  “WHAT IS CHASING YOU???” I would chuckle to myself when runners passed by. “IS THERE A BEAR?”

This spring I took my Cub Scout on an overnight trip to NASA, and Chris Cabana, son of astronaut Bob Cabana, said something else that stuck with me: Every day, through normal physical activity, you crack your bones. Tiny spiderweb-like fractures form and then heal overnight when you sleep. In space, this doesn’t happen. In space, if you don’t exercise constantly, your bones forget how to heal.

“That’s me!” I thought. “I’m like an astronaut who never exercises!”

These pearls of wisdom, from a Japanese novelist and a NASA elementary ed specialist (combined with the grim reaper’s hot breath on a full-length mirror) finally spurred action.

Sarah introduced me to a neighborhood walk she likes to take. I went with her a couple of times and then made a habit of going on my own. Then I expanded the walk into a bigger loop. Then I started…running.

Or… “wrunning,” as I call it: a mix of walking and running. You see (warning: sad excuse) our neighborhood is very hilly.

At first it was painful. It still is painful. I feel like a rusty hinge. My knees hate the downhill; my calves hate the uphill. My lungs hate every goddamn moment.

And yet… when you start with zero muscle mass, it doesn’t take long to see incremental improvements. And I love measuring shit. In a few weeks I’ve shaved four minutes off my total time: from pathetic to merely embarrassing. I can run longer stretches, even up some of the hills. My goal is to run the whole thing, although I still haven’t figured out how to run down a steep hill without windmilling out of control.

I see more deer than people on my run. There is other wildlife, too. In fact, if anyone happens to ask why I am running, I plan to shriek “THERE IS A PACK OF COYOTES CHASING ME! RUN!”

Because running is stupid.

Oh hey, I’m mentioned in the New York Times.

The writer found this old blog post and then contacted me for a quote.

It’s cool that it was in print too. My dad even texted me (“Is this you???”).

Before 2016 I had several chances to vote for one of the Clintons — including Hillary’s first senate run in New York — and did not. My reasons for never voting for a Clinton amounted to:

• Bill said Kenny G was his favorite saxophonist. If true, he has terrible taste. If untrue, that is pandering of the worst kind.
• Hillary said, to a crowd of New Zealanders, that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. Considering she was born in 1948 and Sir Hillary peaked Everest in 1953, this seemed unlikely. Liar!
• Bill, criticizing an opponent, pronounced the word “chameleon” with an “sh” sound: “shameleon.” What kind of psychopath does that?

You see: reasons.

Now that I am older, I still think Bill is a scumbag and I’m glad I never voted for him.

But I voted for Hillary in the Texas primary and will vote — several times if I can get away with it! — for her in the general election in November.

I came to this decision after a bit of soul-searching and also because I want to avoid the apocalyptic hellscape of a Trump presidency.

“But what about Bernie?” no one has actually asked me.

Nowadays in my soft, middle years I have the bleedingest of bleeding hearts and my politics align pretty well with Bernie’s. (Except on guns, which I believe should be dropped into a volcano along with the Second Amendment.)

So…Bernie’s fine. I still voted for Hillary.

Yes, it was a pragmatic choice and not one I would have made when I was younger. Younger me would totally be on the Bernie train. Younger me hadn’t had his heart broken a half-dozen times by other can’t-win candidates. Younger me was also more of a misogynist.  (Imagine if a rumpled old lady came onto the scene shouting exactly what Bernie shouts. We’d hold our noses at her old-person smell and she’d slouch off to eat cat food from the can.)

If I were a single-issue voter, climate change would be that issue. Climate change is the largest threat to our species and we are failing to do anything about it. It’s so much worse than most of us think. None of the candidates are talking about it enough; all of them will compromise with the oil industry if given the chance. We will continue digging up dinosaur fossils and lighting them on fire until it is too late.

But I would rather have Hillary in office making half-measures on climate change than see Trump reverse the scant progress that has been made. Worse: There is a non-trivial chance Trump would spark a nuclear war, rendering climate change moot. In other words, I’d rather our civilization die slowly than quickly. I want my kids have long lives with breathable air. (God help them if they breed.)

Why am I posting this? No one reads my blog or cares about my political opinion. There are pundits and essayists who are much more passionate and articulate about all of these issues.

I’m writing this because liberals like me tend to sit on the sidelines and assume everything will be okay; that in the end Americans aren’t suicidal enough to elect Trump. But history is full of characters like Trump who were called buffoons and whose rise to power caught people off-guard. I’m done sitting on the sidelines. If we Americans elect this fascist, at least I’m on record denouncing him.

Now… go vote for Hillary.

They used a lot of weird time signatures but no one noticed because the songs were pretty.

1. Hermit crabs make great first pets because they are easy to care for and don’t require a lot of room.
2. They molt several times per year.
3. All you need is a cage and a few basic supplies.
4. The molting thing will surprise you.
5. The cage can be either glass or plastic. You can start with a small one if you’re just getting one crab.
6. During the molting process, the crab burrows under the sand and sheds its exoskeleton.
7. You need three dishes: For food, fresh water, and salt water.
8. They stay burrowed for a really long time. Like, weeks.
9. Hermit crabs are scavengers and will eat almost anything: fruit, vegetables, Cheerios. One of their favorites is shrimp!
10. After a couple of weeks you will dig up the hermit crab. Its lifeless body will fall limply out of its shell.
11. You will also need a spray bottle for frequent misting. Hermit crabs need a warm, humid environment.
12. You will tell your daughter that Hermione — the name she has given her hermit crab — is dead.
13. If the temperature in your house gets below 70 degrees you should also get a heating pad to go under the cage.
14. Your daughter will cry real tears. Along with her empty shell, you will place Hermione’s corpse in a plastic baggie and leave it on the windowsill overnight. Funeral planning will begin.
15. Hermit crabs are natural climbers, so a stick or a climbing wall make great additions to the cage.
16. The next day your son will observe Hermione moving inside the baggie. You will not believe him.
17. An inexpensive thermometer and hydrometer will ensure that conditions within the cage are acceptable to your hermit crab.
18. But he’s correct! Hermione did move! It turns out that the thing you thought was a crab corpse is actually Hermion’s exoskeleton. It really did look exactly like a dead crab. And Hermione is actually inside the shell but you didn’t see her before because the shell was clogged with sand and in all honesty you didn’t really look that closely; your attention was on the corpse, not the shell. Your daughter is both overjoyed and extremely pissed at you. You gently return Hermione to her cage, where she commences eating her own exoskeleton. Hermione regains her strength and is quite active for a couple of months, until she burrows again. Once again you get impatient and dig her up and think she is dead and tell your daughter and break her heart all over again. But the crab is actually alive (again). You are an idiot and can’t believe you did this whole Hermione-is-dead-no-just-kidding-she-is-alive rigamarole not once, but twice.
19. Some people like to give their crabs baths. This is not recommended.