The Chronicles Of Jessica

This guy will probably be a guest on Good Morning America before you know it.

For some reason, August seems to have brought out the conspiracy theorists. Maybe it's the heat. I've never really bought into any conspiracy theories, except one: I believe that the people at the Norton Anti-Virus company and McAffee and those places are really the ones writing computer viruses and sending them around to infect people's computers. How else would they know how to write the cure for the virus?!?!? THINK ABOUT IT!

But since I have a mac I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about it. Live and let live. Now there's this whole subset of the American population who have decided to drink the koolaid of this conspiracy theory about the President not really being the President because he wasn't actually born in the United States. (Except he was.) This is like the fringiest of the lunatic fringe, and they won't shut up, and for some reason people aren't just ignoring them. This just proves that most of America has never lived in a big city. In a big city you learn to just ignore the crazies; the worst thing you can do is give them attention! That's what they want! When a guy gets on the subway wearing a 3 piece paper bag suit and ranting about how women are special agents sent by the government to destroy men (which we are, and that guy can most often be found on the F and V line on or around 53rd street in Manhattan), you keep your eyes on your magazine and turn up your iPod. You don't say to him, "Your views are interesting and warrant further consideration." When a lady wanders past you in the park with a tinfoil hat slapping herself in the face and denying the Holocaust, you don't smile and say, "Fascinating! Why don't you have a seat next to me and tell me all about it - and don't leave out the part about how they're trying to control the banks. Tic tac?"

No, no, no. The goal is to distance yourself from these people as much as you possibly can and that is the mistake the american media is making right now - they're inviting the lunatics to have a place at the table and join in the discussion. President Obama could produce a home video of himself coming out of his mother on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and it wouldn't be enough to satisfy these crazies. As a nation the best thing for us to do is to turn up the music and wait for them to amble on to the next thing, and not take any deep breaths lest we inhale the smell of cat food wafting off their hair.

It's a slow month all around. Paul and I are buying a gently used exercise bike, even though we have no place to put it. When we moved into this place, we got a little pie-eyed about having so much extra space, which in comparison to our last place we do, but it's still not a big place. I am of the opinion that exercise equipment should remain hidden from view, like pornography and comic book collections, but we don't really have that luxury if we want to actually exercise. Which we don't. Why did we spend this money again?

Paulie hates exercise more than seems natural. I do believe he would prefer to have a fro-yo with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck rather than hit the gym, but he does actually realize that he has to exercise and eventually he'll do it with a modicum of nagging. I don't know what motivated him before I came along. Maybe he saw one too many cholesterol public service announcements, or maybe he was just too cheap to go out and buy bigger pants. Myself, I like to exercise, especially in a class situation but what I really really like is having exercised. In any given day I am likely to accomplish very little but if I've been to the gym I have done something. I've worked out! What have you done with yourself today, jiggles? Yeah, that's what I thought. (For extra piety, try getting up and working out before the sun comes up. Nothing can beat it for that holier-than-thou feeling.)

Now that I'm with child, I'm not supposed to let my heart rate get up above 140. Please. My heart rate goes up above 140 sorting the mail. So I'm pretty much sticking to prenatal yoga and walking, which is not exactly going to qualify me for the Iron Man triathlon. My goal is just to not turn into a complete mass of fat and old-lady-tricep-chalkboard-flappy-arms before the 9 months are up. Here's hoping.