Well, if there’s one thing I can mark off the list of “to-do’s”, it’s “compete in a dodgeball tournament with my two brothers”. Stupidly, last week I was talked into playing in a tournament while on vacation, and had a 72 hour reminder after-the-fact about two major issues: 1. People with arthritis shouldn’t play dodgeball. 2. Jewish, un-athletic people with arthritis should definitely not play in dodgeball tournaments.

I, however, was the guy who composed himself for all of the cheering fans (there was a gathering of teenage girls on the sideline) (gathering = two), then collapsed afterwards in a catatonic state for the remainder of the day.

Lesson learned. I should have stuck with the mini-golf tournament…

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I hate to point fingers, but I think that the reason I’m feeling so crummy is because of my friends margarita and sangria. Thanks to them I’ve packed on a few pounds, had my share of party cocktails, and now am feeling the results…in a bad way.

I’m excited for the end-of-summer family vacation next week, where I can focus for one straight week on good health: exercise, eating right, and not drinking anything with an umbrella in it. I sure hope everything goes as planned!

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I have a hairy chest. It’s a symbol of how much of a man I am – or more realistically, how determined I am to wear a sweater 12 months of the year. The other day I was talking to someone at a pool party, and she asked me if my chest had always been this hairy. I said “well, I have arthritis, and one of the side effects of the medication is a really, really hairy chest”. And she believed me. Gotta love LA.

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This week an old man leaned over to me and told me something really interesting. He said “Seth, wake up and die right!” – and I said “John, what the heck does that mean??” and he began telling me that so many of us go through life – inevitably on the path to death (that part I couldn’t dispute) – and we don’t live the life we want to live. And instead I should do what makes me happy and gives me what to look back and be happy about. So when I do (eventually) die, I’ll die right: happy and satisfied.

For what that’s worth, living with arthritis may come in the way of doing things which many of us want to do, but that doesn’t prevent us from “dying right”, so to speak. And to that end, I think it’s worth taking this advice and considering ways to wake up, so that eventually, I can die right.

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I mean sure, you could say that the tan would be better. But one clear negative of living by the beach is how hard it would be to keep your feet soft and fresh. (One hour near the sand and it looks like I’m one quarter reptile.) Nevertheless, I think the point here is that it’s important to live where you’re happy, and if happy means healthy, then double down and stay there forever.

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