On Friday night, after a long week of work (in a short week of work days), I figured I'd go for a walk around my hood with a neighbor.  Nice weather, stiff joints, and a craving for frozen yogurt are the ingredients for a little stroll.

Sometimes when you have a long day sitting at a desk or in a car (or both), a nice stroll feels great.  I had a chance to stretch a little bit (as much as I can stretch while in the elevator going down nine floors) and to use more muscles than those ordinarily used all day at the keyboard.

It was going great.  We headed over to Park Avenue, which is where the hot shots live (ever the celebrity stalker).  Until, that is, we unassumingly hopped on the New York City Nature Tour.  Turns out, they're free every spring.

First up was the rat.  Rat is actually too short a word to adequately describe an animal with a tail that long.  This thing jumped out of a construction site and right in front of us.  "Good thing you're wearing open toe shoes," I quipped.  But actually, I was terrified.  This thing was enormous and hairy and making it very apparent that it was quicker than us.  I mean it was so big it should have been named.  So I obliged.  Gus.

This turned the pace of the stroll up two notches, going from "leisurely" to "frenetically paced."

Then came the cockroach two blocks later.  For the record, we were on Park Avenue, lined by the nicest apartments in the world.  But this cockroach was so enormous, it would have taken the weight of a Ford F-150 to crush its prehistoric shell.  I think this thing was born in the 1700s, around when this all was still called New Amsterdam.

We turned the corner and headed directly home.  Gross and ridiculous (but, spring is definitely here!).  If there was an upside, it was that the walk's pacing kept getting quicker and quicker.

What turned out to be a fro-yo stroll turned into a full-blown exercise walk-run.  Which kind of made me chuckle at the irony that on the very Park Avenue streets which Tom Wolfe described as home to the "Masters of the Universe," today live enlarged cockroaches and mutant rats.  Go figure.

G-R-O-S-S.

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This weekend, I'll admit, I was a bit hungover. Saturday night -- deemed "Margarita Night" by the gang -- went late and loud. As little Dorothy said to Toto, "We're not in Kansas anymore," -- so I said to my body: "I'm not a kid anymore."

This was (painfully) obvious in the aftermath of my more-alcohol-than-water experience.

Anyone can kick a hangover. It requires a little bit of Gatorade, lots of water and some seriously greasy food (these are the things you pick up in college...).

The problem -- as I experienced firsthand for the first time in a long time -- is that the body (especially one with arthritis) suffers as a whole. I felt as though I was beat up with a baseball bat, thrown down a flight of steps, kicked in the groin and made to sit through the entire movie Gigli -- all at once. It was horrific!

I am never going to do that to my body again. I really felt like I abused myself (though at the time it felt quite the opposite), and the consequences have become too dire. Advil helps the headache, but even two days later I still feel sore in my hips, weak in the knees and creaky in the fingers.

Has it really come to this? Is it true that margarita is Spanish for "entire week of pain"?

I always said that if I were to travel abroad, I'd want to do it as an ambassador. Well, I got my wish, kind of.

This December I took the plunge (as in the Ambien) and went to the Land Down Under -- Australia -- to visit a friend and experience life in another hemisphere. The toilets do flush in reverse, but besides that, everything is just as it is at home, only nicer. Including living with arthritis, which isn't so nice if you're dealt that card.

I had the opportunity to meet a new friend, Ainslie, who runs the Arthritis Foundation Australia (read: Arthritis Australia), and we sat and talked for hours about the similarities and differences facing our two distant, but similar worlds. While it wasn't exactly a sanctioned United Nations or State Department trip -- and though I didn't have chauffeured service in an armored car -- I still felt somewhat responsible for representing Americans with arthritis.

What I found fascinating was learning about some of the cultural issues facing a country like Australia, which is the exact same for us in America, but not as seemingly obvious.

For example, the really strong Greek community in Australia needs educating badly. I hadn't realized this was such a large demographic (I just assumed Australians liked Greek pastry shops), and could see how English-language materials might cause a problem.

And learning about the government and medical system here, with respect to all of the expensive drugs, has been fascinating. Everything I know about socialized medicine I learned from a pamphlet about Canada, so this was a good eye opener.

It has been exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I wake up every morning praying for the "all quiet on the western front" (no flares) and knock-on-wood.

So far, so good.

To listen to Seth's chat with Arthritis Australia CEO Ainslie Cahill, click here.

So yeah, I'm an idiot for actually going to a shopping mall on Black Friday. Which should be renamed Crack Friday. The crowds weren't as bad as the distances I had to walk -- and shlep -- to get from one end to another. Granted, I was at a shopping mall in New Jersey (the shopping Mecca of North America), and to capitalize on Macy's great bargains I opted to park and walk. And walk. And walk.

Which didn't bother me that much until the end of the day, when every step felt like a giant leap into the arms of a 300-pound linebacker. Needless to say, no $5 coupon was worth the aggravation, agony and aches caused by Crack Friday.

Sadly, I let this dampen my weekend, after such a nice Thanksgiving (with such a nice family). But instead of focusing on the nonsense that is walking 3 miles in a crowded mall with a heavy shopping bag (of bedding, no less), I need to focus on the positives:  I got cheap bedding.

There's a fine line between superstitious and ludicrous. I like to think I fall squarely in the latter category, especially when it comes to my health. When I feel good I don't like to talk about it. When I feel crummy, I don't like to think about it. I know a lot of people who are very superstitious about their health -- especially when it comes to seeing doctors and taking medicine. It's as though they cut everything off, cold turkey, when things are going their way. Probably a pretty stupid idea, but I don't fault the psychological positioning of it.

It all became clear after a friend told me about a book she just finished, "The Secret," which is all about imagining something with the right concentration -- which ultimately makes it (whatever "it" may be) materialize.

I took away from this the fact that I've been doing just that for a long time, as it relates to my health. I imagine myself healthier than I really am all the time. Whether it's choosing to take the stairs (which I ultimately regret by the third flight) or attempting to open a screw-top beer bottle, I channel my health and try like heck to make it happen. So far -- knock-on-wood -- it's working.

It's like the old saying:  "mind over matter ... but if you don't mind, it doesn't matter."