1. Wrinkles. Look, the losing weight has been fine. I’m down around 85 pounds since July. The catch is, I’ve apparently been losing weight in my forehead. I can’t help but notice when I throw the right facial expressions, there’s a definite wrinkle in the fabric now. As I race through the back half of my 45th year, it shouldn’t be a surprise, but I know damned well it wasn’t there 30 or 40 pounds ago. I’m not an especially vain person, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find this… troubling.
2. Caffeine. About two months ago I made a concerted effort to start weening myself off caffeine. Having survived in a steady diet of coffee since I was 15, it was no small undertaking. The doc and a therapist both noted that caffeine could sometimes exacerbate anxiety, so it had to go. After two weeks of intermittent headaches, it was mostly ok. Today, having felt as good for the last few days as I’ve felt in months, I decided to treat myself to an iced tea with lunch. Bad decision. By quitting time my anxiety was doing its thing and didn’t ease up until bedtime. Lesson learned, I guess. It’s decaf and caffeine free soda for the foreseeable future. Obviously not the end of the world, but it’s hard not to notice – and grieve – the things that continue to fall away under this new regime of mine.
3. Presidential immunity. According to Donald Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, a sitting president would be immune from prosecution if he ordered Seal Team Six to assassinate a political opponent. Not only is this a wild misapplication of what any reasonable person would consider the proper bounds of immunity, but it also raises an inevitable question. If this interpretation of immunity is held to be valid by the courts, what’s to stop President Biden from launching a cruise missile attack on Mar-a-Lago the next time Donald lays that giant melon of his down to sleep? The whole line of thinking is batshit crazy.