MR WRONG: Watch your back
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 172
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: The Only Thing Worse Than My Exercise Program Is Not Doing My Exercise Program
TODAY’S COLUMN IS not exactly a continued from last week’s column, it’s more like I never got to my topic, and for anybody out there who is interested in making a column, I adhere to the maxim “The Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told,” and I ain’t out here typing these things up as lessons for anybody, but it’s more like I am always seeing folks out on the Social Media whining about Writing, like it’s a big fucking deal, all “I Hashtag Am Writing,” urgh, please, keep that to yourself, nobody fucking cares, seriously, we got hurricanes and a big shitty Election to get though, nobody is interested in your Process, snore. Anyway, I am just saying, don’t try and tell me about that “writers block” crapola, OK? There are people out there who want you to think writing is hard, and that’s a bunch of horse-and-bullshit. The only possible hard part about writing is writing stuff that’s good, and so, this one time, I am gonna say, advice-wise, as a Professional Award-Winning Columnist, the one thing I never fucking worry about is writing anything good! Columnist! I am my own roomful of monkeys, and I Always Be Columning!
Also, sort of continued from last week, is this photographic update on my gas meter. A power company person stopped by this morning and snapped a new electronic “smart meter”–brain onto my gas meter, replacing the “smart meter” part that had exhausted its power supply. I feel good now that the power company feels good about knowing exactly how much gas we are using to heat the hot water. Congratulations, power company!
Now, back to my Topic, which is: Exercise. It’s good! I have the Misery in my back, and it got so bad I had to go to the Doctor, and after all the tests and being put inside a giant magnet so they could create pictures of my disloyal, treacherous, and back-stabbing back, the Doctor says to me, “You should go to Physical Therapy,” which, it turns out, is code for Exercise. It’s good! I go and do these esoteric movements while I am struggling to stay on top of a foam tube or a giant ball, and the Physical Therapist feels around my back and pushes on pressure points and stuff and then comes up with even more exercises for me to do, and they are good! Since doing Physical Therapy, I haven’t had a classic episode of where I am putting on my socks in the morning and my no-good rotten back decides it wants to make me crumple to the floor in a little question-mark formation, and then have to get on my hands and knees to try and figure out how I am gonna stand up without using my dirty worthless excuse for a spinal column. No more, this doesn’t happen any more because I lie on the floor every day on purpose and do “open books” and “planks,” and as long as I keep doing that stuff, my evil back is powerless against me!
The thing about exercise is, it is never done. It’s like breathing, you gotta keep doing it, every day, breathing, even while you are sleeping! Boring! Exercise is the same way, but it’s just spaced out more, like, instead of breathing, all the time, you are on the hook to exercise and count to ten a buncha times a day multiplied by whatever exercises you have to do, it never ends. You are supposed to perform exercise in the morning before you eat breakfast, and that’s good, but the thing I hate is when it’s the time of year when it’s dark in the morning—and I am not using this as another excuse to complain about Daylight Savings Time, or whatever the fuck the opposite of it is that’s coming up next month—but I just wish it wasn’t combinated with the days getting shorter, it seems mean.
The other thing about exercise—which I am in favor of on account of my worthless back—I always make sure to some music going or at least have the teevee on to distract me from hearing the emptiness in my brain in between the numbers I am counting off, “One, one, two, two, three,” etc., every day, for the rest of my life. But it’s good, I swear.
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
CLICK ON THIS box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from 250 Meatless Menus And Recipes To Meet The Requirements Of People Under The Varying Conditions Of Age, Climate And Work, by Eugene Christian and Mollie Griswold Christian, published in 1910, and now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
SWEET APPLE SANDWICHES
Cut sweet apples in thin slices, cover with grated nuts, and spread between buttered whole-wheat or unfired wafers.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
MARKETING DEP'T.
Supplies are really and truly running low of the second printing of 19 FOLK TALES, still available for gift-giving and personal perusal! Sit in the crushing heat with a breezy collection of stories, each of which is concise enough to read before the thunderstorms start.
A Word from FLAMING HYDRA: The SWAG Fundraiser and ARCHIVE PROJECT
A FIERY COOPERATIVE for press freedom, NOW with gorgeous SWAG. Plus, help preserve THE AWL and THE HAIRPIN archives!! Now it is time for our PHASE TWO Kickstarter, to raise more daily operating funds while we reach even more subscribers—and also to underwrite some exciting new projects.
Many of the Flaming Hydras once wrote and/or edited at The Awl and The Hairpin, and we want these sites to have the posterity they deserve. So we’re getting started on the work of online scholarship. With your help, and the advice and help of the editors of The Awl and The Hairpin, we’re designing an online literary refuge for a handpicked selection of the best work these sites produced, presented with care in a well-designed archival setting, with captioning, commentary, essays, and comment sections available for Hydra subscribers. If we reach our GOAL, we’ll design and develop a living sanctuary for these important landmarks in the history of web publishing (so they don’t wind up in some gross AI chum farm where they steal bylines and wreck everything!!!)
SPECIAL BONUS KICKSTARTER EXCLUSIVE: THE AWL BOOK
This collection of top-shelf pieces from The Awl, edited by Carrie Frye and published and produced by Flaming Hydra in consultation with The Awl’s original editors and contributors, will also include ALL NEW commentary and original essays from contributors and readers.
