Where Fore Art Thou Vanity?

I'm eating half of a chocolate muffin as I write this. I'll get to the other half later. The muffin while intact was the size of a softball. I was once able to pass by muffins and their evil minions, doughnuts, biscuits, turnovers, and their like, but alas, no more. In days of old when I was young...ger, I simply said, "shields up" and the tractor beams emitted by sugary confections bounced harmlessly away. I don't know why the Lord of Discipline has morphed into the Peon of Paunchiness, but I suspect it has something to do with my Buddhist/Taoist studies that had me earnestly shedding my ego like a snake its skin or an Autumn tree its leaves. Gone went the ego and all its superficial qualities, not the least of which - and herein lies the problem - is vanity. Without vanity there seems little need to maintain the slender physique of yore. The choice then was between the second doughnut or turning some sweet thing's head and I can tell you sincerely the doughnut had little chance. I was too vain. Now as I watch my face slowly sink south and my girth grow greatly - I'm ten or twelve pounds overweight and heading to New York where bagels are the size of meditation pillows - I feel no compulsion to do battle with my genetically inherited abdominal protrusion. It is what it is, a stomach that grows and shrinks as if on the waves of an internal tide and apart from the frequent belt adjustments this inspires, I care not a whit. I exercise now for heart health and not body svelte. That doesn't rhyme but it's as close as I could come.

Having thought these thoughts and put them to paper, I can now ponder their validity. Do I believe all that I have written here? I can't say for sure, but I sense the second half of the chocolate muffin getting closer and closer and closer.

We leave for NY Monday. NY may be a blog free zone...or not. We'll see how it goes.