I smell

I ran my 12 miles -- 7:26 pace -- and since my gyros place is closed Sundays, I stopped in O'Sheas for a Dark Side of the Moon (half-pint Guinness poured over half-pint Blue Moon) and bacon cheeseburger. My waitress Clarissa remarked that "you smell the way I smelled when I used to run."

I said, "Thanks." Later, she must have felt badly about it, because when "Run for Life" by Melissa Etheridge came on the radio, she sat down at my booth and talked about how the song's given her goosebumps ever since she had a tumor eight months ago. Benign, luckily. But that was two consecutive conversations in which I had no idea what to say.

And, of course, it was only a matter of time before Dick Cheney shot an old man. A campaign contributor, no less! How quickly they forget...