Happy New Year

A strange thing happens over the holidays: my pants shrink around the waistline. I attribute it to some sort of clever built-in obsolence.

Rather than purchase new pants, every New Year's Day I always resolve to get in even better shape than I am currently in. Nigh impossible, you say? Believe it or not, I am a wee bit overweight; the difference between my ideal weight and my current weight, however, could be measured in mere ounces (of course, so could an elephant, given enough digits).

So a plan is enacted. My fitness regime generally consists of a series of short runs - about three in total over the month of January - during the course of which I remember that exercise sucks each and every time. No doubt about it. It is at this point that I reassess the possibilities. Dieting is one. Simply doing nothing is another.

In the spirit of truly scientific thinking, I embrace T. C. Chamberlin's philosophically seminal method of multiple working hypotheses, and search for yet more alternatives. Eventually, my mind wanders, and I turn my attention to more pressing problems.

Such as why my shirts have gotten tighter about the midsection.