I have a muscle ache this morning. Heck, I had it last night before going to bed. What is an old man like me doing cleaning out and scrubbing concrete window wells? That's what neighbourhood teenagers are for...right?  Give a young person a job Mark!

I finally figured something out this morning...I am a perfectionist. I often blame others for this exact character flaw meanwhile I am the chairman of the board of it. Time for an intervention.

"Arms over your head!

"You are being arrested.  You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say now may be held against you"

"Who are you?"

"I am the stupidity police."

"What are you charging me with officer?"

"You are being arrested for being a perfectionist!"

"I know I'm guilty...So, you are basically offering me a rest?"

"You are being arrested."

"Yes, that's what I said. A rest."

I need a rest, we all do, but how? I work my ass off because I don't really believe anyone else will do as good a job. I've been semi-incapacitated with bronchitis for the past few weeks (because I overworked in the studio working on a new arrangement of "Straight To You" with Amy Soloway as the singer...more about that later) and then yesterday I was feeling substantially better... So what do I do? The moment I start feeling better, I start doing "things around the house" that I have been "putting off."  I call this spring cleaning because I am insane. I tell myself that once I've cleaned out the window wells and cleaned up the side of the house, I can relax.

Have you notices: People in general are working harder and harder than ever, so that sometime in the unforeseeable future they can finally relax; after they pay off their debts, pay off their second mortgage on their supposed "assets" that never pay dividends, so that when they finally get it all perfect...they can relax and retire from working so hard. Doesn't that sound odd? It should.

Stop! It's time to arrest ourselves right now. We need to be busted...before we are "busted."

Here's what's really going on:

We wind ourselves up so we will have an excuse to unwind. We stress ourselves out so we can have a drink when we get home. We tie ourselves in knots about how others are driving us nuts so that we can have a cigarette and not feel guilty about killing ourselves. We work ourselves to near death so that we can one day retire? We retire, or nearly reach the age of retirement, and then drop dead two weeks before. Some of us retire, and after six months go right back to work because we can't stand it "at home."

Daaaaaa!  We are nuts.

And so new day begins...