One upside: Very few lions.

It’s a bit of a blow to the ego to learn that humans make up only about 0.01 percent of the planet’s biomass by dry weight. Compared to other mammals, we totally score though. We’re more than a third of total mammal mass while all wild mammals together are about four percent. The rest, about 60 percent, is mostly our cows and pigs. Remember, this is mass, not a headcount, and cows are big and squirrels are small. But still. There’s barely enough giraffes left to populate Dubuque, Iowa, which is a pleasant thought although the ceilings are pretty low.

Not dead. Just tardy.

When you’re restricted by a sacred code of personal honor to 100 words you want to be extra careful about which ones you use. Here’s a for-instance: Sometimes the words yet and still mean the same thing. Like, “He remains there yet.”  “He remains there still.”  Then, they can kind of be opposites. “Is he here yet?” means he has not arrived. “Is he here still?” means he has not departed. Furthermore, “He is sitting still” can mean he remains as yet or that he is motionless. I ponder these imponderables. So, sometimes the late Dave Maleckar misses a rant.

If you sew, it’s the button box.

Have you heard about master stock, where you save meat juices in the braising pot and add more seasoning and use it again and again for different meats and keep this up for 100 years and the stock just gets richer and more delicious? Coffee cans of nuts and bolts and washers are like that. When you need a fastener you go digging through it blissfully, whistling tunelessly. When you take anything apart you throw the hardware bits into the can. You can pass this container along, hypothetically, for generations. For confirmed putterers, this is our little whiff of immortality.

Gradually then

Note to self: When the weather turns cool it becomes way too easy to huddle at your little table in the same clothes you slept in and maybe to add a layer if the room feels chilly and before you know it in less than 24 hours you are no longer the Purposeful Man of a Certain Age Striding Confidently along the Concourse of a Busy International Airport you are instead the Musty Smelling Unshaven Codger in Sweatpants and a Peanut Butter Stained Hoodie Shuffling in Worn-Out Slippers from Room to Cluttered Room. Watch yourself buddy, is all I’m saying.

Vox Pabulum

Okay, sometimes it seems like everything is changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up. In fact, you may have noticed that you yourself might be actually slowing down. But guess what? I’m here with good news. Remember the best you ever imagined it could be? That’s what I have for you. Remember how good you felt before you learned some uncomfortable things? I can help you unlearn those things. Plus, go look in the garage. Is that a shiny new Jet Ski? Yes it is. I bought it for you. And I put it on your credit card.

I've had to omit some details.

About  300 million years ago, while the landmasses were busy forming the supercontinent Pangaea, plants developed tough woody tissues which then-current bacteria were incapable of digesting. While the bacteria were evolving their way around this, an incredible number of trees fell down and didn’t rot at all and that’s where all the coal comes from. Plus because of all the carbon trapped this way, the atmosphere became insanely oxygen rich, supporting things like eight and a half foot millipedes. But all good things come to an end and this Carboniferous Period gave way to the Pennsylvanian, which featured Fred Waring.

Mass isn't weight, but it might as well be.

Here’s the thing about gravity; it’s nothing personal. You and the world are simply strongly attracted to one another and pound for pound you’re pulling on the planet just as hard as it’s pulling on you. If you should happen to tumble down a flight of stairs or go flying over your handlebars,  remember that the floorboards or asphalt are absorbing exactly the same punishment as you are. Everything’s in perfect balance. Equilibrium is preserved. That’s how I can accept that bad things happen to good people. What still irks me is how often good things happen to really rotten people.