I’m not saying Gamma is a girly-girl, but pink is the shortest coloring pencil in her pencil-box.

Speaking of Gamma, the other day I was shaving and she came in with a smile on her face and reported that she’d just heard a report on the radio about a woman who slipped and fell in her bathroom, fatally, after which her two-year-old child went to the fridge and brought her first some yogurt, and later a sausage. Trying to take care of its mom. Found hours later by someone. And it took me a minute to realize that Gamma’s smile was not one of humor, but the smile a person sometimes might get upon realizing that there is horror out there, bad things from which no one can protect us.

Disney blocks distribution of new Michael Moore film.

In a front-page article by Michel Marriott, today’s International Herald Tribune reports that Adidas plans to market high-tech running shoes that adapt to running conditions mid-stride.

“…The shoes will have push-button controls, light-emitting diodes to display settings and an instruction manual on a CD-ROM that will advise wearers on, among other things, the battery change needed after every 100 hours of use…”

This means that people will finally know which runners have teenagers at home, since the shoes of those without teenagers will be blinking “12:00″.

They say advice is a waste of time, because those who need it are too dumb to take it, and smart people don’t need it in the first place. On the other hand, I am turning 45 in a few days (to say exactly on what date would be self-indulgent so I won’t, but it’s next Monday) and so I figure since that’s fairly old, I have now the responsibility to share with you the few nuggets of wisdom I’ve distilled from those years of experience, not to mention all the self-help books I’ve read.

So with the caveat that I haven’t tried all this stuff myself, and am just making some of it up, here’s my advice (the first installment):

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Life has been cutting into my other activities of late. Visits, parties, trips. Concerts, doctor and dentist visits. Hanging out while my father-in-law takes the Dobl