I'm trying to take better care of myself as I get older. That's kind of a lie. What I actually mean to say is that I'm trying to treat health care as a beauty product. That may not make sense, but I'll explain: I'm going to get new glasses today. This is a good thing, since I haven't gotten new glasses in about eight years. In eight years, my eyes have gone from so-so, football-shaped, astigmatism nightmares, to kinda-bad, scrambled-egg, astigmatism prisons. The glasses that I have can't quite cut it, so it's time to get new glasses. But the only reason I got new glasses, really, is because the optometrist told me not to wear my contact lenses for two weeks, and I need to get glasses so I don't wear around the crooked, misshaped glasses that I've had for eight years. I've probably slept on these things. I might have taken a punch in them. I don't know. That's blacking out for you.

It's good that I have been going to see optometrists. For about four years, I wasn't wearing glasses or contact lenses, and I just pretended like I could see. I'm serious, I did a LOT of pretending. Unless you were standing next to me, I really couldn't see your face, and I did a lot of guessing based on how you walked, or what kind of clothes you wore, or whether or not you were really a grizzly bear. That was a scary day. I think most of it was that I had gotten punched while wearing, or slept on, these glasses, and I didn't have the money to get them fixed, so I just stopped wearing them. These are the kinds of decisions I make. What do you want from me?

Well, two years ago, I went and got contact lenses, because I was like, well, vain. I have no problem admitting that I care about how I look. Actually, that's not true. I think I have a total problem admitting that I care about my looks, but whatever, it's all over this blog now, no use trying to back up, hit the erase button, and pretend that it never happened. Now, as I'm going to get new glasses, which were promised to me like they are stylish and I will want to wear them, well, it's one of the many health-related things that I do solely based on how I look.

I stopped drinking Coke. I started drinking Diet Coke. I started running. I stopped injecting brownies directly into my abdomen. All of this has allowed me to lose like 25 pounds in the last few years. I think if I could happily be 25 pounds heavier, it wouldn't matter, but the fact is, when people are like, "Your stomach is touching my grocery cart," I realized that I had a problem. That never happened, but what if it did? That would be awkward.

I also started going to see a dermatologist to deal with my psoriasis. So far, that's going well, and when I see people, they're like, "Hey, looks like your skin thing is doing better." I really want to ignore my steroid treatments for a while, and watch as I get covered in white crusty plaques, and see if those same people are like, "You look like you got burned by acid blood, like in those Alien movies." They wouldn't, and neither would I. Those things are itchy, and I hate them.

This leaves one last thing for me to do: I need to go see a dentist. This is an activity that I've managed to skillfully avoid for about way too long. If I told you, you would not be my friend anymore. But I promise that I will. I kind of hate dentists, with their, "You should floss more," and "Peanut butter is not toothpaste," and "Stop pulling out your teeth by tying them to a car bumper," I mean, it's like they think they're better than me.

I think I'm doing pretty good, considering that I base most of my decisions on: is that going to cost me money that I don't have; or, does it really matter, because no one can see that I have had to get half my liver removed because of a bullet wound? I mean, just kidding! I was never in Sri Lanka!

So, yeah, if this got too personal for you, I'm sure I'll be back in the next couple of days with another blog about how I'm going to take over the world with a combination of mirrors and injured veterans of the National Football League. Oh yeah. That day is coming, my friends.