The man on the treadmill next to me this morning ran like the wind for five seconds as if being chased by a gang of armed men.  Then he stopped abruptly and jumped to the sides of the treadmill without adjusting the speed to stretch and breathe heavily for a few seconds.  Then he repeated the process over and over again for at least a half hour.  I suppose he could have been practicing some sort of interval training, but he just looked like an a$%ho%e to me. I find people like him, and those who walk backwards on the treadmill or sideways on the stair climber to be incredibly annoying.  If they were in awesome shape, I might give credence to their odd routines, but they’re usually not in awesome shape and, like I said, just look like a$%ho%es.

I couldn’t sleep on Monday night between severe allergies and an unexpected cold.  I took two Excedrin PM and tossed and turned for three hours.  Had I known the pills would keep me up rather than put me to sleep, I would have taken them in the morning before work.  This is not the first time medicine has had the opposite effect of what was promised on the label.  I had a chronic cough last December.  My doctor prescribed cough syrup with Codeine,  much to my delight since my sister said it would definitely help.  I took the medicine and sat up all night coughing up what felt like half a lung.  WTF?

Whenever I share personal information of a positive nature with my mother, it seems the planets misalign and what I was excited about and anxious to share loses validity.  This seems silly since my mother does not have magical powers and if she did, I’d probably have everything my heart desired, including a seven figure book deal, a marriage proposal from Bradley Cooper and a penthouse apartment on the Upper West Side.  (Actually, if my mother had a say, I’d be married to Andy Samberg – he’s Jewish, living in a sprawling house in the suburbs and raising three children.)  I digress, I think I’m just paranoid and pissed at myself that I let premature excitement entice me to share personal information with my mother since she will undoubtedly ask me about it each and every time she speaks to me from now until the end of time.  Note to self – STOP IT!  Sorry, mom…  Maybe for next Mother’s Day I’ll give a little.

Reading this back, I see that all of these observations are quite negative which suggests I’m not in the best of moods and easily annoyed.  Just last week, before the allergy monster took over, I was in pleasant spirits.  Even the endless lines to get into every bar to celebrate Cinco De Mayo couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.  Even the resulting hangover from one too many margaritas and the untimely onset of additional work assignments didn’t get me down.  So, my final observation for the day is that negativity breeds negativity.  I already knew this which is why I’m going to persevere and try not to trip the annoying guy on the treadmill, flush all of my medication down the toilet or screen my mother’s phone calls.  I hope my negative observations take a long sprint off a fast moving treadmill, choke on Excedrin PM and get buried under 20,000 questions from my mother.