i went down to the mass general hospital this morning for my biannual medical checkup, the same appointment i thought i had monday morning but turned out it was today instead. basically i got my blood pressure read by the nurse (140/90), had a 10 minute chat with the doctor, then got my blood drawn for a few tests (e.g. cholesterol). my doctor and i started talking about our commute (he lives around davis square) and he showed me his iphone with the nightly ABC news podcast he downloads. we discussed maybe switching me to a different hypertension drug, because i've been on the atenolol for many years now but my numbers are still always borderline. one of the side effects of atenolol is loss of energy. it made me wonder: how much more energetic can i get if i stopped taking this drug? maybe the medicine is preventing me from becoming the dynamo i was born to be! we decided i should take some blood pressure readings at home and get back to my running regimen before my next visit something this summer. checking my records, he noticed i've gained some weight. i promised myself i wouldn't do this, but i started getting defensive about my weight gain, told him the hospital scale was inaccurate because i had all my clothes on (when i weighed myself at home i'm 10 lbs. less, they should really think about weighing people naked at MGH). later, when i was getting my blood drawn (it was hard, but i kept myself from moaning because i hate needles), i asked the lab technician about all the id stickers the office prints out. if they had to draw a test tube of blood for each sticker, i'd be dead. fortunately, they always print out more than they need, the rest they just throw away (i was tempted to ask for one as a prize, but decided against acting immature so early in the morning).

the subway train switched to alewife express when we got to harvard square, but i was getting off anyway. without the falling snow from yesterday, the square was lacking in drama. instead of wandering around again looking for photo ops, i decided to head home. some neighbors whom i'd thought had already sold their home this past summer was having a midweek open house. it was by appointment only, and i noticed a few people sitting around inside their heated cars, waiting for the showing to get started. they all looked like russian mobsters and they all drove large SUV's. i peered out the window to see who else would show up but nobody interesting.

in the afternoon i went with my father to costco to pick up some supplies. there's always something new every time i go. we saw a mechanical swing arm for sale, designed for mounting an LCD screen on the wall. we were just talking about it this past weekend. i thought my parents wanted to get one for the cafe but my father was thinking about installing it in their bedroom so my mother could watch streaming internet broadcast from bed (there's probably an easier solution).

i took a hot bath in the early evening and almost fell asleep in the bathtub while reading the latest issue of newsweek. i tried to imagine what it'd be like waking up half submerged in tepid water, my body reduced to a shriveled prune. i had some chicken rice leftover my father gave me before dropping me off earlier. throughout the day, i played some more god of war. i'm at the part where the oracle has been kidnapped by harpies.