Bad habits at 22 aren't really habits. They're indulgences. I hereby decree that a habit must be at least 10 years in duration.

I smoked pot on a daily basis for 20 years -- mostly home-grown, since I'm too cheap to buy the good stuff. I scaled way back about 20 years ago when my garden plot became unavailable. I also smoked cigs on and off, up to a pack a day, until 1997. In the last decade of that habit I found that the more potent cigarette I smoked, the fewer I wanted. For a lot of people, smoking is an oral fixation. A co-worker of mine smoked "low tar" Carletons heavily and died of lung cancer in 2004.

As a good Wisconsinite, I also like a drink. I'm sipping a Bogle Zinfandel at the moment. I try to aim for two drinks a day or their equivalent, although I can be bad fairly regularly.

A recent blood pressure test had me in the upper 120s over about 85. I can live with that at 60. I'm active, but I know I'm a lot closer to the end of life than the beginning. And that's .. OK. Sorta.

Einstein put it well: "The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat."