It takes a lot of discipline to be disciplined. It isn't as if it were automatic; it's not, at least, not for me. Just because I know something is good for me, or I have a deadline, or I made a promise, when my action, in other words, is mandatory and unavoidable, I still have trouble getting down to it. Or up, as the case may be. Of course, right now I'm referring to my blog, my inexorable daily blog that I have missed for two days. What was I thinking? What was I doing? It wasn't only that I was tired or busy. I am, like most people, always tired or busy. I think it was timing. The ideal time for me to write my blog is first thing in the morning, before I swim. If I sleep too late, like 5 o'clock, there's not enough time to write a decent blog before I hit the pool. (Hit the pool sounds unnecessarily energetic. Actually, I wade softly in and gently slide into swimming position, thinking all the while, usually about my menu for the day, but this morning it was about my blank blog.) Well, then, by the time I get upstairs and have breakfast, tidy and fiddle a bit, and attack the day, it's too late to blog. Later, I say. Then later, I say later. And later. Pretty soon the day is over, the date has changed but I haven't. Oh dear. I am not disciplined enough. The way to do almost anything I have to do is simply not to think about it, just do it. LIke "just say no" only it's "just say yes." The hitch is that that simple rule does not apply to a blog. To write a blog (believe it or not), I have to think, and I do, a lot. I find notes scribbled to myself all over the place with ideas or triggers for a blog. Unfortunately, I don't run into them until it's too late. Something else pops up, if I'm lucky. This morning I had no pop-up; it was late; I swam. It took a long time to be disciplined enough to get up and swim without thinking. I used to think about swimming the way I thought about sex: it was great once you got into it but it was such a nuisance taking off your clothes (it's obvious I have a fading memory). That's why it's so nice to swim first thing in the morning; you don't have many clothes to take off, if any. Well, I ramble on. Tomorrow I will be so disciplined you won't even know me. Anon, anon.