Bananas. I'm not kidding. I know bananas. I now how to ripen them. I know how to store them. I know how they should taste, and I know when the starch inside of them has turned to sugar. I have a few things to say about people who eat green bananas.

I've run 20 miles, and I'm hoping to run 26.2 in the Hartford Marathon on Oct 11. I've biked about 40. I'd love to hike the Appalachian Trail, or bike across the country someday.

Considering that I was once an overweight, sick, depressed, and generally miserable human being, and I recently wrote this, and suggest this, I'd say quite a bit.

I do not lead protest marches, but I instead try to lead a life of change and present an example of the power of those changes.

I do my best to live simply and with conviction.

I do not let my temper flare easily. I live with a smile and a handshake at the ready.

People know that I only eat a healthy, lowfat raw food diet. They see the health that I experience. They know that I'm running a marathon. They know that my energy levels are through the roof.

By being myself as best as I can I hope to inspire others to change.

Thoughts in general, but specifically anything that excites me or causes me stress. These things tend to play over and over again in my mind, keeping me trapped in the past and future and from stopping me from being present in the now.

There's no easy way out of this except regular meditation to train the mind. I should get on that. 

I just finished around 6 hours in the garden so I can tell you with some certainty that my cultivars are five variety of tomato, three varieties of watermelon, cantaloupe, four types of lettuce, red peppers, celery, and a few other vegetables.

My mouth is watering for tomatoes.

Interesting question for me, as I'm a newspaper reporter, and therefore mass media.

There is a lot of crap out there that is depressing to cover. Do we really need to know more about this, I sometimes find myself asking 15 inches into a scandal story.

At the same time, I do a lot of the positive. I recently helped to get the word out about a girl with facial deformities. Four months later, a doctor has taken on her case pro bono. That makes my job a bit more worthwhile.

But if it were somehow, inexplicably, exported from homes across the nation? Well, there would be a whole lot of crap not worth reading. Rover has flees. Jason bruised his knee by falling off his skateboard.

But there would be plenty like the girl I helped, too. Those kinds of stories sometimes get buried in the avalanche of the negative, but they are what is really important at the most basic level, and they are the type of things that dwell on people's minds.

What if you could somehow coral the thoughts of the masses? You'd get a whole lot of stuff like: "I'm stuck in traffic for the fourth day in a row, and I'm about to go ape shit and ram the car in front of me"

Imagine that over, and over, and over again. Maybe this would help us get over societies obsession with the car. Maybe emphasize bicycle infrastructure and compact cites. Save gas, reduce pollution, save time stuck in traffic, get healthy from the exercise.

But you never know. We might get a lot of news about how much some old lady likes her roses...but maybe that would be good for us too.

Today, my highest calling is to simply right the hell out of an article I'm working on to complete a package for the paper this weekend. It's a great subject, and it's going to be good.

I am often indifferent about strong relationships, which I see as something of a flaw in me.

I can be outgoing, I can be funny, I can smile and mingle, but I frankly just as happy 90 percent of the time by myself.

Outside of my girlfriend, I've let most of my friendships lapse down to occasional contact.

Others rarely bring me much pleasure, and I frequently want solitude in which I can think, write and read.

I deal with people all day as a reporter, so perhaps I get all the people time I need through that.

I love relationships that bring something to the table. Really interesting people, or those who are further on the path than me are great to talk to, but such meetings are rare. I suppose, to a degree, that's why I'm here. There are some really great people on GAIA.

Conflict is everywhere. It's in out wars, at our jobs and in ourselves.

I think that last one is telling. Everything is filtered through the self, and so, to a degree, we can temper those conflicts, at least at the level that they affect us.

Today I was hiking in the mountains and had stopped to take in a view and enjoy the sun. Over a few minutes I had relaxed into a meditation.

A group of loud teenagers came bumbling through the woods. One stopped and ripped off the branch of a tree for no reason. They proceeded to yell and and be obnoxious, and my reverie was broken.

I started fuming inside, all the while hoping they would leave. They stayed around and continued to annoy me.

Then I stopped myself. 'I'm sorry, and I love you," I said to mentally, with them in mind. For, to a degree, those teenagers represented some aspects that I didn't like about myself, or parts of society for which I unconsciously held a grudge.

No magic went on, but saying so seemed to ease a part of myself which was welling up and getting angry. Minutes later they were gone.

I hold no illusions that my thoughts sped their exit, but it sure made me feel a hell of a lot better about the situation.

When anger, especially if it seems unreasonable, starts to grip you, take a look at yourself.

Say, what is inside of me that is reacting against this? These are just teenagers being teenagers.

By forgiving myself, I forgive them, and the problem doesn't seem so large.