Dear Journal,
I’m drinking beer on a Sunday night at 7:20. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Maybe it was when I was 19 and I shouldn’t have been anywhere near alcohol. Or perhaps it was when I was 24 and drowning my sorrows over all the negative things that happened when I was 24. It might have even been last Sunday for all I know, because my memory’s just not what it used to be.
Nobody told me that the closer you get to 40 the worse your memory gets. I naturally assumed the age for memory degradation was 10 years away at the least. I was wrong.
And at least this is Irish Ale, so I can pretend I’m not hiding in this back room by myself drinking swill that I could have gotten for a couple of bucks at the corner store. For one, there are no corner stores here because there are no corners in the country. I bought this Irish Ale at Target, a place which up until about 6 years ago didn’t even carry alcoholic beverages. Oh how the winds shift.
So I’m drinking beer, and still trying to figure out whether or not I like the taste. I had a conversation the other day with a youngster who told me she hated dark beer, and I asked why. She said it was too thick, and I think I knew what she meant. When you take a sip of dark beer you need to be prepared, because it fills you up faster than the light stuff. It’s what I would call an “acquired taste.” And yes, I like dark beer, but I like the amber stuff too, and the light stuff too.
I just don’t drink very much of any of it too often. And that’s not because of the taste. That’s because I honestly have such a low tolerance that more than one bottle of beer (I don’t drink cans if I can help it) makes me just a bit tipsy. I used to think I was a silly drunk. I’m not. I’m just a bit more hyper than usual, which sounds like an innocuous thing but can get me into serious trouble. So I draw the line at two.
At least tonight.
Sam
Sam's Online Journal 
I did some reasearch about the brain, learning, memory, etc. It suggested we are seriously wrong with the way schools and classrooms are run. But thats besides the point. Exercise. My research taught me exercise increases the brain’s ability to retain information. People qho exercise regularly throughout their life, espcially as they get older and far less likely to be diagnosed with dimentia and/or Alzheimer’s.