I was recently told by a group of friends that I worry too much about stuff that I can't control. You know what -- I think they're right. I do not follow the AA adage: worry about those things that you can control, don't worry about the things that you can't and have the courage/intelligence to know the difference. But I don't know many sober people that follow that sage advice. In the age where only the paranoid survice -- how can you NOT worry about things you can't control. So I thought I'd make a list of my worries today in writing in the hope that in writing them down I'd be able to get better control of them or at least stop worrying about them for a while. In no particular order, my worries of the day are:

* The health of my family and myself

* Terrorism and G.W. Bush Jr. mismanagement of that threat

* The inevitable and current decline of America

* The dumbing down of America through reality TV and shows like "nip and tuck"

* The bad stuff in Diet Coke that causes cancer

* The date of the first nuclear bomb to explode in an American city

* Global environmental decline and global warming and the effect that has on future ski conditions

* The curse of the bambino and the Red Sox ability (or lack thereof) to win a world series in my lifetime

* The end of Six Feet Under and HBO in general

* Nov. 3, 2005

* Biting into an apple and losing my 2 front teeth (they're loose already)

* Wondering if the cell phone companies are the tobacco companies of this century -- and more specifically, wondering whether my Nokia phone is causing a brain tumor and whether I should get a cell phone with a speaker in it

Don't you feel better now. I don't either.