I am attempting to perform delicate editorial tasks requiring intense concentration. Outside my window, a jackhammer is sounding  - but the sound is intermittent. Just when I think, with a sigh of relief, that they are finished banging around out there, they start back up again.

This is the joy of having an office in downtown Salt Lake City during the most intensive area renovation since they started throwing up buildings 160 years ago. (Okay, I can't really document that last statement. But it FEELS like the most intensive renovation.) It's going to be GREAT to work here four years from now. I'll be the envy of all my friends. But for the foreseeable future, we've got a high-rise condo going up on the west, a lower-rise condo on the east, and all kinds of stuff coming in on the south. It looks and sounds like a war zone. If I miss my train and have to drive in, my parking spot is a quarter-mile away, and they've closed the mid-block crosswalk I used to use, so the route to my office is now a tedious walk AROUND Temple Square instead of a restful walk THROUGH it.

It doesn't help that my husband keeps forwarding me email reports of crane accidents.

When I think of how much easier it would be to email myself my files, pop them on my home computer, and work on them in my jammies, in silence, with a fully stocked refrigerator close at hand, it really makes me wonder what I'm doing here.

Hold all my meetings, friends. I'll see you in four years. (I wish!)

Last week, my daughter and her husband went to the doctor for physicals. The doctor told my daughter that her Body Mass Index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height) was a bit too low, meaning that she would probably feel better if she could put on a little weight. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders how THAT could happen in MY gene pool.

But anyway, cool. Wouldn't you think the "cure" for that ailment would be something like Oreos and whole milk? No such luck. He told her that the best thing she could do would be to exercise and build up her muscle mass.

Then it was her husband's turn. His BMI was a little on the higher end of the scale, but the doctor told him that it could be easily fixed. The best thing he could do would be to exercise.

The irony is inescapable.

If I ever pull myself together sufficiently to write another book, I'm going to title it "I Hate It When Exercise Is the Answer." I hate it mostly because exercise ALWAYS seems to be the answer. Pick up any women's magazine on any given week. Exercise is prescribed for weight issues, heart issues, diabetes issues, depression issues - if you've got issues, you're gonna have to exercise. If your issues are with exercising, as mine seem to be, you're just out of luck.

I suspect that what I really hate, though, is not the notion of exercise per se, but the idea that I've known all along what I SHOULD do but just haven't done it. It's the same with the "Sunday School answers" of reading the scriptures and saying your prayers. You can hope all you want for some mystical answer that will bring you that "mighty change of heart," but when it comes right down to it, those are the answers that always come up.

Maybe it's time for me to grow up and admit that it's because they're the right answers.

When we moved our corporate headquarters to new offices a year ago, I learned that the new restrooms had those faucets where you don't have to turn a handle, you just stick your hands under the spout and the water begins running automatically. I understand the desirability of this from a sanitation point of view. But I have a problem with it.

My problem is that I seem to be the wrong height or girth or something to make those auto faucets work properly. I first noticed this in the airport, when all around me were merrily washing their hands and I was thrusting mine back and forth, trying to get the angle right to make the water come out.

The faucet in our restroom at work seems to obey me pretty well. The only problem is, it always - and I mean always - turns off before I have gotten all the soap off my hands. And then it refuses to turn back on unless I step clear away from the sink, drippy hands and all, and approach it anew.

The reason I attribute this problem to my height is that I haven't ever noticed anyone else experiencing these kinds of difficulties. I'm suspicious of height discrimination anyway because I always get a sore back when I wash dishes (from leaning down to get to the sink), I can't sit comfortably in an airplane, and it took a week of trying and finally some help from a shorter friend for me to figure out where to put the coins in the drink machine at work because there was a little metal "outcropping" over the slot and I couldn't see under it from my angle. On the other hand, I can reach the items on the top shelves of all my cupboards. So there are tradeoffs.

Anyway, I've noticed that paper towel machines are now starting to be automatic, and even soap dispensers. So I expect to spend a good portion of my days waving my hands around like an idiot, which the more cynical part of me suspects was the manufacturers' intent all along.

 Anyone who claims there are no significant emotional differences between men and women have never experienced Mother's Day and Father's Day in my ward.

Some wards don't even celebrate Father's Day, which should be one indicator right up front that there are gender differences. We observe both occasions in my ward. On Mother's Day, the men take over the Church jobs of all the women so they can relax and enjoy Sunday School and Relief Society. The bishopric agonizes over what gift to present. Plants are a frequent choice, but we have many apartment-dwellers who have noplace to plant them. Cut flowers seem to be out of the question--most men perceive them as a waste of money although women in surveys say they would rather receive fresh flowers than a plant. This year we got a nice booklet. Last year I was in Seattle on Mother's Day, and the bishopric in that ward presented large-size Cadbury chocolate bars, which I applaud most heartily except I know our bishopric shies away from those, too, as unsuitable for diabetics. They just don't want to offend anyone. That seems to be their primary goal on Mother's Day: It's not to honor the moms. It's not to honor motherhood or even womanhood in general. It's just to not make anyone upset.

On Father's Day, during the last 10 minutes of priesthood meeting, they gather all the classes from deacons to high priests together in the multi-purpose room and present them with "Fat Boy" ice-cream sandwiches. Everyone is happy. No one tries to probe for subliminal meaning in the choice of "Fat Boys." They eat their ice cream and yuk it up and go home happy.

What would happen in your ward if they tried to give "Fat Boys" to the women on Mother's Day? Almost too horrible to contemplate, isn't it?

And THAT, in a nutshell, is the difference between men and women.

I have a question about the "five fruits and veggies a day" thing. We are doing this health challenge at work, and this month's challenge is to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. The fact that I am having a ridiculously difficult time fulfilling this simple challenge is yet another indication of the sorry state I have fallen into nutritionally.

But, setting that aside for the moment, my question is this: since potatoes seem to count as a vegetable (they are even pictured on the brochure I received outlining this month's challenge), can I count a carton of French fries as a serving of vegetables? If I supersize it, does it count as two servings?

Or does something happen to a potato when you slice it into little sticks and immerse it in boiling fat that somehow leeches all the nutritional value out of it?

I need a ruling on this right away, as I'm filling out my Goal Calendar as we speak.

I was being virtuous - okay, semi-virtuous. I was on the go, in the fast-food mart looking for a snack to tide me through the afternoon. I had contemplated buying the "sleeve" of Oreos; it wasn't the full-on package, but it probably had 10 or 12 cookies in it. However, I knew that once I started I would eat them all, and I knew that this would probably mean at least 600 calories.

So I talked myself out of them, and opted instead for one "big cookie." You know the kind: a basic chocolate chip number, not quite as good as homemade (or even as good as Oreos), but an acceptable alternative. The operative principle was that there was just one cookie, so you couldn't really inadvertently overeat.

I took my cookie outside and sat down on a bench in the sunshine to enjoy it. I unwrapped it. I took a bite. Then I thought I'd take a peek at the nutritional information to see exactly how virtuous I was being by giving up the Oreos for this alternative. "Calories per serving: 150." Good girl!

Keep reading.

"Servings per container: 4."

Whom are we kidding here? Have you ever met anyone who gathered her three dearest friends around her to divide a big cookie with? If it was supposed to be four servings, why in blazes didn't they make four little cookies out of the same amount of dough? Were they completely oblivious to the distinct possibility that one person might expect to eat one cookie unaided?

Moral of the story: If you're going to eat cookies, throw away the wrapper before you have an urge to read the nutritional information.

I've had some requests to publish my "altered lyrics" to the beloved hymn "Today, While the Sun Shines." I thought hard about this, because I didn't want to seem irreverent in print, but since the original still stands without any statement, and since this is not a protest against that hymn but merely a blatant misappropriation of its rhyme scheme, I thought I'd go ahead. Here they are:

Today, while the kids scream, plaster on a smile!

Today, with the laundry stacking up in a pile.

Today, with the deadlines breathing down your neck,

Bills to be paid, and body gone to heck . . .

Today, today, do the best you can.

Today, today, it's part of the plan,

Today, today, don't forget to pray

That heaven will show you the joys of today.