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On my amazing, beautiful, breathtaking run along Bellingham Bay on the official “South Bay Trail” (thank you citizens of Bellingham for passing the levy that paid for this trail), I came across a fascinating sight.

I was almost done with the run and working up to a “You’re almost done! Push! It!” sprint when out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a seagull terrorizing … a starfish? “Huh,” I thought to myself, “Do seagulls even eat starfish!?” And thanking the universe for a legitimate excuse to stop my death march sprint to the finish, I came to a full stop and watched.

The seagull kept trying to pick up the starfish. Given that the starfish was 4 or 5 times larger than the seagull’s entire head, I put the possibility of the seagull making any headway with the starfish at about nill.

To my surprise and amazement, after about five minutes of toying with the starfish, the seagull managed to get the starfish just at the right angle to gulp 2 arms and the bulk of the body into its mouth and down its throat.

And then … it just sat there.

The starfish’s body was larger than the seagull’s head. Adding the arms into the equation, there was no way that the seagull was going to manage to gulp the starfish down (bringing us back to the original question: Do seagulls even eat starfish?)

I watched for about ten more minutes. The seagull sat there, with a stupefied expression on its face. I imagined it was thinking things like:

“Great, now what, Dummy?”

“Ewwww, the little tentacles are moving! I would spit this thing out, but I don’t want to look stupid since I have an audience.”

“Hey, wait a minute! Do I even eat Starfish!?!”

While I waited for the Seagull to do something, (anything!) I began to notice the detailed beauty of my surroundings. I saw many many more starfish. I saw beautiful fluffy purple starfish working their way up among the rocks. I saw the contrasting colors of the orange starfish set off beautifully by the surrounding kelp grass. I actually turned off my iPod and heard the waves and the wind. For once, I really noticed the beauty of the trail I run down every few days.

It was a calming, focusing 15 minutes before the chaos of the day started.

There are lessons to learn from the fifteen minute interlude with the gull and starfish. Some that come to mind are:

1. Stop and smell the roses! Don’t miss the scenery in pursuit of the goal.
2. It’s good to challenge yourself.
3. But sometimes, if you challenge yourself, you may end up stuck with a massive lump in your throat, unable to breathe.

Until I went away for two weeks, I had not realized how out of control my insatiable need for copious amounts of information was. When I got back, much of my 6 foot tall mail stack was filled with magazines. I’ve now spent the better part of the weekend trying to read and digest all the magazines. The only clutter and mess in the house is the four magazine piles (read now, read soon, read later, probably just throw away).

I subscribe to about 35 magazines and of those, 7 are weekly (The Week, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Wine Spectator, Business Week, Puget Sound Business Journal, National Conservative Weekly). You might think that with all these magazines that I spend almost all my time reading. But, that’s not the case at all. I probably log about 2 hours a day reading, and that includes the books too.

I like to start my morning reading a business magazine for 20 to 30 minutes – almost like a morning meditation. I have many to choose from (Inc., Fast Company, Business 2.0, FSB, Fortune, Seattle Business, 3 regional/local business newspapers, and the new Conde Nast Portfolio). I usually manage to make it through a magazine per morning, reading two or three feature articles word for word and then skimming the rest.

In the evenings, after chores have been done and dinner has been cleared, I don’t watch t.v. I read magazines and books. And, if there’s a movie on, unless it’s subtitled, I have one eye on the movie screen and the other on a magazine. In the evening though, I read my lighter fare (Blueprint, Shape, Herb Companion, Natural Home, Scuba Diver, Elle, Lucky, National Geographic, Fitness, Shape, gossip rags, etc..) and catch up on all the fashion and gossip news. This kind of reading relaxes my brain. I usually keep a notebook beside me to take notes about ideas that pop into mind or web sites that I want to visit. I also get almost all my book suggestions and movie watching ideas from the reviews in the magazines. The last step to my reading in the evening is to turn on the computer and log into Netflix and add whatever new movies came out this week (that also reviewed well) and then head over to the library site and put the latest releases on hold in the library.

I’m sure that this well-organized life will come to a screeching halt once I have children but for now, I’m an information junkie and I love it. Of course, all of this reading apparently does not stick, because our Team Bramble Berry team did terribly (not quite last place but close!) at the local Whatcom County Trivia Literacy Bee!