3 years ago I was out of time. Now I'm in it.

Yesterday's edition of this had a wrong link. Apologies.

Three years ago this week I got my formal diagnosis. This week:

Last Sunday the New Hampshire Union Leader ran a story "What's next for health care" following the Massachusetts Senate election. For some reason, I'm happy to say, they led with my sentiment that I just want people to be able to get good care when they need it.

At the end of the interview I learned that the reporter's mother had died of cancer 5 years ago.

Then this piece appeared online today, for tomorrow's print edition of Time. Again somehow they put my story first.

Honestly I think what's doing this is that I always hammer on the point "This is personal. Your time will come." Don't I know it.

And, as fate would have it, this is happening unexpectedly in a week when I'm in DC, speaking at some conferences and meeting executives of non-profits. Yesterday I decided to visit my legislators' staff on Capitol Hill; I met with one yesterday and have appointments with the others tomorrow. AWFULLY convenient that I can have this publicity in hand when I walk in!

The universe works in mysterious ways. This time, I'll take it.

#GetUpAndMove, music, and "the fun theory"

Twitter friend and outrageous visionary Jen McCabe is a brilliant thinker with a San Francisco startup company called "Get Up And Move." It's a free social media way of encouraging people to, well, get up and move. (Don't I love things that are exactly what they say?)

Its URL is the fun GetUpAndMove.Me, and its tagline is "Barter with Exercise." Go look at it. At present it's only tied in to Twitter (hashtag #getupandmove), but they're working on Facebook.

I've never been an exercise fiend, but GetUpAndMove has led to my discovering that I like doing a couple of minutes of exercise if I do it to a song. The radio site blip.fm has a ton of great songs (to play for free), so for instance if I agree to do a minute of pushups, I start one of my songs and do it. Examples:

• Soul Sacrifice (Santana at Woodstock)
  
• Little Deuce Coupe (Beach Boys)
• Ecstatic R&B love song introduced to me long ago by friend Frank Moore: Don't Leave Me This Way - starts modest and builds. Great for jumping jacks
  
• And my personal anthem: Play That Funky Music, White Boy

Today in the email from a chorus buddy I got this video, and realized this is what makes "GUAM" (as its fans call it) work for me, when so much hasn't: fun.



(I add music, but with or without it, there's the fun of challenging people, and publicly trash-talking your challenger or challengee.)

Here's to Jen, here's to Frank, here's to innovation, and here's to fun. Get up and move!