A bad infection slowed me down one more time. In order to recover, I'm using this month's space to discuss how I go about writing my monthly column for the Senior Perspective -- the Glenwood, Minnesota publication that pays for my postage and other living expenses.

First, I check out the month of the year in order to come up with a timely subject. My monthly calendar helps. However, once I run out of holidays like Christmas and New Years, I visit the internet. I can always find something on Google.com that I can distort and make a little outlandish.

Why make things outlandish? In my little warped mind, most articles need a new twist. There's no fun in pulling unadorned facts out of a history book. I broke that dull habit while still writing feature columns in High School.

As for material, Google always has a few things worthy of talking about -- and they keep adding more. For this coming January, I wrote about Ben Franklin. We don't have a holiday for him but I think that we should. Just because he fathered an illegitement son shouldn't negate all of the good that he did for our country. Besides, Franklin was born during the middle of January -- a month that lacks an excess of events worth celebrating. After all, I've already covered ice fishing.

What does that leave me for next year? Skinny dipping during sub-freezing weather? A tyrade against Global warming? How to build an igloo out of ice cubes? Skiing in the flatlands of Minnesota? How to build beautiful sculptures out of a snowbank?

Ah yes. Ideas keep flooding my head whenever I get a bad migrane. Now, my main problem is figuring out how to get rid of the migranes without disrupting the flow of ideas.