I'm feeling a whole lot better this morning.  It didn't matter that my dogs got me up at 5 a.m. because they had to pee...or that when I tried to upload 20 new, cool pictures to MySpace, all I got for my trouble was an error message (maybe I'll try again next week).  I feel fuckin' fantabulous this morning (I even created that word in this morning's honor). 

Why, you ask?  Maybe it's because (pre-dawn dog piss aside) I got the best night's sleep I've had in two weeks.  Maybe it's because my wife finally showed me last night how to load all the music from my computer onto my relatively new V-Cast phone (it doubles as an mp3 player and Verizon gave it to me free for signing a new contract).  Maybe it's because when the sheriff's deputy came yesterday for the annual confirmation ritual (yes, I do live here), he was actually quite friendly and even seemed to regard me as a fellow human being - and now I don't have to worry about another visit until next June.  But just maybe, I learned this morning, my better mood has something to do with dirt.  That's right!  D-I-R-T, dirt! You see, yesterday I took out some of my angst working in the flower beds around our house: weeding, removing twigs and rocks, and tilling (sure, I know it's late in the year, but at least I'm doing it!).  By nightfall, I was exhausted and looked and felt like Charlie Brown's friend Pigpen, except dirtier.  

This morning, wondering why I felt so fantabulous, and never imagining the traces of dirt that remained under my nails even after a solid scrubbing could have a damned thing to do with it, I plopped down in a comfy chair and began reading the latest issue of Discover magazine.  On my way to the cover story about Science and Islam, I was waylaid by a piece written by Josie Glausiusz and entitled "Is Dirt the New Prozac?"  I want to copy it here, but it's a really long article.  Here's an extremely condensed version:

"[R]ecent studies indicate that treatment with a specific soil bacterium, Mycobacterium vaccae, may be able to alleviate depression.  For example, lung cancer patients who were injected with killed M. vaccae reported better quality of life and less nausea and pain."  How's that?  A "team of neuroscientists and immunologists...have figured out why this works. The bacteria, when injected into mice, activate a set of serotonin-releasing neurons in the brain - the same nerves targeted by Prozac." The bacteria found in dirt "had the exact same effect as antidepressant drugs."  After discussing an assortment of studies and evidences, the article goes on to say that "The results so far suggest that simply inhaling M. vaccae - you get a dose just by taking a walk in the wild or rooting around in the garden - could help elicit a jolly state of mind.  'You can also ingest mycobacteria either through water sources or through eating plants - lettuce that you pick from the garden, or carrots,' [University of Bristol neuroscientist Christopher] Lowry says."

Interesting, no?  If you want to read the whole thing, buy the magazine at your local newstand or get a discount subscription at http://discovermagazine.com/.  As for me, I think it's time to get dirty.  I'm sure MySpace can live without me for a few minutes.