Exactly five months ago Laree said: Let's take a vacation. I said: Let's write and publish a book instead. Cool, she said, you write, I publish. Today I zip up to Oakland and pick up the first shipment of published books from the Nashville printer. This is good as no one has read "Brother Iron, Sister Steel" except for our dear proofreaders. We haven't looked at the tangle since it left for the print shop in Tennessee five weeks ago. It is time to kick the bird out of the nest and see if it can fly.

The November issue of GQ hits the newsstands in a week or so with its story about me somewhere in its slick, expensive pages. The appearance of this collection of words, however, is like kicking the bird out of the nest to see how hard it falls. I have not read the piece. Based on a weeklong interview with one of the magazine's writers-at-large, the truth and the spin will be without a wig and makeup, only a loincloth. Robert Draper, the author and no kin, is a journalist and reporter at heart. He writes tough stuff and is on the top of the list for literary excellence. His novel, "Hadrian's Walls" now a year old, is one of my favorites. I hope to survive. I wish the best to my family and friends.

Laree and I are driving down to the Los Angeles area next week for a World Gym party (I'll pass on the Olympia in Las Vegas this Saturday... my abs didn't come in the way I like) and will visit Joe and the boys at the Weider offices in Woodland Hills. Jeff O'Connell is the features editor for Muscle and Fitness and has been an advocate, encouraging my articles and forbidding any in-house print changes. Nice touch. Julian Schmidt, a long-time confidant, Flex staff writer and nails-tough lifter, has offered to review "Brother Iron, Sister Steel" for the magazines. They and the other editors, writers, researchers and team members-in-action present an interesting backdrop for an impromptu visit. The place should be buzzing with post-Olympia excitement. We will be flies on the wall viewing the commotion without the pressure.

So howzya woikouts? Mine have been terrific, just enough pain to keep me focused and thankful. Having outgrown the ability to jump into the gym and slam things around, I am developing a sneaky way to warm up, vary the reps and sets, control motion and tracking, improvise, invent and discover. When thirty, forty and fifty, my workouts were like laying bricks, one after another, row after row. The walls kept going up. Now, I place them more carefully and with more appreciation. The walls keep going up. Thank God.

Brothers in iron and sisters in steel, long may you live in harmony and peace. DD