This morning arrived a new brand of spam in my inbox (if that sentence seems out or order try rearranging it yourself), magazine ads — one from the Atlantic (to which I subscribe) and one from Men’s Health (to which I whole-heartedly do not). The Atlantic email contained links to stories that will appear in the September issue, including a funny piece by Walter Shapiro about the New York Times’ new policy re unnamed sources. (Shapiro was unceremoniously canned by USA Today in the spring, after many years of writing one of the paper’s most realiably readable columns. Going from there to the Atlantic is like being fired as a cook at a Red Lobster only to reappear as a guest chef at NY’s Craft.) It’s nice to find actual links to articles that will not appear in paper form for several weeks; thanks Atlantic Monthly.

The Men’s Health spam came from I know-not-where and contains links to nothing but an offer to buy the Powerfood Nutrition Plan, “a revolutionary book that will help you shed fat, build mass and enhance your sexual performance in just 28 days.” (They must have misread the form I filled out. I said Performance was my favorite Nic Roeg film. And I didn’t say I wanted to shed fat, I said I wanted to shed FATE, and that I was going to Mass.)

How did they find me, I wonder? At some point Salon offered Best Life, a Men’s Health spin off for men over 40, to their subscribers on a trial basis. And what a trial it has been! Note to BL editor Steve Perrine, who is a nice guy and has given me a few breaks in the past: The nice thing about turning 40, which I dimly recall, is that you have bigger things to worry about than getting six-pack abs. Like career death, ungrateful children, the hot breath of mortality.

Though a six-pack still sounds pretty good.