A couple weeks ago, I was complaining on Facebook that I was uninspired by my prospects for the day:
Of all the things on my to-do list today, let’s see…yep, I want to do not a damn one of them.
…at which point, friend Deborah listed the various and sundry things she and her wife had already accomplished that morning.
I felt compelled to respond that I hadn’t been sitting on my ass:
I cooked breakfast (eggs, sweet potato home fries, and garlic scapes), walked Redford 2 miles to the gym, did planks and ring dips and squat cleans, walked Redford 2 miles back from the gym, and tried to start my new mower. Stupid fucking thing! I’ma put my foot through somebody’s ribcage! I hate gas mowers! Now I’m going to Home Depot to buy some engine starting fluid. And some mulch. That means I’ll have to mulch. Dammit. In addition, there’s grocery shopping, paying bills, and doing laundry on the list. Who can’t my to-do list include eating ice cream and having sex?
Deborah, wise woman that she is, recommended putting those last two on the list and seeing what happened.
So I did.
Of the two, I managed only one.
But 50% success rate is not bad! If I can do half of whatever’s on my list, maybe I just need to make a better list!
What should I put on my to-do list for tomorrow, Avid Bruxistists?!
About four months ago, I’m not sure why, I went off coffee and onto tea. I had weaned myself off caffeinated coffee anyway, and I don’t know, I guess I just thought tea would be healthier. Anti-oxidants and whatnot.
I was also trying to implement some paleo stuff into my diet, and though coffee and tea are equally paleo (or non-), coconut milk in coffee is NOT GOOD, while in tea it’s semi-palatable.
Anyway, I tried decaffeinated English Breakfast, and Earl Grey, and Chai, and various ginger teas—burny! Burny in my throat! (My friend, Evers, when I told her that, asked, “Meredith Baxter Burny?”)
Then for no particular reason this weekend, I bought some half-and-half and brewed a pot of coffee.
You know what’s better than tea with coconut milk?
Let’s be honest, I’m not the brightest knife in the drawer. I mean, the sharpest bulb in the marquis marquee. I’m not the sharpest bulb in the Marquis de Sade.
I’m not the brightest bulb in the marquee. There it is. Or the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I got an herb-growing kit from one of my students for Christmas. I took it home, opened it up, and planted those seeds that moment. It was only after the little hockey pucks of soil had soaked up the water and the seeds were pressed carefully therein that I realized it was kinda cold for growing things, even inside.
But THEN I had a brilliant idea.
I made a greenhouse out of saran wrap. It worked! Those herbies were growing! Eventually, they were poking up against the saran wrap, so I took it off.
And they all died.
Ever hopeful, I bought my first basil plant of the season at the Farmers’ Market this morning. Call your bookie to place bets on how long it takes me to kill it.
I ate a whole bunch of kale. And I don’t mean “a whole bunch”, like “a lot”. I mean a whole BUNCH of kale. When you buy a bunch of kale at the grocery store, how many people is that supposed to feed?
Actually, who cares? It was delicious. I dropped some on the kitchen floor and shouted, “Five second rule!”
braised cube steak with orange zest and sauteed onions, and a side of sauteed brussel sprouts.
That I cooked. As my 21-month-old niece would say, deeYISHus!
Now, do those two foods go together in the gastronomic sense?
I know not. I care not.
And did this dinner give me the toots?
Yes. Yes, it did.
But whatever, y’all. I’m cooking! Turns out, all you have to do is get a recipe and do the things in the recipe. That’s it. (Were it that simple with finding a boyfriend!)
Another thing I’m learning: you folks who cook things, you wipe down your stoves every day, don’t you? Every day. That part sucks.
A lot of people at CrossFit are into eating “paleo”—that is, no processed stuff, low-carb, etc. Indeed, a bunch of them periodically do this 30-day program called Whole30, which is super strict:
Now, I get it. I mean, hunter-gatherers didn’t pluck their daily rations from the Cinnabon tree; they didn’t follow roaming herds of Auntie Anne’s Jumbo Pretzel Dogs. I also understand that humans are the only mammals that drink milk after infancy and the only mammals that drink the milk of another animal (rare exceptions excluded). And I’m clear that refined sugar is bad for you for many, many reasons.
But legumes? Really? I guess I just have a hard time believing that something that grows out of the ground could be that terrible for you.
Before you’re all, “Cocaine grows out of the ground!”, just stop. I’m not eating dehydrated garbanzo beans that are then re-hydrated and smashed into paste. Oh wait. That would be hummus, right? OK, well, they’re not mixed with kerosene and sulfuric acid and acetone and I’m not snorting them and, yes, I looked up cocaine processing. By the way, did you know that the Eloria Noyesi moth larva feeds exclusively on coca plants? You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right? That’s probably one productive fucking larva.
I digress.
One of the CrossFit coaches said that what she had assumed was arthritis her whole life disappeared when she did Whole30, and my joints are redonk, so I’ve been considering trying it.
Of course, it would be difficult for me considering my food issues. On the Whole30 website, they say, “Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard.” Clearly that statement was written by somebody who’d never experienced an eating disorder. Food is my heroin. So imagine you’re addicted to heroin and you want to quit, but you can’t go cold turkey because you have to shoot up at least three times a day to live. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “trying to recover from a compulsive eating disorder”.
In addition, I might’ve mentioned that I can’t really cook. That would make the program difficult.
Plus there are some foods, which I consider healthy, that would be traumatic to give up.
Really just one food: peanut butter.
But the Whole30 people effuse, “You don’t need peanut butter! There’s an alternative. A delicious alternative. It’s called Sunbutter. It’s so delicious you’ll never want to go back to peanut butter.”
Lies.
That shit is nasty.
So until I learn to cook and find a real alternative to peanut butter, Whole30 schmole30.
