Monthly Archives: March 2012

Caturday 3/31/12

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Eeehhhhhhhh

Good Caturday morning, sunshines.

The cats don’t understand how Easter works. I tried telling them there will just be plastic eggs filled with catnip scattered around the apartment (because they are never ever allowed to go outside because if I lose them I will end my life, duh) and that this somehow has something to do with Jesus, but they think it’s like Christmas and, therefore, are assembling a list of demands:

  • 1 human-sized chocolate bunny but instead of chocolate it is swiss cheese and instead of a bunny it is Rihanna
  • 2 king-sized waterbeds stacked as bunk beds
  • Every episode of Arrested Development but only on VHS
  • Subscriptions to Audubon, National Geographic and Cosmopolitan
  • A taser
  • Jack in the Box gift cards
  • One year of Thursday night VIP table reservations at Butter (because Paris Hilton says going out on Saturday makes you look desperate)

DID YOU KNOW MARSHALLS CARRIES PRADA SHOES

Oh yeah. And Ralphie wants some discounted Prada shoes.

I can’t believe I got that picture of her. Usually it goes a little something like this:

Yup.

And this is the greatest picture ever taken of Weaz ever.

HAHAHA

I’d Like to Propose a Toast

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I said toast, mutha fluffaaaa.

The first 20 seconds of Kanye’s “Last Call” are instantly my favorite 20 seconds of the day any time that song comes on. Because, as you have all probably gathered by now, there is nothing I like more than pretending like I’m cool enough to rap. (I’m not.) Or at least hang out with rappers. (Definitely not.) OR at least gyrate awkwardly in my car any time one of my jams comes on. (This I can do, most expertly in fact.)

Nah. When I say I’d like to propose a toast, I’m not talking Hennessy or Cris or Patron toast. I’m talking toast.

Toast need not be boring or shoved in your face while barreling down the interstate in your (gas-less) car. No no. With a little finesse and about five minutes, you can whip up a breakfast suitable to be celebrated. Or at least blogged about.

Since I’ve got the floor (for my toast and all) I’d like to go ahead and declare it fact that peanut butter is better than almond butter. And cashew butter. And sunflower butter. And any other butter you can think of. Except cookie butter. Nothing is better than cookie butter.

Do not try to argue with me. You are wrong. I know this because one of these toasts had almond butter and one had peanut butter and I ate the peanut butter one last because I always save my favorite things for last so the taste lingers. Duh.

So yes. These toasts are:

  • Almond butter, honey and cinnamon
  • Almond butter and dried plums
  • Peanut butter, apples and cinnamon
  • Peanut butter and grapes

I’m a big fan of using fresh or dried fruit instead of jelly. Trust me.

Yep. A whole post about toast. Just another day in the life. And on that note…

You fancy?

Rihanna GIF on Twitpic

It Was a 2 Day

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At least it was Fashion Star Taco Tuesday.

“Oooooooooooh, girl. Yours is bad. You’re gonna have a 2 day.”

Mitch is reading me my horoscope. She means a 2-out-of-5 stars day. We are both fully reclined on our respective couches hurling insults at the designers on Fashion Star and dreaming about the day we finally move up in this world and can afford to fast forward through commercials like rich folk. It’s funny, though not surprising, what we’ve chosen to do with our free time now that we have it.

“Uh yeah, I know. It’s 11pm. I already lived it.”

“HAHAHA. It says you feel worse about yourself than ever. Also your love life sucks.”

Only half true. So very true.

Anyway. What ha’happened was…

I tore into my day the best way I know how: dismissing all three of my alarms and skipping yoga.

Because checking all my email(s), Facebook, Twitter and text messages first thing from my phone always puts me in such a chipper mood, I decided to do that, too.

Having been informed by an email checked on my phone (which I always find more rage-inducing than those checked on a computer) that the food lab would no longer be available for the Student Dietetic Association to use for our National Nutrition Month Healthy Bake Sale prep, I took it upon myself to go ahead and make 3 dozen cookies before breakfast.

What is wrong with me?

This left me approximately 15 seconds to get ready for work, which meant I threw on a dress. Because, really, who has time for pants? No one.

It wasn’t until stepping out to my car that I realized it was totally cold outside. Also that I hadn’t shaved in… I don’t even know how long. (My love life sucks, remember?)

As is usually the case, my car looks like this:

Standard.

No gas and every single warning light on. Perfect.

Because I like to live life on the edge, I decide to drive 30 miles on empty. People ask me what drugs I’m abusing to stay so energized and “with it.” I regret to inform you that I actually just drive around with no gas in my car. You should try it. It’s wild. Also I drink a lot. (Not while driving.)

Anyway, I hauled ass down I-77, coffee-less because I couldn’t find my travel mug (OH! it was already in the car because THAT MAKES SENSE) and Kanye-less because I couldn’t find my ipod (where are all of my things is what I’d like to know…?), so I could get to work in time for our meeting.

No matter how late I am, there is always time for me to put coffee in my face so I stopped at Starbucks. The slowest Starbucks on the planet. While waiting (a million years) for my latte, I had to shift myself out of the early-morning sunlight because angry people don’t like happy bright things and it was highlighting my leg hair in the least flattering way possible.

I went to the meeting and then proceeded to eat a banana with peanut butter with a fork like a real asshole and slam that soy latte (so hard) like a champ.

What are you doing?

Shortly thereafter I had to turn around and drive back to Charlotte to go to the damn doctor. Because asking for the morning off to avoid driving a million miles in one morning would have made too much sense. Of course the tank is still empty. It doesn’t need gas because I run it on ADRENALINE.

I arrive at the doctor’s office a solid 45 minutes late only to discover that I do not have my insurance cards. Whether or not I even have insurance right now is a little bit questionable, actually. I just rolled with it and said I’d fax it over later. Mmmmhmm, was the look I received from the receptionist. Girl, you know.

This appointment was no big deal but I, as the biggest hypochondriac on the planet, have been fairly certain I have been slowly dying of cancer for the last eight months or so… So I was pretty stressed out. Obviously I do not have skin cancer. But please tell me if you find this exchange completely inappropriate:

Doctor: Who do people tell you you look like?
Me: Rebecca Gayheart. But she’s becoming less relevant…
Doctor: YES. That’s it. She has a sex tape, right?
Me: … I… would not know.
Doctor: Yep. She does.
Me: …
Doctor (while touching me): You must work out.
Me: Yep.
Doctor: I mean, seriously.
Me: …
Doctor: Paris Hilton. Pam Anderson…
Me: …
Doctor: Other sex tapes.

Uhyeah. Me too.

I tried to zip right on back to work because, you know, this lunch break was getting kind of long. But let me tell you a little something about I-485…

I don’t know who put up the directional signs for this interstate but they neglected to consider the fact that I AM NOT FERDINAND MAGELLAN. Just because a highway is a circle doesn’t mean you can get all willy nilly with the signage assuming, “Ohhh, they’ll just keep going until they’re back from whence they came.”

INCORRECT. Because that is a really big circle and I don’t have the time or the gas to drive all the way around the city of Charlotte until I figure out if I’m supposed to be on 485 outer or 485 inner or 485 west or 485 south or whatever else they want to name the exact same road.

Anyway. I got on 485 going what I assumed was the wrong way so I exited and turned around only to find that I was right the first time. The silver lining to this directionally-challenged cloud, however, was that I was gravitating towards my favorite falafel place in town.

What good fortune.

I grabbed a falafel platter at Zeitouni and hightailed it home. I mean back to work. Which feels like home. Which is very very sad indeed.

I had to run to the microbiology lab to check on my nastyass mystery cultures that I swabbed from a salt shaker on campus. (GUH-ROSS).

Pass the salt.

You see that flawless slant growth? I know, right? I have a future in this. I’m totally changing my major AGAIN.

(Nope.)

I wrapped up the day by cramming a quick weightlifting workout in before two riveting hours of mineral lecture. After class I asked my friend to drive me to my car (which I have to park in a lot like a mile away from campus because the po-pos discovered yesterday that I’ve been driving around with a fake parking pass for a good solid year) only to find that it was still on campus. Except that it wasn’t at all and my friend spotted it right there in the lot before I could even figure out what was going on. This is how with it I was by 7pm. Also she hit a car in the process. Yup. Atta girl, honey boo-boo child. I blame myself for your misfortune.

I’ve only practiced yoga once in the last 11 days and felt today was deserving of a mighty comeback. So I drove straight to the studio and threw myself on my mat, very grateful that it was there and I was there and I exist and life is good.

The only way to end a day like this is with cookie butter-stuffed Girl Scout cookies, a combination that my friend Meg would say is pretty much like dividing by zero. It shouldn’t even be possible.

Girl Scout Cookie cookie butter sandwiches. HEH?

I still haven’t filled up my gas tank, by the way.

Sweet Tater Talks: Core

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Thumbs up.

Let’s talk about abs.

Hot damn, people love abs. Am I right or am I right?

“So let’s work on the stomach. Nobody wants a little tight ass…” – Kanye West, Workout Plan

People do crazy things to get that elusive six-pack. They eat nothing but grapefruit or cabbage or cayenne-lemon-maple water. They read books and watch videos and, in moments of weakness in the wee hours of the morning with a pint of ice cream in one hand and a phone in the other, order outrageous contraptions off of infomercials that promise instant results* (*results not typical).

For a very long time, I was one of these people. I went through phases… Sometimes I went the calorie restriction route. Other times I’d do 500 crunches a day (why this number, I do not know). I had an ab roller and countless DVDs.

The presently saner version of myself sees a problem with this obsession, with focusing on one compartmentalized unattainable ideal rather than whole-body health. I don’t know why we (“we” being human beings, myself included) do this to ourselves. Why we mentally hack ourselves up into pieces, honing in and hating on “flawed” body parts that stand out more on their own than when viewed as a whole.

The point of this is to say that when I hated my body and punished it with exercise and starved it and obsessed over attaining a certain “look,” I never succeeded. In short, I never had “abs.” (I mean, I had them because everyone has them, but they didn’t look they way I wanted them to look, which, as you can probably guess, is like a photoshopped model’s. Duh.)

Since starting my yoga practice four or five years ago, I’ve noticed this amazing evolution in both body and mind that has truly changed my life. I’m happier. I’m healthier. Hot diggity damn, I have abs. But that’s not the point.

The goal of yoga is not physical. The ultimate aim is enlightenment, and the asana practice by way of the physical body is just a means for getting us there. Of course, our modernized, Westernized view of yoga is largely as a physical practice. It may come as a surprise, but I don’t see this as entirely wrong.

As a practitioner and teacher-to-be, I think it would be short-sighted to dismiss the fact that most people come to yoga for the physical benefits. I myself came to recover from a running injury (and perhaps to try and look like Jennifer Anniston who I’d heard was a yogi, too). The asana (physical) practice is like a gateway to the rest of what yoga has to offer. Alone (without the meditation and philosophy), it’s incomplete, yes. But if we can get people in classes, asses on mats and get them hooked on this beautifully addictive physical practice, I think it will almost always inevitably leave them craving more, seeking more and, ultimately, finding their way towards meditation, breathwork, etc. That’s what happened for me, anyway.

One of my favorite things I’ve heard about yoga is this: “You can see my asana but you cannot see my yoga.” The point being that these insanely awesome poses that photograph oh so nicely are impressive, yes. But if you think that’s all yoga is, you’re msising the point entirely.

SO. All of that said… I don’t starve myself or order stupid machines off infomercials or do lots and lots of crunches anymore. I practice yoga. I practice yoga and it has calmed my mind. I practice yoga and it has reshaped my body. I practice yoga and it has strengthened my heart. I practice yoga and it has changed my life.

I practice yoga and, yeah, I have abs now. Is it the best thing that’s happened to me? Hardly. But if it’s enough to convince you to get on a mat and see what this practice is that I keep ranting about, I think you’ll see firsthand what the best parts of practicing yoga are. And they have nothing to do with body parts. Not even abs.

You Don’t Look Stupid At All

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Veggie hummus pita with monterrey jack

“All I can tell you is it doesn’t look stupid at all.” My uncle is giving me hell for doing a headstand on the beach. We’ve been here, like, 20 hours and I have already started a fight about global warming and was promised a beach house if I do not vote for Obama this year. Welcome to my life.

I’m in Savannah with my family. If ever you have wondered why I am the way I am, I think this weekend will shed some light on the gene pool in which I swim.

Por ejemplo, I had no real plans to drink excessively on this trip considering last weekend’s shenanigans (and the fact that I pledged sobriety to Mitch as moral support until she defends her thesis on April 3), but wouldn’t you know it, I had tequila in my face not 15 seconds after walking into the condo.

Tequila, lime juice, club soda, splash of OJ.

The plan was simple: drink a little, walk to a bar, eat bad food, watch UK play, drink a little more.

The only time I ever pretend to care about sports is around my family.

Yes. That.

We were all kinds of drunk before we even got to the bar, evidenced by the fact that my dad started doing one-armed pushups the second we got there. This is standard practice and pretty good gauge for how the rest of the night will go, which, in case you haven’t already guessed, is never really very good.

A word of wisdom to bar staff dealing with basketball fans during March Madness: Never (ever ever ever ever ever) tell my dad and brother that they can definitely watch UK on the big screen and then switch it over to karaoke five minutes after we order our food.

It got ugly. Choice words were, uh… chosen. Threats were made. Bribes were offered.

“I will pay you a hundred dollars to put the game back on.” – my brother, dead serious

I tried to apologize for the men in my family and talk our server down, but she was having none of it. In short, our food was delivered to the table in styrofoam boxes and we were kindly invited to never come back.

On the walk home we swore up and down that we wouldn’t touch the snotburgers that were undoubtedly shoved down someone’s pants before they were boxed up, but I shoveled my veggie burger and fries into my face anyway and promptly passed out. I do not appear to have any incurable diseases this morning.

Veggie burger stuffed in face.

Everyone knows there’s no privacy or personal space whatsoever on a family vacation. As such, I’m sharing a room with my brother and a twin bed with my black nephew. (My nephew is a labrador retriever, in case you forgot.)

I woke up this morning with a paw in my face, took the little turd for a walk and set out on a 3-mile run.

“Going for a run?” my mom asks. “Shouldn’t you put clothes on first?”

“What is that, a bathing suit?” my dad inquires.

Burn.

Good morning.

I took a nice little jaunt and returned in time to walk to the store with everyone else. Things started to get a little ugly when I realized I’d still not had any coffee and am usually on my fourth cup by this time in the day. Add to this coffeelessness any level of hunger and I am truly an unbearable human being.

I tried to start a fight with my mom about how they never have food for me to eat but was too tired and famished to hold my ground so I just piled a whole bunch of food into the cart and stomped home to slam four coffees. I felt much better after that.

PB banana pita and COFFEE times a million.

We spent the morning on the beach judging people for their tattoo choices and booing the police for giving out drinking tickets.

Lunch looked like this:

Hm.

So I made a veggie hummus pita and washed it down with more coffee and a Butterfinger.

No animals.

Mmmmmhmm.

Perhaps you are wondering why I’m taking time to blog while I’m with my family at the beach. Perhaps if you could see this scene–raining, people passed out on couches, puppy destroying something I’m going to pretend not to know about on the back porch–you’d be doing this, too.

OH. Oh, and this is what my dad just said AGAIN:

“Yep. If Tater would vote against Obama we might just get us a lake house…”

I’m gonna go put YES WE CAN stickers on everyone’s cars now.