I don’t have the arm nor core strength I should by now from the frequency of workouts I do. I often resist upping the ante. I will start to lift more weight, push aside fear, and do more cardio. It’s impressive what plans come to mind when leaning against an air mattress while eating jalapeño kettle chips midday. Good plan.
Sometimes the devil comes in obvious forms. He’s not sly about his intentions. He wants to lower you in. He wants to bring you to the dark side. He wants to fuck. you. up. Served strategically on the side of my soup in all of his pillowy comfort and savory fragrance, this basil, pepper, & feta beauty hanging out as a sidekick to my bowl of soup taunted me. I normally forgo standard baked goods, but this devil had every intention of being torn apart. He was not going to be ignored. What can I say? He asked for it. It was obvious.
Welcome to my 5 5 5 series. The objective of this exercise is to write five lines five times a week for five weeks, to get me back into a regular post writing habit. Habits don’t create themselves, after all. The parameters of frequency & amount of sentences/ lines will remain throughout this series, while the topics and format can be varied. Read my introduction here. Wk 3 Post 1 I was hungry when I got home from the airport. I devoured a serving of crispy pata (deep fried pig’s knuckles) meant for three people. I ate it straight out of the disposable to-go box while standing up in the kitchen, barely getting the order fully out of its Filipino restaurant plastic take out bag before diving in. I was too busy shoveling garlic fried rice into my mouth while pulling apart the pork to plate it properly. Of course I used utensils, it’s not like I’m an animal or anything.
Captain America told me that her six year old thought it’d be a good idea to send me this card as a thank you for the package I sent them last spring. I’m a big fan of calligraphuck. Now I’m a bigger fan of that kid. Such good manners, I tell you. My PO Box opens up to the most thoughtful pieces of mail. Sometimes I wonder if the sorters sometimes want to keep it for themselves. I know I’d want to! Have you written anything lately? It’s just as fun to send some out too. The Nijiya Market in Japantown continues to delight me. From sushi grade tuna to burdock root to furikake to unspecified processed snacks in cartoon packing, it’s always such a treat to food shop there when one tires of frequenting Whole Paycheck. Some time ago, I sat down with my favorite cake and a fork. I went to town that afternoon and never looked back. I like to think of it as just a really really big slice. I haven’t touched …
The thing is … I get so excited about things and then I do it intensely without taking a break much less eat breakfast or lunch, and before I know it I CRASH. Usually around this time, 4 o’clock or so. I already know this is not a sustainable way to work. I already am convinced that working on my projects this way shoots my adrenals way up high. But I cannot stop myself sometimes, and I just need to keep on going. I love for example, a print, and everywhere I go I look for it. I saw a vintage print of vegetables in a home boutique and everywhere afterwards I saw stacks of vegetables in frames, paintings of vegetables and books about vegetables. I stumbled upon covers of magazines and lead stories online featuring the season’s vegetables. There were cards with vegetables at the hardware store, ceramic replicas of vegetables and aprons with vegetables, farmer’s markets that I am compelled to walk through just to touch the vegetables. I want to see the farmers with their gritty …
Had the funniest twitter chat just now with IGidol about the lack of drinking water on airplanes. While reading her article on travel essentials over the weekend I laughed out loud when I read the line, “Would it kill flight attendants to serve a little more water than a mere half-plastic-cup full?” I can’t tell you how I always wondered why on earth the flight attendant only fills my 4 oz plastic cup barely half full before coming around to offer four more glugs 2 hours later? Oftentimes I will drink the water as soon as I get the cup in my hands and ask for a refill as soon as she is done pouring my seat mate’s Coke. Oh, by the way, why do people who order juice and soft drinks get a full can while water drinkers get a dribble? It makes no sense! Can you please just give me a one liter bottle and call it a day? I promise not to startle you next time you walk down the aisle holding a …
I am a practicing Catholic. By birth and by choice. With that, my family and I observe Lent in the traditional way, fasting and abstaining on Fridays, giving up something, attending an extra morning mass during the week, and putting a touch more $$ in the alms basket. For Lent I historically have picked up more housework that I would normally do begrudgingly, and I have cut down on t.v. My biggest Lenten sacrifice, though, that all of my coworkers and local friends (aka people in my daily life) have known about over the years is giving up baked sweets. Baked Sweets. But when I used to bite into a rosemary roll over dinner, a well meaning friend would gasp, or if I had a scoop of ice cream in the faculty room a co teacher would say, “tsk tsk”. No, people, no… you’ve got it all wrong. Not baked goods AND sweets, just BAKED SWEETS. Coffee cake, pie, a danish, a cream puff, a donut (oh wait, donuts are fried not baked?) … My …
Last week in the midst of my equilibrium diet (aka the discipline to eat mindfully and get back to my comfortable weight before my last 30s birthday) I tempted fate by slipping into the convenience store just to browse. I have a firm belief that if you are wanting to snack in a high fat, low nutrition way, it is helpful to do a market visit: just go in, see what’s out there, hold the merch, smell it if you will, then retreat. I have done this many many times over, finding satisfaction standing in front of the 24 hour fresh baked donut shop window in my neighborhood, seeing people happily gobble up their old fashioneds with crumb or chocolate glazes. At times I have had to call my sister for support, to let me talk through it while I examine each doughy treat through the glass. Eating is multi sensory, isn’t it? My theory is that if I satisfy the touch, smell, & sight senses, I don’t always need to taste. It’s not …
I ate three croissants the other day. Three croissants in the span of one hour, at around 3pm without even realizing it. This is what happened: Wanting to lightly toast my convenience store open faced croissant, I watched it go from ‘just crisp enough’ in the toaster oven, to suddenly darker and darker and darker. Just like watching a beautiful sunset, my bread of choice for the day went from golden in color to black black black. I love to cook and am quite good at it, but I cannot, as of late, toast a single piece of bread without turning it into charcoal. This is where it gets sad, as if eating a repackaged Costco-by-way-of-Asian-convenience-store croissant isn’t sad enough. I was craving and desperate. Give me a break, you’ve been there, so STAHP it. Having a love for reusing leftovers and bits of unused food, I scraped off the top and tried to eat around it. Hmmm….. Not being satisfied, I thought it only fair to have a do over. This time I sliced …
I like yoga. I really do! I enjoy a good stretch, getting my oooooommmmm on, and even the trembling of a dormant arm muscle now and then. I’ve also been known to enjoy higher intensity workouts because they make me feel strong, energized and are AMAZING for the complexion. Do you know what else I like? Feeling blissed out after eating a stack of Oreos. My friends know how much I like cookies, especially the Golden Oreos that didn’t even make it to my photo shoot this afternoon. Originally there was a really big pile of them for the intended picture for this post, but by the time I got my camera out, there was just a stack of five. Oops… like I said… I really like cookies. During a catch up phone call with Dramanut, I told her I needed to get off the phone after an hour in time to get changed and make it to Burn. As the minutes flew by between laughs and anecdotes, I said, “Oh, I am going …
Even If Nobody Reads This 