Friday, April 29, 2011

Banana Almond Smoothie

banana almond smoothie

I use the Bella Cucina Rocket Blender to make my smoothies.

frozen banana
2 Tbsp almond butter
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed, optional
1 Tbsp flaxseed oil, optional
1 tsp creatine, definitely optional
almond milk

Put the frozen banana in the blender cup, then the almond butter and anything else. Pour in a good amount of almond milk to almost fill the cup. Screw on the cap, stick the cup on the motor base, and blend for 30 seconds. Then take it off the base and give it a little shake to get anything that's stuck on the top of the cup. Blend for another 20 seconds or until the smoothie is churning freely from top to bottom.

Light Banana Almond Smoothie
Just blend the banana and almond milk together, very light and refreshing.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pasta with Sauteed Mushrooms and Lima Beans

pasta with mushrooms and lima beans

Sauteed lima beans are also pretty nom, they're chewy roasted and creamy sauteed. Both good!

12 oz whole wheat pasta
   or 4 cups cooked pasta
1/2 lb mushrooms
3-5 cloves garlic
olive oil
1/2 lb frozen lima beans

Bring water to a boil for the pasta.

Wipe, trim, and slice the mushrooms. Peel and mince the garlic. Heat olive oil in a saute pan over medium high heat and saute the mushrooms until browned, about ten minutes. Add the garlic and lima beans and keep sauteeing until the lima beans are tender, about another ten minutes.

Meanwhile cook the pasta until al dente, about ten minutes. Drain the pasta and when the vegetables are cooked, stir them together with about half the pasta and put away the rest of the pasta for later. If you have cooked pasta that you put away before, you can just add it right to the pan after the mushrooms and lima beans are cooked and heat through.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

 

* bolt upright in bed
* urgently explain to sweetie man
* why I need to get a new laptop
* like, today
# bread and greek yogurt cheese
* go forth and get new laptop eeeee!
# veganly kidney beans
* make bed
* do dishes
* clean bathroom DIE ANTS, DIE!!!
# OJ soda with chili-roasted peanuts
* set up ACE study schedule (:U***
# fried rice
* watch Sons of Anarchy
* fury practice
# banana almond smoothie

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Spring Play Wear

footless tights

SIGH WHY DOES THERE HAVE TO BE CHANGE

I've been wearing black Xhilaration leggings forever for skating, then Target switched to Mossimo leggings, and then Mossimo leggings changed to a wide waistband. DO NOT WANT. But now I have worn the last of my old leggings to shreds, and also they don't fit my butt anymore. So I went back to Target, still with the wide waistbands. What is up with that. Waistbands give you muffin tops, is what.

I actually did find Xhilaration leggings again with the socks, but they're $10 for a pair. They used to be $6.99, just saying. I mean, that's mainly what was good about them. Also why not try something new, how can you go wrong with footless tights for $5 a pair.

Well. Maybe I shouldn't have bought eight pairs.

I mean, they're okay. They're comfortable to skate in, and they have almost no waistband. I don't care if they snag on the thousand points of velcro that I'm in contact with, I'll wear them until they fall apart. Though probably that's going to be sooner than later, this pair just plain ripped its first time out. Tut.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Practice/Recovery/Sleep: Hobby and Play
 sorting balanced

No actually, I am sorting balanced. Here's my systems in action, I want to pink and blue to be balanced. It makes sense to swap out Saturday morning play with hobby, both pink. Only I will get up and do plyos and then league practice on a Saturday morning, but I won't get up and write. I just won't. I will make the bed and do dishes and make fried rice for lunches for the week, though. That's blue, but fine. But then I pick up Sunday late evening skatefit (pictured) and Monday late evening fresh meat scrimmages (not pictured) on alternating weeks, and ta da, I'm balanced again.

And also I'm back up to six practices a week. Ha ha ha.

Probably good that I'm pursuing a career in working out.

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
PLAY
League
PLAY
Referee
PLAY
League
PASTIME
 
PLAY
Fury
PLAY
Scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
SkateFit
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Who knew that keeping up with the bed and the dishes and lunches took so much time. And would make me so calm.

"Sorting balanced" and "sorting unbalanced" are actual computer science terms that I picked up from shoalmate Shannanigan. Though I use them for the feeling clouds that I get from them, and not for what they actually mean. Which has something to do with breaking up big unsorted lists into little sorted lists, and also something to do with trees and how many leaves are on one side of the tree or the other. Which is another image that I'm going to run with into the sunset. Whee.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes and Lima Beans

pasta with tomatoes and lima beans

Mainly for pasta I just saute one or two vegetables with garlic, and that's it. Roasting makes tomatoes and lima beans extra nom, though. This amount of vegetables actually makes up about half a box of pasta, I put away the rest to make up later. I don't make the two boxes of pasta like I used to and also cut out the jarred pasta sauce. Turns out the more you eat fresh vegetables, the more you lose your taste for processed food. So the roasted root vegetables with quinoa were, like, gateway vegetables...

12 oz whole wheat pasta
a pint of cherry tomatoes
3-5 garlic cloves
1/2 lb frozen lima beans
olive oil

Bring water to a boil for the pasta. Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Halve the tomatoes. Peel and mince the garlic. Toss the tomatoes, garlic, and lima beans in a baking pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I put all the tomato halves cut side down, but whatever. Roast until nicely browned, about twenty minutes or maybe longer because of the tomatoes giving off liquid.

Meanwhile cook the pasta until al dente, about ten minutes. Drain the pasta and when the vegetables are roasted, stir them together with about half the pasta.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Quilt: A Vision

dresses to be quilted

Your monkey mind is full of thoughts, yakking and milling around. The bigger thoughts that stand out a bit, those are notions. But they pass, they're big for their britches but they're just thoughts. Then a notion clicks into focus, that's a vision. I had a notion of making a quilt out of these different colored dresses. But then I had a vision of these different colors on a white field, and I think it's going to work...

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Black Tea with Bread and Almond Butter

tea with bread and almond butter

Easy but good, again.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Spring Hobby Wear

black caprisI would love to have replaced my two old pairs of sweatpants with swanky new tracksuits, because that would have been funny and comfortable to boot. Which is about as far as my fashion sense extends, funny and comfortable. I need two more track jackets like I need two more holes in my sweatpants, though. And so help me, I actually ripped the waistband off the blue sweats, and mended and sewed it back on, argh, who does that? Michael Chabon wrote, "Solace is in the fabric of sweatshirts" in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and it has something to do with that. Also a thing that you haven't worn in a year is totally different than a thing that you've worn out.

gray caprisI did pick up two pairs of stretch capris from Target, black to match my convict hoody and dark gray to match my camo hoody. I really love track stripes, but they match better without them. WHAT. THEY'RE OUTFITS. With my spring crocs, ha ha. Which I wear with white socks. Truthfully, the crocs are a little sweaty without socks.

I really could not tell you why I delight so much in dressing like my mom dressed.

Well. That's why, I guess.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Life After Taxes

nothing to do on index cards

This may be the remains of the day for the index card system. Remember that systems aren't meant to last forever, but to be internalized so that you eventually don't need them. But there will always be new systems. If you don't know, that's a portrait of Barack Obama that my nephew won a prize for. I may have told you that already.

Um. I'm actually enjoying my life, but this can't last? What am I doing again? Oh right, plumping myself up in fabric softener. I guess that's going all right. I have been excused from everything except for doing my taxes for the past four weeks. I can't decide if winter sucks too much to do my taxes or if it sucks so much as it is, I might as well get them over with and start spring fresh. Taxes, like, beats me up every year and then goes, Baby I love you, here's $145, why don't you go get yourself some tattoos. But what he doesn't know is, I've been sleeping with the enemy and have organized all my expenses and next year my new boyfriend is going to be an accountant. Or girlfriend.

I do believe I am going to get some tattoos, though. Pics TK! Also I am teensitting my nephew, and just noticed this Pinhead bobblehead gravely nodding at me from the living room bookshelf. I can tell you for sure that my sister would have allowed this in her living room over her dead body. I never let her know that I have a tattoo, either. Also this orange streak in my hair, which my niece thinks is cool. She came to the March bout and afterward she goes, who was that one girl, her name starts with K? I'm like, Kola Loka? She goes, she's sooo good, and then she goes, who's that girl with the side ponytail? I'm like, side ponytail? She goes, she has lonnng hair? I'm like, oh does she wear a black shoulder brace? She says, yes! I tell her that's Go-Go. She sighs, she's sooo pretty. Then she goes, I like Zombea, because she's little like me! And I'm like, Zombea's my best friend! And she goes, she's your best friennnnnd??? and hearts popped out of her eyes. She's at Indian Princesses with her dad tonight. I'm letting my nephew do everything, hopefully that's okay. I mean, so far he's only asked if his friends could come over and if they could go to the park. I'm not going to let him have smokes or anything like that.

But anyway, I did finish my taxes. I have basically been doing my taxes, going to work, going to practice, writing press releases, and writing blog entries. Which has left me plenty of time to always make the bed and do the dishes, and also make lunches for the week. Which keeps me fed and feeds the blog, too. I'm actually sorting slightly unbalanced toward rest, which is giving me a great sense of calm.

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
PLAY
League
PLAY
Referee
PLAY
League
PASTIME
 
PLAY
Fury
PLAY
Scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

It's not paying the bills, though. I mean, it's paying for more than half the bills and the rest is being paid out of savings. So basically after taxes and before my savings run out, the plan now is to study for my ACE personal trainer certification. Which I have had a notion to do for at least three years, after I ordered the study materials last week is when I barfed the stars (:U***

[ETA: Today's post Is It Time For A Time Management Upgrade from Stepcase Lifehack seems relevant to all of the above, if you want more to read.]

Friday, April 15, 2011

Cucumber Salad

rice tofu and cucumber

BA HA HA HA, you didn't think that I wouldn't try making waffled tofu in the waffle iron? This was an earlier experiment, the slices were thinner so there are two slices per box.

3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 Tbsp dark sesame oil
2 Tbsp peanut or canola oil
one cucumber

Measure the vinegar into a bowl. If it isn't already seasoned (some rice vinegars are), add salt and pepper and also any herbs or spices that you may want. Drizzle the oils over the vinegar and whisk it in. It should thicken to the consistency of beaten egg yolk.

Halve the cucumber crosswise. Peel and quarter the halves lengthwise, cut out the seeds, and slice the quarters crosswise. Toss the cucumber slices in the vinaigrette, I usually let them marinate all together in the refrigerator and put them in lunch containers the next day, or truthfully, as I'm rushing out of the house late for work.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Lunchbox Tofu

dry fried tofu

I am truly not that picky about tofu and am happy enough to eat it right out of the plastic container. Or boiled, which sounds sort of British but I guess is sort of not. I remember my dad objecting to being served cold tofu, I wonder now if boiling tofu wasn't my mom's version of a Kobayashi Maru. There, it's hot. I WIN. Or is that actually a way that Koreans cook tofu. I am without referents, which is what happens when your dad alienates his entire family and you grow up thinking that you're the only Korean family in the world. Also the only Seventh Day Adventists in the world.

Let there be no doubt that I am my father's daughter, though. Why not fry tofu in a waffle iron? It's square so the pieces fit better, and you can fry both sides at the same time; the hotplates are reversible, griddles on one side and waffles on the other. I googled this recipe for dry fried tofu, and it says not to use oil. So also, it's a non-stick waffle iron. And the weight of the iron presses the tofu as it cooks, if you're into that. Though I'm not hysterical about pressing tofu to make the texture more like meat, I like tofu the way it is. Aw.

two 16 oz blocks of extra firm tofu

Heat the waffle iron to medium. It takes a while to heat up. If you're making lunch boxes, put the rice on now.

Slice each block of tofu crosswise into quarters, and pat the slices between paper or cloth towels. When the iron is hot, lay the slices on the bottom griddle and close the top griddle as evenly as possible over the slices. I put my cast iron frying pan on top of the waffle iron to press the tofu, and it did press out quite a bit of water that very neatly ran out that little spout on the lower right. You pretty much just walk away at this point, let the tofu cook until it's browned. Maybe twenty minutes?

When you think the tofu is done, open the waffle iron. There may be a moment where you think that you glued your waffle iron together with tofu, but just gently pull it open. Use a heat safe rubber spatfula to unstick the tofu slices from the griddle.

Supposedly now you marinate the tofu and make it into stir fry, but I barely have the patience to cook something once. I don't hardly have the patience to cook anything twice. Which is too bad sometimes, because I really like potato skins. So I just put some rice at the bottom of my lunchbox and lay a slice of tofu on top, and it's enough rice and tofu for eight lunches.

The cucumbers go into a separate container, recipe tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

you barf stars! remember this barfing stars moment! you will remember it!!!

--Zombea Arthur

Basic Sticky Rice

basic sticky rice

First of all, did you know that there's precooked microwaveable single serve sticky rice, like, at the Jewel? As you can see, it's totally expensive. I should mention that Amazon had a kerfuffle with the Illinois legislature about something or other, so all the Illinois Amazon affiliates have been fired as of this month and I don't earn anything from these links anymore. Which is not greatly different from $1.39 that I have earned from this program, just saying. It was totally worth it when I was sick, though—the rice, I mean.

White sticky rice is the ultimate comfort food for me, I grew up eating white sticky rice. "Sticky" means short grain, which is higher in starch. Hence, sticky. There's brown sticky rice, but usually you can only find that at the Asian market; you would cook that according to these directions. The basic brown rice that I usually eat is long grain, which is lower in starch; you would cook white long grain rice according to those directions.

3 cups sticky rice
4 cups water

Combine rice and water in a saucepan and cover with a lid. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn heat to very low and let simmer for twenty minutes. Turn off heat and let it rest for another ten minutes.

If you forget the rice and it burns on the bottom, turn off the heat as soon as you remember and keep it covered with a lid; the bottom will soften, and you can scrape it up. Or if you're me, you sit with the pot in your lap scrabbling at the burned bottom. Because it is really, really good.

I was making this rice for rice, tofu and cucumber lunchboxes that I could take to work, which finally got me back to bringing lunches to work. Tofu and cucumber recipes TK this week.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Black Footwear

I have a notion, maybe even a vision, of having a pair of go to black shoes for every season, and here's where I'm starting from:

black footwear

L to R: 1) My knee high black boots, my first pair of knee high boots. They're not warm enough for winter, though. I'm done wearing heels, too. Next winter I will be looking for flat, wide shaft, knee high black snowboots. Maybe Hunter boots with liners. 2) My fat babys for spring, breaking in nicely. 3) Just awful, my Dansko mary janes. SO OLD, I've seriously had these since ...2004? I haven't replaced them because I was wearing my knee high boots to work year round, and then last summer I was riding my bike to work and wearing the no show socks and gym shoes with everything. But I might not ride my bike to work this summer, because now I work in the Marquette Building. Which is right at the Monroe Blue Line stop, like the building is practically at the top of the stairs. And the train is fast, I didn't believe that the train was faster than the bus. Plus I generally would rather travel in sunshine and walk the extra block. But once I realized I could sleep for fifteen more minutes, the genie was out of the bottle for good. 4) My awesome cowboy boots that I got from B, but they might pinch my toes too much for everyday wear.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Practice/Recovery/Sleep: Hobby
 sorting unbalanced

My last summer's chart looked pretty good, but it took a long time to get like that. Before that probably looked more like this:

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
PLAY
gym
PLAY
gym
HOBBY
 
PLAY
gym
PLAY
gym
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

This was pre-derby, did I ever hate going to the gym. After gym, fix dinner—a meat and a starch and a vegetable— and then go upstairs to write or draw or paint. Or sew or knit. I was throwing a lot of spaghetti against the wall in those days. And this was when I was working at the painting studio, and not doing theater. If you go back to 2001, I was commuting two to three hours a day to Abbott Labs and producing The Birds at night.

But if I believe in one thing, it's that it isn't always one thing. Obviously not, it's always one of two things. Ah, I kid. Sort of, I am nothing if not binary. If not always, it's a lot about the good old serenity prayer: having yin when you can't change and yang when you can, and having the genius to switch. It's nice for me now to be more or less balanced, but I haven't always been. Sometimes you choose to sort unbalanced, there are reasons.

People, obviously, can do more than two rows of practice, and do all the time. Pretend though that two rows is the specification, so to do more is exceeding what's specified. You know what you do when you find yourself in this situation, you show yourself some compassion. Before you do anything else, stop beating yourself up and think nice thoughts to yourself.

The harder it is for you to think nice thoughts, the more likely you're overworked. Just saying.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Green Tea with Greek Yogurt and Applesauce

green tea with greek yogurt and applesauce

At first I felt that I shouldn't post this, because scooping half a container of greek yogurt in a bowl and pouring some applesauce over isn't hardly a recipe. Then I thought, this is what I eat. And it's good! It's easy, and it's good. It should be seen! So you know that breakfast can be this easy and this good, and you don't feel like the whole world is separating eggs to make homemade waffles with creme anglaise and fresh berries for breakfast.

You know what else, the next day you can pour the applesauce over the other half of the yogurt right in the container. Which is even easier.

It takes longer to make the green tea, honestly. The sweetie man always gets Stash teas from Jewel, I like this chai green tea but drink the premium green tea with matcha more often.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Weaving Pacelines

I love weaving pacelines to end an agility workout, you put together everything that you just practiced in them.

If I'm running your weaving paceline, first of all, I'm running alongside you halfway up the line and shouting MOVEYOURFEETMOVEYOURFEETMOVEYOURFEET! I'm sure it's very annoying. But for whatever reason, beginner skaters stop moving their feet right when they're next to the person they want to weave in front of, and well, you won't get in front of her by not moving your feet. I mean, I think it's nerves. It's the opposite of what you need to do in a weaving paceline, though. Which is, you don't stop moving your feet until you get to the space in front of the person that you're going to weave across. Especially when you're coming up the outside, because of, as I like to say knowledgeably to my class, "physics." In fact the same rule applies when you're coming up the inside, it's just that you will probably immediately find yourself in position to weave across because of the aforementioned physics; in which case, weave for the love of god. Though if you overshoot your space, you'll need to slow yourself and then step across.

Apart from that, we drill different ways of weaving across:

* run up and slalom across

You know how to slalom, right? Point your toes where you want to go. A tip: remember that you're weaving around moving obstacles. So think about pointing not so much where your obstacle is right now, but where she will be in the next second or two.

* run up and step across

This is your shuffle step, which I like even better than a slalom. Spring off the inside foot and fly with the outside foot to weave to the outside, spring off the outside foot and fly with the inside foot to weave to the inside. Also the more you control your forward roll, the more you can control where your steps will take you.

* run up and orbit around

I stole this from Dinah Party's advanced agility practice. You pass the skater in front, and then you have to slow down to get behind and pass her in the back. Here's where you practice your plow stop, which is perfect because it slows you down and your feet stay in position to jump across.

Shoalmate Zombea Arthur calls this the "hostess" paceline, because you're making a curlicue like on the top of a Hostess cupcake.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

 

* drink water
* stretch
* wash up
# green tea with greek yogurt and peaches
* make bed
* put away laundry
* do dishes
* draft 4/23 press release
# veganly red beans and rice
* report trainer hours
# tea with bread and almond butter
* watch Sons of Anarchy
# rice and cucumber
* fury practice
# banana almond smoothie

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Sweater Pillow

sweater pillow

Hey, look what I did to my old sweater that I knitted. I've kept it all these years, probably stopped wearing it after I got divorced and started wearing clothes that actually fit. So I haven't worn it in five or so years, and I'm usually ruthless about getting rid of clothes that I haven't worn in a year even. It seriously took me forever to knit this, though. I did the whole back with all those little medallions on the wrong size needles and it didn't fit the front, people were aghast when I grimly sat down to take it all apart. It's one of my favorite memories.

I really never was going wear it again, it didn't fit and wasn't stylish. Now that I'm thinking, half the reason I stopped wearing this was that it made me look like a couch. Now it is a couch! And no one gets more use out of pillows than I do. I haven't sewn up the bottom edge yet, but I think it's sort of funny like that.

It's also given me an idea about what to do with all my old calico summer dresses that my mom made for me: quilt!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Practice/Recovery/Sleep: Work
 revisiting the blind spot

Lots of girls who play derby work full time, though. How would I do that? I mean, I did do that for just about a year. How frightening is this, I can actually look up the chart from back then.

And because that's not frightening enough, here it is all color coded:

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
PLAY
Kru boot
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
PASTIME
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
PLAY
plyos
PLAY
run
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
Orbit
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Isn't that weird, it works out totally perfectly. Two rows of practice, two rows of recovery, and two rows of sleep. [ETA: Now that I'm looking at this, this is post season when I was not such a nutjob.] Now that I recall, I was getting bored with my life around this time. At which point my sister's cancer came back. So my advice in that regard is, Stay interested in your life unless you want the universe to make life interesting for you.

Points of interest:

  • Just four practices a week, huh. How sane. I remember, actually, not being able to manage more than that.
  • I coded all HOBBY as recovery, but writing was included in that. Writing can be recovery, of course. I want it to be my practice, though.

I think this resolves that little tension in my work/play taxonomy about work not necessarily being what you do for a living. It often is, because people often end up making their living at things that are done as a means to an end that are a means to an end, and where this leaves is you in the Blind Spot:

As you know, hardly anybody can look into hyperspace. It's like looking at nothing, and it can make you insane. It's called the Blind Spot, jotoki and puppeteers can't tolerate it at all; trained humans can steer through it using psionic devices; and actually, select kzinti can steer directly through.

What am I talking about. Perhaps I have flipped my lid.

My Blind Spot occurs Monday through Friday from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM. I can tell you, pretty much exactly, what I'm doing at any other time of day. I mean, there's the side issue of not writing about my job in a public blog. Still, it seems that life happens outside of working hours. Which leaves me, what, when I'm inside. Am I afraid to look.

Just saying.

Which is no way to live, so let me connect some dots. Let's say that what you do for a living is your practice, whether you like it or not. If it's WORK to you, that pretty much tells you that you don't. Full time is too much time not to like what you're doing, and way too much time if you actually dislike what you're doing. It's not about hating your job balanced with having fun. It's putting yourself out there balanced with putting yourself back together. It's a balance of energy, not affinity. It's about dealing with your energy ebbing and flowing in the context of liking as much of your life as possible.

How to get there from here. Though here is maybe halfway between back there and there, so there's that at least.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Ah, good old April 1, the day the Internet gets even less reliable and more self-indulgent than it already is.

--Justice Feelgood Marshall

April Diet Quality Card

april diet card

So this is how the base white diet adds up on the card, really not so bad. I'll switch up at some point from white to whole wheat bread and from white to brown rice again, so no worries there. And maybe when I do that, I'll switch up the blueberry muffin for a bagel. I know technically a blueberry muffin is a baked good. But it's so sweet, it's basically cake to me; so I count it as a sugary sweet.

But you know that the stuff neatly in boxes isn't my whole diet, just the regular rotation. I try to keep this as high quality as possible, being that this is what I eat the most of, and maybe more importantly, what I eat without thinking about. So I can rely on, say, eighty percent of my diet being fairly to pretty virtuous, and relax about the other twenty percent. I don't want you to think that you could never live up to this diet card. Because you probably weren't double fisting an ice cream sandwich and a Hostess apple pie Tuesday night. What. It's called a la mode.

There is a difference, though, between getting a diabolical notion about an ice cream sandwich and a Hostess apple pie and having coffee and a blueberry muffin for breakfast twice a week. The coffee and the muffin are a not particularly good habit. A diabolical notion only strikes you now and again, and even then sometimes you indulge and sometimes you don't.

Honestly now that I'm thinking, I can't think how it could have taken me this long to think of eating an ice cream sandwich and a Hostess apple pie at the same time...