Cardio Psychosis

Yesterday I finished my first full week of exercising regularly. I went after work every day Monday-Thursday. Hope & Healing closes at 2:00 on Friday, and I'm considering Saturday an optional day. Hooray me! I did 35-40 minutes of cardio every day, and I have to say: I don't hate it too bad. Going to the gym gets to be like going to class -- something you know you need to/have to do, but you get that wicked little charge from skipping. I'm going to try to keep this up a least through the end of March, and see where it gets me.

We had two truly delicious dinners this week; on Tuesday, Brandon made pinto beans from this recipe from the Pioneer Woman, and after I got home I made the cornbread, spiked with jalapenos, and we ate it with some sauteed turnip greens, raw slices of sweet onion, and my mother's "Amish relish" -- it's a tomato, onion, & pepper relish with a touch of sweetness. I felt a bit of shame that it took a recipe found on the internet to inspire me to make this meal that is so, so Decatur County. So country-ass and delicious. I felt as though my daddy's spirit was laughing at me somewhere, and he'd feel a little pride in seeing his daughter and her decidedly non-countryass husband moaning in taste ecstasy over one of the most basic meals in creation. The next night, I mashed the beans up, adding a little cumin and chili powder, and B fried some corn tortillas and plantains (Jesus fucking Christ, I love plantains! Why didn't someone clue me in about these years ago!) and we had the tortillas with the beans smeared on top, covered in that crumbly Mexican queso, salsa, romaine, and avocado slices. NOM NOM NOM.

Meals like that remind me that although I have a tendency to go spend $50 on Kroger preparing for some meal that includes at least a few pricy, hard to find ingredients, sometimes the simplest can be the most satisfying.

Although I have to say that after two days of bean consumption, my cubicle/our bedsheets have taken on a peculiar aroma. Ahem.

My mind is on the blink...

Well we had a pleasant journey to Chicago and back and here I am, once again, working for the man. My job has been shifted around, September being the first month that the change took effect, and let me tell you, so far, it's the bees knees. Two days in and not a single interview!

I really do love Chicago. It's so overwhelming to be in such a HUGE city when I'm so used to living life here in what now feels like teeny Memphis. We went to the Jazz Fest, and the Art Institute, the beach, hung out with our great friend Simon, and ate lotsa food of course. Incredible deep dish Chicago pizza and Indian food; also, I went into this sweet shop on a street full of Indian & Pakistani restaurants & shops, and got some excellent halva; I hadn't eaten any since I was in Greece, and what I got in this shop was excellent, both carrot and pistachio. I have to check some markets here in Memphis and see if I can get any. So, Chicago joins the list of "Cities in Which We Might Breed;" it's really the only one on the eastern side of the states. We have to do some more scouting in the West before making any kind of decision. The thing about being married, in my late twenties, is that I feel that the decisions I am making right now will really have an incredible impact on things for years and years to come. Oh Lord, anyone who ever reads this has seen this diatribe countless times, so I will spare you.

I started this Master Cleanse thing yesterday. I have done it once before, in early 2007; it's that cleanse where you have no solid food for 10 days, you only drink this lemonade concoction that is sweetened with maple syrup and spiced with cayenne. Also laxative tea at night and a "salt water flush" in the morning. I have not yet done the salt water flush because I'd have to do it at work and we all know how shit-shy I am (it pretty much makes you pee out of your butt. No joke). I've got to figure that part out. Today is day #2, and I have a kind of slight dull headache and a serious lack of energy, even though I slept like the dead last night. I know from my prior experience that my exhaustion will go away in the next couple of days, but dammit, all I want to do is go home, crawl in bed, and pull the covers over my head. Speaking of sleeping, I had a terrible dream this morning in which Bad Guys were somehow taking my mother's house away from her, and in it, all dream-Amanda could do was sob uncontrollably. I mean, throughout the whole dream, all I did was cry. I have these on occasion and they're particularly sucky because the already present helpless feeling is just magnified tenfold by the crying.

So all in all, this blog is much like my dietary life right now: BORING AS HELL. However, when I'm once again on the food wagon and regaling you with tales of my booze-fueled evenings, it will be all worth it, kittens. Because I'll be skinnier.

P.S. Liz, Amy, and I, as well as some people around here who don't actually blog, will be meeting at Jasmine's in Cooper-Young tonight for an early dinner (5:15ish). The husband and another pal will be tagging along, and anyone from my wee internet world is welcome to come, too. We'll have a fine time. Jasmine's got some of the best tofu that you've ever eaten, buddy.

health, life, and fire

I have a terrible pretzel addiction. Why, oh why, do I go to Kroger and buy the enormous bag of pretzels?? I will not stop eating them until they are gone.

So we returned Sunday from our lovely, lovely honeymoon in Key West. I had been there once before, on a cruise ship stopover when I was a pissy 14-year-old. B lived there for 5 months in 2005, working as a bartender and living on a busted ass trimaran with a few other guys. I have teased him many times over what a panty dropper "I live on a boat, wanna check it out?" must have been.

My memories of Key West were faint at best; it is a truly gorgeous place. All the lush tropical vegetation and stunning old houses left me speechless. If you don't know me, you should be informed that big old houses are my bread and butter; I think that's one thing I especially love about Memphis, because old Southern homes, in particular, absolutely dazzle me and break my heart. It hurts inside and I don't know why; I don't have any grand fantasies about living in a mansion. I do know, however, that my deep appreciation for old homes is a genetic trait passed directly from my mother.

We ate and drank like pigs down there. We are cheap as fuck in our normal lives, and "allow" ourselves to eat out once, maybe twice a week, but on this honeymoon we went batshit crazy, eating out three times a day sometimes. Highlight: fine dining on the porch of a huge pink house that butted up on the edge of the Atlantic; lowlight: shitty Indian buffet that featured a side dish that was mostly canned green beans. We've been so spoiled by India Palace that we couldn't imagine a bad Indian buffet, apparently. Luckily we ate much more good food than bad: guava ice cream, a blackened grouper reuben, key lime pie, fish tacos, cuban sandwiches & coffee, fried plaintains... yummers. Also I discovered Root Beer Barrel shooters, signature shooter at the Green Parrot bar; small glass of beer with a shot of root beer schnapps set down in it. Fucking delicious.

I think the reason women get so fat when they get married is that they are on such a superdiet before the wedding, trying to be as thin as possible, then they go on that honeymoon and feel like it doesn't matter anymore, and thus the spread begins. Anniversary one comes around and they've gone up two dress sizes. I've seen so many fat wives (not to mention fat husbands, God knows they're around too) that I am determined not to become one, and after much big talk about restarting a running program in MARCH for God's sakes, redo Couch to 5k. Yes, it is 100 degrees outside and I'm a whiny bitch about the heat, but I feel so lazy not exercising at all. I don't want to die as an overweight miserable diabetic at 60 just because it's not always fun to move your body.

We have returned with a huge collection of pictures that you can find on the flickr. B has organized them painstakingly. Subfolders are his primary disease; this can be verified by clicking on the "Honeymoon" collection.

I have said many times in the weeks following the wedding that I don't feel any different, which is true in a lot of ways; however, sometimes I am struck by the gravity of marriage, and I think about how the roles we play in each other's lives is so much more important now that it's definitely for keeps. Before B, I always kind of thought the idea of soulmates and true love was bullshit, but I do know that there is some completely undeniable force that holds me to him and vice versa. Something I never felt in my prior relationship, I don't think. I was overcome by many beautiful feelings on this trip, that travelling is something that we will do with one another for the rest of our lives, and that all the important things we ever do, we will do together. It is certainly not always easy and fun but I am starting to consider the beauty of marriage is a shared commitment to make the hard things as easy as possible for the other person.

Jesus, play the tambourine for me.

I have been mulling over starting a blog for weeks and weeks now; I always enjoyed blogging on Myspace before the total mindfuck of its convoluted politics got to me and I just shut up. Then the blogs of two of my close IRL friends penetrated my internet routine, and the stage was set for bloggery.

Jesus Christ, how many times is some form of the word blog in those sentences?

I had a real fucked up sitation at work yesterday that I am still mulling over. I had a client come in who was applying for Medicaid benefits. Not full benefits, but if someone has Medicare, which this person did, they can apply for special benefits that pay their leftover premiums and whatever else the Medicare does not cover. He told me that he needed these benefits because he is trying to get on a kidney transplant list, and his social worker advised him that he had to obtain this Medicaid. He had pretty high social security income, and when I ran the case, he failed. He has a wife and two children, and I can put them on the case but his wife apparently has a good job that might fail the whole group. I've got my tit in a vise on this one. I can put the wife and children on there and state that she has no income, which is a lie and pretty easily caught because of the systems the state has in place, but get him these benefits, or I can request the work info for her and risk him failing again. I'm not used to sitations like this; usually it's the same old same old around here, with welfare mommies and unemployed people living with friends or family that want their little bit of Food Stamps. It might be hard to believe from the outside, but I am rarely placed in a situation that is truly fucked up, but Mr. Kidney Transplant is like a scene from Sicko playing over and over in my head.

So, I have resolved to eat no fast food for the entire month of July. This decision was made somewhat drunkenly at El Mezcal last night. B forces me to go there at least once a week, and since I'm so incredibly weak we go feast on chips and I have two metric tons of sour cream and guacamole. The resolution sprang from an outing the night before, when we drove back and forth across the Mississippi river, listening to a Bright Eyes song he'd just discovered, and then, oh no! what's this! ended up with chili cheese fries and teeny burgers from Krystal. "Oh," B said, "I forgot these Krystal burgers are the so gristly. It's like chewing up an ear." Yum yum. I am actually quite fond of the mustard-pickle-cheese taste explosion, as well as the soggy meatness that happens when they steam those babies. Plus, miraculously I got no stomach cramps immediately after, which usually occurs with Krystal.

I just do so well eating wisely during the day, then pop a 1/2 bottle of wine in me and ask me if I want Taco Bell at around 11:45 at night and it's all "I may DIE if a chalupa isn't in my mouth soon. Make it a baja." So I'm cutting it out, like a tumor. A tasty meat paste tumor.

Amanda as the whitest person at DHS anecdote: The other day we had our biyearly party. We ate catfish, there was a hula hoop contest, and we played a bastardized version of Family Feud, called, imaginatively enough, "Fantasy Feud." The question was "Name a Famous Athlete," and although the top answer was, of course, Michael Jordan, the first thing that sprang to Whitey's mind was Babe Ruth. Good Lord.