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Thursday, August 16, 2007
I feel simultaneously old, proud, and broke.My son wants an electric guitar for his 15th birthday.
Maybe I'll dig up my old Led Zeppelin chord charts for him, while I'm at it. Ah, youth. Ah, memories. Ah, wasted lessons! Anybody got a cheap guitar for sale, let me know.
Houston, I love you, but you're stupid.
How hard is it to drive without touching your car on the other cars around you? It's too hard for people who take my freeway home, apparently. Especially the people entering/exiting on a certain exit. Every time the DJ says, "And there's a wreck on [Gwen's freeway]," I say, "Was it on [the exit where 90% of the wrecks occur]?" and the DJ says, "Yes, Gwen. Yes, it was."
So then, today, it was raining. It's raining a little because Tropical Depression Ernie (or whatever they named it) is edging its way into town. It might be followed by Hurrican Dean, and it might not. But that's beside the point. The point is, it started to rain, and therefore several people in Houston automatically lost the few driving skills they had. There was a multi-car pile-up on my freeway this morning. There always is, every effing time it rains. Not when it storms, and not when it hurricanes... all it has to do is rain, and people are wrecking all over the place.
People. Put down your cell phones. Put down your eyelash curlers. Stop texting on your Blackberries. For the love of God, stop working your Sudoku puzzles. (I swear to God on the Bible, I saw a woman doing that on the freeway the other day. While driving! Granted, traffic was stop and go. But still!)
If you know in your heart that you aren't a very good driver, or that you're easily distracted, or that you're really bad at judging distances and brake times... Please, please, please put down all your other stuff and keep your eyes on the road. Damn it. Seriously, people. Get it together. What would you do if you had to live in a city where it snowed? You'd be dead by now, wouldn't you?
Also: If you know your car's a piece of crap and it's likely to stall on the freeway, take the effing feeder road, instead. Or, at the very least, ride in the freeway's rightmost lane, so you can get to the shoulder if anything happens. Leave the middle and left lanes for people who can afford tune-ups and gasoline, okay?
I know no one who needs to is reading this. I know there'll be some jacked-up, time-consuming accident on the way home this very afternoon, in fact. Screw it. I'm doing happy hour after work. I'm not driving home til dark.
Food Patterns and Vanity
Do you ever get into a certain food flow? Like, a craving that lasts a long time?
Right now I'm really into eating eggs and toast for breakfast. Every day. I think I've had eggs and toast for about 18 days straight now. My body, it needs the protein. It wants the bread and butter for comfort, too. I'm thinking about buying a toaster, actually, so I don't have to outsource the toast production all the time. But I know the minute I get one, I'll stop wanting eggs and toast. I'll go back to Special K Protein, or Generic Version of Special K With Strawberries, instead.
My other food flow, lately, is plums. Plums are pretty awesome, don't you think? They don't get mushy as fast as peaches, and they don't get mealy like nectarines. And their skins hold everything in, and they're a compact, almost cute size, and they only have, like, 40 calories each. And you can eat almost the whole thing, apart from the pit and the stem. They're like cherries, but bigger and cheaper, and less susceptible to mold. So I'm really into plums right now. (You're like, "Uh, thanks for that info," right?)
Today, in other calorie-related news, I finally lost enough weight to wear this shirt that I've been holding onto, without its buttons popping off my chest and putting out somebody's eye.
Which isn't too crow-worthy, in the grand scheme of things, because that just means I've fought back down to the same weight I was at a year ago. And I still have quite a ways to go to meet my goal, which is "the weight I was at 2 years ago."
And the seasons, they go 'round and 'round, and the yo-yo diet goes up and down. I'm singin' 'bout a carousel of fat...
(Sorry, Joni Mitchell. Sorry!)
I mean, none of this really matters, in the grand scheme of things. But, at the same time, I'm happy to be wearing this shirt again. 11:57 AM #
Comments:
I'm taking today off, and was very very happy to be doing so when I saw the rain and the wreck. Our freeway backs up like no other under those circumstances...# posted by
: 2:28 PM
my commute is not nearly as long as yours sounds like, but i noticed the same thing this morning. people driving stupid(ly) and it was just sprinkling. SPRINKLING, PEOPLE!
anywho.
congrats on the weight loss. it IS a big deal. small victories and all that.
# posted by
curvature : 6:22 PM
I've been doing Nutrisystem for a couple of months (don't judge me: I don't live near a supermarket, am doing the car-free lifestyle, and spent more on hand-selected groceries than I do on NS) and have developed total flows with certain foods. For breakfast, I ate their low-fat granola every day for two weeks, then panicked when I ran out and had to switch to other stuff. With every lunch and dinner for the last few weeks, I've made myself a salad of either spinach or spring leaves, with dried cranberries, crumbled feta, and fat-free honey dijon. (Imagine my distress when I re-read the label on the cranberries and discovered that they contain SUGAR. How did I miss that? I'm gonna keep eating them, since I'm losing weight anyway.) Now I'm in London and feta's too expensive to justify, so I'm jonesing for that salad. Life's not worth living without it.
# posted by
Jackie Danicki : 6:36 PM
Have you thought about getting a camp toaster? It's a little wire rack that fits over the burner of your stove. The fancy ones have a handle you press to flip the toast. It's probably cheaper than an electric, and it makes perfectly good toast so long as you don't leave it on there and forget it. It shouldn't be a problem if you're making eggs at the same time. Plus, you can take it camping.
I feel you on the plums, too. Right now I'm on a big stone fruit kick. I like plums best because they don't get damaged as easily in my bag.
# posted by
Katherine : 8:33 PM
So, you're going to go and enjoy happy hour and -then- drive home, eh? Pot calling the kettle black? Sorry :) I'm sure you know your limits.
# posted by
: 5:23 PM
Mmmm - Eggs.
When I was pregnant with the littlest guy I craved, and ate, poached eggs on buttery buttery toast every day from about 5 months on.
Now he's 12. When he discovered them for himself, I knew he was really, truly mine.
# posted by
Amy : 7:12 PM
I had surgery recently and right afterwards, I had to have toast and eggs(2)for breakfast. toast and real eggs, not the toast and good-for-you fake eggs or my usual chocolate weight-loss shake.
I been badly craving Phillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough, but so far I have resisted. I did eat a big bag of M&Ms, which I haven't had in months, at a movie today.
Vicki
# posted by
: 4:27 AM
The Tropical Depression was named Erin. The reason this is important to me is because that's my name. And when I read headlines that say things like "Erin Soaks the Coast of Texas", I think to myself, "Damn right I do!"
I hope there is a Gwen storm for you sometime. Being designated the Storm God is random, minor source of joy when the weather is lousy.
# posted by
: 3:18 PM
This is probably an insane comment to leave a week after a post, but -- you should consider a toaster OVEN. It's great because you can just use it to make toast (or heat up pop tarts or bagels or english muffins or those yummy toaster muffins that don't always fit in a regular toaster). BUT you can also use it to heat up leftovers, or frozen chicken fingers, or delicious Totino's pizza rolls (mmmmmmmmmm), or pretty much anything (and they come out crispy like from the oven, which the micro can't do), so it would probably be really handy with kids the age of yours!
# posted by
Ann : 9:10 AM
Jennifer: I know that, between the time you left that comment and right now, you've wished to have been able to take many more rainy days off, haven't you?
Curvature: Thank you!
Jackie: I would never judge you for doing Nutrisystem. Did you pay for it with your own money? Yeah? Then it's all good. I didn't suspect that their food would taste good, though. Now you're making me want to try it.
Katherine: Oh, wow. I never heard of a camp toaster til you said so. I'll look for one at Target. And, yes, stone fruit is the awesome.
Keri: I was trying to be ironic. Don't worry. I'm pretty good about not driving drunk.
Amy: Funny! He was like, "Mm... just like in the womb!"
Vicki: Peanut or plain? (I like the peanut.)
Erin: Hilarious. Congrats. So far, the closest we've come is having a hurricane with the same name as one of my dad's ex girlfriends. And that was twenty years ago. I'm gonna email the National Weather Service a petition.
Ann: You are actually the third person to suggest that (first two were IRL) and now I am seriously considering it. Thanks.
# posted by
Gwen : 7:16 PM
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