Thursday, October 3, 2013

Deep in a 0-4 deficit during a set last Thursday, right as I launched a terrible toss for a serve that would go absolutely nowhere, I suddenly felt drained. It wasn’t the tennis itself, so much as the realization of the responsibilities outside my 90 minutes of mandatory sweat extraction–the day job, which often extends into the night, and also my other job, wherein I hawk garbage on eBay. I developed a greater appreciation, right then and there, for people who juggle multiple gigs. Now, to those who do this to make ends meet, I probably sound like a douchebag. Hell, there are some who would likely want my so-called challenges. I’ve gotten a taste of how work-life balance turns into work-work balance, in any case.

The tides of fortune changed that evening, unbelievably, and the set closed at 6-4. But this isn’t a post about how perseverance and good sportsmanship will win the day, or how the human spirit can endure, even in the darkest of hours. No, it’s about how I’ve been willing my golem of flesh and bone through some long, long days. One answer is exercise. Another is a better sleep schedule. Choice of food, too, has been important. I don’t think I’ll ever go fully paleo, though. The amount of disappointment I’d experience at every meal time would simply compound, bit by bit, into all-natural, shade-grown misery.

I’ve discovered the paleo differential–that is, the gap between what a dish is and should be, according to the tenets–is directly proportional to the unhappiness I feel while eating. A salad at Chipotle, for instance, is pretty disappointing when compared to a burrito, which means it’s pretty paleo, whereas the Burrito Bowl, basically a burrito sans tortilla, is only slightly disappointing, so it’s slightly paleo. Bakespeare explained to me the goal of finding paleo versions of favorite dishes is fruitless, and it’s true. You have to dig deep for recipes that are uniquely delicious. She and the Professor revealed the secrets of proper egg-cooking, for instance, and it’s a wonder how something ejected from the nether regions of a chicken can transform into something delicious with low heat, salt, and Irish butter. You can’t always have eggs and bacon, however, and in my grimmer moments, I subsist on fatalism: it didn’t really matter what or how cavemen ate, in the end, because, y’know, world-ending event.