Thursday, January 23, 2014

The very first thing I did, the afternoon I moved into my new apartment, was find my lights. Floor lamps, desk lamps, tall, short, clay, steel–it made no difference. The one thing I had to accomplish before nightfall was dig through the sea of garbage bags, hastily assembled the night prior to mask the vast amounts of material wealth weighing down my aging sedan, and collect all the shades, harps, and bulbs I’d need to illuminate the place. Why was this so crucial? Well, there’s the whole “tripping over stuff in darkness” aspect I generally try to avoid, but more importantly, there’s something about a well-lit place a soul simply craves, you know?

I’m all unpacked now, so it’s onto the next goal, wherein I renovate my other temple, otherwise known as this husk of flesh I inhabit on a daily basis. In a way, my first milestone isn’t all that different: I need to turn on the proverbial lights. Writing–this, us–helps clear the cobwebs. During my last few weeks in Charlotte, too, I weaned myself off Zyrtec, and it feels like I’ve reclaimed my mind. It’s that significant. The regular intake was for allergies and such, but they are a toll I gladly pay now to not feel like shit.

This revelation simply highlighted the importance of what we eat. For food, you may remember my commitment to a paleo-free lifestyle. But it’s not just paleo. The core challenge is the healthy variant of any dish tends to materialize as a sad, sad shadow of the original entree. Take something like an enchilada from Amy’s, for instance. It’s, like, somebody took the idea of an enchilada, and then cast it into the depths of the Pit of Disappointment, whereupon it struck every single branch of the Super Gross Tree before rolling to an underwhelming stop in the Field of Tortured Metaphors.

There are instances, though, where taste manages to coexist with health, and these rare intersections are where I’ll make my stand. Organic bacon and eggs? Sold, and it happens to be paleo. Fruit? Nature’s candy. Earlier this week, I tried einkorn for the first time, in the form of two delicious cookies baked by Earth Chick, and I’m a believer now. Factory spaghetti is going straight in the trash and being replaced with einkorn pasta. What you ingest is only part of the story, though. Since I don’t have the metabolism of my 20s anymore, I will likely have to use the 24-hour fitness center at the clubhouse. There is an elliptical machine in there! I’ve been telling people I’m going to “hop on [it],” but the key piece I’ve been omitting is I don’t plan on actually pressing the “on” button.