Tuesday, April 15, 2014

What little energy I had parceled out for tonight’s post, in what should’ve been a triumphant return after a week of silence, has all but evaporated in the wake of a daylong battle with a she-carney at AAA Insurance. It started amicably enough, but one bad faith move on her part led to another, all in the name of a sale, and I finally caught her red-handed. Or red-clawed, as the case may be, because vocabulary is woefully thin on the subject of breaking harpies.

I’m four pounds away from my target weight, but after days of poor eating and lack of exercise, pace has either stalled or deteriorated. It was actually exercise that begat the lack of exercise, because my inaugural 5K this weekend utterly decimated my feet. I thought “not stopping” was a reasonable goal, but when you couple that with slow speed, you’re talking about torture prolonged. Running against Texas wind for half of each lap didn’t help, either, and I found myself retreating often to my psychic cocoon–ballparking the percentage of houses for sale on a given block, for instance, or mulling over anything other than exertion.

I’ve gotten lazier, too, I think. When I was trying to achieve escape velocity from Charlotte, a few months ago, juggling multiple things was a must: dual moves, eBaying, new job, goodbyes. Here, months later, single to-dos seem gargantuan, and it’s shameful, really. Workouts aside, I’m also reopening the case file on clothes, a topic fraught with more twists than the candor of an insurance agent.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, April 15.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Gluttony: second of the seven deadly sins and, perhaps, the only noun apt enough to describe tonight’s proceedings. In the span of just a few hours, I may have wiped out an entire week’s worth of toil in the fitness center, and the food amnesia that previously afflicted me all but disappeared. I remembered pizza tonight to the fullest extent, along with Moscow Mules and rich, rich, whiskey cake.

It was a guys’ night out, and I’m pretty sure there’s an unspoken rule that ordering a salad is forbidden. But my kryptonite stems from another rule, one that is entirely self-imposed–I tend to clean-plate club it. I don’t even know why I do it. You’d think my upbringing was marked by harsh rationing, or a blind hatred of reheating food, neither of which is the case. It simply happens, and it’s got to stop. Leftovers are perfectly acceptable.

I also realized that as joyless as my new regimen may be at meal times, eating way too much can be equally joyless. I guess it’s about finding the balance–always the balance–and there’s still a ways to go. Dining used to be such a simple affair. Now, it’s a puzzle, where calories, time, and social currency are all in motion. Three axes, diametrically opposed, and completely unavoidable.