I dream of a burger. Notice I didn’t say “burgers,” because the plural isn’t applicable here. There is one burger I have in mind: blue cheese, standard fixin’s, prime beef cooked medium, and crisp bacon. The bread would be just right, too. No weaksauce bun strained to the limits by condiments, sesame seeds barely clinging aboveboard. I’m thinking something with heft and texture, like a Telera roll or a pretzel bun, lightly grilled. And the fries! You’ve got to have ’em–steak-cut, obviously, dusted with Parmesan and accompanied by a small metal thing of ketchup.
It’s dishes like these, though, along with a cavalcade of cheesesteaks, nachos, and burritos, that have landed me in my current predicament. With seven pounds in the bag, I’m roughly at the halfway mark, and it’s a slog. Same trajectory, every day. Elliptical in the morning, eggs and a banana for breakfast, Chipotle bowl for lunch, soup for dinner, and always, always a gnawing hunger. What made today different was a stark acknowledgement of the choice: fat and happy, or svelte and miserable.
Certainly there are gradations, and I suppose the trick is to find the sweet spot, but at the moment, I kinda just want to rub Taco Bell all over my face, you know? Willfully going hungry in a land of plenty is a decidedly first-world problem, and as such, I’ve marshaled another first-world malady–the existence of too much television content–to deal with it. Suits, Walking Dead, Justified, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, 30 Rock, and who knows what else all demand attention, and I gladly trade one brand of gluttony for another.
Ever since we switched hosts, I’ve been relishing the feel of WordPress. Under the GoDaddy regime, firing up the word factory was a joyless, trudging experience, as far as the UI was concerned. Now, I look forward to each login, so great is the draw of a snappy, responsive web experience. There was a time when I would first type each post into a Word doc, then paste into the Press, which was grossly inefficient. Well, no more! No more. All that’s left now is to renovate the image you see above, and I’ve commissioned Mo.net for the finest in handcrafted JPGs. You deserve nothing less, after all.
I’ve made some minor tweaks to make this site slightly more mobile-friendly, and even stating as such invokes a deep sense of nausea within me. You know where I stand with my smartphone. I continue to find the battery life of iPhones reprehensible. The constant connectivity continues to grate as well, and accordingly I’ve pared my data plan back to the 300 MB tier, which should be interesting. I long for a time when mailboxes were firmly rooted to yards, rather than wielded and furiously thumbed.
There are some positives, of course. For one thing, it is an essential prop, allowing you to blend in easily and grants you disengagement, should the need arise. Ironically enough, because I always keep iOS updated, I still end up searching for firmware updates I know aren’t there, during moments like these. The device, too, is super-convenient as a conduit for content consumption. I seldom turn on the desktop, in fact, and I’ve even considered purchasing an iPad, until I came to my senses.
And with that, it’s time for sleep. I’m traveling into the big, scary city tomorrow with the Professor for a business dinner, and I’ll need my wits. I also find myself waking at ungodly hours on weekday mornings, solely for the aim of physical exertion. I’ve made a horrible mistake! Never meant for it to happen. But exercise is now the norm, rather than a rare, hallowed event.
Feel that? It’s called web hosting that isn’t shitty. We’re fully settled into our new virtual digs now, after months of subpar performance, and I’m wigging out a little bit, frankly. I can’t even remember when the site used to load this quickly, so inured was I to mediocrity. But with some TLC and a modest infusion of cash, everything old is new again, and with any luck, we’ll be able to forget about these behind-the-scenes concerns for a while.
My Swedish chariot underwent a similar Renaissance today. It’s had its streak of woe, and in a strange twist of fate, I have a second cousin once removed in Dallas who happens to be an auto mechanic. Here, I surmised, was a perfect opportunity to support local business, grant my car a new lease on life, and keep a few bucks within the clan. And then I saw the loaner.
I later learned it was his grandmother-in-law’s sedan, but when I first saw it, a wholly different narrative formed in my mind. Buick Skylark, circa mid ’80s. Michigan plate adorned with stickers from 2010. Half a dozen rust spots. Trunk seams bursting with dried leaves. 130,000 miles, sounded like a tank, and there was a container of Prestone perched cryptically on the back seat. To passersby, I probably looked like I had just come from an AA meeting or a bingo session, fresh from robbing them both.
The reality was far more mundane, of course–it’s a frickin’ loaner, after all, salvaged from a kindly old woman–and the revelation came instead from the Saab. When I fired it up, saw the headlights actually illuminating again, fuel gauge sprung to life, CV axles tested, and overall health deemed strong, I felt disbelief, then a pang of guilt for having entertained thoughts of trading it in for a 3-series. It’s accompanied me through so many states, ordeals, and memories, and I can’t bring it out to pasture just yet.