Dieting is sort of like planning a trip to Boston from New Jersey and only making left turns, eventually you just end up home. No, any road trip worth it's salt requires a map, and a series of turns, on-ramps, exits, roundabouts Retourno's and jug handles. It also requires a fair amount of fuel, good music, Coffee and a sense of adventure and a willingness to embrace your mistakes and let them direct you to awesome new places.
That is where my head is. I'm taking a trip. Problem is I'm not headed to Boston, My destination is some-place nobody has ever been. My destination is a me who is finally happy and comfortable in this watery sack we call a body. It's the new World, the Indies, I hope to find spices and emerald cities full of gold there, but frankly I’ll be fine if it's just amazing beaches and corn. Hopefully I’ll be more respectful of indigenous cultures than other people who have previously taken this journey.
To my way of thinking directions are, on a map and in life, simply a series of rules that you have to follow to get where you want to go. To get to Boston from New Jersey you have to go north, if you go south you have to go so south that you start going north again, and Boston by way of New Zealand, while insurmountably beautiful, is going to take a really really long time. To get to the me that I like...That needs a name...for now I’m going to call it Coz, to get to Coz I have to plot the course, define the direction fine tune the rules. I have to see the space in front of me and navigate it, and I have to be patient because unlike Boston, Coz is magical, it's going to move, sometimes it might get closer to me, and sometimes it might get further away. The magical land of Coz might require a hot air balloon AND a twister AND a yellow brick road or maybe just some fabulous shoes.
The distance between me and Coz is difficult to gauge, but the first signpost for it is clear. I know I'm travelling in the right direction if I feel like I am in control, If I'm rigging the sails and not simply buffeted (hmmm which looks suspiciously like buffet, coincidence?) by the current into a still cove. I need rules to live by, rules I define, and rules I can REdefine when need arises. I need the map and the compass and the coffee and all that stuff, and Sweet Sally Marshmallows I need more travel metaphors...
Rule one: work week food.
I work at on office, translation for the office impaired, i sit on my ass all morning and fantasize about how fabulous my lunch break will be. It never is, it's always just wawa or burger king (the double horse whopper with club sauce is my drug of choice) the only time its actually fabulous is on the occasion it's a bar-steraunt known for it's waitresses in yoga pants with a good friend (and arty blogstar). It's fabulous because of the friend not the yoga pants...okay, the yoga pants don't hurt. Anyway, one sort of common denominator is that I almost never have any idea what I’ll be eating, how much it will cost and how bad it will be for me. It really runs the gamut from a 1.99 horseburger to a 19 dollar salad. That feels fun, it feels nice to be like..."ooh what will my lunch be today, what amazing food adventure awaits me at the convenience store? High Fructose Corn Syrup in my meatball sandwich? Yes Please! whose a lucky boy?" Its the kind of being out of control that's fun, like weed or booze. But like weed and booze it can have it's detrimental effects too. Afterwards I often want to vomit and find myself contemplating my life in far too serious a manner. What does it all mean, man, what does all this bread and cheese mean...man? Also like drinking and reefer it's probably something one shouldn't do midway through their work day. Unless they work in customer service, then by all means toke away, I know what you need to get through that.
So my first rule is that, except one day a week reserved for lunch with a friend, I will pack my lunch, it will be nominally healthy and delicious. It will be substantive enough to get me through the day and easy enough that I have no excuses not to make it. The addendum to lunch rules is that it also applies to dinner. I will not, during the work week, order my food from a restaurant, I will make it. It will be quick and easy and yummy enough that I don't bemoan the absence of pepperoni. The one exception is Friday night, I eat what I want on Friday night, I dare you get between me and my fucking Friday pizza, I dare you. Also as a part of this rule, I will eat breakfast, everyday, in the form of a bowl of cereal or a smoothie. One day a week, probably Friday, I will permit myself a drive through bagel and an iced coffee, and in all honesty what that is truly permitting myself is an extra 10 minutes of sleep in the morning. I want the extra 10 minutes of sleep more than a bagel that is mostly awful.
All the things wrong in my life are a direct result of bad habits. Eventually it just gets easier to walk the same path over and over again and eventually you wear down the earth so not only is it easier to do, it's also more plain to see. The only way to counter this, I think, is with good habits. Once upon a time I heard an big toothed man on a self help infomercial say that a habit takes approximately 3 weeks to write itself into your brain. So one habit at a time I will enforce these rules. I'll give each rule 3 weeks to beat down the pathway and make it easier and more plain. After 2 weeks, I will add in another rule, create another habit, and 2 weeks later a third and so on. This way I am never trying to master more than 2 new things at a time and when that happens I’m well ensconced in the previous habit.
This time, I'm on my way, and I know, and I’m even accepting, that there will be detours. Its hard to get to the wonderful land of Coz intentionally. Dorothy became a pill popping boozing drag queen of herself trying her whole life to get back to her emerald city. While I think that having the opportunity to be chain smoking, drunk and high on Benzedrine with Dean Martin and Robert Goulet would just be the Cat's Pyjamas, I'm not sure it ends well for anyone. I'm going to travel, in the general direction and just hope I end up where I want to be. I'll know along the way if I’m getting closer. There will be signposts and scarecrows and trees that throw apples. But you know what, if I jump the tracks and end up in a Raymond Chandler novel I’m okay with that too. As long as in the end I solve the crime, even if I’m the only one who knows it.
Also Peter Lorre has to play me in the film adaptation.
Also I really want to go to Boston.
That is where my head is. I'm taking a trip. Problem is I'm not headed to Boston, My destination is some-place nobody has ever been. My destination is a me who is finally happy and comfortable in this watery sack we call a body. It's the new World, the Indies, I hope to find spices and emerald cities full of gold there, but frankly I’ll be fine if it's just amazing beaches and corn. Hopefully I’ll be more respectful of indigenous cultures than other people who have previously taken this journey.
To my way of thinking directions are, on a map and in life, simply a series of rules that you have to follow to get where you want to go. To get to Boston from New Jersey you have to go north, if you go south you have to go so south that you start going north again, and Boston by way of New Zealand, while insurmountably beautiful, is going to take a really really long time. To get to the me that I like...That needs a name...for now I’m going to call it Coz, to get to Coz I have to plot the course, define the direction fine tune the rules. I have to see the space in front of me and navigate it, and I have to be patient because unlike Boston, Coz is magical, it's going to move, sometimes it might get closer to me, and sometimes it might get further away. The magical land of Coz might require a hot air balloon AND a twister AND a yellow brick road or maybe just some fabulous shoes.
The distance between me and Coz is difficult to gauge, but the first signpost for it is clear. I know I'm travelling in the right direction if I feel like I am in control, If I'm rigging the sails and not simply buffeted (hmmm which looks suspiciously like buffet, coincidence?) by the current into a still cove. I need rules to live by, rules I define, and rules I can REdefine when need arises. I need the map and the compass and the coffee and all that stuff, and Sweet Sally Marshmallows I need more travel metaphors...
Rule one: work week food.
I work at on office, translation for the office impaired, i sit on my ass all morning and fantasize about how fabulous my lunch break will be. It never is, it's always just wawa or burger king (the double horse whopper with club sauce is my drug of choice) the only time its actually fabulous is on the occasion it's a bar-steraunt known for it's waitresses in yoga pants with a good friend (and arty blogstar). It's fabulous because of the friend not the yoga pants...okay, the yoga pants don't hurt. Anyway, one sort of common denominator is that I almost never have any idea what I’ll be eating, how much it will cost and how bad it will be for me. It really runs the gamut from a 1.99 horseburger to a 19 dollar salad. That feels fun, it feels nice to be like..."ooh what will my lunch be today, what amazing food adventure awaits me at the convenience store? High Fructose Corn Syrup in my meatball sandwich? Yes Please! whose a lucky boy?" Its the kind of being out of control that's fun, like weed or booze. But like weed and booze it can have it's detrimental effects too. Afterwards I often want to vomit and find myself contemplating my life in far too serious a manner. What does it all mean, man, what does all this bread and cheese mean...man? Also like drinking and reefer it's probably something one shouldn't do midway through their work day. Unless they work in customer service, then by all means toke away, I know what you need to get through that.
So my first rule is that, except one day a week reserved for lunch with a friend, I will pack my lunch, it will be nominally healthy and delicious. It will be substantive enough to get me through the day and easy enough that I have no excuses not to make it. The addendum to lunch rules is that it also applies to dinner. I will not, during the work week, order my food from a restaurant, I will make it. It will be quick and easy and yummy enough that I don't bemoan the absence of pepperoni. The one exception is Friday night, I eat what I want on Friday night, I dare you get between me and my fucking Friday pizza, I dare you. Also as a part of this rule, I will eat breakfast, everyday, in the form of a bowl of cereal or a smoothie. One day a week, probably Friday, I will permit myself a drive through bagel and an iced coffee, and in all honesty what that is truly permitting myself is an extra 10 minutes of sleep in the morning. I want the extra 10 minutes of sleep more than a bagel that is mostly awful.
All the things wrong in my life are a direct result of bad habits. Eventually it just gets easier to walk the same path over and over again and eventually you wear down the earth so not only is it easier to do, it's also more plain to see. The only way to counter this, I think, is with good habits. Once upon a time I heard an big toothed man on a self help infomercial say that a habit takes approximately 3 weeks to write itself into your brain. So one habit at a time I will enforce these rules. I'll give each rule 3 weeks to beat down the pathway and make it easier and more plain. After 2 weeks, I will add in another rule, create another habit, and 2 weeks later a third and so on. This way I am never trying to master more than 2 new things at a time and when that happens I’m well ensconced in the previous habit.
This time, I'm on my way, and I know, and I’m even accepting, that there will be detours. Its hard to get to the wonderful land of Coz intentionally. Dorothy became a pill popping boozing drag queen of herself trying her whole life to get back to her emerald city. While I think that having the opportunity to be chain smoking, drunk and high on Benzedrine with Dean Martin and Robert Goulet would just be the Cat's Pyjamas, I'm not sure it ends well for anyone. I'm going to travel, in the general direction and just hope I end up where I want to be. I'll know along the way if I’m getting closer. There will be signposts and scarecrows and trees that throw apples. But you know what, if I jump the tracks and end up in a Raymond Chandler novel I’m okay with that too. As long as in the end I solve the crime, even if I’m the only one who knows it.
Also Peter Lorre has to play me in the film adaptation.
Also I really want to go to Boston.
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