standuponit

I may be gone for a while, guys.

Don't worry and don't wait up. I'm fine.

Sorry for the Intentionally Cryptic Transmission.

Guess where I am?





There's not enough comp time in the world, Spleen.

Is it just me, or is that Roy Orbison song a little... suggestive?

Thursday's date, 5/7/09, is one of only six this century that will feature three consecutive odd numbers.

This morning's blues euphemism collection:

"You've gone to get your bucket spiked."
"Somebody's been fishing in my pond."

...what have you got?

That thing I was trying to explain in Miami?

This is it here:





Weird, except you know, not. Because I couldn't explain it, but apparently Ed Robertson can, even though he's not me.

The guy in this song sounds as if he could be, you know, That Guy. And nobody wants to be That Guy.

Except sometimes you just are. Because, well, she stood just like Bill Wyman. All you can do is try not to be obvious about it.

I kinda like this song, you know? Even if it is almost as old as I am.

*Interesting blog summary of the Minnesota Starvation Study. Could be pretty triggery reading for some. Here's Wikipedia's article on same, for context.

Please note, in 1944, starvation for an adult male was defined as somewhere in the range of 1600 to 1800 calories a day, depending on the participant. How many modern diet books recommend that as a maximum intake?

Let me quote from the Wikipedia article.

Among the many conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a standardized test administered during the experimental period. Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression. There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally). Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation. The participants reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, although the standardized tests administered showed no actual signs of diminished capacity. There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest) and reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate. Some of the subjects exhibited edema (swelling) in the extremities, presumably due to the massive quantities of water the participants consumed attempting to fill their stomachs during the starvation period.

What do we learn? We learn that being hungry makes you crazy and sick.

Thank you, William Anderson, Harold Blickenstaff, Wendell Burrous, Edward Cowles, George Ebeling, Carlyle Frederick, Jasper Gardner, Lester Glick, James Graham, Earl Heckman, Roscoe Hinkle, Max Kampelman, Sam Legg, Phillip Liljengren, Howard Lutz, Robert McCullagh, William McReynolds, Dan Miller, L. Wesley Miller, Richard Mundy, Daniel Peacock, James Plaugher, Woodrow Rainwater, Donald Sanders, Cedric (Henry) Scholberg, Charles Smith, William Stanton, Raymond Summers, Marshall Sutton, Kenneth Tuttle, Robert Villwock, William Wallace, Franklin Watkins, W. Earl Weygandt, Robert Wiloughby and Gerald Wilsnack.

*Blogger agenda warning, but it's one I mostly agree with, with the caveats that for those of us who don't have a healthy metabolism things are a lot more complicated and I disagree with what appears to be her implied advocacy of processed food.

Lunch today: brown and wild rice, diced avocados, diced tomatoes, grated cheddar cheese. Carrot/orange/beet/pear juice.

By the whirr of their juicers shall ye know them.

I'm bored and the office is empty today.

You know, sometimes when you work different shifts, the only indication you have that you have a room-mate is used towels in the bathroom and vanishing food, or maybe fresh groceries in the fridge--if they're a considerate sort of roomie, I mean?

So four weeks ago there was a dead, stiff, uneaten city rat on the landing. Not near the Angry Kitteh's food and shelter box, but over under the window. It had no obvious wounds, so I decided it either died of plague or a broken neck, and dealt with it in a manner of which the city of Arlington would probably not approve (tossed it in the dumpster).

I hadn't actually seen her since February, but I kept leaving the window open a crack, and sometimes I found muddy pawprints on the sill. Also, one time the butter disappeared out of the butter dish, and the dish was very clean. Polished. Not even greasy. Must have been ghosts.

Butter-eating ghosts.

So I have this thing in my bedroom, kind of a stacked black wire baskets organizer thing for socks and stuff. Well, earlier today I woke up from a totally recreational nap with the weirdest sensation that I was being watched.

...from the bottom basket.

Thirteen seconds after this was taken, she hissed at me and bolted for the window and the city beyond. But I got a photo!

And I think it demonstrates clearly how she got her name.

Slice up or pre-cook or otherwise prepare small veggies--green onions, peas, diced carrots, diced tomato, radishes, sprouts, mushrooms, julienned ginger, whatever.

Take some soba, cook according to the package destructions, drain, and douse in cold water (icewater is best).

While the soba is chilling, in a bowl of appropriate size to the soba, mix 2 parts (good, fermented, not fake brown salty rancid water) soy sauce, 1 part rice wine vinegar, a shake or two of sesame oil (chili oil is fine), and some Thai chili garlic sauce/hot cock sauce/chili seed sauce (to taste). I also add a little bit of Thai roasted chili paste, but this is an elaboration. Add a diced raw garlic clove or five.

Whisk or fork this together until it's blended into a vinaigrette.

Drain the soba well, mix in the veggies, and dump the whole mess into the bowl with the sauce. Toss. Grab utensils. Go sit on the porch/balcony/fire escape/lawn and eat while watching the world go by. Make appreciative noises. Fawn on the cook, or, alternately, pretend you slaved all day.

Any leftovers are still good the next morning for breakfast. If you should happen to have any leftovers. Which strikes me as unlikely.

Lunch today: approximately 3000 calories of guacamole, baked tortilla chips, and salsa from last summer from the freezer. I'm declaring avocado a good fat, dammit.

Because I said.

Nom.

Harpy, Outside tomorrow?

So there's a problem with adding parkour, yoga, swimming, and t'ai chi to my already busy schedule of work, WoW, climbing, life...

I can't freaking stop eating. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get 8000 low-fat, low-protein, low-refined-carb calories inside you in a day?

On the other hand, I have gained fifteen pounds since this time last year, and I think all of it is muscle.

(N.B: they were actually Clif Bars. I do have some standards. The peanuts were actually peanut butter, on the banana bread, but Fitday doesn't think you can make peanut butter that is just ground up peanuts and salt. Fortunately, beer has calories.)

So I just got called into the boss's office so he could give me something in a brown envelope. And it wasn't a pink slip.



I think I totally have her nose.

I remember what she looked like, but I didn't have any photos before today. Some just found me. (My grandparents' house burned down last year, and I thought everything in it went, too, but the photos were saved by a first responder. El Jefe said he didn't want to tell me until he was sure he could get them released for me. There are perks to this job.)

She would have been about seventeen when that was taken, and she looks older. Which is also like me, I guess.

...you know, if I put it on the Internet, it's forever. That's satisfying to think about.

1 ripe mango, diced.
2 tsp of red onion or green onions (yes, scallions, you Eastern heathens), diced very very small
1 small chile (your choice of variety: I use habaneros, but I understand that some folks find them challenging.) with the veins and seeds cleaned out, also diced very very small
squeeze of fresh lime juice
sprinkle of sea salt

Combine the ingredients. Let sit five minutes.

Serve on everything, but especially on salt-fried salmon with crispy, crispy skin, over heroic quantities of brown rice, with garlicky vinegary turnip greens on the side.

If scaling, you don't really need to add another pepper until you get to three or four mangoes.

Failure modes:
You cut your finger off.
You left the onion or pepper chunks too big (think milimeters, here).
You tried to do this by whizzing everything in the food processor and made soup. Use a knife.
Your mango wasn't ripe.
You didn't seed and vein the chile.
You did seed and vein the chile, but you didn't wear gloves and then you touched your eye.
You ate your lovely romantic dinner with a partner, and said partner was so impressed they promptly dragged you into bed, where mouth-to-mucous-membrane contact resulted in an unforgettable experience. Ahem. You don't need the endorphins that bad.*

Yeah. Don't do those things. Take it from me.

*Pure capsaicin, by the way, is a hydrophobic, odorless, colorless, waxy solid at room temperature. Birds are immune to its effects: it is biological warfare targeted specifically at mammals. However, it also has potent analgesic properties and appears to be effective in helping people (like me) with blood sugar issues to stay regulated.

Chiles are chock full of vitamin C, beta carotene, and B vitamins, by the way. So it's not the capsaicin that's good for you when you have a cold: it's the vitamins (anecdotal evidence aside, chiles do not seem to have a positive effect on rhinitis. On the other hand, the analgesic effects probably help with cold symptoms!).


I knew you were curious.

Friday morning freedom yoga class report: OMGYAY Filipina goth chick with the long loose braid who pitched her mat next to mine today. Talk about your basic day-improver. Amazing how you can tell she's a goth chick even in yoga togs. The eyeliner and bangs give it away. And the black workout socks. Who has black workout socks?

Music included Everlast (with swearing, very much embarrassing the instructor, who must have forgotten that the F-word was in that song), Lennon (instant karma will have to get in line), Bonnie (and the angel from Mongomery.) Also, somebody new to me--Professor Trance, a song called "Breath Connects Us All." Good stuff.

P.S., there's blueberry poppyseed bread in the kitchen. Because bribing your coworkers begins at home. And if you all fail your drug tests, can I have your jobs?

Metairie man says stranger chewed, swallowed after taking bite out of his arm

Bonnie Lancellotti also has concerns about the suspect, who apparently had been treated at East Jefferson General Hospital earlier in the day for a finger injury. Vargas was released 45 minutes before the attack, according to the incident report.

Bonnie Lancellotti wondered whether hospital staff noticed anything amiss while treating Vargas. "This person's clearly lost his sense, " she said. "I mean, what else can you say, eating people's skin?"

...and apparently patient zero is still out there.

Gonna be a big lurch next year.

Stayed up wayyyy too late last night reading Steph Davis' blog. It made me all restless, and I wound up layering up in hoodies and gloves and taking the Holstein out for a couple of hours in the cold and pretending to be a teenaged vagrant. (No tickets this time. Or contusions. *g*)

She makes me homesick. Homesick for... me. For the person I used to be, the one I gave up for this job and this life and... well, family, though I didn't expect to get that back then. Maybe answers. I think I was hoping for answers.

What a weird sensation. Like a funhouse mirror into the life I walked away from.

If I had made different choices, that would be my trip to Patagonia, my sponsorship deals, my travel schedule, my food- and dog-blogging. Or I'd be dead, which is always a possibility. You know.

It's still sharp back there, if I look for it. What it was like, what it felt like to be up there, jamming a crack, nothing between you and the world but a couple of hundred feet of air and the contact between the rock and your skin and your shoes, knowing that when you get there you'll leave the rock behind too, to buy a few seconds of flying.

Belonging to nobody, owing nothing to anyone.

I couldn't go back to it now. I can't trust my body that much anymore. It doesn't always work right the first time, and you don't get a second one.

You give stuff up for other stuff. But if you don't lie to yourself, you know what you gave up. And it's good to remember that, because it reminds you how much what you have now is worth.

I'm not sad about the price. Don't get me wrong. I figured out a while back that I wouldn't give up what I have now.

Just right this minute, I'm remembering that there was a price, is all.

Steph Davis, totally rad.


Steph Davis - Castleton And Diamond Free Solo from Andrew on Vimeo.


Steph Davis- Climbing Castleton, and Jumping Off of it from Andrew on Vimeo.

Guh.

She reminds me a little of somebody I used to know.