I didn't modify this recipe at all, so I'm just going to link to the original: Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough Dip. I made this for writer husband whose two favorite foods are cookie dough and hummus, and that's what this recipe is. Cookie dough flavored hummus. The site says it's skinny and I guess it is, compared to real cookie dough - the whole batch worked out to a little over 1000 calories (with fat free cream cheese, which was all they had at the store I went to), and split in four there was still quite a lot of hummus in each portion. I don't actually count calories myself, though - that's my writer husband's schtick - and what I like about it is that instead of the butter-sugar-sugar-flour nonsense that cookies have, this dip is all peanut butter and old-fashioned oats. Along with the chickpeas, that makes it super nutritious. Tons of fiber and protein! I made it with dark brown sugar instead of the light brown used in the recipe, because I prefer the richer taste of dark brown - it's also less processed if that bothers you.
I also used fat free milk because that was all we had, but I'd love to try it with almond milk. I'd also prefer to use reduced or full fat cream cheese instead of fat free because it would be creamier and richer, but if you do count calories, it tastes just fine with fat free!
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Monday, 28 January 2013
Time-wasting VS Time-using
I've gotten rid of a lot of the time-wasting sites that I used to spend so much time on, but I'm still a little in awe of how much time it's freed up. I deleted Tumblr a couple of months ago but I still find myself casting about for things to aimlessly scroll through on the internet. I barely use Livejournal at all any more, and my Facebook is just a way to keep up with a small handful of people, literally about three or four, that I don't have any other way to talk to. They only update with about 8-10 new posts every day so at worst, I'm just wasting ten minutes.
The funny thing about it is that after I've exhausted every other site, I usually just come here to doodle around and write something, and then I end up being productive because I'm updating my blog. I don't consider this cheating - running a blog properly is something I've been wanting to do for years, and I typically end up dropping (too busy refreshing Tumblr), so every post is a victory as far as I'm concerned. If I'm not writing here, maybe I'll play a bit of a video game that I've been working on, which again is productive for me since I have wanted to get better at video games for years.
What I'm seeing from this is that it is worth putting thought into picking the things you do. Going to Tumblr or Livejournal becomes a habit, but really, just about anything can become habitual. If you want to be productive, pick sites and activities that are purposeful and valuable to you and relate to a goal that you have. At the end of the day you aren't going to just sit and blankly do nothing - you're going to find something to occupy your time with, and it's going to be the things that are most immediately accessible. If you make sure that those things are valuable, and put purpose and thought into choosing them, you're going to end up doing those things as regularly as you did Plurk and Pinterest. Except that you're also going to progress, instead of spending all afternoon scrolling through image posts and other people's personal updates, and realizing that you're in the exact same place and you're the exact same person that you were three hours ago.
Think about it: in three hours you can work out, write a blog post, drink a cup of tea, make pretzels, and defeat a level of a video game. You can get hooked on a new novel. You can clean your entire apartment; watch three documentaries; complete a chapter of a Teach Yourself language course. If you keep these kinds of things beside you on the table or the nightstand or your purse while deleting Tumblr and Facebook from your favorites bar or your app list, you'll turn to the things that are valuable to you in order to occupy your time just as easily.
Now I've written a blog post, and I'm going to go and make pretzels.
The funny thing about it is that after I've exhausted every other site, I usually just come here to doodle around and write something, and then I end up being productive because I'm updating my blog. I don't consider this cheating - running a blog properly is something I've been wanting to do for years, and I typically end up dropping (too busy refreshing Tumblr), so every post is a victory as far as I'm concerned. If I'm not writing here, maybe I'll play a bit of a video game that I've been working on, which again is productive for me since I have wanted to get better at video games for years.
What I'm seeing from this is that it is worth putting thought into picking the things you do. Going to Tumblr or Livejournal becomes a habit, but really, just about anything can become habitual. If you want to be productive, pick sites and activities that are purposeful and valuable to you and relate to a goal that you have. At the end of the day you aren't going to just sit and blankly do nothing - you're going to find something to occupy your time with, and it's going to be the things that are most immediately accessible. If you make sure that those things are valuable, and put purpose and thought into choosing them, you're going to end up doing those things as regularly as you did Plurk and Pinterest. Except that you're also going to progress, instead of spending all afternoon scrolling through image posts and other people's personal updates, and realizing that you're in the exact same place and you're the exact same person that you were three hours ago.
Think about it: in three hours you can work out, write a blog post, drink a cup of tea, make pretzels, and defeat a level of a video game. You can get hooked on a new novel. You can clean your entire apartment; watch three documentaries; complete a chapter of a Teach Yourself language course. If you keep these kinds of things beside you on the table or the nightstand or your purse while deleting Tumblr and Facebook from your favorites bar or your app list, you'll turn to the things that are valuable to you in order to occupy your time just as easily.
Now I've written a blog post, and I'm going to go and make pretzels.
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Gatsby's House
Another little thought I had regarding The Great Gatsby is the symbolic significance of Gatsby's house. Nick goes into the history of it at one point, talking about how it's designed to look like an old castle with turrets and such, and how the original designer offered to pay five years' worth of taxes on the surrounding properties if they agreed to thatch their roofs with straw (which they refused because, as Nick said, Americans don't take to being peasantry).
Given that this was written during the 1920s, which was the time of Art Deco and Bauhaus modernism, I feel that this is very telling. The design and history of the house is representative of the absurd archaism of the upper classes - the way they clutch at the past and pretend at being nobility when the time for nobles has long since passed.
The fact that this is the house that Gatsby buys is in itself metaphorical, of course, but so is the lifestyle he operates out of it. His famous parties which everyone in the city attends are a closed world to Daisy, full of life and opportunity, the height of Jazz Age culture. Gatsby doesn't belong in the world he tries to occupy - but that is a credit to him.
Given that this was written during the 1920s, which was the time of Art Deco and Bauhaus modernism, I feel that this is very telling. The design and history of the house is representative of the absurd archaism of the upper classes - the way they clutch at the past and pretend at being nobility when the time for nobles has long since passed.
The fact that this is the house that Gatsby buys is in itself metaphorical, of course, but so is the lifestyle he operates out of it. His famous parties which everyone in the city attends are a closed world to Daisy, full of life and opportunity, the height of Jazz Age culture. Gatsby doesn't belong in the world he tries to occupy - but that is a credit to him.
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Whole Wheat Walnut and Oat Bread
I made this bread as a complement to my carrot and coriander soup, and also as a way to use walnuts up in recipes so that I would actually enjoy eating them. I can say with the full support of my three husbands that it was a wild success on both accounts! I hope everyone enjoys making and eating this delicious bread.
Preheat oven to 435F.
In a small bowl mix 2tsp yeast and 1tsp white sugar, and add 1/4C warm water. Leave for about 5-10 minutes or until frothy.
Put 1 1/4C (one and a quarter) warm water in a large bowl, and stir in the yeast mixture. Add 1tsp dark brown sugar, 1/4C old fashioned oats, and 2C whole wheat flour. Stir to combine.
Mix 2tbsp olive oil to dough and stir to combine. Finely chop 1/2C walnuts and toast; stir walnuts into dough. Make sure they're distributed evenly!
Then, begin adding all-purpose flour (between 2 and 3C) by the half-cup until the dough is soft and no longer sticky. Knead as you incorporate, and slap the dough a lot while you knead.
Put in greased or floured bowl, cover with a towel and let rise for an hour or two, until doubled in size. Knead it down, shape it into a loaf and place it on a greased baking tray (I put foil on my trays and spray the foil with Pam). If you like, you can wet the top of the loaf and top it with more oats (or poppyseeds!). Cover loaf with towel and let rise for 30-45 minutes.
Bake in oven for 30 minutes, and make sure to tap the bottom to make sure it sounds hollow! If it doesn't, put it back in and check every 5-10 minutes.
Preheat oven to 435F.
In a small bowl mix 2tsp yeast and 1tsp white sugar, and add 1/4C warm water. Leave for about 5-10 minutes or until frothy.
Put 1 1/4C (one and a quarter) warm water in a large bowl, and stir in the yeast mixture. Add 1tsp dark brown sugar, 1/4C old fashioned oats, and 2C whole wheat flour. Stir to combine.
Mix 2tbsp olive oil to dough and stir to combine. Finely chop 1/2C walnuts and toast; stir walnuts into dough. Make sure they're distributed evenly!
Then, begin adding all-purpose flour (between 2 and 3C) by the half-cup until the dough is soft and no longer sticky. Knead as you incorporate, and slap the dough a lot while you knead.
Put in greased or floured bowl, cover with a towel and let rise for an hour or two, until doubled in size. Knead it down, shape it into a loaf and place it on a greased baking tray (I put foil on my trays and spray the foil with Pam). If you like, you can wet the top of the loaf and top it with more oats (or poppyseeds!). Cover loaf with towel and let rise for 30-45 minutes.
Bake in oven for 30 minutes, and make sure to tap the bottom to make sure it sounds hollow! If it doesn't, put it back in and check every 5-10 minutes.
Carrot and Coriander Soup
When I was little, my father bought these delicious fancy soups that came in paper tetra-paks and were absolutely heavenly. I don't think they were organic, but they were fresh as hell, and have always been my standard for seriously delicious soup. I actually forgot about it for a while - how tasty fresh pea soup, tomato and basil, and carrot and coriander used to be before I switched to canned tomato and forgot that soup could be delicious.
When I remembered, I had to look up a recipe. I tried making carrot and walnut a little while ago (one of my mother in laws bought us a bag of walnuts, and I dislike walnuts on their own so I try to find recipes to make them taste good. Unfortunately, that soup didn't turn out right at all in my opinion, although my husbands loved it.
This soup, though? This soup is perfect. It's like I could have poured it out of the packet back in 1997, except that I had the satisfaction (and got the credit!) for making it myself.
In the bottom of a large soup pot or stockpot, chop and fry 1 shallot in some olive oil until translucent. For reference, the shallot I used was about the size of my palm. In a mortar and pestle, grind 1/2tsp caraway seed, and add to shallots. Add 2 medium white potatoes, diced, and fry for a few minutes.
Add about 700g carrots, chopped, plus 3C beef broth and 3C chicken stock. Stir and cook on medium-low heat for an hour.
Remove from heat and liquefy the soup in a blender, along with 1 bunch fresh coriander (cilantro). I just chopped the leaves off and used those, but you can use the stems too if you like a stronger coriander taste. You might need to blend it in two batches depending on the size of your blender - just pour the first batch into a large bowl.
Return the soup to the pot and put over low heat. Add chicken broth (or water) to thin it to desired consistency, and then serve with delicious bread!
When I remembered, I had to look up a recipe. I tried making carrot and walnut a little while ago (one of my mother in laws bought us a bag of walnuts, and I dislike walnuts on their own so I try to find recipes to make them taste good. Unfortunately, that soup didn't turn out right at all in my opinion, although my husbands loved it.
This soup, though? This soup is perfect. It's like I could have poured it out of the packet back in 1997, except that I had the satisfaction (and got the credit!) for making it myself.
In the bottom of a large soup pot or stockpot, chop and fry 1 shallot in some olive oil until translucent. For reference, the shallot I used was about the size of my palm. In a mortar and pestle, grind 1/2tsp caraway seed, and add to shallots. Add 2 medium white potatoes, diced, and fry for a few minutes.
Add about 700g carrots, chopped, plus 3C beef broth and 3C chicken stock. Stir and cook on medium-low heat for an hour.
Remove from heat and liquefy the soup in a blender, along with 1 bunch fresh coriander (cilantro). I just chopped the leaves off and used those, but you can use the stems too if you like a stronger coriander taste. You might need to blend it in two batches depending on the size of your blender - just pour the first batch into a large bowl.
Return the soup to the pot and put over low heat. Add chicken broth (or water) to thin it to desired consistency, and then serve with delicious bread!
The Great Gatsby
---Spoilers for The Great Gatsby---
I always knew Fitzgerald as someone that associated with Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, and as a result I've avoided reading any of his books because I really cannot stand Hemingway or Gertrude Stein. With the movie coming out, though, my husband gave it a try, and he liked it so much he persuaded me to read it. I was seriously taken aback.
As far as I understand it, it's a fantastic criticism of wealth and status for wealth and status' sake, and of the historical upper classes. Class is an interesting English invention, and what has happened to it in America is even more interesting, but this isn't the place to go into that. As I understand it, here is what ought to be taken from the book:
The concept of the "old money" upper class is a self-referential standard of success. It has no criteria or standards for value except the fact of its own existence. As a result, it has become a ruinous, greedy, shallow way of life, lived by spoiled, immature, self-absorbed people who view anyone that does not belong to their class as existing for their pleasure and will treat them accordingly. Additionally, as a broader criticism of (1920s) society, the "old money" class is held up as the highest and most refined of people, when due to their lack of ethics, compassion, direction or responsibility they are in fact the worst and most worthless.
There is a passage in which Nick describes Gatsby as "the son of God" in that he had no desire to follow in his parents' footsteps but had a dream of his own perfect happiness that he was willing to do anything to pursue. The young Gatsby sees himself as unlimited, and essentially as transcending class. He's willing to fish and clam for food and money, but he detests doing janitorial work to pay his way through college (while, presumably, surrounded by boys who are not working class and do not have to be subjected to the 'humiliation' of working for their education). Gatsby takes risks, retains his integrity, conducts himself honestly and never loses sight of his goals or his dreams.
Daisy, on the other hand, looks to others to define her life (to use Nick's words) and doesn't even have the redeeming feature of being loyal. While Gatsby's love for her is motivated by his "incorruptible dream", Daisy's love for him is transient and inessential to her happiness. She personifies the fickle immaturity of her class, not understanding Gatsby's devotion to her and not wanting to either. She has no goals or dreams, and looks to others to define her and give her life meaning (a metaphor, I decided, for the upper class's lack of definable value beyond that which everyone has decided to give it), but as a result of her lack of dreams, she doesn't actually care how it is defined. Her happiness is not important to her - her way of life is.
Her husband, Tom, is an appalling man. He cheats on his wife, he hits women, he bullies, and he has no ambition of his own except to retain power over others. From beginning to end he is portrayed as a racist and white supremacist in the most ridiculous ways possible. I have heard that people refuse to read Fitzgerald because of racism in his early works, but I can certainly say that he has lost his racism by the time of Gatsby. Tom's hysteria over whites and blacks marrying and the dilution of the "dominant Nordic race" is painted in such an absurd light that it's completely impossible for anyone to sympathize with.
What is really interesting to me, though, is the character of Meyer Wolfsheim. He is a Jewish mobster, and he helped Gatsby make his fortune. Meyer never goes to Gatsby's parties or to his house, but he is always there for Gatsby - at Gatsby's request, he sends him a full staff of servants so that Gatsby can keep the lid on the rumors about him and know that he is surrounded by people he can trust. But given the time period, he couldn't be less acceptable in polite society. Now the most negative interpretation possible is that Meyer is there as the "dirty Jew", the stain on Gatsby's reputation that prevents him from ever becoming truly respectable. But set against the very deliberate pantomime of Tom's hysterical racism, I can't think that it was intended that way.
Throughout the whole book, we see people we have grown to love being torn apart by Daisy and Tom's frivolity and aimlessness left and right. Throughout the story, Nick berates Gatsby for trying to repeat the past, for trying to find himself in the past, for trying to live in the past - and yet by the end, Nick is completely consumed by the past. He was constantly being forced to stay in situations that he didn't actually want to be a part of by Daisy and Tom - constantly being forced into getting involved. As a result, he ends up chewed up and spat out by the same vortex that consumed Gatsby - that is the tragedy of the book.
Yet there is Meyer, in the background, the only character who gets a good ending as a consequence of making the right choices. Meyer is portrayed as sensitive, loyal and obliging to Gatsby, very honest but also very self-assured. It is obvious that he loves Gatsby, but he refuses to go to his funeral. It is slipped in between Nick's frantic attempts to get a hold of all the other high society people who didn't truly care for or love Gatsby, and at first glance it is easy to write Meyer off as one of those. But if you read what he's saying, it doesn't quite seem that way. He tells Nick that he won't go to the funeral because he doesn't want to get involved. When Nick tells him that everyone's dead and there's nothing left to get involved in, Meyer simply repeats that he doesn't want to get involved. I believe he was referring to not wanting to get involved in anything of that upper class world - very sensibly, given where involvement got Nick and Gatsby.
He also tells Nick that he hates funerals, because he believes that one should honor friends in life, not after they're dead. This is the only time in the whole book that a person doesn't dwell on the past, and instead focuses with integrity on the future. Nick and Gatsby end up both obsessed with people who are no longer there, and in her final betrayal, Daisy cries that Gatsby should just be satisfied that she loves him now - in other words, erasing her mistakes and absolving herself of responsibility for her actions. Between these people, Meyer's solemn, ethical, private approach to friends and to Gatsby's affairs are like a few flakes of moral gold in the silt and mud left behind in Daisy's selfish wake.
I think that Meyer's unrespectable status was that way on purpose, to invert the standards of respectability, as a part of demonstrating how odious the old upper classes were. Those who were supposed to be great are in fact the scum of the earth, and those who were supposed to be low, tacky and untrustworthy are the moral, loyal, dependable ones.
Personally, I got very emotional about Gatsby because I identified very strongly with Jay. His wanderlust, all of the different lives he's lived, his dreams, his patience, his devotion, and the intense way he loves everything all struck very close to my heart. He is one of the protagonists that is most 'like me' in anything I've read. So I couldn't help but be sad when I finished the book - I wished that Nick had taken Meyer up on that "business gonnegtion" and Jay had ended up falling for Nick and the three of them had gone off and been successful and rich together, instead of being all torn apart by shallow, superficial Daisy. But ultimately, even if it was very sad, the book was a masterpiece and will always be very close to my heart.
I always knew Fitzgerald as someone that associated with Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, and as a result I've avoided reading any of his books because I really cannot stand Hemingway or Gertrude Stein. With the movie coming out, though, my husband gave it a try, and he liked it so much he persuaded me to read it. I was seriously taken aback.
As far as I understand it, it's a fantastic criticism of wealth and status for wealth and status' sake, and of the historical upper classes. Class is an interesting English invention, and what has happened to it in America is even more interesting, but this isn't the place to go into that. As I understand it, here is what ought to be taken from the book:
The concept of the "old money" upper class is a self-referential standard of success. It has no criteria or standards for value except the fact of its own existence. As a result, it has become a ruinous, greedy, shallow way of life, lived by spoiled, immature, self-absorbed people who view anyone that does not belong to their class as existing for their pleasure and will treat them accordingly. Additionally, as a broader criticism of (1920s) society, the "old money" class is held up as the highest and most refined of people, when due to their lack of ethics, compassion, direction or responsibility they are in fact the worst and most worthless.
There is a passage in which Nick describes Gatsby as "the son of God" in that he had no desire to follow in his parents' footsteps but had a dream of his own perfect happiness that he was willing to do anything to pursue. The young Gatsby sees himself as unlimited, and essentially as transcending class. He's willing to fish and clam for food and money, but he detests doing janitorial work to pay his way through college (while, presumably, surrounded by boys who are not working class and do not have to be subjected to the 'humiliation' of working for their education). Gatsby takes risks, retains his integrity, conducts himself honestly and never loses sight of his goals or his dreams.
Daisy, on the other hand, looks to others to define her life (to use Nick's words) and doesn't even have the redeeming feature of being loyal. While Gatsby's love for her is motivated by his "incorruptible dream", Daisy's love for him is transient and inessential to her happiness. She personifies the fickle immaturity of her class, not understanding Gatsby's devotion to her and not wanting to either. She has no goals or dreams, and looks to others to define her and give her life meaning (a metaphor, I decided, for the upper class's lack of definable value beyond that which everyone has decided to give it), but as a result of her lack of dreams, she doesn't actually care how it is defined. Her happiness is not important to her - her way of life is.
Her husband, Tom, is an appalling man. He cheats on his wife, he hits women, he bullies, and he has no ambition of his own except to retain power over others. From beginning to end he is portrayed as a racist and white supremacist in the most ridiculous ways possible. I have heard that people refuse to read Fitzgerald because of racism in his early works, but I can certainly say that he has lost his racism by the time of Gatsby. Tom's hysteria over whites and blacks marrying and the dilution of the "dominant Nordic race" is painted in such an absurd light that it's completely impossible for anyone to sympathize with.
What is really interesting to me, though, is the character of Meyer Wolfsheim. He is a Jewish mobster, and he helped Gatsby make his fortune. Meyer never goes to Gatsby's parties or to his house, but he is always there for Gatsby - at Gatsby's request, he sends him a full staff of servants so that Gatsby can keep the lid on the rumors about him and know that he is surrounded by people he can trust. But given the time period, he couldn't be less acceptable in polite society. Now the most negative interpretation possible is that Meyer is there as the "dirty Jew", the stain on Gatsby's reputation that prevents him from ever becoming truly respectable. But set against the very deliberate pantomime of Tom's hysterical racism, I can't think that it was intended that way.
Throughout the whole book, we see people we have grown to love being torn apart by Daisy and Tom's frivolity and aimlessness left and right. Throughout the story, Nick berates Gatsby for trying to repeat the past, for trying to find himself in the past, for trying to live in the past - and yet by the end, Nick is completely consumed by the past. He was constantly being forced to stay in situations that he didn't actually want to be a part of by Daisy and Tom - constantly being forced into getting involved. As a result, he ends up chewed up and spat out by the same vortex that consumed Gatsby - that is the tragedy of the book.
Yet there is Meyer, in the background, the only character who gets a good ending as a consequence of making the right choices. Meyer is portrayed as sensitive, loyal and obliging to Gatsby, very honest but also very self-assured. It is obvious that he loves Gatsby, but he refuses to go to his funeral. It is slipped in between Nick's frantic attempts to get a hold of all the other high society people who didn't truly care for or love Gatsby, and at first glance it is easy to write Meyer off as one of those. But if you read what he's saying, it doesn't quite seem that way. He tells Nick that he won't go to the funeral because he doesn't want to get involved. When Nick tells him that everyone's dead and there's nothing left to get involved in, Meyer simply repeats that he doesn't want to get involved. I believe he was referring to not wanting to get involved in anything of that upper class world - very sensibly, given where involvement got Nick and Gatsby.
He also tells Nick that he hates funerals, because he believes that one should honor friends in life, not after they're dead. This is the only time in the whole book that a person doesn't dwell on the past, and instead focuses with integrity on the future. Nick and Gatsby end up both obsessed with people who are no longer there, and in her final betrayal, Daisy cries that Gatsby should just be satisfied that she loves him now - in other words, erasing her mistakes and absolving herself of responsibility for her actions. Between these people, Meyer's solemn, ethical, private approach to friends and to Gatsby's affairs are like a few flakes of moral gold in the silt and mud left behind in Daisy's selfish wake.
I think that Meyer's unrespectable status was that way on purpose, to invert the standards of respectability, as a part of demonstrating how odious the old upper classes were. Those who were supposed to be great are in fact the scum of the earth, and those who were supposed to be low, tacky and untrustworthy are the moral, loyal, dependable ones.
Personally, I got very emotional about Gatsby because I identified very strongly with Jay. His wanderlust, all of the different lives he's lived, his dreams, his patience, his devotion, and the intense way he loves everything all struck very close to my heart. He is one of the protagonists that is most 'like me' in anything I've read. So I couldn't help but be sad when I finished the book - I wished that Nick had taken Meyer up on that "business gonnegtion" and Jay had ended up falling for Nick and the three of them had gone off and been successful and rich together, instead of being all torn apart by shallow, superficial Daisy. But ultimately, even if it was very sad, the book was a masterpiece and will always be very close to my heart.
Drugs, Exercise and London
An acquaintance of mine blogged about medical marijuana being especially good for Crohn's disease, which is apparently a fucker to treat with other medications (which often cause bowel distress - I have this problem a lot and I don't even have a bowel disorder). I've heard other things about it being a good pain reliever for chemo patients, and the like. And it occurs to me that perhaps if idiots with their 420 nonsense would stop cluttering up the debate, marijuana probably could be cleared for medical use. The simple fact of the matter is that it is incredibly hard to take a product seriously when it is more famous for its associations with white people that carry Jamaican-flag-print lighters, wear weed-shaped belt buckles and tell any captive audience they can find about their last wild trip or how acid totally doesn't have any side effects than for its associations with actual medical patients who need help.
inb4 "not all potheads are like that", yes, as with all social groups there are exceptions to the rule. But the fact remains that the vast majority of outspokenly pro-weed people (I refuse to use the term "420" in a serious context because it is just so stupid) are twats who, if they do raise the medical benefits, typically do it to talk about how The Man is oppressing people because He won't admit how, like, totally okay weed is, man. When cancer and Crohn's disease patients are the most vocal demographic in favor of legalizing weed, call me.
Unrelatedly, I went for a run today after contracting bronchitis in November and staying sick until early January (and then being too cold to move for a few weeks after that), and it was agony. I was out for about ten minutes and when I got home I was asthmatic, gasping, had an excruciating headache and was shaking all over. Two months of lying on the couch can ruin a body, my friends.
I don't think exercise ever actually becomes pleasant for anybody. Pushing yourself past your limits is a fundamentally physically uncomfortable activity. Yes, your tolerance will rise as you become fitter, just as an averagely unfit person has a perfectly fine tolerance for walking around town whereas a morbidly obese person may not have the tolerance even for that, but the whole point of working out is to push yourself all of the time so that fact is kind of moot.
I think the people who say they enjoy exercise have simply retrained their minds to interpret those uncomfortable chemicals that exercise releases as positive, even if they feel unpleasant. People do this all the time - for example, skydivers, who reinterpret the physical feelings of fear as something positive that will encourage them to jump out of the plane, instead of something negative that will keep them inside it - so it's hardly a big jump. But the fact still remains that unless you do eventually reinterpret the unpleasant feelings like that, exercise is still going to wring you out and make you feel like shit.
That isn't any excuse to not exercise, because there are much worse shitty things that you put up with doing every day, that don't protect you from disease or improve your physical and mental health in any way.
Finally, I'm blogging at seven in the morning because I can't sleep. I got thinking about London and I'm too excited.
My father owns an apartment in Tufnell Park that has just been empty for literally more than twenty years, half-finished, gathering dust and storing some of his old crap that should really be thrown out. The other day my husbands and I decided that I should call him up in a few months' time and tell him to sign the property over to me. I will then go over with writer husband, do the place up and rent it out, splitting the rent with my father. My father will then get to see me relatively regularly as my family and I will have a place to stay in London, the property will be making money instead of lying fallow, and I'll be getting some of that money. Since it seems pretty likely that my father will only have a year or two more of tenure at the University (if that), now would seem to be the perfect time to do it, and I won't have to pay 40% taxation on the property when my father dies (legal loophole in England that says if you signed it over more than 7 years before your death, the beneficiary doesn't have to pay death duties).
I can't sleep because I'm mentally picking out furniture for the apartment and making checklists of things that need to be done there, like sanding the floors, cleaning the chimneys and getting a fire escape put in.
inb4 "not all potheads are like that", yes, as with all social groups there are exceptions to the rule. But the fact remains that the vast majority of outspokenly pro-weed people (I refuse to use the term "420" in a serious context because it is just so stupid) are twats who, if they do raise the medical benefits, typically do it to talk about how The Man is oppressing people because He won't admit how, like, totally okay weed is, man. When cancer and Crohn's disease patients are the most vocal demographic in favor of legalizing weed, call me.
Unrelatedly, I went for a run today after contracting bronchitis in November and staying sick until early January (and then being too cold to move for a few weeks after that), and it was agony. I was out for about ten minutes and when I got home I was asthmatic, gasping, had an excruciating headache and was shaking all over. Two months of lying on the couch can ruin a body, my friends.
I don't think exercise ever actually becomes pleasant for anybody. Pushing yourself past your limits is a fundamentally physically uncomfortable activity. Yes, your tolerance will rise as you become fitter, just as an averagely unfit person has a perfectly fine tolerance for walking around town whereas a morbidly obese person may not have the tolerance even for that, but the whole point of working out is to push yourself all of the time so that fact is kind of moot.
I think the people who say they enjoy exercise have simply retrained their minds to interpret those uncomfortable chemicals that exercise releases as positive, even if they feel unpleasant. People do this all the time - for example, skydivers, who reinterpret the physical feelings of fear as something positive that will encourage them to jump out of the plane, instead of something negative that will keep them inside it - so it's hardly a big jump. But the fact still remains that unless you do eventually reinterpret the unpleasant feelings like that, exercise is still going to wring you out and make you feel like shit.
That isn't any excuse to not exercise, because there are much worse shitty things that you put up with doing every day, that don't protect you from disease or improve your physical and mental health in any way.
Finally, I'm blogging at seven in the morning because I can't sleep. I got thinking about London and I'm too excited.
My father owns an apartment in Tufnell Park that has just been empty for literally more than twenty years, half-finished, gathering dust and storing some of his old crap that should really be thrown out. The other day my husbands and I decided that I should call him up in a few months' time and tell him to sign the property over to me. I will then go over with writer husband, do the place up and rent it out, splitting the rent with my father. My father will then get to see me relatively regularly as my family and I will have a place to stay in London, the property will be making money instead of lying fallow, and I'll be getting some of that money. Since it seems pretty likely that my father will only have a year or two more of tenure at the University (if that), now would seem to be the perfect time to do it, and I won't have to pay 40% taxation on the property when my father dies (legal loophole in England that says if you signed it over more than 7 years before your death, the beneficiary doesn't have to pay death duties).
I can't sleep because I'm mentally picking out furniture for the apartment and making checklists of things that need to be done there, like sanding the floors, cleaning the chimneys and getting a fire escape put in.
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