Non-Stop to Nowhere

So I really have nothing interesting to say, but I feel like if I don’t blog soon an angry mob will form outside my door. Maybe if I just start typing, it’ll become something interesting. In fact, what if I didn’t stop typing? What if I just kept rambling on and on without stopping to consider my words or organize them into logical thought patterns? This is a bit scary, but I guess I’ll try it seeing as thus far I have succeeded. I don’t know what to say… okay at least I don’t type as fast as others so I do get a moment to think things out. I never did learn tot type correctly. I’m what some people refer to as a “pecker”. Peck, peck, peck, using four of my 10 potential- what’s the word? Here is where I would normally pause, scan my internal files of vocabulary and find what I’m looking for, insert it seamlessly into the text and my readers are none the wiser that 23 seconds elapse between one word and the other. But no- no such break here. I must keep typing while simultaneously searching my brain for the word I’m looking for. I think it’s something like metacarpals. I wanted a fancy, sciencey sounding word for fingers. If I was pausing I would have switched those last two sentences. If I was pausing I would change “switched” to “flip-flopped”. See how this works? I’m not nearly as eloquent this way. That’s why I always prefer to write rather than speak. Like Paul. Bold in writing, timid when in person. I’ve learned a lot about insecurity. It’s really an epidemic among the world and of course the church. I’ve been understanding it in my own life and thus seeing it and doing my best to root it out as I identify it. The one frustrating thing that comes along with such growth is that then you can see the sin in other people. It’s like x-ray vision. So now I see insecurity everywhere and I just want to shake people and say “Stop It!” but I still haven’t stopped it so what do I have to say about it anyway. I used to think it was “humble” to be camera shy, for example. Oh, don’t take my picture. Oh, no. But actually, it’s none other than pride cleverly disguised as- crap, I can’t think of the word again. I almost cheated and paused anyway, but then I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. Because of how my computer is positioned, I have to type with my arms slightly elevated. I wouldn’t have guessed that it would be my biceps of all muscles that would be starting to ache at this point. That reminds me of an interesting fact about myself. I never realized until a short while ago that the majority of the population drives their cars with their heel comfortably planted on the floorboard. I’ve been driving around for eight years (wow, that’s not very long, is it?) with my toe pointed like a ballerina or an equestrian jumper and having to do calve exercises to take road trips. I can’t go back, but I would say “to prepare for roadtrips”. Anyway, that’s a funny thing. I’m just too short. My feet don’t reach the pedals very well. Well, I guess they would if I moved the seat closer to the steering wheel but then if I ran into anything going over 25 miles an hour I would be decapitated by my airbag. I’ll take the toe-point, thank you. Okay, my arms are really aching now, and this is one loooooong paragraph. Oh, that looooong just gave me an idea of how to get a break. This sure is a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong paragraph. Ah, that was nice. Now I’ve got my elbows resting on the counter although it’s much harder to peck this way. Speaking of elbows, I used to be in a kung-fu class with this Persian dude. He was the nicest guy. His name was Phar-mar. He’d say “Phar-mar. Just think: Mars is very Far away”. Anyway, he was working with me and we were talking about a particular move and he said something like “You need to bend your knee-bows.” I thought that was so funny. You know, like elbows on your legs would be knee-bows. I thought it was funny anyway. Maybe you had to be there. Well, this is getting old and I’m sure the feeling is mutual. I must say, this is the fastest I have ever put in a blog entry, hands down. (yuk yuk). I’ll spare us all and quit now, but don’t say I didn’t blog! Don’t say I didn’t throw something out there for you! And one day, when I get out of this mental cloud-funk I have been in for the past few weeks I’ll do my best to actually say something useful. Until that day, goodnight.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's.... SuperFoods!

I’ve never really been one for “healthy” eating. I don’t sit around with a bag of Doritos or down whole cartons of ice cream, but I’ve never eaten a balanced diet. I don’t care for many vegetables, and my only relationship with fruit is juice and the occasional smoothie. In fact, if tomatoes hadn’t made it into the fruit category, I would never consume fruit of any kind that actually requires chewing.

Recently, however, my mom had been giving me little snippets of information from the new “SuperFoods” movement, and I think I've officially been sucked in. It’s basically a list of 14 foods, each with several “sidekicks”, that are labeled as “super” based on nutritional benefits and disease prevention. The thing about this diet is that it isn’t exclusionary, but inclusionary ( I don’t think that’s a word, but just go with it). No one is telling me to eat bunless hamburgers or that my margarine will give me cancer. Rather than reminding me what a horrible person I am for continuing to eat french fries, it tells me what’s good and what to add to my diet. A lot of them are things that I actually like and I can make a more concerted effort to include in meals, like tomatoes, blueberries, nuts, and yes- dark chocolate. Things like spinach and beans I’ll have to be more creative with. And then there’s broccoli. I’d rather eat my foot that one floret of that nastiness, so I won’t be getting any of broccoli’s superpowers any time soon.

So yesterday, with my new SuperFoods book, I ventured into Henry’s, the local healthy-hippie type store. I felt like a pagan in church. I didn’t know what I was doing or where anything was. I just wanted to slip in the back and try to blend in. As I passed other shoppers, paranoia began to set in. Was everyone staring at me? What is she doing here? It felt as though they could see right through my skin and into my clogged arteries. I grabbed a cart, tried to look as healthy as I could, and began walking each aisle. I started with crackers. I needed whole grains. I came upon a sample station for multi-grain crackers that had all these little specks and seeds on them- the kind of stuff my hamster used to eat. They looked pretty healthy to me, and they actually tasted good too, so I grabbed a box and put it in the basket. I picked up a box of cereal bars for the kids, read the ingredients, and, finding I could pronounce every one of them, added two boxes to my cart. I found some good yogurt, a box of soy milk, and a bag of snap peas. It wasn’t until the cereal aisle that I began to get suspicious of my multi-grain crackers. All of these cereals touted different grainage- whole grain, multi-grain, oat and grain- and after a minute of investigation I realized that many grains are actually only partial grains masquerading as whole grains. I checked the first ingredient on my crackers and sure enough: Enriched wheat flour. I don’t know what enriched means, I but I know that it’s a bad, bad thing, so I made my way back to the cracker aisle and exchanged them for the real deal.

Once I was sure I had exceeded my intended budget, I headed for the checkout. I wasn’t sure what to expect here either. Would they check my I.D.? My cholesterol level? The checkout lady smiled and greeted me as I approached the register. To my relief, she rang up my groceries and I was on my way without anyone taking my blood pressure or inquiring how many servings of green leafy vegetables I had eaten that day. I returned home with my groceries and a sense of triumph. I could feel the Free Radicals cringing as I emptied my bags of SuperFoods into the refrigerator. Nothing could discourage me now!

Nothing, that is, except possibly my two-year-old.

Later that night Bethany climbed on my back and wanted me to crawl around the house and give her a ride. As we lumbered down the hallway she declared with delight, “I’m riding a whale!”

I’m never eating again.