Tag: Non-fiction

This Month’s Treat: 30 Days of Meat. 

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Tonight I begin 30 days as a carnivore. I told a bunch of friends today. Before each conversation, I requested no comments or concerns. Chelsea is excited for me. Jackson wants me to blog about it. Michael believes:
  1. I’m unlikely to cause significant harm
  2. I should take a multivitamin and get my cholesterol checked.

Classic Michael, prioritizing my health over my requests.

At Whole Foods, I purchased $38.79 of meat:
  • 0.63lbs Salmon
  • 1.12lbs Pork Belly
  • 1.08lbs Ground Beef
  • 1.24lbs Ribeye Steak
  • 0.37 lbs Pork Chops
Tonight, at 1am, I complete a three-day fast. Then, for at least 30 days, I shall eat:
  • Meat, obviously
  • Salt & pepper
If I want to “cheat”, I shall expand to:
  • Butter
  • Eggs
My final rung of falling further:
  • Heavy cream
  • Hard cheeses
Huh, these are all the items I tend toward anyway…
…
…
…
Wish me luck.
Want to hear about a specific aspect of this experiment? Send me a message or tack on a comment. It helps me know how to tailor my writing. 

Burrata & Salami on Lap

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IMG_7053

Ingredients:

  • Burrata
  • Salami (sliced)
  • A second salami (unsliced)
  • Gluttonous attitude

Preparation Instructions:

  1. Stop at a grocery store en route to the gym.
  2. Find the burrata cheese.
  3. Consider buying two burratas.
  4. Notice there’s a sale.Buy three, and tack on a package of salami for good measure. IMG_7054

Consumption instructions:

  1. When opening the burrata, be careful not to spill any of the salt water. (This will be important later.)
  2. Open the package of salami.
  3. Slice off bits of the burrata using the plastic fork.
  4. Add burrata to salami and consume.
  5. Retrieve from your fridge the rosemary salami you recently purchased at a farmer’s market.
  6. Slice off bits of the salami with a knife.
  7. Add burrata to salami and consume.
  8. When the burrata is gone, drink the milky salt watery goodness. (I told you it would be important).
  9. Use a fork to remove the small delicious curds from the bottom of the bowl.
  10. Eat a second burrata, because you lifted weights today.
  11. Be glad you purchased three.
A morsel of delight.
Salty milky goodness.
Curds of joy.
Salty milky goodness.
Curds of joy.

Did you enjoy this post? Want me to consume a specific food? Comment on this article so I know what you want me to write.  

Water your thoughts? My opinions on water in various contexts.

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SECTION 0. MY FIRST DISPUTE WITH THE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

In 2006, the TSA banned liquids. Being a clever, pedantic, and thirsty child, I arrived to the airport with a bottle of ice.

“You can’t bring that through security,” the agent explained.

I asked why.

She said, “It’s a liquid.” With a shit-eating grin, I replied, “But it’s ice.”

“I know,” she answered. “Ice is a liquid.”

SECTION 1: THE MOUTH

  • Saliva is under-appreciated.
  • Drool is disgusting.
  • Spit should be avoided at all costs.
  • The saliva of a lover requires further research, currently accepting applications.

SECTION 2: COMMON APPLICATIONS OF WATER

  • The water that makes up 80% of my body: Great.
  • 80% of your body: Passable.
  • 80% of Donald Trump’s body: No comment.

 

  • Water-based lube: good.
  • Tears: Bad, unless they’re being used as water-based lube.

 

  • Water is great for fish, camels, and rainforests, necessary for farmers, and hit-and-miss with New Orleans.

 

  • Showers are good, baths are great, and hot tubs are excellent.
    • The four differences between a bath and a hot tub are friends, chlorine, jets, and clothing. Realization: Friends and jets must be fabulous, because chlorine is awful and clothing is the worst.

SECTION 3: LOCATIONS WHERE ONE MIGHT FIND WATER

  • Cup: good.
  • Bottle: fine.
  • Pool: excellent.
  • Syringe: concerning.
  • Computer: oh no.
  • Bed: your fault.
  • My van: bad rust.
  • The statue of liberty: somehow delightful rust.

SECTION 4: LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

  • SUBSECTION 1: FICTIONAL ETYMOLOGY
    • “Water” derives from the Latin “Wah-tah-ré,” meaning gift of the gods.
  • SUBSECTION 2: SYLLABLES
    • Wat: the Thai word for temple
    • Er: the sound often heard during the search for a hard-to-find word.
  • SUBSECTION 3: CURIOUS INSIGHT
    • Food, air, sun, earth, touch, love, mom, dad. Why is the word “water” two syllables when all other life necessities can be described in one?
  • SUBSECTION 4: WORDPLAY
    • Passable:
      • Water you doing? Water you talking about? Water you looking at?
    • Desirable:
      • Water you want to drink?
    • Too far:
      • Water you want her, the waiter, to wither while we a-waiter to order?

SECTION 5: TRAITS

  • Warm water: good for bathing.
  • Cold water: good for drinking and borscht. Otherwise to be avoided.
  • Hot water: Excellent for cooking.
    • Also means “trouble,” as in the phrase, “While exchanging saliva, Carol and I overheard the deafening footfalls of Principal Jerickson’s rotund personage and knew we were in hot water.”

SECTION 6: ENDING

  • Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. I say the world already ended in a flood… or at least that’s what the Salt Lake City billboards taught me.

 

Special thanks to Brine Waves, a Salt Lake City writing group that invited me to their gathering this week, themed “water.”

Did you like this piece? Hate it? Throw a comment below so I can know what to write in the future. 

My daily arting requirement this year (from 190521 to 200520)

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1. Compose from my place of emotional vulnerability until satisfied.

2. Edit such that I like it sufficiently. (ideally, I would edit until I like it maximally, but 1. One can only do so much in limited time and 2. It’s better to edit something over multiple days than to avoid editing it altogether because I can’t make it maximally satisfactory in one.)

3. If it’s safe for public consumption, share it.

Fuchs Geh Voran!

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This song is hilarious.

Funny bits:

  1. It’s a German heavy metal cover of the U.S. Bubblegum Pop band that wrote “The Ballroom Blitz.”
  2. The original song, “Fox on the Run“, tells the story of a man chasing after an attractive woman. The German heavy metal cover, “Fuchs Geh Voran“, describes an actual fox-hunt, like those that happened in Jane Austin’s day.
  3. The original song is by Sweet, a shortened form of “The Sweetshop”, a place where children receive candy. The German Heavy Metal Band named themselves “Scorpions,” one of the world’s top 5 creepiest animals. And they didn’t choose “The Scorpions,” with a “The” to indicate they’re a band, not actual scorpions. Nor did they choose the singular form, “Scorpion”. No, they wanted fans to imagine multiple creepy crawlies each time their band name is mentioned.
  4. Heavy metal, fox hunting, and the German language are a great combo. An excerpt of the lyrics: (For full effect, imagine it sung in German, backed by heavy metal music. And if you don’t know German, simply imagine in a heavy German accent.) 

Hey, you beautiful animal,
I come and help you,
you are in danger.

Hey, you all just want your fur,
and whoever sells it fast,
yes that’s unfortunately true.

Wir müßen den Fuchs häuten!

The humor has concluded. You may now laugh.

If you enjoyed this piece, please like it or leave a comment. It helps me know what to write. 

 

“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.

Julian2 Comments

“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.

See bright spots of light. Can’t balance no more.

Closed out my phone call, “I love you. Uh, bye.”

Stumbled to my knees, my head hanging high.

 

Called my chum Em’ly, the reason I’m here

Coordinated as if drunk on beer.

“I’ll call you in ten,” she said and hung up,

so I wondered whether I was wrung up. 

 

Am I concussed? I had seen stars. And my

neck mashed. From whacking it hard and uh, high.

Big ol’ thwackin’! A painful a-whackin’!

I pray the world fades not to, uh, black, and

 

but if it does, at least I’d’ve learned… Not

much of anything. An accident turned

me into a grave. A silly way to

die. In future, I’ll be A-More-Aware-of-Surroundings Guy.

 

Sham (Fro)gurt

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Soup / Ham / (Frozen) / Yogurt
Ingredients:
  • 2 Cans Campbell’s® Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup
  • 1 Cherry Chobani® Greek Yogurt
  • 1 Brown Cow® Blueberry Yogurt
  • 1 Oscar Meyer DeliFresh Honey Uncured Ham with Now Better Honey Flavor
Instructions:
  1. Freeze the Brown Cow® Blueberry Yogurt.
  2. Eat a tube of Oscar Meyer DeliFresh Honey Uncured Ham with Now Better Honey Flavor
  3. Eat a bunch of tubes of Oscar Meyer DeliFresh Honey Uncured Ham with Now Better Honey Flavor.
  4. Open one Campbell’s® Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup
  5. Tip it back, drinking the broth like a can of beer.
  6. Using a spoon, eat the noodles & chicken straight from the can, no cooking necessary.
  7. Eat a few more tubes of Oscar Meyer DeliFresh Honey Uncured Ham with Now Better Honey Flavor
  8. Open the second Campbell’s® Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup
  9. Consume the soup in the same manner you did previously.
  10. Open the Brown Cow® Blueberry yogurt.
  11. Let stand for fifteen minutes, then consume it using the same spoon. 0.0.0. Evernote Snapshot 20190402 035851

The Golden Calf and You

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There’s a Jewish summer camp for adults. That sounds so fun. I get a scholarship because I volunteer with a Jewish youth group. The scholarship required an application. One question asked about my favorite Jewish teaching. This is what I wrote:

As a child in Hebrew school, I was the troublemaker. The kid who wouldn’t sit still, whose desk was separated from others by a distance just longer than his arms. Only on one day did I stop making trouble:

I had been scooting around the classroom on my belly when my teacher scratched the side of his nose, our signal for “You’re goofing off, Julian. Stop it.” I ignored it. He signaled for a second time. I ignored it again, because “What’s he gonna do?” Then, he began the story of The Golden Calf. I stopped scooting. I knew this one was going to matter the moment he began. See, The Golden Calf is about worship. It’s about how easy it is to make things sacred. It goes something like this:

“Once upon a time God gave Laws. The first one was “I’m God and that’s it.” Then, Moses, God’s go-between leaves his people alone for TEN MINUTES and they make this statue of a cow, made out of gold. And they were dancing and praying, saying it was their God. Moses got pissed and smashed it.”

Now, why does this matter? What can you learn?

  • You’re going to worship. A man locked in prison worships the sunrise he sees through the bars. Deprived of all your senses, you’ll still worship. Consciously choose what you worship, because you’ll act like it’s all that matters.
  • Physical objects are easily broken, so don’t make them into Gods. This one sounds obvious, but actually drove human history for a while. Did you know one reason Jews were successful was that they didn’t have physical Gods? If your God was a lump of wood or a rock or a statue, invaders could storm in, steal it, and subjugate your people easily… because they literally have your God! But the Jewish God wasn’t represented in idols. Also probably a good analogy for life: if you worship material goods (or money, say), you’ll be crushed whenever they’re broken. Worship ideals, however, like Honesty, Truth, Love, or Honor, and you’ll be much more resolute.
  • It’s easy to build Gods, even accidentally. A friend gifted me an obsidian stone a few months ago. I jokingly began referring to it as “Birdbrain, creator of the universe.” After a while, I noticed I started treating the rock with more respect. I began keeping it safe. Watch out for what you worship, because it’s easy to worship the wrong things. In this case, a stone. Stones are easy to stop worshipping. Hedonism? Codependence? Those are tough worships to drop.

Yo BTB! (Bearded Tomato Bisque) 

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Ingredients:
  • 7 tins Yogurt, in any flavor (Note: individually-wrapped tins of cottage cheese are also acceptable, but only if they have fruit on the bottom. For this meal, I used 4 yogurt, 3 cottage cheese.)
  • 1 can Campbell’s® Tomato Bisque
Instructions:
  1. Grow a beard.
  2. Eat 6 Yogurts.
  3. Remove lid from the Campbell’s® Tomato Bisque.
  4. Sip half the Campbell’s® Tomato Bisque.
  5. Eat the final Yogurt.
  6. Sip the rest of the Bisque.
  7. Fall asleep in your van.
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