Sick-nugget.

AMRAP Lord of the Rings?

I <3 Hammocks.

Took an hour nap today. It felt like...a trip back to the shore, a day climbing and exploring something, George Eliot I haven't read, a plethora of seafood and fruit to eat, and a night spent with people I love. I woke up and thought, "Oh yeah. This place."

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
George Eliot, "Middlemarch", Book I, ch.1

Tis the season for sun and smoothies... and so many Michael Jackson songs.

Meg and I perused Reading Terminal Market. Thank goodness.

I honestly can't see myself getting stuff there that I can get elsewhere...but I think if I planned to shop there every weekend after my Saturday sessions I could pretty much budget and have enough incredible food for the week... as long as I could almost immediately schedule in the time to cook it. Among a few things I need to sit down and schedule out this week: money, and food.

Here's what I would go for:

1. Free Range Organic Turkey in a bag...$2.99 a lb. Think I completely freaked the guy out that I bought this from...but I was genuinely astounded by the price.

2. Whole Pastured Raised Chicken at like $3.99 a lb... roast one every week in a different way and I'm pretty sure I'd feel like that dude from Amelie who does the same. I love picking all the meat off of something like this for a REALLY good chicken salad.

3. $5 a lb. Ground Grassfed Beef from this itty bitty Amish stand in the center of the market. Dude was so nice and when I found out he ran out he asking about when I'd be back next. Also - he had kind Adam Bede eyes...if you don't know what that's like... you need to read more George Eliot.

4. Seafood (in general...) : I think I'd need to hunt around for a better vendor somewhere in the market. I love experimenting with seafood and during the summer it's pretty much the only thing I want to eat besides salad, fruit, and the occasional burger. The trick is trying stuff that's on sale, wild, and given to you by fish mongers that can actually answer questions about. So far the first wild salmon filet I bought from here still smelled fishy and technically that's a sign that it's been hanging around a bit too long (see Jaime Oliver). I'll look a little more - but it was still wonderful to be hanging around all the ice and seafaring creatures.

5. Eggs from pasture raised hens for like $3 I think. Though Steve brings a few dozen every week to the Tribe for $2.50.

6. Vegetables and greens : I love to get things that I've never cooked before. I found out how much I loved turnips and fennel this way. I'm more apt to buy some of the basics bagged and frozen: spinach, collard greens, and broccoli and just chuck them into very quick dishes. It's always fun to have new things to try when I actually give myself the time to enjoy being creative. I need to make more salads this summer especially. I'm keen to try beetroots and chive together.

7. Chipotle sauce all ready made in a tiny tin! I LOVE LOVE LOVE chipotle and I want to put it in everything. I had a sesame oil, ginger, tamari phase like this once.

8. Spearmint tea and coffee that was being roasted right in front of my oogling face.

9. Been needing to add a few more spices to my arsenal: need a good cayenne pepper, and more things to experiment with a few schools of cooking I don't know very well.

10. Raw milk/cheeses/butter... the occasional creamy raw grassfed thing is not so bad as long as it makes healthy food more palatable (I cook fish and eggs with butter, occasionally through some cheese on a veg I'm not too fond of - kale's a bit rough for me sometimes). Also - they have raw goat kefir! Mmm...

11. And one more thing I totally dig during the summer... JUICES AND SMOOTHIES. But I'm a little weird... I prefer my smoothies not too sweet. That drives me crazy. It's like asking for a sugar rush with all the tenderness of brainfreeze.

SMOOTHIE TEN COMMANDMENTS:

1. Drink them post WOD to shunt carbs to the right places if you're looking to make them as functional as possible. Anything drank with a straw definitely goes down quicker.

2. Don't be afraid of green things. Some of my favorite things to put in smoothies are spinach, broccoli, huge fluffy leaves of kale, and lime zest (not all at once - and usually in conjuction with a high flavor fruit like mango or apple).

3. Creamy is your friend and can be come by in a few ways. Using a "creamy" fruit like mangos, papayas, and bananas does the trick... but coconut milk (light or full fat), nut milks, and dairy (if it agrees with you) works too. One of my favorite combos is from my friend Heather: can of coconut milk, one banana, dark raw cacao, and a few tbs. of unsweetened shredded coconut. Way creamy... if I took to protein powder well and I was a guy (looking to gain some mass) I'd carry this one around on days when I'd be expending a LOT of energy. Hits the spot.

4. Ginger, Parsley, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Spearmint Oil... mild flavors surprise me.

5. Everyone needs a good blender and rinse it right after you use it.

6. Vary your ice to water ratio if stuff is sticking.

7. Carry a toothpick - seeds stick around. :)

8. I put raw eggs in my shakes. So sue me. It's supposed to be very good for you... cause then you walk around like Rocky.

9. Great for on-the-go re-fueling as long as youdon't forget to think of it as a meal. I carry mine around in old spaghetti jars (which clean better than my coffee tasting stainless steel thermos). Plus... you get weird looks.

10. If you're looking a flavor-ish, low energy option instead of all of the above - ignore your blender and make a chill a huge thing of tea. It's incredibly refreshing. Or... stick a cinnamon stick in your water bottle (like you haven't heard that one from me before...)

Gotta aloe up and sleep! So much sun today!

Clingy?

What can I say?

I'm clingy. I hang on for dear life - I grasp the edges of the world around me and hope to God I won't fail... I won't falter... I won't slip and find myself clutching at my own veins round about the age of 75.

I have lived desperately. I have wanted to live with the end in mind. Is it a crime?

Today I sailed up an elevator into the equivalent of an old folks home in Philadelphia and found myself musing over my mother with a client. I can't help it. She's in my blood, hemo-talking to me all the time.

We wait between bouts of energy and my client asks, "Were you pressured into music as a child?"

Was I? Did I want to do anything that my mother gave me - when she had nothing? When she was raised by no one, accountable to no one, and loved lately? Did I want to do everything she wanted for me?

I did.

But some things are just easier to love than others... especially when you're living for what you can get - and not what you want.

I was given every opportunity to fall in love with music, to become good, to become beautiful, to marry well and live with joy - in the only way my mother knew how.

And there - sitting in the plastic air at 19th and Chestnut I found myself still musing over her. Still knowing that she is incredibly giving...because she has been desperate most of her life.

In the last few years I have gradually come to the realization that peace is not something I can expect to create so much as simply accept. I can radically change my outlook on a day, on a season, on a moment if I simply accept it as it is, as it comes, as it will be anyway.

But I am desperate and I live life a scrambler.

I suppose that's sort of the point of this little project - to regain my sense of myself, to be sure to record my words, my sounds, my perspective. I'm merely a thoughtful observer here. That is all I know how to do right now.

A previous beginning can be found here.

I'm not planning on making sense. But I'll do my best where I can.

So - some things about me today:

4 shots of vodka, sweet potato, 1 stuffed cabbage, a whole bag of blueberries and a cup of cream, and 1 salad with PB in the late afternoon (first meal of the day) - stuffed and going to regret it tomorrow. weighing 155 is sad-ish but generally to be expected.

I like airports. A lot. I miss them when I'm not there.

I like Zoe Keating (below). She reminds me a lot of Washington State because I listened to her non-stop in the family van. I also ate wild blackberries there and that is ALWAYS good.

I like Muse. They remind me of Jake Woodruff conversations post college and even during Oxford... and of barefoot sprinting in a thunderstorm or on a track so hot my feet were scalded by myself at the Moorestown Track.

I called Meghan Waldeck tonight and told her I didn't want to live alone really. I'm grateful for her and Heather in a bad way.

Alyson bought me iced coffee today. I hope she becomes a CrossFit trainer and leaves her current job so I can have coffee and train with someone that amazing all the time.

My legs are so. very. sore. I rested today.

I need a haircut, a gyno, some new clothes for summer, and a chill pill.

Zoe Keating - "Time Is Running Out" - SFO from Seany on Vimeo.