Sunday, March 10, 2013

On Facebook dieting and a pointless anecdote including fatty steak, indigestion, nightmares and a mystery cocktail

Facebook diets are like most regular diets: they do not work. I am an expert at dieting. None of them work in the long term and none of them will ever truly work. I'm surprised I even keep trying or anyone even keeps trying. And lately, after deciding late one night that I was going to go on a Facebook diet of sorts for one full week and lasting a total and I say this with no exaggeration whatsoever, a total of two hours without checking it, I think I have enough information and empirical data to confirm that Facebook diets don't work. For me. I have friends who have abandoned Facebook, though truth be told, they are few and far between. They just woke up one day and said "You know what? Facebook blows." and then they quit and never looked back. I equate them to the person who used to weigh something like 400 pounds and woke up one day and said "You know what? Being fat blows" and they lost a bunch of weight and never looked back. How many stories like that are out there? Less than the ones that end with looking back and going back to old habits. A lot less.

The main result of my foray, albeit brief, was the knowledge that I am on Facebook way more often than I originally thought and that sincerely needs to stop. But it won't. Because Facebook diets don't work. And apparently, neither do I.

At this very moment, por ejemplo, I am updating this blog instead of doing what I trekked outside of my apartment to this crowded cafe to do: work on my writing and freelance job search. A brief stint in my apartment solicited nothing more than a strong desire to tidy my neglected space with a vacuum and some Ajax for two hours so I thought getting out into the sunlight would help. A perfunctory gaze out to the main room of the brick and wooden cafe with its packed tables and steam machine sounds was quite enough to alert me to the fact that my brain is elsewhere today. For example, it is trying to ignore the leather clad bikers seated to the right of me, two couples that are talking to each other nervously even though they all appear to have been together for awhile. I don't know what I expect from spending a few hours in a space filled with people. Normally I can tune out the glut of voices chatting inanely in the background; it is usually a comfort to me, like the city person I was born to be. But today I'm on overdrive and hyper aware. Like a freakin windup toy.  I'm going to ignore that I had four cups of coffee today as I'm positive that has nothing to do with anything.

That it is my only day off for the next 12 days might also have something to do with it. Is it sad that I sometimes assuage my anxieties about not having a day off for the next 12 days by focusing on those select and precious times that I don't have to work two jobs? Days like that are practically interchangeable with a trip to Aruba. Is anyone else that I know bored of hearing me talk about how I don't have any time to ever do anything because I have two jobs? I know I am.

Yesterday I went out to dinner with my parents and my brother. We had the misfortune of dealing with one of the worst hostesses currently employed. Though I've never worked as a hostess, I imagine that it is both stressful and takes patience, people skills and the ability to guesstimate within a reasonable margin of error how long the wait for a table is going to be. Call me crazy. Anyway, yesterday as we stood at the podium and asked how long the wait for a table for four would be, she slowly turned her head and appeared to be counting all the people in the restaurant and then concluding that analysis with "Yeah, I don't really know." This was interrupted by a waitress carrying a tray full of beer bottles tripping on nothing whatsoever and dropping all of the beer on the floor, all over my dress and leg and all over the pant leg of my stepdad. It was an accident, ok. Accidents happen. However, as the waitress was attempting to clean up while offering a plethora of flustered apologies, the hostess basically stood there for a minute or two then started to wipe the floor before offering any of us napkins to wipe our clothes with and while she was doing this she said "Yeah it is going to be a long wait for a table so..." as if to say "Ok, you can leave now." Eventually, that is what we did. We went up the street to an Asian restaurant that my brother and I liked but my stepfather strongly disliked for their fatty steak and my mother disliked because she had stomach pains and nightmares following the meal. I don't know what the point is in relating this on this blog except that it was one of life's annoying little incidents and sometimes it is a relief to relive things to someone else. So thanks for wasting time with me.

After dinner my brother came over to hang out for the evening. We went to my favorite local bar where we drank liquor and talked and talked, much like I do when my sister comes to visit. I was in the mood to be surprised and asked the bartender to just make me anything with vodka in it. One of those drinks was this refreshing, delicious strawberry concoction that was so frightfully good that I neglected to find out what precisely was in it and I'll have travel back there on God's good humor to ask for that "berry vodka thing from that night". I taste success!

If I told you that on our way out of my apartment complex to the bar last night we ran into a bearded guy who is a friend of mine that I see every now and again and that he was on his way home from work and that in his hands he was carrying two DVDs of Carl Theodor Dreyer films, what would you say? I'm not ascribing a meaning or method to the universe or anything. I just sometimes think I'm getting messages and meaning from the universe.

I digress. The whole point of this blog post is that it has no point and was written, posted and edited for the sole purpose of distracting me from working. Like W before me, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

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