running

ok people . i need help.

it seems everywhere people are running. marshall in how i met your mother, mary in scotland, tina in portland, julia in mass, i feel like i'm seriously missing something; and I want in.

I know this is silly, but I've been sick so I've been watching a lot of TV. One show I've been getting into is "How I met your mother" which I am really really enjoying and recommend all my friends to watch. It has allyson hannigan in it (my first ever girl crush! and i still love her she's so freaking funny) but yeah. This show is not only funny but it makes me feel good about dating/love etc etc because of the way they show these relationships and people my age and a bit older mucking through it all. kind of the opposite of "The Notebook" for me (which made me want to give up on love completely. ) I digress...

Yesterday I watched an episode where Marshall decides to run the NY marathon. Now this is season 2 and up until this point Marshall's character has pretty much enjoyed being cute with his girlfriend/fiance of 10 years, drinking and watching tv. but this episode he's like "my pants are tight" then decides he wants to run the ny marathon. Now in terms of body, this guy would kind of be a tall male equivalent of me, kind of, if you don't think about it too hard.

so. here begs the question. HOW DO I LEARN TO RUN!!!!!!??????????!!!

someone teach me, I want in on this solitary nirvana where you put in your music and just go. Someone help me. I do love exercising (once I get started, it's the getting started that's hard) I just don't know how to love running.

anyone have any hints/clues/ideas/directions to point me in. because I really need something- and I really want to learn how to run. (and like it. )

paridice? paradise?

So tonight we are booked up in the par-a-dice casino hotel. The casino itself is a boat which is pretty cool. I put in 20 came out with 20. I think i'm done with gambling though. One of my co-workers won 100 bucks, which is pretty cool. But I don't know how I feel. I think i value my money more than that. I feel like I'd rather put that money I could have (would have) lost and put it towards something worthwhile. Yes, there is a possibility that I could have made more money , but there's a greater chance that it will disappear into the pockets of someone who has more money now then I will make for the next 20 years. Whatever. I don't think it's worth it. I think casino's are so much of an exaggeration of how much we waste in america. We will waste literally everything, including our own money. I hate money. Money screws everything up. It keeps stupid things in place (government wise ie power) and will inevitably be one of the root causes of our destruction.

On a tangent of that subject my co-worker told me the other day about the fact that Oprah is going vegan for a week. How convenient. It's cool, and I'm currently browsing the Oprah page about her going vegan. I hope maybe, that if someone so high profile as Oprah does it maybe people won't be such douches about veganism. I'm so sick of people giving me crap. I haven't been vegan on this tour and it's a point of conflict for me. I feel very very very very very hypocritical- like doing something I know is wrong and going ahead and doing it, knowing making the wrong choices. I just don't know what to do about it.

My whole reasons for being vegan seem moot while I'm on the road. Major reasons I was/am vegan is because of the environmental impact the meat and dairy industry has on our world, the mistreatment of animals, the fact that I love cows so much, I like living with doing as little harm as I can in the world (and I believe causing animals harm is part of this equation as well as the environment), and while cheese is delicious drinking milk and milk products are kind of weird (if you think about it you're eating something comes from a pregnant mom boob- just a cow boob. I wouldn't consume human boob juice meant for human babies so why use cows?) . Those are the broad points. but yeah. On the road I feel like a lot of those things don't carry over and it turns into me standing there with my arms crossed "mehr, i need my dairy free foods blah blah blah, i'm going to eat crap this iceberg salad and a baked potato instead". I don't feel like I'm making much of an impact. Most of the restaurants I go to will not have any interest in making things more vegan friendly, and when there's only one vehicle getting to a vegan friendly restaurant isn't always possible. All I feel I achieve most of the time is the biggest check at the table, a confused waitress and a pissed off chef. I feel like my efforts are futile. If you couldn't tell I'm having conflict with this right now. but anyways. It's few and far between, my dairy consumption that is- i look forward to being more solidly vegan again soon.

so back to the whole oprah thing I decided to pull off some key points that I liked, mostly because it's things people give me most crap about when i tell them I'm a vegan.

Blah blah blah vegan what about calcium. duh calcium comes from milk. lies.

"for the most part, and absorption is typically better from these sources than from dairy products."

do vegans need to take vitamins:

"Actually, vegans generally have better overall vitamin intake, compared with meat eaters. "

another thing that people contest me with- freaking protein

< charset="utf-8">"A plant-based diet easily provides all the protein the body needs. There is no need for meat, dairy products or eggs for protein, and you are better off without them. Vegetables, grains and beans give you plenty of protein, even if you are active and athletic"

From oprah's freaking website. I hate people who made me feel like I'm spewing bs or that I am idiotic when I tell people these things. Honestly, I did my research, I'm not an idiot, though I think being vegan puts you in a lot of people's 'dumb ass' category (bc my food choices are so threatening to your mcdonalds hamburgers and 14oz steaks). But I geuss when Oprah says it it's true and not only true but legit; coming from a dreadlocked fat hippie it must be some liberal propaganda. I shouldn't be getting mad about this. But part of me feels so alone in so many of the things I feel and believe in when it comes to food. Frankly I believe we are messing shit up and our food consumption in this country is gross. We waste so much, and our food gets further and further from Food each year. We need to radically shift the way we look at food, consume food and keep our bodies healthy. I'm right up there with everyone else shoving french fries in my face from this place or the other, and I do love me some processed food here and there, but really, thats not the way to stay healthy or sustain our planet. Going back to the moeny thing earlier we waste so much. We waste fuel from transporting the foods we need -the way we "need" banana's in december or squash in July. We throw so much food away. Today I ate at the casino buffet and it saddened me to think of all the food that must get thrown away every night. Revolting really when people don't have enough to eat day to day in our own country. The biggest issue with all of this is my professions mean I don't always have a choice but to buy into this wasteful lifestyle. Or at least walk along the stream of the rest of the masses, even if it is on the outside.

Unfortunately my lifestyle makes it as such that I can't live (foodwise) the way I'd like. Some day I'd like to live eating locally, get a grease car and a house that's completely off the grid. (especially a tiny house on a trailer! ) but right now that's not feasible. I'd have to change my job/career path and I don't even know what that is, but I do know to afford a lot of the things I want to do I'd have to settle for something that doesn't make me happy. So I have to choose the short term or long term, which is a shitty decision to make.

so. .. there is my rant. honestly this is not what I had intended this blog post to be. but evidently I wanted to get that out there. So there it is interwebs. Mich's short opinion on food and oprah making veganism seem more legit.

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ames, IA

so . here i am in ames iowa.

Because of the snow-pocalypse we got re-routed from Indianapolis (maybe a bit alarmist 6 days ahead of time, but better safe then sorry i guess) so now, once again, i have many days off. I'm sure later in this tour schedule i'll be begging for the amount of time to do nothing I have now, but for the time being it's almost tiring. I finished the hunger games trilogy today (as a book on tape- perfect for working on a cross stitch) SUCH GOOD BOOKS. I really really enjoyed them, and I enjoy the more enriching entertainment (in lieu of TV or movies) while I stitch away at my cross stitch. I'm making good progress on it too!

With another day off tomorrow, there's a good chance i'll have this whole section done and i can get to work on the other page of directions (the print out of the stitches is so large that it fills 2 separate pieces of paper, i decided to start on one piece and conquer it section by section) The pink circle goes all the way around then there's some cool (but pretty simple) stuff on the outside, that promises many more hours of work. By the end of this tour it would be super cool if I had the whole circle totally complete. I'm optimistic. It'd be even more promising if I felt like I could work on it in the truck. But kids, let me tell you.... most trucks (26' rental box trucks (think ryder or penske moving trucks) ) the shocks, are not so hot- this is not a luxury vehicle made to glide smoothly over bumps and dents. A lot of the roads out this way are slab concrete, which make sort of a pleasant clicking sound under most vehicles, however the effect is much different in the cab of these trucks. It's effect is more this sort of constant back and forth jerking motion for the passengers while driving at highway speeds. (My first tour I discovered this and found that a sports bra was a necessity while driving, it's like jogging , and ladies, you don't want to be ill equipped the lady bits do not appreciate it). so yeah, it's kind of difficult to get a needle into a tiny hole in a piece of fabric with any sort of precision, let alone just trying to easily read the directions with everything being trounced back and forth. So instead I just do puzzles in drunken handwriting, listen to music, talk to my co-pilot, read or just look out the window. I like driving, especially in the truck. It's like the difference between a small camera and a panoramic view. You're so high up and the windows are so big. So many parts of america are boring (for lack of a better term) especially near highways, but the snow makes a lot of things much prettier and it's cool to see all the different sorts of things this huge ass country holds. So many of us travel abroad and barely graze our own soil. It's part of the reason I love touring so much.

other than that the tour is going pretty well. my co workers are pretty cool. the hotels have been nice. can't blame the exciting nature of the places we've been- but frankly there are a lot of places in the US that are just either cookie cutter or drab if you don't have friends there or know what to look for. if it weren't so cold out i might be interested in going on hikes, but there isn't much around and frankly i hate being cold. not good winter hiking combinations. never mind the fact that i didn't really pack appropriately for good warmth out of doors for prolonged period of times in the winter.

oh well. well. so far so good. more to come later.