…She’d Love Seafood Too

Okay, so my new healthy eating plan has been going really well, and I’ve got a pretty good routine going with foods that I like… but most of it are things that are easy to prepare and things I can prepare ahead of time and warm up later in the microwave.  And that’s all fine and good…

…But sometimes you’re in the grocery store and see a package of scallops and your mouth starts salivating and your heart speeds up a little faster.  It probably didn’t help that I was a rather hungry at the time (rule of thumb – never go to the grocery store hungry).

I love seafood… I mean really love it.  Shrimp is probably my all-time favorite, but scallops are right up there too, and since they’re a bit more expensive I rarely have scallops.  It’s been so long I can’t even recall when the last time I had scallops was.

Suddenly, I found a package of scallops in my basket.  I recalled that I had some rainbow Swiss chard and broccoli at home (ingredients for my Green Smoothies) that were getting a little wilted, and figured I could toss them in my big fry pan as I saute the scallops.  I then ran across a package of sliced mushrooms, “exotic blend” which had Shiitake, Oyster, and Porcini mushrooms… and I knew my dish was complete.

I would dub thee… Scallops Delight!

So I added a little olive oil to my fry pan, tossed in the mushrooms, broccoli and chard to get them started, added the scallops, tossed in a little garlic powder, pepper, and Italian seasonings, and after about 10-15 minutes it was ready for my plate.  I added a sweet potato and looked at my dinner.

I just had to take a picture…

Yep, I made this

Looks good, huh?  I plugged the recipe into Calorie Count and it wasn’t bad at all, just 560 calories and fit right in with my plan.

I could have easily split this in two and had a side salad to round out the meal.  I had a brief moment of thinking “damn shame I don’t have a special lady to share this with!”  But then I dug in and just delighted in satisfying my seafood craving.

Do you like seafood?  It was easy to make, go indulge yourself

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Another margarita

Hi folks, I realize that I left some of y’all with a bit of a cliff-hanger a few weeks back when I wrote about finally getting together with my old friend JL for dinner after not seeing each other for years and years.  So anyway, here’s a quick recap of the evening…

I get a text from her about an hour before we’re supposed to meet and she says, according to her GPS, she’ll be about 15 minutes late.  No problem I tell her, drive safe and I’ll see you there.  I decide to head on over at 6pm to grab a table since we are meeting at a pretty popular Mexican restaurant at dinnertime on a Saturday.  I pause outside to send her a text saying that I’m here, but then see that she’d already texted me that she got there early and has nabbed a table already and tells me where in inside she’s sitting.

Again, I marvel at how nice smartphones are for socializing!

As I approach the table she hops up to wave me down, and then gives me a big hug.  She’s still beautiful– tall, lovely figure, and a smile that lights up the room.  The waiter arrives right on cue and she orders a margarita– a gal after my own heart!  I order the same, and we start with some small talk as we glance over the menu.  When the margaritas arrive they’re sufficiently large and sufficiently strong, and after we place our orders we start talking about life, the universe, and everything.

You know when you have a friend that’s just so easy to talk with?  Me and JL seemed to have that going on.  Our dinner and conversation lasted two and a half hours, talking about old times, our lives, my kids, her boyfriend, our exes (she was previously married too), books, movies, television shows, politics.  We chatted for so long I had to order another margarita!  Honestly, I think we could have gone on for longer but I thought that perhaps her boyfriend might start to worry about her, so I reluctantly said goodbye and we promised to get together again soon.

Oh yeah… there was also the matter of the gal she knows that she wants to set me up with!  We talked a little bit about her and she sounds like a sweet woman who has apparently been a bit unlucky in love.  JL said she was about ready to give up on men– Oh no!  I said, don’t give up!  I mean, I’ve been about as unlucky as you can get and I still hold out hope for love and romance.

Anyway, JL mentioned that she’d seen my Facebook event for this year’s Beer, Bourbon and BBQ Festival in Richmond.  After not being able to rustle up anyone to go with me last year — an utter tragedy — I made a Facebook event for it several months in advance and will be beating the drums and sending out notices to all my friends to round up at least a few of them to go with me.  JL mentioned that maybe she could bring her friend with her that weekend and they could go with us– sounded like a plan to me!

 

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The Plot Thickens…

A couple months back an old friend had gotten in touch, saying she was going to be in town visiting some friends and wanted to know if I could meet up with her so we could catch up.  I met J.L. many years ago when she was the freshman roommate with my sister, and instantly liked her.  She was brainy, quiet, a bit shy, and totally adorable and attractive without even realizing it.  My sister– who was a bit of a wild child at the time — kinda brought her out of her shell, and a few weekends a year I visited my sister we all would party and have a great time.  J.L. and I struck up a friendship and wrote letters to each other for a little while.  I even still have a picture catching us on a quick midnight kiss for New Years.

Eventually J.L. and my sis took different paths and didn’t hang out so much, and I lost touch with J.L. (though my sister kept in touch).  Fast forward a couple decades and now we have Facebook, wonderfully getting us all back in touch with friends we lost track of over the years.  When I saw J.L. post something on my sister’s wall, I sent her a friends request, hoping that she’d friend me back, and was thrilled when she did.  I was curious to see where life had taken her.

Well, turns out that J.L. is still brainy — she just got her doctorate — and is still totally adorable and attractive.  We love lots of the same books (and sent each other book recommendations), have the same politics, share a similar sense of humor… in short, just a really awesome woman.  So I was really looking forward to meeting up with her before — not for possible romance (for those of you wondering), she has a boyfriend — but just because, as I talked about before (Paradigm Shift) I want to expand my circle of friends and JL is Good People!  Not only will it be great getting reacquainted, but who knows who I might meet through her?

Unfortunately our meet-up falls through… I had wanted to take the kids to see The Hobbit, and it turned out the best time for them ran right into the meet-up time with JL… I texted her when we were done, but she was winding down and wouldn’t be up too much longer.  “We can try again another time,” she said.

So it looks like next time will be… this Saturday!  We’ll be meeting for dinner to talk and catch up — for me it’s Splurge Saturday, so we’ll be going to Plaza Azteca for yummy Mexican food and maybe a margarita– and then later I’m going to meet her at a bar to watch her boyfriend’s band perform (he actually lives nearby).  I love watching live music — and occasionally performing it!

And to make things extra intriguing, she recently left this in the comments of one of my Facebook status updates:

I need to mosey over to your blog. BTW, I’ve a gal you might wanna meet. *GRIN* We’ll talk … I’ll be good.

My response, naturally…

Hee hee, the plot thickens….

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If We Can Measure It, We Can Improve It!

After a week of my new healthy eating program, I’m feeling good!  I can feel a difference in the way I feel (with these crazy “bursts” of energy at random times of the day), and I’ve started to notice little things  that are encouraging, including my clothes feeling just a little bit looser.

My Mom, who’s joined Calorie Count with me, sent out an email saying how excited she was to have lost five pounds in the first week.  I was excited for her!  And then I lamented not being able to really measure my successful week in a similar way… because I have no scales.  I just have never thought it worth buying one.  Each time in the past that I went on a diet, I either had scales to weigh in at the meeting, or I was a member of a gym and could weigh myself there.

When I wasn’t on a diet… why would I want scales at home eyeballing me and making me feel guilty?!  So I just never bothered to get one.

This time around I’m particularly excited about Calorie Count and the power of information it gives me.  Logging the foods I eat and tracking the level of 12 important nutrients gives me a powerful tool to measure my success and make adjustments along the way.  Continuous improvement…

At my full-time job, I’m the Quality Analyst for a company that manufactures and sells small kitchen appliances.  I work with a bunch of engineers, and a catch-phrase that comes up all the time is “if we can measure it, we can improve it.”  The engineers of the Quality group make it clear that measuring processes and keeping accurate data is key to continuous improvement for our product.  They of course are referring to machines that make our products, but the principle is the same.  Our bodies are machines, and if we want to improve it, we need to measure it.  Calorie Count is one powerful tool to do so, and scales are another.

Now I know scales can drive you crazy, especially if you’re constantly checking your weight each and every day… but I think it’ll be smart to have a weigh day each week to provide one metric for success on my program, along with taking body measurements too (once I implement my exercise plan).  Also, thinking long-term, once I achieve my goals the scales can be my sentinel to help me make sure I’m staying at my goal without deviating too much.

So I went on Amazon yesterday and ordered some nice, durable scales for my home, along with a food scale to better measure my food intake.  They should arrive next week!  Finally getting scales for my home affirms to me that I’m actually going to do it this time!!

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Balanced Achievement Unlocked! (almost)

So Day 6 of my new healthy eating plan is in the books, and that means tomorrow is SPLURGE SATURDAY!!  I get my kids too, so I’m looking forward to basking in the company of my sweet children and topping it off with some treats.  My splurge plan right now is to try a Reuben sandwich from Arby’s, have some ice cream, and once the kids are in bed have a couple margaritas.  I’m still going to eat plenty of healthy foods too.

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Bennie 3.0: The Input Plan

So, a key part of getting healthier is to change my diet.  I’ve been through countless diets over the course of my life, and have done a lot of reading on foods and how your body processes foods, so at this point I know what I need to do.  Of course, knowing is just part of the battle, but thankfully nowadays we have a fantastic tool available to help put that knowledge into action…

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The Reboot: Bennie 3.0

Sorry I haven’t written much lately.  I guess I haven’t been overly inspired…  Losing my father and both my grandmothers in the span of four months the tail end of last year really knocked the wind out of my sails, and then recently I had a health scare regarding someone who is very close to me (and who seems to be coming through it okay, fingers crossed and prayers for continued success).

While family and friends have been a blessing of support during these times, not having a significant other to lean on for comfort and strength has me feeling particularly lonely and sad, which in turn has made it tough to blog “on theme.”

When I started this blog, I had just gone through a split with my wife, and rather than become bitter about marriage and women, I wanted to use the blog to focus on what I loved about women, to be a source of positivity and joy.   Memories of past relationships have been a treasure trove of inspiration for quite a few posts over the life of this blog… but I’m beginning to feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel.  I really haven’t had all that many relationships so the pickings were slim to begin with.

No… what I really need is to make new memories!

But then I look at myself, look at my life and wonder:  how in the world can I really expect to find anyone willing to date me?  I’m overweight, out of shape, and between working a full and part-time job, and visitation with my kids, there’s very little time I could spend on dates.  I’ve got some discretionary spending, but supporting two kids ain’t cheap.  Plus, my “good” car (I also have an old van) is a hand-me-down from my ex that’s good for shuttling kids around but isn’t really something that would impress a date.

Now, I know I have a lot of positives going for me and have a lot to offer the right woman, but I have to be honest with myself and question whether a good woman would take a chance on me, given the relative downsides I listed above.  The other day it occurred to me:  I’ve got quite a few female friends… so why have they not tried to set me up with any of their single women friends?  The answer:  why would they?

Last week I finally recovered from a really nasty cold, and Thursday I was feeling so much better… and it reminded me of the times in my life where I decided to take my health more seriously, began to eat right and exercised… and once I’d begun to do that, the feeling you get from feeling so much better…  it makes you wonder why in the world you stopped to begin with.  I latched on to that feeling, and decided to get back on the program.  For real this time.  If I want to make new memories, I need to be the kind of man a woman wants to be with.  I’m a good man, kind and generous, smart… really the only thing (I think) holding me back is a healthy body.

I’ve done a lot of diets over the years, and read a lot about health.  I knew what works and what I wanted to do.  So Saturday I planned it out, splurged a bit on some “bad” food, and then this past Sunday kicked it off!  I’ll detail my new way of eating in another post soon, but as of Day 4 everything is going according to plan… and I’m pretty stoked!

Regarding the time and money… well, I have managed to shift my life around to the point that I have each Friday and Saturday off.  Every other Saturday I get my kids, but that still leaves Fridays and every other Saturdays to spend time with future lady friends.  Money… well, that’s not something I see changing for a while, but I’m pretty creative in finding fun things to do that don’t cost a whole lot of money.  I’m not going to be anyone’s sugar-daddy that’s for sure, but I think we can have some fun.

As far as my car… well, this year I do plan on getting a new car.  Or at least, a car that’s “new to me” just not too old.  Assuming my current car holds out, I’m looking at July or so for the purchase… and when I go shopping, I’ll certainly be looking for something that I can be proud to pull up in front of a future date’s house.

So anyway… I suppose the focus of this blog is going to shift a bit to be more about my reboot, becoming “Bennie 3.0” and my quest to becoming the kind of guy my women friends want to set their friends up with.  Should be a fun ride!  What do you think?

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If You Were a Girl, You’d Always Be Pregnant

“I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project, because I’m sort of a nice guy. When I was a kid, my mother said, ‘Stephen if you were a girl, you’d always be pregnant.’”

I was reading a recent interview with Stephen King where he shares the news that he’s writing a sequel of sorts to The Shining, one of my favorite King books — well, one of my favorite horror books, period!  I wrote a blog post about being a horror fan before, so if you’ve read me a while you probably already know that.

Anyway, I’m reading the interview, smiling at the always amusing and down-to-earth King, and getting excited about the notion of seeing where Danny Torrance is now, 30 years after the horrible things that happened to him as a boy at the Overlook.  And then I get to the quote above, and it gets me thinking about the difference between men and women… in other words, grist for a long overdue blog post!

First off, I found it interesting that King’s Mom would say such a thing to her son as a kid!  It makes me wonder if the anecdote is accurate given how memory works as years go by– god bless him, but it’s been quite a while since King was a kid.  But let’s assume she did say that to a very young Stephen… wouldn’t he respond with “What do you mean?”

And what would Mrs. King say to that question?

The context of the quote was an interview question concerning Warner Brothers potentially developing a prequel to The Shining based on material cut from the beginning of the novel King wrote.  King doesn’t want that to happen — he doesn’t explain why, but we can assume than as an artist he decided to cut that part out of his book and likely feels that his creative decision should stand — but he mentioned that he isn’t sure he’d put up a fight to stop Warner Brothers from going forward with the project.  Then he says:

“I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project, because I’m sort of a nice guy. When I was a kid, my mother said, ‘Stephen if you were a girl, you’d always be pregnant.’”

Which then got me thinking… the whole “nice guy” persona, something I’m very much familiar with, really is pretty much a male phenomenon.  I thought back to the posts I wrote about The Friend Zone, and The Mating Habits of Beta Men, but with an eye on just how different the whole friendly/nice dynamic is different depending on whether you’re the guy or the girl.  Being “the nice guy” really does tend to put you in a place where romantic and sexual contact is pretty rare, whereas being “the nice girl” can get you a fair amount of romantic and sexual contact if you so choose.  I often think about how interesting it must be to be a woman who has that power of choice, the ability to take a friendship with a man and one day just take it to another level if she desires.  How do women feel about having that freedom?  Are they thrilled by it?  Or burdened by it, in a “with great power comes great responsibility” sort of way?

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Signals, Noise, and the Isle of Misfit Toys

The other night after getting home from work late I fixed a glass of wine and flipped over the movie channels to watch a little something while I relaxed and got ready for bed.  I settled on watching the beginning of The Dreamers.  I really like that movie for quite a few reasons– I love the unabashed sexual under- and over-tones, the blatant artsy-ness of it… and I really love the youthful energy, the raw joyful lifeforce of the lead performances.  I’ve seen the movie a couple of times, and had to remind myself that it was late and I didn’t need to get hooked on the movie and end up staying up way too late on a work night, but I gave myself about 20 minutes of the movie… the “getting to know each other” part, where the young American in Paris meets and falls for the young French brother and sister.  The romance of the new relationships developing from the very beginning are fun to watch.

It had me think back to my younger days, past relationships both romantic and platonic, and beginnings.  I mean, of course it’s the very nature of youth that you’re immersed in the new; new experiences and new relationships built upon those experiences.  I thought about beginnings, meeting my ex, and other romantic connections, and how I met the people who became significant friendships in my life.  Those meetings, in retrospect how relatively easy and plentiful they seemed to be back then– not everything stuck, but there was an enviable volume of new encounters, and through the noise there were signals that drew us together that were strong, exciting, potent.  Back then I didn’t think of it like that, and I certainly used to give in to despair and loneliness a lot more than I should have, but I realize now, when I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself back then, there were plenty of connections being thrown out there to explore.  I certainly grabbed a decent share of them and they made their mark in my life.

As I get older, and especially as I shed the life I had as a married man, I realize that it’s so much harder now to find new signals.  People I’ve known for years and years have their long-term connections they’ve built and maintained, and are on cruise-control, warm, familiar and constant.  I suppose if my marriage hadn’t failed I’d probably be much the same way.  But I had my comfort stripped away, my foundation rocked, and the roles I used to play — the roles I’m supposed to play — in so many of my long-term connections is suddenly screwed up.  Instead of a solid rock I’m now quicksand, all needy and flailing about, and suddenly possessed of this desire to look for more signals in all this fucking noise.  Here I am, middle-aged, and what I need, what I want, are more beginnings.  So many people my own age, it seems they’ve put that sort of thing squarely in the past– it’s about nurturing what they have and planning out how it all ends up… and I realize I don’t quite comfortably fit in with them anymore.  My wants and needs and dreams are almost alien to them and I can sense that in the distance that’s been put up between us.

But then I certainly don’t fit in with the few people I know who are out there looking for beginnings, beaming signals through the static– mostly of course they’re young, and they think an old guy like me certainly wouldn’t be interested in [fill in the blank].  It doesn’t even hit their radar that maybe I’d like to hang out one night and talk about philosophy, or music, or love, or art, or politics, that maybe my signal might be interesting, engaging, and heck– maybe even a significant chapter in the story of your life given the chance.

So it’s like I don’t fit in with the people my age, and I don’t fit in with the younger folks.  I feel like a refugee from the Island of Misfit Toys.  It’s a strange goddamn state to be in, and quite a challenge that’s for sure.  I’m definitely excited about trying to muddle my way through this perplexing chapter of my life, to fix my tuner and carve through the static.  There’s gotta be other signals out there, other connections to be made, chapters to write, people — maybe other misfit toys — to walk with.

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Time Traveling

Not long ago I wrote about eliminating light from my bedroom so that I can sleep in total darkness, and the hopes that I would reap some of the alleged benefits from sleeping that way.  Almost immediately I could tell a difference in how deep I slept.  It’s kinda hard to explain, but sleeping this way now lets me know by contrast just how light I was sleeping before, drifting in and out of sleep, getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom once or twice a night, tossing and turning.  Now, a few minutes after I turn out the lights I’m gone, like dropping into a deep dark hole for solid hours and hours.  When I wake up in the morning I’m in a bit of a daze because I’m climbing out of a deep sleep without the benefit of sunlight, but once I turn on the lights and get moving, I know– I’ve been ASLEEP!  And I feel recharged!

And the dreams!  I’m not sure if sleeping this way lets me dream more vividly, or if I’m just dreaming in a deep slumber right up until waking now as opposed to shifting from deep to light sleep before waking, or maybe some combination of them both, but I’m loving it.  I’ve always had vivid dreams that I remember here and there in the past, but now it feels like just about every morning I awake with at least a good chunk of a dream remembered, letting me reflect on it in the shower and on the drive into work.

Last night’s dream was nice, starring my ex but it was like traveling through time back to when we first met 20-some years ago– the “happy days.”  Thinking back on the dream this morning was funny, how young we both were in the dream–just kids really–crazy about each other.  And it got me thinking… Sometimes now and then as I ponder the long, slow wreckage of our marriage, I question whether she ever really, truly loved me, or whether she was in love with the idea of being in love with me… or maybe was just settling on me as a safe and steady choice.  And the thought of not ever really having someone head over heels in love with me… made the romantic soul in me very sad.

But the dream… I know it was just a dream, but it felt very real as opposed to accurate, and the emotions and things that happened in the dream captured the spirit of the our situation all those years ago.  No, it wasn’t perfect, and it certainly didn’t end the way one would have hoped… but the dream reminded me, deep in my gut, that for a while there… she really did love me, head over heels.  Which makes me glad.

Funny how the brain works when you let it…

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