Introverts Afternoon out

Takapuna is an odd little centre but I really like it, despite its efforts to pretend its nowhere near the beach.

There are a few things horribly wrong with it, but its the same affliction spread  over most of auckland. Crappy apartment buildings. Even worse, leaky crappy apartment buildings full of people who complain about the noise. 

For lunch I decided to try Sals, a new york style pizza place. Slice and a beer for $11. Montieths Pilsner or Amstel on tap. It was pretty good. Pepperoni wasn't too strong and the base was nice and salty. Would eat again!

It can be strange, eating alone, but there was someone else inside eating and reading a book by themselves so I wasn't the only weirdo in the shop. I used to be able to find a lot of alone time at home. But since its become overcrowded I've had to leave the comforts of my dwelling to find that restorative time. Its kind of ironic, the introvert has to leave the house and go out into the big wide world to be alone. 

Next was just some wandering and wondering. This was in a pop-up gallery. I guess that's where they fill and empty shop with art. I like kiwiana but this maybe taking it a bit too far. The artist is Rachel Foster. She is pretty gorgeous, I wonder if she uses herself as a model for her series of sexy ladies draping themselves over kiwi icons?

Then I had to stop in retrospace to see if there was any cool new dr who stuff. I also saw a tribble and this stormtrooper helmet. But funds are low so just browsing today. Lots of nerds in the shop today. I wish I worked there, but only on Sundays.

Walked further down to Glengarrys to check out the craft beer selections. Portofino had like 50 gabillion empty tables, I thought it was closed till I saw one occupied table in a sea of white table cloths. Maybe it sucks ass? Anyway here are the awesome beers I got from glengarry.

It started hosing down and it was afternoon tea time so I had a coffee and slice at didas....ooooooo discount with my Glengarry card! Yay. I am still amazed at how cafes cant do a ginger cruch to save themselves. I think they all buy it from the same crappy supplier. Either that or I am wrong in what I think a ginger crunch should be. BISCUITY BASE PEOPLE, BISCUITY BASE. I like a crunchy base, what can I say.

Once it mostly stopped raining I wandered down to my car, and watched the windsurfers for a bit. Cool sea air, mental quietness, it was all good.

The end.

2011 Reading List

Random thoughts I was having one day, been stuck in the drafts box for ages....

There are a lot of things in life that are difficult to accept when you are young....

1) That you are not uber smart and have many awesome original thoughts every day and if only someone would recognise you for your brilliance and pay you simply to share the amazing ideas you have.
- I'm pretty sure that I did have amazing ideas at one stage. I look back at my university essays and wonder who that person was, and holy fuck did I own a theasaurus back then? dang girl you was erudite. I can't remember the last original thought I had.

2) You are not going to live forever, in fact you are going to die very very soon. Life is extremely  extremely short.
- oh cruel world. you sucked up the last ten years of my life. I can barely remember any of it! Futher proof I am living in a simulation. Everything is rushing by so quickly, I need more time!

3) That every person you meet will most certainly not care about your uniques transcendent pain about whatever life crisis you are having.
- Essentialy we are not unique flowers. We are mere motes. But knowing this can help you to be happy.

There are a few things that I find hard to accept now that I am not so young.

1) TV fooled me (and certain friends I had) into thinking that it was natural to have close relationships with your siblings. I don't think either of my brothers even know where I live. They live nomadic lives and I have no idea about either of them. I love them both, and I really enjoy them but I'll be lucky to have one conversation with them when they are in the country.

Things feel apart as we grew up, I was jealous of their sporting achievements and social successes. They lived in a completely different world than me. During our teenage years we barely related. I bailed and left as soon as I had an offer of a way out.

How do you bridge that gap as adults? We have little in common (Apart from a fondness for the drink).
I am so proud of them both. They are awesome young men, I hope they at least know that and that I think of them often.

2) I always thought adults had all the power. Truth is they are often locked into their lifestyle as much as a child is fated to theirs. It takes extreme courage and tenacity to break free. I did not know this as a child. I thought everyone chose where they ended up in life. Its just not that simple.

3) I still find it hard to accept that no one really cares about strangers or acquaintances, but its true. If I turn up to work in a shitty mood because my life is falling apart and my shoulder hurts and I can't bare another day on the space out medication no one cares. They see a grumpy shitty co-worker all they care about is how my grumpiness affects them.

Lets face it, I'm the same. Its difficult to transcend that immediate reaction to someone's mood, as humans we always make it about ourselves too e.g. "Gawd that person is being so shitty, what did I ever do to them, they are make me feel awful for no reason, I wish they'd just cheer the fuck up"

Its a bit contradictory but if we could get to a place where other peoples moods and behaviour didn't affect us or hurt us so easily we could actually become more caring human beings. If we don''t let anyone dictate to us what our moods or feelings should be we can become islands of happiness much more capable of caring and seeing others true pain.

Learning to Crochet

I'm learning to crochet, I'm starting with granny squares, these are a bit flower power.

Another couple of designs.

I'm not super driven to create, I am more of a consumer of culture, but I always enjoy learning a new skill. I've done 9 squares and I hope to have enough to make a blanket eventually. There will be a mixture of flowers and plain white squares, its going to be proper grannyish!

Steak Tartar

So I knew I had an evening home alone and fancied cooking ...uh er.. I mean making something a little different.

First stop, the butcher. I went to the butcher in Milford just down the road from the hospital. Eye fillet was selected and a piece cut from a whole fillet. 133 grams worth, which was actually quite a lot. I would probably use only about 100g next time.

Once home I finely diced the meat, added the following

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
2 splashes of hot sauce (tabasco or similar)
1 tablespoon of Spanish capers
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
1 tablespoon of chooped red onion.

I arranged the meat in a thick patty shape and made a well, then bam, cracked egg, got yolk free with bare hands got rid of yuck egg white and La de da - Steak Tartar!

View from the tenth floor

More stair climbing in my break. This is the view from the main stair well on the tenth floor. You can go up another floor but it narrows to single file and  some nurse was trying to have a private conversation on her cell half way up and by the looks of things didn't need my heavy breathing ruining her day.

My calf muscles are a wreck. Stairs fuck you up. big time.

After work I went to the gym for an upper body work out. Shoulders, Back and chest, with a smidge of bicep work. I hates biceps, I cant see the point in isolating a teeny muscle. Boring. I struggled a bit as I have lost quite a lot of strength over the last two weeks. I should have just gone to the gym sick and spread my germs around.....sigh... maybe zed will buy me  a power rack for christmas.... I'll settle for a dodgy import trademe version! Or even an ex gym  version covered in ten years worth of bro-sweat.

View from the top!

So in my break, instead of lounging around drinking bad coffee and listening to the inane gossip about princess beatrice getting married and OMG dan carters groin and didn't she lose a lot of weight blah blah blah (woman's magazines should be banned, I'm not for book burning per say but I would be happy if I never saw another woman's day, new idea or woman's weekly in the tea room ever again.) 

I seem to have gotten distracted. Anyway I decided to climb all the stairs, Yep all the stairs to the top of the North Shore Hospital tower block and above is le view from le top. You can see the concrete monstrosity that is the new parking building. Once its completed our free parking privilege is terminated, but hey at least I will be able to park undercover and about 200 metres closer, see that car park in the distance, that's where the plebs (aka me) have to park. 

It only took a few minutes, but god damn my heart was skipping by the time I reached the top. Its a good tea break work out. I even suffered a little jelly leg afterwards. I stand to do my bench work and I was feeling a little weak on it straight after! But its worth it, for buns of steel!

But wait there's more. I came home and ran 3.3km and managed to avoid serious down pours! Running gods did bless me today.

100 days of something.....

A friend of mine is doing a wee project for 100 days. 100 days of Alfred Mao which is a cat by the way and who doesn't love cats?! Weirdos, thats who.

Anyway, I am encouraged to do my own 100 days project. I like the idea of trying something consistently and how much is a 100 days really? I mean I probably spent that much time alone on the internet just looking at crap in the past year....

I've never been sporty, and the habits hard to get into, I could try 100 days of being sporty? Athletics every day!

Would I, should I blog it? Is the internet ready for pictures of me doing athletic type things everyday? Hmm pictures not probably necessary.

Don't skip the FAT!

A good friend recently directed me at a NZherald article which pointed out that due to our low fat dietary choices many adults are missing out on essential fat soluble nutrients (mainly vitamin A but probably D,E and K as well!) I've been reading lots about fat over the years and its not the big evil doer its been made out to be. There are a lot of benefits to be gained from fats, eliminate them from your diet at your peril.

So here's my super fat weekend breakfast salad thing.
1/2 avocado
2 strips of bacon
Poached egg
Tablespoon of cream fraiche to hold it all together.

Running should be free

I've taken up jogging again. I dream of being athletic and having confidence in the fitness of my body.

I dream that one day I will be able to join that spontaneous game of volleyball, that last minute hike through a national park, a fun run will be fun and at no point in time will I drop red faced to the ground gasping for breath pleading for everyone to "go on without me".

In the pursuit of that dream I run. I run slowly. I fly down hills, I inch up hills. I slowly pace along the flats.
All my favourite songs keep me company and the nike+ lady informs me how terribly I'm doing every 500m. Oooo I'm getting slower with each passing minute! Thanks for the update :D But its like having a running buddy, a mathematically gifted, slightly anal, robot running buddy.

I've been reading books about ultra marathon runners. My 5km circuit feels pretty ultramarathony to me already. But its inspiring stuff, as soon as I put down the book I went out for my most enjoyable run yet and even managed to plod all the way up mt doom (the last hill in my run, its about a kilometre of hell). I saw heaps of birds and even found myself smiling while running.

Turns out the runners that suffer the least amount of injuries have cheap shoes and do it for the love of it. Don't know if I'll ever Love it, but I think I can do the cheap shoes bit.