Wednesday, June 25, 2008

my fitness

over the last year i have lost about 25 pounds... what i like to think of as my beer weight. i was not overweight really, just kinda, well, puffy. when i moved to california in september i started eating better, working out more, and drinking less.

but now i'm in a rut. i run 4-5 times a week and while i'm maintaining my weight and eating pretty much whatever i want, i still have a little belly.

so i made the decision to rededicate myself to working out for the next month in anticipation of my dad and ralph's wedding. i don't have a goal weight or waist size or anything, i just want to look and feel better.

here is the plan:
- drink less beer. this is probably going to be the hardest part for me. it will require more wine during the week and more mixed drinks on the weekend. note that i said drink less beer, not stop drinking beer - i'm not crazy afterall.
- run more. i've been doing 3 or 3.5 miles the last few months. today i bumped up to 4 miles.
- do 50 pushups and situps. pretty self explanatory.
- eat less sugar. i have a sign at my desk that says "go to the gym and stop eating cookies u fatty!" that worked for a while, but i've been slipping recently and need to cut back. so far this week, the sweetest thing i had was an emergen-c and a luna bar.

and that's it. i'm not going to go crazy, but i'm sick of always having an average body. i want to have a good body damnit! if the wedding doesn't work as a goal, then nora's lakeside 30th birthday bash in august is another good target. nothing like working your ass off to look good for the end of summer. whatever.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

kinda sad

a new year's resolution for 2007 was to read 40 books.  i emailed myself every couple weeks when i finished a few more books to keep a list of what i had read.  it's interesting to look back on the list now and remember where i was, what job i was working, what country, state, state of mind i was in when i read each book.  

i made it to 36 books.  i had given up on the goal of  40 books around thanksgiving, and was happy enough that i had kept track of everything i had read throughout the year.  so i decided to keep doing it for 2008.

but here's the sad part.

i've only read 6 books so far this year - almost halfway through 2008, and i've averaged one book a month.  by this time last year, i had read 14 books!  the problem is that i drive to work now instead of taking the train, one of the many things i miss about new york and have been missing more lately.

a 45 minute commute to work is just barely my limit in the car - days when there is traffic really test my patience.  there are definite advantages to driving over taking the train (not having to worry about how much stuff i bring with me to work, being able to sing at the top of my lungs... well that's about it actually), but i miss my reading time.

i'm a nerd.

Friday, June 20, 2008

my week in numbers

5 - times i went to the gym before work
4 - drinks i had by myself on wednesday night
3.5 - miles ran at the gym each day
3 - episodes of battlestar gallactica watched
2 - homemade lunches my dad gave me
1.10 - my tab at the corner deli when i was short on cash for beer
1 - car accidents avoided (a bumblebee flew in my open window on the freeway and i did a lot of swerving while trying to get it out of my car)
0 - cavities i have after a 4 year absence from the dentist

Monday, June 16, 2008

weekend

anna came over on friday after work. my roommates were both out of town for the weekend, so we took advantage by hanging out in the living room, drinking vodka and looking at the internets. flash forward an hour and a half and we stumbled out of the apartment to start the evening.

we had dinner at firewood, on 18th st. just west of castro. it's a brick oven pizza place that was pretty decent - nothing amazing, but we shared a pizza, a salad, and each had a glass of wine and got out of there for $17 each. there are so many amazing restaurants in my neighborhood, but i only seem to know the really pricey ones, so it was nice to go to a place that is on the cheaper end.

we walked down 18th st. to the mix, which is my favorite bar in my neighborhood. we met anna's friend from high school there and sat out back on the patio for the rest of the evening. we made a few friends (one of whom told a homeless man he looked like pocahontas before dubbing him "pocahomless"), smoked some cigarettes, drank some beers... it was great.

after a stop for a last drink at moby dick's (none of us is still totally sure why we decided on that), we stopped at 7-11 for some snacks and called it a night.

anna and i went to sleep at 2a - and at the bright hour of 7:45a she got up to go for a run. i know. she's crazy. she left around 10a to go wine tasting (again - crazy) and i pretty much spent the day recovering. i'm not young anymore and that night and that level of drinking took it out of me.

i went to the east bay saturday and had dinner with my mom. we found "bridget jones' diary" on tv and then i passed out at 10:30p. we woke up the next morning and started cooking brunch for my dad and his partner for father's day. it was delicious!

the house my parents moved to when they came to california is for sale, so we went to the open house. two main thoughts - 1) the house is so much smaller than i remember it (i was about 3 when we left so it's understandable) and 2) it is in a bad neighborhood. i can't even imagine what it was like then but... whoa. east oakland.

when i was younger i was in a children's choir, and the current group left for tour today. last night, they had their final concert of the season, mostly for the parents before they lost their kids for 2 and a half weeks to st. petersburg, slovakia and estonia. it brought back some good memories, and i saw a couple friendly faces from the past.

anyway... now i'm back at work. wheeeee!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

so the message is...

write shorter posts.  got it.

i'm hungover.

but it was worth it.

Friday, June 13, 2008

How do they get away with this?

Sometimes, I just get depressed about the state of our country. How is this allowed to happen?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The "Get to Know Eoin" Post

i decided to do one of these questionnaire things to get this blog rolling. and yes, it occurs to me that anyone reading this already knows me so this is pointless, but i have to start somewhere (and i just made the executive decision to capitalize as little as possible in this blog).

i stole this from someone else. i don't know what the etiquette is on these things - am i supposed to credit him? well - it's from Big Don's Blog and i think he stole it from somewhere else.

1. Last kiss
? oh god. that is depressing to think about. next.

2. How do you flush the toilet in public? with my foot because i'm a bit of a germaphobe. (heh, spell check wants me to change that to hermaphrodite)

3. Do you wear your seatbelt in the car? definitely. and i yell at my passengers if they try to get away with not wearing their's.

4. Do you have a crush on someone? sure, why not.

5. Name one thing that you start to get tense about if you are close to running out of it: this is a horribly constructed sentence. anyway, i'll go with coffee.

6. What famous person do you (or other people) think you resemble? i hate this question because someone once told me i look like justin timberlake and then it just sounds like i'm really conceited to say that to people. also, i look like him in that we both have short hair and are white. i've also been told i look like jason bateman, and one time when i was in high school, someone asked if i was ben savage from boy meets world. so there you go.

7. Favorite pizza topping: pepperoni.

8. Finish this sentence: if my life was a sitcom my theme song would be... i thought this question was asking which sitcom theme best matched your life, and i was going to answer the ukulele-tinged song from "arrested development" because that show is awesome. instead i'll say... "the way i are" because why not.

9. Do you pop your knuckles? oh yeah. and my toes, my back, and occasionally my chest pops too.

10. What song do you dislike the most when it gets stuck in your head? i had leona lewis' "bleeding love" in my head for about 3 days a few weeks ago and it killed me.

11. Did just mentioning that song make it get stuck in your head? kinda.

12. What are your super powers? is "always saying the most inappropriate thing ever" a superpower? or is that more of a super character flaw?

13. Peppermint or spearmint? who cares.

14. Where are your keys? sitting on my desk so i can use my securid thing when i log off my computer. i'm high tech! ... and totally doing this at work.

15. Who's answers to this questionnaire do you want to hear? a) who's = who is. you were looking for "whose." b) no one is going to even read this so... no one.

16. What's your most annoying habit? if i knew what it was, i wouldn't do it. i'm sure i have tons.

17. Where did you last go on vacation? oh! disneyland! just this last weekend and it was fucking amazing. i already want to go back.

18. If you could punch one person in the nose and get away with it, who would it be? fergie? star jones? whoever was responsible for the movie "crash"? maybe just george bush.

19. What is your best physical feature? the whole thing. i'm a fucking adonis.

20. What CD is closest to you right now? my coworker probably has something in her computer but she's gone today so i can't ask her.

21. What 3 things can always be found in your refrigerator? milk for coffee; carrots; cheese.

22. What superstition do you believe/practice? i knock on wood so much that my knuckles are cut up.

23. Does size matter? this seems not to fit in with the rest of the questions.

24. Paper or Plastic? paper! plastic = bad for the environment.

25. Do you talk on your cell phone when you drive? yes. and yet i yell at anyone else i see on the phone because i'm convinced only i am good at driving and talking at the same time. 3 weeks until the hands free cell phone law goes into effect!

26. What are your favorite sayings? i say "awesome" a lot. also, "suck it."

27. What song(s) do you sing most often in the shower? i don't.

28. If you could go back or forward in time would you and where would you go? dinosaurs! actually, i might go to athens circa 500 bce and find out what the frieze around the parthenon signifies. i had a professor in college who had an amazing theory about it that totally made sense to me but she was basically dismissed by academics for her "feminist theory." but i think she's right. so i'm going to go back in time to prove it!

29. What is your favorite Harrison Ford movie? i think i'm contractually obligated to say either a "star wars" movie or an "indiana jones" movie. which is probably accurate, though "the fugitive" and "working girl" are both classics as well.

30. What CD is in your stereo? madonna's "hard candy" album is in my car stereo right now.

31. What OCD qualities do you have? where to begin? i make sure the stove and oven are off before leaving the house or going to bed. ditto the locks on the front and back doors. i have a hard time leaving work because i always think i've left confidential trash in my trash can or my computer on. i got yelled at once for hitting the automatic lock on my car too many times (it makes a loud beeping noise). i'm on medication for this, don't worry.

32. how many kids do you plan on having? i fucking hate kids. i'm planning on having dogs. if i was forced to have kids, i would adopt black babies because they are the cutest.

33. If you could kiss anyone famous who would it be? jake gyllenhaal.

34. Would you really want to kiss someone you didn't know? isn't that how all good evenings start?

35. What do you do when no one is watching? kiss myself in the mirror.

36. If they made a movie about your life, what actor/actress would play you? denzel. obviously.

37. Would you rather die in a blaze of glory or peacefully in your sleep? that is an awesome question. my instinct is peacefully in my sleep, but the blaze of glory thing sounds kinda fun too. huh. i don't know.

38. What candy, from when you were a kid, do you miss the most? you know they still make candy, right? it's not like... out of business.

39. what is your favorite movie? tough one - "in america," "mean girls," "national treasure," "finding nemo," "glaidator," and "the day after tomorrow" should give you an idea.

40. Favorite musician(s)/bands you've seen in concert? kelly clarkson, and colin meloy of the decemberists. and the decemberists proper. and kelly clarkson the other time i saw her.

41. Have you ever been in love? see: question #1. next.

42. Do you talk to yourself? doesn't everyone?

43. Is there anybody you just wish would fall of the face off the earth? i am a judgmental person who says some fucked up shit, but i don't wish death upon anyone. even george bush.

if you made it to the end of this post... get a hobby. even i am tired of eoin right now.

also, can we talk for a second about how blogging is totally self-indulgent?

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

yay!

blogging is awesome!