Last week my dad asked me to do a favor for him. The favor seemed simple, go in to a doctor’s appointment with my granddad. The doc had requested a family member be there to hear the results of an MRI. I was the only family in town and was happy to go. But what I heard, what I felt was not what I expected at all. My granddad is on the downhill. The MRI showed several strokes and severe brain shrinkage. I carried this information, this weight and passed it on to my dad. Three of my grandparents are dead, two when I was really young, and the other was sudden. To carry this weight, to get some idea of the future was heavy for me. In the room I felt my eyes water but I maintained composure. Driving straight to work afterwards, I couldn’t do anything to hold the tears back. It was heavy, it was real. It was a feeling that goes beyond the capacity of my words, almost untouchable. Life is no joke, no game and this was the first step in a cascade of realizations that hit me in the past few days.
Category Archives: August ’13
Why you should never shop at Whole Foods
I went to whole foods a few days ago for only the second time in my life. Having been a vegetarian for over a decade and recently switching to being vegan, a store like Whole Foods makes grocery shopping tremendously easier. However, after scanning the aisles and realizing exactly what “whole” meant to this company and its customers, I cannot bring myself to support their movement. Whole Foods and the movement that has fueled it makes me cringe with its lack of evidence and appeal to sensationalism. Claiming environmental awareness, sustainable agriculture, and healthier foods, Whole Foods fails to support these principles with its selection. From high prices and bad science of organic farming to the sale of meat, every step I took in that store was one step closer to never going back. Continue reading Why you should never shop at Whole Foods
Swimming with intestinal gas
Just over a year ago I set my personal record for 800 yards. It was nothing to brag about, but having been known as a chaser throughout my triathlon career, it was nice to finally be able to come out of the water with the leaders. At 9:38, a personal record by over twenty-five seconds, I was absolutely ecstatic. I was thrilled that my swimming was finally taking off after years of flopping around in the water. But at the same time I wanted to know how I made such a giant improvement in a matter of a couple months. I looked back at my training and it looked consistent as ever. My form had adapted only slightly, but that day something felt different. I felt like I was on top of the water; I felt absolutely fatigue-free for the first six hundred yards. My flip turns were smooth and my stoke held strong. But what led to all this if my training and stroke improvement very likely didn’t? I was swimming with intestinal gas, loads of it. Seriously, I think it was because I had to fart. Really. Goddamn. Badly. Continue reading Swimming with intestinal gas