Monday, January 7, 2008 - Monday Musing

This is the weekend I finally succumbed to being the political nerd that I was back in high school and through college. I actually went into chat rooms and picked fights about it, which was very amusing since most chat room inhabitants are fighting a battle of wits unarmed.

Backing up a bit, after working from home on Thursday, I was back in the office on Friday for a usual work day. Then I went and got my haircut and picked up 6 pounds of chicken and 3 pounds of cottage cheese so that I can keep my diet going for another week and a half or so, though I'll need to get more cottage cheese before the end of the week. Anyway, my hair was quickly becoming out of control, and it was driving me bananas. Since I am an atypical gay and will not over-extend myself on beauty, I waited until the beginning of January to get my haircut because I had a coupon. Yes, a coupon. I'm not going to be able to wait until February to use the next coupon because I've found that even though my hair grows fast normally, when I'm on my protein diet, my hair goes ape shit with the Hi-pro glow.

The big reason for the primping was that Romeo had invited us to an B+ gay party that his roommate (well, more the roomate's bf) was throwing at the house. We were originally going to crash it, but we decided to get an invite outright. We certainly orbit this group quite a bit, but I would never consider us a part of the "in" crowd. I often think we're merely tolerated as the cockroaches that will be around after the end of the world, with Cher of course. I cannot say that I was overly exited about going to this party because it is in situations like this where my lack of the small talk gene becomes very apparent. I'd rather sit in the corner and drink than actually engage in conversation, but since Romeo is starting his campaign for Bag Lady Queen, I figured it was worth going and proving to these people that I may not be a boring troglodyte. I think we ingratiated ourselves pretty well, and since these parties are a monthly event, I'll be interested to see if an invitation is extended for the February edition.

Saturday was pretty much back into the routine and trying not to destroy my diet. I did laundry, and then I napped the rest of the day until I started mainlining politics like Amy Winehouse on heroin. I watched ABC News, with the cutie David Muir, who, if Jeff Ranieri doesn't watch out, I may start stalking. Then plowed headfirst into three hours of presidential debates between the Republican and Democratic candidates. The things I can take away from that:

• The other Republican candidates REALLY hate Mitt Romney (with good reason)
• Somebody wake up Fred Thompson
• It is a sad day when Rob Paul made the most sense with his understanding of the Middle East.
  
• John McCain spent more time picking on Mitt than actually talking about anything
• Bill Richardson definitely wants to be VP for Hillary (if she even gets that far)
• EVERYONE seemed tired
• John Edwards needs to go away
• Barack Obama is still running on overarching platitudes, but apparently, everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid.
  
• Hillary had a great debate, but I'm starting to feel it might be too late to stem the tide. We'll know for sure by February 5th
• "Well, that hurts my feelings, but I will try to go on." (High point for Hillary, low point for Barack)

After staying up late and finally beating Super Mario Galaxy (!), I woke up late and watched the tail end of This Week on ABC, and then I started an all day stint of mainlining CNN, which showed wall to wall coverage of stump speeches and other analysis. Then they released a poll that showed that New Hampshire voters didn't think Hillary did as well as I thought. Ah well... The good thing to take from this is that the political junkie is back, and I'm looking at ways to get more involved, be it with a campaign or the Indiana Democratic Party. We'll see what I land on and blog about.

Finally, here is my calorie graph from Friday. It is not as high as Wednesday and Thursday, but I also think I was consciously conserving so that I could drink and snack a little a the party. While I did drink more than planned, I am happy to say I only had three chocolate covered pretzels.


Also, since Xena was curious how I can consume that much protein in a day, here is my food journal from Thursday.

My general consumption goes like this:

• Protein shake first thing in the morning
• Oatmeal around 10:30 (I had a chicken omelet on Thursday because my oatmeal was at work)
• A salad from the salad bar with fat free dressing around 11:30 or 12 (again, not representative above, but I had cottage cheese instead)
• Chicken, peas, and cottage cheese around 2:30
• Protein Shake after the gym
• Dinner by 6:30 or 7.
  

This is all going to be thrown into turmoil today because I got up and went to the gym before work. So, I'm sitting here already with two protein shakes in my system (and two cups of coffee...weeeeeee!).