tastes

Since I have become more or less single, I have plenty of time to obsess over my daily habits. Three such habits and obsessions are (1) saving money, (2) metrics and (3) finding the optimal balance between nutritional bang-for-buck, ease of preparation, and tastiness in my daily meals. So you see how I have spent the last ten minutes at work:

item	servings/unit	cost/unit	cost/serving	cals/serving
1/3 c. oats	70	$3.00	$0.04	120
2 T raisins	40	$4.50	$0.11	35
1 tsp flax seeds	80	$8.50	$0.11	20
1/2 oz. almonds	35	$7.50	$0.21	60
choc chips	70	$3.50	$0.05	40
tea	16	$5.00	$0.31	0
1.5 oz. half and half	24	$3.50	$0.15	60
yogurt	1	$1.00	$1.00	120
banana	5	$1.90	$0.38	110
TOTAL			$2.36	565

This is what I eat every day for breakfast, though the yogurt and banana are often omitted on days I don't run after work or are eaten as a late-afternoon snack. I bring the tea to work in a thermos and sip it until mid-morning. I bag up the first five items the night before and then once I get to work, I heat up some water in an electric kettle and stew my oatmeal and eat it around 9:30 while reading news and blogs. It takes a while to eat because the flax seeds are whole and one must chew them individually in order to unlock their secret magic. It costs $2.36 a day (but only $.98 without the oft-omitted yogurt and banana) and is sufficiently tasty to have sustained me for 47 consecutive days with only slight alterations.

I need to get out more often.

But you know, I don't want to go out! I prefer the company of my self-obsession (and also books, guitars, German language movies, and Rachel Maddow) to the company of the people (1) I know in Chicago, (2) I could potentially meet in Chicago, or (3) I could see performing in Chicago. I have come full circle from the initial feeling of bewildered glasnost that accompanied my autumnal move to the lonely midwest to a sense that I know what I want and should therefore excise unwanted clutter from my life: e.g., I'm quitting my band after our show next Sunday, I've told the Bavarian to shape up (his poor social skills - more on this on a later date) or ship out, I've stopped eating and preparing legume-based gruels because they make me want to vom, etc. And the opposite is true, too: I know what I want and I try to appreciate it when I have it. So thank you, friends, for giving me your time and your hilarious emails; thank you, Chicago, for giving me different views to explore and a freezing cold winter to clear out the walking paths for strolls alone; thank you, bicycle; thank you, Bavarian Boyfriend, for being calm and drama-free and devoted; thank you, Loretta Lynn; thank you, my occasional dog, for your fuzzy head that smells like feet.

You see, SL, I am single, at least in the same way that I am not literally but metaphorically thirty years old. For me, single and thirty means becoming a caricature of yourself - I guess you could also call this becoming more secure in your identity. I'm only going to get worse with time, and soon I will be counting out the number of oat flakes that go into the breakfast gruel. Lord knows my tendency toward schmaltz has already transformed this blog into a journal alternating between stupid stories and sentimentality and navel-gazing. But you know what? Fuck you, world! C'est moi! Eat it, trees!