When Life Throws You Crap, Make Lemonade!

As salaam alaikum,

I got a fair amount of studying done this morning, but as usual, during studying, I'm prone to get distracted. I was starving because I had run out of all of my fruit, which is basically what I snack on between breakfast and dinner with this new diet I'm on. I guess it's working. I'm also working out 1-2 hours six days a week. Cardio and weights, then Saturday is my samba class. All of this, and I was pretty much starving at noon while trying to study. Like seriously, I felt my body shutting down.

I eventually found some stale crackers in the pantry, but that was no good. It was time to go shopping!

There was no way I was going to walk 30 minutes to go the Shaw's. My former roommate when to great lengths to be cheap, but I needed to buy frozen stuff and I didn't care that it was only 73 degrees outside. Stuff was still going to melt, and I didn't want to walk 30 minutes from Boston into Cambridge to Somerville with a granny cart. So I dug up my Peapod account and my groceries will be delivered tomorrow evening. Awesome!

Alhamdulillah, the obsession circuit has calmed down and today has been a much more normal day. I'm also going to try something. For some reason, randomly, I was studying...pulm, I think, I suddenly remember this man remarking about how good his sisters' lassis were.

For those who don't know, lassi is a beverage made in India/Pakistan. My favorite is the mango lassi...I get it pretty much every time I get Indian food.

Then I thought about "A Man's Hands," the short, autobiographical piece that I wrote for the Muslim women's relationship anthology, and how it begins with me thinking about "Sadiq" while exchanging glances with "James" while sitting in an Indian restaurant, and how Sadiq existed for me as an apparition, and how I'd once imagined learning how to cook Indian food to appease his mother if we ever got together.

And I was like, pssh, I don't care about him! I like Indian food. It's like, give me foo foo and soup any day, and I'll chew on stock fish with the best of them, but Indian food is awesome.

So I didn't have to be ending up with this guy to learn how to cook Indian food. Let me continue being the cultural contradiction that I am and learn how to cook Indian food.

And if it comes down to it, there are several Indian import stores in Boston and Cambridge. I know this one lady stopped me in the street one day on my lunch break from clinic and offered to do henna for me. I can only imagine coming back from lunch break with henna, haha...my preceptor would have loved that. Not really. But they probably have spices.

So, I don't have all of my groceries yet, but I made mango lassi tonight. It's...awesomely easy to make. My next task...I'm going to make chicken tikka masala.

...hahaha!

I'll wait until I get home to make foo foo and soup. In the meantime, I have to see if I can find real yams from somewhere.

So what does this have anything to do with anything, especially the title? Taking crap and making lemonade?

That's exactly what I'm doing. My butt is huge right now. I'm working out like crazy and dieting to try to lose all the weight I've gained over the last two years, and then some. If I'm going to diet, I'm at least going to eat stuff that I like. And while occasionally my mind gets stuck in maladaptive circuits and I think of this man, maybe I can do something with this circuit and redirect it to something productive.

So I'm going to be cooking a lot more in the upcoming days...Igbo, Dominican and Indian food. Why Dominican food? Because it's been a long time. I'm going to make several beverages...lassi, avena and batidas.

And I bought some Guaraná for good measure.

And once I get done studying, I'll look into picking up another language. I know I'm 25 and I'm pushing it in terms of language learning, but I'm up for a new challenge.

This is, after all, my "year off." Samba class is cool, but there are tons more other random and fun things I can do with my life right now instead of letting my brain get the better of me.

So I'll try it...I'll let you know how it goes!

{Currently listening: Never Give You Up - Raphael Saadiq f. Stevie Wonder and CJ}