Now that Elizabeth has offended all of our military and relief workers I thought I'd share the Sand Bag Workout with everyone.

Here is the article on Men's Health

It isn't the fact that I need a gimmick to workout.

It's that I need something that fits with what I'm willing to do. In part because I'm lazy, in part because of other things.

I play soccer. I play basketball. Neither of these can be as consistent as I need them to be in order to offset the heavy drinking and shitty eating. I need to add something in there that I can do quickly and easily, without having to head to the gym and wait for machines.

Honestly, I hate people. I don't want to stand around with them waiting for machines or working on something while they stand there with their little fucking towel staring at me and alternating swipes of their brow sweat with gulps of bottled water.

I also hate things that are just straight exercise. lift this weight twelve times, rest, do it again. Run 4 miles. Push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, etc.

I get bored in four seconds.

But give me something more challenging? Or something that's a little different?

Then it's game on.

Yes, I know. It's only a slight variation of pushing weights around, but it's enough.

She complains about my core but then makes fun of my idea to work on it.

I think she wants me to get fat, which would be cool. I love eating whole pizzas and drinking beer. It could be a match made in heaven.

I bet she won't be complaining about my workout routine when I can clean and jerk her with my junk.

Or when I learn Iron Crotch style.

Had a great weekend with the man visiting. I've moved into a new, also temporary place until we make the big move, so he got to see my adorable pad, which is still about 20% from being completely unpacked. The clothes and the shoes...they are a project.

As usual, we ate and drank too much. This is what happens when time together is like a multi-day celebration. It's hard to get into a normal routine when you have to pack in all of the stuff normal couples do over several weekends into a couple of days. This brought us to the discussion of keeping in shape. I'm a yoga girl. I'm fine with only doing that, it keeps me healthy and stops me from slapping people around, with its calming and balancing nature. He, however, has always been a sports guy. Soccer, basketball, whatever. The only thing is, this isn't a convenient or consistent way to work out, since it is heavily dependent upon getting a bunch of other like minded people together to get a game on. Also, it takes up a LOT of time, with the traveling to the place the game is happening, playing, and often, with the end result over some victory or losing beers, which ummm pretty much defeats the physical activity of the whole thing.

The fact is, if he could just find a workout he could do on a daily basis, that only takes a few minutes, he would be more likely to stick to a regular routine and stop complaining about the gaining and losing of the LB's. He really does obsess over it. The problem is, he cries boredom with any such workout, and I guess being bored for 30 minutes a day isn't acceptable. I don't see the big deal. He has a job. That can't be endless excitement all day long, right?

So he tells me he found a great workout. The sand bag workout. Awesome. So he read about some gimmicky nonsense in a men's magazine and now he wants to purchase bags of sand to heave to and fro? Silliest thing ever, right up there with the thigh master. It is, in fact, the men's magazine equivalent of the late night infomercial for the thigh master and all of its similar work out "tools". Only it's a bag of sand, so since it's not formed plastic in a girly purple color, it's totally a manly workout accessory. I'm sure that bag of sand will stave off his workout boredom...for 3 whole minutes.

How did he become so gullible and actually get on board with this idea? He's actually really pumped up about it. Help, people. I see sandbags cluttering the floors of my future home. I'm so not pumped about it. Unlike most clutter that I can just throw away if it gets annoying to me, they are heavy.

In college I moved out of the dorms and in to a home on one of the many side streets near campus. The vast majority of these homes were in terrible condition and kids were packed in like sardines, albeit happy sardines. Nobody really wanted to live on campus, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I did my year and bolted for off campus housing.

We got 7 of us in a house with only 4 real bedrooms. I shared with my buddy Steve in the largest room, while three lucky bastards got large single rooms. The unlucky last two lived in large closet-like spaces. Not to be confused with actual closets, which both Steve and Mike lived in the year before at a different home. Steve's was hilarious. It wasn't even a closet you could really use. It was more of a small storage space where the roof of the house slanted down from the top floor and caused a small triangle of space that was big enough for a couple milk crates of clothes and a twin mattress. You couldn't stand up at its highest point.

But it didn't matter. Cheap beer and banging chicks was what mattered.

Now might be a good time to point out that neither Steve or I ever really found ourselves flooded with poontang, but that was the focus of the times at any rate.

Our house had a living room floor that had more give in it than the American Cancer Society. Turns out it was being held up by a three inch thick pole in the basement. Our driveway wasn't paved, the basement had a dirt floor, the main floor shower was so bad that most of my roommates wouldn't ever shower in it.

But we enjoyed the hell out of that place.

A year later I upgraded to an apartment and since that move in 1996, I've lived in something like 10 other apartments, 4 homes, and dorms for one last year. That's in 12 years.

It's getting old.

Today I move out of my apartment and into storage. Well, my stuff into storage. I'm going to go nomad for a few weeks until I can move into my buddy's condo when he leaves the country for a couple years.

For how long, I'm not sure.

Hell, even when I move in with Elizabeth it will be a semi-temporary home.

Well, off to box up more cookware.

I've been going through things and preparing stuff to be moved, throwing out stuff I don't need, and setting aside blankets and jackets to give to the homeless in the D.

The size of my charitable heart is only exceeded by the size of my also charitable junk.

It's been interesting seeing things I hadn't realized I still had, but more interesting seeing how Elizabeth has influenced my move despite currently living 501 miles away.

It's in what I'm keeping.

Or more appropriately, what I'm not keeping. You see, Elizabeth is quite the picky homemaker. I'm sure you've sensed this in our writings on the new place together. I have to balance what I bring with what she will accept. Like my Playstation 2, which I don't really use anymore. You could sense through the phone that she was worried I'd want to have it hooked up to a television somewhere in the new place.

If you're a guy, you're probably thinking it's no big deal. It's connected but put away, right? But as a girl you're currently cursing about us guys and our stupid fucking video games.

So I will probably end up giving it away, rather than bringing it and risking an argument over it. It's not worth it. Besides, I really don't play it anymore so I think I'd just be holding on to it for sentimental reasons. I'm OK with that.

As I'm OK with getting rid of most of my kitchenware, most of my decorations, and my manhood.

Kidding.

But I have thrown out an extraordinary amount of junk thus far, and I know there is a bunch more to toss.

I'll be moving in to a friends condo, if all things work out well, instead of staying in a friend's basement. But either way I wasn't going to bring anything more than what I'd normally bring to a hotel. My computer, my clothes and shoes, my phone charger, toiletries. That's pretty much it, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Simple living.

For now, at least.

It's been pointed out amongst those that know me that I don't exactly eat like a normal human being. I'm cool with that opinion. Hell, all of you are entitled to your wrong opinion.

It's been well documented that a man can survive on nothing more than pork products and the occasional spice. I'm not here to dispute science.

What I did tonight was a celebration of food. A way to satisfy my hunger combined with a sacrifice to the prosciutto gods. It was a pretty good night.

It started with a recipe from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano. It called for kabobs of flank steak rolled up with a strip of prosciutto and a sage leaf, brushed with olive oil, and seasoned with salt and pepper. Pretty simple.

Until you show up to your local grocer and they're out of sage.

Fucking grocery store. I swear to god they stopped carrying, or stopped stocking with any sort of frequency, every fucking item I've tried to buy over the last year.

Organic washed romaine lettuce? The only sku in the section constantly out.
(Yes, I understand I just outed myself)

The olive oil I like? All 6 varieties banished.

The chicken I started buying like wildfire? Out of stock for a month.

Cheese and garlic croutons? "Not sure what product you're talking about, sir."

Three Peppercorn Pasta? The only sku disco'd out of the 6-variety brand.

And on and on and on.

If this place wasn't walking distance from my apartment I'd be punching it in its face. (Quick side note: I never walk.)

So they were out of sage leaves, among other things I'd want to buy, so I was at a loss for what I could do to replace the sage. I called the BoyGenius for a replacement spice. He talked about spice for spice swapping and how there wasn't an easy swap for sage.

In the end he suggested oregeno. I decided to use that idea for a couple kabobs and then used a few different spice blends for my other ones. There was a clear winner and loser.

Without sage I had only a few options at my disposal. I made two with oregano, two with a spice rub called Nantucket something or other, and one with an Italian herb blend.

Cut the steak into 4in strips, place a matching piece of prosciutto on top, spice (or lay a single sage leaf if your grocer doesn't suck donkey balls) and roll them up. Brush them with olive oil and salt and pepper before broiling or grilling. I had to broil since my apartment complex is worried I might burn down our building if I'm allowed to have a grill on my deck. (I probably would)



This part was pretty easy. The only problem I had was that I didn't go to a butcher so the steak was too thick. I had to utilize my knife skillz (Honed during ninja school as a young shaolin monk) to cut that bitch in half. I need a sharpener and a much better cutting board, but I still have all my fingers.

Cook those bastages until they're done to your liking, which in my case was the toughest part. I'm getting better at it, but I'm still not that great at nailing the proper temp and time with dishes like this.

Despite a little too much time in the oven they still turned out delicious.



The recipe called for cubes of pancetta to go in between the rolls, but my awesome grocer again couldn't come through for me, so I figured I still needed something else on there and went with a red pepper. Yes, Elizabeth, I actually ate a couple of them.

Clearly the spice blend from Nantucket Offshore won the battle. The Italian blend was second and the oregano came in as the least tasty of the group.



From their website: Rosemary, sesame seed, red pepper, oregano, minced garlic, dried tomato, lemon peel.

What the photos don't show is the cheese I was eating while making the rolls. I also feel like I should mention it took me way too long to prepare this easy dish, and as a consequence I had a sizable amount of wine in my system before any real food made it in there. I have quite a nice little headache this morning, but it was worth it.

See how valuable I'll be in the kitchen? I can totally cook.

A little.

Well, I don't have any bad habits, of course. I have nitpicky-ness more than bad habits, actually, but I do hate putting dishes away. That can be the man's job. I am very particular about the way stuff is put away, though.

I also let laundry build up until I'm forced into a laundry marathon. When the marathon begins, though, it cannot be stopped. It's hours of hot laundry action.

And I throw stuff away. That won't bode well for any mountain of stuff that accumulates, because I'll just chuck it all. I've thrown away plenty of my own things I should have kept (receipts, business cards etc), so I have no doubt I will be careless about the throwing away of other random stuff.

I also tend to leave lights on all over the house. The electric company sends me a fruit basket every Christmas.

Less a bad habit than absent-mindedness, I constantly lock myself out of my apartment. I live in a doorman building, so that isn't a problem really, except for the slight inconvenience of going back down the elevator to retrieve the keys from said doorman. Made more annoying when I've got the dog with me. All of that up and down confuses her.

I'm sure we'll work out the picking up of some slack for one another. It should only cause an argument every couple of hours or so.

There are plenty of things I will have to change as I move in with my lovely girlfriend, most notably my laziness when it comes to cleaning or putting things away.

I'm terrible at it right now. I blame it on the fact I have no fear of a pop-in. I live too far away from my friends, so I'm not worried anyone is going to drive a half hour to an hour just to pop-in to see what's up. Elizabeth is in another state, so she isn't coming out unless I know.

Thus I can pile clothes on the floor for later, leave luggage bags lying around with clothes still folded imperfectly inside from my last trip, and keep the bathroom in a state an outsider might qualify as unacceptable.

I won't be able to be so slow in cleaning my dishes. This one probably won't be as hard. I'm not that bad with this after living with a friend who was Captain Particular about things. He'd fix the silverware tray so all the knives were facing the same direction.

No more waking up to sportscenter and blogging/surfing from bed. This will be a no-no and it remains to be seen if I'll be allowed to get up and leave while she's still sleeping so I can do it in another room.

I've got a habit of dropping my mail, things from my pocket, or whatever comes up, onto a side table in my place so I can deal with it later. Much later, after a small mountain has formed, I will sift through and separate the necessary from the unnecessary and clean things up. The sad thing is most of the stuff is crap I know I won't be keeping but I hold onto it for awhile anyways. It should go straight into the trash.

My habit of eating weird meals will probably get me an earful about nutrition, causing me to have to give up some of my favorites. These include eating just a large steak for a meal, eating a bowl full of cooked but otherwise untouched pasta (no sauces or butter sometimes, just plain), or eating the exact same thing 8 nights in a row. I'm thinking she won't stand for this.

All a small price to pay, as I shouldn't be doing this stuff anyways.

Elizabeth, I command you to tell the world (Or at least the 40 people who read oddcoupling) where I can expect problems from you!

It's an odd feeling to walk into your apartment one day and find what feels like acres of empty. Gone is the foosball table (Of which I played exactly 0 games) and the desk, coffee and side tables, as well as the vast majority of kitchen gadgetry or dishware.

My roommate has almost officially moved out.

Our palatial estate seems even more palatial now that a significant majority of the stuff is missing. A lot of what we had in the place was his, mostly due to my nomadic lifestyle previous to sharing space together. Also because I'm laid back enough to not care, thus he proudly displayed everything he had.

I know him because of my second job in my current industry. It was his first, and we were paired up during training and shared a hotel room.

It's easy to become friends when you're stuck in a training class where they go at the pace of the slowest retard and neither of you has the patience for it. Frustrated with Sally Dumbfuck and her constant inability to grasp basic selling concepts, we took off on one of the free weekends in search of poontang fun.

I won't say the name of the town because that might give important information to the types of jackasses who have fucked me in the past. Because no matter where you go or who you are there will always be holier than thou douchebags ready to shove their noses in your business.

I will say that it was on the east coast and it was a small but well known university which serves the camaro and mullet crowd. We used our substantial dinner allowance to eat like paupers and drink like kings. From there we made our way to the college bars in search of gullible fatties a good time.

Many, many beers into the evening I found myself talking to some random mediocre chick. The type who rates average on any scale of any given attribute. A bit chubby, a bit fugly, a bit annoying, but more than a bit attainable. Oh, and she did have nice tits. So there was that.

Problem was, I wasn't trying to hook up with a girl who looked like Sarah Jessica Parker's slightly more attractive, but chubbier, relative. So I'd have normally just backed away slowly, possibly using a cheeseburger as a diversion, but I noticed my buddy was talking with her friend. Her chubbier, but more facially attractive friend. He seemed like he was into it and at this point I had no idea what his ideal chick was. So I figured I would have to jump on the grenade.

I became interested in her stories. I bought her a drink. Hell, I think I even looked her in the eyeballs and somehow managed to flirt with her.

My buddy is still talking to his fatty and I keep looking over in hopes that he's going to extricate himself and give me the sign that he's going to abort mission, but he doesn't seem to be anxious to leave. I sigh and turn back to Seabiscuit for some more shots to make her more attractive conversation.

We come to a group decision to head back to the apartment these girls share. It coincided with the end of the year so the one girl had moved out leaving my buddy's fatty as the only one with her stuff left in the apartment. He and her found their way to her room and Azeri and I were lounging on a blowup mattress.

I'm not going to lie when I say that I was now drunk enough that my filly was looking above average. For some reason though, she became hesitant and didn't want to do anything. A complete flip-flop from everything she had shown up to that point. Oh well, I thought, no skin off my back. I did my job in keeping Funny Cide distracted while my buddy got his groove on.

Later they drove us back to our hotel where we had this conversation...

ME: So did you hook up with her?
HIM: Just a BJ. What about you.
ME: Nope, she was really weird once we got back to the place.
HIM: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?!? I was jumping on the grenade for you!
ME: DUDE! I WAS JUMPING ON THE GRENADE FOR YOU!

(Massive belly laughs)

It's truly an odd time for me. My priority is moving to a new city to be with Elizabeth and sex her up with my Thrice Confirmed Huge Junk. Currently, though, I find myself in a state of transition as I can't move yet and also can't stay where I'm at. My roommate took things from possibly moving out to almost fully moved out in a matter of weeks. I'll soon be moving in to a friend's basement so that I can be leaseless. Nothing keeping me here but the cautious pressure of my finger on the trigger of change, poised for that future moment when the transitional period comes to a close.

It's empty here. I can't wait to leave. In my future there waits a better roommate. A different kind of roommate. One who I will also allow to dominate the design and outfitting of our place, but for good reason.

She lets me see her boobies.