I have never been on a makeover show, and I probably never will be, but my gym bag recently leaped at the opportunity to be made over (or would have if it weren’t an inanimate object). Here is the “before” photo:

Going clockwise from the left, we’ve got a towel which should make you happy the Internet doesn’t yet have smell-o-vision. There’s also a pink water bottle, deodorant, a lock, my pace/distance tracker, and a change of clothes which includes sports socks, a sports bra, and running pants all made from sweat-wicking materials. These are the basic things I use before, during and after my workouts.

That’s the gym bag as it is now, but tomorrow you will see it after the “Plus Up Your Gym Bag” makeover it got from Kellogg’s FiberPlus bars. Or you will as soon as I go and buy stuff for the makeover. Look at me, daring to put the “dead” in deadline! (If you have any ideas for what I should buy, do comment.) You’ll also have a chance to win [...]

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The title of this book made me wary at first, but I decided to give it a chance because I’d heard a segment on This American Life with the author a few years ago that I liked about the topic of his last book, Money for Nothing: One Man’s Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions. Thankfully, what I got was a light-hearted, self-deprecating, weight-loss memoir written from the male perspective, which is certainly the under-represented gender in weight-loss tales.

Ed Ugel’s weight problem becomes an issue when he gains 43 pounds in a year due to depression brought on by various life problems. After his wife complains of his loud snoring, he’s diagnosed with sleep apnea. His weight-loss is largely motivated by the desire to be rid of the CPAP machine that helps him breathe through the night, but is so uncomfortable and odd-looking that it frightens his daughter.

We follow Ed as he slowly eases into his new routines, loses weight over the holidays, suffers relapses and binges, pretends to order for two in [...]

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Photo by rsadler / by NCND 2.0 CC

Ever since I started freelancing full-time, I’ve been tracking all my expenses. I like to make sure the money going out isn’t greater than the money going in, because that would be a very bad business plan indeed. (Unless you’re the federal government.) This is how I know that my food/grocery expenses have gone up since I moved from Indianapolis to Chapel Hill, though I don’t exactly know why. The first month I was here, I expected it to go up because I had to buy basic staples that I hadn’t bothered to move across the country, and I had to eat out on the road. But August’s bill was about $40-$70 higher than it averaged in Indy.

I’m not sure if the prices at Harris-Teeter are higher than they were at Kroger. I don’t know if I mooched more food off of my old roommate than I realized. I’m spending more time at coffee shops to get out of my apartment, which has bumped the sum a bit. [...]

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This morning on the freeway I was passed by a house.

Technically, it’s a trailer, but it scared the reptile part of my brain as it passed me in the right lane. I swear I was going 70mph. I think there is a joke about “house flies” in here somewhere, but my brain is too tired to put it together, so you’ll have to assemble that joke yourself. I have an Allen wrench if you need it.

• Continue reading "Life in the slow lane"