Steakface
Yesterday I ate a chicken fried steak so big, I could have poked holes in it, tied it to my head, and worn it as a mask. I could have wrapped it around me in a blizzard and kept warm for weeks. I could have ridden it across the ocean and never got a single drop of water on me.
Just to be a dick, I ordered a salad along with it, and didn’t eat it. The food came with oversized, yeasty dinner rolls, which I, of course, ate. The peach cobbler I ordered was left behind (we had the food delivered), and while it broke my heart, it wasn’t like I could have eaten it anyway after that deep fried monstrosity.
As a rule, I avoid Texas comfort cuisine, because I am an animal and I have almost no self control. If I don’t ever get any, I won’t ever eat any, and everything works out okay. But when I do break down and take the carbo-plunge, I go hard. I lurk in the paint, arm up, begging for the ball, and then when the pass comes my way, I go to the rim and slam it down like it insulted my mother. It’s savage.
Having an addiction-oriented personality is like a lifetime pass to the Dungeon Drop. If you try drugs, you make them your diet. If you drink, you drown. Anything you like, you are prone to overdo. Maybe you manage to get one thing under control, but then you just get into something else. I don’t drink anymore, and I gave up drugs decades ago. Food? Ha, well, fuck off.
The whole “as you age you get better at adult stuff” precept is a bunch of fucking bullshit. I still eat whatever the fuck I want. The difference is, now I pay for it. I will willingly overindulge in things, because fuck it. I’m never gonna be a thousand and still doing the Iron Man, eating only sand and kale, working out 25 hours a day, and dating 12 year old’s, desperately trying to reclaim a past I never had nor wanted. Fuck that.
But I’m also not going to cave in and start wearing plaid polyester pants and golf shirts, and start listening to Kenny Loggins and Michael Bolton records. I see a lot of people my age who look like the Crypt Keeper, and it freaks me out. My dad is in the middle of his 80s, and the man still lives his life like a human first and fuck you after that. Of course he’s had to make changes in order to maintain his vigor, and sure genetics undoubtedly have helped, but there’s also something different in his outlook that allows him to not define himself by age.
I know my age, and I know my limitations. They’re on a sliding scale, and the scale is pointed towards the sewer, but I’m taking the ride. The important thing is that you slap all of those ugly, judging faces on your way down. Take it from your Uncle John, a good slap on the face of a douche is worth two in the bush.
I won’t be touching that restaurant for a good while. I find that the closer my diet clings to the equator, the better I feel, and that remains a fair north star. I need to buy that bike I’ve been eyeballing and replace my winter walks with morning rides. The increased mobility, cardio, and air movement, will hopefully get me over the summer hump.
If you do decide to eat a chicken fried steak the size of your face, by the way, get the pepper gravy. No need to skimp when you’re already balls deep in bad decisions.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cuddle with a cardiologist.