Truesday: Sinking The Stink

I’m not so sure that this impulse is warranted, or in any way reasonable. After all, a “high quality of life” does not directly translate to “long”. Perhaps we're all victims of rampant misnomer, but it’s something of a universally understood/accepted assumption, however flawed it may be. I'm not flatly convinced though. Because in all honesty, I’ve seen lots and lots of old-assed folks in the blinking halls of casinos in Louisiana who appeared absolutely miserable, if not inert. So, I don’t really know that I agree with the assumption that cleaner living = longer life = better quality of life.

All I know is that it hits everyone. It might take thirty, fifty, or ninety years. But everyone, at some point, takes serious stock of their poorer habits, and makes, at the very least, a cursory effort at curbing the nastier ones.

But I’m not that person yet. My smoke-stacking ways will continue to mingle with my table-flipping drunk episodes. And I will undoubtedly perish in some awful, yet sadly tragic event. Probably involving a garbage fire that I, myself, set, in hopes of entertaining myself on some rogue Wednesday night. Because I’m stupid like that.

But one piss-poor habit that has always intrigued me is my personal treatment of food. Rather, everyone's piss-poor treatment of the stuff. Namely: meat fetishism. Living here in Texas, a thick and juicy steak reigns supreme. I’m not sure how this started, or why it’s such a big goddamn deal. But here in the Lone Star State, contrary to my own preference: either you gorge on a big-ass $35 steak and smile like it’s your goddamn birthday, or you’ve obviously got an extra chromosome. If you happen to be male, this is doubly so.

Well, I’m not terribly interested in riding that cholesterol train. Red meat was never my thing anyway, so, fuck it. When I was growing up, my mother would buy these awful-looking meat-ish-type-things she referred to as “steak”. They were usually grey in color, and were principally composed of slug-like gristle and some other substance that had the scent and consistency of boiled leather. Cutting the damn things took both surgical skill, to get around the “marbling” (boogery-fattiness), and some serious fucking power tools. Sharp, gas-powered-reciprocating-saw type power tools.

Forget actually chewing any of it up. You could blow bubbles with that shit and the only flavors I ever found were metallic (probably flakes from whatever cutting instrument I was ruining in the process of producing bite-sized pieces). Not surprisingly, I never, ever-ever-ever enjoyed it. And to this day, I don’t give two shits about steak.

So, back to my “eureka, my health is all kinds of fucked-up and I should probably try something to change that!” moment. I’ve decided to go vegetarian for a month.

Tah-dah.

Just to check it out. Not that I want to offend all the morality-pushers (who simply can’t stand the idea of hitting a sweetly-chewing Borden cow over the head with a sledge hammer, just for the sake of sustenance) by taking their platitude-stand like a tourist. Sure, in the “killing innocent animals for the sake of pleasure is wrong” sense of “wrong”, it makes perfect sense to go vegetarian. Killing, subjectively, is wrong. But so is acquiring a severe protein deficiency by way of soap-boxed malnutrition.

So I’m just passing through. Checking it out. Maybe my lazy ass can actually manage to eat balanced meals, complete with protein, without furthering the unnecessary tartar buildup on my arterial walls. Maybe. If not for the sake of health, then just for the sake of experience. After all, every vegetarian I’ve known gave being an omnivore a try. It probably won’t hurt me to return the courtesy. Just to know where they’re coming from.

For instance: how does a vegetarian manage a cross-country road trip? There weren’t a whole lot of sausage/beef/bacon/ham-free selections at any of the Waffle House locations I’ve over-caffeinated myself in. Pretty much just the waffles. Maybe a glass of OJ. How does that make one feel? Does it completely suck the enjoyment out of the truckstop experience? Does it feel alien to try and pull together something meat-free-yet-substantive from the Denny’s menu?

And how about all those springtime cookouts? There’s always at least one Boca Burger handler in the crowd, but I never considered how it felt to be the odd-one out. Shuffling all that dripping beef over, to squeeze in one garden burger on the top wrung, the upper shelf of the grill, usually connected to the lid. A true outsider.

It’s an experience worth having, if only for a month. Plus I’ll probably shit like a champ, which is always awesome.

Hm. Mixing this experiment with my push-mower (amongst other things)… hell, maybe I am hippy-bound.