Veggie Life

Is this thing on?

The other day I was at Trader Joe’s grabbing some more breakfast supplies to keep in my desk, and without much thought I grabbed all the ingredients for “cookie dough oats.”

Cookie dough oats are something I read about on a healthy living blog 5 years ago that, like most food-blogger inventions with cookie dough in the name, are absolutely not cookie dough. It’s raw oats, cinnamon, protein powder, and peanut butter, smushed up in a bowl to the consistency of muesli. Add some raisins and milk and it’s a slightly different, higher protein version of oatmeal for when you’re tired of oatmeal.

I realized this morning that it has been YEARS since I’ve made this, despite it being one of my go-to breakfasts for a while, and I also realized that it was probably because when my ex and I worked together I used to make us breakfast and this was always his favorite. I’d whip up a couple bowls of cookie dough oats and he’d say something sweet like “Chocolate doesn’t belong in breakfast” or “Why didn’t you give me more raisins?” or “This kind of milk is gross.”

I get really affected by bad memories connected to things. I stopped listening to Mayday Parade 8 years ago because I was listening to them when I got assaulted on the subway. I can’t listen to another band I enjoyed from that time because they were rude to me once when I interviewed them. I can’t listen to Charli XCX because she played at the Vegas pool party during an extremely disastrous bachelorette weekend and all I can think about is drunk crying alone in a pool because I was having such a terrible time.

I dragged myself out of bed an hour early and headed to the gym. By the time I got there I only had time for a short run, but it was better than nothing.

I went to take a quick shower before walking to the office...and there was no hot water in the shower. None. It was so cold I couldn’t even hold my hand in it for more than a few seconds, so getting in was out of the question. I had to “shower” by soaking one of my towels in warm water from the sink and trying to wipe my sweat off in the shower stall.

I’m finding it similarly unrealistic to imagine myself setting/accomplishing any goals at the moment, so I’ll keep 2017 resolutions short and sweet:

Find a therapist, learn how to hate myself less

Read another 28 books

Buy 1-2 cozy blankets

I feel like I shouldn’t be so tickled to look at a product called “Selfie Girl Nutcracker” and think “IT ME!!!” but here we are.

Last year I walked the perimeter of Manhattan in one day, which ended up being roughly 35 miles. This year I didn’t have anything quite so ambitious planned, but I wanted to walk as many bridges in one go as I could. I kind of forgot about it until October, but fortunately Saturday was a beautiful day, so even though we’re pretty deep into fall it was warm enough for a long walk!

A friend joined me, and brought along her friend, and we started around 11 on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. There were breakdancing buskers where we were meeting up (those guys who jump over bystanders and all talk at the same time, for any New Yorkers who know who I’m talking about) and we heard the shouting and saw the crowds and thought we were walking into a protest that would derail us right at the beginning! Fortunately the crowd was just the standard Brooklyn Bridge shitshow crowd.

We plowed through the first two bridges pretty quickly, mainly because they’re only about a block apart on the Brooklyn side. We stopped by a bakery on our way to the Williamsburg bridge and I got an almond croissant (gotta refuel? I guess?)

The jaunt from the Wburg bridge up to the Pulaski was a lot of Williamsburg/Greenpoint, which felt like it took forever because we were walking up Bedford during peak Brunchtime. But it did mean we could stop at Peter Pan donuts, which are my ideal donuts (cakey and soft inside but crispy outside.) I picked up a half dozen because I was heading out to a friend’s house immediately following the walk and I figured I’d bring some to share (a decision that made me very popular.)

Betsy was going to come meet us for the last bridge, but when I texted her to let her know where we were, she said that the Queensboro bridge was blocked by a protest and she couldn’t get over it to meet us. We got this info right as we were getting to the Pulaski Bridge to head into Queens, and figured we’d readdress as we got there.

While we were getting a little lost in Long Island City (see our zigzags in the map as we were trying to aim for the bridge entrance) I was googling the protest to see how much it would affect us. As it turns out, it had started at 1 and by the time we got to the bridge it was after 2:30. The group marching from Queens to Trump Tower had already made it across and the cops didn’t seem to be blocking anything off, so away we went!

In the end, it was about 12 miles and 4 1/2 hours, I developed a little blister on one foot but otherwise came out unscathed. I had posted on facebook that I was going to donate $5 per bridge to The Trevor Project and invited other people to do the same, and as a result we ended up raising over $200, which was lovely!