This Stinks

For years, Jess thought that she didn’t like fish. Turns out, what she actually doesn’t like is the taste (and, even more so, the smell) of oxidizing fat. Growing up, the primary fish her parents cooked was sautéed salmon. Which, especially when cooked skin-on, is about as oxidized-fat-heavy as food gets.

In more recent years, Jess has discovered that she in fact really likes pretty much all raw fish (sushi!), as well as less fatty fishes (ed. note: the correct plural for multiple species) even when cooked at moderate temperatures – Amelie‘s seared Atlantic cod was a recent hit.

But, at the same time, she’s equally sensitive to a slew of other theoretically inoffensive fats once sufficiently heated. Especially in a small NYC apartment, where kitchen smells quickly suffuse the entire place. Even vegetables pan-seared in olive oil, for example, will sometimes set off her disgust response.

To mask the smell, her fallback is to light a stick of traditional Nag Champa incense, which is strong enough to cover pretty much anything else. The only problems is, I kind of hate Nag Champa in turn.

So, cooking is a bit of a crap shoot. As a culinary nerd, I often spend far more time than reasonable shopping for, prepping, and cheffing up our meals. But I do so with caution. Sure, as the excellent Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat makes clear, fat and heat make up half the secret to tasty food. But, at least in my own home, too much of either is a sure road to pungent mutually-assured scent destruction. Browned butter with a side of ashram is a win for nobody at all.

January 22, 2020

Watching the Watcher

By now, I’ve been meditating (mostly) daily for about five years. And, as a result, I sometimes get questions about the upsides – or, really, just about the point – of a regular meditation practice.

In truth, I can’t say that I’m a wildly different person because of it. I don’t see the world completely anew, nor do I think or act with a calm or insight or balance that I wouldn’t have before. But I do, at least, notice my thoughts and actions – and, even more so, my feelings – with a clarity and precision and objectivity that I couldn’t before beginning meditating.

Sometimes, I’ll be arguing with my brother on the phone, and suddenly see myself from the outside; hey, I think, you’re pissed off, and needlessly being a dick to him. At which point, if I’m honest, I then keep being a dick, at least a good percentage of the time. But, sometimes, by noticing, I can change course.

Anyway, from that noticing, I’ve also discovered that, more than anything else, my crappiest moods happen when someone I care about feels anxious or upset. Today, Jess had a terrible morning, and worrying about her and how she’s feeling right now has my stomach tied in knots. Her crappy day isn’t because of anything deeply serious; by the end of the week, she’ll likely have rebounded completely. Further, even in the short term, I’m certain my own distress on her behalf does absolutely nothing to help. Still, I spent the last few hours feeling pretty terrible.

So, I sat for 20 minutes of meditation, and looked at that feeling. I breathed, and considered it from a distance. After which, I’m still anxious and upset. But now, I can also see my worry and stress for what it is – empathy for someone I love – and I can keep it in my mind and heart while also carrying on with the rest of my day.

Perhaps that’s not much. But, for me, it’s meaningful enough that I’m happy to keep up the mediation habit, day in and day out, as life rolls ahead.

January 21, 2020

Sitzfleisch

In standard style, I’m doing my best to watch all of this year’s Oscar contenders, at least in the major categories. Thus far, Jess and I have slogged through Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Marriage Story, Little Women, Bombshell, and The Irishman, with Parasite next on deck.

And, in short, boy are movies long.

Perhaps it’s that I’ve been watching more TV shows than movies of late. Or that my ability to focus for extended stretches has decayed in this frenetic digital age. Or just that my brain has addled (and my bladder further shrunk) in my advancing age.

But, whatever the reason, I’m finding it harder than ever to keep giving a crap all the way from opening scene through credit roll.

Still, I do want to keep slogging ahead through the balance of the list – if just to keep current on cultural literacy, as much as anything else. And who knows? Maybe after those dozens of hours, I’ll even have regained the ability to sustain my attention for an entire movie at a clip.

January 20, 2020

Playing with Pain

As people hop into a new year of workouts, one common issue regularly crops up: dealing with old injuries and ongoing tweaks – pain in backs, knees, shoulders, etc. The easy solution is to just ‘play it safe,’ completely avoiding any even slightly painful movements. But, in the long run, that’s an ineffective approach.

Pain is complex – it’s not just a physical sensation, but the mental interpretation of that sensation. In other words, while the muscle you pull in your back may be the initial negative stimulus, it’s your brain that turns the stimulus into the experience of pain. You’ve probably experienced that directly – perhaps you cut yourself accidentally, but didn’t feel pain until you looked down and realized what you’d done.

In the days and even weeks after an injury, the physical stimulus and mental response are usually pretty tightly coupled. But, often, even after the physical damage heals, the pain response persists. It’s kind of like the ‘check engine’ light in your car – once it’s on, regardless of any fixes to the engine itself, the light will only turn off if you reset it directly.

And, in the case of muscle or joint pain, the best way to ‘reset’ is through movement. Repeatedly move safely through a range of motion that previously caused damage, and your brain will update its map of the situation in the sensory cortex, no longer signaling the movement as painful.

But for that reset to work, the key part is moving safely. Moving through injury too much or too soon can actually make things work.

So, how can you tell if you’re helping or hurting? If the feeling in your shoulder as you press, or in your knee as you lunge, is a sign that you should pull back, or just something you should live with temporarily as you keep going and rebuild pain-free health?

When I’m working with athletes, I have four rules – four questions you can ask about the nature of the pain caused by any specific exercise or movement.

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, is the pain a 4 or less?

2. Does the pain remain the same or improve as you repeat the movement, rather than getting worse rep by rep?

3. Does the pain stop once you stop doing the movement?

4. Does the joint or muscle feel better or about the same 6-24 hours after the movement as it did before?

If you can answer yes to all four, you’re good to go.

As the physical therapists say, ‘motion is lotion.’ If you have musculoskeletal pain, get moving. Just follow the four rules along the way, and you’ll be back to feeling excellent sooner than you think.