At the beginning of this summer, a roommate of mine, knowing that I had formerly been a runner in high school and sporadically during college, convinced me to register for the Nike+ HumanRace, taking place on Randall’s Island. Seeing as how I’d spent the past three weeks drinking wine, feeling sorry for myself, and acting like an imbecile along the Seine in Paris, I figured this was as good a reason as any for getting back into shape.

Training went as well as could be expected for someone in my condition. After purchasing a new pair of training shoes and reviving my gym shorts from their three-year hibernation amongst the mold and rot of the back of my dresser, I began running and lifting weights every other day. Admittedly, it took a while to convince the lifeforms growing along all my elastic waistbands and sleeveless t-shirts, but soon enough, I’d begun to quell both them and the screaming leg muscles I hadn’t used in over two years.

The hardest change was actually that of my diet.

It soon became apparent that, living in New York City, I was ingesting far too many meats and preservatives. Last summer, I (sort of) lived with a person who was a vegetarian. It occurred to me that, during those three months, I felt the healthiest I had ever felt: I was skating or biking every day, working at a country club (which meant carrying golf bags around), and eating almost no meat.

And so it began. The first in a series of diet changes. I started up with a bang, grilling onions, red peppers, and yellow squash, and served it to myself on a roll of French bread that had a mayo, lemon juice, and garlic mixture along with feta cheese melted to its insides. While delicious and providing for the next six meals (I’d failed to recognize the recipe was for a full commune of veggie-loving hippies), these sandwiches and their resultant eating habit didn’t rid my body of the daily fatigue in the backs of my calves, thighs, and especially my stomach.

I remembered what it was like as a runner in high school and I’d never hurt quite so much at the beginning of workouts. Sure, the pain always subsided by the end, but this was a disconcerting pain, as if my stomach was always trying to expel something that I’d put into it.

Since it wasn’t the meat and preserved, saturated fat-ridden foods, I moved on to my next bad habit: coffee. Continue Reading »

A stab at being kind of funny for once? Let me know what you think.

Billy Was Right.

I’ve put a lot of things in my mouth for girls.  No, I’m serious.  The amount of things I’ve thought were horrendously revolting at the time of my stuffing them in so as to impress or a female is insurmountable.  There was a point in my life when I held the firm belief that the true way to any girl’s heart was to tell Billy I wasn’t a “sissy.”  To tell him that he was a “butt head.”  To take his dare and eat a worm in front of Jenny on the swing set.  Billy was right.  I was a sissy.  The vomit on Jenny’s shoes proved it.

These days, I’m one wet-wipe away from germ-o-phobe status and I possess the same taste palate as I did back on the swing set.  I get by on pasta, sandwiches, and anything I can purchase at the local café where they know better than to ask me if I want any veggies on my ham and cheese sandwich.  They even bypass the “soup or salad” question by handing over the damn minestrone without argument. Continue Reading »

Given the nature of this blog (and my obsession with communicating over distances), I thought this project by Henrietta Swift was both appropriate and minimalistically beautiful:

It’s a book that folds out to 13 metres and has lines on it of varying lengths.  On one end, “I am here.”  On the other, “You are there.”

The lines represent modes of communication, from a trip on a train or car to a text message, with lengths that correspond to the amount of time it takes to deliver a message across the total distance.

More pictures and a detailed explanation here.

(and yes.  I made up the word “minimalistically.”  Hush.)

The happiest thing on Earth happened in front of me today.

I was sitting at the cafe I am at CONSTANTLY while the weather turned from a balmy 84 to an overcast, hellish downpour of rain. The barista who always takes care of getting me good coffee was wearing shorts. Her boyfriend, seemingly unexpectedly, walks in with his hands behind his back. Then this happened.

Barista: Awww, did you bring me pants because it got cold and rainy?

Boyfriend: No. (pulls flowers out from behind his back)

Barista: ohmygod… no one has ever given me flowers.

They hug. For a long time.

Barista: I hope this feeling lasts for a long time.

Hugging continues.

Barista: Shit… I don’t have a vase. (she pronounces it “vaahz” awesomely)

Both: laughter.

In addition to putting little bits of writing up on this thing, I also write for a music website out of Chicago that is doing a lot of really cool things.

HeaveMedia is a website out of Chicago.  It’s run by Wes, mainly, who you can view on the awesome VodCasts (he’s the one who sometimes has a pitiful excuse for a beard).  Click the logo to head to the homepage.

My most recent review was on the highly anticipated self-titled album by Conor Oberst.  Again, clicking the picture to the left will take you straight to it.

You can see everything that I’ve written for them by selecting my name (Mark Steffen) from the “Author” drop-down menu on the left of either of those pages.

Yay, music!

It took asking, begging, even bribing John with promises of baked goods to convince him to drive us the thirty miles to the lake.

All day we watched the sand rise between our toes and the boats float out to the horizon. Jenny and I, we’d brought ham and cheese sandwiches, ate while sitting on top of a crate that probably used to be a place for fish before they were carted off to market. It still smelled like fish. It smelled like fish, but not in a way that would make you wrinkle your nose up. Nothing was rotting, it smelled like the work that was done around the fish. The fishermen’s muscles ticking their living off pound by pound as they pulled life from the sea to the land. We lathered each other in sunblock more to complete the aroma than for protection from the clouded sun.

After collecting rocks that reminded us of our dreams, we tossed them into the water, watching them skip, skim, and then sink down below the opaque surface of Lake Michigan. There was no talk of the trouble we’d be getting in for leaving home for the day.

When the clouds shifted and let the sun through, we smiled for John’s camera. Jenny’s hand touched my elbow, I heard the camera click and, right then, I knew I’d be fine.

Joe and I have both finished up our second songs in The Covers Project.  This time we bring you all the all the sexual tension of that morning after breakfast and listening to music in the dark with our versions of “Jet Ski Accidents.”

Click here or follow the link on the left.