Since I've been in Hawaii, I've heard several references a drink called kava, made from the kava root. Drinking kava causes the lips and tongue to become numb, and the effects include mildly talkative and euphoric behavior; calming effects, sense of well-being, clear thinking; and relaxed muscles. There used to be kava bars around Hawaii, but recently they have all closed shop. I'm not sure if this was due to declining business or safety issues. Trying kava has always been on my list of things to do.

I have several local friends who have showed me a lot of things around the island. Recently, I helped one of my friends move and the night before he had been drinking kava with his roommates. He had a good amount left, so he gave me a little to try (about 2 shots worth). It pretty much tasted like muddy water, but, much to my surprise, it was enough to numb my mouth. It wasn't enough to really experience any of the other effects, but it did make me want to try it again. My friend ended up giving me a bag of the ground kava root and explained how to make it, so that I might try it with some friends. I'm thinking about trying this out tomorrow since I have the day off and don't really plan on doing anything else. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

On a side note, I ran the farthest I've ever run this moring--12 miles!! A co-worker is also training for the Honolulu Marathon, and told me about the Honolulu Marathon Clinic, which is every Sunday morning at 7:30am. It's a free clinic and there are over a hundred runners that show up every week. I was initially told that this week would be a 10 mile run, which would have been 3 miles farther than any other run I've ran. I was also planning on running with a group that runs between a 9-10 minute mile pace. There were two groups that were planning on running at this pace and one was running 12 miles, and the other 18!! Needless to say, I went with the 12 mile group. This actually worked out perfect because the pace was slower than I usually run and we made a few quick water stops along the way (they are trying to train people to drink water to stay hydrated during the marathon). I ended up finishing in a little under 2 hours including the water stops. It was fun running with other people and made the run go by a lot quicker. I finished the run with no problem, and now I'm looking forward to next week!

Labels: experimentation, fitness, kava, marathon training, mind altering, running

I don't know why, but lately I've been hearing a lot of reference to bodily hair removal. This is always an interesting subject and has been the topic of many conversations.

A few days ago while I was making dinner my roommate came into the kitchen and his chest was all red and splotchy, so I asked "What the hell is wrong with your chest?!" To which he responded that he had just finished Nair-ing his chest (except it wasn't Nair™, but a similar product). I also laughed my ass of at this tidbit of information because I just thought that he was always naturally non-hairy. Being as I've noticed that there are a lot of locals who simply don't grow much body hair, I assumed it was the same for my roommate. Now, I never had much hair on my chest until just recently within the last 2 years. I never thought much about it, but lately I've noticed that if I wear a collared shirt my chest hairs start to stick out if I don't button it to the very top button (I'm not much for undershirts--especially since it's so damn hot here in Hawaii). For a few brief minutes I seriously considered trying this stuff to see how it would look...but I do have to say my curiosity is now piqued.

Today I received an IM from a friend telling me that Brazilian waxes weren't for everybody, but at least I tried. Obviously this IM was sent to the wrong person, but I definitely got a laugh out of it. The mere idea of a Brazilian wax makes me shudder. I could not imagine completely waxing down there. I had a brief experience with a few futile attempts at downstairs grooming. My second year in college I lived next door to 3 girls who became really good friends. We always talked about interesting topics and one that came up several times was grooming the "hair down there". They all informed me that they all manicured their coochies (which wasn't surprising at all), but they also told me that they didn't like it when guys had a jungle either and preferred some sort of grooming. They also shared how they did it, to what degree of hair removal, and which products they used. With this bit of information it was off to Rite-Aid for me. First I tired your typical wax strips. I was a little trepid to attempt this task in such close proximity to my main man. Now if you have seen 40 Year-Old Virgin you will know the painful waxing images that were going through my head (It's just too bad I hadn't seen it yet). Much to my extreme displeasure this worthless attempt at waxing was extraordinarily painful AND it didn't even work very well. This was also the first time that I learned that you can actually bleed from waxing. Needless to say, I was a little irked by this painful and fruitless attempt at grooming.

After my first attempt at crotchal grooming, I decided on the sure fire (yet still scary) razor. I was very nervous to have such a sharp object near my johnson, but the waxing obviously wasn't going to work. The shaving went amazingly well...I didn't cut myself and it was a nice clean shave. HOWEVER, I should have thought about the repercussions of shaving beforehand. The first day of being shaved like a pre-pubescent teen felt a little awkward, but other than that it wasn't bad. The next day through the next week and a half were the WORST days of my life. I have never itched soooooo bad in all the days of my being! and that wasn't considering the ingrown hairs. Walking to class made me miserable, nothing helped. From what I hear, it gets better/easier/less irritating every time, however, my first experience was painful enough for me to never want to attempt such a thing again.

To all the females who shave/trim/wax, more power to you! Just to let you know, I do appreciate your efforts. :-)

Labels: grooming, hygiene, painful, shaving, stupid, waxing

There are often times when a courtesy flush can go beyond a nicety and verge on a necessity. However, some people go overboard. Today when I entered the restroom at work, I noticed that somebody else was dropping the kids off at the pool. Normally this isn't too bad, even though it can be awkward when somebody is relieving their intestinal pressure just a few feet away from you. Todays mystery crapper 2 stalls down from me made my experience not so pleasurable.

When I first walked into the stall and sat down, the mystery crapper flushed the toilet and sprayed the air freshener. First of all, this wasn't just an ordinary spray, he must have sprayed for a full 5 seconds. Now we all know that air fresheners aren't so "fresh" in the first place, but merely make room smell like shit covered flowers. And the spray cloud was so thick from the extended spray that I choked and nearly gagged. My first thought at that point was that at least the mystery crapper was done and I would have the office to myself. But much to my dismay, a few seconds later I heard grunting as the other fellow was struggling once again to take the browns to the superbowl (yes, he was actually grunting). At that point I realized that the initial flush was simply a courtesy flush that wasn't so courteous.

As I sat on my thrown enjoying a few minutes of peace from work while playing Bejeweled on my phone, I heard another flush followed by another 5 second pull on the not-so-fresh-air-freshener. After a minute of holding my breath so I didn't choke to death on the putrid wintery fresh aroma, I heard this guy struggling to release the hostages once again! Now at this point, I realized this has gone well beyond a courtesy flush and could only have been an attempt to avoid the clogging of our futile low-flow toilets. Either way, I took that as my cue to wrap up business and get the hell out.

There some basic bathroom etiquette rules I like to follow:
1. When using a stall, one should not choose a stall directly next to somebody in order to maximize the distance distance between persons.
2. If necessary, give a courtesy flush.
3. Do not make loud grunting souds--people don't want to hear that (plus it can't be good for you to be pushing that hard)
4. When u flush, make sure it all goes down.
4a. Always flush--even if you only go #1 (for guys this means urinals too)

I'm sure there are other etiquette rules that I cannot think of right now. If you have any of your own, feel free to share.

Labels: bathrooms, courtesy flush, etiquette, restrooms

Today I had a brief view into what life could be like if I was rich. I have a friend who works at a really nice hotel and this weekend was her MOD (manager on duty) weekend where she gets to go and be a guest for free and evaluate her experience. Today I got to spend the first half of the day with her at the hotel and all of the amenities the hotel had to offer (for free!!).

We started the morning off at the gym for a quick workout. All of the equipment was top of the line and the treadmills and elliptical machines had TV's built into the monitor. I warmed up to the perfect motivational movie--Rocky I (if only I would have thought to bring my headphones). After hitting up a few weights we decided to imitate FitTV and take some mats outside and work out our abs while listening to the waves crashing.

After the workout it was time for our spa massage treatment. I have never had a professional massage before, so I really was unsure what to expect. This is how it started:

Cute massage therapist: "Okay, your rob is in the closet, feel free to take off as much clothes as you feel comfortable with and them come out."
Me thinking: "Does she mean get naked? or should I leave on my boxers?"
After some debate I strip to my boxers, put on the robe and then go out.
me (with an uncertain tone to my voice): "So this is my first masage..."
Cute massage therapist: "Boxers on or off, it's up to you."
Me: "Be right back, I've got a little more clothes to take off."

The massage was amazing, she definitely knew how to work it. I took a massage class in college, so I've had a few "knowledgeable" massages, but never a professional massage. Also, I've never had my ass massaged...that was quite interesting. Overall, the massage was amazing and it makes me want to go more often. I hear there's a few massage schools that give cheap massages, food for thought.

After the massage we went to the restaurant and ate an amazing free lunch while sitting just two tables away from Mr. John Travolta. John (as he likes to be called) is a frequenter of the hotel and seemed like a very nice guy. For lunch I had a lobster salad that came with half of a lobster on a bed of mixed greens with a delicious balsamic vinegarette. For desert I dined on a tantalizing slice of mud pie ice cream cake with a flaky oreo crust. MmmMmmMmm.......

Now that is a lifestyle I can get used to. Wouldn't it be nice to indulge in all of the luxuries?

Labels: fitness, hotels, luxury, massage

An ass gasket, for those of you who don't know, is the paper toilet seat cover that one would find in public restrooms. I would have to say that I'm a big fan of ass gaskets. I don't quite know the risk/benefit statistics of choosing to use them or not, but there's just something comforting knowing that your ass isn't plopped down on a toilet seat that countless other bare asses have sat on.

There are still a few things you have to be cautious of when using the ass gasket. First, you should always give the toilet seat a nice pre-wipedown in order to get all the droplets of urine/water off of the toilet seat, because there's nothing worse than sitting on a soggy, wet toilet seat cover soaked in piss (I'm assuming this is worse in men's restrooms, but alas, I can't tell for sure since I don't frequent the ladies room too often). Second, you want to make sure that you fully remove the inner gasket from the cover. Otherwise, if the inner gasket is allowed to fall into the toilet there's always the chance of the nasty toilet water soaking up along the paper...which you definitely don't want (at least I don't have that fetish).

But...Have you ever had to go so bad that you know you don't have the time to put down the ass gasket? One of those times where you barely have time to give the seat a proper wipe first? Those are the times when you start to think about how many people have shat upon your throne before. How many harry asses (hopefully not for the women) have graced this particular porcelain god. It actually feels weird because you expect and are used to the scratchy not-quite-paper-but-something-close-to-it gasket cover.

In the end, I'm a fan on the ass gasket, and many kudos to their inventor.

Labels: bathrooms, hygiene