Commute or Telecommute - That Is The Question

  If you haven't noticed, and the only way you couldn't have is if you read Insistent and Persistent in an RSS reader rather than directly on the site (though I hope if you do that, you at least visit the site occasionally...), I put a new header at the top of the home page.
    I know the design quality is poor, but what do you expect from a philosophy major with only MS Paint as a tool instead of Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator? My hope is that it will bring a little color to the page :)
    In other news, I got to thinking about working from home today after I read an article on Thought Catalog about the topic. I don't think I'd want to work 40 hours a week from home, because, honestly, I would start buying cookies and ice cream and I'd probably gain another five pounds every month or so. But the thought of working a few hours a week from home is appealing. Maybe two half days or one full day. I wouldn't be interrupted with meetings or drama or crises, and I wouldn't have to drown out my coworkers with my Walkman.
    On the other hand, I wonder whether that is really a good solution to whatever stress or overwhelmed feelings I have, and I know that it probably isn't. Working from home might help relieve some stress, but there are other, better ways to deal with it.
    One is to stop eating so much crap. We eat out so often at work that the only motivation I have to eat out less is financial. I am desperately trying to either eat yesterday's leftovers for lunch or to bring a sandwich and fruit for lunch at least two or three times a week. Also, I really need to quit drinking so much soda, and probably stop having more than the occasional beer (though after the infamous tequila shots incident, I've been damn near abstinent with almost all alcohol).
    The main thing I need to do is stop interneting so much! Of course, I wouldn't cut back on my blogging, but I spend way too much time reading and researching online when I get home, especially considering I spend a lot of my workday online doing the exact same thing. TV is a de-stressor, and reading books are a de-stressor, and writing is a de-stressor for me, but reading news and ads and polls online are all probably doing my mental state more harm than good.
    The last thing I need to do to help my stress levels is to be more active. I'm not a runner or a bicyclist or a tennis player or even a stairmaster user. Because those suck. They're painful, they're not fun, and they make me feel worse, not better, about myself after. Usually because my lung capacity fails me almost immediately. Yoga is the only form of exercise I can stand, but I always give up on it after a while, usually due to time constraints (or since I left school, financial constraints for going to classes). I just have to keep reminding myself that I don't hate it and then make time to do it, which is always hard. Especially with all the interneting.
    My eventual goal was always to be a writer, one that makes money from her writing and can actually make a living at it. But working from home seems to me right now to be just another way to become a recluse. And I like people. Some of them, anyway.

Write More. Read More. Plan More. Critique Less.

Would you work from home if you could? Would you miss anything about going to a workplace?

Discuss it in the comments below! 

Feeling Carnivorous?

I think it's spring's fault. My 70-30 vegetarian diet went by the wayside all last week and part of this week already. Part of that is because over spring break, I worked full days and went out to lunch with the guys I work with, and inevitably had to order something meaty: pork, beef, chicken--I had some of everything. So today, in a small effort to try to make up for it, I ate nothing but what I like to call rabbit food for dinner--2 servings of salad and a vegetarian burrito.
    If you could have seen me 10 years ago, your jaw would have dropped in shock to see me eating salad, probably a burrito too. I was picky to the extreme when I was younger. I couldn't even eat the chunks of tomato in my spaghetti sauce, and now there are RAW tomatoes in my vegetarian burrito? WTF.
    Vegetarian wasn't even in my vocabulary back then, and I hated 90% of vegetables in any form up until about 5 years ago. Tomatoes went in ketchup and spaghetti/pizza sauce, nowhere else--not on my burger, not on my sandwich. Plain cheeseburger was my typical order at a burger restaurant. And at Subway, I'd order the meat, cheese, and bread, and maybe mayonnaise, but not a single vegetable at the end of the sandwich line. Lettuce tastes like paper, I thought (and still think so of iceberg lettuce). Potatoes were bland and inedible unless they came deep fried and in French fry form. And don't even get me started on broccoli.
    I ate like a five year old until I was in my late teens, mainly because I was allowed to, but also because I hadn't learned to like things that were good for me, and wasn't willing to try them. But now, I'll try most anything once. I regularly eat raw spinach, romaine lettuce, potatoes in any form (except instant), and even carrots. I still have a hard time with the broccoli, but considering the only real vegetables I used to eat were string beans and corn, I think this is a massive improvement.
    The origin of the 70-30 vegetarian diet happens to be because of my boyfriend. He used to eat steak, hamburgers, sushi, and other animal products like they were going out of style, but once he went vegetarian, I had to convert--at least a little bit. My self esteem would not allow me to continue to feel unhealthy and inferior every time I ordered a steak when he ordered a plate of spaghetti without meat sauce or meatballs. I got used to it. I even like some of the veggies. But every now and again, I have to have the pork tenderloin, the clam chowder, the gigantic mushroom burger with five pounds of cheese on it. And I'm okay with that.
    I refuse to go 100% vegetarian, however. Not only because I want that skewer of shrimp or barbecue ribs that just went by, but because the crap they try to give you to make up for not eating meat is just that: crap. Tofu is gelatinous. Boca burgers are edible, but incomparable to the real thing. And seitan--no way in hell. (Just ate some of that for the first time today: pork flavored rubber that chews like gristle. So, yeah, I'll pass.)
    So, while vegetarianism may be better for the environment, and more immediately, better for my cholesterol and my overall health, I'll do my best, but I can't commit to it. Vegetables are acceptable--some of them, anyway--but all meat substitutes should just stop trying.

You can have my burger when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.