Day 6 - Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Feb. 21st, 2011 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin"Guilty pleasures"? The concept is somewhat foreign to me. Guilt, I get. Pleasure, I get. I don't know how the two are supposed to mix. I've never been the sort of person who requires permission, a complicit accomplice, or an official pardon to order dessert if that's what I want to do. It's not that I'm immune to guilt... I'm really, truly not. It's just... it takes more than "this tastes good" or "I enjoy this" for me to feel guilty.
There are perhaps some pleasures that do cause me to wrestle with guilt, but they fit better under the theme of tomorrow's sin so I believe I'll hold off on them for now. So, this will be seven things that make me feel indulgent. Or that I feel like indulging in.
1. Baths.
Hot baths. Bubble baths. Fizzy baths. Whirlpool baths. Baths by candlelight or its soft electric equivalent, with relaxing music and/or audiobooks playing. The more bells and/or whistles that can be added, the better. In my Fortress of Unbridled Greed, there would be bathing chambers with giant sunken tubs surrounded by trickling waterfalls, a garden of plants with jade leaves and fruits of polished semi-precious stones and hidden steam vents to envelop the whole thing in a warm mist.
In keeping with the most commonly used definition of gluttony, I'll mention that my favorite scents for bath items are food. I started off with vanilla: warm vanilla sugar, honey vanilla, and so on, with the occasional strawberry or raspberry bubble bath, or milk and honey. After someone (Addie? I'm afraid I'm not sure) introduced me to Moon's Harvest, I discovered things like chocolate covered-strawberry scented bath bombs, and cilantro lime... I really like the cilantro lime and other similar ones, because they're things I wouldn't have thought of as bathing fragrances, and they really tie the experience back to food for me. It makes bathing into a very primal and sensual sort of indulgence for me.
2. "Wing Night" at Pizza Hut/Wing Street
Ever since I learned that Pizza Hut's online ordering had come to Omaha and that they offer 50 cent wings on Wednesday, this has been the one indulgence I allow myself every week no matter how little money I have. It's important to be able to treat yourself. It's important to allow yourself to enjoy things.
If you don't have a Wing Street location near you, the exact nature of this indulgence might be lost on you. I'm given to understand that Just Plain Pizza Huts only have buffalo wings, if that. I'm able to choose from such delicacies as garlic parmesan wings and lemon pepper wings (both of which make excellent salad toppers in their boneless forms), honey barbecue (a personal favorite), spicy Asian, and more.
Note that I say that I allow myself it... having given myself permission to order wings once a week, I often turn around and deposit the money I would have spent on it from my PayPal account into my bank account. Knowing that I can do it and don't makes the act of setting money aside feel like an indulgence.
3. Fast food in general.
I like to eat out, and I like going to a sit-down restaurant and ordering something fancy or something meaty like a nice, big steak, but it doesn't feel as wickedly indulgent as fast food. Don't get me wrong... I have no "Oh, God, this is so bad for me..." style qualms about eating at Burger King or Taco Bell. I really don't. You see, I understand that I am me, and this means that if I am having a good experience there is no way to understand what is happening except to say that what is happening is good for me. It doesn't matter if the food I'm eating doesn't enrich my body except in the simplest and most direct sense of providing the nutrients and energy I need to last until the next meal that I eat. If I enjoy it, it is good, and who could it be good for if not for me?
But fast food feels indulgent to me because it's the sort of thing that was a treat for me, growing up. We didn't have a McDonald's in my town. There was a Pizza Hut and a Kentucky Fried Chicken over in the county seat, and eventually a pizza place did open up in town. Nowadays there's even a Subway there. When I was growing up? When my older brother got his driver's license, I used to pay him to bring me back a Frisco Burger from Hardee's when he went up to Omaha. It seemed impossibly far away, and the idea of buying such exotic delights with my own money was a real novelty. Now, of course, I live in Omaha, but the novelty's never quite worn off.
4. Chocolate-flavored alcohol, and the other way around.
Yum. Three Olives brand chocolate vodka, chocolate cream liquer, ChocoVine (especially raspberry), chocolate mudslides, chocolate martinis...
5. Video games as stress relief.
This one comes down to certain specific things in certain specific video games. Driving around in Burnout Paradise. Beating on groups of criminals in Arkham Asylum. Walking up to people and shooting them in the face in Borderlands (especially with a a revolver or shotgun, bonus points if it's explosive... the zombie island expansion was especially therapeutic for me). Loading up a classic 8 bit-era character in Smash Bros. and beating up some pokeymans, especially when I'm feeling frustrated with members of a younger generation. Full auto with dual pistols in DC Universe, especially in the middle of a crowd of slightly lower level mobs. Almost any Mario Kart track that I've played through a few times also can fall into this category... the more dynamic ones never quite reach the level of mindlessness needed to be stress-releasing.
6. Watching clips of my favorite movie scenes on YouTube.
Like this one, from Young Frankenstein. Or the scene that inspired it. Or this scene from Love Actually, which my parents and I sometimes have cause to recite snatches of while waiting for service in a store or restaurant. Or a classic Donald Duck cartoon. Or Steve Martin's bit in The Muppet Movie. Or this soliloquy from Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. I can watch any of these, or several others, over and over again.
7. Magic gun porn.
In real life, I'm not a big believer in violence as a problem solver. I won't go so far as to say it's never called for or never accomplishes anything, but in general, I think people are too quick to resolve it and it causes more problems than it solves. Gun violence in particular is too irrevocable and too capricious for my liking.
But then there's a comic book like Garth Ennis's Punisher, where a big brutal man who's as much a force of nature personified can take a bunch of guns, fire a bunch of bullets, and never kill anyone who doesn't really deserve it. Magic gun porn is a work of fantasy that presents a world where violence solves everything, and it does so quickly, efficiently, and satisfyingly. This is why I read >The Punisher. It's why I read The Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson. Take away the guns and you basically have the same fantasy underlying Batman: that someone could do this, someone could take the streets and dish out violence and justice and solutions and not get killed or kill innocents.
It's not something I believe in. It's not even something that I wish could be true. I wouldn't want to live in a world where the solutions were so absolute and irrevocable. It's a fantasy, not a wish. It's an indulgence.
There are perhaps some pleasures that do cause me to wrestle with guilt, but they fit better under the theme of tomorrow's sin so I believe I'll hold off on them for now. So, this will be seven things that make me feel indulgent. Or that I feel like indulging in.
1. Baths.
Hot baths. Bubble baths. Fizzy baths. Whirlpool baths. Baths by candlelight or its soft electric equivalent, with relaxing music and/or audiobooks playing. The more bells and/or whistles that can be added, the better. In my Fortress of Unbridled Greed, there would be bathing chambers with giant sunken tubs surrounded by trickling waterfalls, a garden of plants with jade leaves and fruits of polished semi-precious stones and hidden steam vents to envelop the whole thing in a warm mist.
In keeping with the most commonly used definition of gluttony, I'll mention that my favorite scents for bath items are food. I started off with vanilla: warm vanilla sugar, honey vanilla, and so on, with the occasional strawberry or raspberry bubble bath, or milk and honey. After someone (Addie? I'm afraid I'm not sure) introduced me to Moon's Harvest, I discovered things like chocolate covered-strawberry scented bath bombs, and cilantro lime... I really like the cilantro lime and other similar ones, because they're things I wouldn't have thought of as bathing fragrances, and they really tie the experience back to food for me. It makes bathing into a very primal and sensual sort of indulgence for me.
2. "Wing Night" at Pizza Hut/Wing Street
Ever since I learned that Pizza Hut's online ordering had come to Omaha and that they offer 50 cent wings on Wednesday, this has been the one indulgence I allow myself every week no matter how little money I have. It's important to be able to treat yourself. It's important to allow yourself to enjoy things.
If you don't have a Wing Street location near you, the exact nature of this indulgence might be lost on you. I'm given to understand that Just Plain Pizza Huts only have buffalo wings, if that. I'm able to choose from such delicacies as garlic parmesan wings and lemon pepper wings (both of which make excellent salad toppers in their boneless forms), honey barbecue (a personal favorite), spicy Asian, and more.
Note that I say that I allow myself it... having given myself permission to order wings once a week, I often turn around and deposit the money I would have spent on it from my PayPal account into my bank account. Knowing that I can do it and don't makes the act of setting money aside feel like an indulgence.
3. Fast food in general.
I like to eat out, and I like going to a sit-down restaurant and ordering something fancy or something meaty like a nice, big steak, but it doesn't feel as wickedly indulgent as fast food. Don't get me wrong... I have no "Oh, God, this is so bad for me..." style qualms about eating at Burger King or Taco Bell. I really don't. You see, I understand that I am me, and this means that if I am having a good experience there is no way to understand what is happening except to say that what is happening is good for me. It doesn't matter if the food I'm eating doesn't enrich my body except in the simplest and most direct sense of providing the nutrients and energy I need to last until the next meal that I eat. If I enjoy it, it is good, and who could it be good for if not for me?
But fast food feels indulgent to me because it's the sort of thing that was a treat for me, growing up. We didn't have a McDonald's in my town. There was a Pizza Hut and a Kentucky Fried Chicken over in the county seat, and eventually a pizza place did open up in town. Nowadays there's even a Subway there. When I was growing up? When my older brother got his driver's license, I used to pay him to bring me back a Frisco Burger from Hardee's when he went up to Omaha. It seemed impossibly far away, and the idea of buying such exotic delights with my own money was a real novelty. Now, of course, I live in Omaha, but the novelty's never quite worn off.
4. Chocolate-flavored alcohol, and the other way around.
Yum. Three Olives brand chocolate vodka, chocolate cream liquer, ChocoVine (especially raspberry), chocolate mudslides, chocolate martinis...
5. Video games as stress relief.
This one comes down to certain specific things in certain specific video games. Driving around in Burnout Paradise. Beating on groups of criminals in Arkham Asylum. Walking up to people and shooting them in the face in Borderlands (especially with a a revolver or shotgun, bonus points if it's explosive... the zombie island expansion was especially therapeutic for me). Loading up a classic 8 bit-era character in Smash Bros. and beating up some pokeymans, especially when I'm feeling frustrated with members of a younger generation. Full auto with dual pistols in DC Universe, especially in the middle of a crowd of slightly lower level mobs. Almost any Mario Kart track that I've played through a few times also can fall into this category... the more dynamic ones never quite reach the level of mindlessness needed to be stress-releasing.
6. Watching clips of my favorite movie scenes on YouTube.
Like this one, from Young Frankenstein. Or the scene that inspired it. Or this scene from Love Actually, which my parents and I sometimes have cause to recite snatches of while waiting for service in a store or restaurant. Or a classic Donald Duck cartoon. Or Steve Martin's bit in The Muppet Movie. Or this soliloquy from Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. I can watch any of these, or several others, over and over again.
7. Magic gun porn.
In real life, I'm not a big believer in violence as a problem solver. I won't go so far as to say it's never called for or never accomplishes anything, but in general, I think people are too quick to resolve it and it causes more problems than it solves. Gun violence in particular is too irrevocable and too capricious for my liking.
But then there's a comic book like Garth Ennis's Punisher, where a big brutal man who's as much a force of nature personified can take a bunch of guns, fire a bunch of bullets, and never kill anyone who doesn't really deserve it. Magic gun porn is a work of fantasy that presents a world where violence solves everything, and it does so quickly, efficiently, and satisfyingly. This is why I read >The Punisher. It's why I read The Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson. Take away the guns and you basically have the same fantasy underlying Batman: that someone could do this, someone could take the streets and dish out violence and justice and solutions and not get killed or kill innocents.
It's not something I believe in. It's not even something that I wish could be true. I wouldn't want to live in a world where the solutions were so absolute and irrevocable. It's a fantasy, not a wish. It's an indulgence.
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no subject
on 2011-02-22 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-22 04:57 pm (UTC)