Closed and Relocated

As you may have guessed from the extended silence for the past three weeks, I've finally decided that it's time to close up the Hyperliving shop completely and complete the relocation back to SlangEditorial.net.

I've been writing again almost every day on Slang for the past four months, and I am really just too busy now to maintain two blogs, let alone keeping up with all the specified activity required by Hyperliving. Basically, I have achieved every one of the goals I set for myself with Hyperliving back in January 2008, and now it is time to move on.

This is not, of course, to suggest that I think I finally have all of my shit figured out, because I absolutely do not; however, the primary task set forth in Hyperliving was to learn ways to re-equip myself with a better understanding of what I need to do to figure myself and my future out, and on that front I am absolutely on my way. In some ways, I feel more confused and uncertain than ever before, but now this is largely due to the burdens of promise rather than the terrifying blackness of empty unknowing silence.

I leave Hyperliving with one closing note: given that May in NYC is all about bicycling, this month was intended to be one dedicated to biking and physical activity, and while I've written nothing on the subject here (including even an opener), I'm proud to report some highly successful results.

One goal I set a few months ago was that when it finally got warm again, I would cease buying monthly Metro cards and make a full commitment to cycle transportation. Sure enough I have followed through and biked for transport almost every day since the last week of April, taking the subway only for a handful of 7 am work meetings and the occasional night out, outside of Williamsburg, where the imbibing of alcohol would make biking home unsafe. Other than that though, it's been nothing but bike, bike, bike in May. On May 17 I did the full Montauk Century, 118 miles of riding including biking to the Penn Station start and home again, and I am now up to 989 miles of biking since my first real 2009 ride on March 14. I am feeling about as good as this as I could imagine feeling, I think.

Beyond biking though, this May I finally also fulfilled a longtime goal by joining a basketball league through Greenpoint's Word Bookstore and, after a bit of a rough start, we finally won our first game yesterday after some thorough defeats in our first two games. Truly, I could care less about winning or losing, but the winning is only nice in seeing how the team is slowly beginning to learn how to play together and becoming a nice little family of friends.

And lastly on the physical activity front is rockclimbing, which I did last Tuesday for the first time since summer 1997. I climbed for a few years as a kid with my dad, an avid climber, until he broke his back that Summer '96 day. He went back to climbing again the next year (only to break his back climbing a second time two years later), but I never climbed again until Tuesday. Just climbing for two hours was enough to make me feel pretty dead, but it was so amazing and so absolutely worth it, and I very much look forward to folding this activity into my life over the coming months.

So, Hyperliving, I bid you adieu. I am a curiosity-filled, energetic, and excitable human, but also a very messy one, and I am sure I will need a re-focusing project again in the days ahead to help me figure my life out; however, when I am ready to zone in again I will need to look elsewhere. Hyperliving, you've been good to so very good to me, but now it's time for something else. Thanks for all the memories, thanks for helping to bring me back to what matters in life, and thanks for reminding me why I'm alive.

Love always,

Ben

May Is Here

May is here and another month of activities must be established. I will be checking in with you soon about them, but I can tell you that I am feeling particularly inspired about the great possibilities of life right now (as also documented frequently here and here).

My biking plan is well underway and I have now done twenty-three rides totalling 595 miles twenty-five rides totalling 658 miles [Ed: did two rides at 63 miles today after posting this morning] since March 14, 2009, which I feel good about especially considering that I lost two weekends to rain (boo!) and Berlin (yay!). The Montauk Century is in just two weeks and this year I am ready and raring to do the full 100 miles. My training partner Mike and I have put in three 60+ rides but so far nothing longer than 71; however, I feel pretty good that on May 17 I'll have no trouble dialing it up for the full 100.

It's amazing how far I feel I've come in a year. It was almost exactly one year ago that I began biking at all for the first time in many years, and for the first time ever on the road, on a road bike. And in two weeks at Montauk will come the anniversary of my first "real" ride, the Montauk 65 miler. I feel so much stronger now, to an amazing degree, and it just makes me feel good about the great possibilities of will power and a strong mind--I feel these days like I can do anything if I really want to. Which, maybe, is how things should have always been, but truthfully, they haven't. So, you get what we have here today.

"Ja, Das ist so cool": Updates From Deutschland on Slang Editorial

Father chasing after son in Julie Mehretu Studios

Berlin Photos and nonsense here: slangeditorial.net

And in a few days, much more here: flickr.com/jeffreybeaumont

Greetings from Deutschland!

Easter Yum

I celebrated my re-entry into meat world with a feast for the ages on Sunday, as Amy and I brought some of our friends together for a wonderful Easter dinner.

We at: bourbon-glazed ham, gruyere-asparagus tart, scalloped potatoes, candied carrots, string bean-bleu cheese-walnut-cranberry salad, and herbed potatoes, plus a dessert of carrot cake and cupcakes. It was absolutely wonderful. YUMMMMM.

Neither of us had ever baked a ham before, so we were surprised how well it came out. The ham was a fully-cooked butt end and t glaze Amy used was mixture of bourbon, dijon, orange juice, brown sugar, paprika, chili powder and honey. The ham took about two hours to cook and Amy had to take it and re-glaze every 30 min over the two hours. But, wow, was it worth it!

Here are some photographs (more available on Flick here):


Amy and Kathleen peel and slice potatos.


Amy readies the scallop scream as the carrots simmer.


I prepare the surprise hit gruyere-asparagus tart


Surveying the landscape


I attempt to carve a ham for the first time in my life (minor FAIL)


CARROT cake

Meatfree Week End... Meat On The Horizon

So I finished up my last two days of vegetarianism with relatively little fanfare.

I brought my lunch to work on Friday: peanut butter and jelly, cucumber with sesame dressing, leftover cous cous. Healthy/cheap/meatless. Yum. For dinner I had two slices of pizza and that was that.

Saturday was kind of a sad day, at least in the beginning. Eating-wise it was fine--I had a banana, some oatmeal and pizza. A not very dramatic way to end a week without meat, but that's fine. Human-wise, however, Saturday began in shit as I went on the most pathetic ill-fated bike ride with my bro Mike. As late as Friday night, the weather report kept telling us that it was going to rain late Friday night and early Saturday, but be wrapped up by 10am, so Mike and I thought we'd be good to go for a decent day of great riding--we were even getting all hopeful we could do a full 70 and ride to Nyack.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be: when I got up at 8 it was raining lightly and the weather report was now saying to expect rain until 4pm or so. We went out anyway, with the thought of maybe just doing a few Prospect Park loops to see how we were feeling, but it just began to rain harder as we left and get colder and windier. After one loop we both gave up in disgust and headed home, sopping wet and freezing cold. It was a sad let-down, and I felt so miserable that I opted to do nothing for the rest of the day. The sun did finally come out around 5 and warmed things up, but by then it was too late. I could have gone out for a ride this morning to make up for it, but we ended up hosting an after-party at Casa 604 following the Pants Yell/Knight School show at Dead Herring and I got incredibly wasted and didn't go to sleep until 6am or so. And since it was Easter today and we planned to have people over for dinner in the afternoon my window was closed. Oh well. But. Meat. On. The. Horizon....

Thursday: Eggplant & Artichoke Extraordinaire

Baked artichoke hearts and dill-mayo dip

Today I finally brought my lunch with me, happily both saving me dollars and bringing me food joy. I brought some leftover portobello-asparagus pasta and some arugula with a small amount of dressing stored in a tincture jar formerly containing stepdad's homemade Elderberry extract. A healthy and frugal 'yum'.

Far more exciting than that though was dinner tonight, which was prepared largely by Amy and shared with our colleague and joymaker Jayson Greene.



As you can see from the photo above, dinner consisted of: grilled eggplant, steamed chard with white beans and red pepper flakes, peppered cucumber slices, and grilled pitas (seasoned with olive oil and pepper).

I continually marvel at the creativity and general excellence of my sister as a cook. Mom, you did a pretty great job. A .500 average ain't the worst thing in the world, right?

It will be a curious way to wrap this week up by eating a secular Easter ham on Sunday.