Thinking Aloud: Locker Room Etiquette

Not only does this week herald my illustrious return to all things Blogolicious, but I've been back to the gym again, too. I dunno… maybe it's my impending 40th birthday that has catapulted me back into action, maybe it's the slightly longer days. Maybe it's the full moon and the fact that I've had lasagne for the last three consecutive meals (the only thing better than brinner is dinkfast)… but I'm feeling… motivated. Yea, me!

Being a people watcher (and judger – I'm terrible), one of the funniest – and most dangerous – place to observe the human psyche is in the locker room of the gym. This week, I started wondering what rules people play by when they're in various states of undressed exertion. Does a code exist? Some people are loud, very loud, and treat the locker room as they might their local pub. Can you imagine how different the opening scene to Cheers would be? Others are shy, very shy, to the point where you start to wonder why they chose to put themselves in that pressure-cooker in the first place. And make no mistake: the locker room is a tinderbox of testosterone, and is from the very first moment you step into one as an adolescent. So much so, in fact, that there are countless websites offering advice on how to act – and how not to act – when in the possible presence of other people's private parts. Are there established locker room rules? You can bet your last homophobic dollar there are.

All of the websites I could find seemed to centre around one or two key principles. 1. Don't do anything that might make anyone else think you're gay. That includes making too much or too little eye contact. Don't talk too much, or say too little. Wear as many clothes as possible for as long as possible. And never, NEVER look down. 2. Don't do anything that might encourage anyone who IS gay to attack you, which they obviously would if they thought they had a chance. This includes making too much or too little eye contact. Don't talk too much, or say too little. Wear as many clothes as possible for as long as possible. And never, NEVER look down.

I'm sensing a slant to these 'rules', and I'm not entirely sure it matches up with what I've experienced. First of all, you'll never get so much cock shoved in your face as you will in a football team's locker room. Under the guise of machismo, there is always – and I mean ALWAYS – one guy doing something publically with his penis. We had a guy who used to present the 'fruit cup' after ever practice. He was a short but well-endowed fullback who would tuck his bits between his legs, bend over and show us all his junk. Funny? Yes. Appetising? No. And it wasn't just him… you had the willy-whipper, the nutsack-flicker, the towel-snapper – everywhere you turned, someone was attacking your genitals,or playing with their own. It was intimidating at the time, and maybe that was the point – but it never felt sexually charged, gay or otherwise. It just seems oddly and unnecessarily defensive to suggest that friendly and consensual interaction in a locker room, gonadal or otherwise, means anything at all.

And, even with that (terrible) advice, I still have some questions. I'm past the point of caring in my own life, but maybe younger fellas will be wondering what to do in these situations. Maybe I'll think them through another time.

1. When you're getting dressed, do you face the wall, so that your butt is facing everyone, or do you face the middle of the room so your willy is on show?
2. Same question when you're showering.
   
3. In a communal shower block, what is the right order to populate the shower heads?
   
4. How much washing is too much?
   
5. Is it ever OK to use your towel to 'floss' your bits?
   
6. Is it ever OK to pee in the shower?
   
7. How much of your personal hygiene routine is it acceptable to perform at the gym sink?

One thing I know for sure, you do NOT want to end up like this guy. I mean, this tiger not only breaks every rule in the 'Don't be Gay in the Locker Room Rulebook', but he obviously failed acting school, as well. 

Yeah, I think I'll think about those later. Watch this space, y'all. But don't look at me while you're doing it.

Wecipe Wednesday:Mother Hubbard Ain't Got Nothing on Me

What do you get when you combine two birthdays, Christmas (so I guess that's technically three birthdays), a tax-crazy government, an early payday in December and a five-week January? Well, you get a whole lotta creative use of frozen foods, canned goods and a general emptying out of the pantry. You know: leftovers, rogatons, ressurection pie or as my Mom used to call it: "hushta-mushta-nushta-tushta". Tune in later to see what I can create with whatever I can find!  It's bound to be exciting, right...? Well, it will either be exciting or disasterous - either way it's worth a butcher's.

And if all else fails, there's always Kraft Dinner. The contraband supply of sachets brought in last summer is still well-stocked, so I at least I know we won't starve.

Ok, so here's what happened (he says, full to the gills from the most delicious leftover-leftover lunch EVER. Seriously. Think all the best food and drink you love delivered over a double-rainbow by a white unicorn doing double dream hands. Got it? That doesn't even come close, sucka!)...

I got home and opened the fridge. Then I opened the freezer. Then I opened the cupboard. Then I did all three again. A couple of times. I still believe in fairies, and I was pretty sure this time one of those little guys was going to deliver something delicious to my otherwise uninspired kitchen. But, it didn't happen - and once I got down off of the merry-go-round of disappointment, I looked into things a little closer. If you look closely in th cupboard, you'll see what I saw... 1) a can of soup that's been there for over a year. Wrong flavour, apparently. 2) a jar of honey that has gotten to the stage where it's not really honey unless you heat it up, and then it's more like syrup. 3) about 2 dozen cans of tinned tomatoes - can you say 'sale'? Of course you can. 4) lots of stuff that babies eat.

So what about the fridge...? Again, at first glance... not great. Fruit, butter, coleslaw, yogurt, sour cream and another can of tomatoes (I'm beginning to think George Clooney was on to something...)! If it was summer and we were planning to eat outside, we'd be quids in. But it's January, and I'm pretty sure one of our cats is frozen in the back yard, so eating al fresco is al-out-o.

Right... so, amongst this car crash of items, I found a couple of useful things round about the same time I remembered a conversation I had with my chef brother last week. I was trying to explain that I'd made some spaghetti bolognese - which, over here, means spaghetti with a meat ragu. Brother dear informed me that traditionally, a 'bolognese' is made with wine and milk. Say wha...?!? Of course, I did what every good l'il brother does when his PROFESSIONAL chef of a brother tells him something about cooking... I Googled it. (why trust the advice of a well-known expert when I can troll the world wide web of lies and take advice from strangers...?) Anyway, turns out he was right! With that in mind, and having found the following, I set off to make a lasagne al forno, milk and all.

I found:

• 1/2 a piece of stweing steak. I grind my own minced beef... I really don't trust what could be in the supermarket
• milk (?!?!)
• 1/2 a tub of ricotta cheese, leftover from a tomato sauce I made for our daughter.
• an egg
• some 'grated Italian hard cheese' 
• most of a sprig of parsley (mostly stalks, but enough leaf to show)
• onions
• some celery
• tomatoes (managed to find some)
• tomato puree (tomato paste for the Yanks)
• celery
• a glug of red wine still leftover from Christmas
• Balsamic vinegar
• Garlic, basil, salt, pepper
• Bread
• Salad stuff

The idea behind the recipe that I skimmed enough to decide that I didn't really need it, was that you start the meat cooking, add the celery, onions and garlic for a bit, then the wine til it's reduced by half. Then slog in the milk and cook those things together slowly for about ten minutes before adding the basil, tomatoes, puree and seasoning to taste. The milk tenderises the meat, apparently. I've got to admit that I was extremely sceptical at this point. It just didn't seem right to reunite the milk and the meat we'd worked so hard to separate from each other in the first place.

Anyway, that done, I layered that bad boy up with some lasagne pasta, white cheese mix (parsley, ricotta, egg yolk, sour cream and 'grated Italian hard cheese'), my milky bolognese and mozzarella cheese (leftover from pizza night last Friday). 20 minutes and 180 degrees later, I had pretty much the best looking and best tasting lasagne I've ever had. And, as lasagne and pizza always is... it was even better today.

Thanks bro! And thanks to the interweb for convincing me he wasn't speaking out of his ass...

TUnESDAY: Adele of a Comeback

I'm sure my recent absence from the blogosphere has not gone unnoticed. I'm not entirely sure how the world kept spinning without my timeless insights, but somehow, miraculously, it did. I mean, the old year left us with a whimper and the new year, already 18 days old, seems to be plodding along at a pace that is both challenging and agreeable to my approaching mid-life crisis. With that in mind (and with no further acknowledgement of my incredible laziness over the past 17 weeks or so…) I bring you the latest instalment of Tunesday.

The first Tunesday of 2011 is dedicated to an artist who has also been away for a while. Unlike me, she can hardly be described as new, upcoming or undiscovered. Thanks in part to the increasing role of soundtracks in today's cinema and, unfortunately also to the ubiquity of 'talent' shows both here and back home, most people with working ears will already be familiar with Adele or her work. Adele Adkins came to the forefront of British music in 2008, when she was given the first-ever BRIT Awards 'Critics Choice' and was chosen in a BBC poll the same year to be 2009's breakthrough artist. 'Chasing Pavements' marked her entry into the British mainstream arena, and established her as someone who intended to make good on the expectations placed on her by her growing fan base. But it was her cover of Bob Dylan's 'Make You Feel My Love' that cemented her in local pop culture, getting to #4 in the UK charts in November of 2008. More recently, her version has been revitalised on UK TV, especially after a popular audition on 'The X Factor' boosted Adele's version back into the charts in 2010 (#24) and a cover of her cover later that same year (#3). It's a touching song, made no less so by the fact that it's also been crooned by (among others) Trisha Yearwood, Neil Diamond, Kelly Clarkson, Garth Brooks, and (I shit you not) Jeremy Irons*.


So now she's back and for my money, she's sounding better than ever. The first single from her new album '21' is called 'Rolling in the Deep'. It doesn't feel as heavy to me as 'MYFML', but it feels no less important, either. Particularly, I love the way it builds from the soft vocal and almost inaudible guitar to the entrance of the backbeat at 0:23. That underlying rhythm creeps up, building like the fire of the lyrics until at a minute into the song, she launches powerfully into the real heart of the tune – reminding us all that of the talent that got her recognised way back when. It steps back a little after that, but also continues to build. In the video, you can see her posture change, getting more aggressive, more confident. Girl's got some lungs, that's for damn sho.

At its core, it's a song about a love that didn't live up to its potential – nothing new there. What is great, and what sets this song apart from some others 'out there' for me, is her passion, her strength and, ultimately, her talent. I can't wait to hear the rest of what she's going to bring us. Welcome back, Adele. What? What's that you say? Me too…? Why thank you – it's like I never left, innit?

*note to self: Remember to write, soon, about the inherent hilarity of celebrity singing disasters. Must include Leonard Nimoy's 'Bilbo Baggins', William Shatner's 'Rocket Man', the entire 'Star Wars Holiday Special' and any song by Stephen Segal.