Friday, September 23, 2011

Harvest Time-- Kentucky Banana Festival


Where else can you shave a Llama, practice your atlatl self-defense skills, and gorge yourself on the only tropical fruit that thrives in Ohio? The Pawpaw Festival of course!!

Dad, Matti, and I hit up Athens, Ohio last weekend for an edu-taining day, immersing ourselves in Native American (and carnie) lore. Athens is the self-proclaimed pawpaw capital of the world. The pawpaw is sometimes called the Kentucky banana, and these people go bananas for them.
Big Daddy Dwyer
Big daddy Kentucky banana
The adventure coincided with a mind-blowing book I'm reading called "1491" by Charles C. Mann about what the Western Hemisphere was like prior to Christopher Columbus kicking off the European invasion that wiped out 95% of the population. Mann blows holes in the myth that America was an untouched wilderness when the Europeans arrived. We have this erroneous image of eco-Indians leaving no footprints on a virgin forest, when in fact they were quite busy doing some large scale plant cultivation and geo-engineering. He even argues that the Amazon is a remnant of an orchard once-managed by the millions of inhabitants who used to live there. They also managed the bison and passenger pigeon populations before they reached millions and billions, respectively. We call the Western Hemisphere the "new world", even though it was teaming with millions of people while Europe was still buried under ice.

FESTIVAL PICS
Beneath the totem pole, we learned how to make fire the old fashioned way-- from a hungover Indian impersonator in aviators. Matti suspects his "sunglasses" were actually decorative grisly bear eye balls.

Alpaca wool comes in a variety of colors (no need for dyes). It is softer, warmer, more durable, and cleaner than wool. I'm not sure if you can smoke it, but I'm pretty sure everybody at the Pawpaw Festival has tried.
You could burn some calories making ice cream the way Indians used to?
It doesn't look like a nanner, but it tastes GOOD.
Raccoons and squirrels usually get the wild ones around our house.

It's like eating a Gogurt-- just squeeze the mush out. It can taste like caramel, honey, mango, banana, apple, pineapple, melon, and/or peach custard. Wild ones can also taste kinda bitter. My favorite cultivated variety is the Shenandoah.
The atlatl is part arrow, part spear, thrown with a lever. It was more accurate and deadly than European guns at the time of Columbus or Cortez.
A couple of weeks ago, my sky was falling when I heard an NPR interview of Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. In his book, he talks about the demise of our beloved Cavendish species that we all know from the grocery store. We eat more Cavendish bananas than apples and oranges combined! Soon, the Cavendish will be extinct since it is being wiped out by something called Panama Disease and each banana is a genetically susceptible seedless clone. It's unfortunate, because on so many levels, bananas are "quite possibly, the world's perfect food." They're delicious, nutritious, calorie dense, cheap, durable, transportable, convenient, beautiful, wiener-shaped. What's not to like? Just their shallow gene pool I suppose.
Don't expect this car or its fruity decoration to live much longer. The banana's days are numbered. Don't look for a pawpaw version of the car either-- whoever said the pawpaw is the next banana doesn't understand home economics or the first law of thermodynamics.
Despite their good intentions, the Pawpaw Festival shattered any illusions I had of making the pawpaw a local replacement for my staple food, the banana (I eat about 20 per day). Calling the pawpaw the "Kentucky banana" or "Hoosier banana" is a huge misnomer. Here's where the pawpaw doesn't live up to the banana:
*they sells for $10/lb!!!!! (compare that $.10/lb that I sometimes pay for my nanners)
*they bruise easily
*they ripen, and then fall off the tree spontaneously (the banana ripens after being picked)
*only 65-75 grow per tree per year
*trees cannot be grown easily or densely (~290/acre)
*harvests are sporadic, sometimes non-existant, and usually last only about 6 weeks starting in August
*they are filled with about 10 big astringent seed casings which aren't good for smoothies
*the squirrels and raccoons and deer usually get first dibs from the wild ones

If I had my wish from the genetic modification genie, I'd cross-breed the pawpaw with the seedless watermelon and the banana, so that you could have a huge red fruit (everyone likes red), with no seeds (no one likes seeds), a convenient wrapper only opened by creatures with opposeable thumbs (I'm all thumbs), with some occasional wiener-shapes to boot (everyone likes provocative fruit). 
Wiener-shapes are actually an important component to the history of the banana. The scandalous shape offended Victorian comportment and may have prevented them from gaining traction on the apple sooner. They came up with all kinds of clever ways to serve them in more modest ways--chopped up or wrapped up. Victorian marketing campaigns were pretty clever to get images of Victorian ladies eating bananas uncut and uncensored all over the Victorian version of the internet.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Race Report: Ironman Wisconsin 2011


I'm still marinating in the gazpacho of emotions from last week's Ironman. It was awesome. And it sucked. It can be punctuated with a lot of these-- !!!!, but also a lot of these-- #$%#@. As my wise friend, Neeraj, said, "You didn't die and you finished; therefore, you won!" Yes. Yes! AND YES!!! That's so true, "So shut up, ego, and leave me alone for a minute to marinate."

In many ways, it stands out as THE benchmark day amidst a benchmark year amidst my life. Without so many lovely people on-site and others crowding my brain that day, so much to be grateful for, I would have quit and/or be mostly dead. You are all the best.

For all my Ironfans who want the juicy details, you're going to get 'em. And for my own peace of mind, who needs to make sense of the day and take lessons for next year, let's get busy answering the burning question on everyone's mind, or mine anyway...WTF?

Have you seen that wiener of a dude at the finish line, stomping his foot for not going fast enough? That's not me, this time. (Give me an intervention if it ever is). Believe me, I gave myself total permission to go as slow as I needed to, in order to not end up in a ditch on a Wisconsin dell. I respect my body and the event's brutality too much. Let's face it-- Ironman is tough, no matter which way you cut it. This time it took me 14:00 and change. Hopefully, the puke that I wallowed through can at least be used for the forces of good.

I finished, but the puke didn't.

Plan A, was pie-in-the-sky and the wind at my back, was 10:00.
Plan B was 10:45, based on some key workouts that I thought were justified.
Plan C was faster than last year's 11:51.
Plan D was to help my friend reach his goal.
Plan E was to finish with my friend in case he didn't reach his goal.
And Plan WTF was to beat the 17:00 cutoff time.
The implied goal, of course, was to live to tell the tale. And this...I barely did. Long-story-short, my belly decided he wasn't going to participate that day. He had his own fantastic voyage.

HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN (but didn't stay down)
Three weeks before the race, I was feeling like I hit a wall with my training. My energy level plummeted to uncharted levels of weirdness. I believe I was crashing down from my season high-point of back-to-back epic weekends of racing piled on top of excessive hours of training. So, to salvage the season, I prematurely launched phase 1 of my taper two weeks early. I cut down my weekend volume to about 1/2 and the intensity to about 80% the norm. I also cut down my weekday volume to about 50% the volume but upped the intensity.

The hopeful news in my mind was that date season was back and my organic date supplier in Cali was shipping once again. Operation race day date-o-rade was a go. I bought a 15 lbs variety pack and started soaking. I soaked 150 dates of all sizes for 48 hrs. Then I strained the pulp away from the syrup-water and froze the concoction.
Peristalsis was never meant to be seen outside the body.

dateorade ready to freeze till race day

SWIM
My plan was to go 1:10 in the swim--fast enough to improve my time from last year, but slow enough that I would be mentally certain that I had held back. I went 1:09, which sounds on target, but it was very hard-earned. I felt off from the beginning. Everyone advised to take the turns wide. So, what did I do? I took the first turn as tight as I could. That resulted in me becoming a human bitch-slap dummy. At one point I was even going backwards around the buoy. I didn't notice till the end of the night, but it gave me scrapes and bruises all over my chest. I think I may have even lost my virginity.
7AM swim starts to U2's It's a Beautiful Day
From the first turn, I was stuck on the inside lane, in no man's-land, constantly drifting inward, never in a pack to draft off of. It was a blur, except one distinct memory of rounding the second turn, pacing exactly to the right of a guy who was breathing every stroke to his right, while I breathed every stroke to my left. Our mouths were uncomfortably close to sharing the same air space in a synchronized French kiss. And then it was over. My manhood and my day.

T1
I swore I was going to walk up the three levels of the spiral parking ramp to make sure 1) that my heart rate had recovered from excessive boxing effort and 2) to make sure I didn't bruise my soles for the run (as my friend Amy had warned me about). I've been known to step on staples during races, too.
Earth to? I feel violated.

The fun part was laying on the ground while the wetsuit removers practically yanked me back to my feet. I could never have taken it off as fast without them. "Good decision, Chris."

BIKE
The course was gorgeous dairy land. Barely any flat portions at all. The hills weren't steep, but you just never had a long enough section of flat to get your groove on. The plan was to take the first lap uncomfortably slow for the first 56 miles, in an easier gear than I would normally ride, making sure to keep my heart rate absolutely below 167 and on average, at my upper zone 2 limit (155). Anyone can ride fast on a bike. But very few people can run fast after riding.

Needless to say, I continued to feel just...off. I devoted myself to taking in water, but like an idiot, I had my first salt pill too early, with barely any water in my system. So, I tried to dilute it by finishing my aerobar water bottle. My hear rate was glued to 167 for the first 20 minutes. Then I started to drink my dateorade. It kinda burns the throat at first, since it's so concentrated, but before I knew it, the first bottle was gone. Yet I didn't feel energized in any way, as I normally do. Instead, I started getting the dreaded burps. This required me to sit up (not in the tucked aero position) to sort of resolve the situation by practically belching the alphabet.
Taking in a salt pill.
Then the burps evolved into dry heaves. Then the dry heaves evolved into all-out projectile vomit to the side of the bike. The recoil almost tipped me over. Then, it became so violent that I actually had to dismount the bike so I could give it the proper bodily follow-through. The evacuation of my belly felt refreshing, like my body hit the reset button. So, for a few miles I would ride hard. But I was becoming dangerously dehydrated and wasn't taking in any calories. So, I started on the Powerbar gels. These had a comforting familiarity to them, but it wasn't long before they too started to get burpy.

I saw my family twice, which was great. It's just a quick neck jerk, though--kinda strains the eyeballs to look to the sides trying to find where those familiar voices are coming from. Luckily they were all in their neon spirit wear and had the inflatable octopus.

At about mile 80, I knew my entire race was in jeopardy. I could feel the dehydration. I had no appetite for food and everything I put down came right back up. In retrospect, it would have been best to get off the bike and attempt a proper sit down meal. 20 minutes of undivided attention to the GI could have saved about two hours of marathon torture.

By mile 100, I knew my race was over. For a nano-second, thoughts rushed through my head, like, "You're knocked down, Chris. Now is the time to get back up and push even harder." Silly head-brain!

I just found out that, in addition to the head-brain, the human gut has a brain as well--the size of a cat's! Seriously (great TED talk about it). My belly's brain, at least, had enough rationality left to call this head-BS what it was. "Chris, you haven't peed once since you peed in your wetsuit before the swim (tee hee hee). You've held down no water! No calories, man! Are you suddenly a breatharian? Your marathon will NOT be a run, but we should treat it like a progressive dinner. If you want to try to run, go ahead-- you'll see what happens pretty quick."

T2
I dismounted the bike, which is supposed to feel like a relief for the monotony of the last six hours. Instead, it hurt like hell. My left foot had completely seized into a clump of plantar fasciitis, which I haven't had to deal with since high school soccer. I limped into the transition area and, by complete chance, sat next to my buddy, Pater. We exchanged UN-pleasantries,
"How are you Pater?"
"I hurt like hell. How are you?"
"I feel like shit, thanks."
"Ok. Have a good run."
"You too."
Then we got lubed up by the rubber gloved sunscreen applicators. It was an orgy of pain, funk, and nastiness in there.

RUN (WALK)
I took some extra time in transition to stretch out my hip flexors and my calves. Then I was gone! How long could this possibly take me if I jaunt it out nice and sleazy? Not much more than 4:15 with a bit of hydration and luck, right? I put down another gel and ran the first quarter mile. The crowd was thick and loud. Then, I was loud and the puke was thick-- "Excuse me people-- I'm gonna blow!" And that was that. I had to walk and walk slowly. It was going to take me 6 hours at this pace. And that's IF...I was able to get in fluids. Pater wizzed by me like a friggin locomotion on a mission. Man, that guy is a mechanism. It was pretty inspiring.

The aid stations were handing out coke, which I turned into my new staple. Every aid station I took two cokes and two waters. The hours droned on. But calories were actually staying down.
Cameron Stadium where the Badgers play

Thank God I got to see my family a couple of times. I really needed them. Physically and emotionally, these were some of the toughest pains of my life. My ego hurt a lot too. I kept looking for the burning bush and the moment when the voices would tell me where to carve ten to fifteen commandments. "When belly was in Egypt land....let my belly go."

With a bit of actual running happening between aid stations, I managed to claw my way near Pater. O man, it felt so good to have him by my side. I asked if I could try to keep up with him. I gave him permission to run ahead if he felt inspired. As for me, I just wanted to hang on for dear life, maybe jump behind him, in his slipstream. We started getting kinda chatty and in a groove, run-walking from aid station to aid station. Things were going as well as they could.

Then, a pivotal moment came-- the aid stations started serving chicken broth. I took my usual coke, some water, some gatorade, and some chicken broth. The savory of broth is a welcome relief from so much sweet coke. But at mile 18, that cocktail turned into a weapon of mass destruction. It launched more episodes of puking. Pater plodded on, evidently inspired by the broth.

Susie caught up to me on her bike and discretely gave me an armed escort of support. Perhaps the highlight of the day was at mile 19 when I dropped to my knees and stuck my finger down my throat-- there in the grass next to my upchucked gatorade was a pocket knife. "COOL! Hold on to this Susie." I stood up, suddenly inspired and no longer nauseous and pieced together another mile of running. The crowd errupted in applause! "That's an Ironman!"
"Thanks everybody. I hope someone got that on film and posted to Youtube."

But I could only shuffle as far as the mile 21 aid station before my belly unraveled again and my face started getting really cold. The aid station workers wrapped me in a mylar blanket. I laid there for about 30 minutes, shivvering, while Susie tried to force down some pretzels and water. I had under 6 hours left to finish 5 miles, and I was worried.

The pretzels and water were taking. Susie was seriously saving my life by painting little circles on my tongue with the salt of the pretzels. I walked on with a guy named Jeff from Chicago, who had a day similar to mine. We took turns jumping into each other's slipstream, making jokes about how awful we felt, thanking all the volunteers and the thinning crowd of spectators. We asked each other's name several times because we kept forgetting. He really helped pass the time by. We thought it was just the funniest thing in the world when this 70 year old guy passed us. He looked fresh and we looked like crap.

Jeff and I held hands down the finish chute and then we attempted a mid-air high five at the finish line. Like most of the events that day, it didn't really work out right, but it was beautiful in its own way.
9PM finish to U2's Where the Streets Have No Name
FINAL THOUGHTS & ANALYSIS
This whole week following the race, I feel jipped by my results. Do they have mulligans (redo's) in triathlon? The outcome of the race wasn't at all commensurate with the input of my preparation. Still, this past year has been so over-the-top amazing, that I would do it all again even if I knew it would mean a race as painful as that next year. Nevertheless, I have a new imperative on how to squeeze out the best of both worlds-- 1) an amazing year of training on raw fruits and veggies, AND 2) a logistically simple kick-ass race result based on synthetic race-supplied gas station junk "food". 

The day after the race and this week after, my body has felt uncommonly fresh-- relative pep, no soreness, and best of all ZERO injuries to speak of. This is a huge advantage over last year's result, which took months to recover from. All the books say to take to take time off and get back into "embarrassingly easy" workouts gradually. We'll see if I can help myself. I'm thinking I need a redemptive marathon this fall. Hmm?

I had a few slices of pizza for dinner the night of the race and I've had a couple of naughty cooked meals this week. They feel familiar and comforting in the moment, but their value is better based on how they make me feel the hours after them-- which is to say, not so good. So as I recharge my batteries this off-season, you better believe I'm going to hold fast to my truck-loads of raw fruits. It's a secret weapon as much as hydration, calories, and sleep are a secret weapon. If I've learned any lessons at all from this debacle, it's that timing is everything-- when to peak, when to hydrate, when to eat, when to push, when to groove, when to sit in. For next year, I'll definitely be getting a coach. My head-brain, gut-brain, and you-know-what-brain need to defer to someone else with expertise for a while.

Happily, today marks the beginning of yoga, pilates and house project season! I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Much love, XOXO!






Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Follow My Race in Madison

Look me up at Ironman Madison September 11, 2011 and follow my GPS blip live!

"Chris Dwyer"

http://www.myathletelive.com/events

Friday, September 2, 2011

My Dream is Busy Manifesting Stuff

Part Uno
One week from race day, with my taper finally upon me, I thought this would be a good break for a little reflection on how my project has been coming. Last July, I dreamed into the universe a micro-sperm of a goal-- to become a professional-local-raw-vegan-foodie-entrepreneur-stickin'-it-to-the-man-triathlete-neighbor-mischief-maker-lover-energy-sorcerer. 
(Read my "In Case You Forgot" blog entry for a reminder)

My dream spermed upward and outward in every direction through the cosmos, squeezing between distant galaxies, amidst other planets and cultures, mingling with the residue of God's very own dream. After all, what is the physical world at all but a manifestation held in thought, begun in the dream of God? Whether we believe in manifestation or not, we are busy creating our own realities. So, what kinds of creations have my thoughts lent themselves to? Have they been powerful and deliberate enough?

As a wise friend once asked me, 
"If you did believe in manifestation, Chris, can you tell me what you would be trying to manifest?"

COFFEE DIVORCE
I don't know how much money I was spending on coffee 1.5 years ago, but I frequently spent my last pennies of loose change from the couch cushions. What someone spends their last dollar on reveals where their passion (ahem...addiction) is. Breaking that addiction may be the single-most important achievement of this project. Divorcing my coffee and divorcing my spouse was almost a buy one get one free deal. I kinda thought this crucible of suffering would carry a lot more emotional fallout than there was, but I'm still happily married and it's absolutely been a non-issue since week two. All it took was green smoothies and a vacation with friends. Don't get me wrong, coffee is amazing. I'd marry it again in a second. But for me, it was fatal attraction. Why $ubsidize a habit that reinforces other unhealthy habits (over-working, under-sleeping, non-energizing food choices)?

To leverage a system poorly, you can fiddle with the numbers, i.e. "drinking less coffee" or generically "being more better". This is where 99% of people spend 99% of their time trying to leverage systems, ineffectually. But to leverage a system successfully, you must address the feedback loops, both limiting feedback loops and reinforcing feedback loops. Systems can be gobbled up or eclipsed by bigger systems with stronger attractors, i.e. new paradigms, better stories, meta-awareness. So, you see, the system once called "Chris feeling anxious and tired about feeling anxious and tired" was all along just a wimpy SYSTEM with some powerful feeback loops that needed to get nuked!
Make love and green smoothies, not coffee.
VICTORY
I feel like I have finally found relief from a depression that has lasted at least a decade! For me, this has made everything worthwhile and I could declare this project case-closed. But why stop here? I say, success to the successful and winnings to the winners! I'm talking about winning races, baby... saving the planet... making love in an orange grove... and orchestrating some community-wide kick-em-in-the-dickenomics!

ENTREPRENEURING
Emotiv, my energy consulting biz, has been mothballed...for now...waiting for it's next metamorphosis. I know, I know. It sucks. But it also doesn't suck one bit. I took a part time job with my biggest client, a local architecture firm, called Sol design + consulting.
I get to work in Over The Rhine, doing similar work and the part-time gig has blossomed to full-time and sometimes overtime. I enjoy the projects, but it's the teamwork that is the best. Having a team is a radical departure from my Emotiv work. Isn't it beautiful in soccer when a couple of players can string together quick combinations and give-and-go passes? That's just not achievable when you're an isolated dude in a truck wearing all the hats. 

Furthermore, I think my followership skills are more refined than my leadership skills. I am pretty darn good at being Susie's towel boy for Studio S. She's an excellent entrepreneur and, for now, I can get my biznasty kicks vicariously through her. If ever I get nostalgic for being a business owner, all I have to do is play around with an Excel spreadsheet (one of my naughty vices).

TRIATHLON-- WINNING MY FIRST RACE
Now, here's where my dreaming needs to become more precise-- I want to win races LEGITIMATELY. I truly had a good showing at the East Fork olympic triathlon last month, but I accidentally cheated my way to overall victory by cutting the bike portion short by 12%. I can tell that I am getting faster and have more endurance, but I have not prioritized scheduling races nor following rules or programs, which, note to self, will be more and more necessary. May's half Ironman was a big opportunity, but I was recovering from my ankle injury. Next week will be the full monty in Madison, Wisconsin, where I hope to let it all out, and be crazy fast. I'm sorry, I probably won't win this one in any way, shape, or form, but every race is both a stand-alone celebration and a training day. Every one of them hurts so good, too.
Where are all of you slow pokes, following the actual course?
This close to the race, I find it difficult to project a specific finish time. It's going to be a damn tough day, where I'll really see what I'm made of, how well I've trained, how I've managed my nutrition and recovery. There is just no hiding. No more theory. It may take me all 17 hours. Or I could pull it all together and go under 10 hours. I just don't know. I'm quite afraid-- afraid that if I don't do well, it undermines my project and the fundamentals of my dream of qualifying for the world championships in Kona, Hawaii. Then I realize how stupid this is-- as if Chris Dwyer could single-handedly prove that fruits and vegetables and alternative energy are futile.

But seriously, I'm afraid that the outcome depends too much on forces outside of myself, beyond my OCD's reach. And I'm simultaneously afraid that it depends entirely upon me, upon my alone-ness, and that I'll have to spelunk the dark and scary pit of despair. This must be my No. 1 enneagram personality type running amok.
Ouch, this is fun!...?
The thrill of crossing that finish line, though, is the most uplifting moments you could ever imagine in a lifetime. I promise that by the time it's over, I'm going to whip out my inner wolf-pack, octopus, and shrieking eels, and it's all going to be worth it.

LOCAL RAW ORGANIC FREE FOODIE
Not 100% local. Not 100% raw. Not 100% organic. Not even 100% food. Close to 0% free. But I'm making progress on them all.

Unfortunately, last winter, I lost my sponsor, Paradise Found, who was providing me with a weekly delivery of fresh local organic produce. They went out of the food delivery business. The good news is that they were having a hard time competing with several other start-up produce delivery companies. So, at least it validates the market for fresh, local, organic nutrition. Boo-ya! Best of luck to them in their new ventures (tours to small Russian farms called dachniks).

While my brother, Matti, was working on his organic farm, he taught me about scales of possibility. How much space, water, soil, labor, etc are required to grow ripe, organic, tasty, fruits and veggies?

To give you an example of Matti's work, take a look at him selling his primo goods at the farmers market.
If we look at the left hand side of the table, we see 4 quarts of strawberries, 10 pints of blueberries, and 10 pints of grape tomatoes. A "normal" farmers market shopper might buy, what, one of each? How long would this much food last?...the weekend?...one day if they have a family?... a week if they are the standard American? Matti showed that 1/2 acre of these babies can provide enough food to sell $800 worth every Saturday morning. That's pretty darn good!

For fun, I added up all the calories and nutrients of EVERYTHING in the blue containers. Here's what I found:

All the food in the blue containers would only give you ~3000 calories. On a typical day, that's how much produce I eat before dinner. And while protein is only 7% of these total calories, it's still 76grams, beloved skeptics!

Matti even showed me how to eat cat tails. This was a novelty, like a deep fried twinkie at the state fair-- interesting more than delicious. It tasted starchy, like a cold boiled potato. But I don't quite feel called to wade in the swamps harvesting.
Matti, hunting cage free cat tails.
Now that he's come home, I can't wait to do more experimentation in the back yard with him. I still don't know the limits of my goal, but for now, I feel quite justified by my tropical fruit outsourcing and import, despite the transportation footprint.
Freshly harvested organic dates are back in season!
Another food/race experiment is the date-o-rade I'll be making and drinking during next Sunday's race. For each half of the 112 mile bike leg, I plan on carrying two water bottles that are filled with 1000 calories each of date juice. It's made by soaking dates in water for two days, and then straining the fiber out. It becomes a rich, syrupy, high octane fuel that doesn't have any gelling agents like the goo on the race course. That's approximately one date per mile on the bike. I'll also make some for the run portion, but I haven't figured out the logistics of carrying it and keeping it from fermenting.
To Be Continued...

Stay tuned to Part Dos
...which I'm under no obligation to ever write. 

MISCHIEF-MAKING & NEIGHBORING
Susie and Elizabeth have a special talent for sorting out who gets the edible tomatoes and who gets the rotten ones.
STICKIN-IT-TO-THE-MAN and KICK-EM-IN-THE-DICKENOMICS

A pie in the face is the perfect birthday gift. Watch out, little girl, you're next.
LOVER & ENERGY-SORCERER
I didn't paint it, but I support it.