Liquid Fast:I'm doooooooiinnnnggggg it!

One thing I can readily admit, I have zero willpower when it comes to trying new foods. That sounds like a good thing, that sounds like I will happily stuff new flavors and concoctions into my mouth without judgement or bias (it's true, I will). That sounds like I was the perfect toddler (it's true, I was). Broccoli? Sure! Beets? Sure! Weird meat dishes? Sure!

But it's not a good thing 100% of the time because 100% of the time I want to experience new restaurants and new drinks. Baked pork belly. Yummy, oozing cheese. Frothy brews. I'm sort of proud of my iron clad stomach but I'm sort of not proud that I seem to lack the letters "N" and "O" in my alphabet soup. Such self-indulgent behavior is not always (re: usually not) for the best.

On the reverse of this, I can also admit that I'm somewhat (some might say overly zealous) about nutrition, learning about health foods, eating healthily, etc.... I think in an attempt to conquer my alter ego: Girl Who Will Eat Bacon All Day. Tim is going to make a shirt that says "Bacon' friends is easy" [more on that later]. But do you get it? Do you understand that I'm two foodies living in one body?! Half of the time I'm all, "yay kale chips!" and the other half of the time I kill the person who says that and scream "yay anything with copious amounts of butter and fat!" instead. Lots of times I even skip the sustenance all together and just lustfully slur "alcohooooollll!"

So now you get it, over eating, over counting calories, over exercising, over analyzing every morsel I drop into my mouth--all of this over thinking and over indulging and over compensating has made me dizzy. Which leads me to today, the day I decided to try my own take on a "liquid, juice-if-you-will" fast. One last thing to admit, I have tried the master cleanse fast in the past and do you know how that went down? Basically I drank something that looked like pond water all day, laid in bed, and then got so hungry I stuffed my face with (probably bacon).

After eating ice cream, red vines, mini corn dogs and a beer yesterday--I decided today was the day to kick the fat train in the caboose. I wanted to give my body some time to detox and slow down the digestion process. I wanted to feel lighter and healthier. I also wanted to reacquaint myself with self-control and to explore how I would feel with minimal sugars and processed foods. So, in between red vines and meeting my girlfriends for mini corn dogs and beer last night I drove to Trader Joe's and stocked up on liquids for today. I knew that only water or only tea would not work for me (see above story about failing miserably at the master cleanse) so I bought sensible things I like that I could consume in small amounts in addition to water and tea. So far my day has gone as follows:

Obviously eating mini corn dogs with some of my best gal pals

Morning

1 cup of green tea, a handful of almonds, 1 cup of almond milk, 1 bottle of sparkling water

**The morning was great, I felt light and in control. I did not feel hunger pangs.

Mid Afternoon

2 servings of carrot juice, plain water

**I continued to feel awesome and proud until an hour after downing the carrot juice, whence I did not feel awesome but more like I was going to throw everything up. After a trip to the bathroom to put my head between my knees, I felt awesome again.

Late Afternoon

1 cup of tomato juice, more plain water

**Still feel awesome and feel even more proud after my boss tried to tempt me with chocolates and cookies to which I declined repeatedly.

Dinner

**Remains a mystery because I'm not sure if I will eat a salad or continue with the liquid....I will update more later.

As a final note, I realize that drinking a few healthy things for a day does not make me Mother Theressa or Gwyneth Paltrow. But, I do feel successful in that even with my crazy "get up for work at 4 a.m." schedule and 12 hour days, I was able to concentrate on what was important to me and to make myself feel better.


Update: I ate a salad and lots of cherries for dinner. I missed drinking coffee the most :(

The weed killer is killing me:

This morning at work I was talking to a co-worker in the shop and I thought "hmmm, his cologne smells kind of sickeningly sweet." A few minutes later my boss yelled down the hall, "do you guys smell that?!?"

Mental thought: Is said co-worker's cologne that strong??

Fast forward 2 seconds--we all spy out the front window an industrial sized vat of weed killer being sprayed all over the street in front of our building.

Fast forward 2 more seconds--the quiet grip of nausea begins to take hold and soon all 50 employees are headache-y and vom-y.

Conclusion--I'm slowly dying and nobody at work seems to be leaving so I guess I'll just die.

Artistic rendering of my life right now

Hey, this is what's been happening!

Hey remember when I said one of my travel dreams was to visit Paris (you're welcome for wiki linking you--now you can read tiny text for hours about one topic) this year? Well I'm doing it, me and my best friend booked a flight to Paris for late July. I see lots of red lipstick and "oui oui" in my near future.

This is said best friend with great bangs in the middle

Hey remember when I said I was really happy because I met somebody that I love, who makes me laugh and feel special? Well I am. He's the best. Really, the best.

This is just a little something boyfriend and I whipped up

This is boyfriend's roomate's dog, confusing? Sitting (where he is not supposed to be) on the couch

Just a couple of dudes (Maru and boyfriend) in pajamas

This is boyfriend and I (sitting where we are allowed to) on the couch

This is a good Memorial Day weekend (re: 4 day weekend for me because I don't work Fridays). Lots of dranks and hanging with friends. Also Sunday night Tim and I have a rezzie at Searsucker for Arizona Restaurant Week (I plan on wearing a dress with lots of room because I also plan on eating my weight in bacon and dessert). 

Until next time.....

On Anxiety:

Growing up I always loved the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's (and still do). Audrey Hepburn is the epitome of class and sophistication and she has such a lovely nature. But more than that I found it comforting when her character talked about getting "the mean reds." The mean reds sounded like some far off sadness that you just couldn't put your finger on. Like something that swept over you every once and a while for no real reason at all. I thought I had the mean reds too. When I was younger the mean reds manifested as some sort of angst or restlessness and into my early 20's they felt like tiny bouts of depression. But I'm learning as of recently that what I always thought of as some mysterious gloominess that hung around every so often is not really sadness at all but more likely a bit of anxiety. It sounds strange but I'm happy to be discovering this because it feels tangible, like something I can work on. I think it will be important to work on letting perfection go, letting my worrisome nature subside. For some reason I carry a strong sense of obligation to others and I would like to work on managing my expectations and my obligations.

Oh Audrey!

Lately:

I have not written in here in sometime. I was on a streak of overloading this poor blog with with weepy, womanly feelings but lately I feel very protective of my emotions. Like I want to keep them inside of a little nest, bound together with old bits of twine, held tightly together deep under my sternum. Not because I don't feel feelings anymore, but because for some reason I want to keep what is mine, mine. Just for now. Probably in a few months I will resume pithy dribble. Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Ok there is one thing that is mine but that is so nice it should also be shared with the world, maybe. That thing is love. And it's warm and gooey, like diving into a bowl of your grandma's best macaroni and cheese and eating your way back out again. It makes you feel content and satisfied and happy and small. Like you would do anything for your love. Like you would struggle a little in the beginning because in the end it will be worth it. It's definitely worth it.

Just watchin' some 3D flick about dinosaurs...Jurassic Park!

I Love Him:

Love:

Keeping a record of your life that you can look back on later means that you punctuate each entry with good and bad. Life is good and life is bad and sometimes it's neither, sometimes it just is. It's easy to write about the sad, the melancholy because that's what rolls off the tongue best. What's not as easy is to write about the good stuff, the happy stuff, that stuff that makes your heart burst because the whole time you are writing you are worried that when you finish your sentence the happy will be gone, it will have disappeared just as quickly as it came.

But this time I'm not so worried, this time I'm not so concerned about the happy going away because this time I don't think it's going to go away. The thing that's making me most happy in this very moment is this person that I met, this person that I fell in love with. This person is witty and kind and says things like "I love you" and means it. This person makes me laugh every day.

On Being Young:

The beauty of being young doesn't stem from irresponsibility or from looking the other way, turning the other cheek. The beauty doesn't come from carelessness but mindfulness. It comes from the appreciation of the random. It comes in dark, smokey rooms with your best friend. It comes on foggy, downtown streets at night. It comes through the sound of hipsters in drag wearing Lolita sunglasses playing sad surf music. It comes when the ceiling is lit up like a high school prom. The beauty is the 'being lose on the world' part, the 'liking everything' part, the whole 'world is my oyster' part.