Tuesday, August 17, 2010

apology

the next story
may the circle be unbroken
probably sucks
i tried all these different ways
to come at it
and
i didn't like
the "clever" ways
because
they weren't all that clever
so
i decided
to just go right at it
but
i think
it still
kinda sucks
but
it didn't totally suck
and
it's been
forever
so
i felt like i had to
just
have something
and
actually
it's just the ending
that i think sucks
it probably
needs
to be
a
film

May the Circle be Unbroken

I've been wanting to tell ever since what could be called the first date-- though perhaps it wasn't really a date at all and, regardless, not a successful one-- but every time I try the events become jumbled and I don't know how to proceed. Do you know how some things you remember just like they happened yesterday? This is not one of those sorts of things. The truth is I remember it-- but maybe it isn't even true. Maybe what I remember is the memory of memories worried out like trouble dolls again and again, and now I'm trying to describe where everyone sat at the tea party. Where and how to start, yes. But not just that. When I was studying French there was a tense, that totally baffled me (pluperfect or something), that was used for things that happened recurrently; the problem was that it wasn't things that happened recurrently to me, but rather, things that were supposed to happen recurrently according to the rules, which seemed random. Something like that, anyway, irregular. I guess that's what I'm looking for. The layers of use and reuse of memory haven't distorted it in a tape-of-a-tape-of-a-tape-sort-of-way-- it's really more like the conjugation of an irregular verb. What I don't want to do is exactly what I find myself doing. Then I get angry. Think I'm boring. Never tell the story.

So. Big deal. Who cares about some stinky old story, anyway?

Well, actually I do. I care about it a lot. I think it is essential, somehow.

How can it be when you don't even believe it? Tell me that .

I may not totally believe it, but I believe in it. Understand?

Like people believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?

No. Not like that at all. Like you believe the fairies are controlling the car when your father drives you around at night in the darkly wooded neighborhoods where rich people live because he takes his hands off the wheel and the car still goes.

He said the fairies are controlling the car.

Yes. And when all the trees have been cut down you will imagine them in the stylized linkin log lettering of the dive bar near where they used to be and wonder if the fairies died out like the fireflies they probably always were or if they moved on to happier hunting grounds, but you'll never actually go in to the dive bar, and then, when that's gone too...

Like when they cut down the tree in the yard and then I stood on the stump and could still feel the tree, but when they dug it out and planted flowers I couldn't feel the tree anymore?

Yes. Kind of like that. But with a lot more pretending.

Do you pretend a lot?

Yes. I think I do.

Are you pretending now?

I'm not sure. Would you play a game with me now?

What kind of game?

Would you take me on a tour? Nothing fancy. Just up to the park.

Sure. Here is the house where I live. It's my gran-gran and paw-paw's house. My daddy lived here when he was a kid too. He says they were the first house on the block to have a TV. Isn't that funny? This big pot here, this plant is called wandering jew.

That's why you like purple so much, isn't it?

My favorite color is red, not purple!

Sorry. I should have kept that to myself. I guess. Please continue.

This is called monkey grass. My paw-paw has a green thumb. So we have fancy grass. That's a crepe myrtle. That's a mimosa tree. The lady who lives across the street has lived there since my daddy was small and her name is Frances. Frances can be a girl-name or a boy-name and you say it the same, but you spell it different.

Can you spell?

No. But I know my a,b,c's. Want to hear?

Not right now. Maybe later. Right now I want to go to the park, but after, if you want we can go to the U-Totem and get a frostie root beer or a delaware punch. Those are your favorites, right?

Or coke. I like coke too. My gran-gran says coke used to be medicine or something and even though it doesn't have all the stuff that made it a medicine, because that stuff's illegal now, it's still kind of a medicine and good to drink if you have a tummy ache. If we go to the U-Totem can I go barefooted?

Of course. Is there any other way?

I like the way, the regular street is hot, it burns your feet and you have to hop, but there's this big bumpy stripe in the street it's all white and cool and you can walk right on it. That's my favorite part.

Can we take the alley to the park?

There aren't any mudpuddles to stomp.

I know.

That's not the way I go.

I know, but I was just thinking how I never see alleys anymore.

Do you know they used to deliver milk in bottles and leave them in that alley?

When did they stop doing that?

I don't know. My gran-gran just told me they used to. Maybe they did when I was little. I don't remember it though.

So can we go down the alley?

No. It has the best mudpuddles if I'm walking with my daddy, but I only walk in the alley when I'm with my daddy.

Well, that's probably safer. People might back their cars out without looking where they're going. But, this has been concerning me: do they really let you walk up to the park by yourself?

Yes.

I would not let you walk up to the park by yourself if you were my kid. How old are you?

I'm four years old. I'm not your kid. Why not?

I don't think it's safe. I think about the things that could happen to you.

One time I stepped in an ant bed and I didn't know I was in an ant bed and they started crawling on me and biting me and there were millions of ants biting me and my daddy was there that time and he put me in a puddle and washed those ants off me. You mean like that?

That wasn't really what I meant, but yeah, ok, like that.

But I was a little kid then. I know about ant beds now.

Nevermind.

So this is the direction to go to get to the park. Watch where you're going, because, see, the sidewalk goes up and down. That's because the tree roots push the sidewalk up. It's really cool. It's my favorite part of the sidewalk. Now we're about to cross the street, it's not a busy street, but you still need to look both ways. This is my favorite tree. My daddy lifts me up there and I like to sit right there. See?

I see. Can you see very far from there?

Not too far. I can see farther from the top of the side. I used to climb up there, but then I was scared to slide down. It's really tall. My daddy would have to climb up and get me. One day he got me to slide down, but I slid wrong and I fell off half way down.

But he caught you, right?

Yeah, how did you know?

He might have mentioned it.

And there are the swings. And there's the hill. And over there is the clubhouse.

What's the hill good for?

You can kind of roll down it, or you can lie in the grass and look at the clouds. I like the hill.

It's the hill I'm particularly interested in.

Why?

I remember some sort of gathering up on the hill.

The one with the big tent?

Yes, that one.

It must have been some hippie thing because I recognized some of my aunt e.e.'s friends.

And do you remember what they were doing?

They held hands and they danced in a big circle.

Around the tent?

Yes.

So, on that much we agree.

Yes.

Do you remember anyone giving you a sugar cube?


Here she just walks over and lies in the grass. She ignores me.

I remember a sugar cube. But the way the person looked who gave me the sugar cube changes. Sometimes. When I replay the scene the tennis court, which was subsequently built, is there, but it contracts out of the way and reforms when people move. I don't know how to integrate this information. The sugar cube seems tied to the tennis court somehow. This makes me think it is a later addition. But it might not be that simple. I always resented the tennis court for ruining my hill. My other aunt was excited about the tennis court, wanted to play, might have even paid for lessons for me, but I wanted nothing to do with the big ugly paved thing that had destroyed my hill.


The tent was a regular white pavilion tent, the kind they use for outdoor weddings.

It was striped and huge. It was a circus big top.

The hippies wandered up and under the tent.

There wasn't any music.

There weren't any speeches.

The person who approached me was a woman, a man with long hair, a clown, filled, with no malice, no intent to harm, nothing but love, no reason to fear.

I lie in the grass and watch the hippies join hands and run and dance around and around in a circle dance. They shimmer in the sunlight. The circle undulates, expands, contracts, everything seems to be breathing. The big top is breathing. There isn't any sound at all.

It lasts forever.

Then.

It's over.

The hippies leave as suddenly as they arrived. They leave in twos and threes.

I get up.

I walk home.

Friday, August 6, 2010

master cleanse - day 10

i ate soup tonight
not yucky lemon gut soup
i broke my fast about 3 hours ago
with some yummy broth
i made with
kombu
shitake
onion
dry spices
nutritional yeast
and
a sprig of fresh rosemary

i can't say i've ever really
used rosemary before
i associate it with
rosemary chicken
most of all
and
maybe
focaccia bread

it was just what i wanted

orange juice will have to wait for tomorrow
i've got oranges to squeeze
i've got celery to juice
i've got miso to soup

i didn't lose that much weight
only about 10 pounds
and
i'm not sure
that i'm out of toxins
but
i do think it was really good for me

i'm thinking about
incorporating fasting into regular life
like maybe one day a week
or some set amount of time per month
or something
i haven't decided yet

i was hoping for
some mystical experience
but
most of what i got
was very practical

i guess
someday
i will
have to have
that
fast

in the desert

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

master cleanse - day 7

this
isn't so much about day 7 per se
it's more about
my thoughts on the master cleanse thus far

like i said before
i started with lemon juice and cayenne
maybe a couple weeks before
i think that's why my body wanted me to stop eating
so it could catch up with the detox
so when i tell you this stuff
(and it might be kinda gross
you might not want to read this)
it's not just a 7 day effect

but
there are parts of me
that i thought:
well that's all firm
must be all muscle

nuh uh

the texture of the fat has changed
which makes it harder to look at myself
because
now it's all fat looking

that's the down side

but it isn't really
because
now it looks like something that doesn't belong
and must go
which can't ultimately be a bad thing
but
in the short term
i look fatter to me

the up side is

a bunch of stuff

i thought all my chronic pain was gone
nuh uh
much less now

i thought my range of motion
was pretty good
(for my age)
since i have been mildly detoxing for months
nuh uh
much better now

but
the weird thing is
i can see
tangibly
how those things
might actually improve
yet still more
like maybe there could be
a couple more
i thought it wasn't bad before
moments

i totally see why people are tempted
to go on ridiculously long bouts of master cleanse
i see it
but
i think it is flawed reasoning
it cannot be good
to make your body
stay in hard core detox mode
can it

anyway
unless i have some whack come-to-jesus moment
i think 10 days is going to be all
this time
which doesn't mean
i'll stop detoxing
but
this feels too active
and violent
to make me think i should continue longer

(and
in the spirit of full disclosure
i should mention
i think
i'm probably taking much more cayenne
than is probably meant
because
it said you could take 2 cayenne capsules
if you couldn't deal with the taste
or a fairly small amount of cayenne mixed in
so i'm doing the capsules
but
that means
i'm taking 2 x 100,000btu x 6
and i suspect
it meant
something 40,000btu
or less)

but
seriously
i keep kinda fantasizing
about doing a cartwheel

stupid stuff

this was a very good decision i think

Monday, August 2, 2010

master cleanse - day 6

so
it wasn't my original intention
to update you today
but
i discovered that i am a fucking genius
so i had to write that
while it was fresh in my head

last night
i dreamed about eating chicken
and i don't know if it's digesting the fiber or what
but today
today i have been ravenous all day

and that fiber isn't really working the way i need it to
because i didn't take into account soluble fiber
so
when i started feeling like vomit time might be near
i juiced up the lemon rinds
with some ginger
(because it settles your stomach)
and that fiber is pretty insoluble
but i was still starving
so

i made chicken soup
from the lemon guts the juicer spit out

no lie

i boiled em for a while with
white pepper
garlic powder
celtic sea salt
it made this big nasty pulp
and i pushed that in a strainer
and got a small amount of concentrate
i added more spices
nutritional yeast
and hot water
and
it was way way too bitter
so
i added a tiny bit of maple
and voila

now
i mean spices are not
strictly speaking
part of the master cleanse
and
nutritional yeast is more of a supplement
which there is some debate about the allowability
so
you could say
that i cheated
if that's what you really wanted to say
but
i feel like macgyver

it was a little bitter
but
the texture
and
the flavor
was really chicken-soup-esque
chock-full-o-insoluble fiber, b12, protein, et al
and 70 calories
the same as the way i'm supposed to make the lemonade

and
so far
no vomit

yeah

Sunday, August 1, 2010

master cleanse - day 4 & 5

i know it's kinda early
and if anything exciting happens later
i'll add on
but
i wanted to tell you about yesterday
some changes
and today
lack of euphoria

no more vomit
so far
(i spoke too soon)

i decided that the salt was giving me mild edema
so i needed an alternative to the saltwaterflush
which is a shame
because it is effective
and cheap
celtic sea salt is chock full of minerals
and only 3.50 for the small bag

so
i went to whole foods
and i wandered around for like 2 hours
i have this thing about grocery stores
it's like a sensory overload thing
which i've gotten way better at
but apparently not when i'm lightheaded
and hungry
well, not so much hungry as cramping internally
i looked at lots of food
even
with interest
at the bits of dead animal carcass
well, really just the steaks
it was all just fun to look at, no big thing
except
when i was in the water aisle (that word is spelled weird)
they had one of those "impulse buy" hanger thing-a-ma-jigs
with bags of fancy trail mix
giant dried cherries, almonds, and chocolate coated something
and the chocolate seemed like not processed
like it wasn't shiny
and that was the only point at which
i was into the food
that dried cherry had my name on it

but i had to get a salt alternative
i've read that mixing psyllum and bentonite clay
but i don't think i could drink that
so i looked and looked
and read all the labels
and i decided on this one called super seed
it's flax and chia with sprouted bunch-a-other-stuff
it's got omega3 and some protein and probiotics
it's got like 70 calories
and it tastes like malt-o-meal
but that might require enough digestion
that i'm really not on the master cleanse anymore
not sure
also
i saved all the lemon parts
and juiced them
but i let the juice sit for a few minutes
and it turned into this almost pudding texture
so i mixed in some juice, pulp, and 2 teaspoons of maple
and drank that down last night
fiber and bioflavanoids

lots of excitement yesterday
the super seed i had today
but
that was today's most euphoric moment:
malt-o-meal flashback

otherwise
just
spacey
with
headache

and weight back to where it was
before
the
salt