Day Three?

So I've reached the end of my 3rd day. Between the two of us we've spent $140, and that will get us through tomorrow, which is pretty good considering most juice fasts are $20-$25 per day. We're right on point.

A few things I forgot to mention yesterday- on the first day Jon and I both had a hard time going to sleep because our bodies were so restless. My legs felt twitchy, and it was hard to get my mind off of them. The first two days I felt weak when I walked around, but today I took a walk with my friend during lunch, and I felt great. Jon felt fine the first day, but yesterday and today he was really cranky. He says he feels really weak, and he's on the verge of quitting already. He's going to continue through tomorrow, but 5 days might be his limit.

This makes me sad, but I don't want to push him to do anything he doesn't want to do. This is his second over night shift, and I can't help but feel that his job is making this that much harder for him. I have a feeling my hunger will break tomorrow, but I don't know if his will unless he gets passed the 5th day. I hope he sleeps all day tomorrow and only wakes up to drink juice. I think that will help. It's a big difference between us- his 9hr retail job and my 9hr home job are both very different, not to mention I'm very happy doing what I do.

But you know how I think he'll get through this? Because when he was resting today, he was fine. He wasn't cranky, and he was himself. It was only when he came home from work this morning, and before he left for work this evening.

But we'll see I guess.

This was the menu of today:

WATERMELON CUCUMBER LEMON:

1/2 Watermelon

2 Cucumbers

1 Peeled Lemon

GREEN LEMONADE
1 Green Apple
2 cups Spinach
2 cups / 6-8 leaves Kale
1/2 Cucumber
4 Celery Stalks
1/2 Lemon

BOUTIFUL BRASSICA
2 broccoli stalks
1/2 head or 2 wedges green cabbage
2 cups or 6-8 leaves of kale
1 organic granny smith apple
1/4 lemon (peeled)
1 inch ginger root

TABBOULEH
1 big bunch parsley (approx. 4 cups)
1 tomato
1/4 red onion
1/2-1 lemon (peeled)
1/2 cucumber
Dash sea salt and black pepper

SPICY SKIN SAVER

1/2 cup Radish (about 6)

6 cups green grapes

1/2 bunch watercress

1 Cucumber

1 knob ginger

The savory ones are my favorite, like the Tabbouleh today. Deliciousssssss :)

Juicing pt. II!

So day two is almost over! Jon and I both dreampt about eating last night, and also when he took a nap today. We woke up feeling pretty good though, but as the day went on I began to feel more and more hungry. It's a strange kind of hunger though. I'm full, but I'm also very empty. I don't feel weak, because I feel very alert, but I feel slow, even if I'm not actually moving slowly.

Jon is feeling a little worse though. I have had any headaches, and I don't feel all that crabby. I feel a little beside myself, but I think I'm also adjusting to working from home. Jon is not so happy though. Good thing I'm going to surprise him before his overnight shift (?!?!) with a delicious pineapple/apple/ginger juice! I have to commend him, because working retail while doing this must be very very difficult. But I know he can do it.

Here's the menu we followed for day two:

APPLE, CARROT & BEET
2 Apples
4 Carrots
2 Beets
6 leaves swiss chard
1” ginger root

SWEET SUMMER
2 broccoli stalks
2 organic white peaches
1 organic fuji apple

GREAT GREENS
2 Green Apples
2-3 cups Spinach
6-8 leaves Swiss Chard
1 Cucumber
4 stalks Celery
1/2 Fennel Bulb
1 bunch Basil

GAZPACHO
4 Plum Tomatoes
1 large Cucumber
2 stalks Celery
1 Red Bell Pepper
1/4 small Red Onion
2 cups Parsley, leaves
1 Lime

FRUIT SPICE
1/4 Pineapple
2 Pears
1" Ginger

The Gazpacho and Fruit Spice were probably the two best of the day. I made too much of the Gazpacho, and I loved every extra drop. When I feel like I haven't had enough I make some hot water with lemon, and the heat fills my stomach.

The best part of this f(e)ast is that... well it might be just how I'm feeling but it might also be my perspective but it might be both... I look in the mirror and I feel really beautiful. I look at my hands and I can't help but think how lovely they are. When I take a shower, the heat feels that much more enjoyable.

So far so good!

Juice Feasting!

Today is the first day of the juice feasting! I'm incredibly excited to venture into the unknown land of fluids and see how my body and brain adjust. I'm mostly glad that I'm accompanied by my boyfriend, my best friend, and also her boy friend. It's good to know that we're all in this together.

I'm just very curious to see how I feel and how my body responds to this. I've never done any kind of fasting before, but I do think it will be relatively easy considering I'm already vegan. The hardest part I think is getting used to not chewing... which is mental. But considering I will be getting tons of vitamins and nutrients, I think my body will remain pretty satisfied.

The menu for today is the following:

APPLE, BEET & CARROT
1 Apple
2 Beets
3 Large Carrots
1 Piece Ginger (thumb sized)
4 cups Spinach/Kale

MEAN GREEN
1 cucumber
4 celery stalks
2 apples
6-8 leaves kale
1/2 lemon
1 tbsp ginger

GREEN
2 cups Kale
2 cups Spinach
1/2 Cucumber
4 stalks Celery
2 Green Apples
1” Ginger root

THE ABC’S
2 Asian Pears
2 Apples
2 Beets
2 Carrots
1 cup Cabbage
6 handfuls Chard 3 cups

CITRUS GREEN
6-8 leaves kale
6-8 leaves swiss chard
1 cucumber
6 clementines

So far I haven't felt much except for great. I've had a few moments of feeling hungry- enough to chew something, and then I remember I can't haha! We shall see how the rest of the day goes!

Pollen

Drawings by Nabokov, intended for his family.

Michael Winter

A superficial plunge passed everything I've worked for.

But no, that's not true.

The balancing act- I think of it so very often.

I've ricocheted from either end of the room,

and wobbling back I am now somewhere in the center.

I feel this to be very true.

That after years screaming to each end of the extreme,

I am soberly staggering in the middle of a void.

It's all something I know, because I have been here all before.

It is all around me, just simply in a different form.

I can remember the smell, and the lighting is exactly how I know it.

The sound is dull, frustration fear and failure all into a stuffed pillow

Muted.

But how can I recognize the difference when all of my memories are desaturated,

and the present I know is the same?

Greys, steels, ochres, woods, salt on white skin.

It all blends into itself,

A chameleon in vain.

This is the truth.

I'm telling myself to try to see the clarity,

but I lack the desire and willingness to do so.

A small portion of me is moving,

Upwards, pushing, flailing on my own feet to resist

my own resistance of discipline.

I am stuck, partaking in the exact fear which has consumed my knees,

I am moving inch by inch as if my calves, thighs, and hips were only able to do no more.

Stepping with as much precaution,

acting with as much sloth and laze

and at the same time the most desire

the most pain and the most distress

to truly act as I have always wanted.

And yet with all the stillness I have acquired,

I am not still, and I am boiling,

with heat and stress overtaking every inch of my consciousness.

Even when I simmer, I fail to completely cool.

And so I continue to search for the fear that is fueling this fucking flame.

Perhaps if I keep moving, the truth will come to me.

54 (disco version)

Jumping from the platform

into the dusted sand

far below the edge of the concrete cliff,

a crevice of camel colored creases.

I lie here a jumbled mess,

a decomposed abstraction,

seemingly in pieces.

But as my eyes move in moments

slowly towards the water,

the expanse of ocean,

ahead of me,

I feel the weaving of my skin

twisting, tinging, tip-toeing together,

tiny portraits of myself transmogrifying,

alchemized and microscopic.

Who knew a hand or face could be so small.

And as my skin stretches and connects,

the wind soothing the heat of the minuscule contractions,

I grow momentarily into.

Nuckle Blisters

My life wrapped up in pink tissue

or recycled brown paper.

Tied up with a thin silk bow.

A bouquet of lowers picked out just for me,

no dozen roses.

An ear that hears and recalls,

analogues, records, and reflects

and then responds.

The giving, receiving, sharing.

Would you call that a balancing act?

Or would you just call that care?

I'm used to disappearances.

At some point it always happens.

I've never attempted the trick,

or maybe I have and I just don't know the difference.

Something to hold and something to have.

Gifts are given never to be returned,

never with any Expectation.

But I'm beginning to fear them.

I think myself so coy,

such a charmer...

and then they disappear.

With what I've given them.

People are too predicable this way.

No matter how much you tell them,

share with them, try to offer them,

They will always have selective hearing.

They will always take what they want

and disappear.

And sometimes it feels like they gave nothing in return.

50/50 on the chopping block, on the cutting table, on the countdown. What you say and what you do and what you expect all come back at you. Sometimes with a big punch in the face, and sometimes with a nod to your reflection... simply spouting my feelings, vomiting without control, is my avoidance of focus and concentration. It's so easy to snap pictures out of focus, and to try to resharpen them in the future (technology very easily allows for this) but how valuable do memories become when you have to try to piece them together after they've already passed.

It's a restless sleep, if there is sleep at all.

Irene and Jack Weekend

I've made a few things lately.

A top for my mom.

Some baby booties for my future cousin.

A shawl for my grandma.

And some socks for me.

Emma seems to like them too.

Distraction? No.....

Lump Sum

I've been without a journal for the past week or so. Not being able to write, with my hands, has been a strange experience. Having all these thoughts in my head I'd like to write down, but can't. The only reason being pure laziness...

To describe what it is I feel I'm missing... when you have something for a time, and then it leaves you. The sheer transience of just being alive. The part that is most irksome is that I know I'm missing it, because I know what it's like to have it. Being without it is something like being a machine... always the same responses to everything, the same head nods, the same dull expression, the same cliches, repetition of repetition of repetition, lack of

Poor Emma is trying to scratch her ears but can't because the cone is in the way. Not to be melodramatic, but isn't everything in our lives a reflection of ourselves in some way?

Unscrupled Imaginings

It leeches itself out of my pores like molasses.

And with every breath of this air it becomes thicker,

moving itself over my skin as if it were my new corpse

but an old one

taking over and suffocating the fresh and living.

I move past each palm tree with ease

because really it's all the same when you see it,

nothing ever changes no matter how much time is in between

but with each passing I falter

and digging myself further into a grave of memories

I loose sight of what was ahead of me.

It's so easy to shut my doors,

lay on the grey carpet as if not a year, hour, second has gone by

and that it's all still here.

The posters are more faded each time I see them,

the cobwebs more pronounced,

and still I always want to stay.

Locked away in this gap of space

a locked two roomed doll house

an abyss of safety only I can understand.

It's as if you stepped into a materialized, still life of yourself,

but that's it

you said it earlier

it's not yourself

it's what you once were

but he's dead

he doesn't love you

they've all moved and grown just as you have

the window doesn't stay open anymore

and everything you've left here you've left for a reason

to leave it.

So let it go.

When you walk into a room, and feeling trickles up your ankles, moving slowly up your legs and torso, and neck and around to your throat, and it begins to grab hold of you so forcefully that it feels as though it were a real person, that's perhaps when you should look back at this feeling and ask "what is it exactly that I'm feeling, and what is the exact opposite of it that perhaps I am lacking?" or maybe this doesn't even make sense, for after all I am a little drunk still.

Fear

When it all drops

when all the bricks come down

one by one

a game of reverse tetris

when we both let it go

when I let it go

when there is silence

when I'm not sure which step

to take

or which way

to look

when I look but I can't seem to find

when the music stops

when the music plays

when I wake up

when you leave

when I leave

when the plane picks up

and then lands

when I try to be poetic

when I try to be more

than what I am

when we play the game

are we playing a game?

when I wait

when I reach the sand

when I breathe

when I exhale

when I see you next

when the pictures move

off the walls

when the pictures move

onto the walls

when I take the picture

when we move slowly towards

the window

when the rain pours

when we forget it all

exists

when there is nothing else

when I open my eyes and look

into yours

when we laugh and know it's ours

when I recognize the impermanence

when I recognize the permanence

when I call you tomorrow

when we know it's real

even when it isn't

when it all seems so cliche

when it is all so cliche

but for fucks sake, that's why it's cliche

when we realize we don't care if it's cliche

when I look backwards

when we know what had happened

when I see the road behind me

and I know that it's all gone

when I know that it's all gone

and I'm finally able to let it be gone

when I don't care that I'm writing poorly

when I mail you that letter

when we get our consonants all mixed up

and when our vowels slur

It's been a bit of lull

but perhaps when I get back

will be when I recognize there is no real

ending

just the continuation of an

excessively long drawn out

overly repetitive painfully awkward

and terrifically

horrendously beautiful

waltz

maybe then I won't be so scared.

I'm sorry I forgot, but I can do it tomorrow