Realm of solids, I have returned.

On the second, I woke up to this text:

I’m delighted to say that I both had never heard of Bravest Warriors (thanks for the tip, Lizz!) and that my viscera hasn’t forgotten how to do its job. The latter blessing I attribute to my dear friend Alexandria, who surprised me with this incredible care package intended to gently repopulate my gut flora. I’ve been taking the papaya enzymes regularly and am just about to break into the kefir and tomatoes:

Alexandria came bearing this at my celebratory lunch at Cafe Flora, which I showed up to radiating anticipation. Shit, I came with costume changes–ball gown included. Instantly I realized my enthusiasm was going to be a larger obstacle than my anxiety or potential physical malfunction. Everyone insisted I pick dishes for the table to share, a nightmarish task my indecisive self. Half of the reason I’m vegan is because it lessens the burden of choice-making. I go to a restaurant and, through the principle of exclusion, my meal is pre-established. I panicked while reading the all-vegetarian menu and asked for a pen. I was very, very close to making a flow chart:

At the bottom of this post is an inventory of the food I consumed throughout the course of the day, and the first four items was what I settled on.

Included on that list are most of my reflections, but I’ll make a special note about the cinnamon bun. That cinnamon bun was better than any sex I’ve ever had. I would delete my OkCupid for that cinnamon bun. I would make bad career decisions for that cinnamon bun. I would call my exes if it meant getting to eat that exact cinnamon bun over and over again. I’m not interested in returning to Flora and buying another–it was that particular cinnamon bun that I would like to be converted into a .gif with. That cinnamon bun was the lantern that signaled, after 31 days of sugar-deprivation, that this weary traveler had finally arrived at Hyperglycemia Inn. Behold, my various stages of undoing:

I have a complicated relationship with sugar–you know that friend of yours that’s been on-again-off-again dating the same person for years? The person isn’t that bad, but they just make a bad couple? That’s me and sugar. Years ago, I spent 8 months without consuming an ounce of sucrose. Although I was bordering on orthorexia, these were some of the better months of my life: I felt incredible, both mentally and physically. That being said, during this time I was also precariously close to becoming a hippie. Thankfully, I started dating someone who reminded me that I liked Front 242 way more than “world music,” and that life isn’t worth living without puppy chow. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to find a place of balance for this extraordinarily addicting substance. I will never find this balance, as evidenced by the fact that I sugarcrashed my own maybe-date last night–I made the horrible mistake of drinking a beer and then eating an ice cream cone while hanging out with a new buddy. Everything was going great until 3/4ths of the way through my cone: when I closed my eyes, all I saw was the Blue Screen of Death. I declined an offer to get another beer and quickly explained what was happening, “Look, I haven’t had alcohol or sugar in the past 31 days. Something is going very wrong with my body. I need to go home… now.” I was the kid at the birthday party that had to go home early because he ate too much cake and needed a nap. I had plans to hang out with two separate crowds later that night and I foggily texted them cancellations–I hoped that my disjointed syntax would reveal what headspace I was in. One text read, “Sugar is so mean and there are echoes inside my head.”

I don’t remember the drive home, but I ended up falling asleep at 9:30 PM, fully dressed with my light on and door open.

This post has taken me a while to finish up, so in fear of continued postponement, I’ll quickly wrap up the saga of June 1st: for dinner, I went to Plum with a large enough party that it was near impossible to swing a reservation. Everyone was excited to watch the spiritually anemic girl scarf down her First Supper, it seems. Yeah, I kind of felt like the town heathen eating a communion wafer, or a feral child wielding a fork. What was most notable about this gathering is that D* was present–he had RSVP’d earlier, and I excitedly told a friend that he’d get to meet my Soylent Daddy. Besides being delighted to see him, I was glad I would have an ally in answering all the questions my friends had about the qualia of Soylent use. I’d like to think that my friends were welcoming to him, although his identity was established 15 minutes into the meal by my friend excitedly/tactlessly asking the table, “WAIT, so who’s the Soylent guy?!”

And because the internet was made for shit talking: it’s been five days and I’ve pooped eight times. At this rate, it will take less than a week to surpass last month’s poop-count.

AN INVENTORY*

Rosemary biscuits and gravy

Roasted pineapple pizza with cashew ricotta cheese and thai basil

Salad (kale, broccoli, carrot, cabbage, brussels sprouts, apricots, chia seeds, mulberries, almonds, and an apple cider vinaigrette)

Cinnamon bun

Four s’moreos (I hereby decree: they shall only be consumed dunked in milky coffee. They’re also pretty dope roasted over a flame, but maybe try a little harder than me and get something beside a butane lighter.)

Tequila and lemonade with chili pepper flakes

Avocado roll (with asparagus, carrots, pickled cabbage

Seitan french dip with rosemary fries and endless varieties of aioli

Potato and bean taquitos

Spicy cajun mac and yease

Chorizo taco

Seitan reuben sandwich (with the deepest of purple pickled cabbage)

Rhubarb custard pie with coconut crumble

PB&J donut holes

Huckleberry chip coconut ice cream in a sugar cone

That was a lot of text… but do you know what three words I’ve been saving for dessert?

Fuck you, Soylent.

* First off, how come no one has harangued me for my abuse of footnotes? It’s insufferable. Scrolling webpages aren’t supposed to have footnotes: there’s no page bottom. Readers, you are too polite for your own good. Secondly, this list is in order of consumption, all vegan, and most items were in tapas-sized portions–my insides are clearly still inside me.