Review: 3 Day Juice Fast

Due to the manner in which I Pac-Man ate my way through the holidays and due to the number on the scale that manifested as a result, I put my new juicer from Santa to work upon our return to TN. I elected to do the 3 day juice fast that the fellow who is no longer fat, sick and nearly dead touts as "jumpstarting" a healthier lifestyle. As my personality tends to Overdo Everything, I thought a 3 day juice fast was right up my alley. It's just part of my contract that I must Overdose on Everything I Enjoy so much that I develop a deep and abiding repulsion for things like Aunt Annie's pretzels of which I once ate 3 in one sitting. GOT CARBS? I can juice myself silly and then I'll be so excited to go back to chewing real food that I'll have a visceral reaction every time I eat a cupcake, triggering the ominous threat of going back to juicing if I dare.

So, the juicing. It was fun to make the juice. That new Breville machine could probably grind a Redwood tree trunk pretty gamely into a nice bark-juice. Lovey Loverpants bought me a bounty of kale, carrots, onions, peppers, and we had loads of grapefruits and oranges. I had a good time with the prep.

Day 1 of the juice fast was...you know. Cleansing in a way where no one can get near you (see also: hazards of eliminating fiber from your diet). By noon I was getting hypoglycemic and I needed to think clearly to finish my semester syllabi. So I ate a bowl of almonds. Otherwise, I was good with the fruit and veggie juice for the rest of the day. Which is to say I didn't eat anything else and by 8 p.m. was begging the man who was hitting my head with a meat tenderizer to stop (see also: the worst headache of my entire life). So I went to sleep and woke up ravaging for food.

Day 2 I woke up hating everyone. The thought of juice made me gag. I ate some oatmeal and felt no guilt. For lunch I had some juice. A couple hours later, I had some more juice. By late afternoon I was so cranky and my head was hurting so bad that I just started speaking blather. Who knows what I was doing. Probably shouting out all of my banking passwords to the people at the express check-out who had the nerve to be buying Little Debbie Snack Cakes at a time like this. By dinner I was feeling faint so I begged Loverpants to make me some rice. By 10p I still had a dull ache in my head. I went and grabbed a piece of chocolate and within 20 minutes my headache was gone. I slept the sleep of a milk-drunk newborn baby.

Day 3 I woke up and stepped on the scale. I was already down 3 lbs., probably from the stress and water loss alone. I decided to leave the juice cleansing to Gwyneth Paltrow. Later we went to Waffle House and I shoved the buttery waffle into my wide-gaping maw and praised the God of the Universe for giving us the ability to chew.

I still enjoy the occasional veggie juice, especially with the assistance of my deputy juicer.

Awkward Hands

Took a gander through the photo archives yesterday and met a girl on Memory Lane who had terrible troubles with her hands. In fact, every time I saw this girl, it was as though she was afflicted with a palsy of awkwardness and could never seem to figure out what to do with her hands in the wake of a camera flashing in her face. Now, things were not always this way. Once she had moxie. She had pinache with those hands.

But then she just started clenching them and wearing an expression that's sort of...meh.

Again with the clench and the meh.

Oh look, girl, you're graduating from the 8th grade! Clench those hands! Look a little more meh why don'tcha!

Oh, or just grab some sausage. That's not awkward at all.

There is no help for this girl.

Can we draw our eyes to the extreme white knuckle clenching going down pre-sophomore dance?

Oh wait! A glimmer of progress!

Oh, that's SO MUCH better.

You know. Maybe you should just grab the nearest Korean with those hands and call it a day.

Knee socks

Twelve years of Catholic school learnt me sumpin': 'Tis better to wear knee socks.

When you have twelve solid years of polyester skirt schooling, you know that there is a strong chance of self-imposed air conditioning. That is, occasionally, you will be wearing a skirt and suddenly you will feel a slight breeze caress the backs of your legs. Occasionally, that feels a little too northerly. And, en route to the mall or the bus stop after school, where no doubt a bus of heckling schoolies from an enemy institution will inform you in no uncertain terms that you did the unthinkable, you realize: you did the unthinkable.

You tucked the back of your skirt into your tights. If ever there were a time to resent the implications of control top, it would be now. Control top gone off the heezy yo.

With knee socks, except for the occasional lazy elastic, a girl faces no such threat to ensemble.

Don't cry for me, Leggs brand pantyhose. I never left you. I just got smarter.

I kept my promise. Never to impose air conditioning on my nether thighs again.

Viva las knee socks.