in other belated news, the diet has all but completely dissolved. one night last week (i believe it was around the 21st or 22nd) i called doug from trader joe's to see if he wanted me to pick up some clementines, and instead, he tried to coerce me into going to yoma for burmese food. i did not go out to burmese food. but by the end of the night he was on his way out to a bar with esther for belgian beer and fried food of some variety.

before he actually hit up the bar scene we did have a long (LONG) talk about what dissolving the diet meant and what the future of our eating habits would be. i'm not sure how well in keeping with this pattern he has been, but my initial goals have not really changed, i'm more just dropped the restrictions, which at this point were not really serving any purpose, and skipped right to the end of the diet, the hopefully sustainable eating pattern which was the diet's ultimate goal.

basically, i'm eating only whole foods, which means only vegetables, fruits, and seeds that have not been processed, or at the greatest extent of processing been either dried or chopped/pulverized but in all other senses remain untainted. the one exception is for cooking oils, which are acceptable but only if they are garnered through mechanical pressing and not through chemical refining. i can process foods however i wish, once they are in my own possession, so i can make bread from whole wheat flour, or tofu and soy milk from soy beans, should i so desire. and there are exceptions: alcohol, going out to eat, and eating dinner at a friend/relative's house are the ones i'm aware of, tho hypocrisy abound, and there are probably more. going out to eat is to remain a deliberate, intentional act, not one done out of laziness.

what i'm dealing with now, more than the idea of eating a whole foods/restricted diet, is the origins of my food. this has been weighing heavily on me since 1. i'm reading animal, vegetable, miracle, by barbara kingsolver, which is a book about intentionally eating only foods from local sources (mostly homegrown) for an entire 12 month period), and 2. because the additive method of the original diet plan meant eating foods that were significantly out of season and traveled a HUGE long distance to make it into my body (grapefruits from florida every day!! grapefruits are HEAVY!!). i realize it's not possible for me to eat foods only grown in my region (new england in winter isn't exactly abundant with thriving plant life) but there are significant changes i can make in the foods that i eat that will enable me to eat more locally. i'm thinking, specifically:

1. eat seasonal vegetables as the main staples of my diet: which right now means things that winter well, like root vegetables (beets, potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, garlic) and winter squashes (like pumpkin, butternut, delicata)
2. foods should not have to travel overseas to make it to me, especially when there is a completely adequate substitute available from a more local source: like buying rice that was grown in minnesota instead of buying basmati rice from india, and abstaining from bananas
3. buying in bulk, whenever possible: bulk foods mean less packaging, and fewer hands in the bucket. farmers themselves get more of the money when food is sold and purchased in bulk, and generally some of the savings are passed to the consumer. beans, grains, and flours are all available in bulk local to me here.
4. buying non-local foods in dry form: there are no seasonal or local sources of rice and oats. corn, yes, but not this time of year. so if they have to be shipped, since i DO need grains and beans to survive a winter in new england, they should be in dried form, to reduce their shipping and storing cost. so no canned beans. no canned anything. and no frozen anything, either. not unless i had the foresight to freeze it in my high effeciency freezer from my own harvest last summer (read: i did not).

of course these are just ideas, and they haven't been put into practice, much, yet. they are more just ideas of the direction i want to go, rather than an actual dogmatic practice i'm going to instate. but in keeping with the goal of reducing my own impact as much as possible, it seems the most logical extension of this is to shrink the footprint of my diet. and after having so completely altered my eating habits for the past month, i'm pretty well aware of how easy it will be to survive on the available options i've listed. oil, potato, and onion?? in fact, it sounds like heaven!

officially, obama is the president. old news, i know, but i've been working on writing down my thoughts on the subject since the day it happened, and it's been slow and arduous. here's what i've come up with: listening to his speech on the radio made me rather emotional. as far as politicians go, obama is really a pretty awesome guy. as much as a politician can or has, he totally rocks my world. before i left for the trail i was reading a lot of his...i forget what it was called, but the outline of the things he wanted to change, and feeling really inspired by it. it was the first time i'd ever really WANTED a politician to represent me. i actually felt positive about him, not just a lack of negative. i guess a lot of people felt that way. i'd venture a statement that has no statistical backing that even if he didn't receive an much greater number of votes than other winning candidates in the past, the votes he got were more impassioned by a landslide.

of course, a lot has changed since then. most significantly, a lot has changed in ME since then. and while i still think he's an amazing politician, and i think he is an incredibly capable and competent human being who, within the structure of our government and the representative nature of our political world, i am proud to have represent me, this time, for the first time, when i heard him speak i felt like there was a whole lot wrong.

let me first address what was right: obama has had an immense impact on my ability to think of myself as an american. that, to me, is the most important reason i like him. his opinion about what makes america excellent is grounded, and real; he promotes values that i can get behind, and makes me realize that they ARE, in many ways, the fundamentals of our society. that we DO have a culture, and that it isn't just consumption and greed. he points me to things that actually stand out as american in my mind, and they actually happen to be things i think are part of who i am as a human being. somehow, when he says we value freedom, it means something real to me. when he says we value equality, it means something real to me. when he says we value the pursuit of happiness, it means something real to me. he sees america as a country of people who came together, who united, and worked hard to build a place founded on these things. and he doesn't pay it lip service. he really means it. and when i think about it from that perspective, i really mean it too. these things are real, i care about them, they make me american, and they make me proud of being american. they are ingrained in my psyche; they are very much a part of who i am.

what is wrong, however, goes much deeper for me than what is right. it does not lie in obama (tho he buys into it), and it really doesn't lie in america (tho our country promotes it), either. the wrongness i feel is bigger than either of these, and it is about freedom in a greater sense. essentially, i have been gathering awareness that the whole concept of a political structure strikes me as, at a base level, wrong. that ultimately, freedom, equality, and happiness are best served by organization only a local level, and that small communities of people devoted to sustainability don't ultimately need the organizational structure that is national government, much like healthcare doesn't need and isn't served by the organizational structure that is health insurance, and that these large structures tend to weaken community and degrade humanity and the world we live in. embarrassingly, i think about the notice at t. j. scallywaggles that says, "anarchism is democracy without the politicians," and i think maybe i'm becoming an anarchist... genuine freedom, where everything is FREE, where work means toiling for what you NEED and sharing this with the other members of the community who work together to promote their own sustenance...it make SENSE. where artistic expression and social connection are the main elements of life worth pursuing outside of sustenance, and they are FREE. i love to poke fun at the 'organization' of anarchists and how cute those guys over at tj's are, and i realize that my ideals and the utopia they would create are probably unrealistic and absurd, but deeply, they strike me as appropriate, and actually real.

obama's speech really highlighted this for me in his (what was supposed to be 'inspiring') promotion of the (very american) idea of progress, and growth. we as a country and as a people, perhaps more dramatically than other countries (tho i'm not entirely sure of that) move ever further, every day, away from the realities of what it takes to keep ourselves alive, from our connectedness to the physical world, and towards an artificial comfort and idea of progress that doesn't actually provide greater spiritual, emotional, or health benefits. how does 'growing' the economy actually grow us, as a nation or as a people? how does giving everyone health insurance
actually make us a healthier people? what is hard work, what are freedoms, when they pertain to artificial elements of life, to acquisition of stuff, and time to be bombarded by media and superficial ways of having 'fun'? it's a very hard concept for me to explain because it feels so far reaching and unrealistic... but it also feels very deep and real to me. i'm gonna keep thinking on it. hopefully i won't let it drive me crazy.

but so long as i'm committing myself to being american, and while i find value in espousing my own americanness, and until i really do go crazy and hermitize myself or found a commune and secede from this country...in other words until i really go whole hog...obama's my man. even if i do find myself growing ever more disappointed in this country, and the idea of a country itself, i'm happy to give obama my support and proud to say he's my representative for at least the next four years. and, tho it's certainly belated at this point, happy obama day! the grapefruits are delicious.

last night i got a little manic, which happens from time to time. it's usually at night (i was up late last night going through old paperwork and cleaning my cabinet) when it hits, and then by the time manage to get myself to bed, i awake the next morning i'm stuck in the flip side. it's not so much depression, as it is a blah kind of mellow that makes me a less than agreeable personality. and pretty lethargic and disinterested in the general goings on of everything around me.

as for the diet: today we added barley. the unexpected side effect of adding barley, is that i have researched and now understand the process of malting, and have the welcome potential addition of a sweetener (barley malt syrup) added to my list of available ingredients. not that i've used it yet. but it's available...

doug made barley chapatis tonight, which were 100% delicious, and i'm not just saying that because they were the only 'bread' i've had since starting this diet. totally awesome. basically, flour plus water (enough to make a dough...) kneaded til it's fairly elastic, let to rest for at least 30 mins, rolled very thin (less than 1/8 in) with ample flour to prevent sticking, then cooked on a dry (floured) cast iron skillet for 1 min on each side. we ate them hot with a spinach, kale, and leek pate.

i really like food. and i want to work on a farm. that's what i've decided.

people (not surprisingly) keep asking me why i'm doing this diet. and tho i've tried to pare it down, and offer a simple response, no one seems to be satisfied with this simple version. then when i attempt to explain, in less succinct terms, why i would ever think doing this is a good idea, invariably i get confused responses and generally people think tell me i'm crazy. granted, on some level, this is actually accurate. and i certainly lead into the explanation a bit backwards, making excuses and concessions before i give people a chance to make their own judgements. but, i mean, really, it is kind of crazy. it's pretty far outside the norm, anyway. far enough, that crazy might actually be the right term.

so, why? the simple answer i give is, 'i'm trying to retrain the way that i think about food.' which is accurate. but obviously not adequate. what do i mean when i say retrain'? i guess, for one thing, food associations. i have a lot of them that i would consider unhealthy, and these i would really like to get rid of. the simple example, of course, is watching a movie and wanting to eat while doing so. the less simple, and perhaps less cut and dry examples, being the association between boredom and eating, entertaining and eating, and traveling and eating. at the very least, this process is helping to highlight the relationship between eating and these activities in my life. in general i cannot say if it is absolutely 100% better or worse to deny the associations, but i think it is healthier to understand that there is an association, and to be mindful of the activity of eating as unrelated to sustainence. yeah, i'm already aware of these associations. it doesn't take long of being on a significantly restricted diet before the nature of food in everyday life becomes very readily apparent. but i believe the longer i maintain the restrictions, the more capable i will be of maintaining the mindfullness even when i am allowing myself to 'indulge.'

other things i can think of off the top of my head that are part of why i'm doing this:

1. to better understand the food elements i eat, how they taste and what they can be used for: like how broccoli stems are totally delicious, but i'm not really all that into the florets, and apparently cauliflower is one of my favorite veggies, since i can't seem to stop eating it, raw, or roasted (but definitely not steamed). esther thinks we're using too much salt, but for my family i think that's to be expected (we're all fans of salt, and have been known to eat salt straight, from time to time). i think i'm learning to value the flavors of foods, as opposed to the values of fats and sugars, which appeal to base desires in the appetite. doug and i have been making efforts to eat the food basically plain, or with just the addition of salt, to really engrain the flavors of the foods themselves. additionally, i've been experimenting with different cooking methods of these foods as they are added. it's fun. it consumes most of my time. i like playing with food.

2. to increase variety in my newly vegan diet: really i have a pretty healthy diet. compared to a lot of americans, i eat a ridiculously healthy diet. but when doug and i made the list of all the foods we were going to eat, i realized how limited my ordinary food list is. while i generally eat whole grains rather than refined, and eat more beans and fruits and vegetables than the average joe, i mostly just eat bread, with 'butter,' peanut butter, or hummus. that's really what it comes down to.

3. to think of food as food, as opposed to the processed things we generally eat, and to learn to create food from whole ingredients: i think this one is the one i'm most excited about. In Defense of Food, by michael pollan, has really helped to provide a frame work for my conceptualization of food. not allowing myself to eat anything but whole foods (or whole foods i processed myself) makes it all the more apparent how much i don't do this under normal circumstances. i bake with crisco, since i can't use butter, and i butter my bread with vegan margarine. i eat cereal made by some factory, with vanilla soy milk also made by some factory. i have learned, so far, that the extent to which i have removed myself from the majority of the food processes involved in the foods i consume is really quite startling. after becoming vegan, i immediately began searching for vegan margarines, and looking at the ingredient list only for egg and dairy derivatives, totally disregarding the fact that i had no real idea what several of the 'plant derived' ingredients were, how they were made, or what role they actually played in the food itself. consider, by contrast, that i don't use personal care products (soaps, detergents, shampoos, etc) whose ingredients i do not understand, and basically this means i will only use baking soda, vingear, and pure soaps on my person, but that i was willing to eat soy protein isolate and calcium disodium EDTA... there's a significant level of hypocrisy in there.

i think in short, it comes down to being more directly connected to that which sustains me. food is important. it's VERY important. really, it's the most important thing. when i think about limiting the foods i can eat to those only processed in ways that i actually understand, and that, perhaps, with the right equipment i could do myself, for example replacing hydrogenated vegetable oil (of course trans fat free, but still) with expeller pressed coconut oil, i feel like i'm doing the right thing. it makes sense to me, and (thankfully) it doesn't deny me the ability to make pie crust. when i think about making my own breakfast cereals, trying to emulate the concept of vanilla oat clusters like those in the trader joe's cereal i used to buy, using real oats, evaporated cane juice (or some other natural sweetener i understand), soy milk (homemade, of course) and actual vanilla beans, i feel like i'm doing the right thing. it's a hell of a lot more work, sure. but like i said, food is important.

and, i guess, that's why. and, i guess, given the length and complication of the reason, that's why most people don't get the full answer, and don't understand. it's probably ok that most people think i'm crazy. it's nice to be sure, for my own sake, tho, that i'm not.

work was super frustrating today.

1. i work for a fat dog. and a dog owner who constantly feeds him food scraps. and despite the long talk we had about how the dog needs a diet, he continues to get food scraps, and i continue to be ordered to feed him a lot of food. which, of course, is fine, but then i get asked my opinion about the amount of food, to which my honest reply is, it's too much, he's a fat dog. which, again, is fine. but then i have to sit and listen to justification, how it's not really that much food, how it's ok, don't you think? it's only turkey, it's not fat... etc. which is not fine. it's incredibly frustrating. my opinion isn't going to change. he's fat. you feed him too much. justify it to yourself all you want. but i'm not convinced.

2. my boss forgot to submit the time sheets on time, so there was no money in the pot. and when, instead of apologizing, she suggested that she could pay me half today and half next week, i said, well, i need the money because i'm going away this weekend. and she responds, 'but what about the money you made from before, i mean, you still have that, right?' to which i want to reply, really?? that's so none of your business, i can't even believe you would bring it up. instead, i reply, 'that money's in a savings account, i need it for the future. i never touch old money.' to which i get some comments about how i'm funny...how i forget that i have money, that i don't need Need NEED it this weekend. but, begrudginly, ok, i'll find a way to pay you today, on your payday.

3. legally, the dog is required to wear a leash. i know this, the boss knows this. she trains her helpers to keep the dog off a leash, let him do his thing, and just sort of follow him around when he's walked. i've run into the animal patrol several times. every time they give me shit, stress me out, and threaten to fine me or her. every time i report to marin, and she says some crap about how jake's harmless, and basically should be above the law. not that it's the biggest deal ever, but how frustrating to be put into this situation where i have to risk my own emotional comfort and, even technicnally law-abidingness, in order to do what is asked of me, or in doing what i think is right, directly defy my boss, and face her disappointment and (intentional or not) emotional abuse over the subject.

4. it's effing cold. no, i don't want to walk jake, again. NO. i don't want to. if that's what you're going to ask, then no. i don't want to do it. if you want me to, tell me so. you're my boss. don't ask me if i'll be "ok" in the cold. i know it's not going to kill me. don't ask my opinion how cold it is if you don't actually intend to take it into account. i'm accomodating to you, and you know it, but don't try to guilt me into shit. either tell me to do it, or don't.

how trite, right? but i have such little patience for this sort of shit sometimes. it's so draining to maintain a level of composure when i'm expected to put up with all sorts of shit, and then just hang out and be a friend, also. i'm drained. i'm frustrated. it's effing cold. my skin hurts.

thank god it's the weekend.

wow i really want some tasty food.

not that i haven't been eating tasty food. tonight doug made cabbage soup that was most definitely delicious, which we ate over brown rice with a side of roasted acorn squash.

i mean, if that isn't good food...

but yet, i really do really want some tasty food. i think i'm an addict. i think it's that simple.

unrelatedly, but on my mind: after reading in defense of food, by michael pollan, i find myself thinking more about the relevance of the scientific method as a belief system.

i guess what that means is i want to be able to be cognizant of the idea that science IS a belief system. just like existentialism, or christianity. science isn't inherently right. it doesn't actually prove things. because things can't actually be proven. because what's to prove? how do we know? we created god. we created morals. we created logic. we created science. yeah, we're pretty awesome. but nonetheless, they're all human fabrications.

so i ascribe to the science religion, most of the time. mainly i want to be able to cultivate an awareness that what i'm doing, and what most people i know are doing, is ascribing to a religion. science and logic let me know things, the way that faith let people of christianity know things. of course i think my faith is right, and theirs isn't. but that's how they feel about me, also.

this is a touchy subject for me because it has a lot of implications i dont know i like...for example that as a belief system science gets equal footing in school as, say, christianity...that's scary.

maybe i'm way off base with this. it's just what i'm thinking about.

i'm not always trying to work out my personal philosophy. but usually i am. it's one of the most consistent elements of my life. if ever there was a meaning, the only place i could possibly be convinced it is hiding is in the search itself.

i talked today with brian about the difference between desire and pleasure. and of course this heightened the discourse in my head about the concept as well. most notably, why i find the idea of removal from desire, but acceptance of pleasure, to be ... well, desirable. i guess the main point is, in search for present tense, and an ease and happiness in the now, wanting something you don't currently have is admitting that your current happiness is really not enough. and if that's the case, if you're always working towards some future greater happiness...well, since ultimately you're going to die and it'll all be for naught, it makes the whole concept of life feel that much cheaper, and the lack of meaning all that much harder to take. i think, maybe, in my mental contest of desire removal, i became so covetous of the idea of not covetting, i lost sight of the reality, that now is all i have. i got trapped in the conquest of future greater happiness and felt so overwhelmed by it, and by the ultimate meaninglessness of it all, that i let go of my current happiness in the process... i think people do this all the time, but i was doing it, ironically, mindfully in search of the very thing i was destroying.

for now, to ease my mind and reach some sort of equilibrium that makes me content, i think i have resolved to not push my ability to remove desire beyond what is currently my comfort level, and while i will continue to see that as the best means to contentment in the now, i cannot deny it takes a level of commitment and spiritual development that i simply do not have. not now, anyway, and very possibly not ever.

ultimately, i really want to bake. because i like it that much. i'm especially interested in the idea of learning to bake delicious foods with veganism, and not with using lots of gross things like crisco. i dunno if i'll be able to shake that, anytime, near or far, in the future. of course that doesn't mean i give up on the diet. or scrap the idea of no longer eating processed foods.

tonight i ate quinoa. then i played with quinoa flour and rice flour and water. they are not as awesome as wheat flour. but they are still awesome.

i went home this weekend for my parents 'holiday' party. i dreaded it a bit, because of the tension i've been feeling with my mom lately over my life choices, and the fact that i would have to go to a party (something i generally don't enjoy), and if that wasn't bad enough, of course it was made worse by the fact that i wouldn't be able to eat the food or drink anything but water. it was ok. interesting run in with my parents' neighbor, who apparently has a drinking problem...but no one got hurt. party's over, i'm back home again.

what i wanted to write down was my thoughts re: the conversation i had with erik and his friend andy at night after the party. we went to andy's house and hung out in the hot tub for quite a while, then layed down in front of the fire place and talked for a while longer.

we talked about our jobs and our living situations. we talked about our previous romances. we talked about ocd, and compuslive behavior. we talked about food. we talked about existential crises. we talked about extreme minimalism, and hedonism. erik, of course, doesn't understand why i would ever do this crazy diet thing.

his point, simply put was this:

it doesn't matter.

more elaborately, if you can recognize that in the end nothing really matters, then what you can focus on is what makes you happy, not in the end, but in the now. do what makes you happy, for yourself, because ultimately no other motivation is real. i say, 'yes, of course, even selflessness is selfish in that it makes you feel good about doing the right thing,' and andy says, 'altruism is the greatest high there is.'

i believe it on an intellectual level (after all it is somewhat the definition of an existential crisis, that nothing matters), or i wouldn't be the atheist i am, going through the existential crisis i'm going through. but it is also obvious to me that on some level i simply don't accept it. i don't actually want to live in a world where nothing matters, because personal happiness, the living in the moment, feels like a terrible path to pursue, when i realize it isn't going to go anywhere, or add up to anything, in the ultimate end. i guess that might just be the caveat of self-awareness, and the bullet i have to bite so long as i remain in this life. generally speaking the solution to this problem is just to ignore it, unless i want to find religion, or enlightenment, neither of which i'm apt to do. ignoring it is what i do most of the time. like wikihow suggests, 'use a cleaning product,' and get up off your mopey depressive ass and do something other than think about it. it's never going to go away.

i will add, tho, that because of my naturally high level of empathy i cannot accept quite so simply the concept that personal happiness is the absolute only element of this life worth pursuing. sure, as a self-aware being, i realize that ultimately the only thing that can give me meaning is the present moment and what choices i make to govern my own happiness therein. but beyond that, there is a level of oweingness that belongs to the rest of the world. we each, every person and every other living being, have this same struggle and this same ultimate right: to find contenment/happiness in the current moment, and to be able to pursue this happiness for each successive moment in the future.

and so, i guess, what i feel is lacking from erik's method is perhaps that in addition to the personal pursuit of happiness and beingness in the moment, is a requiset understanding of how our actions effect other beings, and being mindful of not harming others or inhibiting intentionally or not) their ability to pursue their own contenment. for all people present and future. for other beings present and future. and herein ties my personal feelings about environmentalism and global sustainability, human rights and veganism, all via a general sense of empathetic kindness.

i'm feeling so good right now. wow. what a good weekend. how wonderful to finally come out the other side of a crisis, and having done so with a feeling of accomplishment, not simply compromise.

tonight we added sweet potato, and finished our schedule to the end of the game, one food a day for a total of 63 more days. notable exceptions are citrus fruits, which we add as a complete bundle on jan. 20th in celebration of obama's inauguration, and nightshades, which we add as a bundle because they were the original impetus for the project and we're sort of kind of still testing for a sensitivity to them. our diet will continue to be restricted through march 15th. after that, the opportunities are limitless, and i'm pretty sure i'll be hitting up yoma for some delicious burmese food.

on a more practical note, i ate squash last night for dinner, as steamed by doug, along with some rice. the night before was spinach, as wilted by me. both were incredibly delicious, and very satisfying. i have not noticed any real changes in my physical being, though i don't really expect to discover sensitivities. it is hard to focus closely on my body's physical state when i am struggling so deeply with more emotional and philosophical issues. i wonder if i DO have a sensitivity, if i will even be able to notice its appearance. tonight i eat kale. i'm looking forward to it.

and, concretely, my feelings about desire for food have developed a bit (thank god), through thinking about my desires for other things. i have historically enjoyed mostly textile based artistic endeavors such are knitting, quilting, upholstery. thinking about how readily i found myself capable of giving them up has lead me to realize, i still find pleasure in their acts, but no desire towards their completion. what i have come up with is that my desire is tied to the creation process. the ways in which i enjoy these elements of my life are always deepened the more fully i am participant, from the very start to finish, of any given task. why, for example, i found a greater joy in clothing when i started sewing my own. why, for example, i have always wanted to raise my own sheep, and spin my own wool. i enjoy being connected to these things entirely, to see processes and partake in them. my desire for (though not my enjoyment of) the process begins to drop, however, when i realize that i have no want for the finished product. i don't actually want a new sweater. i'm sure it would be pretty, but it would add bulk to my life; it is unnecessary. and so, while i can still enjoy the creative, and sometimes the meditative, process of knitting, i don't find myself really WANTING to do it.

but food... cooking... i have to eat. and more directly, i want to eat. i enjoy the end product, and so far no amount of logic or reasoning has been able to help me move beyond this. my instincts are strong, and senses are doing their job well. what is upsetting to me is that i do not find acknowledgment of this adequate. i do not feel, after recognizing that i have an intellectual desire regarding the creation of things and a sensual desire regarding the foods that i consume, that i am content to just live within these desires. i want to understand why! want there to be some sort of meaning behind them, or if there in fact is not, which i am of course the more convinced of, want to be able to divorce myself from them. but i then get trapped in the consuming desire that i deny myself, and the meaninglessness of a life that contains not only no 'greater purpose' but also no hedonistic elements to allow me to ignore the lack of purpose. what does one do with a meaningless life devoid of sensual pleasures? go crazy, of course, or at least from my perspective that seems the obvious path. i'm pretty scared of going that way...and when i say in jest that i am crazy, doing crazy things, i'm only mostly joking. but ceaseless introspection doesn't bode well for generalized sanity, and the further i push myself from the mindless norms that my society has develped for me, the harder i find it to avoid this level of self-contemplation.

i'm cooking rice in squash water, which is proving rather difficult, as the sugars in the squash water are 1. cooking, and caramelizing, and 2. preventing the rice from adequately, or at least as rapidly, absorbing the water. a problem i didn't forsee. breakfast is going to come late today.

marin told me this evening that since i've started this diet, she's noticed my distractability has increased. now i'm just better than average, not totally amazingly super human. i'm happy to let her believe that it's due to hunger, which she has naturally assumed. most people don't seem to grasp the nature of my real problem, my only real problem, and so trying to explain it is both exhausting and generally fruitless. it's definitely hunger, no doubt. definitely not some existential crisis that has been exacerbated by extreme living conditions and a heightened attention to the necessary elements of life. who thinks about that?

the thoughts are nothing new, and dealing with them is something i've been doing for a long time. i was of the mind that i'd gotten pretty good at it; maintaining composure, doing necessary things. not inverting myself until i disappear into a small speck of nothingness. of course i falter all the time: alone, at night, usually when i'm not sleeping, thinking thoughts that rarely articulate themselves into words. sure, sometimes it spills over into my days, and i sit and stare, or don't get out of bed, or generally fail to be what i've always referred to as an effective human being. but for the most part i can pull it together, save face, be totally amazingly super human.

i suppose i'm probably just like everyone else, really. it's change that most predictably forces my hand. no one likes change, right? i remember, in the weeks before college graduation, landing in a professor's office, barely choking back tears, feeling empty in ways i knew she was unequipped to deal with, and trying to hide it in a 'search for practical applications,' and a 'do this with your life' type of solution, neither of which did anything to assuage my real concern.

and now, ever more deeply, i find myself wading through the turmoil of change. i am taken off guard, in being shown how flimsy my facade of purpose and meaning truly is. i had assumed that changing my diet would not come to bear on my big picture issues. it would seem that what i use to sustain my body is of little to no philosophical importance, especially in relation to what i choose to do with my time, what for and whether i choose a life purpose. but as it turns out, the closer i come to understanding myself rudimentarily, manipulating my needs, examining how they interact with my desires, the more i find myself unable to relate to my own sense of self and the universe i occupy.

perhaps i am pushing myself too fast, expecting too much. it is one thing to finally exctricate superficial, culturally originating desires such are most possessions, fashion, even 'hygeine' in the overly americanized style. but those based genuinely on sensational experience, these things that i cannot remove from my body because they ARE my body? they have built me into the person that i am. surely they are not my livingness. certainly losing my desire for them will not cost me my life. but this thin thread of sanity to which i grasp, desperately, needs to be spooling from somewhere. all that i have built myself up and through, my life and all my experiences, are held together by what filament of meaning i have found in these apparently internally derived pleasures. or perhaps in a sense of righteousness that i find in examining them and developing my values around them. i have waged a war on my deepest sense of self, and daily i find myself losing battle ground; i am afraid i do not know what the war is even about.

and so i leave the dog food out on the counter. and have to enter a room twice before i realize what i went there for. sorry, marin. i'm just hungry. wait til i get more foods back into my body. it'll pass. it always does.

what are the elements of food that i care about? health, morals, and desire.

had a good talk with doug this evening about the nature of our 'goals' re this crazy diet, and how things are going. much is still to be discovered. but some things feel more real, and also just better in general.

for one thing, doug's goals, which are simple and totally achievable (i'm jealous) are just to not add sugar back in, and to eat more vegetables.

feels like, in brief, my (hopefully realistic) goal has been pared down to: not eating processed foods at all (and where the process line is drawn is yet to be seen, whether, for example, flour is acceptable?) unless i'm eating as a guest or out to dinner. and restaurants are going to become a strictly rationed sort of indulgence...once a ... week, every other week, right now as yet to be determined.

we made a list of foods. all the foods. all the ones that are vegan that we could think of. it's very long, but it has given us some direction, in that we will work our way through the vegetables quickly, and add one grain per week. hopefully in 2 months time we will have added all the vegetables we have regular access to, many grains, and maybe even a significant amount of legumes. and then we'll reasess, decide what the future of the diet is, if we're just going to do whatever we want, or continue with the orderly procedure.

i've been thinking about science. what it means, as a belief system. don't want to forget that. it's important.

i ate a carrot tonight. actually i ate almost 2 of them.

during the day today i felt confident resolve in my ability to do this crazy thing. i thought, 'i could go another day, hell, another three, on just brown rice.' my feelings of hunger were more easy to understand, and i had none of that weird physical feeling i couldn't place, but that was definitely rooted in the phsyical. of course, i have no idea if perhaps this confidence was born from the knowledge that i was actually not required to do it any longer, and that that very night (this night) i would, in fact, eat something other than brown rice. tho the thought definately crossed my mind.

more likely i think it is that i have found a significant motivation in the idea of no longer eating processed foods. i think of foods and the way i act as tho i'm addicted to them. i find my own emotions regarding food to be disturbing, and tho i still have these thoughts/emotions, the assuredness with which i find them troubling is a definite step in the right direction. and, regardless of my thoughts, i am proud of my decision to actually act. right now i feel like i did when i became vegan. i remember saying, when i first made the decision to do it, that i was 'trying to be vegan' and that i didn't have much faith in my ability to perservere. at this point i hardly question my ability to veganize (tho i do still question it's ability to sustain me on future endeavors, such are the pct and potentially even the bike trip i have planned for the spring), but i do still have some significant desires still lingering for cheese and more traditional baked goods.

the point i am struggling with most is still the concept of desire, and pleasure's role therein, in general. it is one thing to deny myself, another all together to actually cease feeling desire. denial, although it is difficult emotionally, is actually very easy. obviously it requires strong resolve, but that's easy to come by, at least in the short term. i have to wonder if some part of my subconscious allows me to play this game, in (assumed) recognition that it won't last forever. and yet my conscious is fairly confident in the idea that it will. here is where i find myself sticking. do i really mean to deny myself the known pleasure of eating forever? i realize, in asking myself this, that the answer is no. apparently i DO still want to want it. so what i struggle with is how to partake in pleasure, without giving into the desire that surrounds it.

still working on what it means to walk the middle ground.

change of plans. instead of new food every other day, it's new food every day. still starting with carrots tomorrow, then spinach on wednesday.

had a bit of a ... for lack of a better word, breakdown, today. it was very much harder being at marin's house, surrounded by really awesome tasting foods, and having to make so much of it for her, and not being able to eat anything. tho once i got home and nearly begged doug that we should eat the carrots tonight (of all things to beg someone for, "please!!! let's eat some carrots!!") and he was clearly the stronger party and said no, i started to regain some sense of that he was right. i mean...right...what is right? i have no idea if he's "right." but we made this plan somewhat arbitrarily, and i wanted to break it with just as much arbitration. my problem is that i cannot discern what my motivation is for wanting to eat other foods.

some potentials i have worked out:

i'm hungry.
i'm bored.
i feel a sensation in my stomach that is not hunger, but not normal, either, which i cannot place
i'm covetting sensual stimulation.

and, to break them apart:

i'm hungry: yes, it is true. i find myself feeling hunger quite frequently. but the hunger is ... how shall i say, not starvation. i don't feel like i'm weak with hunger, as i have in the past, most memorably when i was hiking. i usually have a hard time feeling true hunger (as opposed to boredom hunger, or desirous hunger), and while initially i was confident that the hunger i was feeling was a genuine, my stomach is empty, i have fasted long enough to need food kind of hunger, quickly (within 2 days) i have lost this sense of assuredness and am back to feeling incapable of telling the difference. more importantly, i want to say, so you're hungry, so eat. it's not as if you're not allowed to eat! but the reality is i'm hungry for other foods, and i guess because of this i can't tell if it's genuine hunger and brown rice is specifically not satisfying me in some way, or if it's just a desire for other foods that tricks me into thinking i'm hungry and then i arrive at this confusion because i am stuck eating just brown rice.

i'm bored: i spend a lot of time (i'm now finding out) in the kitchen either making or eating food. which plays into boredom two ways. 1, it occupies my time, and prevents me from being bored, and 2, it is what i choose to do when i AM bored. at least on one level i do not like this boredom correlation, because while i'm pretty sure i think preparing food is a fine use of time, eating to fill time is definately not. i find myself less interested in watching movies, even, because the related habit of snacking is less enjoyable, and therefore so the entire experience. the whole boredom thing leads me to much more troubling questions, like, what IS a worthwhile way to spend my time? while i think it's a great concept not to be desireous and, i guess, therefore, go with the flow, it drops me in a lack of initiative that without the right personal or spiritual or whateveral development i find incredibly boring! and i'm not enlightened. i'm not comfortable with having nothing to do! (unless it's what i want, but more often than not it isn't)

an odd stomach sensation: i haven't been able to feel full, in the typical sense. and while i'm not sure about the whole hunger thing (how much of my desire to eat is phsycial versus psychological) i am definately aware of a physical sensation which i do not believe i can definately identify as hunger. it comes and goes, and when it is there, i don't knwo how to interpret it, if i should respond by eating, by eating something ELSE, but it feels food related, and in part at least it makes me feel like i SHOULD be doing something different, not just eating brown rice, because it doesn't feel normal, and by extension not entirely healthy.

covetting sensual stimulation: pure and simple. food tastes good. brown rice is nice. but candy is delish. and in the stead of candy, even carrots are delish. while it is beginning to feel like an impossibility for me to completely divorce food from pleasure, it is still feeling like a significant possibility that i can use this expereince as a means of removing all processed food from my diet. my resolve is obviously strong, and so long as i make the rule hardfast, like being vegetarian or vegan, i think i can certainly do it. and i DO see real definite value in doing so.

day 3 of brown rice only. i do not, still, have a distaste for the stuff, although i find that i no longer enjoy it toasted, but rather prefer it to be sticky. and, today, finally, i have found myself not really feeling satisfied. i suppose not surprisingly. brown rice is clearly not enough to sustain a fully functioning, healthy body, and so aside from all the external cues that bring me to crave other foods, my body is probably also starting to notice that things are lacking. today for the first time i can confidently say my poop was made only of brown rice residuals.

but it is not just a craving for other foods that leaves me unsatisfied. i felt some lethargy today, as well. i will say, however, that lethargy is not a thing to which i was immune prior to beginning this diet, and certainly the feelings i had were not out of line with ones i might have under normal circumstances. but i did feel a vague sense of confusion, as far as hunger is concerned. maybe because i was bored, and didn't have anything i really wanted to be doing, which time i would normally devote to food (either cooking or eating). i was unable to tell if i was feeling hunger, boredom, or general fatigue. tho when i walked to the store to buy some drano i found my energy level picked up rapidly and i was glad to have made use of my body.

i look forward, greatly, to being able to eat a raw carrot on tuesday night. i look forward to adding more foods, and choosing which ones get added. i look forward (very far forward) to a time when i have to think hard to find a new food to add, and maybe forcing myself to continue this long into the future, when it will be a requirment not to restrict my diet, but to expand it.

i am finding this is a helpful motivator to remove (or at least identify) external motivtors to eat, such as standing in line at the drug store and not buying candy, or watching a movie and not snacking on something. the associations are very strong, and it is a forced effort to not give in. but something i am proud to be doing to myself.

i think it is a worthwhile endeavor to continue this pattern somewhat indefinately, only adding whole foods, and only eating processed foods that i have processed myself (with obvious exceptions of when i visit friends or family, and when i eat out to entertain friends or family). it sounds incredibly difficult, because i know how delicious most processed foods actually are, but at the same time feels like the obvious right thing to do.

why:

1. do we think 'progress' is progress?
2. do people of 'traditional' societies adopt 'western' and industrialized methods so predictably?
3. do we find aesthetic value and create artistic expression?
4. do we seek companionship that does not lead to self propagation?

it's a completely ridiculous idea.

doug and i started our mono-diet last night. for the next 5 days (ending on tues night) we're going to consume nothing but brown rice, water, and sea salt. then, on tues night, and on alternate nights thereafter, we will re-introduce one food into our diets, systematically. tuesday we start with carrots. thursday it will be spinach. from there, who knows. we have yet to decide.

it's not inherently ridiculous to do something like this. it was an idea conceived with sound reasoning, we were going to test ourselves for a mild nightshade allergy (doug heard that nightshades can exacerbate rheumatic conditions via alterations of connective tissue, and thought maybe it was worth investigating given our family history and current joint complaints). but that was months ago, and circumstances (mostly the holidays) caused us to put off the plans until now. it just so happens that its timing coincides with new years, but it is far from a new year's resolution. what is that one day to provoke a resolution? these last few months have been full of them. it has nothing to do with the new year.

interestingly, it really has nothing specific to do with anything, anymore. my knee pain has been steadily decreasing over time, and i have no real reason to believe that it is or was related to my intake of nightshades, delicious and deadly tho they may be. i fully assume it is the (unsurprising) side effect of 6 months of abusive action, and likely nothing more.

which leads me to ask, why am i doing this? on the immediate level, there really is no reason. it was an idea we had conceived, and there is no good reason not to do it, so if doug is still interested (and he is) i might as well humor him and myself. some sort of bizarre fun challenge. why not?? but i find myself thinking of it in a grander sense, that it fits into other changes i have made and i hope to be able to develop these thoughts and make them coherent so that i can understand them with something deeper than a vague sense of intuition.

practically speaking: today has been not so much of a challenge. the idea of eating only one food is currently very novel. and i actually really enjoy brown rice (tho not as much as the apples i walk past every time i leave the kitchen), and so far there have been only feelings of hunger, which can be at least temporarily assuaged by eating! i do however notice that i am not inclined to eat to the point of full, but rather to the point of not being hungry, and stop (an unusual action for me), which means i am hungry again sooner, but also that i don't feel as if i have mistreated myself by gorging.