Vegan Update: On Being in an Abusive Relationship with Oreos

I always thought that being vegan meant that everything would be hunky-dory after a while. I thought I'd get a rocking bod, cravings would evaporate, and my skin would clear right up.

I mean, that's kind of what happened.

But there are cycles. As with anything, life happens and sometimes it's hard to eat right and get enough sleep and all that jazz. People don't seem to realize that vegan is not necessarily synonymous with healthy. To give some perspective, Oreos are vegan but eat a roll or two of those and tell me you don't vomit sludge.

It's been over a year now, and I've found that I get on streaks of good habits and streaks of not so good ones. When I'm good, I don't retain water, my abs are somewhat visible (depends on the lighting amirite), my skin is clear, and I don't crave anything. But when I don't make sure I'm sufficiently carbed up, when I eat too much baked goods and not enough veg, I feel humongous.

That's another thing: when you abstain from junk food for a while, the desire to eat it eventually goes away. But then your friend talks you into eating a donut and at first it tastes and feels foreign. It's not even good, all sugary and artificial tasting. But you keep chewing- God knows why, perhaps it's instinctual- and then you remember how you used to crave this stuff. And you crave it again.

That's where I'm at right now. For months I haven't had to fight myself, haven't had to clench my hands into fists whenever I passed a bakery. Now it's like I'm back to square one. And the worst part is, I know that if I have too much my skin will break out, and I'll feel sick and bloated for hours. Days, even.

I just wanted to share. Moral of the story? Beware of junk food...it's better not to cave at all, because it just leaves you wanting more. The industry actually formulates their nasty artery-clogging, diabetes-in-a-can, sugar-high junk to be addicting.

Who Should I See But the Spanish Lady

This day dawned cool and light, but soon the air began to shimmer with heat. So, on a Tuesday, in the final week before the start of AP testing, we went to the beach, Nina and I.

We spread our ratty towels out upon the sand, smoothing and fussing the sand until it suited the contours of our bodies, and threw ourselves down. Sweat burst from our pores. Everything near the ocean turns to salt, returns to water and wind.

Before the sun had time to sap all our energy, we waded into the the shallows. The water was very cold, likely due to a recent bout of cold weather rains (As if San Diego wanted to prove that it, too, knew what real weather looks like). My skin yearned towards it yet it crawled away from the chill.

Does there exist a greater glory than bathing your face in sea water and feeling the sting of salt like nettles against your skin? I am sure there isn't. Try it sometime. Cup your hands together and dip them into the sea, close your eyes and let the water wash over your face, running into your hair and trickling onto shoulders bared to the sun. Try it and tell me you are unmoved.

We began to walk along the water's edge, keeping our toes well-wet. We met a very interesting lady, who is the reason for this post. She was older- fifty-seven, she later told me- and standing by herself, clutching a white bit of cloth like a sarong.

Her skin was deeply tanned against a bright bikini and against her pink lipstick. She came toward us, smiling.

"I was wondering if you could please take a picture of me for my friends back home in Spain," she said. Her voice was marked by the same lilting cadences I'd heard in AP Spanish last year. Pretty.

"Of course," I said. "This one"- I jerked my head at Nina-" already made me take a ton." Nina didn't  have the grace to look ashamed.

"I know," the lady replied. "I asked some people, some other people, to take pictures, but..." her nose crinkled and she shrugged. Young parents in their neat t shirts and khakis would eye her aging body in that skimpy bit of nylon and spandex and usher their toddlers away. Ah, but not us. We who wore less and taught ourselves to appreciate the human body. "You do you" being the new generation's mantra. Sort of.

With Nina loudly recommending my skills as an iPhone, photographer, the lady (I'm really annoyed that I never asked her name) handed me her phone with a cheery: "Make it look sexy!" and stepped carefully a ways into the tide.

Now, I hate to brag, but I really am a top-notch Instagram photographer. I took some shots standing, then kneeling, then on tip-toes, tilting this way and that. I stepped forward and back, holding landscape, then portrait. I handed back her phone with a quality portfolio contained within it.

"Do you think...?" and she held up her sash hesitantly.

"Yes, yes," I said enthusiastically, and she bid me take more pictures as she tied it. I obliged. Finally, she came back and I handed back her phone for her to look over, offering to take more if she wanted me to. I was enjoying myself immensely. Nina was amused, I think.

"Oh-h-h...thees one's nice," she said. "You take very good pictures." I smirked. "I knew you would be good at taking pictures. If I had a body like you guys have, I would take pictures all de time." By this time I had decided she was a very nice lady, and considered inviting her to lunch.

We had a nice chat, about her children, about Spain. She was from Sevilla and upon hearing my gasp of recognition, was delighted to speak about her hometown. We spoke in Spanish for a little; she complimented my accent and I demurely accepted the praise.

She left rather abruptly, after imparting some words of wisdom.

"I got divorced, the best thing that's ever happened to me," and I choked a little. "Be good, be safe, be free!" She tossed the words over to us as she retreated. "Go, just go for it. Be great!" And with a farewell smile, her eyes twinkled, and we took our leave of each other.

Isn't that funny? To be young, then old, then young again. I think I will appreciate youth better then, not that I don't now.

The Butterfly

A butterfly lives in my mother's throat. I couldn't tell you if it's beautiful, but I can tell you that it's deadly. Sly, conniving, greedy.

I've never caught glimpse of shimmering wings, nor graceful legs, nor beady, buggy eyes. When my mother coughs, I stare at the greenish stain that blooms across her throat. I can almost see the delicate feelers, tickling her, forcing great, wracking coughs out of her.

The butterfly grows a little everyday. Slowly, they say, verrry slowly. A slow and evil approach, an inexorable thudding in her blood. It will not listen to reason, nor even threats. It invites war, for it thrives on chaos.

It could kill her.

Legions of unseen soldiers fight their way in, burning and razing all that stands in their way. The butterfly is their leader, their king, their God. Grown fat on her life, it heads its forces with malicious, malignant pleasure.

It's killing her now, and I can't save her.

My mother searches for God. A God within, or a God without- something to believe in. But faith doesn't come easy to people taught to survive without it, so she puts her trust in other things. Not in the Sun, who promises her to rise each day, and not in the moon, who promises to watch over her. She has no use for the oaths of waves.

She believes in people, men and women who wear cold masks to hide their sorrow and suits to hide their bodies. She has put herself in their covered hands. She has put herself in mine.

None of us can promise her anything like the sun, the moon, and the waves can.  The butterfly rejoices, an evil, ghoulish sound.

A Forest of Phantoms

Giants, they stretch bony fingers

to stir the clouds like a child 

disturbs the smoke of a fire.

Eternal, wise, older than Time,

(Time, that monstrosity invented by mankind!),

and powerless against the wearers

of so many fine, old rings.

They were once many,
filling the land

the way the stars populate the skies-

thickly, and with no end.

But there can be,

and an end seems fast approaching:

their deaths.

And so their sweet blood 

will shine darkly on the earth.

And so the nymphs will wander,

homeless, broken, lonely.

And so the bones of brothers

will burn or rot or lie forgotten,

as the ghosts

of giants stretch bony fingers

to part the rain

that finds graves and apartment complexes

instead of ash and oak.

The birds have gone. 

The berries have fled.

The rivers are brown with dirt,
their fish choked to death.

The child has grown .

The man is lured into the city.

He has left one graveyard for another,

in a monster that huffs

and puffs

and blows poison to the skies.

Phantom limbs sway

in so desolate a wasteland.

Their voices, once great and booming,

cannot move the stones.

They have joined the chorus in the sky,

the congregation of the old nations,

at the table of the ousted,

in the hall of the once free.

Ah, footsteps.

The man has returned,

tired of smoke and sick of steel cages.

His youth is fading, failing.

Too soon his heart will creak with years

it hasn't seen.

Old friends, he cries

as his shaking arms spread wide.

But the only answer is the echo of his own words.

Dust, blown by gray winds,

settle greedily on his shoulders,

hungry for roots to hold onto,

desperate for a home.

An old story, this.

Nothing but an old man,

come to pay his respects

to the companions of golden days past.

A squeal.

A giggle- brook music 

that hasn't sounded in years;

the streams to shocked to hear it. 

The stones awaken, daring, still, 

to hope.

It's a child, his daughter.

She scampers to his side, grasps his gnarled pinky,
brandishes her

stubby, chubby, grubby fist

like a knight might.

She holds in her other hand

new life.

A seed.

Witness to a Dream

I am swimming in a sea of faces 

that shine with anticipation,

glow with excitement.

Young faces grow up a little

and old faces are young again.

Bodies are rigid, tense,

or else writhing and undulating

like waves.

The thud, thud, thud

of a thousand screaming feet

can't drown drums,

nor bass,

nor strings,

nor man.

Man, that marvel that 

towers above the sea

as though it were his.

It is.

This sea dances for him,

roars for him,

foams and crashes for him.

Godlike, this creature

makes us forget the man,

for he is sheltered by glory

and protected by brilliance.

We have fallen in love

with his dream.

So I went to a Hozier concert in Vegas...

I kept trying to write about it in my diary after it was all over, but I couldn't. I couldn't talk about the concert, and I couldn't think about it. All I had was this huge mess of wordless thoughts that I couldn't make sense of. Although now that I think about it, that may have had as much to do with sleep deprivation as anything else.

The concert was beyond words. I had gone to concerts before- Carrie Underwood and Robert Plant when I was 12 and 14, respectively- but this was something totally new. I don't know if the difference is because I'm older now, or due to how close I actually was to him (front row), or because Hozier more fittingly embodies some kind of romantic ideal.

I thought about that a lot, actually. That we have such strong feelings, some of which actually feel like love, for a stranger. Someone we know next to nothing about, and it's because of this image that we inevitably construct, this presence that is felt by us. Hozier jiving onstage was Andrew living his dream, and he as much as us, was drunk off of it. That's what we fell in love with that night- that dream. Because we have no way of knowing the human being behind it all. 

I couldn't even listen to music afterwards, because recordings couldn't compare. I remember having that reaction after the Robert Plant concert too. In person, voices are so much fuller and richer, and the cellist, Alana Henderson, had a voice that was done a great injustice by the recording studio. Mind you, it sounded wonderful on the CD, but live it was something fantastic. 

I also discovered Low Roar, as they were the opening act. I bought their CD immediately after, got their autographs, took some pictures, and flipped out a little. Then we ran into them in the hotel the next morning, and got another picture. 

Usually Andrew (Hozier-Byrne) comes out to meet fans that stay behind, but the venue didn't really lend itself to meet and greets, so he never came out. I had brought Hotel du Lac (see that post here) to give to him, along with a note explaining the exceedingly romantic circumstances of my possession of it. "The hobo said he liked the sound of my voice, so I'm passing it on to you, since I decided I liked the sound of yours", or something like that.

Imagine my disappointment. I'm staring at it right now.

Next time.

Fragment: What Could Have Been

How the wind blew on that gray, blustery morning. I stood on the platform, train ticket clutched in frozen fingers with knuckles going white and a red jacket that blocked the wind but let in the cold.

The tension between us stuck and grew into horrible shapes. It was as though all this wind had been sent to blow it all away. Ah, but to no avail. I could see that the muscles in his jaw were clenched very tightly. He never so much as glanced in my direction, as if to see me were criminal. As though the sight of me was somehow shameful.

"You're married," I'd exclaimed.

"Yes," was all he said after the realization hit him, and that was the end of us.

In the faded light he looked old, so tired. It was heartbreaking to see broad shoulders like that hunch. I wanted to go over and put my hand on his back, maybe slip my arm through his, and look up into his face with wide eyes. But it wasn't my right. I had no claim to him.

I could see her in the ring that gleamed on his finger, the carefully ironed collar that peeped out of his coat. Her presence lingered in the scent of Cuir de Russie that had been rubbed into his skin from years of good-bye embraces. The lines around his mouth- his laugh-lines- belonged to her.

So I watched him board his train. I let him go back to her, his wife. I watched and shivered and wondered what could have been.