blood boiling

yesterday my blood pressure was 100/65. thats average. i take my blood pressure at different points through out the day. yesterday, when it was 100/65, i was digesting. people say that when you get mad your blood pressure rises. one day i got myself really mad. i imagined some one who has a complete disregard for puncuality. i yelled, "how dare you?". i broke plates. then i sat down and took my blood pressure. it was 176/99. after that i tried to calm myself. i breathed in and out, in and out, and i closed my eyes and imagined warm sand between my fingers, picking it up and letting it fall through. when i felt calm and content i took my blood pressure again. it was 87/55. two complete extremes and i did it in under two hours.

blood pressure is the force of the blood pushing against the walls of your arteries. i take my blood pressure after i watch different tv shows to see how they affect my body. after the bachelor its fairly normal, 106/70. after fear factor its up to 120/75. and then after oprah its low, 95/67.

sometimes i lie in bed and try feel the blood in my veins, pushing through, always on the same route, out from my heart then down through my legs or arms out to my fingertips and back again. i lie and i try to feel the pressure of the blood against the walls of my arteries. i wonder if it gets bored, my blood, always going around the same track, like some doomed go-cart. it deserves a rest.

coming down

i saw tara. she ate today too. she described the process as anti-climactic. i'm with her on that. but i figure once i eat something really good, but bad for you i'll feel better. i'll remember why the last then days were so hard. she looks really skinny, and she was really skinny to begin with. i know its vain of me, and i try not to care, but i really don't want to gain the weight back.

good things about master cleanse:

1. lose weight
2. cleanse your body of toxins
3. challenge yourself. its a mind over matter thing. if you will it...
4. makes you turn into a hermit because you cant' go out eating or drinking and you actually get work done.

all in all i am please with myself and the experience.

master cleanse day ten: the apple.

i ate an apple today. you are supposed to ease off the cleanse with oj, then vegetable soup. but i wanted an apple, then i had a small bowl of raisin bran. it was so good. i am making the vegetable soup right now. its pretty bland. just veggies and water and simmer for hours on end. i don't know if i like it. your supposed to ease back into food, and not have dairy or meat, but i really want some toast with butter and some bacon. baby steps.

master cleanse day nine: taco bell is a slice of heaven

i really can't believe i've made it this far and i am still fighting back with all my strength the urge to take a bite of the mexican pizza from taco bell that priscilla is eating in front of me as i type this. you'd think that after nine days (NINE DAYS!) of not eating i wouldn't want to dirty my now pristine body with the sludge of taco bell. but no, i want taco bell, and i want a hamburger, and i want pizza. i love sludge. tomorrow is the last day. praise the lord.

i took ballet today and didn't feel dizzy. i didn't pass out dramatically while doing chaine turns. i felt good.

i am scared that once i eat food my body is going to start wretching and reject the idea. i hope it accepts the food. i accept the food. i want food.

master cleanse day eight: the end is in sight.

i'm starting to get so hungry at night. daniel made fish stick and green beans and creamed corn for dinner. it looked so good. then i was lying in bed and my stomach hurt it was so hungry. i had to get up and drink some lemonade. i am pushing through. i could have quit yesterday but i'm going for the gold. i day dream about food a lot. Yesterday blue cheese was a big part of my thoughts. its hard to believe its been over a week. i do feel healthier, but i am worried about sustaining this health once i start eating. and this weight. its like i'm 20 again.

master cleanse day seven: infinite peanutbutter

today has gone pretty smoothly. i am hungry. daniel is eating a peanutbutter and jelly sandwiche and it looks like the most delicious thing in the world. i am still on the fence about when to stop doing this to myself. if i wait it out i won't eat until thursday. that is crazy. but four days ago i thought not eating for three days was crazy, and i'm still here, starving. my body is reallly achey and i feel tired, just an overall sick feeling, but my body isn't telling me that food will make it better. right now i am thinking of it like this: that peanutbutter sandwiche will always be there, but this, the cleanse won't. peanutbutter sandwiches go on for infinite, but the cleanse has a stopping point. it will be over someday and someday i will eat a peanutbutter and jelly sandwiche.

i am not sure how much weight i've lost but if i have been continuing on the same pattern it should be around 10 lbs. i am wearing my old seven jeans that haven't fit in a year and a half. it feels good to feel like i look good. almost good enough that i can forget that my body hurts and my head is stuffed up.

master cleanse day six: sick.

i spent most of the day feeling stuffed up and crappy, even feverish. tara said she wouldn't say anything if i quit early. but i sitll feel bad, which bothers me. i feel bad for stopping early and then i feel bad for feeling bad. and i just feel bad physically. make it stop. i am not sure that eating will make it better though. last night i had a dream that dane and kim got me a hamburger and fries and i ate half of it without even knowing, then regretted it.

master cleanse day five: blah, blah, blah.

i feel better today than i did yesterday. my nose started running this afternoon though and i have yet to catch it. my mom thinks i am getting sick but i have to tell her and myself that it is just a side effect of the toxins being flushed from my body. here is the recipe for all the spicy lemonade if anyone is interested in trying out this thing for themselves:

10 oz. of water
2 tbsp lemon juice (freshly squozen)
2 tbsp maple syrup (organic is best)
a pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste, a little goes a long way)

i usually make a batch of 110 oz at a time so i times all this by 11. but if you want to make the lemonade just to try it out and see if you can imagine drinking it for days on end. keep the pulp in the juice, you will be grateful when it is the only thing you get to chew.

i don't know if its because i feel like i have a cold, but some soup sounds really good to me right now.

master cleanse day four: i am so bored.

i am worried that i will never be hungry again. really, i'm just bored with this whole cleanse thing. i might shorten the duration to a week. we'll see. i go back and forth. i get so down on myself for even thinking of stopping before the ten days, bu then i think, HELLO! YOU HAVEN'T EATEN ANYTHING FOR FOUR DAYS. PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK. or eat something. if i did shorten it i would probably resume eating on monday. i've already played the converstion i am going to have with tara in my head, so if you're reading this t, don't give me shit.

i really didn't feel well this morning. i had to leap out of bed to make it to the bathroom because the smooth move tea was making things move. then i couldn't get back to sleep because i was all stuffed up and i had a sore throat. and my heart was beating really fast. its scarier for some reason when you havent' eaten anything in over 72 hours and your heart starts beating fast. once i fell back asleep i had a dream i was going to faint and i yelled to daniel who was in the other room, daniel, i'm going to faint, as i fell to the floor. he yelled back, don't. i tried not to and woke up before i actually did faint.

that spicey lemonade stuff is good though. i've really been enjoying it. i need to make some more.

this whole cleanse thing has got me thinking about medicine and how we treat our bodies. i mean...i eat bacon everyday, and fries, and onion rings, and then i don't consume anything for four days except spicy lemonade, laxative tea, and water. i'm sure my body is upset. but i think i need to stop seperating my body from myself because this afternoon i noticed i was upset. but i've also noticed on this cleanse that i have had a lot of energy and been able to focus better. but there is nothing moderate about either of my situations. either i'm pigging out or i'm completely denying myself. the middle path...right?

oh, and i've lost five pounds.

master cleanse day three: food? what's that?

today was pretty uneventful. i wasn't too hungry, stuffs moving; i'm getting clean.

i wanted to share another sandwiche recipe but i didn't feel strong enough these past few days, but today i feel good.

spinach salad sandwiche:

wheat bread (toasted)
sweet and hot mustard or
dijon mustard
spinach leaves
bacon
hard boiled egg

its pretty yummy if i remember correctly.

another thing that is great: wondershowzen. if you have mtv2 and are available around 10pm, watch it.

my mom almost convinced me to quite the cleanse with spook stories of inflamed intestines from too much lemon juice. she says its too extreme. i feel like i am getting to the point of no return.

bacon-wrapped hotdog

FOOD. as i was walking back to the metro from the library all i could think about was the sweet smell of those onions and peppers frying at the hotdog stand that i would be soon smelling when i got off at wilshire and vermont. i wasn't too hungry when i woke up this morning and i haven't really had hunger pangs or felt like i'm starving. i just want the taste of food in my mouth.

master cleanse day one: dreaming of food

daniel was making top ramen and it never smelled so good. all day at work i could smell hot dogs and bacon, then i started dreaming about spicy bmt sandwiches from subway, then sushi. i'm hungry. i'm drinking my herbal tea now and i have had 60 oz. of spicy lemonade today. no food, some water. i feel okay, but i can't stop thinking about food. its everywhere. you don't notice it when you're eating it all the time. every commercial is about food. restaurants are everywhere. day one isn't even over yet. i have heard though that you reach some sort of wall though, where you just stop being hungry. i can't wait to get there.
tara and i are doing this together. we were already planning our the celebratory salad we'll get to have once we're done.

master cleanse eve

i am drinking my herbal laxative tea. tomorrrow i start drinking my crunk juice (spicy lemonade). i am a littler nervous, yet excited to start the cleanse. for some reason i am scared that it will work. the possibility of having a body free of toxins is scary because it is so hard to maintain, especially if you love toxins.

daytime t.v.

i was watching all my children today and JR was in his father, Adam's, face about how he ruined his life because of what he did to JR's mother, Dixie, and i remembered that the whole Adam, Dixie, JR conflict was happening right around the time that i started to watch. See, Adam was trying to make Dixie feel like she was crazy and unfit to take care of her son, JR. JR as just a baby when i started watching, and I was eight. So that means that in real life time JR should be around 15 years old, but JR has a child of his own now, and he has been married and divorced. I think he is probably in his late twenties. this is what i love about about soap operas, they exist in a timeless world. the day is never mentioned, or time of day, sometimes the same day is on for days on end. when edmund died a few weeks ago they pronounced the time of death, 930 am, but when edmund was hit by the shovel and caught in the burning stables it was clearly nighttime. time is so meaningless in soap operas. the other day ethan was on the phone planning his evil scheme to take down erica kane, and he said, "okay, we'll meet on tuesday." that has no meaning to the audience, when is tuesday? i don't know. everyone in pine valley just seems to float along, no real work to do, except of course getting away evil killers, plotting revenge schemes, and having torrid love affairs. i think that is what heaven must be like, a soap opera. this timeless place where every has nice clothes and you can always have fresh squeezed orange juice with breakfast and if you want it to be night so you can have sex on your satin sheets is automatically night. and even if someone dies, you know they aren't really dead, but just attempting to make a career for themselves outside of daytime television. you know they'll be back, they always come back to pine valley.