Hold the Waffles

I think it's safe to say that this blog has no future, and shall hereinafter exist solely as a shrine to a good idea gone horribly wrong. Although if someone else wants to try the cleanse, I would be more than happy to pass the reins on. While most of my coworkers were supportive and bemused, one of them actively said he wanted to try it, so Chris, if you want to become the steward of Hold the Waffles after the LSAT's over, it's all you, buddy.

I would like to invite everyone to weigh in on the future of this internet journal. Can Hold The Waffles regain its relevance in a post-fast blogoscape? I also want to formally acknowledge Sarah's hilarious idea of changing "hands in the middle and then the up thing" to "fist up and then the middle finger." HA!

Friends,
After four days, the fast, it would seem, is over for everyone. After receiving word of Andrew's fast-breaking, I too succumbed to the dark side. And man, life is better over here. It's a magical world of food and joy, and, joyness. Candy Mountain, Charlie!
In the end, I guess I have to echo Joe's sentiments: After the enthusiasm and the team aspect crumbled, I found no personal resolve to fill this gaping hole. I wanted my life back.
I learned a few things about myself and my relationship to food through it all. Mostly, I learned that I am pretty much used to putting things in my mouth hole around the clock nonstop. It seems as though I am always throwing something down there to put out or start one fire or another. I wanted to temper this impulse, and I hope I will be able to now with a heightened awareness of my propensity towards pie-hole stuffing.
Ironically, only now has the tummy-cradling diarrhea really set-in. I guess I only have myself to blame as I broke fast last night with the following:
one raisin bagel with cream cheese
one guava and orange Nantucket nectar
one half plain bagel with peanut butter
many forkfulls of leftover jerk chicken
three brownies
one beer
So needless to say, my stomach's emotions are kinda like this preceding menu: hella crazy.
I am reminded of a Cam'ron song, called "IBS." This song is about irritable bowel syndrome. Here are the lyrics: http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Cam-ron/I-B-S.html
Anyone know how to post an mp3 on blogger?

The fast has gotten hella lonely. But Andrew and I press on! We miss our friends but we know that they are in a better place. A much better palce with more food.

Today was pretty ok. I find myself relying more and more on the drink for energy and sustenance. The first glug is such a rush! A glass gives me steam for about 2 hours before I crash hard again.

I spent most of my day reading A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr., a marvelous post-apocalyptic science fiction story that captivated me as a middle-schooler. I am revisiting it for the first time in about 10 years. Fittingly, the first third is about an young ascetic monk who must prove himself to the monastery by fasting in a nuclear desert surrounded by wolves. He is prone to fainting spells!

Hangin' in, but I'm fragile, man. So fragile. Against my better judgment, I'm going to a salmon cookout tonight. Not planning on partaking, or even staying for very long, but it's going to be hard to get out of there without any psychological damage.

We really do miss you Joe and Liz. But thank you for this gift of possible, short-term benefits to my colon and me.

Joe, Liz, you will be missed. I realize you did what you had to do. I'm not angry; I'm energized.

I'm not angry, I'm just...what's the word...hungry.

And I'm a new man.

I've taken away several lessons from this. The most obvious, of course, is that I'm a gluttonous, self-indulgent American fatass at heart, and it's not really in my nature to deny that for longer than about 60 hours at a time. Another is that the value of food goes far beyond its nutritive qualities: it's essential to things like comfort, satisfaction, general life enjoyment, etc.

But the biggest lesson of the fast as a whole has to be this: If you're going to undertake a project that requires self-sacrifice for an extended period of time (and in this instance, I think five days counts), you have to have it thought out pretty extensively. I went into this without a clear goal and without a clear rationale -- all I really had was enthusiasm, and after my second day on nothing but stupid gross lemonade, well, let's just say my enthusiasm vanished and left a gaping hole where my drive to the finish should have been.

I suppose I've probably lost blogging privileges, but no matter. In the words of Chris Rock, "Shorty can't eat no books."

It was delicious.

Another dream about having cheated the fast! This time it was a sandwich...

It was basically a flashback of last night's valet shift, except this time when Mohammad the gypsy cab driver pulled up outside the cafe with Roast Beef on a Kaiser roll, a Nantucket nectar, and a fresh, golden-wrapped Twix candy bar, I consumed all three instead of throwing them in the trash as tears streamed down my face (what really happened). Reaching across the passenger seat to hand me the grocery bag of goodies, he smiled his signature toothy wince and declared "She is a beautiful sandwich!" (in Mohammad's native Arabic all nouns are gendered).

Upon waking this morning, I took in about three quarters of Cool Runnings with John Candy and company on TBS. I had forgotten what a fantastic film that it basically is. Yet another example of the lost 1990's art of mixing feel-good chuckles with real drama and pathos. This movie spans across genres gracefully. Maybe I just love John Candy.

But back to the fast. It is going great! I am not hungry, the lemonade is tasting better and better, and the bowels are working (though the deluge hasn't really begun). I've abandoned the salt water flush because it makes me throw up a little bit every time. Oh, also, I have started putting in much more Cayan Pepper. It make drink hot like fiyah! Stay strong everyone!

I've lost track of what exactly we were trying to prove with all this. I'm hungry, I'm constipated, and I didn't even like lemonade that much before we started. Also I'm constantly cold and my "work" has been a total shitshow these past two days. Also also, that headache seems to keep coming and going. Also also also, I'm out of lemons as of this last batch of concentrate. Lunch (breakfast?) seems very appealing all of a sudden....

While Day #1 was downright breezy, today was not. I'm not as hungry as I thought I'd be, but I am too tired to blog.

Kudos to Ren for pointing out that we've totally ignored the major event of this Election Day 2006: the election.

I got my vote on so hard this morning. God, it was like whoa. The cleanse did affect my vote to a small degree. In an ordinary election year, I would look up who was running for which offices in my district, figure out their campaign platforms, do a brief analysis of the third party candidates (mostly, whether they had any shot and whether their messages were something I'd be willing to lend my vote to), and then select my candidates and memorize their names such that I'd be raring to go at the polls.

But because we're fasting and I can't have coffee, I just assumed I wouldn't be able to read the names anyway and voted straight Democratic ticket. Hooray for popular government!

I just received an email at work. The title of this post is all it said. The world is taunting me.

And more importantly, why no lamb chops?

After a ten-hour night's sleep, I am feeling well-rested and rearin' to go. I awoke surprised to find that I hadn't actually cheated, because in my dream I absent-mindedly gulped down a cup of coffee and was wracked with guilt. In this dream I was in a large, empty Victorian house in San Francisco, oddly enough, and all I remember is that I was alone and brandishing two little guns.

I am considering taking some Ambien tomorrow night (a neighbor of ours has quite a stash). That way I can raid the fridge in my sleep and no one (including myself) will ever be the wiser. The fridge contains left-over Indian yogurt, beer, and cream cheese. Oh, the possibilities.

In other news: I had a short stint on the can and it yielded 'mixed' results - no scrapings from my intestines just yet, just normal stool. Also, Andrew, how much of the tea does it take to 'get it going'? - we've gone from 36 bags to 12, and I have had 1.

For now, I'm off to Crunch No Judgments for some stretching in short-shorts, followed by an 8 hour Valet Parking shift. I'm riding high now, but for how long? Soon crankiness will be oozing from my pours. Stop by the Cafe to say hi!

The lemon in the corner of our blog is smiling at me.

Who chose this decor!?

In flipping through a stack of documents, I glanced upon the phrase "S&P approach" and immediately thought, "mmmm...spinach." I miss chewing.

In hot drink, the cayenne sinks. In cold drink, the cayenne floats. I wonder why.

I'm making my drink weaker today -- yesterday it was really strong and I started to develop an aversion to the flavor. Today it's much more like lemonade and less like CAT scan medicine.

First lesson of the cleanse: Once you drink the tea, there is no such thing as farting.

You know those guys who come to your "door" and try to "get through" by telling you that they're old buddies or friends of your parents? Well they're not. Don't trust them. Don't trust them at all.

Also, you may want to take extra underwear to work today...

The laxative tea is comforting, and a nice change from the drink, but it appears to be woefully ineffective, even after two cups.

Like our cleanse, this list of celebrities who have also done the MC was cobbled together with cursory and incomplete internet research:

+ Shakira
+ Jared Leto
+ Ellen Degeneres
+ Robin Quivers

And, of course, the one who lost it in all the right places:

+ Beyonce

The list would be longer if I still had access to my sister's US Weekly subscription, or if I were not falling asleep on my laptop, which I have cradled in my arms, in bed, right now.

I like it fine, but there's not enough food in it. I would probably drop the same criticism on the lemonade drink...it could use more...food. I am feeling a lot better than I was earlier and I'm really looking forward to some interesting bowel movements later on!

Who wants to come over for some tea and Brokeback Mountain tonight (or more episodes of The Wire)? We have a Homer Simpson head rubix cube and nice apple-cinnamon scented candle in the bathroom! It's goin' down on Grand Ave...

My head hurts and I keep dozing off. I haven't been able to do any real work, nor to engage with any real procrastination, so I've just been picking at the internet like a scab for the past couple of hours.

Just canceled my first and only appointment of the day.

The hardest part of the day thus far has been the lunch hour, and not just because I'm not eating lunch, but primarily because everyone else is: the smells, sights, and sounds of chowing down all around just serve to remind me that there is no Subway in my future.

Naturally, because I'm a masochist, I allowed myself to be dragged to a Veterans' Day card signing in a conference room upstairs. The firm essentially bribes people to participate in these things by offering them pizza, to the point where there's an exchange rate whereby you have to sign one card for each slice you take. I signed two, and the messages were kind of generic, but I think they may have meant more than anyone else's because I declined my cheesy, greasy 30 pieces of silver.

I am lying in the fetal position on my bed. I have never felt so alone in my life.

The drink is truly a tasty little sucker and I can already envision the shaky-handed-hurried-gulping of a few days from now when I am addicted. The salt-water flush, on the other hand, made me throw-up in my mouth. Then I ate the throw-up that was already in my mouth. Does this make me a cheater?
About an hour later I licked an envelope. Does that make me a cheater?
Now I am starring at a glistening scone, little black currents all evenly placed as if by the hand of God. I am thinking of dropping out and entering a hot dog eating contest.

It's lemony, it's sweet enough without being sickly sweet, and the minimal amount of cayenne I used for the first round was just enough to make it seem a little hearty. Also, it's good hot -- who knows if it's potable cold.

The Drink is pretty alright.

Liz, Martin, Andrew and I have decided, after much deliberation, to embark on an Odyssean journey of self-improvement and asceticism by way of the Lemon Cleanse. We came to this crossroads in our young lives by careful consideration of unsupported hearsay, citation-free websites, and the advice of several medical students that this might not kill us.

The procedure for the Lemon Cleanse (also known as the Master Cleanse and the Lemonade Diet) is roughly as follows: For five days, we will consume essentially nothing but a combination of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper, pursuant to the recipe found to the right. I believe the expectation is that we'll be consuming six to twelve servings of "the drink" per day, which will provide us with somewhere between 600 and 800 calories. Makes sense, right?

Liz and I just returned from our inaugural shopping trip to Whole Foods and Pathmark. Our total haul:

• 4 32-oz bottles of organic Grade B maple syrup


• 24 lemons, 4 organic and 20 conventional (for taste-testing)


• 3 1-oz containers McCormick cayenne pepper


• 36 bags "Get It Going" tea


• 2 26.5-oz containers un-iodized sea salt

Perhaps, dear reader, you're curious about the last two items on that list. The cleanse is designed to release and flush toxins from the body through the digestive tract. However, because maple syrup and lemon juice contain no fiber, a necessary component of the cleanse is the consumption of a salt water flush in the mornings and a cup of laxative tea in the evenings. This will make us spray diarrhea like firehoses. Heads up.

It's also worth pointing out that as young, urban sophisticates, we lead lives of significant excess and consumption. An unspoken but necessary element of the cleanse is the abstention from all other poisons, toxins, and drugs: no coffee, no nicotine, no alcohol. I can't speak for my comrades, I suppose, but I can guarantee that this will make me unpleasant, irritable, neurotic, and hopefully entertaining.

Naturally, today was an orgy of consumption, at least for Liz, Martin and me (Andrew left for work before the orgy began in earnest, so I can't vouch for him). Our friend Rahul came over to Martin's house and we cooked an extensive Indian feast. We gorged ourselves on chicken curry, drank two magnums' worth of mimosas, and polished off most of an ice cream cake -- all before 4:30. Stretching our stomachs to that degree was probably short-sighted, especially since a mere four and a half hours later, I'm already seriously contemplating what my last meal will be. Pizza?