8th day of Lent (a Rant)

WARNING: This isn't going to pretty, and there's no redemptive, cathartic moment.

Do you know what really pisses me off?

Yeah, `phfina! the crowds, in ecstasy, cheer, what really pisses you off?

Well, okay, since you're so insistent in your demands, I'll tell you. What really pisses me off is ...

Food.

Look, okay, I haven't been hungry, at all, in a while, but, no, I can't be caught not eating because ...

... and no I don't suffer from anorexia, thank you for your concern ...

... Just because. Because everybody eats, and don't you want to be like everybody?

Yes, I do. @_@

What's wrong with you, `phfina?

Look, I don't have all week to get into that, so let's stay on the topic at hand.

Okay, so I had a bowl of cereal and an omelet yesterday morning. Healthy breakfast, yes, and 2 pm rolls around, and I'm still not hungry, at all ... but, I gotta eat, because I gotta eat, otherwise, people will notice.

And we can't have that.

SO, I go down to the cafeteria and get a roast beef sandwich, ...

And here it comes, ladies and gentlemen,

And I bite into the thing, and ... nothing.

It had NO taste whatsoever! And you know why?

Why, `phfina! Why!

I'll tell you why! Because it was processed from source to consumer, that's why.

Look, okay, I'm not a health food nut, okay? I'm not a granola girl, but by God, this kind of food is turning me into one.

What kind of food, you ask?

(`phfina waits for you to ask, you give me that 'asking' look, which I'll have to settle for, I suppose)

This kind of food: Amerkan kind of food.

I mean the bread: meh.

But the roast beef? It was probably cornfed and factory processed, the poor cow, so it probably had more carbs than the bread did, pound for pound, because it was absolutely tasteless, and then the sandwich, heavy on the carbs, had one tomato slice.

Let me tell you about the tomato slice. I looked at it.

Can anyone spell HGH for me?

Jesus-God! I could actually see the bubbles of nitrogen quick-expand it into 'maturity'? No not that, because it was red-dye colored! SO OBVIOUSLY so that it was a grey-green red.

There was absolutely nothing nutritive in that tomato. NOTHING!

That sandwich.

God!

That sandwich exemplifies one side of the equation of: give the people ('cattle' or 'rabble') what they want.

Absolutely bland, absolutely tasteless, with enough high-corn-syrup energy to get the 'fuck-me-up-the-ass, boss' secretary through her utterly bland, faceless, boring day, another day in her pointless life as a consumer who's job it is to keep Corporate Food America so deep in profits they ...

... I can't come up with a witty analog as my mind has been stulified into submission. 'Must consume more empty calories!'

The other side of the equation is this: 'Oh, you want to taste your food? We'll put some taste (salt and sugar) in your food!'

You go to restaurant these days and you can actually brush off the salt encrusting every item of food fast-food served to you.

And why?

Why, `phfina!

Thank you.

You know where restaurants make all their money?

The drinks.

Do you know how much it costs to produce a glass of Coke(™)? With — get this — 5 TABLESPOONS of SUGAR! in EACH glass?

Less than a penny.

How much did you just spend for that drink with your meal?

Free refills? FUCK the free refills. The refills are FREE for THEM!

Do you know what it costs ME for you to get your free refills?

Diabetes, kidney and liver failures leading to insulin shots, and medical emergency procedures (operations, dialysis, and what-all else) that I have to pay for with money I DON'T have in my company-'sponsored' health insurance 'premiums'!

'Pre' as in 'pre'-shock before I die looking at how much we are all paying for the sum total of this world-wide now epidemic of gluttony of the senses.

Oh, but we're not at a restaurant, ... we're at an Irish pub now, being served what?

Fried fish and chips, of course.

And beer. And beer. And whiskey with the beer.

When I go out to eat, I want to drink, and drink and drink.

Do you know how much it costs to produce a bottle of beer? The beer company owned by ... wait for it:

Frito-Lay and the Coca-cola company.

Don't believe me? Look it up by tracing the chain of holding companies to the source company.

It costs about the same to produce a can of beer as it does to produce a can of coke (or 'Coke(™)') (they are as equally addictive anyway, so it doesn't matter which one you call it. I know, and more on that in a mo')

But how much did you just pay for that beer? $5? $6? $7? Or for the 'hand-crafted': $8, $9, or $10?

What the fuck is 'hand-crafted' beer that's been so mass-produced that it ends up right the fuck in front of you in a restaurant that buys it, along with a hundred other restaurants that buy it, to so conveniently serve you your fucking 'hand-crafted' beer?

Okay, real reason for writing this post.

I don't know if I'm supposed to say, but I'm going to Hell anyway, so what does it matter?

I gave up drinking booze for Lent.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I've been dry. And for a few days before Lent, because I didn't know I was gonna do this, so I didn't go Mardigras crazy, ...

... like I did with my other vices ...

for that.

I was going to go on a water-and-light-fast diet for Lent, and, for the light fast, I'm doing that, anyway, because why? Because I haven't been hungry for days.

Actually I think I'm sick...

And DON'T GO THERE on the 'yeah, we know you're a sicko, you crazy bitch,' this post isn't about that if if you want to read about that ... well, read any of my other posts...

... as I've lost my voice and stayed home today from work, not even getting up until 11 am, but guess how many calls and emails I got from HR and Payroll and Accounting about this, that, and other.

I mean, GOD! I'm gonna die someday, people, can't you do your jobs one day without my help?

But the water fast?

Here's where I'm back to the coke. Or Coke(™)

I went on a water fast Ash Wednesday.

And got a caffeine headache so bad it almost was a migraine.

Yes, I get migraines. Stress, don't you know.

So, I'm back on coffee and diet, DIET, cokes, but I ...

I can't taste the coke anymore.

I'm addicted. I've been trained to be a good little addicted consumer.

But, so, hm, how to salvage the unsalvageable?

Besides the 2012 Armageddon.

Listen, people, I'm gonna start packing my own lunches, and I don't care about the office talk about "oh, look at `phfina, she 'packs her own lunch'!" Gossip can subdue other people, but I sick of being a slave to Food, Inc.

And, really, folks, look at buying from ... idk ...

Okay, my nieces, they grow their own peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots, they gave me some.

You know what real pepper tastes like? It doesn't taste like airy cardboard. It tastes like pepper: sweet, juicy, delicious.

THAT's what real food tastes like.

They grow these things in their backyard, in 'Square-foot gardens' 2 feet by 3 feet. That's all the room you need to start getting your own health back!

Now for the drinking thing: I actually don't miss it. I actually didn't notice that I didn't miss it until I wrote this entry. It's like I psyche myself into thinking 'I need a drink' ...

Are you an alcoholic, `phfina?

Yes, thanks for asking. Do you feel better than me, knowing that you got me to say I'm an alcoholic?

'Are you an alcoholic?' You know, people who ask that question, all concerned, so that they can know you're an alcoholic, but then don't take the only next step, and put their whole life on the line to save you?

The can go FUCK THEMSELVES!

FUCK I want a drink so bad right now.

You know why I gave up drinking for Lent, even though I don't drink every day, and I don't need it, and all the other excuses I tell myself every day?

Because of Saga.

She read my entry, Party Girl, and you know what she did?

She became ... No, she is. She is a strong person. And she wouldn't let me get away with me shitting on myself.

She stood, and she asked me not to drink, because she loved me, and didn't want me to throw away my life, like she seen her sweet, smart friend do, and she did this when it was inconvenient, and impolite, and she got the sharp edge of my tongue.

But she did it, she put her life on the line, for me.

And what did I do?

'Eh, I don't have a problem.'

And kept drinking, sometimes. Well, continued to drink, okay?

So now ... eight days, no alcohol.

For you, Saga.

But why? We're not together anymore, right?

Saga. I love you, and I want you to see that I've 'moved on' and that I'm 'better.'

I have moved on. I try not to think about you every day so much, and hurt myself. And I'm 'better,' see? I'm not drinking now.

So, will you please move on, and be better? no, not better: Happy.

'Happy' in that you know you've done good and you are good. You've done the right things, made the hard choices, and now, ...

Now you have your life ahead of you, and I so, so desperately want you to be happy in the life you choose now.

Are you already, and you haven't written, because I'm a footnote, and there's nothing to say anymore? I hope so, God I hope so.

I hope it isn't that you can't write to me because you are hurting inside, that I hurt you, and all you think you'll get from me is spite, anger and recriminations. I have, and will always, admire, respect, and love you. You are a light to the world, Saga, you were my light, my reason for living when I had no reason for more than a year, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Please, Saga, know that. Know what you've done is good and right. Know that I admire, respect and love you.

8th day of Lent. No drinking. Not for me. I could care less about me. For you, Saga.

Now, as for the I'm going to Hell bit, that's a two-liner.

Anytime you put anything that you have to have in front of God, you're a goner.

I tried giving up coke, and my body just said nope.

I didn't even try to give up masturbation, a grievous sin, and thinking about not even trying to give that up has got me stripping in bathrooms and coming up with such lurid images that I've rubbed myself raw these last few days.

I am utterly hopeless and a lost, damned soul. It says it right there in the Bible, where Jesus, no, St. Paul says that's the worst sin, because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and anything you do to yourself (and he mentions masturbation) to defile that temple is a direct sin against God.

And if God said, 'Don't masturbate for one day and you get a free pass into Heaven'? I'd be like, 'reverse-Lot' where I'd try to 'jew' him up? "When you say 'don't', God, is it okay if I do it just one time?" "How about two?" "Three?" "Five?" "Ten?"

... "Fifteen?"

"God, is it okay if I do it just fifteen times today, because just thinking about not doing it has got the endorphins going and, ... well, you know ... kitty needs pats!"

I am an addict. A slave to booze, coke, and kitty.

A modern day girl, a faceless consumer, right out of Atlas Shrugged.

And you hold out such hope from my redemption.

Silly you.