The longer I give up a vice, the worse it gets. Giving up all but one of ‘em magnifies the whole thing beyond ridiculous. In my final stretch of this nonsense (ending Sunday), I’ve been reduced to pretending I’m getting away with something bad, when I’m really not.
I’m not the noble type. I’d rather feel like I’m breaking the rules any day, over martyring over it. Unless I can spin it to make you laugh, in which case, I’m a whore for an audience so I’ll take whatever I can get away with.
…It is because of this that I entered the weirdest part of detox, sometime late last week: Pretending I’m cheating when I’m really not…just to psych myself into accepting the loss and shutting up about it.
“What the hell does that even mean?” you might ask yourself?
…It means dressing things up naughty, in order to fake out your brain that they are naughty, so you can reasonably consider yourself not really missing anything at all.
I am lying to myself on purpose and pretending I haven’t caught on yet.
How fucking lame is that?
…It started with fizzy water.
…I’ve been drowning in it. It has long been my lack-of-soda fake-out, giving me bubbles that I miss, with zero nutritional cost on the diet end. Other than the totally unsatisfying side affect of a water burp versus a Coke one, it seems to do the job most of the time. But it stopped filling the void in week two this time. So one night, for kicks, I filled up a champagne flute with it, and popped in few frozen berries set afloat.
…Turns out, the glass is 9/10th of my brain craving.
…I tested this heavily across all last week. Non-fat milk in a tumbler doubles as a White Russian if you sip not gulp.
…Apple and cranberry juice in a wine glass taste 75% naughtier than when not in one.
…Hot black coffee with enough straight lemon juice to drown in, and a shot of cyan pepper makes a serviceable hot toddy on a rainy day…only for the love of god don’t try it an hour before bed.
There is, however, no pretense on EARTH that can fix the lack of whiskey.
…But, peppered and grilled garbanzo and kidney beans can give you the same general texture as chicken in a bowl of rice.
…Diced up colored bell peppers make even the most boring brown and pasty of foods look 300 times more appetizing.
…Steaming veggies in garlic to al dente makes shoving pound bags of em down your gullet a hell of a lot more interesting than raw salad number 456.
…After this, I frankly never want to see a piece of naked fruit again…but dried or in a roughly blended juice with some veg can get it down…if it is a sugar must…and keep you from wanting to hit over a convenience store for a Milky Way bar.
There is no cure for pizza.
…But you can in lieu of a burger with a warm turkey sandwich…hot meat (pardon the expression) is hot meat…you can wig your brain to believe it’s almost anything.
…Especially when you’re desperate.
Desperation also can replace brown gluten-free protein powder in water as chocolate milk.
…Make you think the 12 supplement and vitamin pills you pop every morning, full of various weeds and homeopathic hoo-de-haws, will expand and fill your tummy for hours.
…That burping up broccoli means you’re totally in shape.
…That NOT cheating for real, at all, even a little bit, naturally means you will finally drop that sixth fucking pound because: SCIENCE!
…That all the clay masks and lotions and steam showers will de-age you by 10 years, instantly.
…That it’s totally normal for your stomach to growl sonatas during quiet scenes in rehearsal.
…That the pregnant gnome eating 300 times a day to the point that she smells like pizza sauce and baked goods permanently, means that (eventually) her tummy will out-protrude yours.
…These are the lies I have been forcing upon myself.
…They are getting more outrageous as time passes.
…If I were doing this for 30 days instead of 20, I’d be wandering around in my fat pants again, pretending that they fitted like a glove only two days ago, and hula hoop the waist band to everyone I see…just to show how much weight I’d lost in only 48 hours.
…I’d dye tofu red and pretend it’s sweet and sour pork on rice.
…I’d throw lemon juice in water and call it a dirty martini.
…In short: the ending could not come any sooner or last-second than it is.
And I am glad.
Because, even for an actor, I’m running out of lies to pretend for myself.
…And also, I’m not so sure I’m buying the ones I’ve already been telling, to begin with.
~D
