The Sultan of Celery

Tomorrow marks the one week anniversary of my diet. It's the same diet practiced by the OT and one of the nurse's where I work and with whose fluctuating bulges I've become acquainted, as they have with mine. Actually mine weren't fluctuating, just billowing. They didn't think I'd do it and frankly, neither did I. Such a goal fell into the category of "long intended" as in "the road to a heart attack is paved with good intentions."

The tipping point came three days before Christmas when I had a near fainting spell at the holiday crowded, muzak infested supermarket. I paid the cashier in a daze and using my shopping cart as a walker, trembled to my car. I felt pretty bad. And there, standing by the open trunk, not even bothering to transfer the bags of groceries into the car and out of the falling snow, I dug frantically for the Newman's Limeade and shamelessly guzzled a good quarter of it straight out of the pour spout, the sugar fix and bracing freeze bringing me back to life. I found some Frito's in there too (I don't usually buy them but it's Christmas and I must have my traditional garlic dip which can only be scooped with Frito's). And as I stood there, amidst the detritus of snack food in the fallen snow, I realized that there were some far reaching health consequences on the near horizon which were not acceptable to me, extreme discomfort whenever I tried to tied my shoes notwithstanding.

For me, being on a diet is definitely miserable and practically psychedelic. Without the snacks which I use to measure and mark each movement of the sun, the granola bars, the chips, the bowls of cereal, I'm adrift. Without those ducks to guide my trek through each day I frequently come up short at thousand foot drops and roaring streams. Without my carbs to guide me I'm a husk of a man. I guess becoming a husk is the goal here so I must be doing something right. My refrigerator, which for the first couple of days was reluctant to relinquish items which I longed to swallow but was no longer allowed, has bit by rotting bit begun to hack up each spoiled nutritional deficit and is beginning to take on the look of a refrigerator belonging to a person who I don't know. It's the feng shui of health and hunger.

All routines built around carbs and sugars have been dismantled and stacked outside in the snow, alongside this year's Christmas tree, recently dragged off the third floor in a murder of dried needles. Half and half in coffee; gone. Granola bar eaten on the way to work; gone. Each delectable snack, tender ministries to the tensions of the work day; gone. At lunch, my customary home made burrito has been replaced by a Great Dane sized tupperware container full of lettuce and baked chicken breasts. Oh lord! Last night as I walked thru the grocery store I almost fell to my knees in the shadow of the valley of bread and ice cream. My prayers for a cup of sweet juice mocked as another shopper edged around me, slightly annoyed at my reverent pause while she piled her shopping cart high with cakes and calamities.

I'm told that one day I will walk satiated thru each hour of my life, at peace with my last meal, and genuinely looking forward to my next. That one day I will rightfully wear the crown of the Prince of Protein; the Sultan of Celery. But for now I'm mocked by my own grumbling belly and cruelly taunted by Faustian visions of sugars and carbohydrates which promise me a moments peace, for piece of my moments.