Day 9: Laurs

Wow--I just read Mickey's post and can't believe he put himself through a late night of dancing at a club while on the Cleanse. There's no way you'll catch me out on the scene during my 10 days on the MC. As you remember from my own Day 5, I was JUST starting to get some energy at that point. The cleanse for me, winds up being a very quiet time, mostly spent at home reading (cook books included) and watching movies. I have this sneaking suspicion I'm going to get the party bug as soon as it's over. Look out SF.

So here I am with ONE MORE DAY to go! Well, if you count today, it's really 2 days. After I parted ways with Mickers yesterday, I spent the afternoon with my friend Wayne and his Canadian visitor. We wound up at this new wine bar, which just about put me over the edge. I don't think I've ever had such a difficult moment on EITHER Cleanse as I did when those Zin flights showed up. Luckily, our waitress knew all about the Cleanse and offered to bring me some mint tea, which I gratefully accepted. God bless San Francisco. In what other city is your cocktail waitress likely to know the ins and outs of the MC?

After my day out, I spent yet another night chillin' with my lemonade at home where I saw a commercial for National Easting Disorders Awareness Week. If ONE more person asks me why I'm not eating, I might just say I'm fasting in solidarity with those who are fighting an eating disorder. That's probably more believable than fasting for Ash Wednesday, which fell smack in the middle of my 10 days.

Anyway, it's almost time to eat again! Since today is a Sunday, I have some time to hit the store and get my ingredients for the Cleanse breaking soup. I'm planning to make the veggie broth from scratch, which I've never done before. And I'm going to use my trusty slow cooker. I'll report back on the results. I just hope it's not too challenging to cook when I'm not allowed to eat. So much for taste testing.

Day 5, Part 2: Mickers, Enough With The Cleanse, Time to Get Dirty!

I must say, I really packed in a lot on Day 5. The cleanse is like liquid crack. I get all this energy and I go with it. After the morning's fun with the salt water and dreaming of restaurants, Laurs and I went to Crossroads Trading Company with my bags of clothes that came from last weekend's Spring cleaning. This is the fun game of seeing how fashionable you really are. When they see something the like, they open it up and examine it: the collar, the stitching and if they want it, it ends with a number being thrown into the calculator.

All my dress shirts were entered into the calculator in a matter of seconds. But when it came to all my favorite T-shirts, they passed on them, all of them. Oh well, I couldn't be that upset, I walked out the door with $60.00 and Laurs found an amazing wool coat while I was doing my trade-ins.

Next, I was off to work, for a solid 4 hours of organizing and client appointments. After work, I swung by Out of the Closet. Its funny how they have it set up at this store. You are giving them things for free for them to put out in the store. But, unlike Good Will, where the drop off is in the front, they make you walk all the way through the store to very back to drop things off. Usually I wouldn't complain, but I had three garbage bags in my hands overstuffed with clothing and that extra 100 yards was agonizing after walking a block with these bags from the car.

After my Out of the Closet excursion, I joined Adam for tea at Cafe Flore and watched him eat a lamb burger(my favorite item on the menu). It was pure torture for few seconds, but I pressed on with my mint tea. We went on to pick up Celeste Marie who surprised me with an amazing Valentine's day gift. A book of postcards called "The Secret Lives of Men and Woman" compiled by Frank Warren. This book is a collection of postcards sent to Frank Warren with peoples deepest secrets... the one I love is "I exchanged sex for a cab fare" and the postcard is a picture of the meter that says $0 blow job.

We picked up CM's friend Erika and were off to see Blood Diamond and I must say that little Leo has grown up and is HOT! It was quite the action-packed gory movie. We learned that during scary parts, Erika covers her eyes, Celeste curls up into the fetal position on her chair, Mickey half covers his eyes, and Adam has stone cold emotions and doesn't flinch. After dropping the ladies off, Adam and I rallied to go out.

After 5 days of the Cleanse, it was time to get DIRTY! Adam, Stephen, Cory and I went to show our faces and get down at DIRTY, my friend Sean's dance club at the Cat Club. It was a blast. I saw people I hadn't seen and while and the music was great. I was doing fine up until someone started talking about a lady with a cart outside that had hot dogs wrapped in bacon. In the words of Elle Woods, OMIGOD!. That is my favorite heart attack pleasure of all time. Deep breathes, Mickey, deep breathes! I lasted about an hour and I was wiped out, arrived home a 1 am and went straight to bed.

What a day!

Day 5: Mickers AND Day 8: Laurs

Its Saturday morning and we are slowly working our way through the morning salt water ritual. In an effort to take away the emotional pain, Laurs and I started looking at menus of restaurants that we would like to visit once the Cleanse is behind us. So far here is our list:

1. Nopa (Mickey has a gift certificate!)

2. Millennium (Lauren has a gift certificate!) Side note: This is a veggie restaurant and I usually turn my nose up at these, cause veggie tends to mean sacrifice, but this menu looks amazing!

3. Cafe Gratitude Side note: This is not only a veggie restaurant, but goes a step further, in the tradition of Maddy and serves only RAW food (all raw fruits and veggies, nothing cooked above 116 degrees). All the items on this menu have ridiculous titles that follow the form "I am____" i.e. " I am satisfied," "I am peaceful." Last time I went with Lauren, the only thing I had to say was "I am God damn still hungry!" Lauren was "ungrateful" for my comment, and asked that I keep it down, for fear that the freaky waiters (that gawk at you while you eat) would hear my cynicism. She loves that place...

4. Salt House - This little gem is the sibling of Town Hall Restaurant, which I love, love, love. Wait did I tell you how much I love this restaurant? Salt House looks to be just as great as their original creation. We are so getting the Shellfish Plateau, which includes fanny bays, buckley bays, and miyagis (both Laurs and I love us some oysters).

Please let this diet pass quickly. I'm now drooling...

Note from Laurs: Good morning! I'm still here at Mickers' place. We just finished our salt water and are about to launch into the day. Just a quick note to say that we're NOT going to overeat at any of these restaurants, so help me God. We weighed ourselves last night and this morning and we're each down 5 pounds!

Day 7: Laurs AND Day 4: Mickers

Here we are--together! This is Laurs and I'm here with Mickers at his house. He rescued me from a sushi restaurant where I was stopping by to say hi to a friend. The sushi looked DELICIOUS and Mickers pulled up not a second too soon, like a starving knight in shining armor.

At the moment, Mickers is zipping around his apartment cleaning and organizing. Apparently, he has all kinds of energy while on the Cleanse and precisely zero tolerance for clutter. As I type this, he's scrubbing his stove top, recounting his day's adventures. I just learned of his horrific experience walking by Subway and Hot Cookie and the bagel shop. "All I could picture, Laurs, was the pesto bagel with veggie cream cheese, some red onions and a tomato, toasted of course." And he didn't BELIEVE me when I wrote about my superhero sense of smell. Touche. Note: I will NOT be walking anywhere NEAR Hot Cookie. That place has Cleanse-breaker written all over it.

Off we go to snuggle up on the couch and watch Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic wiith our mint tea. Later in the evening, we'll spice things up and switch over to the chocolate Senna. Racy.

Day 3: Mickers

Ok, so this day was difficult. I started to have the cravings which I mocked everyone else in our extended family of friends that are currently doing the cleanse for having. It started in the morning, I could taste the scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, onions, and mushrooms mixed in and some chicken apple sausage on the side. The only way to rid my brain of this was to take a big swig of my lemonade and think of work, the gym, anything. Next came the drive past Peet's and thoughts of my soy latte.

Luckily, I was swamped at work and didn't have any more cravings until it came time to go to Legally Blonde with Laurs. Then I called Laurs and told her to come out and meet me at the Falafel place across the street..... Omigod, Fa-la-fel..... Ok, so Laurs gets in the car and starts trying to make plans for the weekend. I can come over on Saturday night and we can order in. Um no Laurs, already have plans on Saturday and neither of us is ordering in. Anyhow, the show was OMIGOD! FUN! ...

Laurs: Day 6

Today was another good day. I woke up feeling OK and even managed to break into a jog on my way to BART when it started pouring. I drank less than 64 ounces of lemonade today (about 58), which is new. For the past 5 days, I've been knocking back at least 70. Glutenous, I know.

At lunch today, I decided it would do me well to take a walk. I originally planned to hit Safeway and buy some cereal for when I'm off the Cleanse but rethought that idea once I envisioned myself cruising by the deli counter and having to wipe away the drool upon feasting my eyes on the sushi section (God, I miss sushi).

So, I went to Boarders instead where I bought 2.....cookbooks! It may sound counterproductive to stare at pictures of yummy recipes when the very thing you're trying to forget about is food, but it's somehow satisfying to read ingredient lists and casserole tips even though you can't eat the results. I guess it's the same concept the porn industry is built on--get as close as you can to the real thing.

At 7:30, Mickers picked me up to go see Legally Blonde, the musical. I had heard it was good, but I didn't expect how much fun it would be! The audience was laughing throughout the show, and your two favorite Cleansers were no exception. Luckily, the theatre was dark so we could safely drink our lemonade.

Sitting comfortably through the show was a milestone for me. Last Cleanse, Mickers and I went to see A Chorus Line (we're both HUGE fans) and I made the social faux pas of hitting the bathroom during Cassie's "The Music and the Mirror" number. We were with a friend of mine from work who had brought his partner (they're both NYC theatre vets). The two of them shook their heads at me in disappointment as I hopped out of my seat. Ok, I get it, it's an "artistically significant" performance but give a sister a break--I had consumed 64 ounces of lemonade that day and I had to pee.

The next day in the office, the word had spread through the gay rumor mill that "Lauren left the theatre during, get this: The Music in the Mirror!" I couldn't so much as walk past the reception desk without getting a tisk tisk. Well, I'm pleased to say that this time I missed neither "Omigod, You Guys" nor "Is He Gay or European?"

Day 2: Mickers

So today went fairly well. Got through the day without any major cravings. The only thing that caught me off guard was when I ran into someone in my office eating a salad. A salad with a lucious yellow pepper and nuts with a vinagrette dressing. Oh my god, I'm such a nut. Anyhow, powered through today. Went and got a deep tissue massage. Oh my god, i love deep tissue massages. then made the dumb mistake of going to meet my friends for dinner at Cote Sud. While sipped on nothing but bottled water, they had a fiest. Carl started with a belini stuffed with salmon and drizzled with a creamy sauce and topped with sour cream and caviar. Gabby had a tomato claufuti, looked amazing and fortunately, I didn't see what her boyfriend Jed ordered. For the main course, Carl had... ok I have to stop. I finally had to leave in the middle of their main course because I could feel my stomach growling. I ran across the street to Cala and picked up some more lemons. Unfortunately, they did not have meyer lemons, so I settled for the only ones they had. Came home and settled in with my Mint Tea and continued my spring cleaning. The one bonus of the cleanse is that I get these amazing spurts of energy all day long. Ok, i'm finally winding down and getting tired. Until tomorrow...