Nibbling

Beginning on the midnight between April 21 and 22, 2013, my next 457,200 seconds will be a test of human will and stupidity, with many considering it the most difficult 127 hours endured, by anyone, ever. I will only be permitted to ingest Hershey's Twizzler Super Nibs, with one daily multi-vitamin and bits of water also allowed to keep me from actually dying. Rajiv will be substituting Hawkins Cheezies® for the Nibs during this same period. I made the mistake of questioning his ridiculous claim that he could "eat only Hawkins Cheezies for the rest of my life" (Rajiv, April 2013), and it turned into this. I'd like to admonish Steve, Aley, and any others who supported this endeavour. It would have been nice to do this in support of helping hungry people, but since that would have required effort I would instead like to invite you all to give your leftovers to homeless people.

Hour 0: This isn't too bad. I don't know what James Franco was even complaining about. The red and pink colours gleaning off the plastic package still remind me of delicious, but for how long? The honey crueller, once my favorite dognut at Tim Horton's, lost its prime position after I found a leftover one under my bed as a child and subsequently microwaved, ate, and vomited it. The Nib may soon suffer a similar fate, but I hope that there is enough nutrition somehow infused into the licorice to help me through this. Let's see, we have (in order of appearance) corn syrup, sugar, wheat flour, corn starch, palm oil, salt, and some other shit. Got most of the foody groups covered here. One serving, which somebody deemed to be three long sticks of Nib, provides to me 1g of protein and 2% of my daily iron intake, which is all that anyone needs to live, according to the internet. And holy shit there's not even one trans fat! I may come out of this healthier than how I entered. Or I may die!

Hour 9: Today I awoke, with only a cherry-flavoured candy on my menu, for the first time in my life. Sure I'm getting hungry. But who wouldn't⸮ (That's a rhetorical question mark. I was about to make up my own but this works fine.) So most of my previous days begin with me eating a double-egged omelet, a few bacons, hashbrowns, gluteny toast, cinnamony beans, coffee, and some fruit. This initial obstacle, overcome by a meal replacement of 1 Nib, was easy enough, but I have already begun smelling random foods and near-foods in my house. Throughout the rest of the day I eat about 16 Nibs while recognizing that I am actually just going on a reasonless hunger strike that also facilitates cavities.

Hour 18: Exhaustion levels are fairly high, and Nibs are now taking up my entire mind. Kelly already believes me to be an idiot for following through with this bet, but now she is forced to hear me refer to Nibs in 60% of my sentences. In the middle of watching a movie, however, my hunger disappears. That's the biggest hurdle, and I once again expect smooth sailing.

Hour 34: This is about the time I am considering calling Rajiv and reasoning with him that this madness has to end. But there's an interesting quality I seem to possess that prevents this from happening, which some call pride or stubbornness. I want him to give in first, but I also know that he won't. I'm counting on him actually needing energy over the next week, while I could realistically lie in my own bed and filth and not be needed by anyone else. That sounds sad. Maybe Nibs cause depression. Maybe depression causes Nibs. Maybe Finkel is Einhorn. Nobody really knows. I like to cook, and I feel like this diet is giving me the chance to try out new techniques. Today, Nibs will be boiled, fried, sauteed, and poached. Tomorrow, the moon.

Hour 39: I guess I agreed to this detox of sorts because I wanted to experience something new. I'm currently at the longest period in my life that I have gone without food, and yes I am fine with omitting Nibs from that category. I can't really think straight anymore. I was hoping to extract some creativity from all of this, but I think the Nibs are inhibiting any brain activity. In-nib-itors. Never mind, my brilliance is back. So there's a good chance my body can't really handle this. I am ready to quit. But I won't. I have no idea what I'm proving, or to whom. When I realize this, which happens every few minutes, I'm ready to quit again.

Pretzel Nibs. Taste like pretzels.

Fried Nibs. Taste like fries.

Nibbling: Part Deux

Hour 45:

I am at the Bellow Yelly (that's as close as my lawyer will allow me to write, ever since the Him Torton's debacle of yesterday). I've made a huge mistake. There is food everywhere. I'm now being referred to as "the Nib guy" by people who see me stumbling around. This is bigger than me now. I can't give it all up and float into oblivion. I can't let myself be forever suffixed as "the Nib guy who couldn't hold up his end of the deal" while Rajiv basks in his Cheezies victory. This town is too small, so I must persevere. Earlier today, I instinctually picked up a free donut, only to throw it wildly at the wall when my memory kicked in. So here I am, back in the present, smelling leftovers. I go through all of the motions of eating nachos besides actually letting them pass through my mouth hole. Nobody appears to eat all of their food here, but everybody talks about how full they are. I am repeatedly told that it's my own fault that I'm not eating, but I don't buy it. They're just being e-nib-lers. That was supposed to be a play on enablers, but even if that was obvious the context may still not make sense. I am falling apart.

Hour 57:

I'm beginning to see why all those poor people don't like it when they don't get to eat. It's actually quite difficult. I am once again breaking my fast with a single Nib. This is the first one that is making me seriously consider giving up the candy and just living on water. Nibs are pretty much shit. Hershey's will never call me a "true Nib fan" now, but I need to get it out. Instead of yearning for these days to be full of variety, I only wish Rajiv had chosen a different food for me. I have a perpetual stomache, and the organ in question is making strange modulations that sound like I ate a living elderly man who is now screaming to get out. But I did not eat a person, mainly because no one is a Nib. Not truly, anyway.

Hour 63.5:

Halfway. I cannot wait for my Sigur Rós moment, as a family of bacons finds me at the seventh a.m. this Saturday. Until then, I scour my surroundings for distractions. First, I co-directed my first 6 second 5secondphilmaloney Me eating, then not eating a Nib. I began meditating today, and also writing club hit songs about my feeeeeeelings. Mind over matter. On the fence, in a bubble, stuck between a rock and a hard place. I am no longer a systematic food addict. I get my energy by staring at the sun, like this fella (Sun Eater). I am clear now. No longer will my time be wasted thinking about, buying, cooking, cleaning, eating, and shitting food. I am productivity. I am a product of activity. I am alive. I hope.

Nibbling III: Still Nibblin'


Hour 90:

I'm going to assume that it's still not cheating if I'm eating my own stomach. I am weak, tired, and constantly dizzy. I have written this current sentence upwards of thirty times, deleting each previous string of words. I'm not happy about that one, but I have no idea what else to do. I'm nibbed out, and I assume that I will lose some readers with this post. I am contemplating why this had to be the one idea we actually followed through on. The lights in my bedroom are leaking water. The thermostats are too, but with them it's almost expected. The next mini bar I open will probably have a miniature jazz band playing on the shelf under the freezer. I wonder what actual human sound can best be heard from a distance if you're in trouble, because it's probably not help or fire or grape. Maybe "Urgnhhh"? Here is a very incomplete list of some foods and drinks that I like to food and drink: bacon, bodadoes, bread, beer, broccolo, meat, strawberries, scotch, gin, cashews, cheese. My attention span is being whittled away. However, my body does appear to be working at perfect efficiency. And I just bought a new sheep for my computer. Things are looking up.

Snacking Nibs

Boiling Nibs

Smoothing Nibs

Hour 117:

This self-induced hell is almost over. I am listening to The Waiting in my head while pseudo-referencing "Five days?! But I'm hungry now!" and hallucinating a tractor followed by a line of ducks. I am planning my first meal. I wonder if any prisoners cook their own last meal. I would. But I'd sneak a key and a postcard inside one of the foods to aid my escape to Mehico. I don't know why buddy couldn't cut his arm off ten hours earlier so I could go drinking tonight. Ah shit, immediately after typing that I noticed Ray pu tit on his Facebook. We probably talked about it earlier, or maybe not. I played tennis today, which in hindsight was a mistake. Conserve calories, I learned but did not heed. I'm also on my way to a place surrounded by food and booze, and I feel quite awful. I couldn't eat if I wanted to, I'm convinced. My manual override would not be in effect at this point. I need to finish this, for whatever reason I had at the beginning.

The most beautiful screenshot I've ever taken

Hour 127:

I awoke at 6:55am, sans alarm clock, of my own volition. I thought there would be more of a sense of accomplishment, or at least one balloon. I lost three pounds, which realistically I couldn't afford to lose. I expect it to return upon the first non-Nibby bite, but I also have no idea how anything works. People have been back and forth as to who had an easier time this week, myself included, but I just need to say I never felt like I was competing against Rajiv. We were in it together, fighting against common sense and ourselves. Throughout the duration, we would discuss different rule nuances as well as our respective deteriorations, both with outsider stati, attempting objectivity. I've been telling people about my planned first meal, and yesterday I made a trip to the land of food to pick up the missing items. Two eggs, filled with onions, mushrooms, peppers, garlic, ginger, broccoli, and cheese; three piece of bacon, downgraded to turkey bacon because it was already in my fridge; hasbrowns, of the Cavendish variety; toasted bread with avocado; beans, upgraded to beans AND wieners when I realized they still existed; and coffee and orange juice, which now together remind me of Louie and Hogan referring to Steve Pike. Instead of all of this I ate half an orange, and to be honest, it didn't taste that great and I don't feel Eddie Vedder. Fortunately, my mother just delivered me a pot of food at the end of the Nibby rainbow. I expect to throw up at some point today. 

Conclusion and Recommendations:

Final grocery bill - $12.00
Final poo tally - 0.

Final brain processing - low to very low.

Final Hershey's Twizzlers Super Nibs sentiment - they're slightly more disgusting than they were five days ago, but to be honest, I wasn't that big of a fan anyway. 

In closing - I would like to say that I learned and gained nothing from this experience, and I recommend that nobody else ever do this ever again.

My Life With Natalie Portmanteau

     My downfall is my mistress, my mistress my distress, my distress is my language. Human speech and writing evolved for convenience, to facilitate communication, but my brain views them instead as a gateway to the imagination. The sindiscretions that English elicits from me have grown to levels that are no longer acceptable in my social and professional circles, and I fear that the sphere of my knowledge is diminishing. My crypticness crept along at first, slowly building a foundation that, unbeknownst to me, became me. I used to be like you, just an average man whose mode was to mean what he said without crossing the enigmatic median. Recently, however, my inventing of words and their resulting reactions have become seri-issues in my life. Many linguistic concepts are involved, with the most prevalent and relevant involving the assemblage of adjacent words. When a similar syllable occurs at the end and beginning of two consecutive respective words, I indulge in the prefix-suffix dance and am forced to forge the grouping of letters. The unification complete, my mind finds a peaceful state, one pleasant enough to have made me begincreasing the use of these new words into my vocabulary. I can recall the exact moment my addictionary started, when, standing alone in a mutual friend's kitchen, I overheard a conversation between strangers and the man on the left referred to the record that was playing as an original album. Unconsciously, I glanced in his direction and said "originalbum". He chuckled and commended my new word, and he even recommended I write it down, but if he could foresee the destruction that would lead from his instruction, I can only assume that he would have said and done nothing. I enjoyed too much witnessing the happiness that can stem from my word play, but it has turned into work, and I'm an aholic.

     Soon after the chance encounter at the end of the counter, I discovered that the term for such combining of words is "portmanteau". Even typing those eleven letters consecutively causes in me a tingling sensation, the mingling sophistication of morphemes pronouncing itself with such subtle beauty. Etymologically, it comes from the French for "door coat", which is not only illogical but is also incorrect. It actually originates from "carry" and "coat", both of which are still irrelevant to the term. Conversationally, I laud and applaud the use of portmanteaus, not only as logical time-savers but also for aesthetic appeal. As they blend in my head, I delete and add letters as I deem necessary, expecting the resulting term will be the one that manoeuvres its way into a prominent dictionary. Many words were developed as such, and my goal is to supplement this list. It's not the money I desire; it's the immortality that coining brings, if only in anonymity. The terms cabinthusiast, thickquid, and pretty-it or pr-idiot, depending on the dominant trait, are self-explanatory and deserve a place in the lives of others. And I believe drunkle, which refers to any family's token inebriated uncle, is my pen's ultimate chance to inject itself into the vocabulary of the every man. If I could limit my habit to expressions of that calibre, it would not have become the problem that it has, having crescendoed into a disease, ceasing the normal life I once lived. As it stands, I wish readily for a pharmacist assistant to become a pharmacistant, even though the occupation may be confused with that of a farmhand, and I am compelled to support the use of terms like asparapistachio, which can easily be deciphered by the right mind. I scour our land for the rare two-shared-syllable portmanteaux, and although cucumbersome and hungoverwhelmed are near-ideal merged words, the elaboratory of my right brain is always looking for more and it may never be satiated or sated.

    Unfortunately, the relevantage point of my eccentricities, which began at the extent of the tri-city boundary line with the portmantua, has spiraled into other aspects of my language. I now obsess over homonyms, synonyms, cinnamon, and singing hymns. I love mondegreens, all of my degrees only reinforcing my decision to include them in my life, but sometimes I fear that others don't appreciate that it is always time to rhyme, especially with how often I verbify. I too often peruse reading material for contronyms, with both attentiveness and leisure, and I petition for repetition in both sounds and ideas. I have become bored with unequivocal words, and I crave multiple entendres through secondary and thirdiary definitions. With regards to free will, of course I want the ability to choose, but I also want to get him out of jail while I avoid paying for the notation of my post-mortem wishes. Also, lingual blunders fascinate and excite me, and I have come to relish my role as a malaprop comic, even though I must herd these errors away from conversations so that others may catch up. I have been derided for my adoration of eggcorns, and for some reason I am the only one who sees their pervasiveness in my life as a mute point, especially now that I have reached the age of maturity. I suppose it is not the inclusion of all of these words that has led to the demise of my social life, but the sheer percentage of my vocabulary that they include.

     I am in a figurative tower overlooking the city in which I live, as I am viewed by those who have difficulty with the comprehension of my emitted thoughts as pretentious or even ostentatious. But condescensionly applies when there is malicious intent, and so my perpetual game should not be viewed as such. I consider myself to be a cunning linguist, and I want my skills to be appreciated, not confused with arrogance or ignorance. My neologism should not be seen as patronizing, or even as matronizing when speaking to a woman. When I answer a question with a different connotation than it intended, my only goal is not to convey sarcasm; I want them all to gauge the language so it can evoke thought, maybe even inspire creativity. I want to give my audience credit, but even in the cases where it is deserved, I push the boundaries until it I am too many cuils away from where they want me to be. Even those who used to understand my quirks began confusing my incessant correction of their grammatical mistakes as demeaning, but I only exact the exact words on my peers because I wish for them to learn, in support of our collective intelligence.

     I am also literally and physically high above the ground, alone, in a towerlooking my city. Most below me are under the impression I now insist upon some of my poor man's toes, exhausting possibilities in the hopes of finding a pinnacle, and they are being led to understandable confusion. My brain wracking itself for the ideal compression of clauses, it causes the conversation to flow to an abruption and it usually leads the other party to correctly interpret that I have little interest in what we were talking about, as my response rarely relates to what they may or may not have said. My portmanteauing is still clever, if it ever was, but what began as a gentle ambiguity in my personality is now my primary motivator in human interactions. Somewhere in me, my nature must be searching out only those who hardly stand by as they heartily comply with the precise length of my brain waves.

     Before this time, my solitareality wasn't always so. I once possessed and caressed a girlfriend, one who initially found my vernacular to be sweet and endearing, as I introduced her to concepts like the cuzzle, bringing together the best aspects of both the cuddle and the nuzzle. There was a time when I would do anything to get her together with me, when I preferred spooning over spoonering, caring more about her kissing me than missing key linguistic opportunities. However, it hit a point where I felt she could not contend, and at the same time my word creation became unhandleable for her, with my anagram fixation also leading to boredom in the bedroom. When she finally came to me crying, telling me I was "veering too far from an acceptable social path", I succame to my other love, choosing instead to attempt aloud the portmanteau-y "sociopath", fully aware that the utterance would constitute her view of me and also the denouement of our relationboat.

     Eventually, friendboats dissipated as well, with the apparition of what incorrectly comes across and down as a willful disregard for tolerance. Papua New Guinea pigs is the supposedly racist Oceanickname I give to people from that nation, and what the Aboriginal association in my town is now known in and out of my head is not acceptable. Maybe the cost of a hologram should not be shortened for ease, but I do not see a reason to alter my method, as others' perception of me seems to be outweighed by the tons of potential language stuff. My refusal to ever explain my true intention, due to a known but unreliable reason, is prossibly the most detrimental disorder of my problem and is the main reason for the calm mutiny by the community. I have even tried drug therapy as a social aid, but the mushroom clouds judgment more than I expected, and it may have driven me instead towards the palindromic highway, where a symbolic racecar became more and more appropriate as I rode the road.

     I used to hold a pretty, good job that I enjoyed and was not derevered by society, but I was let go after a series of mistaken happenings. The megocentric approach I employed in my work as a marketing associate was in my opinion necessary in finding my creativity, but my manager mislabeled it as insubordination, as he beleft that conveying a message to the philistines superceded ingenuity. There was also a simple misunderstanding at the office Christmas party, one in which, amidst a bout of coitus with a co-worker in the CEO's office, she informed me of her sexual affinity to feet. My eyes lighting up, I threw her off the desk so I could find a  paper sheet to record the new expression "feetish" before it vanished from my mind. Super silly is how I describe her decision to tell our boss about my flinging of her during our fling, even though she was being haughtily disdainful at the time. Unfortunately, she was not into forewordplay, and it led directly to my current state of unemployment.

     The sportmanteau has even played its way into my life through the seemingly mundanely unimportant. I feel as though I have no choice but to use price-gouging Verizon as my cell phone provider, and for the same reason, I find the music of Vertical Horizon quite intolerable, so I choose to listen exclusively to bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Japandroids. And, although it makes little to no sense for an illiterate grandmother to pronounce the p in pneumonia, I still watch and re-watch reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies, the first cultural phenomenon conceptualized from a portmanteau. As I eat, I canever decide if I want the soup or hero sandwich, if I want a dressing on my spaghettiesburger, if I should forgo a knife in favour of the baguillotine, and cetera. I often find it difficult to remember that taquito happiness is in avoiding indecision, not in making the wrong one. As I have, also recently discovered my intentional displacement and elimination of punctuation: in oration as well as mental dictation is hard for anyone to accept except me. Commaspire to remainly as a coherent tool but I make them disappear even while the sentence asks for a brief pause if only to give the other participant a chance to separate ideas from themselves and each other.

     Even with the deterioration of so many of my relationships and my place in society, my mother's tongue remains my playground, as I replace slides and swings with words and words, and I have never felt more in of place. Its complication notwithstanding, English is the international language, and many of the rules we have agreed upon make sense only for those in my position, those who want to see letters rearranged and words recreated. I reckoncise many terms are more interesting when shortened in the appropriate manner, both by reckoning and recognizing them to be concise, and I take it upon myself to make them so. As such, I collide the scope of my knowledge with my passion for adding diction, and I will continue to search the ether for novel thoughts to include in my eventual book. Until then, I remain alone, but not lonely, as long as I have my words, my language, my portmanteaus.

Bye Bye Nana

I went to the hopsital today. I don't remember being here before but Mommy told me this was the first place I ever was. Half of me came out of Daddy and went to find the other half that was hiding in her belly. The two parts of me waved when they saw each other and when they touched it made me. We came here to visit Mommy's Mommy. She was in a small bed that moved up and down and she was here for a long time. She looked different than I remember her. She wasn't fat like before and she smelled funnier than usual, which was still pretty funny. And she said she didn't remember me, but I think she was just playing games. We play hide-and-go-seek sometimes and sometimes when I find her hiding in the closet she pretends she's a different person and that I didn't really find her even when I did find her. Today she pretended I was a different person. She kept calling me Laura. Laura is Mommy's sister, but she lives in Toronto and I only visited her once and she bought me a book that I lost somewhere. After I talked to Nana for a minute a tall man I never knew before told us we had to go because they had to help my Nana and needed to do it in secret. We waited outside the room and Daddy went for a walk to the car to smoke a cigarette but I couldn't go with him even though it was really warm in here and I wanted to go outside. A nice woman brought me a juice and we smiled at each other for a long time. She was funny. It was boring out there and nobody around me was very happy. Maybe because it was so dark in here and it smelled funny. I didn't really like where I was too because I wanted to go to Sam's birthday party because we were supposed to see The Muppets and it looks funny. After a long time of not doing anything the first man came out and looked really sad but I don't think he was really sad but he pretended to be sad. He told Mommy that he was really sorry and I heard him say that even though he tried to not let me hear him. I thought he hurt Nana because he said he was sorry and Mommy started to cry a little bit but not a lot. But Mommy picked me up and hugged me a lot and told me the man didn't hurt her but that she was gone. I asked her where did she go and I don't know why but I thought she was going to say she went to the moon for a visit even though I don't think anybody goes to the moon because it's too small. Mommy laughed a little bit but she was still crying too so I wiped her eyes for her. That made her cry more so I thought I did something wrong but she told me I didn't do anything wrong. I wanted to see Nana again but after Daddy came back from going for another walk he told me I couldn't see her anymore. I asked when could I see her again and he said I couldn't see her ever again. That made me sad so I asked if she was mad at me but Mommy said she loved me a lot and wasn't mad at me so I felt better.

After a lengthy discussion with both of my parents concerning the issue, I believe I finally grasped why I could never see my grandmother again. Apparently, she had "died". This is a term used when a human, or any living organism for that matter, ceases to exist in this realm after a period of alert consciousness. People are able to "die" at any time, and a great portion of our lives is dedicated to preventing this death from occurring. One is composed of several vital organs, which include the heart, the brain, and other such internal structures that I have never seen but am told that I possess. These organs are capable of failing if not properly cared for, and when they become unable to perform their respective functions efficiently, the person's body and mind suffer greatly. Unfortunately, as we age, our chances of falling victim to the Grim Reaper, as death is occasionally personified, increases greatly, and very few of us are able to elude death beyond a century of life. My grandmother lasted just sixty-seven years, which is less than the average lifespan of a white female woman living in our country but is also much more than average human being on our planet. I am four-and-a-half years old, and my mother informed me that I would probably not die for a very long time and should not really concern myself with such matters at this time. However, since the process of death is as natural as life itself, I should learn about its causes and consequences in order to better cope with the deaths of those around me and especially those I love. I guess I'm glad I found out about death today, but discovering its existence is a scary, depressing thought, and I am afraid that it will consume much of my energy in the future, and not in a positive way.

Except this time, really, cause Grandma was a real bitch and didn't even get me a Christmas present last year and she has shitty candy in her house that she thinks are good but they're too hard and I hurt my teeth when I bite into them and they don't even taste good.

Buffalo x8

There is a growing problem in upstate New York, and it is affecting a slew of wild animals. Over the last several years, the region's bison population has increased at a rapid rate, and local authorities are doing very little to reduce the number, which has almost doubled in the last decade. The creatures, usually known for their docility, are under increased competition for food and other resources, and they are allowing their survival instincts to dictate their actions. As the bison become more and more territorial, a definite hierarchy is being established within the species, with each herd leader intimidating his subordinates to prove his dominance in the area. These males, in turn, have begun bullying the younger, weaker members of their group, in many cases withholding their share of the day's kill and even preventing them from resting. This new way of conducting themselves has thrown the entire ecosystem into disarray, and there are discussions among government and wildlife groups regarding a potential increase in the hunting quota, in the hopes that population control methods would improve the culture of the forest and also the lives of nearby residents. But unfortunately, until an effective system is established, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Mid-life crisis thing: Part 1

I'm going through what many people have called a mid-life crisis. When I was younger, I used to think of this as some kind of a joke. "Honey, Ray (a neighbor probably) bought a new Mercedes. What's he need that for?" or "Did you see Jim's toupee? How does he think nobody notices?" Both commentaries were joked about amicably by the discussing parties. But it didn't really occur to me that an extravagant purchase or a dramatic change in one's appearance is not something to be belittled. It is a real fucking crisis. They got it right at the beginning anyway, with the name, but the meaning got diluted and became easy for people to handle, maybe so people didn't commit themselves or suicide at age 50. The realization that your life didn't turn out as planned, as hoped for, or even very well. You look around one day and think to yourself, "I'm going to die like this? This is my life for the next however many years?" With medical advancements and the ingrained social idea that equates every death to a murder, they're not even letting people die anymore. 

I'm writing this from a plane. Yesterday I quit my job, left my wife, and found myself at an international airport. Now I'm on my way to Bangkok. The only three people that know all of these things are the stewardess with the ass that hangs much lower than it should, the asshole who wouldn't give up the window seat for $100, and myself.

I wanted to set up a hidden camera in my house so I could see the look on my wife's face when she found out I wasn't picking up a pizza for the kids and then heading home, but there wasn't really time. And I couldn't face the possibility that I may run into one of the other occupants of my house during the installation. I can't look at any of them anymore. I have a shitty kid. Two shitty kids, really, but only one of them is really shitty. The other one just sits there. She may or may not be retarded. Retarded. That's a word I haven't used in a while. I was told not to. By the guy who played Dr. Cox from Scrubs when he was on Ellen I think. John something. I think he has a retarded son. It's not fair to the rest of the world to take words away from the language. As soon as a term starts being used derogatorily, we have to eliminate it from our vocabularies. Spastic used to be the term for someone who was spastic, but obviously kids started making fun of spastics, and the ones who weren't very clever simply yelled to the wheelchaired unfortunates, "Spastic!" We blame the kids, but only momentarily. Then we blame the language. That's unfair to the doctor who came up with the term spastic, a Dr. Warren Iditarod probably. But we got rid of it anyway. "No, Jimmy, spastic is a dirty word. Alfie is just... "retarded". That's a nice easy term that isn't offensive. It means late in French, I think, so now spastics can't be mocked. They are simply later than their peers in brain and body development. Nobody counted on little Corey to still not be very clever, but one day he moved on from the banned "spastic" and resorted to yelling "Retard!" at Alfie. Okay, no more saying retarded. Now he's... delayed. It's only a matter of time, but I'm not buying into it anymore. I like the word delayed, and if somebody calls a retarded kid delayed with a negative connotation, I will not renounce my right to use it otherwise when referring to little Alfie.

Oh yeah, so my daughter might be retarded. My son's just an asshole. I know half of him is me, and I know he grew up in a house with me, so I tend to receive a lot of the blame for his shittiness, but it's a lot easier for me to abandon my whole family if I blame him, and all of my other problems, on my wife. We had sex for the last time four months ago, when she was drunk and I was also drunk, and the whole experience went quite poorly. Since then I've had no desire to have sex with anyone or to drink. That was the hardest nut to swallow, the ruining-alcohol-for-me part. That means no more scotch. That cannot be forgiven.

It still didn't occur to me that I could just leave them though. I was at work yesterday, in the mid-morning, sitting at my desk contemplating nothing. Glen from accounting or human resources or my boss popped his stupid face in front of my doorway, MY doorway, and told me he was leaving for the day. Initially I was confused as to why he thought I would care. Maybe I was his boss. I'm not entirely sure. Either way, I decided I was also leaving for the day, so I put my coat on and left the building. I stood on the sidewalk under the awning for about twenty minutes. Realistically it was probably three minutes but enough passed through my mind in those three minutes that in order for you to believe me I have to say that it was longer. Passers were going by without any notice of me. One of the women, a young professional eating an energy bar, reminded me very slightly of my wife at a younger age. The next image I remember is that of removing my passport from the glove locker of my car, while in the long-term parking of an airport. The stewardess and asshole from earlier, after hearing the same detail, both found it oddly strange that a man who has never left the country keeps his passport in his car. Stewardess, that's another word they're trying to eradicate, due to its utterly offensive nature. She's a flight attendant now. Doesn't really have the same ring to it. And when we lose stewardesses, what will overtake it as the longest word that can be typed only with your left hand?

to be continued. the suspense is killing me.

D-talks #1: Wild Rose Herbal D-tox 12-Day program

Valid question, but no, I am not a hippie. I am simply a man, and barely that, whose diet has grown increasingly habitual while the rest of him faces a slow deterioration of body and potential. Knowing nothing about anything, I have decided to use every dietary fiber of my being to discover the consummate consumption regimen for myself and the man inside me. I am willing to go through great physical and measurable lengths to find these ideal meals, and I may have to undergo immense, intense transformations to find the proper combination of indefectible edibles and emotional motions. This will be observed and dictated thoroughly in the coming weeks, months, or even until I get bored with it in a few days. While I endeavor, I will detail in detail how I eat, what I ingest, when I intake, why I gorge, and who I engulf. Never where. Where is irrelephant, unless it turns out to not be so. And details will become more and more hazy, since most of this is being written post-detox, while my memory remains shite.

As a man with several alimentary addictions, removing toxins from my body should produce a good few positive effects. But with the growing number of detoxification methods out there in a day, along with my ignorance on the subject, as well as my unwillingness to listen to the crunching of people's voices telling me which lifestyle is superior to the others, I am a little unsure as to how to go about doing this without losing the rest of the life that I love. Hopefully, throughout my acquisition of knowledge and understanding regarding my cleanse attempts, I will refrain from any form of preaching or even of passing on my related learnings in any way. Between methods, I will incorporate a time of retoxification, wherein I do what you would assume by returning to my regular, much more enjoyable way of living. Mary Brown's overgravied taters, Freak Lunchbox's overpriced grab bags, and a third unhealthy grouping of foods, to round out the comedic or organizational effect, will all on be menu-ized during these hedonistic periods, which may last longer than one would think if I am honestly trying to remain health-conscious or even conscious.

My first stair on the case to health in perpetuity is the Wild Rose Herbal D-tox, created by "Dr." Terry Willard and containing rules that, although not always fully appreciated, must be adhered to. And anyway, it's only twelve days. That's probably less time than the record for standing on one's head, so it should be a cakewalk. Without the cake. Hahahahahaha. ha... So I can't eat eggs, except when they're anything other than deep-fried. I must also refrain from eating wheat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, and all other pieces of deliciousness. Processed food cannot be processed by me, and for some reason, I can't even drink Vienna sausage juice. Grains and vegetables, with a dispersed injection of fruits and meats and nuts, is essentially what I will ingest in my new life as a blankivore.

So it begins, this solidarity show, the actual precipitate for this plunge into a healthy style of life. The first couple of days are rather interesting, as I discover an alternative to the way of eating that I have grown accustomed to since my parents instilled in me the unreasonable value of white bread, leathery pork chops, and spiceless casseroles. My culinary range is improving rapidly, and it causes me to wonder how it has taken me so long to find oat pancakes, lentil dahls, toasted almonds, and various vegetable-dominant grub. However, it takes far too short before it becomes a constant chore to stave off starvation, as snacking has become quite limited and advanced meal preparation becomes more difficult for my laziness to deal with. Also, as I battle with these new restrictions, all around me the others flaunt their whiskey while flouting my sobriety, parading their breaded chicken wings while I listlessly ride my float made of tofu. As my emotions fall apart, my body joins in the sadness when the given supplements begin to take effect. My stomach refuses to settle, and the bathroom becomes my best friend, my first since Kristy, my imaginary friend whose birthday was celebrated daily. Nostagia. But I digest.

Managing my hunger levels is disproving to be easy, basically because the foods I'm supposed to eat prevent me from ever feeling sated or satiated, but I am told it can be done without shifting my paradigms. I try to replace wheat with the recommended replacement known as buckwheat, but after I tried to eat Whoopi Goldberg's son in The Little Rascals, I decided that wasn't really clever enough so I stuck to the secondary option in the bible of kosherity, known stupidly as millet. It's not too good like. I miss wheat. I'm not completely certain what wheat even is, and this is the first time I've admitted this. But I do know that since I'm pretty sure its existence is preventing me from eating bread, I hate it. God, I miss bread. I want all the yeast I can find. I don't know what that is either, but I love it. I might be in love with it. Yeast. The word alone infects me with an elation previously found only in halves of bottleless pills. And now I want sugar. Temptations continue, but I'm too proud to beg for cheese now, and only my imagination is preventing my insanity since I lost my Babybels. I am beginning to reget my temporary hiatus from constant indulging, but since I'm under the impression I could sample heroin without becoming an addict, I figure I can at least manage another week of this. It's for my health, I remind myself. Failing now would be relinquishing my stubbornness, I convince myself. So I goes.

Eventually, my body grows accustomed to its new lifestyle, I have increased energy and less need for sleep, and then I get tired of talking about this. Thanks for being here. If you see my mother, please tell her I'm not a failure. Goodbyes.

My next three D-talks will be a three-day apple-only binge that was prossibly idealized as a satirical commentary, another diet based solely around the partaker's blood type that appeared to make evolutionary sense to me in a cacophonous bar downtown, as well as that Atkins thing.  Anyway, please enjoy them all with me, as readers, or in case nobody is reading this, as nobody.