Kicking and Screaming

I live in anticipation of a moment of joy.

After all, things have to start looking up eventually.  While I feel that life is not necessarily a bowl of cherries, it cannot continue to be the torrential manure storm that I’ve been experiencing for the last few years.  Those of you who have been privy to my woes and long standing streak of bad luck know what I’m talking about.  Those of you who don’t will only find these rants to be an amusing anecdote similar to the comic sketches of “The Old Philosopher”. 

Let me summarize as eloquently as I can.  I’ve been job hunting for the last year.  At one point, I tried to make it as a salesman selling supplementary insurance.  However, I saw the end of my financial wellbeing coming in clear focus.  After making a desperate plea to many of my close friends on Facebook, I went along with an old friend of mine to work for his insurance company. 

While I am forever grateful for his giving me the opportunity, I got a sudden sign that this job was not conducive to my health.  The long hours and extensive commute and daily travel started to take their toll.  One night I woke up with chest pains that I can only hope were part of an anxiety attack coupled with physical stress.

There is nothing like waking up in the middle of the night with chest pain.  It has a tendency to immediately put your priorities in order.   As I have become one of the millions of unemployed Americans out there that have no health insurance, I thought it best to not panic and take it easy for the next two days.  I spoke to my wife about all of this.  With her support, I decided to quit my job.  As the last six months were dedicated to working in the insurance industry and getting my licenses, I’ve been throwing myself full force into my job hunt. 

At the same time, I’ve been wary of my health.  Physically, I’ve been taking it easy since Christmas.  Now that we’re in mid-January, I’ve started to take some simple actions for my health.  Of course, making the decision to be healthy and actually being healthy are two different things.  I decided I wanted to be healthier and say – not die.  “Not dying” I’ve found to be a critical element to living your life.

Sure, I can hear you all saying that this is common sense.  And, for the most part, it is.  What most people don’t realize is that when you’re unemployed for long periods of time, the incredible amount of depression makes you ambivalent to the “not dying” part of life.  As a matter of fact, the chest pains and the warnings that you might be at death’s door does have a seductive attraction to it.  It means not having to think of a way to commit suicide.  All you have to do is continue on the path you’re on, eat the foods you’ve been eating, smoke some cigarettes, stop exercising, and work on building your cholesterol to near fatal levels until nature takes its course.

It takes so much out of the thought and planning to make your death look accidental that the mere simplicity of sloth can put the auto erotic asphyxiation folks out of business.  No planning, eat what you want, and die anyway – what could be better?  There’s no pain or gore from staging your own car accident.  And because I really hate cold water, I wouldn’t have to go to the ocean to drown myself in the middle of winter.

Always remember – “simplicity”.

Many people have come to the conclusion that the secret of life is to have something to do.  I agree.  My wife and my parents gave me a copy of Batman: Arkham City for the PS3.  So, there’s that.  I’m a 45 year old man who still gets excited from a cool video game.  Hold your criticism if you think this is stupid.  Just remember, those of us who grew up in the seventies thought “pong” was the bomb.

In addition, I’ve discovered that I really love my wife and the thought of leaving her alone to fend for herself just wouldn’t be fair.  That’s how screwed up my moral compass is.  The thought of Catholic dogma and eternal damnation for a suicide with the time of spending eternity with Lucifer and all his demonic imps in Hell held nothing to the thought of knowing that my wife might be sad without me.

So I’m sticking around.

There were two events that brought my decision of “not dying” to a head.  This was intervention from an unknown ethereal source.  I wanted to “not die”.   What I didn’t know was “how to live”.  I was pretty sure that I needed to do something.  My weight is out of control.  I have not been exercising.  And, since my night of chest pain, I haven’t been sleeping well.  Step one is knowing you need to do something.  Step two is finding out what it is.

The first bit of intervention came from my old friend, Scott Bilker.  He posted on his Facebook page that he’d seen the movie “Forks Over Knives”.  I won’t go into detail about the movie, but in essence, it’s about the virtues of adopting a plant based diet.  Scott said that after he saw the movie that he’d start doing that.  He’s been three days without animal protein.

I was naturally ambivalent to sudden unexpected veganism.  I thought, “Well, that’s good for him.  I really like my bacon.”

The second bit of intervention came from my vegan wife.  Remember, she’s been with me since the night I had chest pains.  I’m sure she’s been a nervous wreck since.  As she’s been studying to be an integrative nutritionist and life coach, she’s been participating in several discussions on how to improve health and what constitutes a bad diet.

It’s not a pleasant thing to see a vegan go militant.  One day they’re fine and the next they see “green”.  Then it’s nothing but carnage in the form of bean sprouts, quinoa, granola, and tofu.  She came downstairs into my lair (a word I rarely get to use) and said sternly as if I were a puppy that moved its bowels on the floor, “Go and get your junk food now and get it out of your system.  Starting Monday, I’m putting your on a healthy diet.  Everything you eat is bad.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“You have two days,” she said with a firmness I rarely saw.  “Eat your snacks.  Eat your meat.  Get your ice cream.  Eat it now.  On Monday, it’s over.”

As a married men, we know that there is a time and a place to pick your battles.  And when you do, you should know the ground you stand on.  My ground was littered with cholesterol, fat, and health issues.  Even one of my allies had gone to the other side recently.  What else could I say but - ?

“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, okay.  I’ll do it.  You draw up a plan and I’ll follow it.”

She was really shocked that I went willingly.  I’m sure she had something else up her sleeve.  Truthfully, I thought that anything she came up with wouldn’t be that much different from The South Beach Diet.

Boy, was I wrong.

Immediately, I did two things.  First, I went to Facebook and asked the world the following:  If you had just found out you had only two days to eat as much junk food as you could, what would you eat? 

I figured that if this were my last chance, I’d get some feedback.   My default goal was KFC.  The two best answers came as Five Guys Burgers and White Castles.  The cheesy, salty, chocolaty, snacky stuff came in second.  I didn’t go with Five Guys Burgers because I still thought that I wasn’t out of the woods yet with my chest pains.  I didn’t go with White Castles because… well, who wants to fart like that?

I got a KFC chicken meal, cole slaw, apple turnovers, Hagen Das – cookies and cream, and Wise Onion Rings.  I knew was I was doing.  I know my junk food.

I came back home and ate part of my chicken meal and some of the ice cream knowing that I’d have more of it today.

Well, I couldn’t really sleep last night.  I was still worried that I’d have some kind of chest pain.  That fear kept me awake and restless.  I kept going over what the symptoms of a heart attack were and remembered that sometimes a heart attack didn’t have any.  Eventually, I passed out and woke up at dawn.

“We can get over to Wegman’s before it gets crowded.  Then we’re going to Target to get some Yoga clothes.”  Normally, I get a “Good morning” or a “Did you walk the dogs yet?” first thing in the morning.  Instead it was this.
“Whatever we do it’s going to involve coffee,” I said drawing my imaginary line in the sand.
“If you say so,“ she said with a smile.

You should know there is nothing worse than a smug vegan.  I often fantasize breaking them like dried kindling in a mad murderous rage.  There is also some truth to the Scott Pilgrim scene of the extra psionic powers of vegans and how they can sometimes read your mind like Professor X.  It is times like this when you should guard your thoughts regarding your secret plans of vegan carnage.

Fair warning: The experience of shopping with a health coach is made easier when you have had your daily allowance of caffeine.   The natural edginess I have in my coffee deprived state is enough to make a nun whack my head with a steel ruler.  

We walked into the store and went directly to the vegetable section.  She grabbed some green things and some red onions.

“You know you can still make your pastaless fajole.  Everything in it is okay… except the sausage.”  She said this with the same cheer that she’d say, “We’re going to get a new puppy and name him ‘Cuddles’!”
“Lovely,” I said without any perceptible enthusiasm.
“I suppose you can use the Tofurkey fake sausage, if it makes a difference.”
“Great.”  I knew that the eventual soy filled fart storm later would be my own personal payback.
“You can also make that sno-pea salad with green onions, too.”
“That’s supposed to be made with chicken.”
“Maybe you can use something else.”

Thoughts of cannibalism raced through my mind and were quickly dismissed as I remembered that a missing wife would raise some questions at her job.  Instead, I smiled tightly.

She moved us quickly to the organic section of the store where she purchased some kale chips and other organically healthy snacks.  She also picked up a few cans of her favorite recommended beans and diced tomatoes, steering away from anything labeled “Goya”.

“We’re also going to watch your sodium intake.” 

I loved how she started to adopt that use of the first person plural.  She used it whenever there needed to be extensively heavy work done around the house and normally it could be substituted as “you”.  For example, if the sentence ‘We really need to get the leaves out of the backyard’ were said, it simply meant ‘Get your ass in gear and start raking the yard.’  Although in this case, I really do believe that “we” would actually mean “we”.  “We” would be defined as if I’m home and I see you eating something you’re not supposed to, there will be Hell to pay.  The two of us would contribute to my misery.

Pronouns can be tricky.

“Are we buying eggs?”  I asked.
“No.”
“I need eggs.  I need real protein for my ADD.”
“There’s oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal won’t work.  I’ve tried it.”

This was true.  I knew my body was not really effective with oatmeal instead of eggs.  Eggs kept my mind focused and alert.  This was a real concern considering my latest push for employment.  I didn’t need my attention failing in the middle of an interview.

“We’ll work with something,” she said.  “How about tofu?”
“People who say that tofu is as good as eggs are lying.  It’s a scientific fact.”

She huffed slightly and went down the aisle of the frozen vegan foods.  She came back with ‘scrambled tofu’.

“Give this a try.”

I sighed with resignation.  I wasn’t going to win this and my future was going to be full of tofu, beans, and other things that would eventually make me crazy.  We went and paid for our so-called food and were about to continue to Target to get her yoga clothes.

“We go NOWHERE without coffee.  If you want to live, we’re getting coffee now.”  I said this as a declarative.  This was not an option.  There would be no “collect $200 dollars”.  We directly get coffee.

“Get your coffee.”

I bought a twenty ounce cup of their Gingerbread blend, knowing that after Monday, it would be plain coffee and nothing else.  I imagined a future with coffee and soy milk and whatever acceptable sweetener I could get and cringed.  After pouring about eight raw sugar packets into my coffee, I found that it was not sweet enough.  My hand went to one of the yellow packets.

“What are you doing?  You are not going for the Splenda, are you?”
I was.  If eight sugars couldn’t sweeten my coffee I needed something better than sugar.
“That’s aspartame.  You might as well be putting formaldehyde in your body.  That stuff is terrible for you.”

I actually knew this.  However, I thought it being my last day I might be able to get it passed.

“No.”
“No?”
“No,” she said with a no-nonsense tone.  “Not now, not ever.  That stuff is poison and not an option.”

I put the yellow packet down and grabbed two more raw sugar packets.  At least it wouldn’t taste artificial.  Raw sugar was unprocessed.  The important thing was I had my coffee. 

Caffeine stimulation isn’t as immediate as you’d think.  Yes, the initial sip gives that wonderful bit of heaven.  However, the edge that I’ve had since seventh grade would not go away for a few more minutes.  As I pushed the cart to the parking lot, I watched the coffee erupt from the small “blowhole” I made to sip through the cover, spilling onto my wrist.  What a waste of that heavenly elixir.  All I wanted to do was sit and be in the moment for just one moment.

It wasn’t much to ask.  I put the food in the trunk, knowing that it would stay frozen in this thirty degree weather.  Then we made our way to get my wife’s yoga clothes.

Since my friend, Scott, mentioned the movie ,“Forks Over Knives”,  I wanted to watch it.  If watching such a movie was enough to get a committed carnivore to try veganism, it could only help me in my commitment in doing the same.  After all, if “Smeghead” could do it, I could as well.

I downloaded it from iTunes.  My wife and I watched it from my lair in the basement.   It was really educational and it certainly gave me some motivation to listen to my wife.  In addition, Scott had gathered some of the resources for starting this path from his Facebook post.  I downloaded the PDF and saved it for future inspection.  At least, I’d know where the actual parameters would be.

For those of you who are wondering about the movie go to www.forksoverknives.com and watch the trailer.  If you think it’s interesting, download it to iTunes.  It was only nine bucks.

I don’t know if veganism is for me.  It might not be.  I do know one thing, though.  I had chest pains.  If following a diet plan and a regimen will put me on track and possibly reverse the cholesterol problems that I probably have until I can get proper insurance, it’s worth a shot.

In the meantime, I do know a few things.  I have a wife that loves me enough to take this seriously.  She wants me around.  And I want to be around her.  So I go some time without bacon or processed food.  Maybe I’ll feel better.  Maybe it will cure or help me managed my ADD.  And maybe I’ll lose weight.

What I needed is direction and a purpose – as well as something to keep my head in the game.  At worst, it’s a crock.  At best, I save myself some money by not splurging for meat.