As Yet Untitled

per·spi·ca·cious adj \ˌpər-spə-ˈkā-shəs\ Definition of PERSPICACIOUS : of acute mental vision or discernment : keen — per·spi·ca·cious·ly adverb — per·spi·ca·cious·ness noun — per·spi·cac·i·ty noun Origin of PERSPICACIOUS Latin perspicac-, perspicax, from perspicere First Known Use: 1640 Use it in a sentence! People who don’t enjoy Harry Potter obviously lack perspicacity. I might kill myself if my children aren’t perspicacious. People with telepathy absolutely possess great amounts of perspicaciousness. Incidentally, Word’s spellchecker doesn’t recognize perspicaciousness as a word. I hate when it tells me I’m wrong when I know I have spelled something right. It makes me feel like I am going crazy and then I end up typing, deleting, and re-typing the same word about ten times before deciding to move on. I received this word in a “Word of the Day” email a loooong time ago. It has always stuck with me because it sounds so much like a really sophisticated insult. It’s ...

A few days ago I filled out a "get to know you" questionairre at work. One of the questions was, "What is one book you read and hated?" After rifling through the extensive list of books I had read, narrowing it down to the much shorter list of books I didn't enjoy, I arrived at the inevitable answer: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. I expected this to be met with gasps of shock and horror. People clutching their chests and shaking their fingers in my face saying, "You don't deserve to be an editor. You know nothing about classic literature!" Instead, this led to other guilty dislikes. The list was illustrious, including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Victor Hugo, and Thomas Hardy. I also received a lot of replies saying things like, "I hate Faulkner too!" and "Aw, you took my answer!" (These employee surveys are very competitive--everyone wants to be the wittiest, friendliest, coolest person. Of course, this would be the c...

It's over!  Finally, after ten days, the juice fast is over. And I am back on solid food, carbs, and caffeine. Whee! My elation knows no bounds. But in the midst of all the skipping and hollering with joy, I have had a little time to reflect on the experience and think about what it has, or has not done for me. After resuming the eating of normal food, I am forced to admit that my palate was indeed cleansed. No, I do not find myself mindlessly searching out vegetables like a vegan zombie. But I can tell you that everything tastes brighter, fuller, more . The cup of coffee I had this morning was one of the most existentially enlightening experiences of my life, and I somehow don't think it's just because I found the best Starbucks barista in the world. She looked pretty normal to me. So that's pretty awesome. I have lost a total of 11 pounds. Not as much as I was expecting to lose, but still, a good, solid start. More importantly, I believe my stomach has shrunk a ...

So, I have skipped a couple daily updates about the juice fast. I got tired of repeating myself about how crappy I was feeling and how I just wanted it to be over. Make no mistake. Those things are still true. However, it is now Day 9, and the end is finally in sight. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be the most difficult day, because part of me is like, "You made it nine days. Whatever. Let's just call it good." If I were doing this in private and without telling anyone, that is undoubtedly what I would do. But I made the choice, for better or worse, to share this experience with my husband and whoever happens across this blog. So when I think about just calling it quits (about every ten seconds), I also think about people blowing up my blog with comments (because that happens all the time) saying things like, "You quitter!", "I used to respect you but now I think you suck!", and "See if I ever listen to anything you say again, hypocrit...

Just over the Hump. Oh. My. God. I am so ready for this to be over. It seems that whatever was keeping me stopped up has worked its way through. All day today I have been cursed with an upset stomach and, well, diarrhea. All day. I guess this is to be expected when you are power washing your insides, but that does not make it pleasant. I know that this is very personal information, and normally I would shy away from sharing something so disgusting and intimate, but I wanted to be honest about what is happening to me in case anybody reading this is considering doing something similar. I want them to know what they are in for. Anyway. The end is in sight. So that is something to be thankful for. I have been fantasizing about the things I will eat when I am finished with all this. Mercifully, most of this will probably not come to fruition since I am finding myself less and less hungry as the days go by. Apparently my stomach is shrinking. I didn't weigh myself this morning so I...

The Halfway Point. Today I have officially made it halfway through this ordeal. Naturally, this culminated in a bit of a debacle. After a breakfast of strawberry/blueberry/kiwi/orange juice, Norris and I took the dogs to the dog park and then decided to go on a bike ride through Hafer park. If you don't know this park, you should go visit it immediately. It is beautiful (particularly in the fall) with smooth, tree-lined trails and well-maintained exercise stations. There is a rock climbing wall, an ampitheater, and several playgrounds. It is also right across the street from a Starbucks. In case you were interested. We made it about halfway around the trail, up some moderate hills, when I started seeing spots. There was a distinct clenching in my abdomen, and my knees felt incredibly weak. I called ahead to Norris that I was reasonably certain I was going to faint, then pulled over and sat down at the nearest picnic table (of which there are many in this awesome park). I sat ...

Another headache this morning. Right behind my left eye. I am also having a devil of a time concentrating on work. I keep staring off into space and am having trouble thinking clearly. I am not sure I could say my own name properly. I looked up online how long it takes to detox from caffeine, and the results were not encouraging. Apparently these headaches can persist for several weeks if said caffeine-giver-upper goes cold turkey. I thought that the influx of supernutrients entering my body would negate the effects of caffeine withdrawal, but it seems that instead my symptoms are magnified--compounded by the fact that I am also consuming remarkably less food, fat, and sugar than normal. This pain makes me want to sleep rather than eat. Which makes me hungry. Which makes me grouchy and in even more pain. It seems simpler, most of the time, to just eat and feel better. I keep waiting and waiting to feel some sort of good feeling seeping in, but the only thing I have noticed so far ...

The scale told me this morning that I have lost seven pounds. I also woke up this morning with a massive headache: the kind of headache that only massive amounts of water, a few hours extra sleep, and a good dose of extra-strength Advil could cure. So, ups and downs.  The hardest part of this whole thing continues to be eating at all. When I think about having to juice fruits and vegetables, I decided to just skip the whole thing because the idea of drinking another meal is so desperately unappealing. Norris is very against this. I think eventually he is going to pinch my nose and pour juice down my throat to make sure that I am consuming an appropriate amount of calories to keep my system running. I think I am getting better at the actual juicing part though. Tonight for dinner I made a juice containing kiwis, apples, celery, kale, lemon, ginger, and cucumber. It is totally green, but definitely the best tasting vegetable based juice that I have made so far. I think it will de...

Another day, another juice. I am still craving solid food. It's not so much about being hungry (after last night I was worried I might never have an appetite again). It's more about missing eating , missing food . Some disturbing aspects of my emotional relationship with solid food are coming to light. I just want to munch on things all the time--I theorize that this is because I like having my hands busy, and as the only activity I do at work is scrolling the mouse up and down, they are in desperate need of something to do. My lunch for today. The hardest part was today at lunch, where I had this concoction to drink, and my coworkers were microwaving pasta, soup, and decadent leftovers. Or even just eating a sandwich. I think I might have been eyeing the Coffee Mate creamer with a little too much lust. But I resolutely turned to my brownish looking beverage, and bravely took a sip. It wasn't bad. Not great, but not bad. Certainly a vast improvement over last night...

quix·ot·ic adj \kwik-ˈsä-tik\ Definition of QUIXOTIC 1 : foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action 2 : capricious , unpredictable — quix·ot·i·cal adjective — quix·ot·i·cal·ly adverb See quixotic defined for English-language learners » See quixotic defined for kids » Origin of QUIXOTIC Don Quixote First Known Use: 1718 Related to QUIXOTIC Synonyms: idealist , idealistic , quixotical , romantic , starry , starry-eyed , utopian , visionary Antonyms: clear-eyed , clear-sighted Use it in a sentence! “Watch as I start a juice fast when I write a part-time food blog!” she said quixotically one day. Her quixotic attitude toward life was beginning to wear on him. He was a more staid, button-wearing type person. I have found that this word can also be used to express surprise at someone’s suddenly changed behavior.  My favorite example of this is in The Importance of Be...

A few weeks ago I watched this documentary on Netflix. Then I watched it again, in the presence of my husband. The premise of this documentary was one so controversial and foreign to my general philosophy on life that I felt compelled to get a second and definitely more objective opinion. I didn't want to get all swept up in inspiration and subjective camera work and start this endeavor for nothing. Essentially the premise of this film is that this guy (the documentarian) is overweight and suffering from a debilitating condition in which his body creates too much histamine, causing sores to break out all over his body. He is taking multiple medications and living an all around wretched life,  when inspiration hits. He goes on a sixty day juice fast, drinking nothing but juice that he has juiced with a juicer from unadorned fruits and vegetables. At the end of the sixty days he has lost  a massive amount of weight and was able to completely give up his medication regimen. T...

 I love cheese. Cheesy, cheesy cheese. I also love meals that take less than fifteen minutes to make on nights when I have class and Norris is home late from work. This is a recipe that combines those two loves in perfect harmony. It is ridiculously simple, but easy to dress up if the situation warrants it. I don't think you could dress it down much more. So here is what you need to start: a glass baking dish (if I am cooking for a group I use a 9x13, but for just us two, I use the perfect square one), flour tortillas, 2 bags of Mexican blend cheese, a can of white chicken breast, a giant can of enchilada sauce (I use mild because I am a weenie) and one can of chiles (again mild). Most of these ingredients can be found on the Mexican aisle of the grocery store, which, at my Walmart, is the same aisle as the Spaghetti aisle. Put the shredded cheese in a large glass bowl. If you are feeling ambitious, grate the cheese yourself from a block of classy cheese. On this particular night...

This is a book that hardly needs a review from an obscure blog like mine. Its reputation preceded it, and that is why I picked it up in the first place. But it was just too good not to throw in my two cents. I got started reading Neil Gaiman after I saw the movie Stardust . I was blown away with the whimsy and adventurous romance of the film, and if I loved that, the book was even better. This coincided nicely with the release of The Graveyard Book , and by the time I had finished that, I was firmly in the Neil Gaiman fan camp. So I searched out other people like me and the first thing they all said was, “Read American Gods .” I didn’t listen to them. I read Neverwhere instead, and I am actually quite glad I did, because I feel that all the novels I read leading up to American Gods were preparing me for what I was about to experience. I don’t think that I can say that American Gods is any better than any of the other novels. In fact, I rarely hear fans of Neil Gaiman saying that...