Path

The new austerity, part two.

Path in the Wheat Fields at Pourville (1882), Claude Monet

Greetings, forever lovers, shit shovelers, and puppy mufflers! I’m here to tell you more about my new lifestyle of prudence and forbearance, two words I never use for a reason: I hate to hold back, and I hate to restrain my desires, I hate to say less than I want to say, I hate to eat less than I want to eat, I hate to work slowly, a little bit every day, on big, looming projects that no one is actually forcing me to work on or paying me to complete, and I hate to feel a teensy bit hungry when I go to bed at night. I hate looking for no-sugar, nonfat eating options and I hate sitting at a table with other people who are eating custard and only taking one bite instead of, just for example, slowly and steadily eating much more than my share. I hate watching sports without pouring cold beer into my face and stuffing salty things in there behind it. And I feel morally opposed, at a gut level, to walking around thinking about queso without ever say, “Hey, let’s secure some queso soon! Queso sounds agreeable and cheering, doesn’t it?”

I stan all queso. It can be yellow or bright orange. It can be melted or congealed or packed in a small jar, sitting on a dusty shelf, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. I love queso unconditionally.

Right now, my journey — let’s stick to that word, it works, it’s awful and so is my fucking adventure with austerity — is particularly challenging, because I’m addicted to lots of things at once. Here I employ the word “addiction” not in the strictest sense, but in the sense of “I want this thing regularly and without reason no matter what” and also in the sense of “once I consume this thing, I want more of it immediately” and also “when I don’t get this thing, I have an emotional reaction like someone evil is keeping it from me” and “when I have a bad, strict parent inside my imagination, the only remedy, the only revenge, the only option, is to do exactly what bad parent doesn’t want me to do.”

What I mean is that my addiction makes me a whiny impetuous baby. I don’t think I’m addicted in the true sense of the word. But “addiction” is the only word that comes close to capturing the layered response outlined above. It’s not just that I want something and I can’t have it. It feels deeply important and incredibly emotional when I don’t get what I want. I’m like Mick Jagger. And when I don’t get what I want, I’m pretty sure there’s some enemy keeping it from me.

That’s a complicated reaction to something as simple as “eat less fat or you could die.”

When you add up my fat addiction and my sugar addiction and my mild booze addiction, what you get is a life that feels like being locked into a very substandard rehab facility where everyone else around you is tossing back beers, or in my case, chowing on hamburgers and slurping up fruity boba delights and hogging down on sausage pizza. At my rehab, everyone is pretty cheerful and happy and no one has any tearful tales of hitting rock bottom except for me. Meanwhile, I am hitting rock bottom every single second of every single day. I am ready to steal my grandmother’s purse and also pawn her wedding ring and sign over the deed to her house, all for a hamburger. But not only can’t I do that, I can’t even stand up in front of my roommates here at rehab and deliver an extended, tear-jerky monologue about how my unconditional lifelong commitment to melted cheese led me to this low moment.

I can’t even talk about booze with my friends who’ve kicked booze, because I’m not struggling with the behavioral and emotional downsides of imbibing alcohol like I was, oh, ten years ago, on and off. Now I can go to a party without drinking and I can eat dinner with friends without drinking and it’s not that difficult. I am not struggling with the question of where alcohol fits in my life at all.

What I’m battling is perhaps more daunting and insidious for me, which is this: I am addicted not to the cocktail’s effects — minimal and not strongly desired — but to its sensual deliverables. I want to order a cocktail, that’s the first part. I want to say the name of a drink with booze in it and I want the bartender to bring the boozy drink and set it in front of me. I want the drink to look beautiful. It’s good if there’s a cherry at the bottom. And I want it to either have zero ice or one big square ice cube. I don’t want to EVER think “This is juice.” I like juice! But I don’t want to go to a bar, sit down, and sip a juice.

And of course, I can’t sip a juice anyway, because I’m cutting out all sources of avoidable sugar. So not only can’t I ask for booze and get booze and drink booze, I also can’t drink anything sweet. I’m not going to imbibe fake sweeteners in large quantities because that’s not going to help me cut out sugar or stop craving sugar.

To be crystal clear, what I’m addicted to is having exactly two (2) cocktails when I leave the house and meet someone for a social occasion. I do not want three (3) cocktails at all anymore, but I also do not want merely one (1) cocktail and I for sure don’t want zero (0) cocktails, ever. I want my two cocktails. I deserve them, in all of their sour, boozy, sweet, beautiful glory!

Now. If I cut out all sugar (not cutting out sugar that exists naturally in fruits and vegetables, though not eating one banana after another, either), I suppose I could reward myself with two (2) cocktails once a week, and raw dog it through the rest of my week without anything.

However, I am finding that each and every little treat makes me angrier about all of the treats I can’t hog down on around the clock. I don’t need extended caramel ice cream bar ideation right now. What I need is a normal non-addict brain that likes, uh, whatever non-addicts like. You’ll have to tell me what that is. I can’t imagine.

I need a brain that says, “Wow, it’s overcast today, let’s go for a nice long walk with the dogs” and doesn’t add, “And when we get back, let’s go get dumplings and pulled noodles and Chinese green beans.”

What else does a sober brain say? “I like books, maybe I will actually finish this one.” “I am looking forward to going running tomorrow morning and I’m not interested in waffles at all.” “Doing puzzles sounds nice, and I don’t need an Arnold Palmer and a bowl of potato chips nearby to do it.”

Tell me more about non-addicted brains. What do they like to think about? Dirt? Birds? Screwdrivers that aren’t also cocktails? Old-fashioned sunsets and grasshoppers and paper planes and rusty nails that aren’t also cocktails?

Yesterday, I went to the natural foods store and I bought some hummus with lemon and cilantro, and I bought some watermelon radishes, some bok choy, and a coconut yogurt thing with mango in it. I went home and ate the radishes and the hummus. Then I read a book about prediabetes that said hummus is a good example of the kind of thing you might think you could hog down until the hogs come home, but really, it might just send your blood glucose levels skyrocketing.

Now listen. I know that all kinds of fucking books say all kinds of fucking things and I can safely ignore most of them. You’re preaching to the choir, because I’ve been ignoring nutrition and diet tips for half a lifetime now. I know how to ignore. I flex my DISREGARD muscle around the clock. The fact remains that prediabetes, a diagnosis that many advise we disregard, is a maze without simple entries and exits and signage. I’d prefer not to think of myself as prediabetic, which is why I’m taking this sugar-free journey in the first place. I want to eat my way back into my usual, comfy state of occasional dismissive disregard.

It’s just dispiriting to find something healthy and delicious then it turns out that someone thinks it might add to the problem. But ultimately, that’s a side quest. The main journey is simply about breaking my addictions.

Battling addiction requires severing associations: TV is not queso. Meeting friends isn’t queso. Long walks don’t add up to more queso.

Eventually, TV should become fresh raspberries or sparkling water and lime, or nothing at all. I’m sure it’s not that hard to get there, once you break the habit of diving down waterfalls of queso every few seconds. But before that, before you kick the sugar and the fat and the booze, you don’t just miss the salty cheesy wonderlands of yore, you IDENTIFY WITH THEM.

I don’t crave queso, I AM queso. Without queso, I am no one.

Right now I’m living inside a queso-shaped hole, trying to remember what a “hobby” is and why anyone would do anything besides eat queso. It’ll be fine, though. Soon I’ll be obsessed with something entirely different. If there’s any lesson I’ve learned along the way, it’s that obsessions can be hot-swapped out as rapidly as digital components. You think there’s nothing good ahead, no new island to leap to, nothing to keep you from sinking, and BAM there it is, your new THING, your new fling, your new bling. Your operating system makes a whole new PING and ZING! You feel like a king.

I can’t imagine what kind of a royal refuses to surround his kingdom with glorious moats of queso but whatever, the imagination is stifled and muffled by addiction. Let’s just see what comes next, shall we?

Yours in cheeseless despair,

M

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Thank you for your patronage! You are keeping my queso-clogged soul afloat at the moment, so never stop!