Or Like I Swallowed A (Nautical) Throwing Star

First of all, I must share that I have chewed lemon gum and it is bad. However, lemon gum (named something irritatingly enthusiastic such as Lemon Zing! or Lemon Blast! or Lemon Dude You're Harshing My Mellow) was the only Wrigley's brand gum up at the corner store in NoPo. So vegan lemon misnomer gum it was.

I know this is a case of WPP*. For what it's worth, I'm aware.

Also, I skated to Whole Foods tonight in the hope of eating something halfway decent after making a few dollars by assisting a friend of mine with a casting. I figured that I should celebrate the weekend and my second month's sobriety with something delicious and vegan that would make me feel like I'm giving back to the world and supporting good logo design.

The total? $6.19. The items: one (1) can of organic refried pinto beans and three (3) apples.

I am not kidding.

Now, before y'all get to thinking that I'm a whiny girl who just likes to complain -- which I am, really -- I will say in my defense that I have been shopping at tiny markets and independent vendors as per the wholly appreciated suggestions of some of you. But it was nice out and I wanted to ride around a bit. Then I realized it was nearly ten and I was lost and...With fifteen minutes before the shop closed I had to just grab what I could and get out, there was no extra time to be wasted pondering the brand of hummus or if I had enough cash for granola. I hate subjecting clerks to an extra ten minutes of waiting around for douchebag shoppers to finish up, so I pretended I was in Supermarket Sweep and got the hell out.

Then there's the issue of my stomach. It hurts. And not in the normal Void Where Prohibited sort of way, or in the way that would make me a good body double for an Exorcist revival, no. We're talking the kind of hurt that has only been rivalled by that afternoon in the fourth grade when Jonathan Peltzer punched me in the stomach 'cause he thought I stole the kickball. (It was in the bushes, wasn't it, jackass?) It's like a piranha in a plastic bag. It's like every hipster cliche and overused iconic image (ninja, narwhal, unicorn, pirate, Beirut) were all thrown into a cage match located where my diaphragm and colon should be. I eat because my brain calculates that I should. Then it hurts more. Then it hurts less. And by that time the brain calculator is tallying up the hours saying, "It's called breakfast, fucker." So apples, which I adore eating and therefore are worth any pain, and refried beans, which taste like paste and make me feel full and are usually cheap and can be used in the preparation of burritos, seemed like wise choices. Untrue. Now I see why even Mercedes driving, Chanel wearing yacht club patrons refer to the Whole Foods on Long Island as "Whole Paycheck." (Insert lock-jawed laughter through a Botoxed gob here.) I don't have a paycheck. But apparently I have a new hole in the form of an ulcer.

Later, far from the Whole Highway Robbery, a couple spoke to me in impassioned tones about the benefits of farming your own vegetables here in Portland. They gave me the names of two books and instructed me about what I should start out trying to not kill (fava beans, carrots, and basil.) Considering that I'm the girl who murdered a cactus that was bought at Ikea, I bet that if I attempt to use a green thumb to thumb my nose at vegans the potential for comedy and embarrassment is high.

One member of this couple also told me that when he was a vegetarian, he was coerced into tasting pork-laden canapes and other meaty bites for his old job as a server for a hoity-toity restaurant in California. He immediately started having nightmares about pigs talking to him. The pigs would be standing on their hind legs chatting him up, confronting him about his recent meanderings off of the path, and then they would turn around and expose their bloody, mauled ribcages. He had night-terrors over his food choices. Last night I had a dream that I was descending an unending flight of stairs while using an umbrella to shield me from a downpour of soybeans. Can't quite tell what it means, other than that I should try drinking some warm soymilk before bedtime.

I have a week of this month left. If anyone wants to take me out for my first non-vegan meal on May 1st, I'm game. Just be creative and let me know what you think we should ingest. And, yes, I'll probably blog about it.

* White People's Problems