Still pretending I'm going to write a book: Chapter 3

I worry that I might be losing my "asshole" sense of humor and turning into a legitimately good person. The blame for this falls entirely on veganism. (What a cunt!) 

To get to the beginning of this story, we've gotta back up a year or so ago when I decided to stop eating animal products. I'd read in The Kind Diet and Skinny Bitch and countless issues of Veg News that when a person stops consuming the meat from fear-drenched slaughtered animals, a lightening occurs in his or her body, and the negative adrenaline and chemical dread are replaced with the ability to love and appreciate life. Essentially, compassion is born. As fast as you can Google-search "compassionate vegans" you'll be linked to story after story of how the vegan lifestyle lends itself to generosity, goodwill, peace on Earth and all that good stuff. For me... personally... well, I get it. I've had moments of pure joy and clarity where I've actually wished I could live a thousand lives just to be able to spread the gift of veganism all across the land (ewwwww I sound like a Jesus-enforcer **blech**). I've come to appreciate my family, my friends, and mySELF more than I ever have before, and to genuinely feel capable of more love than at any other time in my life-- even more than when I was pledging my soul to some boyfriend who would rather be playing videogames than pretending to want to watch Goldie Hawn in Housesitter with me for the thirtieth time. So I think they're right, really, when they say that veganism turns you into a sappy lover of all things under the sun. And I think I'd totally be on that train to sainthood with them except for... 

well... 

booze and cigarettes. 

They are the last two things denying me my hippie sunshine bliss... and the last two things connecting me to my former self-indulgent lifestyle. I know what you're thinking. "VEGANS CAN'T SMOKE CIGARETTES!!" Right? Right? Well guess what? Actually I can do whatever the hell I want to do, bitch, it's not like a fucking cult. **sigh** That was rude. I apologize. It's just that... well, you're right. It makes no sense for me to be a big supporter of saving the world when I'm the dumb drunk breezy throwing her used cigarette butt into the bushes outside the local dive bar. NO sense. AT all. It's just that-- I don't know if you knew this but-- cigarettes? Yeah. They're HIGHLY addictive. And as addicted as we are to dairy and meat products, their hold has NOTHING on nicotine, man. I gave up gruyere in a heartbeat. I stopped smoking for a month, and then all of a sudden there I was with a stinky white cancer stick in my mouth again one day in Encinitas. It's definitely a problem. And it doesn't even FEEL good to inhale a lung-ful of carbon monoxide anymore-- when all you eat is quinoa and kale, your body becomes this hypersensitive sponge of sorts, and anything you put in it is so easily absorbed that its effects electrify you like holy water on a witch. So I spend all day pampering my body with orange juice and avocados only to fill it with toxins the second I give in to my fierce nicotine cravings. And because the chemicals have no rotten flesh or curdling lard to cling to in my stomach, they settle straight into MY flesh and lard, and twenty seconds after smoking I feel like I've done five lines of cocaine (I'm pretending to know what that feels like so I sound cool) and taken a baseball bat to the head. "Why?" you wonder. Why do I still poison myself with cancerous chemicals when I appear to get no satisfaction out of it and when it is so incongruous with the rest of my chosen lifestyle? That, my friends, is a very good question. And to be honest, I have no answer, other than "old habits die hard" or some stupid shit like that. So, for now, let's just move on to my other hallelujah-blocking vice: BOOZE!! 

Ohhhhhhh booze. I'll save the five hundred thousand pages necessary to cover this topic for a later date, and I'll just touch the tip of the iceberg for now. Basically, I've been a pretty big drinker since I started tending bar in Isla Vista at age twenty-one. I went forty days last summer sans the poison, and I truly felt the full benefits of a vegan diet for the first time: I was constantly overcome by bouts of delirium at how wonderful and full of possibility I felt. (The best "high" I've ever encountered in my life was being completely sober on a plant-based diet and dancing in a bar of drunkards to Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over." Other-worldly.) Then, one day, I was at Whole Foods and saw the specific bottle of sulfite-free vegan red wine I'd enjoyed at a restaurant months before, and it all went downhill from there. I spent the evening in my writer friend's basement downing mugs of the wine and incidentally sampling a non-vegan pot brownie which resulted in my waking up in the driveway. After that, I kinda slipped back into my habit of drinking nineteen hundred after-work cocktails and such, and that feeling of absolute euphoria hid itself somewhere in my body amongst the empty calories. 

I believe that if I ditched my vices, I would slowly become more and more like the Jesus-ly vegans I read about who say "That big hat is silly!" in voices reeking of innocence and who donate the majority of their time, money, and energy (which is a LOT when you're running on clean plant fuel and unencumbered by hangovers) to making the world a better place. My liver and my lungs are just BEGGING me to do so. However, I'm finding that even as I feel less and less comforted by ridiculously strong Ketel-and-sodas-with-lots-of-lemon and more and more grossed out by the stink of chemical smoke on my hands after a cigarette break, I cling a little to these dirty habits because they connect me to my former "shitty" self. If I let go of them now, there's no TELLING where my free-falling exuberance and desire to do "good" will take me. I'm not ready for that kind of life-altering change!! Right?! I mean, I'm still the person who says the "F" word every thirty seconds, is scared of babies, and whose favorite pastime is shit-talking about strangers. If you take these traits away from me, I'll just be... WHAT? Inherently good?! 

That concept is... terrifying. Is it just another part of Growing Up that (singlewhitefemale)'s try to put off as long as possible and pretend doesn't exist, like Driving or Marriage? (Although really, I'm still not sure that those are necessary either.) I just hope that someone will be gracious enough to slap me in the mouth the INSTANT I start laughing at Good Ol' Boy humor. You know what I mean. The guys who swoop their hair into optimistic gelled shapes and then say, "Boy you sure did kick that ball real high!" and laugh like they've just completed a sketch on Comedy Central? Yeah. The second I start doing that I might need an intervention in the form of three Camel Crushes and five hundred shots of Jameson with Sprite backs. Just be ready, guys. If I'm gonna do this good-person thing, shit might get real.