The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 77: Food Fast Success, Men Fast Failure
Recently I fasted for 19 days, sunup to sundown for the Baha’i fast. Although it was challenging at times, and more so because I just could not seem to eat much early in the morning, I was successful and through it gained some clarity. But lately I have also been on a dating fast and this fast has lasted way longer than 19 days. In this fast, the man fast, I am not getting clear, just getting frustrated and bored. Success at the food and not at the men is the focus of my blog. But first………..
My WTF of the week is my first concert experience (Taylor Swift) with my 7 year old. She loved it and I loved being with her and watching her enthusiasm, awesomely loud singing and continuous booty shaking, but I had to listen to two hours of Taylor Swift and there is a little problem there. I am sure it is verboten to talk in a not so nice way about such a nice sweet and constantly dating and breaking up girl, but this is not about her, so call off your dogs. I am visually impaired and we were sitting in the disability accessible seats which were at the top of the venue with a little overhang which was good for noise but meant I could see nothing of the stage and not much of the screens (those are called junbotronics says my daughter). What I could see was the light show and the strobes. Strobes and other flashing lights are painful when you have a blown permanently dilated pupil (although this was nothing compared to the Flaming Lips 2011 debacle). What this all means is that without a real sense of visuals I am really paying attention to the music and the singing and the acoustics and that is where it gets dicey. The electronic drum kit was just too loud and had too much reverb and on the rock-like songs I could not even really hear her singing or even the guitar, I wanted to go tell someone to adjust the sound because the band does not sound tight in any way and it is perturbing to me, but you just can’t do that. I got some relief on the acoustic only songs which were more enjoyable, but I was just hanging in there waiting for it to be over and if I could have seen a smart phone I would have been doing something else, like the other parents around me. But I have nothing else to do but LISTEN. And I am sure the show with all the dancers and costume changes was fantastic, but I just could not get the whole experience. So once again, not at all Taylor Swift’s fault. Not sure why I am afraid of offending Taylor Swift.
This week I can’t get enough of the new LA Shrinks show on Bravo. Since they are psychologists and not psychiatrists I object to the word shrink being used, but otherwise I am in love with the therapists and their clients. Dr. V says exactly what I would say in so many situations it is scary. My favorite comments are to date, when a woman says that her man’s member it is just too big and Dr. V says I think she is just afraid of sex, or you may think you are bipolar but maybe you are just a moody bitch. I find myself writing things down and saying, oh yes I am using that one. If she starts using my lines like, are there others invited to this pity party or when are you going to crawl out of your sh*thole, then I will know we are kindred. I am also in my two week countdown to the new season of Mad Men. I will have my super magnifier crazy binocular glasses out to enjoy set decoration and wardrobe and I am sure it will inspire a room redo. Plus the show is just fantastically written and the Betty Draper character is fascinating to me. This also means True Blood starts soon and the binoculars come out for that one too, for very different reasons. True Blood/Mad Men Sunday nights are the best TV watching ever. I am ready!
I am a newbie at fasting. I have not been inspired to fast for health reasons or do a master cleanse or a juice diet. The thought of just drinking stuff is not that appealing. The closest I have been to fasting is during undergrad when I had to live off a 10 dollar food budget per week and lived off Bisquick, ramen noodles and 25 cent pot pies. But that is not really fasting, that is just being broke. So in March as a new Baha’i I took on the 19 day fast, read about it, downloaded prayers and was ready for a spiritual endeavor.
The first few days were difficult because I had to eat before 6:30 am and I just can’t get food down at that time, so not much was consumed. I was tired much of the first week and had to take naps, and sometimes got dizzy if I burned too many calories during the day (which somehow turned into an excuse for not cleaning). I thought I would be famished and eat a lot at night, but found the first week when I ate I ate too fast and felt really sick, so I learned to graze, eating smaller portions of food every half hour and that worked better. I was also really irritable from 4pm on in what I called the “I could eat my toe I am so hungry” phase. And I was really, really cold, almost freezing and seemed to have no blood flow to my extremities; my fingers and toes white then bluish in the late afternoons. I constantly needed blankets and heat and I thought it was just me until I talked to other fasters and they said that was normal. The time change made things worse because I had to cook and feed my daughter an hour before I could eat which was torture. The first few nights when I could not eat until 7:30 I was shaking and had that weird not eating headache by the time I ate.
I started not really thinking about food at all during the day and in a way I had more time to think about other things and because of that was productive. I had more time because I was not snacking or preparing food or stopping to eat all day, and once the fatigue phase passed I was hard at work and I actually finished my memoir and started some other things. While I was literally listening to my gut, I started listening to my gut, my inner voice and gained clarity. The clarity I gained was about my relationship to others and my need to get out of some not so healthy relationships and to better handle some stressful situations that I just can’t get out of. I gained a sense of calmness and choice in knowing that if I could have enough self-control to not eat I could have enough self-control to make some better choices and enact them and I could have enough self-control to not worry about the not dating and that was OK. And or about a week after the fast I felt good. But as research shows, I depleted all my willpower during the fast and the not dating part started to really bug me. That fast, the no dating fast of many, many months and not really by choice, got super difficult and I just hit the wall.
During the man fast I have had a guy that I will call a delicious piece of my favorite thing, dark chocolate, waived around me in a friendship that can’t be anything other than a friendship. That friendship of several months with someone I am super attracted to has been a source of constant frustration. Like there is a dark chocolate delicious dessert and it is always right in front of you, but you can't eat it and there are no other dessert options on the table. I have gone out looking for other tasty desserts, but there are none to be found. So I had to completely take that desert off the table, so to speak. When it comes to men and things I like to do with men, I am not great at the fasting part. And I find myself setting the bar lower and lower, like I am just this close to being like the teacher in Ferris Bueller saying anyone, anyone. And I ask myself why I am so bad at this, the man fast. I know other people can do this. I have friends that have not dated for years and they seem to be fine, And I try to convince myself at the 4 or 5 or 6 month mark that I am fine, I don’t need to date, but it is just not true. I get to a point that point I am now hitting where I just want to be taken on a nice date, get a nice meal, have someone tell me I kook nice and maybe have a make out session, Is this too much to ask? And as you may know, my internet dating days are long over. If you thought the EHellmony blog was scary, there is a section in the book about my experience on Match and how it will murder your soul and destroy your self-confidence (with details on seven dates including the 50 shades of gray choker guy). So with no Internet dating and no time to go out, I am left without options or opportunities. Besides grocery stores and my kid’s school which is just weird. And when I make no effort I seem to still get nothing or the nutty and needy crowd. And I am so done with those men; I have no time to be their therapist or their mother.
So, for now, I am at the point where I have cleared the path and opened the door for a nice, nurturing and hopefully attractive man to find me. Maybe I should put on some of those road work blinking items or just wear a sign to make it easier, but that is not practical and I am back to the flashing lights problem. And I need to turn away from the exciting but “you are going to pay for it later” rich chocolate dessert men and be open to a vegetable of a man, one who is maybe not as interesting on the surface, but with the right seasonings can be appealing and is always good for you.
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
