“I imagine Hollywood has an underground Fogo de Chao that publicly vegan celebrities secretly sneak into. Much like an opium den, it’s filled with smoke and passed out patrons – except the smoke rises off the ceaseless meat offerings, while everyone’s passed out from eating too much of it.”
-ThisBitch, TheFaceBookFiles
I joke, but really.
They’re just human people. If they say they’re vegan – they mean right now. That could change a year from now when they’ve gone batty during Valium withdrawal and shaved their head with a lawnmower. I mean, I’m not static. I’m a different human, daily. Somedays I’m productive and feel great. Some days, I feel like I got hewn apart and haphazardly sewn back together in my sleep. I loathed Lady Gaga’s music for years. Then “Applause” came out and I had to hide my newfound habit. Madonna was American. And then, one day, she was British.
We change over time – and the same can go for diets – regardless of who you are. I haven’t eaten meat in a really long time. Like – three years maybe?I dunno, honestly. I don’t identify with a dietary group that holds meat-ings or gets clean carnivore coins or keytags for it. Not here in Northern Virginia, at least.
Out in L.A., though, I’d almost be surprised if they didn’t. Out there, anyone will ask what feeding genre you fall into – from the nice folk making small talk at a restaurant – to the room service dude who brought me my fruit platter promptly at noon every day I was there.
What’s this obsession with what goes in our tummies? (and if you live in San Fernando Valley, that means something else, totally.) As someone who’s struggled with the highs and lows of food obsessions myself, I think I get it. Like, out west (in that region, at least), people are ceaselessly surrounded by slim framed celebrities discussing which sorts of fuel they prefer to turn into feces. And then there’s the element of celeb wannabes with the delusion that they’ll occupy that same glittering group in rank and air if they take sufficient lifestyle notes and match shits with them.
Then, there’s yet a third group: those whose aspirations aren’t wrought from a desire to attain some elevated status, but because they just want to be in on the spectacle.
I identify with all’a that crap. Once upon a time, I lived there a year or so myself. We could go on a spiritual tangent saying it’s all irrelevant – whether you’re acclimating for social adoption, or matching diets and de la Renta with the next chick. I could say how all three’ll get sucked down the same unaddressed void at equal velocity – and leave you ravenous for more.
But that’s a dead horse whose meat I won’t eat (do we eat horse meat?) and here’s why.
Actually, my initial incentives were totally vain. I just wanted to be hot and thin with amazing skin and mermaid hair. Then, somewhere along the way, my svelte-status motives started changing (mostly because the end goal wasn’t coming so I had to switch gears) and realigning with this annoying thing that started nagging at me (I’m told it’s the beginnings of conscience. I’ll need more proof prior to believing such conjecture).
It wasn’t that hard, quitting meat. Really, I had more trouble with cheese (took a year), still haven’t quit cream products (no, the cow pus thing still doesn’t register for me), and I’ll never give up my teatime bee spit (honey).
So, when I get that raised eyebrow from someone silently judging me while asking, “So, why won’t you eat meat when you eat animal byproducts? ” (the inspiration for this whole entry and the idea being that creatures still suffer as their fluids are being siphoned out for human consumption), I try not to judge them for judging me. They’re just sad inside and stuff – and prodding at people with an emotional poker fills it for a bit, I guess. Once I transcend my self-conscious resentments ‘bout it, I try to let them know that – yeah – I’m not perfect.
And I don’t have a current gastronomical grouping.
But what I feel is basically this:
If something can think the thought, “Ow! Fcuk! I’m dying!” on the way to my dinner plate then, like, I kinda don’t want it.
For now, at least.
#Imonaspiritualpathbetch