Ready your sighs…ready your eye roll. If you have talent, ready them to occur simultaneously.
I have officially gone California.
Do you know what that means? Well, this is but the second line. Of course I am going to tell you.
Given that I had a peaceful Midwestern upbringing, a fistful of geographic certainties were embedded into my mind at an early age. I was taught to avoid southerners…to never become a Californian…and to never, even under circumstance of life and death, trust a Canadian. These three commandments, along with learning to write cursive, is the staple of a 3rd Grade curriculum in Illinois.
But we age…we mature. It’s part the process of growing up…the search for self-truth in a world full of lies…
Okay. You’re right…overboard dramatic.
Now that I have dabbled in the witchcraft of this world for 23 years, I must confess a certain fondness for my brothers and sisters of the South. The first commandment hath been broken.
It has been ten months since my pilgrimage to Los Angeles…which happens to be in California. Some might consider me a Californian. A newbie, but still a Californian.
I direct those missionaries to the license plate of my automobile…prairie state love. Sweet home, Illinois. And I do it with pride…
Up until Saturday, I would have been able to go home and hold my head high. To stand on the top of the mountain, singing out…”Shed not your tears for me…the sinners have yet to take hold. I have yet to taste the sweet seductress’ poison.” I would have…but I can tell you’re picking up on my blatant usage of the past tense. Surely, something must be coming…
You see, on Sunday night…I began what Californians like to call, “The Master Cleanse.” It’s a 10-day thing where every meal is a bountiful feast of maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper mixed with eight ounces of water.
I am currently putting a wrap on day 3.
What does it do? Well, I’ll tell you that as well. When you stop eating for extended periods of time…which is exactly what is happening here…you trick the body into thinking that you are dying of starvation. In this phase, your body begins to flush itself of all things bad. That means toxins in vital organs…undesirable fat…and even little shards of scar tissue and bone from joints where you have previously had…say…experimental surgery.
There’s that…and this strange, powerful feeling of manipulating your body’s natural desires.
Just so you know, I do recognize the screaming contradiction of faking death…and labeling it, “healthy.”
You may think I have finally gone overboard. But you see…I am merely one spoke in the wheel of five. There’s a comfort in it. Knowing the likelihood that all of us have been clinically dipped in chocolate is much less than say…myself alone. That’s what happens when you live in California. Everyone’s a Californian.
When I go home…back to Illinois, or anywhere else in the world for that matter…people will know. It’s a look in the eye…a tone that you speak. People will know…Californian.
Conversations will be tainted. Relationships distrusted. And, it will certainly be uncomfortable.
Then, it will rip into me like a pack of rabid dogs…
I still…romantically embrace a wildly irresponsible distrust of Canadians. So I still have that going for me…which is nice.
Don’t we all???
