It's no secret that I've fallen off the SCD wagon, big-time. It started with espresso, the gateway illegal, over two years ago. Espresso, and a spoonful of some shameless hussy of a dessert by Suzanne Goin, who should have a mug shot up in the P.O., as far as I'm concerned.
The bad news: once you transgress at all, you are no longer an SCD-er. Any transgression, no matter how small, puts you back at Day One just as surely as a sip of Bookers kicks you to the back of the bus at Alcoholics Anonymous. There's no judging; it's just that in the absence of better researched reasons for why it does and doesn't work, SCD requires fanatical adherence to the canon of foods handed down from Dr. Haas and Elaine Gottschall. There are no sanctioned cheats. Not a one. Period.
And so.
Yesterday, at the colorist's, I appalled even myself. Of course, I was only publicly, officially appalled after my good friend, L.A. Jan (we share everything) clocked me shoving two, count 'em, two Butterfinger-type crap candy singles into my mouth Augustus Gloop-style. (I'm reasonably sure I at least took the wrappers off.) When she replaced her eyeballs in their respective sockets, she asked me what the f*ck was going on.
I mean, I'm not even especially fond of Butterfingers.
I'm still sorting it out, but I think the kernel of understanding lodged somewhere in the back molar of my consciousness looks something like "You are not the boss of me!" Or, as I put it to my pal, Heathervescent, between bites of generously buttered, 100% forbidden rye toast at breakfast this morning, "F*CK YOU, MOTHERF**KER! You are not the boss of me!"
So many years of sucking it up, coloring within the lines, being a good girl, stuffing it down. So much rage. So much fear. It's going to find voice one way or t'other. And "F*ck you, motherf**ker! You are not the boss of me!" is pretty eloquent, if you ask me.
I have a sense of perspective, of course: I'm not perched above the quad in a clock tower with a rifle, or bankrupting the kids' college fund at the river casino's ATM, or even skulking behind the Rite Aid with a Marlboro Red. But I hate having something other than me owning me, so I need to get to the bottom of it.
Step One is noting it.
Step Two is noting it and not giving in.
To Butterfinger singles yesterday.
Or rye toast this morning.
Or Pizza Hut Thin 'n' Crispy Pepperoni Lovers' pizza, delivered, lukewarm and fresh enough, to my door in something under an hour.
Well, one out of three ain't bad...
xxx c
Image by LynnInTokyo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license