It will probably be another week after the end of the fast before I feel confident enough to start eating things like oatmeal and rice and cheese--- although I've decided that I'm going to cut dairy out of my diet at least while I'm at home. It's really not practical to believe that I can go out to eat and there would be a plethora of vegan options on the menu. Also, I really love omelets. There are some egg substitutes on the market, though, that I will try.... and vegan cheeses.
About ten years ago when I lived in LA, I saw a psychic. She was referred to me by my boss at Sony. At that time in my life, I was really in a dire place and was desperate to pull myself out of it which is what drove me to make an appointment with the psychic.
The psychic was this hippy British women who lived in the Bay area. As soon as she saw me, she told me that my diet was affecting my body's ability to heal itself emotional. I was a vegetarian and ate relatively healthy although I was periodically skipping meals and the meals I did eat were usually loaded with carbs because I was hungover and needed comfort food. I was also drinking an insane amount of alcohol and consuming valium. She suggested that I become a vegan and cut out alcohol. She claimed it would help detoxify my body and enable me to heal. Pretty much everything I'm doing now...
She told me she could guide me through this process for a measly $500. Since she lived in Northern California, she said we could communicate by email and phone. Given how desperate I was, I agreed to it.
During that time she gave me a menu of recipes. Most of what I needed to buy was at Whole Foods and was incredibly expensive. So, not only was I $500 less than I was prior to seeing the psychic but I also had to double my grocery budget.
During that month I ate nothing but vegan food. I was amazed at how good so many of these dishes were. I even made certain dishes for carnivorous friends of mine who couldn't believe they were 100% vegan. Cheese has always been a huge weakness of mine and I was elated to find a cheese substitute that tasted.. well.. like cheese.
I ended up falling off the vegan diet as I simply couldn't afford it. When I look back at that time, I believe I wasted a lot of money. The psychic really didn't help me at all. Perhaps I wasn't ready to shift gears in my life back then as I was mourning over a number of things--especially a lost relationship and the fact that my ex told me to "get a real job and give up on the dream of making it as an actor". That sort of set all these negative thoughts in motion. My spirit really took a beating and I don't think I ever fully recovered from that while I was in LA.
Saturday, I spoke with a friend of mine from LA who I hadn't spoke with for over 5 years. We spoke for almost two and a half hours. He lives in NYC now. We've stayed "friends" on Facebook and emailed each other but we hadn't actually spoke since we both lived in LA. Not sure what prompted me to call him...
Back in the LA days we were quite close. We both temped at Sony and hated it. One of the execs kept hitting on me. It was grossly inappropriate and my friend told me I should sue him because he kept calling me at home and telling me he could help my career. My friend (who was gay) and I pretended we were dating to get this guy off my back. My friend, who was originally from New York, never did mesh with my other friends from NYU... he was more down to earth and not caught up in the pretentiousness of LA.
Years later he told me he couldn't believe I had stayed friends with my "LA circle" for so long because I was so unlike them. I always tried to look out for him and even got him a part in a play I was doing. We ended up bonding with the director and a few of the actors in the play thus a new circle of friends was born.
One of them was this Romanian director guy who was very passionate about theatre. I acted in a lot of his plays which were really bizarre and made no sense. One of his plays was panned by LA Weekly. (They did compliment the actors, though!)
He was extremely passionate. He had beautiful green eyes and when he would get worked up about something, they'd get really wide. There was a hint of insanity in those eyes. That said, I loved him dearly. His wife wasn't an actor but she was very sweet... plus she was a pothead which was great for me since, at the time, I was one too.
Back in those days, the Romanian and his wife would have wild and crazy parties. They lived within walking distance from my place so I was always there.
One day after one of the plays, they had a wrap party. I played two characters in that show. One was very commedia dell'arte. I wore a wig and had bizarre makeup and, again, gave an opening monologue that made no sense. God bless the Romanian director. My hair was sprayed down with hair spray from the wig. There were wall candles all over the apartment.
As I was leaving the party I stopped by the front door to say goodbye to my friend from NY and his boyfriend. It all happened so fast but I remember hearing my friend from NY say, "Your hair is on fire". Apparently, the hairspray from earlier had made my hair super flammable. Romanian director and a bunch of our friends were in the main area casually drinking cocktails and laughing at the fact that my hair was on fire. I screamed, "Don't just stand there! Somebody put out my hair!". My NY friend threw something on it and put it out. It seemed like an eternity.
My hair was seriously singed and I'm lucky that it didn't burn my scalp because it came awfully close. What I cannot believe is that so much time went by before somebody actually put it out. Many years prior when I lived in NYC, I had a similar experience.
I had a circle of friends back then--mostly gay men--- who loved to party. We would hang out at this place called King which was a gay bar in Chelsea. One night, I was sitting on a wall bench with lit candles behind it. My drag queen friend, Phaye, was sitting next to me. Suddenly I heard this sizzling sound. I said to Phaye, "What's that noise?" And he screamed "Girl, your hair's on fire!" and my hair never had a chance to really flame up because Phaye was on top of it and put it right out... with his hands! My hair was barely singed that night. I also ended up getting free drinks from management for the "inconvenience".
That's pretty much the difference between NY and LA.
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