november 22: thanks

so, pixylisa wants to know if i want to go down that thanksgiving rabbit hole. the answer:

HELL NO!!! i really really don't want to. so why even contemplate it? why even attempt it?

1) the menu has already been set. this was done while i was thinking that i could handle it, while i was thinking i could live with 3 days a year eating cooked: thanksgiving, christmas and my birthday. i still think that maybe i can handle that. what happened in the meantime was a huge stretch of that position.

2) i'll be dining with folks who have no idea about a raw food diet.

3) if the choice is some cooked food versus a bunch of high-fat gourmet raw, which i would have to prepare, i would rather have the cooked food.

4) the big whammy: on friday, i will be having thanksgiving dinner with doug's family, meeting them for the very first time. i'm sure they are lovely people, as he is a lovely person. however... his mother is a conservative, southern baptist, texas woman. not only that, she is also a SAD dietician. she writes SAD textbooks, for the love of all!!! she is also the head dietician for texas WIC. this is sure to be a very highly SAD thanksgiving. what's more, i'm the first woman doug is introducing to his mother since his divorce 2 1/2 years ago. she knows i'm vegan, she doesn't know about the RAW bit. so... for the sake of politics and sweetness and light, i'm going to eat cooked food. i'll be bringing my own - recognizable stuff, beans and cornbread and baked sweet potatoes - but i'm not going to use this particular forum to explain my raw food lifestyle. i'll be glad if i can avoid too much discussion about my vegan lifestyle. or about my politics. or about my lack of religion. or about yoga. or about the fact that yes, i'm having sex with her son out of wedlock. really, i think the only thing i'm missing for her to disapprove of is that doug and i are boringly mono-racial. (at the big steak dinner party last weekend, we were actually the ONLY mono-racial couple there. i made up for it by being the vegan bitch.)

ugh, life is complicated from this side of the table. back in the day, before i had any mindfulness about what i put in my mouth, i too had the impression that those who did were complicated and high-maintenance and rather unpleasant. now i know better. now i know the incredible mental and emotional gymnastics required to live in integrity that goes against the grain. it's not easy to make the choice between being pleasantly social and feeding yourself properly. it's downright damn difficult. my biggest worry about this week is that when i'm at odds with myself, as i will be, i can be a little unpleasant. i hope that doesn't happen.