Green Smoothie Raw Blog 8/27/08 – 9/5/08

[For my short-attention-span friends: Things really start hoppin’ around 9/3/08 with my “Thoughts, Feelings, and Stuff” followed quickly (in 9/5/08) by the exciting and productive development of my having a raw vegan sponsor to help me stay raw. Enjoy!]

Wed 8/27/08

2 liters green smoothie. Steak bagel, hash brown, 2 liters water with lime, hotcakes, 6 pats of butter, yogurt parfait, tablespoon of REVCO (raw extra virgin coconut oil), slice sausage, 3 cloves garlic, ACV (apple cider vinegar) gargle, real marshmallow, three cheese focaccia. Meditaccione: 2 minutes. Exercise: 1 block uphill walking, three flights of long, steep stairs at subway. Feelings: great to be back. Hard to give up free so called food at work. Want to be back raw.

Thurs 8/28/08

4 liters g.s. Tablespoon REVCO. Steak bagel, hash brown, plain sundae, homemade beef chunk stewed with collards, onions, garlic, and clove, with leftover three cheese focaccia from yesterday. Natural vanilla marshamallow from Whole Foods. Exercise: same as yesterday. No: meditaccione, yoga. Feel like I’m both getting cleansed, healed and/but gaining weight.

Fri 8/29/08

8 oz g.s. Tablespoon REVCO. Steak bagel, hash brown, yogurt parfait, plain hotcakes with 6 pats of butter, and syrup. Slice of white pizza, slice of spinach pizza, Jamaican beef patty, 4 garlic knots, leftover beef stew, ½ neopolitan Klondike bar. Exercise: same as yesterday. Yoga: none. Meditaccione: 5 minutes!

Sat 8/30/08

8-10 soft corn tortillas with non-trans fat margarine. Tablespoon ricotta cheese, low sodium soy sauce, garlic, EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). ½ gallon g.s. Gallon H2O with lime juice. Exercise: same as yesterday. No yoga or meditaccione.

Sun 8/31/08

100% raw!!! 16 oz g. s. 6 carrots with garlic, EVOO, REVCO. 1 red delicious apple, 3 Bartlett pears, 4 bananas. 1 Grapefruit. 1 gallon water with lime juice. ½ page of written affirmations.

Outlook: uplifted. Body more comfortable. Less pain. Said affirmations several times: upon waking, during the day, and in the evening.

Mon 9/1/08

Gallon water. 2 liters g.s. Exercise: The usual steep and long subway stairs and uphill walk home, plus 30 minute run around the block and in a park, up and down park steps. Came home sweaty so job done. Started running log. Feel really accomplished and sexified.

Written affirmations: 1 full page. Mediaccione: 10 minutes. Sang and played guitar: 40 minutes.

Food: steak bagel, hash brown, hotcakes, 4 pats of butter, syrup, yogurt parfait, 6 oz milkshake, fruit salad with green smoothie dressing. Yummy! Saucay! Recipe: Chopped up: 2 bananas, 2 red delicious apples, 2 very ripe Bartlett pears. You won’t be ready for how tasty this concoction is. And I can’t believe I just wrote that so that I could say, “concoction”. I’m really naughty. But at least I didn’t say your taste buds would be “titillated”. Now, that would be really bad.

Tues 9/2/08

Half gallon water. 40+16+20 oz g.s. No yoga. 10 minutes meditaccione, 20 minutes aerobic exercise (running and brisk uphill walking). 1 full page of written affirmacciones. Food: steak bagel (can you see my addiction??) hash brown, hotcakes, 6 pats of butter, syrup, yogurt parfait, caramel sundae, tablespoon REVCO.

Wed 9/3/08

2 liters water. Liter g.s. 16 oz unsweetened plain green juice. No: yoga, medicaccione, exercise. Number of written affirmation pages: .8. Food: g.s. 1 grapefruit, bowl of fruit salad with green smoothie sweet gravy. Yummy – fruit soup!

THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, AND STUFF

Using raw veganism (through the living plants) to give me strength during hard and scary times. I pray for guidance and eat the right foods and miracles happen every time. I feel and am totally supported, not by fast food, (which is convenient but formulated to break me down and make me into an addict which needs it), but by the living plants which bring me closer to God and my fellow humanoid types like you reading this here thingie right now!

Thurs 9/4/08

2 litres g.s., Tablespoon REVCO. No yoga or meditaccione. 20 min aerobic exercise. 16 oz unsweetened plain green juice. Steak bagel meal with hotcakes, yogurt parfait. Caramel sundae to “reward myself” after work (compassionately understandable, but ?!), while out with a friend, ate 4 garlic knots, slice of white pizza at restaurant next to my job. Way too tired after working hard all day and then spending social energy with a brand new person after work to exercise.

Fri 9/5/08

I got a sponsor today! Whoo-hoo! I asked a non-raw friend if she would be my raw vegan sponsor and at 1:26 in the morning she texted me “Yes!”. Well, actually she said, “Hi! Be raw & awesome! Chat w. ya later. Xo [her name].” That was really effective, because now I can look whenever I want at my phone and see a friendly, encouraging, raw-related note from someone who thinks I’m really special, and it reminds me of exactly what I want.

As a result, I was able to resist temptation today, although it was really really really really hard… to remain 90% raw! The only non-raw things I ate were a few oz of milkshake and two little packets of granola yogurt topping. Not bad, eh? Thank GOD for Overeater’s Anonymous which gave me the sponsor idea years ago, and which I’ve tried, but was never, until now, successful with: trying to get a raw vegan sponsor. Apparently it needn’t be a “program” person nor an actual raw vegan who can give you more support. I hope I don’t eat my words and do a really good job of making the most of having such an aid. I’d been praying really really hard for a raw vegan sponsor, but didn’t want to post online again, ‘cause it hadn’t worked before. And I did have an actual raw vegan be my sponsor once, but that didn’t work either, because she and I grew apart both geographically and culturally and our friendship wasn’t strong enough for us to keep talking on the phone, which is my basic need as a raw vegan – to use the phone as the tool of support.

Anyway, here’s what I did and ate today:

No: exercise, yoga, meditaccione, sadly. Progress, not perfection, eh? Gots me a sponsor and said NO to McDs food for the first time in weeks. So, I didn’t work out or meditate. I’ll take that, thank you very much. I’m just fine with that!

5:30am: 2 grapefruits, 10 oz g.s.

6:00am: Tablespoon REVCO (makes you lose weight, is a gentle diuretic and fantastic brain food and essential fat to lube up your nervous system. Cures depression and eases anxiety.)

11:00am: 2 grapefruits, 10 oz g.s. whoo-hoo! Resisted the temptation to eat my usual McDs breakfast, thanks in large part to thinking about my new raw vegan sponsor, whom I want to make proud of Moi as a raw vegan. She already thinks highly of me as a person and an artist. I don’t want to let her down. I want to “be [my] word” as my raw vegan friend and visionary Arnold Kauffman says all the time! Yay for Moi! Yay for my friend! Yay for Arnold!

2:00pm: a little chocolate shake, but resisted the temptation to buy a sundae after work. Whoo-hoo!

2:15pm: Tablespoon of REVCO

5:30pm: raw dish of: collards, sweet potatoes, garlic, onions, plain unsweetened green juice (green gravy), sea salt. 2 packets of granola topping (not raw). Too tired after work to exercise, and too sleepy to medita-ta.

(c) 2008 by Cassendre Xavier a.k.a. Amethyste Rah. All rights reserved or something really bad will happen, I guess. Or something, I dunno. Who cares, really? All is well!

For previous Green Smoothie Raw Blogs, please visit www.myspace.com/cassendrexavier. Oh, and iff’n you like “Green Smoothie Raw Blog”, you’ll love “One Lucky Girl” and “Dreamlogue & Interpretaccione”, all viewable at www.myspace.com/cassendrexavier or www.cassendre.livejournal.com. Of course, there’s “ME! ME! ME! The Cassendre Xavier Newsletter” (which no one really should be without), also available at the aforementioned.

Cassendre Xavier is a self-described “renaissance negresse”. Although she also enjoys the craft of acting, and making visual art, this first generation American of Haitian and Chinese heritage is mainly a musician and a writer. As a singer-songwriter/guitarist, Cassendre has released 7 albums of music Borders described as “a cross between Tracy Chapman, Sade, and Enya” (Steven M. Wilson). Her sound has also often been compared to that of Roberta Flack, Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell, Pheobe Snow, and India.Arie, among others. Her latest musical recording, “Live at Tin Angel” was honorably mentioned as #9 of “Top 21 Local LPs of 2007” (M.J. Fine, Philadelphia City Paper). Under her self-assigned soul name Amethyste Rah and featuring the music of Thaddeus (Sanaya Roman), she has a growing line of spoken word/guided meditation recordings called “Affirmations for Survivors”, the first two being “Spirituality” and “Self-Love”. Her “snappy and redeeming” (Karen Gross, Philadelphia City Paper) multi-genre writing has been published nationally in various literary anthologies and periodicals, as well as previously self-published chapbooks “secrets and lies: poetry & other words” and “Making of a Woman/Artist: a book for every black girl and every black woman who has ever wanted to be an artist”. She wrote, directed, and starred in a 5-actor play called “Sex for Survivors” which ran for three days in the Philly Fringe Festival 2003. An award-winning cultural arts advocate, Cassendre is the founder and former director of several arts initiatives in Philadelphia including the Women’s Writing & Spoken Word Series (Robin’s Bookstore, 2002-2006) and the Black Women’s Arts Festival (The Rotunda and other venues, 2003-present). She received a $15,000 Leeway Transformation Award in 2005 for her work in art and change. Now reinventing herself as a musician and writer in her native city of New York, Cassendre practices an active, raw vegan lifestyle, braiding her own hair extensions, and getting as many naps and hot dates in as possible. Visit often at www.cassEndrExavier.com.