bye the rules

By the chance that you haven't realized already, I'm ridiculous. In all that is my spontaneous nature, I am forever living "by the rules." And I don't just mean saying please and thank you. I spent today with my uncle. In between lunch and American Idiot, he told me a story: One afternoon, many years ago, I spent at least three hours reprimanding my fellow underaged folk for running by the pool. Even at three I knew that it was dangerous and not allowed. What did I tell you? Ridiculous. In spite of this, I promise I've always been fun-loving too.

It was an appropriate story for today, the official last of my 21-Day Crazy, Sexy Adventure Cleanse. For three weeks I've been living by more dietary rules than I'm used to--no gluten, animal products, sugar, and alcohol--and actually enjoying it. I've been drinking green juices, sipping green smoothies, and munching green salads. It's been great. But 8:30 yesterday morning I opted for a vibrancy-free breakfast with cinnamon banana oatmeal and peanut butter.

It's because I've been staying the past few days at my aunt's apartment but also because I'm beginning my transition. In the next few days, I'm going to introduce more grains into my diet and try to sustain the high vegetable count. I'm going to continue to keep my sugar to a minimum yet still have to figure out how I feel about fish, eggs and dairy. As for alcohol, I will continue to drink responsibly.

Around one o'clock Saturday afternoon though, I let myself forget about all rules and restrictions. My friend was in town visiting and proposed we meet for brunch. 

We all partook in the bottomless mimosas and I chose a salad and frittata with broccoli rabe, parmigiano, and sausage. Everything about the meal was delicious.

Between the four of us, we spent almost two hour sharing stories of life and love, school and work. And for a $19.95 brunch of delectable food and drink, Tre was a fantastic LES find. We highly recommend it.

I expected my body to be unhappy with my choices but it didn't bother me in the least. This really is my cleanse. Apparently every part of me wanted to live a little.

So live I did. Kate, Steph, and I spent the rest of our afternoon learning, laughing, and discovering all that is Chinatown with New York: the Game.

I was invited to play as a reviewer for Go Backpacking (click to read) so I can't really tell you much more about it here. Well, except for this amazing revelation: it made for the best city walk I've had all year, and that's saying something.

Later, I headed back uptown to spend the evening with my cousins. As we pondered dinner, I thought to myself how I should really just have a plate of vegetables, mostly of the  green kind, and call it a day.

But, I wanted pizza. I ran down a couple of blocks for my healthiest option, Cafe Viva. I ordered a Bella slice (on spelt crust with pesto, spinach, onions and feta) to go. And when I arrived back at the apartment, I found that it was everything I'd been hoping it'd be and more. Being polite, looking both ways before crossing the street and brushing at least twice a day are inarguably great rules. Self-imposed ones like drinking a glass of water with lemon upon waking and washing my face before bed probably are too. When it comes to my plate however, as much as I loved the detox, I don't know if I'll ever be ready to be so permanently stringent.