One week down.  I can hardly believe it myself.  I have had many conversations with many different people and they have all been very supportive of my venture and I can say that I have learned so much already about the life I’ve chosen to lead.  Like I said, research has my best friend.  Today’s meals consisted of a portabella mushroom burger (had mayo on it) oops, edamame, garden salad for lunch.  I had a snack in between, dried green apple slivers and vegan pizza and salad for dinner.  Let’s not forget the organic beer to boot.  Besides that one little hiccup I had myself a purely vegan day, it felt good.  The Cheesecake Factory was a bit accommodating, but I think it could have done with a few more dishes that don’t have cheese or chicken in them or rather relied on those two ingredients so much.  Flatbread, a local pizza joint, which I believe is a chain, was so accommodating.  All-natural pizza with all-natural and locally sourced ingredients made for a wonderful night.  The staff was very accommodating to our needs and understood my position in not eating certain items.  So what’s next?  This weekend I begin planning my meals to make sure that I will remain healthy through out the month and longer if I so choose.

What I realized tonight was that places like Flatbread are great because they cater to those like myself who chose to not indulge in any animal products, but being that Vegetarians only take up about 1.5% of the population in the United States.  So many places don’t feel the need to accommodate such individuals, but in my opinion, those who cater to this minority are better off.  When I don’t have to ask about every single ingredient or plate of food and can take the menu’s word for it, I feel much more comfortable.

side note:  one week has brought clarity, what else do i have to look forward to?

All and all, today was a good day.  Cravings were at a minimum and I only had one coffee.  I was also informed that coffee will inhibit the bodies ability to absorb certain vitamins and minerals.  This is very depressing for me seeing as how I can’t live without coffee. Yet another item I will need to give up?  Lord help me.

Today, the weather was flawless.  I woke up with the windows open, it was amazing.  There was a time were the restaurant had but 2 people eating and I needed to feel the air and the sun.  I must have stood there for 15 minutes just taking in the sights.  I’m not really sure what I had me so mesmerized, but I could move.  The world had me captivated and motionless.  I couldnt’ move and I literally needed to force myself back into the building.  Those following me on twitter saw the picture of the sun over the building across from my restaurant.  Spring was in the air, and it could have almost past for a summer day here in West Hartford.   While I was outside I overheard two ladies talking about hamburgers and how they are all the same and “this and that.”  I kindly minded my own business and restrained myself from making comments to them to the contrary.  Good filtering, L would be proud of me today.

side note: at work, you are only as good as the guy standing next to you.

I had my first encounter with someone tell me that I’m being a vegetarian because I want to lose weight and that most people who are vegetarians lose a lot of weight.  I can already see the ignorance showing through.  I tried to explain to someone else my post yesterday about fully understanding something before writing it off.  Surely I could have researched vegan’s and vegetarians in a library somewhere, but what would have I learned really?  Hypothesize, experiment, analyze results, repeat results.  I plan on doing just that.  What better way to prove something, then to involve the scientific method and make fact from fiction.

I just realized today also that I NEED to return to the casino.  Drop a few c-notes on the blackjack table and double down a few times, winna winna, chicken dinnah.  Nothing spells class like sitting a luxury hospital for all the geriatrics in Connecticut.  It won’t be long until the 50,000 slot machines come equipped with oxygen masks just to keep them alive long enough to get that one last pull.  The horse betting room might just as well come with guns and full time coroners.  Hell you could even make the walls canvas and have a Jackson Pollock contest.  And have you see the degenerates that walk around picking the cigarette butts from the ashtrays looking to get that one last puff so they don’t have to buy the $20 pack at the Quik-E-Mart inside.  My heart goes out to the poor housewives who sit there waiting for their husbands at 4 am reading the Gambling Addiction pamphlets.  The one thing that will make me laugh every time is the poor bastard pushing the baby carriage.  You know that guys pulling bitch detail while his wife and the girls play the penny slots.  Yup, this sounds like a place I want to go.  Who’s coming with me?

side note:  there is no tone or inflection in online chat and that pisses me off.

Tokyo – 10 years ago

The train slowed at the station and the young promising man stepped from the train onto the platform. He was the only American to be seen for miles.  He carried with him a suitcase and sports coat draped over the same arm.  He made his way down the steps from the platform above to the street below.  He took the escalator.  A small Japanese man waited at the bottom with a sign “Jake.”  He looked around and figured that could only mean him.  He approached the man.

“Mr. Ambrose?” The small man asked.

“Yes.”  He tipped his cap.

The man welcomed him into the car. “The limousine will see you to your hotel.  Please get in.”

Without hesitation Jake entered the limo.  He rolled down his window and looked out at the world.  Tokyo was a bright city with many attractions.  After the meeting, all he could think about was returning to his room to rest.  The limo pulled up in front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Tokyo.  He walked up the small carpeted stairway and into the main lobby.

“Any messages?” Jake asked.

“None sir, your room is all prepared.”  The concierge points to the elevator. While approaching the elevator he passes a beautiful American woman.  She is dressed in her business attire and makes way for the hotel bar.  He locks eyes with her and she with him as he enters the elevator.

Jake slides his key card into the lock and clicks open the door.  The lights flick on and a room full of people erupts in congratulations.  Jake is stunned.  He boss stands in the center of the floor with a cigar in his mouth clapping his hands at the young executive.

“Welcome the new partner to the party.”

Jake’s jaw hangs on the floor.  He takes the cigar from his boss’s hand, but is still distracted by the woman’s face downstairs.  He is eager to find out who she is.  The party gathers around Jake and toast to the new partner of the American conglomerate.  It became apparent that this was not the place for him at the moment.  He made his way to the door to gather himself and get a breath of air.

“Don’t go too far, partner!” This boss gave him a thumbs up.

“You know it.” Jake smiled.

Downstairs, Jake walked through the lobby and into the hotel bar.  It was more of a club than anything.  Business executives like himself that had just closed their own business deals were now celebrating.  He could not see her though.  He took a seat at the back and ordered his whiskey neat.  He took small sips and scanned the room for her beauty.  A touch from behind and that smell of designer perfume was all the assurance he needed.

“Mind if I join you?” She asked.

“Not at all, please.”

She sat next to him and they talked for hours.  The warm sake helped facilitate the conversation.  The crowd shuffled in and out and Jake began to forget about his own party in the floors above.  They exchanged smiles and laughs until their bodies hurt.  The looked deep into each other’s being.  A look that goes far beyond any other first date.  It was as if they were able to find out everything the needed about each other with each passing questions and conversation.

“I’m Sarah.” She extends her hand.

“Jake,” he shakes her hand.

“Do you know what today is?” Sarah asks. Jake looks down at his Seiko watch.

“Friday? Yea, Friday the 22^nd of November.”

“That’s correct, the Day of Small Snow,” she states, “look.” She points out the window. Jake turns to see the street lamp outside.  Small flurries pass in and out of the light.

“It’s beautiful.” Jake said.

Jake lit a cigarette and inhaled slowly and let out a deep breath.  The long green, reupholstered couch was becoming uncomfortable. He stirred for a second.

“It was then that I realized I’d spend the rest of my life with her,” Jake said slowly.

Dr. L’ling’s pen came to a screeching halt as he underlined a few words on his paper.  He looked up at Jake.

Today’s was a bit of a wake-up call.  You quickly learn, as a vegetarian, that you can’t just live off of pasta,  bagels, misc. oils, eggs,  and other dairy products. My carbohydrate intake went up 10 fold today and while I enjoyed all my meals and didn’t eat anything I was nearly gagging over, it will eventually catch up with me, weight wise.  That, as D pointed out, is one of the biggest misconceptions with vegetarians/vegans.  “OMG, you are gonna be so skinny, blah blah blah, and lose so much weight.”  While I have yet to experience it, I can already tell that managing weight as a vegetarian/vegan will be just as hard if not harder than one as a meat eater.

Why are people so quick to dismiss the things they know nothing about?  Why not embrace them and learn what it is people actually worry about.  Why some people don’t eat meat, or want anything to do with food and products that contain any type of animal in them or have not been certified to have not been tested on animals.  Now I’m all for keeping animals safe, but I think I draw the line at soap or shampoo that has been tested on animals.  Like are they super cleaning them with these products or rubbing it in their eyes to see if it actually stings or not?  What gives?  Leather wallets and clothing and the fur jackets I understand as well.  Point to be taken today, before you decide to write-off someone else’s lifestyle be sure you have understanding of what it actually is.

side note: your ability to break your own habits opens more doors in your mind.

I spent a good amount of time catching up on some Carnivale as well.  If you have not seen it I definitely suggest that you find it.  It takes place during the dust bowl, great depression, and brings an interesting twist to the battle between good and evil.  Between a lonely carny castaway and a minister who has lost his god.  It lasted two seasons on HBO and then canceled.  I was not a happy camper when I found that out.

I have received a few messages from a few of you “thanking” me for trying out this whole vegetarian thing and it means a lot, I guess.  It’s A) a condition of will power B) a thirst for knowledge on a group of people I’m not entirely familiar with and C) a way to break up the monotony of my current lifestyle.

side note: there are people you can trust, and then people that you trust. remember that.

side note:

Looking up at the crown molding there wasn’t much the man could think of other than his wife.  The couch was a dark green, recently reupholstered, with that “20 year old” smell.  The doctor sat behind him.  He couldn’t see him from his current angle, but could hear his pencil scratch the paper as he jotted down his notes.

“I don’t want ‘hand-me-down’ love. It’s just doesn’t fit the same.  I want her to love me like I deserve to be loved.”

The man lay covered in snowflakes face down in the snow.  The sun reached high and the sky and warmed his back.  He stirred for a moment and opened his eyes slowly.  His eyes adjusted slowly to the light.  He stood up in the middle of an intersection, the world still frozen around him.

The man’s face began to blister from the cold winds.  He knew that if he didn’t find his answers soon that this place would be the death of him.

“Do you know why you are here?”  A mid-sized Asian man seemingly steps out from nowhere from behind a small lamppost.

“Dr….Dr. L’ling?” The man turns in disbelief.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help you through your next challenge.  Something we haven’t visited in a while.  Now do you know why you are here?”

“Each passing moment brings me closer to an answer, but if I were to guess, I’m being tested.” The man replies.  “I haven’t always been true to my family or myself…this is my punishment.”

“You are here to learn what it is to truly be a family, and to be awakened to the reality that you have shut out for so many years.”  The doctor points to the middle of the street.  In the middle of the street a taxicab appears, and people begin to move about the street.  A man and a woman approach the taxicab.

“Sarah?” The man looks at the woman with familiarity.  “What is my wife doing with that man?”  They ease into the back of the cab, the strange man’s hand on Sarah’s back.  He runs for the cab as it speeds off down the street and leaves him in a swirling dust of debris

The doctor snaps his fingers, and the buildings and scenery fly past them in different directions.

“What is it that you want from this?” The doctor asks.

“I’m gonna kill that guy.” The man’s face is red with hate.  The scenery comes to a stop.  They both stand in front of an old hotel.  The building, covered in ice, stands thirty stories above the two men.  The door at the front begins to melt away; the man approaches the revolving door and enters.

“What you find, you will not like.  Only when you understand why you are here can you find resolve.”  The doctor says.

The man doesn’t flinch as he enters the hotel.  He runs up the stairs to the second floor.  The different undergarments left behind lead him along a dark hallway.  A sports coat, woman’s sports coat, two white shirts, a tie, and a bra light his path.  At the end of the hall light shows through under the door.  Shadows pass from side to side.  The man backs up a few steps lifts his leg and braces himself.  To his left he hears movement; he sees them run into a room nearby.  Quickly, he turns and follows with haste.  He crashes through a nearby door, nothing.  The next few doors that link the rooms are opened.  He can see a woman’s leg disappear to the right a few rooms ahead.  He races through the doorways and slides to a stop just in time to see doorway at end of the adjacent hallway click shut.

“So this is your escape route.”

He peaks off the railing to see the two racing down the steps.  They laugh as if it were a friendly came of cat and mouse.  As he nears the bottom he can hear them exit onto the alley.  There is nowhere left to go, he thinks to himself.  As he busts open the door he steps onto a lonely piece of ice and slips and falls on his back.  His head cracks against the ground.

“This is our path, should we ever be discovered.  We walk to the street, hail different cabs, and off we go. Understood?”

“Yes.” Sarah replies.  He kisses her on the cheek and leaves her in alleyway. “Oh Jake, Why can’t you just love me like you did.  All I want is you.”

“I’m coming….” Jake says softly as he blacks out.

Jake comes to standing in the hallway looking down at the shadow dancing back and forth with his hands on either side of the door frame.

His foot crashes through the door, shattering the wood frame.  The two inside are un-phased by ruckus that has ensued.  Sarah glides gently across the top of the man’s body.  He holds her tight by the waist.  She moans uncontrollably to the feeling of him inside her.

“SARAH!” The man screams.

The doctor steps in behind him.  “We can not see past choices we don’t understand.  Why are you here?”

The man lay on the floor crying as his wife makes love to another man.

Back in the doctors office the man still lay on his back.  He opened his eyes.

“I want to be everything for my wife.  I have done so many awful things to her and I have never truly been a husband for her.  She loves me.  I saw it in the alleyway.  Her hooks are dug deep in my chest and mine in hers.  We can finally love each other for who we really are.”

The doctor looks up from his pad and at the man lying on the couch in front of him.

“We will continue our session next time.”

Back in the hotel room a breeze has picked up through the hallways.  The images of Sarah and the strange man are swept away in snowflakes and out the window.  Jake’s world returns to cold and darkness.

Dining out now has a new angle as one needs to be sure there are safe practices to accomodate a person, such as much, with food that is prepared without meat present or by being contaminated by it.  I am now that asshole who is asking about everything on the menu and whether or not it has any meat products in it or prepared in the same oil or pan.  It has opened my eyes to the fact that not all places are able to fully accommodate a vegetarian.  That almost seemed a stretch at my local “watering hole.”  Primarily selling burgers and most things beef related, it was extremely tough to find something that I could eat.  Spaghetti and Meatballs sans meatballs.  None of the apps were accommodating, all fried with some kind of meat or eat the same container as meat, so it was a salad to start.

I did a bit of shopping as well.  This was a bit harder.  Normally, I’d take a good slice of Southwest Chicken pizza or chicken salad wrap and be on my way, but today was different.  I needed to hunt down, cautiously, my next few meals.  Salad, fruit, and some veggies for starters.  A good high fiber cereal and some peanuts.  Egg will also be another item that I pick up today so I can properly replace my protein intake.

All and all these two days were gruely and my health has taken a turn south to boot.  Day 3 has started a bit better and I’m feeling on the up and up.  While I recover I’ll be working on Dr. L’ling.

1st I called the apple store in search of my friggin’ keyboard so I can finally get this computer fixed and the verdict was that they attempted to call me and I never answered/returned their message.  That wasn’t a great start.  Since I neither picked up my phone or returned a message they part was returned?  Not sure why that happened, but in either case I was told I needed to return to the apple store so they could re-diagnose the problem and order the part.  This confused me.  They found the repair request in their system with all the previous notations and need parts, but still required me to come in for formalities sake.  Just seems like a giant waste of everyone’s time really.  The poor bastard behind could have gotten the virus erased from his computer from all the kiddie porn his downloading, but instead they needed to be as redundant as possible.  Luckily, they were able to schedule an appointment for me via telephone.

The rest of the day I spent playing some video games and outlining my next piece for Minus the Beats which is entitled Dr. L’ling.  Should be released Saturday afternoon for those of you following along.  At night I got some dinner with D at Moe’s.  I ate an entire Homewrecker burrito, which sits like a cinder block in your stomach and consequently forces any remaining matter in your lower intestines out…usually without much warning, I digress.  We spent a good amount of time laughing to one another about the people passing by, nothing vulgar, but nothing you’d probably talk about at the dinner table with your grandparents if you catch my drift.  We may be catching the express train to hell nevertheless.  We ended our charade at Starbucks over a coffee and Americano, which i spilled right off the bat.  It was a fun day all and all, but as you have read, slightly uneventful.

Tomorrow I return to work and hopefully the general public with help stimulate my brain stem a little more.

side note:  i hate to say it, but fur coats aren’t in style anymore and honestly, not sure they ever were, moreover, a fake fur coat is even more of an abomination, they should be lit on fire.

I had arrived at work at 9 am and steady all day long.  We went on small waits for both lunch and dinner.  It was great to see so many faces, but then came the evening.  L requested that she be able to leave early and M would close the dining room, but that meant I would have to stay and close the restaurant.  How could I say no?  She stared at me with the sad puppy eyes with the need to return home as quickly as possible to finish a couple mid term papers.  After much debate with myself, in my head, I finally conceded and allowed her to leave.  When the question was posed to me, “Why are you still here,” I froze.  I looked at him and searched quickly for the wittiest answer I could find.  I responded, “Work is my life.”  He just smiled and nodded back at him as if, on some level, feeling bad for me maybe?  I live by myself, so there is no excuse that someone needs me at home.  My girlfriend, for 8 months of the year, lives 4 hours away.  Seeing as how I don’t usually get 2 days off in a row, it is very difficult for me to see her on “the regular.”  I’m paid salary, so no matter if I work 40 hours or 70 hours, I am still making the same amount of money.

It’s a sad day when you realize that you are okay with working 15 hour days.  I actually found myself, around hour 12, doing dishing in the back.  What the hell was I thinking?  Any normal person would be looking for any reason to be sitting on their ass trying to get out of there or making someone else do the work.  Something had come over, I don’t know what.  Then, suddenly, I was in a motivational mood and talked to my staff about being ready for the next shift and “setting up the next guy.”  I checked my pulse at some point to make sure I was still alive, and pinched myself to see if I’d wake up.  It was all real.  I was able to use my Olympic Race analogy from Day 67 to help educate my servers on running a successful restaurant/business.

I realized today, you can’t be real with anyone anymore.  People say they want the truth, but all they really want is to be lied to and be told everything is okay, when the world is falling apart around them.  The world should not work like that.  Professional and Personal opinions are like apples and oranges, one says nothing about the other.

side note: I hate finding out that cool people you know are addicted to drugs.