Sober

I was talking to a coworker yesterday who just finished the Master Cleanse, which basically means she drank lemon juice for 10 days and lost a bunch of weight.  I've always thought of the Master Cleanse as a gateway cleanse to eating disorders, as it requires you to not eat for over a week. Where was this cleanse when I was passing out in gym class because all I was consuming for weeks was juice and slivers of apples?  It would have been easier to just say, "Back off, it's called the Juice Cleanse and it's a really healthy way to loose weight."  Instead I was stuck identifying with the ugly word, anorexia. 
But I need to get my body back in balance, and the Master Cleanse sounded like a really good idea until I learned that I can't drink or smoke for an entire ten days.   As this information was stabbed into my ears by my co-worker who is so thin she looks like a walking back scratcher, it dawned on me that I can't for the life of me remember the last time I spent an entire ten days sober.  I think I was actually 17 and that was 5 years ago.  I don't drink daily nor do I smoke pot daily, but for five years I have not gone 10 days without doing one or the other, and that is startling news to me.  For now I'll chalk it up to it being my early twenties, and not my inclination towards a chemical rush and confusing it as mental clarity. 
Last night I was talking with Jen over the passing of a pipe loaded with plush green herbs, explaining to her that I'm really going to try and do the Master Cleanse.   Jen just laughed and said, "Have you met you?  Every bottle of booze I've bought since we moved in together has vanished within a day or two, I'm not optimistic about this cleanse Ryan." 
"Yeah, well I've had a really rough year," I said handing her the pipe and holding by breath.  As I ex-hailed, I let my body fall backwards onto her bed, pulled my feet behind my ears and cannon balled a fart towards Jen.  "That is the only mental Clarity I need," I said laughing until tears fell.    Maybe Jen's right, I thought to myself, I have met me. For now, I'm going to have a glass or two, maybe a bottle, of wine every other night and not feel bad about it.  It takes a true friend to talk you out of a cleanse and sobriety at the same time.  I'm going to miss her and I am going to lean on her harder than I ever have, and she will lean on me, because soon were going to fall on our ass's when we move to separate sides of the continent.   
I've been sleeping with Jen for about a month now.  In a totally platonic, I'm gay and she's a roller derby dyke, sort of way.  This morning I woke her up be screaming her name, and then pestered her for two hours while she got ready for the day.  I think she takes longer when I annoy the shit out of her but it's so much fun.  "Eat shit and die bitch," I might yell while sprinting past the bathroom to throw a wadded up old sock at her face.  I can't imagine what our neighbors must think when they hear her scream at me and call me a a dried up bag of diseased dicks, but I know she really means I love you, you beautiful man you.  And when I call her a smelly vat of putrid vagina's, I really mean, I love you and there are literally no words in the world to adequately tell you how much.