You Hand Is Steady

Your hand is so much steadier than mine.

Daily drawing lines on paper with rhythm and purpose,
I think you'd have better luck applying makeup
on these eyes.

Mine is a writer's hand, shaky, and when active,
irregular in chicken scratch mistaken for poetry.

But every day I see you, you paint me beautiful.

You can't seem to stop calling me beautiful,
using words with conviction that I cannot deny.

I wish anything I wrote had that kind of strength of belief.

Day 2-3

Yesterday (Day 2) I finished off the day by eating exactly what I ate on Day 1.

The first two days I've been tired. So tired. Struggling to stay awake at my desk, wanting to nod off. This may be because the lack of coffee that has been my habit, having coffee a few times a week instead of just tea.

And I may have cheated (just a tiny bit!) because I didn't think about my morning tea as part of the project. I don't know why. The first two mornings I've had a cup of tea because I have been so tired. (From not getting usual caffeine or usual calories . . . hmmm?)

Woops. Now I'm trying to get more sleep to make up for it.

But I'll make further amends. I won't have tea either. And I won't spend the 3somedollars I have left to spend to make up for it. Five days without caffeine. Mind-boggling.

Other than the tea, I have not gone to a coffeeshop or out to eat, or had the free hot chocolate from work, or free coffee or mooched off my coworkers. The big test will be Saturday, where I work at a cafe where the food is yummy, and which I love to eat on Saturdays. Damn.

Note: I've been drinking a lot of water, it's a good appetite supressant.

As for today, I expect I'll be eating the same things today as yesterday, though I am almost out of the frozen peas, so will probably switch to either the broccoli/cauliflower mix or red pepper/broccoli/corn mix.

One of my friends had a suggestion for making rice more interesting: soy sauce, rice vinegar and a little bit of olive oil. Whaddaya know? I have those in my cabinet!

But he also stated that if he was doing this thing, all he'd buy was a bunch of ramen. So bad for you! I don't think I've been able to eat straight up ramen since high school. Here's why, courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Ramen and similar products are often criticized as being unhealthy or junk food. A single serving of instant noodles is high in carbohydrates but low in fiber, vitamins and minerals. Noodles are typically fried as part of the manufacturing process, resulting in high levels of saturated fat and/or trans fat. Additionally, if served in an instant broth, it typically contains monosodium glutamate (MSG) as well as a high amount of sodium, usually in excess of 60%, the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance.

Instant ramen is half-jokingly referred to as a staple food of typical college students. A package of ramen is incredibly cheap for the amount of food it contains. Its low cost and simple preparation has caused instant ramen to be referred to as "Purina student chow," "ghetto noodles", "Lazy Soup", and even "crackhead soup." Despite the variety of flavors, students may find a "ramen diet" monotonous after some time; fortunately, the rather mild flavor of the noodles themselves lends the product to versatility, and kitchen experiments have resulted in ramen-based desserts, salads, main courses, and more."

Ramen Dessert Recipe:
1 package ramen noodles (minus seasoning packet)
strawberry sauce (like you would get on an ice cream sundae)
1 bottle honey
1 dash cinnamon
1 dash sugar
whipped cream, from a can or Cool Whip, is best.

Cook ramen according to package directions.
Drain.
Place noodles in fridge until chilled.
Remove from fridge and place on a plate.
Add as much honey as desired, use a squeeze bottle for this.
Sprinkle on some cinnamon and sugar.
Add a drizzling of strawberry sauce.
Top with copious amounts of whipped cream and one more drizzling of strawberry sauce for colour. Enjoy!

NASTY!

Day 1-2

Yesterday (Day 1) I ate:

Breakfast
-2 slices of white bread with a thin spread of pnut butter (hey, it's still got a lot of fat in it, and though I like it, I still try to watch what I eat)
-a banana

Still hungry . . . so I eat:
half a cup of quick oats (which is the kind you either cook on the stove, or cook in the microwave at 50% power for 5 minutes. never had any oats that aren't instant, so i seemed to have added too much water and made a very gloopy gruel of yuck. tried to drain some of the water, added salt and pepper and slowly ate it anyway.)

That held me off till noon for . . .

Lunch
-1 small patty of ground turkey (i took the 1.30lbs of turkey and made them into seven small patties around as big as a sand dollar, one for each day)
-approximately 3/4 cup of brown rice
-a heavy drizzle of ketchup over the turkey and the brown rice (brown rice smothered in ketchup tastes pretty good actually)
-10oz of cran-grape juice

Snack @ 4pm
-big bowl of peas with salt and pepper (even though i wasn't too hungry, i needed to get my veggies in and i just knew i wouldn't eat them when I got home)

Dinner @ 6pm
-a piece of white bread, plain
-approximately 3/4 cup of turkey hill mint cookie and cream frozen yogurt (best dinner ever!)

11pm snack
-small amount of cold rice with balsamic vinegar dressing


Day 2

Breakfast (woke up kind of hungry)
-2 slices of white bread with a more liberal spread of pnut butter (compared to Day 1)
-a banana

That held me off till around 11:45am for . . .

Lunch
-small pattie of ground turkey
-3/4 cup of rice
-lots of ketchup poured over both (ketchup on rice lost part of its charm compared to Day 1, tomorrow might switch to soy sauce)

Still hungry . . . off to make oatmeal that hopefully doesn't come out like scary gloop.

Day Zero

So I went to the grocery store to pick up the food I’ll be eating for the $21/7 days thing.

$21 is what the average a person gets in food stamps to cover 7 days.

The following list is what I bought at the Giant store I usually go to in the Towson/North Baltimore area. I often go there, even though it’s not the closest grocery store to my apartment, because the prices are lower and it only takes 15 minutes to drive to. The closest chain grocery store (Superfresh) to me is about a fifteen minute walk, but being in the city, the prices are usually higher and the stores smaller with less variety. Things that were on sale are noted in parentheses.

1Lb 4oz Super G enriched white bread $0.99
1Lb Frozen Broccoli/Cauliflower (on sale 10/$10) $1.00
1Lb Frozen Petite Peas (on sale 10/$10) $1.00
1Lb Frozen Broccoli/Corn/Red Pepper mix (on sale 10/$10) $1.00
1.75qts Turkey Hill Mint Cookie and Cream Frozen Yogurt (on sale -$3.80) $1.99
1Lb Store Brand All Natural Peanut Butter $2.79
2qts Store Brand Cran-Grape Juice $2.29
2Lb Store Brand Natural Brown Rice $0.99
1Lb 2oz Store Brand All Natural Oatmeal (one sale -$0.39) $1.00
1.30Lbs Perdue Ground Turkey $2.59
3.45lbs Bananas (at $.49/lb) $1.69

My total before savings: $24.29
My total savings: $6.96
Total after savings: 17.33
Left to spend if I so choose: $3.67


So after buying all this, what are my thoughts? That this is almost too easy. This seems like plenty of food. I bought 7 bananas. I’ll have one banana a day, though I usually have two a day. I might buy more with the remainder, later. 2lbs of rice will make a lot of grains/carbs to eat and be satisfied. Juice for a sweet drink. Mint Cookie and Cream Frozen Yogurt (my personal all-time favorite) fortuitously on sale for dessert. Plenty of frozen vegetables, also fortuitously on sale. However, I do imagine that I will tire of eating the same thing every day, though the bread and peanut butter (the all natural was a splurge, I could have gotten regular peanut butter for $1.50 for the same size) might be had instead of oatmeal or rice some days. I don’t always eat meat every day, so 1.30lbs of turkey will do me fine, though I may want more.

It’s also seems too easy because we didn’t have to buy spices either. We could use what we already had. I have lemon pepper salt, soy sauce, garlic salt, pepper, ginger, and a few Mrs. Dash flavors, among other things. And those things are expensive, because it takes so long to go through them.

I thought going into this I would be going hungry some days. As of right now, I don’t see that happening.

And I think it might be easier for me because I probably eat less than the average American. I’m 5’1” and weigh approximately 100lbs. I haven’t weighed myself lately, so I don’t know for sure, other than I can tell my body type hasn’t changed in the last . . . 7 years, at least. I still wear jeans from high school. And I was very skinny then. I tend to eat low fat foods and watch what I eat. I don’t eat full fat ice cream at all, really, for example. I do love cream in coffee, however, and carbs. I love breads and noodles and eating a lot of them. I should get more protein in my diet, ’cause it’d probably help to build muscle that I need. I love filling up with vegetables too, which is sort of like eating nothing with a lot of good nutrients. I even like eating them plain.

I never counted the amount of calories I have each day. Each day is different.

But I know what will be difficult not to pick up a morning coffee and bagel at the local café before work. No more of that for these seven days. It’s probably a good thing, because I want to wean myself off coffee and go back to tea. I also won’t be able to have my favorite blueberry banana protein smoothie that I have once or twice a week from the local juice bar.

I still aim on exercising the same, so we will see what happens in the end. Will I eat all the food before the end of the week? It’s a possibility, even though at this moment I think it’s a lot of food.

Food Stamp Diet Challenge

A few of my friends and I are taking part in the letter below.

Day 1 for me is Monday the 11th.

On Sunday the 10 I will go to the store with $21 in my pocket (though it may be only metaphorically, debit cards are awesome) and a calculator. I aim on eating balanced, so I hope to be able buy good carbs (wheat bread or brown rice), fruit (bananas are the cheapest out there and full of good nutrients), meat (whatever's cheapest, beef, chicken, turkey, doesn't matter), and vegetables (canned or frozen, whatever's cheapest). I may also buy the cheapest package of chocolate cookies I can find. For something sweet. I will buy what's on sale or generic, if that's cheaper than the sale. I will update every day on what I eat and drink for breakfast, lunch, dinner and how I feel.

-------------------

Dear Friends,
Can you live on $3 a day for food? This is the U.S. average food stamp allotment - that's $1 per meal. Hunger is a challenge facing many in the District - one out of nine people in the District faces a constant struggle against hunger. This is not acceptable in the capital of the world's richest country.

Join D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray and D.C. Hunger Solutions staff in participating in the Food Stamp Diet Challenge. This challenge was created to raise awareness of hunger in our community, as well as to demonstrate how difficult it is for households to afford enough groceries even with food stamps. While the Food Stamp Program is a great support for many struggling families, the benefits remain too low to allow a typical household to purchase an adequate, healthy diet. But, we have an opportunity to make needed improvements to the program. Congress is taking up the Farm Bill, which includes the Food Stamp Program, in June.

Representatives James McGovern (D-MA) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) called on their colleagues to participate in the food stamp challenge. Thanks to their inspiration, others across the country are mounting similar challenges. D.C. needs to be a vocal participant. By taking part in the challenge, you can focus needed attention on hunger in the District, challenges facing residents on a daily basis, and the need to improve the Food Stamp Program.

The challenge will take place the week of June 3rd to coincide with Hunger Awareness Day on June 5th. On Friday, June 8th we will ask participants to voice their support for proposed federal legislation which makes a real effort to end hunger by making a worthwhile investment in the Food Stamp Program.

The guidelines are simple: Participants can only spend $21 per week on food.

For more information on people's experiences around the country taking the food stamp diet challenge, see

Media Blackout

Have you heard about this (caution, gruesome details of a crime to follow):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom_murder

If not, now you know. How is Paris Hilton or Anna Nicole or American Idol more important than this?

Thanks to DC101 (101.1FM in Baltimore/DC) and Eliot in the Morning for bringing this to my attention, even though it's the last thing I want to hear within an hour of being awake and driving to work.

Day 8: Haiku about Today

When I let loose the
tears, the cops let me go with
only a warning

Tonight is semi-
finals for the DC/B
slam team, so be there

Haven't done laundry
in 3 weeks--stopped by Target
to buy clean undies.

Day 7: Was Yesterday, So Here's a Haiku about Yesterday

I sat on my ass
finished reading Jungle Book
watched the film Becket

Day 5: Cop Out 1 with an Old Poem

Laramie

For the four months you were here
you say Laramie’s houses remind you of Maryland.

It must be a cool town
their arid chimneys giving smokes freely like hitchhiker cigarettes in the desert

The fires inside would combine with the memory of a man
making love to his wife in front of the fire and their idiot dog, too
days before he steps out their door the last time.

These are what your latest words have given me
dry electronic snaps setting lazy forest fires in Arizona
after you visited Wyoming
creating memories of people that don’t exist.

Like the times when I forget that you do exist.

When can I question the things you said to me Arizonan?

You are reaching across thousands of miles of satellites and wires
wanting to kiss my neck and lay with me before you left Maryland.

All I can think now is that the last night you were here
I would have let you in my bed
and sleep on my pillows
and cover our clothes
and all your wandering with my blankets
and throughout the sleeping night
push and coerce you back to Tempe
to visiting Laramie
and in a few days, you would inevitably be there.

You would be hiking in the hills
I would see a year and a half later
where fires burn
and men make love to their wives
in front of flames and idiot canines
but smoke doesn’t stick in its dry air like
I thought it would.

And neither does your memory.

So I’ll climb a region-specific adobe roof with a blanket in hand.

I will spread it like a picnic over the edge of the wind
because it’s irreverent and random just like you.

On its inevitable way down
I’ll think I’ll capture you under it
sleeping so quiet
I won’t even know you’re there.

Day 2: Haiku

how is it you can
be forgiven if you can't
even spell penence?

uneasy lies the
head that wears the dentist's crown
priced at a thousand

i thought you needed
hot wax on your genitals
to burn with desire

Day 1: Sestina

Newly written, unedited and tweaked, a little rough around the edges. If you think anything about it, let me know.


So that you know the way, I will light a Candle
In the window and prepare a glass of Milk
In hopes of soothing you before you sleep. The Moon
Will be my guardian as you approach like Lava,
Slow, like an austere waltz, a soulless Dance.
Though you want to hurt me, I will wait for you, Still.

You come by land and the day is incredibly still,
Like the moments we take in breath to blow out a Candle.
You leave me breathless as you approach in a wavering Dance
After the eruption. You are a mess of spilled Milk
To me and I can’t sacrifice any more whiskey to stop your Lava
From flowing, from destroying this life I built under our Moon.

I could taunt you, brandish my a-- and show you a paler Moon,
But we are beyond childish theatrics, I hope, and you stand Still
Under my balcony, where I stand defiant as you eat like Lava
Eats, all-consuming my airs of superiority like a Candle
Eats air to burn. But you really want to Milk
This for all it’s worth, and I watch the heat of your anger Dance

Like death would if you even knew the rhythm of life. Dance,
Fool, work your p------ and moaning for all the Moon
People to see, for they won’t give a s---, drinking their Milk,
Building stronger bones than you have yourself. Still
You curse me like a hollow-boned bird, a feeble Candle
Trying to stay alight in a hurricane. The Lava

You burn is not true, it is a wasteful Lava
That knows not how to grow life after burning its Dance
Against the ocean of my resolve, dying like a Roman Candle
Drowned. It is the nature of your temper, I tell you, Moon
As our witness, that nothing will grow from what you have razed. Still,
You may enter the house you failed to destroy, drink this Milk

And sleep. Dream of rivers and chocolate Milk
Flowing from brown cows and I’ll watch your Lava
Cool from your furrowed brow. I am still
Your mother last I checked and I won’t forget this Dance
Of words we had under full harvest Moon.
I will always keep one burning for land, one Candle

For you to follow find your way back home. The candle’s milk
Waxing on the sill, white flowing like the moon’s own lava
Were it really alive to erupt, to watch us from far away, dancing so still.