I generally try to keep things upbeat.  Even when I’m angry at someone.  But it’s rare that I am sad, and today I have been.  Right now, I’m more along the lines of indifferent, but there were tears coming out and that kind of stuff.  I keep things honest for you, so… here’s my underbelly.

I’m not known for my emotions.  Ask any of my exes.  I got pretty emotional a few months after Angela and I separated (Which was my doing anyways), when I kept finding various adorable notes around the house that she had left hidden.  That girl really loved me, I’m lucky to have gotten that experience.  In fact, since I’m a big believer in Karma, non of what I’m going through is particularly surprising, but back to the point.  It took a few months of being apart, before I got all emotional.

*****I had a major realization the next morning after writing this…. the link for that is at the bottom, so even if this one’s too long, make sure to read the post “Do your research” ****

My friends can tell you, I’m generally a happy go lucky kinda guy.  Random things come up, and I deal with them. I told you about the cleanse…. that I started it because after 2 weeks of Taco Bell, and no exercise, I was feeling a little unstable.  Well, there’s a flip-side to a cleanse… one I hadn’t mentioned, though I’ve been told about it.

You’ve heard the term “Comfort foods” right? You know: ice-cream, pizza, fries…  greasy  items and carbs… they make things ok when we’ve had some shit hit our fan.  Comfort food is “a specific food consumed under a specific situation to obtain psychological comfort,” according to the University of Illinois (UI) Food and Brand Lab. They however discovered that it’s not all sugars and fats… but that’s not where I’m going with this post.

The reason they work is because Sugar is a drug.  It amps the brain up for a little bit, making you feel better.  That little hit, on a long enough timeline of being sad and resorting to food can lead to eating disorders… another place this post isn’t going.  The other reason that it works– now this one I can’t cite a study from some university… this is my understanding based on lots of healers, hippies, scientists, etc… that I’ve spoken to, as well as from my own experiences (though, if I recall, it’s ancient Chinese medicine that really talks about it) — is that the grease and fat actually absorb some of the emotion.  The body stores away emotions in different parts of the body.  For example, the liver stores stress, the lower back stores emotions of self-rejection and low self-esteem, the shoulders store fear of the future.

You know what– forget what I’ve heard, let’s post from something with more credible:

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/anxietydepression/a/EmotionsTCM.htm  has the following items:
Spleen: worry, dwelling or focusing too much on a particular topic, excessive mental work
Lung: grief, sadness, detached.
Liver: anger, resentment, frustration, irritability, bitterness, “flying off the handle”.
Heart: lack of enthusiasm and vitality, mental restlessness, depression, insomnia, despair.
Kidney: fearful, weak willpower, insecure, aloof, isolated.

Reading that, sounds like I’m fucked up all over   I only pasted the emotions listed with each organ they listed.  A good healer can tell you a lot more than just those few things. So, sometimes I have lower back pain when I wake up… is it a bad couch, too soft of a mattress, or do I hate or doubt myself?  I used to think it was a mattress…. now I think it may be who’s next to me on it, and under what circumstances… or what dreams I had… or maybe if there’s a task I didn’t complete (“Sure, I’ll dig up those photos and send them to you!”).  I”m easily distractable.

Just so you know, during the writing of this post, I was concerned that “Gosh… I started out saying that I’m writing in a sad mood” but then my mood improved to indifferent… but then just something as simple as a friend texting me that I’m good people and that they love me  sent me into a small crying fit.  Not sobbing till my sleeve is soaked… but generally my eyes only water ’cause I’m coughing too hard from a bong-rip or something (That shit’s probably not the greatest for mental / mood stability either).

Anyways… I”ve had a lot of pain in my left shoulder over the past few months… it comes and goes.  Blah! I’m straying from my topic…. sad post- ok.. short version:

Doing a cleanse can bring out a lot of toxins.  Shaking out the lymph system (which one does by bouncing, or running- and I’ve been running a lot lately) helps release some of the toxins that the lymph system’s captured, and get them out of the body… as well as sweating helps you detox… been doing a lot of that while running.

A cleanse – taking particular herbs to rejuvinate/heal/detox the body – brings out all sorts of bad shit to deal with….. Raw food does the same!  The body stores a lot of bad shit all over– from emotions to chemicals to cells that got damaged…. It stores it away to be dealt with later.  So, now you know, your body is a procrastinator.  Like most procrastinators it doesn’t get to everything it meant to do.

When you stop adding crap to throw into that to-do pile, the body gets around to doing them.  So, you stop eating your McDeathburger (What? I told you I was in a foul mood!  Don’t expect me to be nice to an organization that has ads that show french fries and say “Happiness in a box” — I have to jog past that billboard!), and your body can finally get around to breaking down some of those toxins you’ve stored as bile, fat, and clumps of white blood cells trying to attack the foreign bodies.  Raw foods also have more enzymes which help your digestive system be able to break down the food you are eating.

The bottom line is that I am doing all the things that bring out all the emotions my body’s trying to hide:  I’m running, I’m sweating, I’m eating raw, I’m taking all sorts of herbs designed to cleanse my system. My friend Craig has warned me of emotional detox, and has told me what he’s dealt with…. I thought maybe I was impervious to it, as I’d get slightly moody at little things… but nothing that required me to break my raw food / cleanse.

When I met Craig, he was mostly 100% raw food / vegan, would not drink, etc…  That was last year.  This year’s different.  It was like a twilight zone episode when I arrived in Austin in December, and walked into a house where Craig was cooking up eggs and blueberry-pork sausage.  He’s an awesome cook for the record.  Since then, he’s tried going raw a few times, and would then slow down (pizza, croissant, etc) to slow things down when it would hit.  I never understood until today.

Today was not a little bit of moodiness.  It was a flat out nightmare.  Mere thoughts would drain my energy.  My run turned into a walk.  Breathing became difficult.

In fact, you could say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed (Futon).  That’s what they say when you start the day off in a bad mood, no?

I woke up quiet, and sad.  It started last night.  I know what triggered it.  It was a girl.  Yup, that simple reason that has fucked up the emotions of nearly everyone in history.  I’m not a huge fan of being ignored.  She was asking when she’d get to see me next ’cause it’s been a while. I said I’d make her place my 1st stop in Austin (as I was heading back to Austin from my trip to bring back 65 gallons of fresh spring water).

We were kind of seeing each other for a little bit, but discovered quickly enough that we had different end goals… but not until after I had already handed my heart over with a nice giftwrap (realistically, this was the only time I’d ever done that). I had gotten a kind of mean text message  2 days prior… which ruined my mood for that whole day, and probably some of the next.  Detox related? Maybe, maybe I just don’t like people I care deeply about being mean to me.  So, I’m happy… I get to see this person that I spend a lot of time thinking about… and when I walk in I get a “Hey buddy” – which in itself is kind of a slap, but… whatever.

10 minutes before arriving — as I’m crawling through frustrating traffic, after being in the car for 4 hours – I get a call that she’s being picked up for a dinner, which it turns out is earlier than either of us thought it would be.  I had known she was going to that dinner… but who knew she’d get picked up at 5:30.  So, the extent of my visit was that “Hey buddy”.

I was saddened.

Traffic sucked some more on the way back.  I’ve been Craig’s passenger many times as he drives the side streets to bypass traffic.  I thought I’d try that approach.  My GPS kept trying to get me on the freeway, until I finally told it to stop using the freeways.  Apparently, I had been going the right direction, but the GPS flipped me around, and finally the right direction.  I probably would have gotten home sooner if I just sat on the freeway and suffered traffic.  So, now I wasted all that time going to her place in traffic, and triple the time to get back.  Fuck my brain for forgetting how to navigate once I got my GPS.  *sigh*

Things weren’t completely dead between us… just hope for a long term thing (although, since I’m pouring my heart out to millions of friends and strangers by putting this on the web, I’m sure everything is completely dead now), and I had spent A LOT of time thinking about what can make things better.  Initial attraction was because I’m goofy and laid back.  Once I started being concerned about what she thought, and once she started trying to change things about me… things became different.  So, I thought about the things she likes. I thought if I dressed up to go out, was dancing (as compared to just watching), etc… we’d have some fun at least.  Her eyes and her smile are addicting.

I had a lot to do, but I was stuck on this idea.  I knew I wasn’t too far off, because on my way to see her, I changed from my shorts to a pair of jeans that I knew she’d like on me… and she commented briefly on that when I saw her.  So, I hauled ass at 8:30 to make it to the store before it closes.  I bought a shirt that I knew she’d like.  It’s a baby-blue button down.  The material fits loosely, and I was happy because it was a medium, and looked great!  I’ve lost 10+ pounds, and this was part celebrating, part trying to make someone else happy. I also bought a Fedora.

She had asked before I left what I was doing that night, to which I said “Probably working”- but I had texted her while she was at that dinner if she’d like to go out dancing that night (no reply).

I got home to Craig’s house — it’s not where I’m staying these days, but I was there a lot during this cleanse, as Craig and Jesse are both on that same cleanse as me… and as today shows, having support really helps.  Plus they’re just such fun smart people that I’m not sure why I’d want to be anywhere else.

Jesse was blown away by my hat.  I was happy.  He went off about how great it is… i.e. I asked if it goes with the shoes, and he said “With a hat that’s that awesome, you could go barefoot!”   I love my friends!  If I’ve gotten ANYTHING out of couchsurfing for four years, it’s a handful of the most amazing people, the ones I call my friends.

After the store, I had stopped by Whole Foods and got myself a large Grasshopper– a green drink with wheatgrass, celery, and all sorts of other stuff. I figure it’d give me energy, be healthy, and not take up too much energy for digesting… as it is liquid.  Wheatgrass is super healthy anyways.  I was intent on being hyper and goofy.

I shared my green drink with Jesse.  I then added some pristine rainforest rush – or Rainbow Crack, as I like to call it – into my drink.  It contains: Guarana, Bee Pollen, Yerba Matte, Maca, Psyllium, Blue Green Algae, Grasses (Barley, Wheat, Alfalfa, Dandelion, Oat) and Sun Fire Salt. I was feeling my heart beat faster before we even left.  I was bouncing around on the rebounder (mini trampoline), telling jokes, and even dancing to whatever was on the mp3 player.  I should be a hit when we make it out!  New hat, new shirt, compliments on ‘em both, green drink, rainbow crack….. awww yeah.

When we got to the hotel, everyone was at the bar area still.  It was cool, ’cause I got to meet people I had worked with, but had not gotten to meet in person before. More on that in a sec.

Upon walking in, I saw Craig, snuck behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and then hid from him behind above-mentioned girl. She clearly saw me when I did that, but rather than saying hi, or even smiling at my goofy entry, she turned and walked elsewhere.  My gut had a bad feeling, but that’s when I heard “Wait! Is that Ori?”  The people I had never met realized who I was, and said hello.

I was in conversation with them for a while… with different folks, but the girl never said hi. I’d glance over occasionally (not as in stalker-staring!)… but my eyes were being avoided.  *gulp*

Everyone commented on my awesome new hat… except the person that I wanted to comment on it.

It was time to go dancing.  Those of us who were going had broken away from the bar, downstairs through the closed down restaurant, through the dark hallway next to the off-limits bathrooms, and into another building where some international law firm was having their Entrepreneur of The Year award banquet… which was now in the dancing phase. Free drinks too.  A whole group of us had apparently crashed the party.

This would normally make me chuckle… but I was feeling a bit wounded.  My dancing skills were withering by the minute.  My energy was draining through the wounds (Yeah yeah… melodrama… what’d you expect in something titled “A Sad Post” ?? I’m an artist, a writer, creative…. what’d you expect? a news summary?).  I gotta admit that I was originally hoping the group would go dancing at a club with dance music (techno/hip-hop), not crash some lawyer party that plays wedding style music (Michael Jackson, Beyonce, 80′s)…  and where people were not dressed in gowns and tuxedos.

When I’m in a good mood, I can easily cause a scene at a black-tie event.  This time I felt like it was 8th grade again… Yup, 8th grade… when I was a short fat kid with no self confidence… I bought tickets to the dance, and spent the whole time sitting next to the speakers with some other kid that wasn’t going to score a dance… and we’d sit there and talk about how we’re going to ask someone to dance during the next song.  These are the things that I think of by the way when I think of regrets in life.  That’s why I told you in my last post to talk to strangers. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

In this case, that girl was dancing with a bunch of other guys.  One of which is a performer in general… They were putting on the show that I had visualized back in my head before leaving the house.

I’ll just leave it at that. The rest I’m not sure about…. if it’s in my head, affected by detox hormones and chemicals, or just me being a big sissy.

Thankfully, Jesse wasn’t up for being out too late, so was ready to leave when I was… which I was by 12:30. I had no problem avoiding alcohol that night, despite wishing I was on it, so I could dance better or something.  It appears it wouldn’t've mattered anyways.  Plus I’m on the Liver cleanse part of the cleanse.

There you have it… that’s what started out my crazy emotional attack.  I got home, and couldn’t stop thinking about it.  Not even a hello.  All efforts down the drain.  I woke up quiet and upset.  Sleep hadn’t changed where my thoughts were.  Neither did running!  Running is usually where I go to escape my frustrations… the sweat, the heat, the exertion, the endorphins… they always bring joy and clarity– except today.  My run turned into a slow walk.  I can’t even tell you how slow, because I turned off t he music, which turned off the timer.

In case you wondered what I sound like when I’m not happy, now you know.

I thought I should run faster, but I kept shifting to a walk.  When I made it to the house, it seems my speed was perfect, ’cause everyone was litereally just closing the car doors, and leaving.  There was a trip that I was not invited to… it was company only.  Right before I left for my run, that girl had shown up, all smiles and fun. “Oooh! Trampoline!” bouncing on the rebounder.  I didn’t want to be there.  When I got back, and they were gone, it was just me, Craig’s dog, and her dog.  Her dog jumped up on the couch next to me, and put his head on my leg, and went to sleep. I was saddened some more.

Someone had brought over a croissant with scrambled egg.  It was in a to-go container, and left on the table.  It would be bad by the time they got home.  I ate it.  It’s not raw food.  It’s not vegan food.  It’s not healthy.  It’s comfort food, but the real reason I ate it was because I’ve heard Craig talk about how Pizza and greasy food has helped him slow down various detoxing to bring emotions within check.  There was also half a turkey sandwich.  More bread.  Meat.  It was the first non-raw meat I’ve had in 2 weeks.

I packed up my stuff… not just my running shorts and Vibrams, but my whole cleanse kit, guitar, and harddrives.  Craig’s on the look for another house anyways, and as you’ll see in my next move, I am taking off to Cali in a week for a while.  What I probably won’t mention in that post is that a big reason I decided to take this travel opportunity was to have space. Being in Austin is getting painful.  As much as I love Austin, that girl has infused herself into everything. She knows most everyone I know, talks to my closest friends– probably more than I do.  That kind of stuff.  I have other reasons, but that’s a giant one.  Just to clear my head, and not be able to “Just come over”.

I went back to the house I’m house-sitting.  It’s quiet.  I don’t like the location so much.  There’s no good place to run.  There’s no pets to hug or play with. There’s no other humans.  I was greeted by a wasp.  It somehow got in.  I prefer my animals fuzzy… I killed it. I went to sleep.  Again ( I forgot to mention that I slept after my “run”).  The night before I was the 1st one to sleep.

I wanted to be here so I don’t bring anyone else down.  I had a friend reach out to me to say hello… he’s a close friend whom I haven’t spoken to in a while… He knows a lot of the same people, so knew about a bunch of the things that were going on in my life.   I shed some tears.  When we lose our self of worth, and incredible people take the time to care…. it stings a bit.  The same result happened from a text later on.

I think having someone to unload to helped a lot!  In fact, I know it did, because after that, my mood started improving rapidly.

I’m just freeflowing- as usual – I don’t know what my point is.  There’s no moral or anything.  Maybe “Be careful who you hand you heart to”  “Karma’s a bitch”  “You can’t RUN from your problems” (Had to throw at least one pun in this post) “Doing a cleanse can bring up some deep shit to the surface, so be prepared for that.” “Friends are what can bring us out of a dark place.”  and very importantly “Make sure you do things for the right reasons… for yourself… not just for someone else.”  (Now, I had flat out thought of that one when I went to the store to get the new shirt and hat…. I figured “Well, if nothing else, I have a nice shirt to wear.  I’m getting it as a celebration of weight loss!” – but that’s bullshit.  I got it ’cause I thought she’d like ‘em).

I can be the most independent person in the world, or I can be a clingy whiny codependent little bitch….. er… romantic.

Hope you got some value out of this blog post.  I’m ready to hit delete- despite that I’ve been typing it for the last 2 hours, but it’s a look into a side I don’t normall display. I don’t think I’m being harsh about the girl.  I’m not calling her a bitch or anything like that.  The mean text I mentioned earlier was short, but stated where things stood.  There are no surprises here.

It’s 2:15am.  I started being productive at 10:30pm (thank you to the friends who let me pour my heart out and gave me sage advice.  I don’t think I’d be productive at all today if it wasn’t for you). I sent out documents that my insurance needed.  I finished my blog post from yesterday.  I notified some people in Cali that I’m headed there.  Now it’s 2:15, I’ve writetn this novel, and I’m going to finish making a Joomla template for a client, as they just approved the layouts I sent them yesterday.

One last thing-  Sometimes you’re in a shitty mood, and happy music pisses you off. I tried happy music at first… to cheer me up… it didn’t work (although watching a video of someone turning an iPad into a skateboard, and trasing it certainly did).  So, for writing a sad post like this one… if you need a lengthy segment of sad music, check out The Sixty One.  I love that site anyways for discovering new music…. but just the other day I discovered their “Moods” section…. I gotta say “Party” is quite decent and “Sad” is pretty damn great- normally, and especially today.  Check it out: http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/moods/sad/

*****MAJOR REALIZATION*****  After writing this, and getting some sleep, I realized something super-important! It may not be the cleanse’s fault!  There’s more!  Read this! http://www.couchsurfingori.com/blog/do-your-research/