I'm Not Natural

I'm full of preservatives.

I'll admit it, I am. Red dye, things with names I can't pronounce, much less spell. When you read the list of ingredients and you get beyond the first four things, that's what I'm full of....I grew up on Wonder Bread, bologna, fat, gravy, gravy on my fat, stuff to keep things from spoiling.

Then, I moved to Boulder, land of people who work hard at living the pure life. I never really fit in. While they drank smoothies before smoothies were the thing to drink, I was slugging back diet drinks full of fake artificial sweeteners. Give me something with artificial anything, and I'm smiling. At this point in life, I could die and lie in the hot sun of Death Valley, and I wouldn't rot or smell for at least a week, I'm so chock full of preservatives.

The Godparents are naturalists. They only shop at Whole Foods, while I'm a believer of eating from street vendors. If my lettuce doesn't move, I'm good with it... they only have organic veggies. I think the produce providers they buy from gently talk the bugs from the various types of greens they eat, coaxing the tomato worms and potato bugs from consuming their preferred food of choice and moving instead to tofu, which, as you know, takes on the flavour of whatever it is mixed with... my way of dealing with bugs is a can of AquaNet and a match.

Go figure.

I'm popping KettleCorn, they have BeGentleToNature Popcorn. Mine has a list of 47 ingredients, theirs has no flavour. I'm slurping down Pepsi, they have, I kid you not, Natural Flavour Pepsi. Natural Flavour Pepsi? WTF?

Our hamburgers tonight are buffalo burgers, low in fat and high in protein. I'm used to cooking something that shrinks at least 84% when cooked. In fact, I'm not used to eating meat. The last time I had meat was when The WeatherGuy made a nice steak a month ago.. before that, it was the 84% shrunk mystery meat I bought somewhere.

In Boulder, you wear JesusSandals, natural fiber clothing, you hike, swim, run when eight months with child, go sans makeup (well, I do that...but, they do it because it's good for your skin, not because they are lazy), drive cars that get 86 mpg, recycle their holiday trees, and originated neurolinguistics, whatever that is....I call these folk who cannot get over the fact the '70s are long gone, hipnoids. I eat chocolate, exercise by going to the kitchen to alphabatise the pantry, and get weepy when I see old actors back on TV, happy they have a job again.

I'm not cut out for this town.

While The Godparents fill the fridge with juice made from an assortment of plants and root vegetables, I sneak in brownies on my walks. When The Godmother extols the benefits of her protein powder ("It smells like vanilla!" Yes, but it has lumps) I stand in the kitchen at 2AM eating ice cream I've hidden in the back of the freezer. While they have their daily 'greens'... a drink that is just that, green... I consume my body weight in Pepsi.

The result of my defiance?

I've gained seven pounds in the five days I've been here.

I find myself needing to do this, to eat Hostess Cupcakes and whole milk and cherry pie and white bread in order to make a stand for those of us who will not bow to the status quo of the population that makes up the majority of this area.

I feel my arteries clogging up, my breathing becoming laboured...not from the altitude, but, from the poundage settling on my ass.

Someone save me.