Meat-Free May

Thank fucking Christ, April is over and I can swear again! We all knew No #$%@&! April wasn't about me simply not swearing, but rather catching myself when I inevitably did, and so there had to be a punishment for failure, as failure was a foregone conclusion. I promised to pony up one dollar per swear and said I'd donate it to charity at the end of the experiment. The grand total came to $59, so that's basically two accidental swears per day…doesn't sound so bad, yet I can't believe I ever thought I'd have to enforce a $25 minimum. I decided to round it up to a tidy $75, which I just this morning donated to the ACLU. Kind of a weird choice, giving my punishment fees for uttering certain words to an organization that's so into protecting such rights as freedom of speech, but there you go.

And now onward to May, the Discipline Year month during which I can't eat meat (including no eggs or seafood…why do people not seem to count fish as animals?) I'm keeping dairy, at least for now…I may or may not have given myself a stress fracture, so I'll take all the calcium I can get. Plus I love my half and half. If I get ambitious in the second half of the month, perhaps I'll try to finish May off the vegan way.

My birthday is tomorrow, and I was loathe to miss out on my annual baked scallop dinner, so the manfriend and I did that last weekend. Check. This afternoon we're heading to our cousins' place to watch the Celtics (go Ray!) kick off their second round of the NBA playoffs against the Heat, and I'll get to watch everyone eating barbecued chicken—charred just the way I like it by the he-cousin—while I fill up on corn and salad.

But charred chicken denial aside, I think it'll actually be a fun month. Great excuse to try new foods and recipes and expand my dinner repertoire.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd weigh myself before and after the experiment, to see if I either a) lose weight from eating more veggies or b) puff up from eating tons of carbohydrates. As of this morning, I'm a very typical-of-me 142.2 pounds. I'll let you know of any shocking fluctuations at the end of the month. Meanwhile, if you've got any kick-ass vegetarian recipes, feel free to send them my way!

No #@$%&! April

Zip it! Zip it good!

My Year of Lents staggers onward, and Meager March (the month of no frivolous purchases) is now over. Truth be told, I did pretty poorly. I didn't buy any clothes or shoes or makeup or other fripperies, but I did go to two movies and had more than one evening out at restaurants and bars. Socializing was my downfall. But still, no coffees while out and about, no snacks, no new albums or TV shows downloaded, no books read that I didn't already have stacked beneath my nightstand, no impulse purchases to speak of. Oh wait, no—Angry Birds Rio. Overall, I give myself a D+ for effort.

Now it's on to No #@$%&! April, the month during which I'm not allowed to swear. And by swear I mean anything from the D-word and the A-word on up the line of profanity, including blasphemy, spoken or tweeted or e-mailed or texted. Though if I'm writing and my characters swear, that's kosher.

I already ruined my snowball's chance at perfection by calling my manfriend's laptop computer a "smug motherf*cker" this morning over breakfast, less than an hour into the waking month, which doesn't bode well. And that's one dollar into the virtual swear jar, the contents of which I'll be donating to a yet-to-be-determined charity at the end of the month. Their cup shall surely runneth over with the spoils of my extravagant failure.