How Not To Finish a Cleanse

By living on juice for three days and then diving headfirst into a bucket of coffee and a plate of eggs after being a sugarless, caffeineless, joyless vegan for a month. (I wasn't joyless. But I am melodramatic. For melodrama brings me joy. My dates have a lot to put up with.) Followed the next day by the best damn butterscotch pudding you've ever had, recommended by a woman sitting at the next table, eating her breakfast with the woman we think was Joan Rivers, although I remain unconvinced.

But I promised that my official version of the story would feature a conclusive Joan Rivers and since I always keep my promises.... Guess what! We ate brunch next to Joan Rivers! And chatted long enough to net a butterscotch pudding recommendation, something I'm certain wouldn't have happened if it was actually Joan Rivers or if I had suspected it was Joan Rivers. Not because Joan Rivers and her friend wouldn't kindly recommend amazing butterscotch pudding but because I would have been weirdly and obviously enthralled by her bone structure and general Joan Rivers-ness. I'm not good at playing it cool.

Why isn't there an iPhone app that answers questions like, "Did I just have brunch with Joan Rivers?" There really should be.

Venice Beach

In Conclusion, The Worst Way To End a Cleanse Is To Have Two Big Brunches In Two Days Followed By Two Beach Excursions and By Worst, I Really Mean Best

Over the next few weeks, I'll be figuring out how I want my real life to look when it comes to food. So far I'm leaning toward injecting myself with deer DNA so I can grow a few extra stomachs in which to store the pancakes. One stomach for the every day green juice, tofu, and all those other strange things that don't make sense in any context my past self recognizes. And another stomach for weekends and brunches with friends and beach walks and butterscotch pudding recommended by Joan Rivers.