Day One

No, I do not have a clever title with a pun for this entry. Frankly, Devin has a gift for busting out the puns and I tend to clam up in the shadow of his greatness. But I do have some thoughts about this undertaking of ours.

First of all, I have to come clean - I did eat some meat this morning. It was an honest mistake, I promise, and I didn't even enjoy it. It was just out of habit. I was in line at the dining hall for breakfast and I said, like I would on any other Saturday, "Can I get some eggs, sausage and potatoes?" They were all very, very greasy and I only had two bits of sausage before I made up my mind to waste the whole plate of food. It was not until an hour or two later that I realized I had eaten meat in error. I really should have remembered, for it was not but twelve hours previous that I had ceremoniously raised my last piece of meat high on a fork in a small, smoky booth in Chili’s to proclaim the beginning of my vegetarian life. The fact that I woke up the next morning and immediately ate meat is probably a good indicator of how much self-control this is going to take. I am still optimistic though. I have confidence I will not wander again. But in fairness to Devin, I will eat my meat last at Thanksgiving to make up for my early error.

After less than one day without meat (something everybody does everyday) I have an outlook as to what the biggest challenge will be in the coming weeks. I think the hardest thing will be explaining to people why I am not eating meat. People notice it more quickly than I thought they would, and I tend to bring it up unprovoked besides, which doesn’t help I suppose. Now don’t get me wrong, I am one of the first people to form harsh judgments about people who don’t eat delicious, juicy meat, but now that I am on the other side of things I am finding most people are not far behind me with their judgments. I try to explain it is not because I am a pansy, a hippy, part of a new-age cult or trying to lose weight, but people still shake their heads and curl up their noses like I am offending them personally. I have thoughts on this, but I will save them for later.

I am looking forward to the first time this really becomes challenging. I will be turning to Devin for support, as well as my handy and elegantly vague pamphlet on how to eat healthy as a vegetarian and my friend Grace, who has shown surprising enthusiasm for joining me in this experiment. She is better at this than me, so I will just try to copy her when I don’t know the answer.

Even if the whole vegetarian thing turns out to be dull, I have plenty of humorous and insulting things to say in this blog, so keep checking back, I may even mention YOU!