Day Four

JEFFREY MARX

8:05am - My poop smells like Freddy Krueger.

9:33am - So I sucked it up and apologized to the old lady. It felt like it was the right thing to do. Hopefully, it will be an example to her on how she should be acting, but it probably won't. The cleaning lady threw out my empty gallon jug I have been using at work for the salt water flush. I had to use about 40 little Dixie cups full of water to do the flush at work today. It was quite the system in the workplace kitchenette. Also, I only put 8 tablespoons of maple syrup instead of 12 because we were gonna run out. I need to buy more on the way home tonight.

10:10am - I have now eliminated four times. Wow. I feel like I just cleansed 4 years of bad attitude out of my butt. My friend Craig asked me what it looks like, so I will tell you, since you are probably curious. It's mostly yellow liquid but with dark flakes, like small bay leaves. It's pretty insane!

11:04am - Wow! It's not stopping! I went two more times! Yikes! This is the scariest thing that has ever happened on Halloween! Here is the funniest thing to happen on Halloween...





1:15pm - Today at "lunch", I sat outside in the sunshine. It felt really great, like an electric sunflower! The warmth and energy from the sun really helped recharge my brain batteries. I drank a good deal of the lemonade and read a book. I feel happy.

1:17pm - The old lady at work is slurping soup and crunching wheat thins. She is disgusting. I want to die.

4:00pm - This is truly the witching hour. On Day 2 and Day 3 around 4:00pm, I thought I was dying. Again, today, the aches are pretty bad. If I feel miserable like this again on Day 5, I am going to be worried. Everything I have heard and seen says that by Day 5 you have some awesome clarity or something. The muscles in my legs are burning, my neck and shoulders are burning, the arches of my feet are burning, Paris Is Burning...

8:18pm - I'm seriously dragging in the energy department. I wish that sun I was sitting in this afternoon was sitting on my face right now. My back hurts, only I don't think it's my back - I think it's my kidneys. My body is deflated weakness. I am unconvinced that this is a good thing. I feel like someone in a concentration camp only my Nazi's are named "Captain Unrequited Love" and "Major Daddy Issues". I'm in the middle of my intern shift at the theatre and I think I am gonna pass out. I would take a nap, but I am afraid I would wake up dead.

9:45pm - I just had a crazy revelation about The Cleanse and what it means to me! I'll explain more on video later... OMG. Crazy! KRAZY!



BETA FIPPEL

11:24pm - Okay blog fans, I'm really sorry that I didn't give updates throughout the day today. I woke up late and was pretty busy at work. Then I had to watch Kid Nation, the best show on television. So, here's my whole Day 4 experience in a nutshell.

As I mentioned in my video yesterday, barring disaster, I'm definitely not going to quit the Cleanse. Days one and two were rough, day three was pretty easy, and today a wicked combination. I woke up this morning and was ready to poop right away, which I haven't been before. It usually takes a while to get the ol' butt bubbling. The poop was a classic Cleanse poo--flakes, felt like I was shitting a river, etc. I had the salt water, which is getting harder for me by the day. My biggest problem with it is that I just don't like the act of drinking. Like, I find swallowing liquid kind of unpleasant. I know it's weird. It's the reason I'm generally dehydrated and another reason that the Cleanse is a good thing for me to be doing.

Between the salt water and leaving for work, I pooped a couple more times, but only once at work. And I was there for almost 8 hours. Weird, huh? Work today was hard, Cleanse-wise, because there were bowls of candy corn everywhere and a truly delicious looking Halloween-themed Entemman's cake. My impulse would normally be to grab a couple of candy corn whenever I passed a bowl, so it was weird and a little bit frustrating to not be able to do that. Liberating too, though. There were also various Halloween parties I wanted to go to tonight, but I figured there would be too much temptation, so I came home after work. I also had a very lethargic, kind of depressing phone conversation with Brian in which we decided that we didn't have the energy to do anything tonight. Also, he would be busy shopping for syrup.

Today at work I had the shoulder, neck, back pain that Jeffrey mentioned a couple of days ago. It was awful. It's like that good pain that you get when someone massages your shoulders really hard, but it went on for hours and there was no sensual rubbing. And furthermore, why am I two days behind Jeffrey? Why aren't we experiencing the exact same things at the exact same time? Why aren't our poop schedules in sync the way girl's period cycles sync up when they spend a lot of time together?

What else... my tongue is white, my poop smells really bad (I mean, the stuff that's coming out now is stuff that's just been sitting in there, festering, for a long time), I haven't had any real "bathroom emergencies," my energy is really up and down. I'm pretty peppy for the first half of the day, but I really start dragging after that. Oh, and I tend to get very hungry at night after drinking the laxative tea. Hopefully this will help teach my body to not be so hungry late at night. After the cleanse, I'm hoping that late-night eating will be one of the bad eating habits I can kick.

It's crazy to think that I haven't eaten anything for 4 days. Does this make me anorexic? And does Dan's alleged vomiting make him bulimic?

BRIAN KENNEDY

5:29am - Didn't even have to wait for the salt water flush to have my first elimination this morning. Woke up early and made a mad dash for the bathroom. Thanks Get Regular! Also, as much as you don't want to read this, I am happy to report that I now have neon yellow liquid coming out of my butt. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

8:15am - Just finished my salt water flush for the morning. As predicted by the book, it becomes easier to tolerate. (Something to do with the intestinal walls being cleaner.) Not wanting to be late for work again today, I tired the following exercises that are supposed to help speed up the flush:

Exercise 1 - Rub your stomach with the palm of right your hand clockwise 21 times and counter clockwise 13 times.
Exercise 2 - Raise your arms over your head (still standing) and sway them left to right.
Exercise 3 - Spread your feet shoulder width apart and spin your body at the waist from left to right. Let your arms swing with your body. Feel the stretch in your lower back and abdomen.
Exercise 4 - With knees and feet together, bend your knees and squat. Reach with your left hand and touch the tip of your index finger to the outside of your right foot. Now try to do both together with your head facing somewhat forward.
Exercise 5 - Doing the Hatha Yoga Cobra Position is also good as are other exercises that get the intestines stimulated.

I had to google image search the Cobra Position:

And now that I'm done typing this, I can feel the desired effects taking place. Gotta run!

10:16am - Just had my first "at work elimination." I could feel the storm a brewing while on the L train. Thankfully, I still have control of my sphincter and a pants-pooping disaster was avoided. Unthankfully, I feel like I have another elimination still on deck for later this morning.

11:50am - Went to the bathroom again. I usually don't eliminate this late in the day. Is my butt broken? Or has the Cleanse evolved?

1:35pm - Another elimination! I'm becoming concerned. I think this one burned a bit. Unless I'm just confusing the burning sensation with the soreness of my ass from all the wiping.

8:15pm - Got home from work. Had to eliminate again. I’m glad to be getting rid of all this waste, but come on, my baby-soft bottom needs a break! Remember how yesterday I was bitching about my landlord not turning on the heat, forcing me to spend money on a space heater? Well last night I was enjoying said space heater when I heard a sparking noise coming out of the outlet that the heater and my laptop were plugged into. Being the moron that I am, I thought nothing of it and went back to sipping my laxative tea. It wasn’t until this morning that I realized the power adapter for my laptop had fried and melted into the outlet. So now, thanks to my cheap landlord and my slow metabolism from the Cleanse, I’ve been forced to spend $118.16 on a space heater and a new power adapter. To make matters worse, to get to the Apple store I had to navigate my way through a mass of dumbasses and dickheads waiting for the Halloween parade to start. I’m sure that I could have gotten a new adapter sent to me under my warranty. But since I’m going without food right now, there’s no way in hell I’m going with out internet too.

9:23pm - I finally made a video. (Jeffrey, I borrowed you copy of Details magazine with Jake Gyllenhaal on the cover. In the words of Taylor from Kid Nation, Deal with it!)


12:45am - Did you watch the above video? Do you catch the part where I talked about how excited I was to watch America’s Next Top Model tonight? Well, just like Beatuy and the Geek last night, it was a G.D. “recap” episode. Fuck you CW. Don’t you know I’m very fragile right now, and I need fresh reality TV? Also, for those of you who are considering quitting (Jeffrey!) Don’t forget that you have this too look forward to:

“I had [my spiritual encounter] on Day 5. I felt Him deep, a feeling so unexplainable that I have never had before. I had uncontrollable streaming tears practically on my knees (weeping), along with some very, very strange coincidences and I don’t believe in coincidences. "