As part of my year-long human reno, my soul-body reclamation project, I’ve resolved to eat better.  Already, I’ve cut out many things  – hamburgers, pizza, pasta, potatoes – and opted for healthier options.  Surprisingly,  it hasn’t been that hard.  I used to balk at the discipline it would require to eat more vegetables, fewer carbs, drink more water (and less JD) but I find that as I get older, it just becomes rational choices to which my self-restraint seems up to the task.

That’s why I decided to add a meal supplement to my diet.  It’s called “Vega” and it claims to have 100 percent of nutrients I need to take in a single day, plus a few things I don’t need.  I showed it to a dietician friend who said there are some vitamins in it that only pregnant women require.  Once she assured me that I would not develop gynaecomastia ( aka man-boobs), I started taking it.

That’s when the trouble began.  By trouble, I mean I started to shit six times a day.  The label had indicated that in the early stages there would be some, “gastrointestinal distress.”   I dismissed this as another one of those remote and exaggerated side-affects you see on American drug commercials. You know, the ones where the side-affects sound worse than the condition they treat? (btw, wouldn’t it be great to have those warnings on people? “Dave may cause head trauma if taunted.”  ”Be sure to take Paul with a grain of salt.”)

I can assure you though, my guts were highly distressed.  I knew when it was time to go because I could feel my colon shift, my stomach would make the sound of an old bilge pump and then I’d have to make a mad dash to the bathroom before catastrophe struck.

What came out was like a kind of green toxic sludge. Soylent Green I called it.  It’s as if this supplement is a kind of organic Liquid Plumr, purging the dark corners of my twisted intestines like some kind of gastro-Stalinist hit squad.

This continued for a month then morphed into something that I’m told is better for me; now my stools are on the offensive and fire out my ass like an artillery shell. I don’t have to even wipe in most cases, my sphincter just slams shut. What comes out now could sink a destroyer; it’s large calibre, hard as a rock and takes mere seconds to release.  Sometimes, it’ll take

upwards of four flushes to get it down the toilet.  Lucky for the environment, I only go once a day. You can you set your watch by it, since the spirit moves me  EXACTLY four hours after I take the magic powder.   In order to still have something of a life, I’ve been trying to take it at 8am everyday and then I schedule no meetings before noon.    I used to give myself 15 minutes on either side of noon, but in the extreme use of the word “regular” now I find that five minutes is fine.

Yes, my time on the commode has been stunted.  I’m all business when doing my business and THAT’s what has caused me the greatest distress.  You see, like most men, I enjoyed my leisurely toilet time because that’s when I like to read.    My lazy bowel was my passkey to a world of imagination and wonder, the commode a place where many of life’s great mysteries were revealed to me.  I think many men can claim the same. Were it not  for toilet reading a lot of us would be illiterate, or at the very least, ignorant. Myself included.

I don’t know a woman who isn’t disgusted by this phenomenon, but until they have TVs in bathrooms, it will be the gentleman’s reading room. I could spend hours there. Sometimes I’ll even bring in music and glass of wine. Try doing that at the library.

Until now.

Now I’m forced to read in the same places women do: couches, park benches,

in bed  –  places properly meant for watching TV, watching girls, sleeping and fucking.  These places are tools designed to facilitate a particular task so as far as I’m concerned, this is like using a shoe to hammer a nail; its inefficiency is matched only by its pathos.

So thanks to my new and improved intestinal tract, I now have a reading disorder.  I shift uncomfortably in bed, book in my lap, unable to focus.  The reading light in my bedroom is bad.  “It’s fine in the can,” I often grumble.  In fact, I’ve tried reading in the bathroom even when I don’t have to evacuate my bowels.  I just sit on the toilet with the lid down.  It feels like I’ve been neutered.

The only viable solutions are reading in a restaurant when waiting for my breakfast, or when taking a bath.  Since I can’t afford to eat out daily and I’m worried about the effects of lingering in a bath for hours at a time, these methods seem unlikely to stem the rising tsunami of ignorance that threatens to wash over me like an illiterate Katrina crashing into the Ninth Ward of my brain.

But there is a third possibility, reading with another person.  Not reading the same thing, but simply two people together in the same room, reading.  My ex and I used to read often…some might call this a failure to communicate, but to me if felt as though we were united in the common purpose of elevating our consciousness.   It felt good and it’s got me thinking, certainly GODDESS likes to read.

[For those of you who are just joining us now;  Goddess is my muse,  the kind of woman who makes you think "yeah, I could live without her, but it hardly seems worth it".  I realized that the remote possibility she might consider dating me was made even more unlikely by the fact that I'm in a terrible place in life. Thus, she unknowingly set this whole self-improvement juggernaut in motion. Unfortunately, due to circumstances  (and douchebags)  beyond my control, she has sworn off dating and has confined our interactions to text messages and communal hang outs.]

But I think Goddess might consider reading with me (if she didn’t currently require us to have chaperones in public places)  so perhaps I should suggest a reading date? It seems benign — no lurid come-ons, no threat of sex, not even talking.  Only reading.  I think this could be an outstanding idea that answers the prayers of so many like me;  people with unrequited affections who just want to spend time with their special someone without risking a restraining order.

And maybe I’ll get through a book again.  I mean, have you seen my Better Man reading list?  In the meantime… read any good cereal boxes lately?