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Web Log: Veg and the City

It’s a Wednesday night in New York City. I’m in a circa 1920s hotel on the East Side, near the UN. Our apartment flooded — the A/C in the unit upstairs “ruptured” — and we have to have our floors and ceilings replaced. The insurance company has put us in this hotel, and I’m trying to treat the experience as a little vacation. The fact is, I love NYC so much that living here feels like a vacation anyway, and being in a different part of town is a little like a holiday.

I have to be away for three days (a holiday within a holiday?) to speak in Ohio at the Jubilee Festival and then at the Tampa Bay VegFest and should be packing and getting ready to leave for the airport at 5:45 AM, but writing is a way to wind down. Maybe that’s why so many people blog.

This morning I went to a spirituality group I used to attend when I lived in this area from 2002 to 2007. Then I went to my old gym — totally redecorated, but a stairclimber is a stairclimber. I had an early lunch at Le Pain Quotidien — a crispy quinoa cake, quite good — got a shampoo and blow-dry at a neighborhood place, and came back to the hotel to send out announcements about today’s radio show with Rory Freedman, Skinny Bitch author, before heading Uptown to Adair’s place to do the show.

We’ve had rain for a few days, so the sunshine this afternoon was a glorious gift. I took the subway to East Harlem where Adair lives and we set up for the show while we waited for Rory. When she arrived — she’s visiting from LA — Adair’s dogs, Tala and Oliver, took to her right away. This was really unusual for Oliver, who’s pretty much scared of everybody outside the family. Rory is a major dog whisperer. After canine greetings, Adair asked us to join her in the “soft release” of Irene, a pigeon she’d been rehabbing through the Wild Bird Fund where she volunteers. Soft release means that the door of the flight cage is left open so the bird can come back for food or familiarity, but once Irene flew to the top of the fence, it was as if she just got it: “I’m a bird, for heaven’s sake: the whole world is mine.” And she flew as if she’d been born to, which, of course, she was.

The radio show was fantastic, if I do say so myself. Our guests are almost always by phone, and to have Rory with us, right there in Adair’s living room, made all the difference. It was a delightful, three-way conversation in which we talked about spirituality, veganism, America’s weight crisis and weight obsession, and the interesting topic of profanity: does it have a place or is there too much crassness in the world already? If you’ve read Skinny Bitch, you know that, in addition to the in-your-face title, there are plenty of four-letter words in the text. Whether because of this or despite of it, the book and its delightful progeny (Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, Skinny Bitch with a Bun in the Oven, Skinny Bastard, and more) have sold over 3 million copies. They’ve changed lives, created vegans, and saved animals. And Rory has decided she’s not going to swear anymore. No more profanity in her books or in her life. She described it as a necessary spiritual step for her — and I saw it as a very brave move for a writer with a well-known and highly successful style. She inspired the heck out of me.

We had a lovely call during the show, too, from Judi Hollis, Ph.D, bestselling author of Fat Is a Family Affair and new From Bagels to Buddha: How I Found My Soul and Lost My Fat. What a treat!

Afterwards, we said good-bye to Adair and the dogs, and Rory and I walked to the bus, stopping in a little Rastafarian deli with fresh juices and smoothies, vegan ice cream, and take-out food. I had a perfect green juice: there was some veggie in there I didn’t recognize. Having something new like that always makes me feel as if I’m giving my body a special treat: some phytochemical it’s been waiting for. Then I made an early stop at the NY Coalition for Healthy School Food benefit at the Academy of Medicine. They do great work in helping kids have whole foods comprise their school lunches, so boys and girls can develop a preference for good food for life. I had to leave before the more glittery parts of the evening — those early flights are ahead of me — but it was lovely to be there long enough to see people I admire and toast the organization’s good work.

I got back to the hotel, had soy yogurt, raw sweet potato pie from the Rasta place, and my favorite Bengal Spice Tea (it’s like chai, but without caffeine or sugar, from Celestial Seasonings). And I wrote this. Now I really will pack. I’ve been in nearly thirty cities since Main Street Vegan came out in April, and I’m looking forward to things’ winding down for a couple of months as of November. I also know I’m living the life I dreamed of a long time ago. That’s a big deal, and I’m grateful.

 

1 thought on “Web Log: Veg and the City”

  1. I read your book this summer and me and my boyfriend decided to try veganism. Our journey just started and we are keeping a blog about it, but your book made me feel like I could really do it and some things I’m finding with veganism I really like, while others may take some time to adjust too, but I’m thankful for this new perspective on life! You can see our blog here: http://www.nobologna.wordpress.com I didn’t realize that the book had just come out in April! Have safe travels, and enjoy your break in the coming months!

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