Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and in the past 11 days, I have spent $21.31 on food.

At the pub tonight: myself, the lovely Alicia Weiderman, and a big plate o' food.

I continued to feel great all day today.

I didn’t, I should clarify, have a great day: I actually had a really shitty day (a program froze up on me literally 21 times) but I coped with it, and didn’t smash, break, or destroy anything. I did swear a lot, but that’s to be expected. After three long hours, I got it working again…it felt like I was functioning at full capacity, or something close to it.

I won’t lie to you, I almost broke down and cried at one point (it froze up 21 times) and yesterday, that’s probably what I would have done – I wouldn’t have been able to cope with it, and instead just given up, lay on the couch, and watched the ceiling for a few hours. Today though, I persevered, and eventually got everything working again. The euphoria I felt after fixing the damned thing was almost…actually, no. Not even close to worth it.

But the point is, even though it was a crappy day, I felt great.

I’m convinced that bread is the secret to surviving on a low budget – bread and butter, as well as being delicious, is what got me through the first few days. As soon as I stopped eating it, everything fell apart. Potatoes dragged me up out of the hole again, but I’m going to be relying on bread and butter to keep me healthy and sane, so today I bought another loaf. ($1.09)

Before I arrived at impro tonight (the performance that would determine whether I kept going with the experiment, or threw it in and spent the rest of the month eating spaghetti bolognaise) I had four slices of my newly-bought bread. I’ve decided to go with four slices/day, which will make the bread last for five days. Just before the performance, I ate about half of my rice for the day, for some fast energy.

After the show, I went and spoke to a friend of mine who had been there both this week and last, and who hasn’t been following the website, and could thus give an unbiased opinion.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, wondering why I wanted a specific comparison to last week, “you weren’t worse…”

That’s all I needed! As a result of my friend’s glowing review, for the next 17 days, the “28 Days, 28 Dollars” experiment will continue!

If I start feeling absolutely rotten again, I’ll reappraise the situation, but with the miracle combination of bread and potatoes, it seems unlikely.

I’d be lying if I said I was completely satisfied with the outcome – I was happy that I played well, of course, and I spent all of today feeling so chipper that it would have been a pity to abruptly end the experiment…but on the other hand, I was sort of looking forward to having some real food. A steak, or some chips, or even just a chocolate bar.

Cannibal Kate, after the show, said “Performing well was probably the worst thing you could have done for yourself.” I’m glad that I didn’t suck tonight, because I would almost certainly have had people think that I did it deliberately, so that I could stop this crazy diet.

I’ll point out that I’m more than happy to be continuing – I’m as interested to see what happens as the rest of you, but as well as just reading about it on a website, I get to experience everything first hand. It can be unpleasant, but it’s always interesting. Even yesterday, feeling like shit, I kept thinking “Geez, this is all really interesting! I wonder what will happen next?”

So I’m still doing the experiment. I’m going to rely on bread, rice, and potatoes to get me through…it’s reached the point where I don’t think I can afford anything else, or I risk hitting the final week with a handful of rice and no money. (if that happens, I shall definitely call the whole thing off. At that point, I’ve undeniably failed to live for twenty-eight days on twenty-eight dollars.)

I’m going to go and have some spaghetti, then I’ll come back and do today’s comments in a separate update. I got quite a lot of comments! (if I don’t get around to them toinght, I’ll update tomorrow morning before the Daily Weigh-in.)

Up next: From the comments!

(total money spent so far – $21.41)

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and I am feeling pretty darned good.

Look ma! No peg!

I woke up today feeling great. Maybe the potatoes I had last night fixed me, maybe it was the fact that for the first time in a while I got a full ten hours sleep, maybe it was waking up to find ten concerned comments on my last post, unanimously saying I was an idiot…

Who knows? In any case, I’m confident that I will at least reach the half-way point of this experiment, even if I don’t finish. 

For about an hour after I’d woken up, I did think it was Friday. (It is Wednesday today.) I don’t know if that’s significant.

Today’s weight:

70.8kg is the exact same weight as yesterday, for those playing at home.

70.8kg (8 yards, 3 ounces) is what I weighed yesterday. I don’t know if there’s any rhyme or reason to these weight fluctuations. If anyone can see a pattern, let me know:

Perhaps every time I changie diets, the weight has to catch up with what's happened? Does that even make sense?

In other, much freakier news, I just went to the toilet, and my urine was orange.

Orange.

I have never had orange urine before. It weirded me out a little. I very nearly stopped urinating mid-stream, so that I could grab my camera, but I quickly decided that was a bad idea.

A quick google search for “why is my urine orange” lead me to a site called Wrong Diagnosis - not exactly a name that inspires confidence. I quote:

The following medical conditions are some of the possible causes of Orange urine. There are likely to be other possible causes, so ask your doctor about your symptoms. 

• Certain foods or drinks
  • Beets – turn urine reddish
  • Borscht (beet soup) – turn urine reddish
  • Blackberries – may lead to red urine
  • Rhubarb - can cause orange urine
  • Senna - can lead to orange urine
• Blood in urine - see causes of blood in urine
• Dehydration - causes darker urine or even a gold-color urine
• Bile in urine – causes a tea-like or mahogany color.
• Jaundice - causes bile in urine
• See also causes of red urine, dark urine, or urine color changes

All of those links lead to other Wrong Diagnosis pages (what a terrible name for a medical site.) I clicked through to “Jaundice”, but I don’t have any of the other symptoms. I haven’t been eating beets, borscht, blackberries, rhubarb or senna. It might have been dehydration: I don’t remember how much water I drank yesterday – I know I had at least two or three cups, but it was pretty hot.  I don’t know why there would be bile in my urine, but I hope it’s not that.

Basically, I’d be okay with any diagnosis other than blood in the urine.

Today, I’m keeping Cannibal Kate company while she gets her car repaired – I’m also going to pop down to the supermarket, grab some more food. I want to wash and mash some potatoes tonight, thanks to an email tip-off from Dan Beeston. (more on that tonight)

Oh, and I’m performing impro again! It’s free; you should come along. Both myself and my cousin Gavin will be performing. It’s starting at 7:30pm, at a small pub called Kitty O’Shea’s: 23/25 Given Tce, Petrie Terrace. Details at Edge Improv.com

I’m still going to use this show as a measuring stick for whether or not I should continue the project. If I’m in terrible form, I’m going to call it a month, and admit that I can’t adequately survive on twenty-eight dollars worth of food. If I do okay, I’m going to soldier on.

Last week’s show will be my comparison point. Last week’s show was quite dreadful (due to no-one in particular, that’s just the nature of improv.) If we manage to put on a worse show than last week, I shall celebrate my failure with a meal at the bar. Come along and see history in the making!

Tonight: The results! (also, Daily Food Post.)

(total money spent so far – $20.32)