vomit

Yesterday was such a dark Bronte day. I hid under the covers, despite the sun. Part of the reason was my feelings of intense nausea, both physical and existential. The former to do partially with the idea that I decided to start taking a bunch of herbs - names like willow root, triphala, ashwangandha root - in the attempt to be a more full of light and active and present person, and not always feeling so cramped and sick all the time. But ridiculously I took all of these capsules with loads of vitamins and so then I really felt like I was going to die. Later in the afternoon I vomited and I felt actually much better, strangely cleansed. I'm going much much slower on the herbs from now on until my body can handle it.

And then this morning I was sane - wonderfully sane - didn't check my email until noon - but then when I did - I got a message from Chris - apparently she's been trying to call me all month of September while reading the manuscript! Of course I started hyperventilating. I called back. No she called back. I don't remember. She loved, she said, Part One, which is gratifying and very good. So much she said that when she got to the end she started hyperventilating. Which is funny that I've used the word hyperventilating twice but with different meanings each time. They loved it. Part Two she felt lost something somehow. So they could either chop the book in half and publish it in another series, or I need to work on Part Two. I'm going to work on Part Two. I believe in it. I need to cut 10,000 words off 40,000, which is the length of Part Two. Which will involve a complete overhaul, rewrite, of the second part. I am prepared to do it. I want to do it. I feel so intensely that what I attempt to communicate in Part Two - all the stuff about the girl, the contemporary, blogging, authorship - is necessary, important, vital, or I want it to be so. But how? I leave next Wednesday for Seattle and then I'm gone, gone, gone, doing the stuff of touring and reading. I might be editing in hotel rooms. But this book needs to be perfect. I need it to be perfect. It will feel like surgery, like amputation, but I need to do it. But then after our conversation I ate one of my most recent weird weird garbage salads in my new high-raw health brigade - mustard greens, red leaf, green leaf, romaine, millet made with coconut oil, live pickles, avocado, hummus, hemp seeds - but now I feel like puking again. Whether it's the herbs or the stringy avocado or my nerves I don't know.

And now I've just eaten an entire chocolate bar. So much for feeling cleansed. Although perhaps it's impossible for me to not be toxic - the toxins are so intrinsically wrapped up in my identity, in my unsafe body.

Also, I would like some input, as I obviously am lacking in real, live girlfriends here, although I've made some but not any I would feel comfortable asking this - I have been trying to grow my hair out like Maya Deren in Meshes of the Afternoon or St. Vincent, I have a phase now of it being short frizzy and totally bizarre, do I go all sleek gamine again for the tour or just grow it out all frizzy? Any input would be nice. Yes, I'm soliciting input about my hair on my blog. Ruth in Green Girl cuts all of her hair off a la Seberg, maybe it would be tonally good, or tonally weird, like the author is the character or something.