By Natasha Julius

Some people start the New Year off with a few poxy resolutions scribbled down somewhere only to be forgotten by February. Me? I’m going on a two-week juice fast.
Day 2: Fire in the glory hole!
The idea behind any fast is to allow the body to expel any toxins that have built up in it. Usually, such toxins leave through one of two familiar exits. Perhaps the most jarring – and exhilarating – aspect of a liquid fast is that pretty much any opening in the body can and will become its own little toxic pumping station. Dissolved fats leak out of each pore, the lungs start tossing their cookies at the throat, and the sinuses flush themselves into the eyes, ears and nasal passages.
This is my polite way of telling you that my nose is running like Hicham El Guerrouj. I don’t mean I’m congested. I don’t mean I have a sniffle. I mean fluid has been leaking out of my nose off and on all day. I haven’t really identified a consistent trigger for it; it just happens. It’s like Chinese water torture, only instead of water dripping on your forehead it’s dripping on whatever’s right in front of you. And instead of water, it’s snot. Crystal clear, low-viscosity snot. I really don’t know how to feel about this latest development.

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Posted on January 2, 2007

By The Beachwood Crystal Ball Affairs Desk

A preview of 2007.
* First political offspring to be promoted to mysteriously resigned political office: Glenna White-Jones, daughter of Secretary of State Jesse White.
(Amy Blagojevich, 10; Annie Blagojevich, 3; Malia Obama, 7; and Sasha Obama, 5; are being groomed for 2016, 2030, 2024, and 2034.)
* Number of major league starts by Mark Prior: 6.
* Number of times Todd Stroger is consulted on important Cook County decisions: 0.
* Date of Rod Blagojevich’s indictment: November 17.

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Posted on January 2, 2007

By Natasha Julius

Some people start the New Year off with a few poxy resolutions scribbled down somewhere only to be forgotten by February. Me? I’m going on a two-week juice fast. And at the request of concerned friends everywhere, I’m keeping a diary of my daily experiences living without solid food. Enjoy!
Day 1: If you can’t beet it, juice it.
So the first thing you need if you’re going on a juice fast is a juicer. You can go out and buy one or, if you’re like me, you can text your friend Dave, whose former roommate’s new girlfriend made the roommate abandon the brand new juicer his old girlfriend bought him at Dave’s apartment, and ask to borrow his for a while. I’m fairly certain all juicers are more or less the same in their basic function. You shove raw fruits and vegetables into a little chute – I don’t know the technical term for it, so I’m calling it “the glory hole” – press it down with a fitted plastic foot, and watch as the juice sprays out of a nozzle into a strategically placed cup. You’re left with an oddly dry spackle inside the juicer that can easily be rinsed out.
The next thing you have to do is decide what you’re going to juice. It’s a bit daunting in that pretty much anything can be chopped up and crammed down the glory hole with little or no trouble. The one notable exception is the noble beet. Because the texture of raw beets is quite fibrous and tough, it took Dave’s wee juice machine a few passes to get each chunk processed. Thing is, I will tell you right now that a little beet juice goes a long, long way.

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Posted on January 1, 2007