Breakfast: Oatmeal. Again.

Lunch: My quick-fix meal, a ham and cheese sandwich, is out, so I just munch on grapes, dried fruit, and nuts. I feel like a Greek god, but not at all full.

Dinner: I pull out the big guns for dinner. I go to Whole Food’s and do a massive shopping by following a list I compiled using recipes found on allrecipes.com. The total comes out to $120. Turns out tofu is more expensive than I thought it would be. I get home and I do the unthinkable: I cook for myself. I mix and simmer and stir. I make a total mess, but it actually feels really good to slave over a hot stove for an hour.

The end result? A meaty (thank you, Boca!), spicy, filling vegan chili. I put some of the chili in a tortilla for a vegan burrito thing, and it’s delicious. I pour some in a bowl and eat it, and when I go to put it in a Tupperware container, I end up eating some of it right out of the pot, always a good sign!

Late night: My hunt for dessert in my fridge ends up with me accidentally taking a bite out of a non-vegan friendly Fudgesicle and then spitting it out. Then, my late-night cappuccino run turns into a late-night black coffee when the café I’m at doesn’t have soy milk.

The year I spent as a vegetarian in high school seems like a cakewalk after the last two days. Skipping over the meat dishes on a menu or avoiding those aisles in the supermarket is easy; having to study ingredient lists and constantly be thinking about what goes into the foods I eat every day is much, much harder.

I wake up and I eat matzoh.

Then I go about my daily day (see?! I can’t even think of a better way to say this!) and find something I can eat for lunch (surprisingly difficult even in lower manhattan).

Then I’m cranky at people until dinner, at which point I am tired of trying to think of what to eat and end up having a fudgesicle.

Actually, I think I might be losing weight, but only because eating has become so calculated and joyless that it’s not even worth it.

I mean, this is not a big deal. I can’t have bread. To channel my grandmother for a moment, this should be the worst thing that happens to me.

But I have to admit, it’s really affecting my mood. I just feel empty all the time. I mean, not in an emo way. In a I-would-like-some-bread-in-my-tummy kind of way.

Today on the train I had an elaborate fantasy about a garlic knot.

I’m glad this thing is almost over.

Oh yeah, thanks for letting us escape from Egypt and whatnot, had gad ya.