the new mkf cocktail

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so tonight noblesavage treats me to an early birthday dinner--essentially, the first non-work-related human contact i've had with anybody i personally know since since i got outta the hospital.

i relish the opportunity to leave the house--and to see him, because it's been awhile.  we argue the same old subjects and get nowhere as usual, but that's not what's remarkable about the evening.  what's remarkable about the evening is, faced with a panoply of mouth-watering carnivorous options spread before me, i happily opt for a simple greek salad.

that's right, folks--i'm now the "salad" guy.

wasn't always thus, i assure you.  hell, between the booze, my regular unhealthy diet plus all the crap i suddenly found myself stuffing into my face every day at the new job, i was on the verge of outgrowing my second pair of fat pants when the pneumonia struck.

and while i'm not ready to call that sudden affliction a gift, it did have some interesting after-effects.

that first night after having checked myself outta the hospital against doctor's orders and not feeling nearly as well as i insisted i did, i was scared shitless that i'd fucked up. i went to bed wheezing, still unable to draw a decent breath, but ended up getting my first good night's sleep in a week--nobody waking me up every two hours for fuckin' vital signs for a change, thank you baby jesus.

and next morning, instead of the standard hospital fare, i feasted on a fresh fruit-and-greens smoothie, courtesy of my blendtec and whole foods market.

that very afternoon i returned to work, assuring everybody i was fine [although god knows i wasn't, which everybody figured out pretty quick when i started coughing every time i tried to breathe].

whatever--that first night i headed down to the fitness center on my lunch hour, ran the treadmill up to 9.4 and did 30-second windsprints interspersed with what turned out to be overly optimistic two-minute recovery intervals [i.e., by the second round i was a gasping, coughing puddle of mush on the floor].

but the following night i did three--and two nights after that, i managed four. these days i'm up to eight with 90-second intervals, and i'm not coughing anymore.

and what's fueling this recovery? simple--the raw vegan diet i've adopted since getting outta the hospital. funny thing is, it was easy--somehow, this most recent trial by fire has killed my former urge to fill the empty with whatever cheap crap i could stuff in my mouth.

these days my diet consists of green smoothies [the one pictured above turned out to be a delicious, frosty concoction consisting of an orange, half a banana, a peach, a handful of blueberries, a huge handful of spinach, a few leaves of kale, half a cup of spring water and lots of ice], salads, guacamole, nut pates and other such vegan bullshit, and i don't miss the meat and junk food at all.

and the booze-bloat's dropping off--those last-resort fat pants i was worrying about having to upgrade are now falling off me, i'm working out again, my body's coming back, and my face is pretty much back to looking like it used to.

in other words, things are fine again, so i'm thinking maybe i should celebrate with a drink or two.

[you see where this is going, right?]