Wheatgrass!
Completely natural and awfully gross

I just finished my Renaissance dress! It was my last sewing class today and I have to say that I am rather sad. I can't wait to keep sewing, but I'm all nervous because I wont have the "master seamstress" looking over my shoulder and offering indispensable advise and assistance.

Where could I buy such a dress anyway? Probably nowhere. It's the kind of dress you have to make yourself... that or spend half your life looking online for some lady who has a strange and expensive passion for dress making in New Jersey. If the crazy woman sells dresses she will no doubt charge an arm and a leg for them because of all the work involved...but then you wouldn't be able to wear it at all...I like my limbs.

I tried to make mac & cheese, but I think it's more burnt than cooked! That’s crazy because I was just boiling the noodles. How can something burn when it's in water?! *Grumble*

Oh, something weird about me: every time I go to Jamba juice I always give a fake name. Just for a few minutes, while Mr. hello my name is David works the blender, I get to be an Alice or a Lizzy or a Persephone. Usually I can’t get a name out fast enough. There is an overly long “um…” before the name that leads whoever I’m talking to believe nothing that comes out of my mouth.

I think my name change fun started back when I lived up north. My friend and I were at the beach and we met a boy about our age. We chatted about this and that, but then my friend and I came up with a scheme while he wasn’t listening. We would pretend to be sisters. We had it all worked out, why she had black hair and I had blond, why we lived in different houses and why our “mom” wasn’t with us today. We even had a devious plan to slip a note that said, “play along” to my father, just in case the boy happened to ask him anything. Our lie was so elaborate that it was completely unbelievable. It’s like in Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Less is more… more real anyway. It was that day that I found my inner trickster.

I went to a Jamba Juice today and I was Lizzy. I got into a heated discussion (yeah… it was more like casual pointless fun) with the cute Jamba folks.

"So, give me your honest opinion..." I said, addressing the blond mixer.

"Um...alright," he said, looking at me as if I was going to ask him some agonizing question about if my dress made me look fat, or if he believed in America.

"You see, I need someone who will tell me the truth. What does wheatgrass taste like?"

"Oh," said the mixer with a chuckle, as he poured a greenish, distressing liquid into a cup. "Well, it’s more or less like...grass." This was said without an encouraging tone. I suppose he didn't like it much.

"No, no," said the young bearded guy at the counter, who looked very much like Alexander Supertramp from Into The Wild. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. It's sweet.

"Alright," said the mixer. "It IS sweet, but it's also GRASS."

Mr. Counter clicked his tongue at Mr. Mixer in jovial disapproval, and then addressed me. "You know when both your sense of smell and your sense of taste mix?"

"Mmm-hmm."'

"Well, wheat grass is a lot like that. It's like the taste and smell of freshly cut grass. You should totally give it a try."

Memories flooded back to me as I remembered my childhood in Philadelphia. All those summers spent on "the farm", laying in the emerald fields under the blazing sun, listening to the cicadas droning in the giant walnut trees, and breezes that would waft past, carrying the scent of sweet, freshly cut grass and the musty smell of the earth below. How could wheatgrass taste bad if regular grass has such an enticing smell? Granted I have never eaten grass, but still, animals enjoy it right?

My friend and I got our drinks and as we walked out I shouted back to Mr. Mixer and Mr. Counter, only slightly sarcastically, "I'll be sure to try it next time then."

"You'd better," answered Mr. Counter, smugly. "Lizzy."

He had called me Lizzy, and I had totally forgotten about my identity until he actually addressed me by my "name." I wonder if my fake names will ever get me into trouble some day...