Because I'm not right in the head, I decided on a whim join my friend Amanda (@ImTheQ) and a few of her ragtag non-Muslim friends in some solidarity fasting in honor of Ramadan. I heard about it just the day before, and with a quick "I'm in" Tweet, sealed my fate for the next day. 

The instructions were simple: No eating, drinking, or intercourse (because intercourse is delicious) between dawn and dusk. Please use the #tryfasting hashtag to tweet about your experience during the day. The end. 

No problem! I can totally do that, I thought. I then went home and proceeded to have one of those nights -- the kind where you find yourself crying over a sinkful of dishes, because your salad bowl reminds you of your dead mother's salad bowl. The kind where you accidentally drink a half a bottle of wine, because it tastes good, and maybe because you're a little sad. The kind where you go to sleep late and toss and turn all night. The kind where you're woken by the sound of breaking glass at 3 in the morning. The kind where all your dreams involve you stumbling into the kitchen and drinking a gallon of orange juice because your body is so very dehydrated. Because you were brilliant enough to have a crying fit the night before and drink a half a bottle of wine.

So, you can imagine that when the alarm went off at 5 a.m., I promptly turned it off and rolled back over. There would be no coffee and oatmeal for me, caffeine withdrawal or not. I woke up again at 7:18, thinking, "maybe there's some way out of this." But just as that thought was forming in my mind, I heard my boyfriend say "you're such a good, devoted friend to do this fasting thing." And that was the end of that.

I hopped in the shower and it was all I could do not to drink in the water coming out of the shower head. Not an auspicious start. I got on Mopac going the wrong way -- distracted already by thirst, lack of coffee, and anxiety about the day ahead. I made it to work finally, and settled in for a day of not eating and not drinking and not sucking on the cherry candies in my desk drawer.

Here are the things I learned:

1. It's the lack of water that gets you. This wasn't a shocking revelation to me, but it's even truer when you start the day dehydrated. I was obsessed with the thought of drinking water.

2. Being a Muslim on the Internet isn't always fun. Being a friend of a Muslim on the Internet will even get you targeted. I shrugged it off, it was obnoxious, troll-y, Twitter crap, but wow. Meanness.

3. Hunger passes. Again, I knew this, but it was very much confirmed.

4. Dawn does not equal sunrise. In fact, it's quite a bit earlier. Seems unfair, really.

5. Having a lunch break that isn't about eating is actually really nice. If I lived closer to work, I'd make a point of going home every day to read, and take a cat nap. I read a chapter from Pema Chodron and had a little doze in my living room. Very pleasant.

6. When you don't eat or drink for a few hours, your breath gets pretty nasty. I spent a lot of time averting my face from the faces of others, so they wouldn't have to experience what felt like the smell of death.

7. People get all kinds of worried about you when you're fasting. Also, most people assumed it was some sort of dietary thing, and wanted tips on fasting. No one connected it automatically with Ramadan. 

8. It's easier to do something hard when other people are doing that hard thing with you. Having these other 6 or 7 people out there sharing the experience and cheering each other on -- wonderful. And it felt really, really neat to be supporting Amanda.

9. I'm in awe of the nearly 2 billion Muslims who do this for 30 days straight, every single year. Mad props.

I'm not a Muslim, I don't even play one on TV, so I wouldn't do a whole 30 days of Ramadan fasting. But the experience did make me think a lot about incorporating fasting into my Lenten discipline. Christians used to fast during Lent, but that tradition has slowly slipped away. Now, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and some Anglicans still pay homage to it by eating fish rather than meat on Fridays, but that doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice. 

And next year, I hope we can get a whole bunch more people to #tryfasting with us.