Rash Decisions And Other Staples

Today is the third day of a really nutty 30 day trial. The rules of the trial are a bit ambiguous, but several items have been agreed upon:

1. No sweets (excluding ones that grow on trees (excluding ones that grow on trees in Johnny Depp's Chocolate Factory (exluding ones that also grow on trees outside the factory))).

We can pretty much stop here because it's already enough for full-scale clinical depression. I'm an extreme sugar fiend. I eat chocolate before and after a meal, floss my teeth with Twizzlers and use a Jawbreaker for a retainer. When I make myself a cup of tea, it doesn't matter in the least what flavor the tea it is because I drown the flavor in copious amounts of miracle powder. In fact, if I can tell what flavor tea I'm having by the time I finish a cup, I make an appointment with my physician; it is extremely aberrant.

So it's day three now, and I can't help but notice that I suddenly have tons of free time. At least three extra hours. Granted, now I spend them prostrate on the floor of my room, suffering from withdrawal, but they're extra nonetheless. If you could have an extra few hours of life every day with no ultimate changes to your lifespan, with the "BUT" (fancy word for "caveat") being that they were full of suffering, would you take them? I would without a second thought, but only if I were on a 30-day trial of taking them.

Generally, I'm feeling more deflated across the board (hmm, can't think of a way to not be redundant in this sentence, oh well). I experienced this before - during my 4th attempt to quit drinking soda. The abrupt disappearance of the sugar high renders life gray and uninteresting. I'm sure glad I'm giving up sugar and not heroin (NEVER giving that one up).

2. No snacking. Only eat when hungry.

Snacking all but disappears when you eliminate sugar from your diet. Now I only have the urge to snack every three minutes as opposed to after every successful swallow. I spend a lot of time in my room upstairs working up my hunger to earn permission to indulge my mouth. "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry," is the mantra of the month.

3. Decide what to do for the generalized version of this 30 day trial.

The original plan was to give up all impulses. Obviously this is only feasible for living Buddhas and select igneous rocks, but there's a saying about bars and settings that's popular in this house - something along the lines of "set the bar high for everyone else." After much fruitless discussion, we decided to start off with the obvious sacrifices - #1 and #2 (not the ones you're thinking of...well...definitely not the ones you're thinking of after reading this sentence), and then kick it into high gear the second to last or last week of the trial. I'll let you know how that goes if it goes anywhere.


Went to New York today as a chaperone for Gene on his field trip to the dentist. Gene dropped me off at 80th and Broadway and went off to the torture chamber. I took a slow walk to Barnes and Noble a few blocks away, scaring pidgins and people with my hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day-for-months pale zombie face, and read about three pages in half an hour. I decided I was better at walking and went back out to partake of some pollution.

Later, I came to check up on Gene and he was still being held prisoner. The warden said he was due for release soon, but time passes very differently inside and outside the prison; I ended up waiting for another hour. Anyway, I went outside again, and just then this guy passed me carrying a box. The box read "China" and nothing else. Thank God I'm practicing stifling my impulses, otherwise I would have snuck into that box and prayed it was on an express delivery route to Shanghai...and probably would have ended up as dinner. Still, it's obviously a sign that China's anxious for my arrival.

On the way back from New York, we dropped by the King Fung Food Market - a Chinese grocery store in my town. At checkout, Gene, with his usual lack of sensibility, casually mentioned to the Chinese cashiers that I study Chinese. All of a sudden, there was a blinding tornado of blood and headless torsos, followed by an investigation into my abilities. I came out relatively unscathed, being 38.9% Chinese by the latest estimate, but I fear (and am secretly eager) to return. Sometimes enjoying life as a masochist is so easy it's unfair.