When Indulgence is a spoonful of peanut butter, something in your life has gone terribly wrong.

When indulgence is a spoonful of peanut butter, something in your life has gone terribly wrong. But how to identify the wrong turn?
Oh, that's right. Perhaps it was the fat-flush diet. Or it may have been the "30 days to a thinner you" diet plan from that magazine that you hate. I don't think that diets are for people like me. By 'people like me' I mean, people who will dip anything (and I do mean anything) in honey mustard, people for whom a large pizza is a meal for two, and people who may or may not have had a weekend-long celebration to honor the introduction of the big mac snack wrap at Mcdonald's.
It's not that we don't want to be thin. We do, and are in fact not-so-secretly abhorrent of fatties. But when a plate of cheese fries arrives at our table, no amount of abhorrence can keep us from gobbling them down like there's no tomorrow.
One would think that simply giving up cheese fry binges and honey mustard obsessions would be enough to make us fatties feel good about ourselves, and yet... it isn't. I've found that when attempting to diet, I go all out, balls to the wall.
I recently found myself in an eating regimen that included no bread, no caffeine, and very little fat. One of the few fattening things I was allowed to eat was 8 almonds. Just 8. And that was meant to be a 'treat.' When you're sipping hot water (no tea bag, no coffee grounds- just hot water) waiting for it to be three o'clock so you can have the long-awaited 8 almonds, you realize that something just isn't right.
I think that perhaps the hardest thing about dieting is the people around you. I became hyper-aware of the people around me, constantly eating cupcakes, fudge, candy, you name it. It was when I started fantasizing about taking a cupcake from a coworker's hand and shoving it in her face that I admitted to myself that I had a problem. I think you can monitor how your life is going by what you consider an indulgence. Indulgences should be normal things like cakes, cookies- anything of the desert persuasion. If your indulgence of the day is anything in the nut or legume family- it may be time to reevaluate your life.

Just a quick one - you guys HAVE to check out my friend Doug's blog - just scroll down to the post on Emily Dickinson. Funniest thing I've read in a while.

Indulgence

People I would grant a plenary indulgence to, if I were the pope:

- Rosie, the woman down the street who freaked out when I was shoveling snow near her car. It's not her fault she's old and fat, and bitter about both aspects of her life. It's just that the sweet, sweet Twinkies keep calling her name.

- Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Yes, Google Buzz is ridiculous and potentially dangerous (look up the succinctly titled "Fuck You, Google" post and read the story); yes, it's unclear why Google seems to think that it will disintegrate if it can't integrate Facebook and Twitter (apparently Google seems to believe that the future of the internet lies in ugly baby pictures and barely formed one-sentence "posts" from the toilets of our collective future); and yes, Google Buzz is a pretty terrible title (though I submit it's a significant improvement over the previous iteration, Orkut). However, Pope Patrick has residual good feeling left over from the Super Bowl ad

- Benedict Arnold. I just feel like we've been hating on him for too long. By all accounts, he was a charming host and served the best whiskey in New York. Surely, we can forgive any man who has a good taste in a tipple.


People who I would not grant a plenary indulgence, and who needn't bother asking for one:

- Judas Iscariot. Still pissed.

- The fat guy across the street in the wifebeater, who complained about where I was shoveling snow, and who appeared to call the police about the issue. It's a snowstorm, douchebag - where did you think we were going to put the snow? At least Rosie was worried about her car: you were worried about snow on the curb. No doubt this is going to interfere with your rigorous power-walking routine, so I guess you won't have any choice but to head back to the deep fryer.

- Harold Ford, who appeared to want to ride rumors started by himself to a New York Senate seat, until a disastrous NYT interview revealed that he knew nothing about anything. Harold, we loved you in Tennessee, but you appear to have fallen rather badly off the rails. Try revealing that you're a sex addict. It's working for Tiger.

The word of the week is: indulgence

You will probably not be surprised to know that I am a frequenter of fast food restaurants. Yes, indeed, I am no stranger to the big-mac meal or whopper with cheese. I often even brave the disgruntled employees of taco-bell to receive a cheesy gordita crunch. My latest fast food craving is the Premium Double Cheeseburger meal at Wendy's for just $2.99. (I have capitalized the name of this meal out of reverence) The meal is now affectionately known in my apartment as simply $2.99. In fact, if any roommate is going to Wendy's that are obligated to inform the other roommates and ask if they would also like to partake in $2.99. While I enjoy this Wendy's meal, I amazed at the marketing scheme that has tricked me into this meal despite less than desirable conditions of a Wendy's dining experience.

Everything about the fast food environment is completely unappetizing. For starters let's take a closer look at the employees. They are all, as previously discussed, disgruntled, approximately 20-30 pounds overweight*, and generally unhappy to be serving your delicious, dirt cheap meal. Everything about the Wendy's employee screams: "You should have gone to Subway." Yet still, Subway does not offer us the saturated fats and sodium content that we Americans are genetically predisposed to crave.

Yes, perhaps its the salted fries, that have an additional salt packets, that can be coated in ketchup, a hydrogenated salt bath, but I cannot say for sure. All I know is that for now, my heart belongs to a girl with red hair and pig tails.

Wendy's, my love, I will see you shortly.

*present bloggers excluded of course. (for our many readers: Patrick, the published writer, was once a Wendy's employee)

The word of the day is: sandal

So I've recently decided to be one of those people who takes their shoes off inside their house. I never saw myself this way; I was always slightly troubled by people who gave you those disapproving looks and murmured "Ah, we take our shoes off in this house." I always wanted to reply, "Um, maybe you do, but let's be careful we that "we," lady. I don't take my sweet New Balance 10 1/2s off for anybody - if Jesus wanted to wash my feet, he'd need to undo some laces first."

Yet here I am, taking my shoes off, and using the ol' Birkenstocks as house shoes. House shoes. Is it possible to maintain respect for a man who wears house shoes? I would have thought the answer would be an unequivocal no - that house shoes are right up there next to drinking iced blush wine and wearing floral scents as betrayals of the guy code. Yet here I am. Somebody bring me a White Zin.

The Word of the Day is: Canker

So I have a canker sore on my bottom lip. It's roughly the size of a Volvo, looks disgusting, and feels like a bug is continually biting me. I keep hoping that one day I'll outgrow canker sores, but that belief appears to be a myth akin to the notion of a "runner's high" and The Force.

Plausible cures for canker sores Google told me about:

1. Salt that bad boy
2. Press a teabag against it
3. Get an oral analgesic and wait it out

Implausible cures Google told me about:

1. Get some lysine (Um, the last time I heard of this stuff was in Jurassic Park, when the old Australian guy referred to the "lysine contingency," which apparently was supposed to save them from the raptors. It didn't work for him, and it's not going to work on my canker sore).
2. Buy the "Canker Spanker" from somewhere: http://cankerspanker.com/aboutus.aspx (it's not as revealing as one would hope for)
3. Press an unlit match against it. No.
4. Let your cat lick it (okay, I made that one up, but you get the idea).

I read about the biology involved, and apparently the sores are caused by white blood cells that get confused and mistakenly attack ordinary mouth tissue. This is one of those inconvenient facts that you wish evolution had corrected a couple hundred generations before things got to you. Has anyone else ever had this thought? Like, couldn't we have evolved into a state where vegetables taste good and alcohol makes you a better driver? I hereby note for the record my envy of future generations: F*&# you, you cankersoreless schmucks, and your unearned evolutionary benefits. I bet you wouldn't hold up against my Canker Spanker for five seconds.

The word of the day is: Hemoglobin A1c

Nursing school is weird. 

Yesterday, we had a full day of classes beginning with a pharmacology class, then we went to leadership management were we learned about stress management. She ended the class by suggesting that we all take a vacation-thanks for the tip. To end the day we had a three hour lecture about fertility and sex from a lady that is about Grandma Flaherty's age and approximate attitude. Yes-you have the right picture in your head-sort of an impatient, sarcastic conversation.  This shouldn't be awkward right? We are in Nursing school.  But instead of just medical knowledge she just has random pictures of hello kitty condoms, and other sex-related clipart. She conveyed little to no knowledge about fertility or infertility treatments, but I could tell a few killer jokes. I'm really glad she is teaching the healthcare providers of the future. 

This morning  I had to get up early for class. I normally don't have class on Tuesday morning because the class is normally online.   The worst part of my early morning was that the teacher kept referring to our class as a "Journal Club." The journal club resembled closely a class lecture. After class we all got an email from the teacher about how much she enjoyed "club" today and I was a little embarrassed for her. 

My last class of the day was guest lecturer from Children's Hospital.  She was an eccentric lady came to talk to us about diabetes. She introduced herself as the person on the diabetes team as the person who makes patients cry and then she sort of cackled....It was weird. Then she went on to talk about how she likes making her patients feel uncomfortable and then she "scares" them into controlling their blood sugars- mind you her patients are young children.  For example, we all know diabetes is  very difficult to control especially in pediatric patients. Hemoglobin A1c is test that read an average blood sugar for the past 3 months(the life of of a red blood cell) so the healthcare provider can tell if the blood sugars have been controlled. So apparently crazy-diabetes-lady goes into a patient's room and asks them how they have been doing with their sugars and then just when they said  they've been doing good that's when she drops the bad Hemoglobin A1c  on them. She "gives them enough rope to hang themselves with" her words not mine. She continues her lecture by yelling about big gulps, Mcdonald's french fries, and other things that I love. 

Life in Nursing school is weird...or maybe just nursing instructors.