There comes a point in every blogger's life, I suppose, when you realize your life just isn't exciting enough to write about every day (hence the reason I've gone to one or two posts a week). The most interesting thing that's happened to me this week happened tonight...when my grocery store's overhead speakers accosted me with "Muskrat Love" in aisle 3. You can imagine my surprise when the guy standing 12 inches away broke in wholeheartedly at the chorus. Something about grocery store shopping...people lose all sense of personal space. And forget you are standing in theirs when they decide to let loose with the muskrat muzak.
Ok...is it just me? Or is losing weight BOR-ing?!? Yawnsville...population 1. At least in the middle of the whole process...before the "after" photos. I have to say, I've realized something. Eating junk food is damn exciting. Some people jump out of airplanes. Some people shoplift from Saks Fifth Avenue. And some people make junk food trips...nightly raids to the neighborhood grocery store to drown their sorrows in the Pepperidge Farm section. There's an edge to it. An excitement. A forbidden fruit kind of rebellion. Take that, Adam. Even the misery that comes after you've downed the whole bag of Mint Milanos is, at least, interesting. Like an epic regret that movies are made of. (From my mouth to Martin Scorsese's ears.) In any event, I'm pretty sure I'm hooked on a feelin.' A feelin' that, to this point, has only come from hanging out with chocolate and all it's illegitimate cousins.
You know what I ate today? One egg, two pieces of turkey bacon, 1/2 a cup of strawberry Greek yogurt, one serving of pot roast, a sweet potato and an Instant Breakfast for dinner. What did I tell you? B-o-r-i-n-g! No beta-endorphin rush. No sea of regret. I feel like I'm on round 2,133 of "I'm Henery the VIII, I Am." Henery the VIII, I am, I am. Guess what? Tomorrow...second verse, same as the first.
On top of that...I am PO'd. I've become one of "those" people. Those slightly-bitter-but-usually-peaceful protesters who go off on rants about how food addiction is different from other forms of addiction because you do, after all, HAVE to eat. You never see ads in Glamour magazine for heroin. But try to go through a day without being bombarded by a hundred sinfully delicious food ads. My drug pushers are grandmothers, mothers, best friends, Cupid, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and little girls named Daisy whose bottom lips start to quiver if I don't buy a box of Girl Scout cookies. PS...I agree that 1st graders are oh-so-sweet...UNTIL you refuse the cookies. Then, watch out. Kid will pop a cap in ya.
People with food addictions have to contend with little cookie-making elves and gorgeous, svelte women who pop oozing brownie/caramel concoctions into the microwave with the promise that 90 seconds can change their lives but not their dress size. There is a friggin' Pepperidge Farm commercial that airs 22 times a day here and actually flashes the words "feed your soul" across the screen while zooming in on a fluted cup of Genevas. I don't know when I sold my soul to the dessert gods of Pillsbury, Pepperidge Farm and Nabisco...but sold it I did.
I'm half-joking, of course. And trust me, people, I am only bitter because I can't get away with it. We all have that one friend who can eat anything and everything and still have Sarah Jessica's body, right? Believe me, if I was that girl, I'd walk around in shorty shorts in my house built entirely out of chocolate. In the meantime, I think it's seriously messed up that society (and me) equates food with comfort, love and happiness. And the more fattening, the more comforted, loved and happier we'll be.
Where does that leave brussel sprouts and I?
Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 10:41PM 
Reader Comments (8)
Great points about food addiction being the hardest because food is everywhere - but at least be glad that you don't have to hold up liquor stores to get the $ to buy it or meet food sellers in dark alleys while dodging the cops. There is an upside.
Great post! I was trying to think of something witty and encoraging to offer but am completely distracted by thoughts of a house made of chocolate. Think of all the structural damage to be done just by licking...
JMR
JMR...have you seen the previews for Oprah this week? I think she is doing a show in a room made entirely out of chocolate. If someone knows more, please give us the 411!
Well, my friend, I must have been very, very bad in a past life because not only do I gain weight by just watching those commercials you mention but I live with a freakishly athletic husband that can polish off a whole cheesecake without an ounce of weight gain and he gets to call it "fueling up for a race". As I agonize over every mouthful, the devil I'm married to is asking what's for dessert. Sigh....I feel your pain, girl. I feel your pain.
I feel like I just read my own thoughts on someone elses blog. I'm also trying to shed a few pounds and around Easter time it couldn't be harder. I just about broke down at Target today walking past the Cadbury eggs, and then walking by them again, and then again. It's hard! I get it for sure! Great blog, keep it up :)
http://thebusiestbee.blogspot.com/
Susan Darling,
First of all...the "devil I'm married to?!?" I laughed-slashed-wheezed like Deputy Dog when I read this! And secondly...it's the cheesecake EVERY time! Even my beloved Golden Girls betray me with it every night.
BB...your words fill my Cadbury heart with glee. Actually, I'm more of a marshmallow egg girl myself, but I totally smell what you're steppin' in! PS...I checked out your blog and three things: 1)You have to go back to Hoover Dam and do the Black Canyon river tour at the BOTTOM of the damn. Trying to enjoy it from the top will just make you go cuckoo. 2)Love love love Cirque Du Soleil! And 3)Also love that you are an Etsy girl. I am obsessed with all things Etsy!
Hardly alone, clearly you me and most of America shares your pain, pathos, and addiction. Don't we all know the siren song of anything with MSG in it, even if we don't really like how it tastes and can never be satisfied?