I want to do a big, long post about how great my vacation was...

...but I'm eating a bag of little carrots for lunch and blind rage is preventing me from thinking about anything else.

Last night for dinner I wanted raw oysters, hot sauce and Saltine crackers. I ate hummus and baby spinach on sprouted wheat flatbread. After dinner, I wanted a piece of Boston cream pie. I ate half (half!) of an apple instead. I'm not even supposed to eat my daily breakfast of Kashi bar (140 calories, can I get a hell yeah) anymore. Why? Because Kashi bars do not grow on trees.

The government and stupid FDA and its f*cked up 1980s food pyramid ruined my life. When I was a kid, I survived solely on partially hydrogenated crap drenched in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Yes, I blame the FDA for my diabetes. Because if someone had told my mother that having Spaghetti-Os for dinner three nights a week is like eating poison, I'm (almost) positive that she wouldn't have opened a can. Or allowed us to eat fast food, ramen noodles, tomato soup (even the "healthy request" has HFCS), or Little Debbie anything.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now.

Cravings...

I once read somewhere that cravings are the body's signal that it is missing something - like craving citrus fruit means that your body needs vitamin C, craving milk or cheese means you need calcium, and so on.
Lately I've been craving red meat - the redder, the better - and since I'm trying to keep my red meat consumption to a minimum, my freezer is full of meat substitutes: MorningStar Farms Corn Dogs, soy dogs, edamame , and veggie burgers. But yesterday evening, one of my neighbors was cooking dinner on the grill and I could smell it even inside the house with the windows shut. I didn't feel like cooking, so I called Hot Mustard for delivery. Even though the charbroiled meat smell wafting through the house wanted me to order the ribs, I ended up with light, healthy sushi and edamame. That I pretended was a juicy burger and fries.

Today I crave my Nana's meat pie (sort of like a British "pasty"), Steak-Ums (even though I haven't had one of those since the 80s), and fried Spam. I will be having none of it, but on the plus side, I have taken 3.25 years off of my "RealAge."

Why don't I ever crave lettuce? Or carrots? Or green grapes?

Or do I just have PMS?

Do I really want to pull a Britney and cut all my hair off? Or is it just the first hot day of the year and my hair makes me feel sweaty? I keep running across really cute short haircut photos that make me want to take the leap.

Do I really want to get a dog? Or is it just that my cat doesn't love me enough? Will anyone ever love me enough?

Do I really need these? (The answer is: "no, you're supposed to be saving for a house.")

I hate to blame any behavior on hormones because I can be as crazy as crazy gets any day or time, but just to be on the safe side...no shopping, social activities involving other people, or major decision making for the next 24 hours. I have four Netflix movies, a six-pack of diet Dr. Pepper, Green & Black dark chocolate, and enough quinoa salad (why didn't the recipe say it blows up like couscous when you cook it?) to last me for a week. I think I'll make it.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Why I eyes ya all the live long day...

I know I swore off cute cat crap here forever and ever, but Aleigh sent me a link to this video a couple of weeks ago and I've giggled my ass off watching it at least a few dozen times (not all in one day). Even if you're not a cat person, watch it through the end because the last little guy is THE BEST.

Hate. Springing. Forward.

This time of year always gives me a case of the Mean Reds, and I've felt this one coming on for weeks. The change in seasons, the getting up earlier, the morning darkness, the spring in the air that makes me feel afraid and disturbingly nostalgic for things I don't want to think about anymore.

Since my life is in total disarray (I'm not exaggerating), I'm trying to decide which would be more effective: finding a new shrink or re-hiring my cleaning lady. They both cost about the same, but the shrink won't clean my house or fold my laundry or make the dust bunnies in the corners go away. On the other hand, my cleaning lady won't tell me to get the f*ck off the couch and start living my life. Or figure out why I go through these phases of hating myself that literally incapacitate me.

I detest myself even more for complaining, because so many other things in my life are so great. I have everything I've wished for since I can remember. I have wonderful friends & family, a job I adore, and a book deal. I have more things to be grateful for than I ever have in my whole life, therefore I suck for lying on the couch all weekend watching old episodes of Grey's Anatomy on DVD and weeping every 45 minutes or so.

I know it isn't depression; it's fear. Fear of death, success, loss, letting go, failure, dirt, outdoors, people, food, life...everything is worthy of dread. The good news is that I've been here before and I know it won't last. I always get through, push it aside, suck it up, and move on with my life. I need a good yoga class, bike ride, shopping spree, house cleaning, or sharp rap to the back of my head to get going again. And I think I'm going to try and make all of those happen this week.

"... the blues are because you're getting fat or because it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"
~Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffanys

And then the house whispered, "GET OUT"

I arrived home last night in a foul mood around 7:30 after an excruciating three-hour meeting with my accountant (she is a lovely woman; I just hate dealing with money). I noticed a large-ish fur ball on the dining room rug (Miss Kitty likes to leave those around), felt uneasy about it, and turned the light on to discover a MOUSE. A real mouse, not a play mouse, curled up on its side.

My first reaction: Scream. But I didn't, because I'm an independent woman who is perfectly capable of ridding her house of bug and pests. I circled the mouse, holding my breath so I wouldn't scream and scare it in case it was still alive. It wasn't bloody; it looked like it was sleeping. But in the middle of my dining room floor? I know Miss Kitty had nothing to do with its demise, unless it died from fright as she stared at it. She won't chase her toy mice, so I know she won't go after a real one.

So I walked back and forth, thought I'd call Michael, remembered he was in Houston, peeked at the mouse again, tried not to scream again, thought about holding a mirror near its face to see if it was breathing, started hyperventilating. Decided to go out front and check my mail (in hopes that Rodent Monthly magazine had arrived and it would tell me how to dispose of mouse? I wasn't thinking clearly). My neighbor happened to be taking his trash out at that exact moment. He said "Hey" and I blurted, "THERESAMOUSEINMYHOUSE!" I think he said something like "I'll handle it" or "is it dead?" and then asked me for a broom and dustpan. I stood in the corner, trying to suppress my shrieking so I was holding my breath, but when he went to pick it up he jumped back and I SQUEALED(seriously) something like "OHMYGODISITALIVEIT'SGOINGTOGETME."

Neighbor didn't seem fazed. He got it into the dustpan and took it outside. When I took the broom and dustpan back, I asked him if it was dead. "I don't know, I just flung it across the street."

Jesus. That means it could COME BACK. Did I want him to bash its little mousy brains in? Maybe. I thanked him for the mouse removal, went back into the house, found my xanax, went into the kitchen to get water to take the pill and discovered that my kitchen sink was BACKING UP WITH BLACK SLUDGE. In less than 10 minutes, my house had turned from Shiny Happy Place Theater to Amityville Horror. I tried the garbage disposal and only got more black sludge and dirty water. I dry-chewed two xanax and decided I'd better start bailing the sink out before it overflowed.

I bailed into a bucket, was afraid to dump it outside BECAUSE OF THE MOUSE, so I dumped it in my bathtub, which promptly backed up. It was right around this point that I started checking the other rooms of the house to find out what demonic possession had overtaken them. If my fridge magnet letters had rearranged themselves to spell "you're dead" or if I'd even IMAGINED hearing "GET OUT" I would have run screaming from the house (after I grabbed Miss Kitty) with no shoes or jacket on.

I only got about four hours of sleep last night because I had to keep getting up to check for rodents and/or demonic sludge bubbling up from my drains. Not to mention the shame spiral I created by having to ask for help because I was afraid of a teeny little mouse.