Sick on my birthday.  I'm surprised I even slept last night.  Feel like poo this morning.  At least I had an excellent time at my birthday party.  Good food, good friends and fun bowling (I didn't do too "good" so we'll just leave it at fun).

I think I want to go back to sleep.  Bleh.

I feel really crappy right now (I suspect it's a combination of dehydration, having a cold, and eating a grain product with copious amounts of meat last night), so I'm going to take the liberty to rub in the fact that I just had the BEST MORNING EVER.

This is shallow.  I'm not going to lie.  It's possibly the most shallow thing I've ever written in this blog.  But I just bought a pair of size six jeans.  And they're COMFORTABLE.  Hear me out.  When I first moved up from kids clothes to juniors, I wore a size nine.  I pretty much hovered at 9/10 through high school, but when I got to college I eventually had to move up to size 11/12.  Last summer I was able to buy size 8, and I was ecstatic. 

This last week that I've had off, I realized how loose my jeans were feeling.  At work I wear pants I bought a long time ago, so I'm used to those being really big--I should probably buy some new work pants too, haha.  But wearing jeans all week made me realize that those don't fit either.  So now I have a size six!  Woo!

*ahem*

And I have red hair.  And it's purty.  And it's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm going out for cupcakes and Vietnamese food in an hour.  And crab dinner tomorrow.

Shit, I hope my six still fits tomorrow!  hehehe.

There are a bunch of commercials floating around from the Corn Refiners Association that are designed to assure us that High Fructose Corn Syrup is fine.  I know, Corn Refiners Association... Can't get any less biased than that!

The point that they drive home is that HFCS is, like sugar, just fine "in moderation."

I have a problem with that "in moderation" clause.  The problem is that HFCS is in everything.  Don't believe me?  Just ask Accidental Hedonist.  Seriously.  Look at that list.  How many of those items do you consume in an average day, week, month, or year?  I don't know what the "safe" level is, but it's awfully hard to do anything in moderation when it's in everything ever manufactured.  It's in cough syrup for christ's sake.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not some whack job who is trying to cut HFCS out of my diet.  I'm lazy, I'm sorry.  It would be doable, but there are a good number of those products I enjoy.  I'm all for natural food, and I do try to eat as much of it as possible, but I also really like such offenders as soda (even though I'm not supposed to drink that any more because my front teeth are dying...).

But I take offense with the ever-impartial Corn Refiners Association trying to dupe people who, for whatever reason, don't do any research of their own.  Yes, we are a lazy country who get almost all their information passively.  But that doesn't give you the right to make such misleading statements.

Oh, guess what, politicians.  You aren't safe either.

*taps right cheek*  Right here.  I won't feel a thing, I promise.

I got a couple fillings two hours ago and my face is still completely and utterly numb.  And I'm starving.  I'm trying to gingerly (heh, that's kind of funny considering I just dyed my hair red...) eat a PB&J sandwich right now, but my mouth is having none of that.  When I chew, there's this weird crackly noise in my right ear.  It makes me feel like the right side of my face is going to fall off, and it makes me not want to chew.  Wah!

I gotta say, this was the fastest filling session I feel like I've had.  It was the least awkward, and I hope it wasn't because I'm now a "regular."  I've had six or seven fillings in the last two years.  Apparently I have very deep teeth.  I brush twice a day, but apparently those deep teeth don't care.

I think I ought to look into sedation dentistry.  I don't really get panicky, though I can tell that I get tense and my blood pressure probably goes up, but the drilling and the stuffing of the filling stuff is like nails on a chalk board.  I don't like having to hear it!  It makes me cringe, and I'm afraid they'll think I'm in pain.

I wonder if "nails on a chalk board" will become one of those phrases like "with bells on" and "with bated breath" someday.  We all use it, but few of us know what it means or where it came from.

And this post has officially taken a turn for the worse!  wee haw!

If you've ever watched You Are What You Eat, you know that Gillian talks about gas a lot.  She usually mentions it in reference to grains.

A friend at work bought her book and talks about it almost daily.  One thing she mentioned is that you should never, ever eat grains and animal products together.  Basically that means no sandwiches (with the exception of PB&J or Veggie), no burgers, no hotdogs, no meat based sauces on pasta.  This also means no cheese on anything grain.

So I gave it a shot.  Or, rather, I am giving it a shot.  The cheese thing has been the hardest for me, I think.  I really want tortellini right now!  I also want fake crab and rice.

Still, I don't feel deprived.  I can still eat all those things, I just can't eat them together.  As long as they're two hours apart, we're golden.  And you know what?  My stomach feels 100% better already.  It's only been a couple days, but it seems to have made a big difference.

I don't care what time it is right now, though.... I'm going to engorge myself with fake crab, veggies, and chocolate milk.  NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

The cold The Hippy gave me (damn my nurturing nature!!) is making my mouth taste like death.

The ab exercises I did yesterday are making it hard to sneeze.

The aim I have is making it hard to get the Kleenex in the trash.

The "diet" I started yesterday is already making my tummy feel better (more about that tomorrow, it's not really a diet).

The time on my hands is making it easier to complete projects.

The time on my hands is making it too tempting to start new projects.

The gunk I mixed up for my hair is making me anxious.

Project Runway is on, and I'm supposed to be knitting!  Toodles!

I had my first encounter with Critical Mass. They are an international “organization” that celebrating bicycling as a means of transportation. They were an amazing sight to see—I have no idea how many bicyclists there were in total, but I would say they took up a good city block and were escorted by a massive police brigade. They were happy and wishing happiness to everyone they passed by. They were filming their trip (and you can find some of their videos on You Tube, just search for Critical Mass Minneapolis) and one bike had speakers playing music. There was even a little kid joining in the fun.

But I am so torn. As a bicyclist I feel compelled to smile, to applaud, to join in even. They bike for hours, and I feel like it would be amazing to be biking as part of a group. Just biking for the hell of it, enjoying the weather, enjoying new sights, enjoying the exercise. I worry a bit about how I would keep up and how I would get back to point A or home. Point A is no where near home, and if they are biking for hours, I'm not sure I could make it. But it would be fun to rule the road for awhile.

Which leads me to why I'm torn. Even though I'm a bicyclist, and even though I often break the rules of the road when no one is looking (but only while walking or on my bike...), I am staunchly against bicyclists feeling as if they can do whatever the hell they want. Yes biking is good. Biking is freaking awesome. But biking isn't for everyone and it isn't always practical. I feel like it's extremely important to share the road. I work really hard not to inconvenience a driver when I'm out on my bike.

Gas and environmental crises make it even more imperative that we share the road. Everyone should get their turn, and no one should have to wait longer than necessary. I'm more than happy to let a car or a number of cars go in line before me. Why? I'm not burning petroleum when I'm biking. Making them idle is bad for the environment. I feel the same way about protesters blocking traffic (today I even saw firemen blocking traffic to raise money! Ack!). In this day and age, we need to worry less about getting attention and more about the greater good. It's time to be creative about how we gain notoriety.

I may someday join a Critical Mass outing. I can't be too sure. I will have great fun while doing it, but I think it will pain me just a bit to know that my need for pleasure is going to inconvenience a crap load of people for hours.

But at least it will keep a couple dozen cops off the streets where they can wantonly beat people up.

I'm trying to make myself like celery.  Peanut butter is helping, but I don't think I'll ever be able to love celery.  I will likely merely tolerate it.  I suppose it depends on how thick it is.

I have the week off from work, and my to-do list is quite long.  It includes, but is not limited to the following:
~teeth cleaning
~hair dying
~couch upholstering
~merry monkey making
~cavity filling
~cookie baking
~cupcake saturday-ing
~birthday bowling
~tab acquiring
~bicycling

I also plan to blog here and there.  But we'll see.  I gotta get rid of some of those things on my list first.  And eat some more celery.

I think my obsession with teenage dramas is a little unhealthy.  I've fallen in love with The Secret Life of the American Teenager.  Maybe it has a little to do with recent drama in my life, but I'm very interested in finding out how these lives turn out.  Teenagers are funny.  Not funny haha, but they are a different breed of human all together.  High school is one of those times when everything and absolutely nothing at all happen.

I feel like I probably had an atypical American teenage life.  I don't really see myself in the TV shows I watch about teens, and maybe that's not the best barometer, but it leads me to believe I'm abnormal.  I never partied, and I think that made all the difference.  I never partied because no one invited me.  That seems to have spoken volumes to me, and it makes it hard to want to celebrate things, and it makes it even harder to relate to groups of people.

When I go to parties now, I sit pretty silently unless addressed.  I *know* this reflects poorly on me, but no matter how much I tell myself to talk, it just doesn't happen.  I was the same way all through school.  Classroom discussions were observed, not participated in.  I don't think I will ever change.  I don't know how someone changes something like that.

Also, I think I have a sinus infection, and I'm afraid that means I'm turning into my mother.

I have been craving (and denying myself) the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito for the last week.  I'm not denying myself for any reason other than Taco Bell hasn't been a convenient place to stop.  I told myself that if I went by one when I was hungry and had time to stop, I would get one.  Alas, I have not had those things happen.

This morning I flipped through The Most Decadent Diet Ever and decided I need to own that book.  The recipes are actually things i would eat.  There are great breakfast recipes, especially.  Breakfasts are something I struggle with because I need them to be fast and not donuts.  Cereal doesn't tide me over, and it really just makes me a lot hungrier (and not in the good, jump starting my metabolism way, more in the I'm not going to make it to morning break way).  Oatmeal is too hot to eat quickly, but I will have that every once in awhile.  For at least a year now I've been dining on one slice of toast with peanut butter and a beer mug full of chocolate milk.  On biking to work days, I will eat two slices of toast, merely because I'm eating a full hour earlier, and my breaks aren't any earlier.

Anyway, these two things actually are related.  In the front of the book are a list of things she keeps in her cupboards to create her decadent meals.  One of those things was a nacho cheese sauce (I think--maybe I was just being wishful).  I feel pretty confident that if I get said cheese sauce, I could recreate the Taco Bell treasure I desire.  The only thing in my way now is copy-catting their rice.  Any ideas?